Thursday, 28 May 2026

Thursday, 28 May 2026

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Start of Sitting Day

Karakia/Prayers

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.

Presentation

Petitions

SPEAKER (14:00): A petition has been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK (14:01): Petition of the Sheralyn Tipene-Weepers Charitable Trust requesting that the House urge the Government to fund full 24/7 access to a catheterisation laboratory at Dunedin Hospital.

SPEAKER: That petition stands referred to the Petitions Committee.

Papers

SPEAKER (14:01): I present the report of the Controller and Auditor-General entitled The Auditor-General’s auditing standards 2026. That paper is published under the authority of the House.

Select Committee Reports

SPEAKER (14:01): A select committee report has been delivered for presentation.

CLERK (14:01): Report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the review briefing on the 2024-25 annual review of New Zealand Green Investment Finance Ltd.

SPEAKER: The report is set down for consideration.

Bills

Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill

Introduction

SPEAKER (14:01): The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of a bill.

CLERK (14:01): Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, introduction.

SPEAKER: The bill is set down for first reading.

Presentation

Supplementary Estimates Documents

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance) (14:01): I present the Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations for the Government of New Zealand for the year ending 30 June 2026.

SPEAKER: That paper is published under the authority of the House.

Budget Documents

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance) (14:02): I present:

the 2026 Budget Speech

the Budget at a Glance 2026

the Fiscal Strategy Report 2026

the Child Poverty Report 2026

the Summary of Initiatives 2026

the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update 2026, including supplementary information, and

the Estimates of Appropriations for the Government of New Zealand for the year ending 30 June 2027.

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

Bills

Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill

Introduction

CLERK (14:04): Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill, introduction.

SPEAKER (14:04): The Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill is set down for first reading immediately.

First Reading

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance) (14:04): I move, That the Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill be now read a first time.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

SPEAKER: The Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill is set down for second reading immediately.

Second Reading—Budget Statement

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance) (14:05): I move, That the Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill be now read a second time.

E ngā iwi o Te Ūpoko o te Ika. E te Māngai, ngā mema Pāremata o ngā rohe pōti me ngā mema o ngā Rōpū Tōrangapū. E te motu whānui.  Nei rā te mihi. Anei te Tahua 2026.  Kia ora e te iwi!

[To the home tribes of Wellington.  To the Speaker, electorate, and party list MPs.  To the whole country. I salute you.  Here is Budget 2026.]

This is a responsible Budget. The Government is responding to an increasingly uncertain world with an economic plan and sensible choices that will make New Zealanders more secure in the years ahead. The documents I have tabled in Parliament today show that New Zealanders can look forward to growth, higher wages, and rising employment. They can look forward to better public infrastructure, expanded healthcare services, better schooling for their kids, and safer communities. They can look forward to a much stronger set of Government books.

Despite the chaos in the Middle East, and challenging global events, the Government’s responsible approach means Treasury is now forecasting a return to surplus in 2028/29—that is a year earlier than forecast in December. An earlier surplus means less debt and lower interest costs than would otherwise be the case. The Government is tackling New Zealand’s major challenges, not with shallow quick fixes, but with a responsible and durable approach. Today’s Budget marks further progress towards a more secure future.

I don’t expect New Zealanders to read every page of it. What I really want Kiwis to know is that this Budget is about you. It delivers on the Government’s belief that life can be better in this country, not just for the voters of today but for their kids and grandkids too. I think mums and dads across this Parliament and across the country want the same thing I do. We want this to be a country our kids choose to grow up in and then choose to live in when they grow up, because it’s a place where their achievements will be rewarded and where their dreams can be realised.

Yes, the world has thrown us some curveballs. I recognise that too many Kiwis are doing it tough right now. But New Zealanders listening today should have confidence. They should have confidence that the Government is spending their money wisely, that it is addressing the country’s big problems, and that it’s making investments in the things that really matter. That’s important not just for today but for what lies ahead. The world is more volatile than ever. The rules-based global system is under strain. Countries are boosting their spending on defence. Global competition for growth, jobs, and investment is sharper than ever. And conflict in the Middle East means Kiwi households and businesses are paying more for petrol and diesel.

What is more, New Zealand entered this period in a more fragile state than we would like. New Zealanders have shown real grit to recover from an extended period of runaway price increases, high interest rates, and the weaker economy that emerged as a result. An economic recovery has been unfolding but scars run deep. The Government is also carrying a significant burden of debt—more than twice as heavy as it was seven years ago, and with an annual interest bill of $9 billion. New Zealand’s sovereign credit rating has a negative outlook from ratings agencies Fitch and Moody’s, which is a warning that we must start bending the debt curve down.

New Zealand’s population is getting older, meaning the bill for delivering healthcare, New Zealand Superannuation, and other public services is becoming heftier for our workers to shoulder. The annual cost of superannuation is rising sharply, from less than $20 billion in 2023 to more than $30 billion by 2030. In the next year alone, the cost of super will rise by around $1.8 billion.

At the same time, extreme weather events are becoming more frequent. Economic shocks, which, unfortunately, have happened with some frequency over the past 20 years, will keep happening. And this Government is having to play catch-up on much-needed policy reforms, from housing to energy to resource management. There’s no hiding from these big issues. Yet in an election year, some will choose to ignore this context and instead suggest band-aids and sugar hits, all slapped on Afterpay. Not only does that approach ignore the real challenges New Zealand faces but in the absence of a magic money tree, it’s our future selves who’d have to foot the bill—with interest. So the Government is taking a more responsible approach. We are determined to deliver Kiwis real solutions that last, and to do so within very real financial constraints. Conflict in the Middle East has been a setback but New Zealand can and will bounce back. That is reflected in Treasury’s forecasts.

This responsible Budget makes significant investments in health, education, law and order, and other front-line public services. As a result, New Zealanders will experience more progress towards the Government’s targets, including reducing health waiting times, increases in educational achievement, reductions in violent crime, lower levels of welfare dependency, and a more capable defence force.

The Budget also provides $7 billion worth of new capital investment to help deliver the public infrastructure New Zealand needs. We’re making a funding commitment to construction projects like Whangārei Hospital, 10 school redevelopments, the next stage of the Waikato Expressway, a series of State highway resilience projects, new courthouses for Rotorua, and new police stations in Greymouth and Whanganui. These infrastructure projects will support more jobs for Kiwis, with the Infrastructure Commission estimating that every billion dollars’ worth of infrastructure funding supports around 4,500 jobs.

What’s more, with careful spending choices and ongoing restraint, the Government is set to get the books back to surplus earlier than previously forecast, and we are set to bend the debt curve down. That’s what a responsible Budget looks like.

Let me turn to the economic and fiscal outlook. A broadening export-led economic recovery was under way in New Zealand at the start of 2026, with employment and confidence increasing. In late February, conflict in the Middle East shocked the global and domestic economy. No one really knows for sure how this conflict will unwind or how long its impacts will be felt. We wish it to be over as soon as possible. In the midst of uncertainty, Treasury puts forward its best professional judgment. Its central forecast assumes that the impact of the crisis will be temporary. Over the next 12 months, it expects that fuel prices will contribute to higher inflation and lower real GDP growth than previously expected and would have otherwise been the case. But inflation falls after the current quarter and economic growth then picks up. Annual average growth in the year to June 2026 is forecast to be 1.2 percent, accelerating to 2.3 percent by June 2027, and accelerating again to 3.2 percent by June 2028. That is a healthy rate of growth. That growth will be accompanied by new jobs and higher wages.

Over the next four years, Treasury is forecasting employment to grow by 220,000 jobs, members; our forecasting wage growth to average 3.1 percent. Over this period, core Crown tax revenue is expected to be more than $9 billion higher than was previously forecast. That may be surprising, given the fuel crisis, but a lot of factors feed into tax forecasts, and I’m assured by the Treasury, that over 90 percent of the revisions to tax since the last update have nothing to do with the Middle East. In fact, on balance, that crisis has made the books worse. Instead, as a share of GDP, tax revenue rises over the forecast period, but core Crown expenses go the other way. They are initially steady, then fall to 30.3 percent of GDP in 2029/30.

The Government’s long-term objective, of course, is to get core Crown expenses down to 30 percent of GDP. Reaching 30.3 percent by the end of the forecast period therefore represents extremely good progress on our fiscal plan, and it reflects the Government’s disciplined approach to spending. That disciplined approach is illustrated by the Budget 2026 operating package. Last year, we set an operating allowance for this Budget of $2.4 billion per annum on average, which Treasury duly put in their forecasts, and which various commentators said would go bust in election year. Well, in Budget 2026, we have spent less than this. Yet again, this Government has come in under its allowance. The actual net operating package in Budget 2026 is $2.1 billion. The net package incorporates $3.8 billion of new spending a year, on average. That’s because we’ve topped up our operating allowance with $1.7 billion of savings and revenue, the main sources of which are already known to members of this House: a fundamental overhaul of the Public Service, the end of the final-year Fees Free scheme—which failed—and also, I can share with members today, Kāinga Ora’s reduced construction costs, which while they continue to increase productivity, has resulted in $368 million of lower operating expenses.

This disciplined spending approach, and a forecast improvement in revenue, improves the track for the Government’s headline operating balance indicator, OBEGALx. OBEGALx is now forecast to return to surplus in the 2028/29 fiscal year—that is a year earlier than previously expected. Members, this will be the first time in a decade that the books have been in the black. Now, of course, at every update I am conscious that OBEGALx is the small difference between two very large numbers, and that small differences matter when the balance is close to zero. Forecasts are not set in stone; they can move around, and it takes a lot of work to turn them into reality. That remains true, but it’s heartening to see for the first time that the surplus date is coming forward, not being pushed back, and that, at $2.6 billion, we have some room to move.

The track for net core Crown debt has also improved. Treasury’s forecasts show the debt curve bending down, and they show it bending a year earlier than previously expected. Net core Crown debt is forecast to peak at 46.1 percent of GDP in the 2027/28 year, which is lower than at the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update in December. It’s then set to decline to 44.4 percent of GDP by the end of the forecast period. This improvement in the books, members, is reflected in the Government’s borrowing programme. New Zealand Debt Management has announced today that it has lowered its forecast issuance of Government bonds by $6 billion over the next four years. This is the first downward revision to the borrowing programme since 2021.

The Budget 2026 operating package is front-loaded, which partly reflects the Government’s decision to provide temporary, timely, and targeted funding to respond to the fuel crisis. As previously announced, the Budget funds a temporary increase to the in-work tax credit of $50 a week, supporting up to 157,000 low to middle income working families. We are making life easier for them and their kids at this difficult time.

Government agencies that rely heavily on fuel to deliver front-line services, including Police, Fire and Emergency, and education, have also received additional funding to maintain their operations and support our front-line services. Funding has also been set aside to help public transport authorities manage fuel cost pressures and keep services running. The Minister of Health has announced a temporary 30 percent increase in mileage rates for home and community support workers and for people travelling for specialist treatment, and $150 million has been set aside to increase New Zealand’s strategic fuel reserves. Some of that will be used to fund the previously announced deal with Z Energy, which has lifted New Zealand’s diesel reserves by nine days. While precise numbers are commercially sensitive, I can assure you that even accounting for this existing deal, the $150 million fund still has room for future increases in strategic fuel reserves, if needed. The Government has also set aside funding of $450 million in a time-limited contingency in case further fuel-related support is required.

We join all Kiwis in the hope that fuel prices and supply pressures won’t increase further and will follow the forecast by Treasury and come back down. However, it is prudent to be ready for a scenario in which fuel prices could spike or stay higher for longer. We have created a reserve—much like some households have an emergency savings account. You hope you don’t have to dip into it, but if you do, it is there. It is also funded from the operating package, which means if we do have to use it, members, it won’t add to forecast debt.

Boosting New Zealand’s security and resilience are major themes in this year’s Budget. New Zealand faces the most adverse and contested geostrategic environment in the past 80 years. While we cannot control the actions of other countries, we can ensure we have the capability to defend and advance New Zealand’s interests. Last year’s Budget funded the first year of the Defence Capability Plan, including a capital pre-commitment of $1.6 billion. Budget 2026 funds the second year of the plan, which includes extending the operational life of the Anzac-class frigates and HMNZS Canterbury, acquiring new drones, building modern housing for our service men and women on military bases—they deserve it—and delivering a new training facility at Linton. We are supporting the men and women who are prepared to put their lives on the line for our country. Our capability plan provides funding to increase defence force numbers in key occupations and to retain existing staff. It provides a $156 million uplift for our intelligence and security services, and it boosts New Zealand’s aid programme, providing $110 million to increase development and humanitarian assistance here in our backyard, in the Pacific and Indo-Pacific regions. It provides $145 million to ensure a resilient, safe, and secure offshore diplomatic network.

New Zealand is subject to severe and unpredictable weather events, alongside other natural hazards. We have seen that play out dramatically in recent months. Budget 2026, therefore, invests in stronger infrastructure, smarter emergency management systems, and better information about natural hazard risks. It sets aside $400 million of capital for State highway resilience projects in regions whose roads are too often closed after major weather events. The Government is making the responsible choice to strengthen roads before they fail, rather than repeatedly paying to rebuild them afterwards. The projects include, members, resilience improvements on State Highway 2 through the Waioweka Gorge, State Highway 3 through the Awakino Gorge, State Highway 25 through the Coromandel, State Highway 60 over Takaka Hill, State Highway 6 between Cromwell and Kingston and between Haast and Hāwea, and State Highway 94 between Milford and Te Ānau. The Budget also provides a capital contribution of $1.8 billion for a new road of national significance, the Cambridge to Piarere Expressway. This critical freight and economic link will extend the Waikato Expressway from Cambridge to the turnoff to Tauranga. This is a project that will support freight, and it will support a growing part of the country in what is often called our golden triangle. The Budget also puts aside just over $1 billion for KiwiRail’s network improvement programme, alongside $107 million to continue the renewal of critical metropolitan rail infrastructure for urban commuters.

The Government is getting better hazard information across the country, including the first New Zealand flood map to help councils, communities, infrastructure providers, and property owners make smarter long-term decisions. The Budget also provides funding to help develop more cost-effective ways for the Crown to manage its own infrastructure risks and reduce costs to taxpayers. The Government has allocated new funding to modernise emergency management systems so that when disasters strike, emergency services can respond faster and coordinate more effectively. Mark Mitchell has been their champion.

Reliable and affordable energy underpins a growing economy. That’s why Budget 2026 includes a gas transition loan scheme to help businesses transition from New Zealand’s shrinking reserves of natural gas. It also provides capital funding for the purchase of around $200 million worth of new shares as part of Genesis Energy’s $400 million capital raise, which they announced in February. Genesis will use the additional capital to bring more flexible capacity to the electricity market to address the risk that we currently face of insufficient electricity supply in years when the hydro lakes run low. That is too big a risk to leave unaddressed. This investment will directly contribute to enhancing New Zealand’s energy security.

Perhaps the most important source of resilience for every Kiwi is their physical and mental health. The single biggest item in the Budget, therefore, is support for front-line health services. Next year, Government spending on the health system is expected to total $34 billion. That translates to $17,000 for every New Zealand household. Additional funding of $5.5 billion from Budget 2026 will help the public health system address front-line pressures and deliver more services, including responding to more emergency department events, delivering more primary healthcare, increasing specialist assessments, boosting elective surgery, and increasing cancer treatments and GP visits.

Simeon Brown has been a champion for a number of targeted health initiatives as well, alongside our coalition partners. They include a nationally coordinated specialist paediatric palliative care service for families facing possibly the hardest thing, a boost for ambulance services, more funding for forensic mental health services, and an ongoing funding increase for Pharmac so they can purchase more medicines. The starting age for free bowel screening will be lowered, once again under this Government, from 58 to 56, and mothers, following the passage of our three-day stay bill, will be given the choice of longer postnatal stays. The Health Digital Investment Plan will receive $300 million for priority projects, critically including strengthening cyber-security across New Zealand’s health system.

Budget 2026 also commits $682 million worth of capital funding for investments in our health infrastructure plan. These include the delivery of a new 158-bed ward tower at Whangārei Hospital. They include the next stage of redevelopment work at hospitals in Tauranga, Hawke’s Bay, and Palmerston North. Our infrastructure plan also funds the purchase of land for a future new hospital south of Auckland, and it funds the establishment cost of the new medical school at the University of Waikato and the redevelopment of the Mason Clinic.

The Budget continues this Government’s critical efforts to boost educational achievement. This is good for young people, who will have better opportunities, and it’s good for the economy as a more educated workforce will boost productivity. Budget 2026, therefore, provides a $1.6 billion boost in operating funding for schooling and early childhood education. Schools will receive increases to their operational grants, alongside funding to cover increased employer contributions to their staff’s KiwiSaver accounts. Early childhood education services will receive a boost to their funding rates. There are targeted new investments to support Erica Stanford’s plan to increase the reading, writing, and maths skills of every child, but, most importantly, this Budget invests in secondary education, including measures to strengthen teaching and learning to raise student performance and to roll-out a refreshed secondary curriculum and new national qualifications. We are leaving NCEA behind us.

The Healthy School Lunches programme will continue to offer affordable, nutritious meals to students in 2027, while ongoing work continues to explore future innovations to the programme. Budget 2026 also allocates a significant $470 million package of capital funding to redevelop up to 10 schools, deliver up to 232 additional classrooms, and purchase land for new school sites in high-growth areas, including Queenstown.

This Budget ends the failed Fees Free scheme for students in tertiary education. Fees Free did not increase enrolments, it did not increase completion rates, and it especially failed those from low-income backgrounds. The money from Fees Free will now be put to better use, delivering front-line public services and strengthening our compulsory education system so that more kids get the chance to participate in tertiary qualifications because they have the reading, writing, and maths skills to do so. This Budget takes initiatives to better prepare young people for trades and other vocational education. I want to acknowledge New Zealand First—particularly Minister Jones—for proposing and championing this policy. The Government will double the number of Trades Academy places, from 10,000 to 20,000, for year 11 to 13 school students. That will allow more kids to get on the path to a successful career in the trades—whether it’s building, carpentry, primary industries. We know that trades academies work, and kids who take part in them are more likely to get good jobs. The Government will also provide 1,000 more Youth Guarantee places. These are places for those kids who have missed out on foundational skills at school. They are kids that are more likely to end up in long-term unemployment, and they are kids who need our support. These Youth Guarantee places will provide wraparound support and training for school leavers with no or low qualifications.

The law and order package in this year’s Budget provides a $1.1 billion uplift in operating funding for Corrections, Customs, Police, and the Ministry of Justice to maintain essential front-line services that are keeping our communities safe. This includes funding of $477 million for Corrections to manage an increasing number of prisoners. We are keeping our communities safer by ensuring that those who committee violence against our fellow citizens are sentenced appropriately. The Budget includes a $50 million funding boost for front-line policing and an investment to replace Police’s end-of-life automated biometric identification system. To advance the Government’s firearms reforms, the Budget provides funding to establish a new independent firearms regulator—Firearms Safety and Education New Zealand. Budget 2026 provides capital funding of $100 million towards the construction of a new High Court, District Court, and Māori Land Court in Rotorua. It funds badly needed new police stations in Greymouth and Whanganui. Customs also receives a funding uplift to disrupt transnational, serious, and organised crime groups and to combat drug smuggling.

This Government has a Going for Housing Growth programme to increase the supply of housing and make it more affordable. We’re making progress. The Treasury’s latest assessment is that there will be a relative improvement in the affordability of new dwellings. House prices are now forecast to grow more moderately, rents have stabilised, and first-home buyers now make up a much larger share of the market. The Budget drives forward the next stages of Going for Housing Growth to build on this success. The first pillar of our programme is freeing up land for urban development and removing unnecessary planning barriers through major reform of the Resource Management Act and changes to national direction. Budget 2026 provides $294 million of funding to begin rolling out this new system. This includes a new, centrally managed platform for planning, consenting, and compliance so that things aren’t still done 78 different ways across 78 different councils.

The second pillar of our housing reforms is improving infrastructure funding and financing tools so councils and developers can better fund the pipes, roads, and other infrastructure needed to support growth. The Budget supports this with $30 million of funding for the regulatory oversight of development levies that are charged by territorial authorities and water organisations to ensure those fees are fair on the people who pay them.

The third pillar is directly improving the incentives for councils to support housing growth by ensuring they share in the economic upside that growth creates. The Budget allocates $400 million to achieve this, by establishing a direct funding stream linked to housing growth. This was a commitment in the National-ACT coalition agreement, and it has been championed by Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour.

The Budget also progresses reforms to improve the fairness of housing support for low-income tenants. Right now, people in similar circumstances but living in different houses—one owned by the Government and one not—can receive very different levels of financial support and security of tenure. Budget 2026 includes a package that reduces, but by no means eliminates, that wide gap in support. It increases the amount social housing tenants pay towards their rent from 25 to 30 percent of their income, and, at the same time, it increases maximum accommodation supplement rates across the country so that lower-income private renters get more help. This package is broadly fiscally neutral. It’s about re-balancing support, not reducing it. At the same time, the Government is providing funding to support the delivery of between 1,800 and 2,250 new social homes over three years, with a $69 million boost to the Flexible Housing Fund. The Budget also continues our efforts to reduce dependency on emergency housing, which was a scourge under the last Government. It includes $22 million invested to reduce reoccurring emerging housing needs. This initiative will more than pay for itself through savings in otherwise costly motel bills.

This Budget boosts funding to support New Zealanders in need. Budget forecasts show several thousand fewer New Zealanders on jobseeker support and sole parent support benefits in the coming years. That is a great thing, and it is part of a deliberate effort by this Government. Our Budget includes funding of $93 million for additional case management and assistance to support sole parents into work. That is the upfront cost, but the initiative is expected to deliver net savings of $97 million as more sole parents move from receiving a benefit to having a job. That is good for those mums and dads, and it great for their kids and their future prospects. The Government is also reducing the maximum rate of temporary additional support payments, generating $196 million worth of savings. This is to better reflect the original purpose of those payments—before the last Government expanded them—which was to provide temporary hardship support, paid as a last resort and not meant to be a long-term top-up to beneficiaries’ incomes. The Budget also provides ongoing funding for the Food Secure Communities programme and the KickStart Breakfast programme—we’ve fixed up another one of their fiscal cliffs—and it delivers a step-up in investment to better protect children at risk of harm.

In 2022, Dame Karen Poutasi issued a compelling report with a series of recommendations to the Government on steps it must take to ensure strong and effective safety nets that prevent the abuse and the death of children. Far too many children are still abused in this country, and as parliamentarians we have a responsibility to protect them more. While that report had remained on a shelf, our Government has picked up each and every one of Dame Karen’s recommendations, and this year’s Budget invests $77 million to help make the changes needed to our system of helping vulnerable children.

Alongside this, Oranga Tamariki will receive a $184 million funding uplift so it can better respond to reports of suspected harm and increase its support for children with high and complex needs.

Finally, Budget 2026 provides funding of $36 million to introduce a version of the SuperGold card that can be used as an accepted form of primary identification. This will help seniors access services that require identification when they may not have a driver’s licence or passport—and I think you know where that idea came from.

Over the last year, Inland Revenue has consulted widely on the taxation of charities and not-for-profits, fringe benefit tax, and loans made by companies to their shareholders. The Government has made decisions in each of these areas. We will ensure that membership subscriptions and levies received by not-for-profits remain non-taxable. We will ensure that the amount of net income a not-for-profit organisation can earn without having to pay tax from $1,000 to $10,000, and we will ensure that the donation tax credit scheme remains financially sustainable, and limits tax planning risks, by capping eligible donations at $100,000 a year.

On fringe benefit tax, the Government is simplifying the rules for private motor vehicle use. Small business—we’ve heard you. We’re going to make it simpler. There will no longer be a requirement for detailed logbooks. Instead, a “close enough is good enough” approach will significantly reduce compliance costs for businesses. Another change will ensure that six months after a company has been removed from the Companies Register, any outstanding loans it previously made to its shareholders will be taxed as income.

Finally, the Government is introducing a new prudential levy on banks, non-bank deposit takers, insurers, and some other financial institutions, to cover the costs of prudential regulation and supervision. Such a levy is consistent with other jurisdictions, including Australia and the UK, and is also consistent with the approach we take to levies imposed by other New Zealand financial regulators. It is expected to recover revenue of $209 million over the forecast period.

In closing, while I have the pleasure of delivering this speech, the Budget is 100 percent a team effort. It reflects the efforts, late nights, and extraordinary skills of talented New Zealanders, including those in the Public Service and in Ministerial offices. Most importantly, the Budget reflects and demonstrates what it is to deliver strong, stable government.

The Budget Ministers team includes Associate Finance Ministers David Seymour, Shane Jones, and Chris Bishop. Each represents a different political party, but each came to this Budget with a focus on responsible management of the Government’s finances. Together, we have worked through the difficult choices and trade-offs that a Budget always entails. Where we have disagreed, we have done so agreeably and with respect, and no matter the challenge, we’ve always found a way through. The ultimate result, I think, gentlemen, is a Budget we can all be proud of.

I also want to thank the Prime Minister for his consistent support, for his wise counsel, and for his enduring belief in the potential of this great country of ours, New Zealand.

Finally, Mr Speaker, please let me acknowledge the support of my own family who are watching from the gallery today: my Mum and Dad, my brother and sister, their spouses, my husband, and our four children. James, Harriet, Reuben, and Gloria, I know I’m not home enough; I work hard, and I hope to make you proud.

New Zealand has a great future ahead of it. The Government’s disciplined management means Kiwis can look forward to a growing economy, effective front-line public services, and increased investment in the things that really matter. We can have all of that and a strong set of books too. Thanks to our care with public money, the Government’s books will return to surplus a year earlier than previously expected. But none of this, colleagues and none of this, members, can be taken for granted. Delivering these results requires New Zealand to stay the course. Now is not the time for promises of reckless spending and big new taxes. This Budget shows that the Government’s programme over the last 2½ years is making a difference. We are securing the future, and Kiwis can look forward with confidence. They just need to choose it; they just need to vote for it. I commend this Budget to the House.

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

Second Reading—Budget Debate

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition) (14:46): I move, That all of the words after “That” be replaced with “this House has no confidence in the Government because after promising to grow the economy, it has shrunk it; after promising to get Kiwis back to work, it is presiding over record job losses; after promising to fix public services, it has gutted our public health system; after promising to fix the cost of living, it has made it worse; and after promising New Zealanders relief, it is prioritising corporate interests over the interests of everyday New Zealanders.”

This Budget was the Government’s last chance. It was their last chance to show New Zealanders that they actually get it, that they understand that it’s really tough going out there for New Zealand families. The backbench in the National Party are waving goodbye already! [Gestures at members leaving Chamber] They’re already giving up. Don’t be so pessimistic—there’s still about 163 days to go! It was their last chance to show New Zealanders that they get it, that they feel the pain that New Zealanders are under, and they have failed to do that. Kiwi families will be asking themselves one question after this Budget: are they feeling better off today than they were three years ago? And for the vast bulk of New Zealand families, the answer to that is categorically no.

This Government is asking those with the least to sacrifice the most. They are taking from the poor to give to the poor. Robin Hood would not be proud of this Budget. They are asking those who have the least, those who are the most disadvantaged to make the biggest sacrifices in this year’s Budget. They are desperately trying to create the illusion of progress, using smoke and mirrors, while Kiwis continue to go backwards. There will be no spinning their way out of the tangled web that they have created, that has seen Kiwi families facing tougher and tougher times.

This is a Government that said they were going to fix the cost of living, and the cost of living has never been higher. It is a Government that said they were going to get Kiwis back to work, and yet unemployment is continuing to grow, and this Budget shows that it is getting worse. It is a Government that promised to support businesses, and yet company liquidations are at recent highs under this Government. Unemployment is staying higher for longer.

Claims by Nicola Willis that the Government is getting the books back into surplus a year earlier than previously forecast neglects the fact that that’s still two years later than it was before she got her hands on the Government’s books. This Government took everything backward. New Zealanders can go back and they can see what was forecast before the last election, and they can compare this Government’s track record with what the Treasury was predicting then. It will show the books are taking longer to get back to surplus, Government debt is going to be higher, unemployment is going to be higher, the economy is going to be smaller, and the going for Kiwi families is going to be tougher. That is the legacy of this Government. Higher inflation, lower economic growth, higher unemployment, higher debt—that is what National leaves New Zealand. Forty thousand fewer people in jobs today than there were when National became the Government—that is their track record; business liquidations at a 15-year high.

Twenty thousand jobs have been lost in the building and construction sector—this, from a Government that said they wanted more hard hats and fewer lanyards down Lambton Quay. Well, the people in hard hats had their jobs taken away by this Government, who decided to pause everything, review everything, cancel everything, and it is the people on the front lines doing the work who found their jobs disappeared as a result of those decisions. So as the economy recovers and as the Government goes out there about the country touting the infrastructure projects that they want to spend money on, the question is: who’s going to do that work? A lot of those 20,000 building and construction workers have given up and left the country. They went across the Ditch to a country that would actually give them jobs, because this Government took their jobs away. Record numbers of Kiwis have been leaving the country—young New Zealanders just giving up on this Government and voting with their feet, because they do not see a future under a Government that is simply offering more pain, higher costs, and more cuts.

National promised to fix things, and instead, they’ve made them worse. This is a Government that’s failing. It’s failing on growth, it’s failing on job creation, it’s failing on the cost of living, and this isn’t happening by accident. These are the consequences of the choices that this Government has made—their choices that see families facing higher bills every day. The cost of going to the supermarket has never been higher. The cost of going to the petrol station has never been higher. The cost of paying the rent has never been higher, despite the promises of this Government. The power bill that Kiwis pay has never been higher—20 percent higher, in fact, than when this Government took office.

So many families are having to make so many tough decisions. This Government doesn’t understand those families who are sitting around the dining room table every night and trying to figure out how on earth they are going to make things add up, how on earth they’re going to deal with that sudden one-off unexpected expense that they face—the car that breaks down and sits in the driveway because they can’t afford to get it fixed; the kid that needs to go to an orthodontist but can’t because their parents can’t afford it. These are the decisions that Kiwi families are making every single day, and this Government is offering them nothing. This Government does not see them, it does not hear them, and it does not care about them.

The Kiwis who are doing everything right, who are working harder, longer hours than ever, and yet they have less at the end of the week to show for their own hard work—their wages being squeezed, their bills continuing to go higher, and tens of thousands of them simply giving up because they don’t see their future here in New Zealand. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: I’d just remind Government members to read 141 of Speakers’ Rulings—141/3.

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Nicola Willis painted a very rosy picture of the country today. It’s not a picture most New Zealanders would recognise. Those who are struggling, those who don’t know whether they’re still going to have a job in a couple of weeks or a couple of months, they won’t recognise the country that Nicola Willis and Christopher Luxon and Winston Peters and David Seymour think that we live in. They simply won’t recognise that country, because it is not their reality. This Government lives in a different reality to what most New Zealanders face on a day-to-day basis.

Nicola Willis called this a “tough love” Budget. There was no love in this Budget—there was no love at all. There were more cuts, more pain, and higher costs—a Government that’s built its Budget on cutting the jobs of others and celebrates that. They’re real people with families and homes and mortgages and kids to support, and this Government is celebrating cutting thousands of their jobs. They see those as just numbers to be shifted around to make their own balance sheets add up. They are real people, and they are being forgotten by this Government. In fact, they are being treated with contempt by this Government—cutting jobs, cutting services, kicking people out of their homes, hoping that nobody notices the consequences of the decisions that this Government is making.

Sacking 9,000 New Zealanders—the social workers who work with our most vulnerable families; the Department of Conservation (DOC) rangers who preserve and protect our conservation estate. Our tourism industry, by the way, is based on our clean, green reputation—a lot of tourists come here for our clean, green conservation estate—and this Government wants to cut the very foundations of that in this Budget. Hundreds of millions are being cut from DOC. We’ve seen what happens when that was done by previous National Governments. It doesn’t end well.

Customs officers being cut in this year’s Budget—those who protect our biosecurity. Our farmers rely on our biosecurity that’s being cut. Members on that side of the House like to say they’re pro-farmers. How pro-farmer are they going to be when foot-and-mouth arrives in New Zealand because of the cuts they are making to our biosecurity? This Government is cutting funding for biosecurity at a time when it has never been more important. At a time when the risks to our primary sector have never been greater, this Government are cutting the very protection that that entire sector relies on.

People who rely on superannuation are finding those who process their superannuation having their jobs cut. Cuts don’t grow the economy; they shrink it. If you sack a social worker, you don’t just lose a social worker; you lose the wages that would have previously been spent in the local cafe, in the local supermarket, with the local tradies. It has a downward spiralling effect, and that is what we have seen from this Government. When people lose their jobs—

Hon Shane Jones: Have a cup of tea.

SPEAKER: No, that’s enough.

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: —businesses lose their customers. My message to Nicola Willis is very clear: businesses in Wellington aren’t struggling because people are working from home; they’re struggling because those people are losing their jobs, and the ones that still have them don’t know whether they’re going to be keeping them.

It is not just here in Wellington. Half of the jobs on the chopping block now are outside of Wellington—20 percent of those in Auckland, where the number of people without work has already doubled under this Government. Auckland is our biggest city, and yet the number of people without jobs in Auckland has doubled in the last three years under this Government’s watch.

This Government say they want to get people back into work, and yet across the country, people are seeing the consequences of their choices. In regional and provincial New Zealand, many of the jobs in those communities are also on the chopping block. Our customs officers work in every port across the country, not just those in Wellington. They work in every part of the conservation estate, which, by the way, is mostly spread across provincial New Zealand. Those are the jobs that are now on the chopping block, and every local community will feel the consequences of those jobs being lost.

If you want to see how much this Budget relies on smoke and mirrors, just look no further than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, where, on the one hand, Nicola Willis is giving them some extra money, and then you go a few pages ahead and you’ll find that almost exactly the same amount of money—in fact, slightly more—is being cut again. Yet Winston Peters says, “Oh, those cuts aren’t going to happen.” Well, there’s the first big hole in the Government’s Budget already, because there are literally hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade reflected in this Budget that the Minister of Foreign Affairs has already said are never going to happen.

This whole Budget is based on the notion that there are all of these cuts that the Government is going to make, and yet, one by one, you watch as those Government Ministers say, “Oh, but it won’t be this and it won’t be that and it won’t be this and it won’t be that.” Then suddenly that surplus, that mega-thin surplus that Nicola Willis promises, will disappear in a heartbeat, because this Government’s Budget is based solely on smoke and mirrors, while New Zealanders continue to go backwards.

Let’s look at those cuts from the poor to give to the poor that we’ve already seen announced a few days ago—those most vulnerable New Zealanders who live in State housing. It may escape this Government’s attention, but it’s damn hard to get into a State house already. We deal with so many people through our electorate offices who struggle to get into State housing. I have sat down with many of those people, where they have brought their bank statements in in tears, asking “What am I supposed to do?” Many of them don’t live nice, neat, tidy lives. Their lives are difficult; their lives are complicated. And this Government simply turns its back on them.

The 30,000-odd pensioners—I’m staggered that Winston Peters agreed to increase the rent for 30,000 pensioners, but there you go—30,000 pensioners who simply don’t have an extra 30 bucks left over at the end of the week to pay increased rent. Those with disabilities who have already seen savage cuts under this Government to the supports they rely on are now facing their rent going up at a time when they can least afford it. This Government has turned their backs on those very people. There are people who struggle every single day to make things add up, and this Government simply don’t care.

And they want to make it easier to boot people out of State housing. When I saw that, I thought of a very recent case of someone who was living in a State house with a relative who passed away. The relative who passed away was the person whose name was on the tenancy. That person was given a matter of days before they had to find somewhere else to live. That person also had complex needs. That person was also in dire straits, dealing with the grief of losing a relative and facing the prospect of being turfed out on the street. You don’t solve homelessness by booting people out of State housing. In fact, we’ve now got record numbers of people living rough on the streets under this Government’s watch, because they are boasting about ending emergency accommodation and boasting about booting people out of State houses, thinking that people won’t notice.

What’s their solution to that? It should be to build more houses. It should be to find those people a roof over their head. Instead, it’s move-on orders—out of sight, out of mind. Just pretend those people don’t exist. Boot them out on to the street, keep them away from the public, and pretend that they don’t exist—literally pretend that the most vulnerable in our society simply don’t exist. That is what this Government think the solution to homelessness is, and it is absolutely shameful.

When businesses close, when families lose income, when kids lose opportunities, the entire country suffers as a result of that. And yet jobs in this Government’s Budget have not been a focus. The only focus in this Government’s Budget around jobs is how many of them they’re going to cut, not how many could be created, and yet that is exactly what this Government should have been focusing on: making sure that we can get New Zealanders back to work. Instead, they are whacking the most vulnerable. They are whacking the people who can least afford it. The people whose budgets already won’t stretch any further are suddenly being told they have to make more sacrifice, they have to find more, so that this Government can create the illusion of a Budget surplus—pushing more costs into the future, pushing more on to the future generations of New Zealanders, providing less hope for younger New Zealanders. That is only going to exacerbate one thing, and that is the number of young Kiwis who end up leaving the country.

In health, we see band-aids, not prevention. In education, we once again see some of the most vulnerable kids in our schools and in our education system being completely ignored by this Government. Think of the home-school parents who were out front yesterday, who this Government have absolutely done over in the last few weeks. Some of those parents deal with some of the most complex kids in our education system—kids with disabilities, kids with high behavioural needs, being treated with absolute contempt by this Government. And don’t let the parties opposite try and tell you that they saved the day, because they voted just this week in favour of the changes they suddenly did an about-face on. They did not care about those people, and nor does this Government,

What can we expect to see out and about in New Zealand as a result of this Government’s Budget? More people losing their jobs; more shops closing; more businesses losing revenue; more local economies slowing down; more decay on the main street, with boarded-up shop front windows; more decline; and more people giving up and leaving the country. That is the legacy that this Government will be leaving for New Zealand, and it didn’t have to be this way.

Instead of a plan for the future, New Zealanders have been offered nothing but excuses and blame by this Government. On a credible plan for growth—remember about “Growth, growth, growth”? Everything was going to be “all about growth”—right before they shrunk the economy. No credible plan for economic growth. On cost of living relief: no plan on cost of living. On detail around who’s going to actually lose their jobs and which public servants are going to face the chop: not much detail there, either, just everybody now living with a dagger hanging over their head, still waiting to find out whether they are going to have a job.

Three years, three Budgets: more cuts, more pain, and higher costs. It did not need to be this way. All Governments have choices. What did this Government choose? Tax cuts for tobacco companies, tax cuts for landlords, tax cuts for multinational tech giants like Facebook and Google—not support for New Zealanders who are struggling. More support for the fossil fuel industry. Subsidies for the fossil fuel industry have been this Government’s plan to deal with the energy in New Zealand—not a plan that’s actually going to lower household electricity bills.

This was the Government’s last chance. It was their last chance to show New Zealanders that they had a plan to create jobs, that they had a plan to lift New Zealand out of the situation that we are in at the moment. They have failed on every measure. At a time when New Zealanders are so desperate for hope, when they are looking for something to get excited about, this Government’s Budget has offered them none of those things. New Zealand is going backwards under this Government. The clear question every Kiwi family is asking themselves is: are they better off than they were three years ago? And the answer is no. So my message to the members opposite: enjoy the leather benches for 163 days more, because your time is done.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: I’ll call the member, but I’ll just suggest that the whole House needs to be mindful of Speaker’s ruling 143/3, and if you’re uncertain, have a look at it and decide how to carry on from here. The Rt Hon Winston Peters.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Because New Zealanders need to hear much more of this, I move an extension of time to the last speaker.

SPEAKER: Well, as you know, you can’t seek leave on behalf of someone else. The question is that the amendment be agreed to.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister) (15:08): I speak, I think, on behalf of everyone in the coalition Government when I say I would rather face 100 duck-sized horses than sit through another speech as woeful as that from the Leader of the Opposition. I have to say, I haven’t seen Labour MPs struggle that much to get through something since Ayesha Verrall took up singing. I think Chris Hipkins went to bed last night, he put on the Spider-Man pyjamas, and he woke up this morning thinking he’d be a great left-wing hero, and all we got was the same old negativity—that constant, relentless, joyless talking down of New Zealand that we’ve come to expect from the Labour Party.

And I’ll ask you, what didn’t we get? What we didn’t get was policy. We didn’t get a single credible policy—not one. I have to say, I think it’s very clear and obvious now that, officially speaking, the 2026 Labour Party are the laziest Opposition in the history of New Zealand, because all they’re doing is doing some TikToks and some singing about ducks, for God’s sake. I think, for the sake of the grim-faced members opposite, I truly do hope that Kieran McAnulty does a much better job of that speech next year, because the bar, frankly, couldn’t be lower.

I’ve always said you can judge a party by the contradictions, and on that measure, Labour is world class, aren’t they? On the one hand, they ban oil and gas, and then they complain when manufacturers can’t afford the energy. They then oppose mining—but, actually, they complain when Kiwis move to Australia to take up mining jobs. They want renewable energy, and then they vote against every single measure to actually deliver it. They like to claim—yeah, they claim that we backed the rich, because we gave working Kiwis tax relief, when they make cleaners and retail workers pay off university fees for millionaires’ kids.

Then they bang on about the cost of living while plotting a capital gains tax that you know is going to hit every farmer, every small-business owner—every Kiwi who’s ever worked hard and invested in their future. At the end of the day, I’m telling you—I’m telling you—the Labour Party only has one idea—one idea. They’ve had it for years, and they’re sticking with it, and it is, quite simply: spend more, tax more, borrow more—that’s it. That’s the whole kit and caboodle, that’s the whole plan, that’s the whole document, the complete policy platform of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition. That is it.

I’ve got to say, they have a spending addiction that is so fierce it’s going to make a Vegas poker machine blush. It’s really that bad. They want to spend money that they don’t have on things that we can’t afford, funded by recklessly borrowing against our children’s future. That’s what they’re doing—that’s exactly what they’re doing. When the bill comes, they’re going to come after your money. They’re going to come after your income, your savings, your business, your home. That’s what it’s going to be about.

If you ask them, how are they going to pay for just one of these sort of hair-brained policies they’ve had called the Future Fund—did you hear it the other day? Barbara Edmonds said, oh, she can’t give us any detail on the Future Fund because of the Treaty. But I think even worse was actually Chris Hipkins, who said they can’t give you any details because Kiwis just don’t care. That’s a pretty pessimistic view of the world. I’ve heard about Rogernomics, but I think what the Labour Party is now running on is “Don’t-care-onomics”. That’s what it’s about—it’s called “Don’t-care-onomics”. They want to spend more, borrow more, tax more, and if anyone asks any questions, you just shrug and say Kiwis don’t care. I’m telling you, if you challenge them any further, they’ll just say it’s a Treaty breach—that’s what it’s all about. That’s not acceptable.

First, they’re going to tax your house, then they’re going to tax your business, then they’re going to tax your KiwiSaver, and then everything else. Their message is really simple—their message to Kiwis is really simple—it says: if you’re successful, you need to be punished. That’s, essentially, the message that they are giving us here today. I’m telling you, there is not an ambition or an aspiration in this country that Chris Hipkins doesn’t want to actually stifle and not a success that wants to trample all over. This is without doubt no longer the party of Helen Clark and Michael Cullen; this is the party of “Don’t-care-onomics”.

But enough of Labour, because another year, another outstanding Budget from the great Nicola Willis. Aren’t we lucky, in difficult times—really challenging times—that we have such a diligent, thoughtful, smart, courageous Minister of Finance determined to make New Zealand a better place. In a year of global volatility—in a year of fuel crises and economic headwinds that no one could have predicted—she has once again delivered a Budget that is responsible, it’s ambitious, and it’s laser-focused—laser-focused—on the future of this country. In a third year, she’s knocked it out of the park, and I want to say to Nicola Willis on behalf of every New Zealander who’s now experiencing lower inflation and lower interest rates, we owe you a big debt—thank you very much.

On this side of the House, we’ve been busy. We’ve been busy working on behalf of every Kiwi to secure New Zealand’s future—not spending more, not borrowing more, not taxing more; delivering more. That’s what it’s about. If the Leader of the Opposition’s speech couldn’t wake the members opposite up, they should just stop quacking and pay attention for a little bit, because here’s the key things they need to know: average economic growth at 2.7 percent per year. That is faster growth this year and next year, and the year after that, than Australia, the UK, EU, and Japan. Just let that sink in a little bit. Pay attention: 220,000 new jobs being created—how good is that? Wages growing faster than inflation, and that’s how Kiwis actually get ahead so they can actually do more with their hard-earned cash. We know on this side, widening the gap between wages and prices is the key to making life more affordable for Kiwis, not random cost of living payments to dead backpackers and French people, basically.

I know the members love to talk up other countries and talk down New Zealand, and you heard it again today, but here are the facts—and they’re not going to like hearing this, and sometimes the media doesn’t like hearing this either: March saw the second-lowest number of Kiwis live in any month since January 2023. If you just take the last year, the past year that we’ve just gone through, 9 percent more Kiwis have come home and 6 percent fewer Kiwis have left New Zealand. That is funny how that doesn’t make any of their press releases or media stories.

This Government’s mission from day one has been simply: fixing the basics and building the future. Fixing the basics that Labour broke—the economy, the cost of living, law and order, and all the public services that Kiwis rely on—and building the future by investing in infrastructure and education and defence and energy security and the trade relationships that are going to determine New Zealand’s prosperity for decades to come.

We know the past few years have been incredibly difficult for Kiwis: shock after shock after shock. We’ve had COVID, we’ve had Labour’s high inflation and recession, extreme weather events, Trump’s tariffs, and now we’ve got a fuel crisis with its origins in the Middle East. That’s why this Budget also includes temporary, targeted, and timely support for households facing pressure from the fuel crisis—the $50 a week in the in-work tax credit and an increase in mileage rates for support workers and for those travelling for specialist treatment.

It's a volatile and uncertain world, and it demands a Government that understands national security in all of its dimensions: economic security, financial security, energy security, international security. The bottom line is you don’t get prosperity without security, and you don’t have security without prosperity, because the two are interdependent and linked. That has been the logic behind Budget 2026, and it’s a logic you simply don’t hear from the members opposite, because they have no strategy, they have no plan, and they have no ideas—just songs about ducks and bottomless wish lists, and absolutely no way to pay for it except coming after your money.

I just want to talk about the numbers, because without fiscal discipline, we can’t have anything else. It’s as simple as that. Every dollar we spend servicing debt is a dollar that we don’t get to spend on schools and hospitals. It’s that simple—a simple fact as true for a Government as is for Kiwi households up and down this country, and one that has apparently never ever even crossed the minds of the members opposite in this House today. Their approach is pretty simple: if you run out of money, just borrow money. If your borrowing gets embarrassing, just tax some more. If anyone dares to point out that spending more, taxing more, and borrowing is not actually an economic strategy, well, just remember, Kiwis don’t care. That’s what it’s about.

Well, we care, and New Zealand’s future depends on us caring. Across three Budgets, this Government has found $50 billion in savings and we have returned that investment to where it belongs—out there on the front line in schools, hospitals, police, cancer drugs, hip and knee replacements. I’m very pleased to confirm we are forecasting to borrow $6 billion less in this year’s Budget than we were in December and that we remain on track for that surplus in 2028-29—a year earlier than previously forecast. For the third year in a row, we have achieved significant savings across Government, and that’s what it looks like when you’re actually fixing the basics.

Let me give you just one example, and that was that it was costing Labour $1.2 million to build a classroom in New Zealand. We standardised the design, we halved the cost, and now we can build twice as many classrooms for the same amount of money that Labour actually had. That’s not austerity; that’s called competence. That’s called delivery and knowing how to get things done, and that’s what this Government does—that’s exactly what we are all about. Let’s not forget the tax relief that we delivered in 2024, delivering on average about $5,500 to an average household that would be worse off today without that package of help and support. And yet, disgracefully, for parties that purport to be about working New Zealanders, every single one of those members didn’t support that single initiative—every single one of them—because their instinct is “We want to spend more, tax more, borrow more, and it’s your money that we’re going to go spend.”

While we stay disciplined on operating spending, the recent fuel crisis has reminded us that we need significant capital investment to build the future, too. Modern, reliable infrastructure; a defence force that is fighting fit; the schools and the hospitals that Kiwis rely on—this is what building the future actually looks like, not a TikTok, not a press release, and definitely not a song about ducks.

This year’s net capital package is $5.7 billion—and, yes, that’s larger than we planned, but don’t take it as a signal of permanently higher borrowing, but as a deliberate, targeted investment in resilience. Roads of national significance are under way: Hawke’s Bay Expressway, Ōtaki to north of Levin, Warkworth to Te Hana. This Budget adds Cambridge to Piarere, completing the Waikato Expressway—and you know the roads that Labour’s cancelled, well, we’re now building them. We’re also building the schools and the hospitals and the courthouses and the police stations in a considered way that gives certainty to business and to the tradies and builders we want staying here in New Zealand.

Now, if you can’t produce abundant, affordable energy independently, you do not have a national security. You do not have economic security, full stop. It’s that simple. New Zealand’s strategic energy vulnerability is no longer theoretical. We see it every day in the Strait of Hormuz, and our Kiwis are experiencing it at the pump and on the factory floors up and down this country. But I’m telling you: the oil and gas ban was the most economically reckless decision ever—ever—made from a New Zealand Government. It was a disaster for working people. It was a disaster for manufacturers. It was a disaster for energy security. It was “don’t-care-onomics” in action, a feel-good decision made without thought to the real cost to real Kiwis. And if there’s just one thing that Labour and Green MPs could do to help Kiwis, it would be to drop their commitment to reintroduce that ban. Just one thing. Do one thing. But I’m telling you they’re not going to do it because they’d sooner be on the right side of a Labour Party dinner party than they would be actually on the right side of the Whakatāne Mill dealing with their energy bill.

I want say a challenge to the members opposite from Labour, the Greens, and Te Pāti Māori, because when you’re going to head out into regional New Zealand for the first time since the last election to try and make the case for why people should vote for you, you need to be real straight with them. You need to be straight about the failed policies of that last Government and what that did to our manufacturing sector. You need to be straight with them about the fact that the livelihoods of working people were sacrificed in exchange for a nice headline about banning oil and gas, and you can’t say you care about the cost of living and working people unless you’re serious about energy security.

We are taking actions to build strategic coal reserves, $90 million worth of extra diesel at Marsden Point. Is it costly? Yes. Is it less costly than the alternative? Absolutely, and this Budget certainly builds on big commitments into energy. I want to be extremely clear that going forward from this point in New Zealand, our energy independence must be treated as a national security action instead of an agenda about contributing to long-term climate strategy. The bottom line is we are never going to compete in a globally technological world without abundant affordable energy. As we keep saying, we’re going to prioritise the solar farm over the skink each and every day.

Now, I can talk about health because we are fixing the basics of what New Zealanders get from their health system. This Budget delivers three-day postnatal stays, paediatric palliative care, expanded bowel screening, and a new hospital block in Whangārei. Thank you, Shane Reti. When a dollar doesn’t go into growing the bureaucracy—which is the only thing that grew under Labour, let’s be honest about it—it goes to what actually makes a difference to people across this great country.

It didn’t get much pickup but there was a really excellent piece by Harriet Laughton in The Post which uncovered more detail on Labour’s GP policy, and I don’t think Labour really wants us to know too much about it. But do you know you won’t actually be allowed to choose whether you see a GP or not. No? The Labour Government will decide that. Their plan is that you’re going to ring them up, tell them what’s going on, and then they’re going to decide if you’re actually allowed to go to a doctor’s appointment. I think if you’ve paid any attention over the last 10 years to how Labour manages big projects, I just don’t think setting up a call centre to triage 26 million GP visits a year is a good idea. I actually think it will go as well as last weekend’s list ranking meeting that they had. I think the only other thing they didn’t tell us was that, actually, when you ring up, they’re going to thin out that call line queue even further because Ayesha Verrall is going to be singing that duck song again.

We are also fixing the basics in education. Cellphones are banned; kids are learning an hour a day of reading, maths, and writing; we’ve got structured literacy, structured numeracy, standardised reporting, a brand-new curriculum, a replacement for NCEA. I’m telling you, it’s working. Our kids are going to school in greater numbers. Thank you, David Seymour. Our maths acceleration programmes are working and we’re seeing big improvements amongst our year 6 students in particular. You know who was in charge in that damaging decline? It was the Labour Government. It was Chris Hipkins who was the Minister of Education for 5½ years, and they were just too busy spending more, borrowing more, taxing more than worrying about what was going on with our kids and why they were falling behind.

But I saw a really insightful story the other day involving Ginny Andersen. It was in the Herald, and it was her views on education. What she said is there are some ideological differences between National and Labour on what our kids should be learning. An example she gave was, and I quote, “If you’re waiting for the bus and it doesn’t arrive, and you can tell it’s 22 minutes late, what are you going to do now?” Now, I’ve got to tell you, if her time as a police Minister is anything to go by—and God help us if she ever ended up running education—I think the answer would be something like, “If the bus is late, just steal a car and drive it into a vape shop.” I mean, that’s basically, I think, what we would be getting. We are investing in education. We have got more teacher training. We’ve got 232 new classrooms. We’re doubling the number of trades academies out to 20,000 kids. Because to build the future, you need builders, you need roofers, you need plumbers, you need sparkies, and this Government backs them.

Finally, I want to talk about law and order because we are securing our communities and that’s another basic that we’ve had to fix. Three strikes restored, gang pitches banned, youth crime cracked, stalking criminalised, and more police on the beat. The result: 49,000 fewer victims of serious violent crime, 22 percent reduction in youth offending. But any victim is one victim too many, and so the work continues. The work carries on, and that’s why we’re investing more in police and corrections to manage prison growth. Because, to be honest, it shouldn’t be controversial to say that criminals belong in prison, not out on our streets. On that side of the House, they believe in repealing three strikes, they believe in abolishing prisons and defunding the police. But I’ve got to tell you, on this side of the House, we have a coalition Government, it is the Government of law and order, and we believe the rights of victims come ahead of the rights of offenders each and every day. We make no apology for that.

This is a Budget that is honest about the world that we face and clear-eyed about what it takes to succeed in it. There are politicians in this House who think that the answer to each and every problem is quite simply to spend more, tax more, borrow more. They think spending your way out of a cost of living crisis, borrowing your way through a fuel shock, taxing your way to growth. Well, I’m telling you, it’s not a plan, it’s an addiction, and like all addiction, it feels fine until the bill arrives—and the bill always arrives.

You will not find those politicians in the National Party. This is a Government that came here with a mission—fixing the basics, building the future, and three years in, this is exactly what we are doing. We are fixing the basics of the economy—inflation down, interest rates down, growth up, wages rising. We are fixing the basics of law and order. We are fixing the basics of how we teach our kids to read, write, and add up. We are fixing the basics of our energy security, our fiscal position, and our place in the world. We are building the future in roads, in hospitals, in classrooms, in defence, in trade relationships with India and Singapore and the wider Indo-Pacific, in renewable energy projects now coming out of the ground, in the young Kiwis who are staying home, who are coming home, and are building their lives here.

I’ve said it before, but our inheritance from what I call the “Greatest Generation”—those who built the peace after World War II and the rules-based order that followed—is not guaranteed. As I’ve said before, it must be chosen. It must be worked for by every generation. Budget 2026 makes that choice. It’s a responsible choice, a courageous choice, a choice to secure our future, not by spending more, borrowing more, and taxing more, but by building something that lasts. Mr Speaker, I commend Budget 2026 to the House. We are fixing the basics and building the future to secure New Zealand’s future.

SPEAKER: Chlöe Swarbrick. [Interruption] Right, that is a completely unacceptable outburst. I’ve called attention to Speakers’ ruling 141, so people can expect that there will be some consequence for abusing that. Chlöe Swarbrick.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green) (15:29): Mr Speaker, the Greens want every New Zealander to feel proud of our country. Not just for our history, for granting women the right to vote, standing against the United States for a nuclear-free Pacific, splitting the atom—we want New Zealanders to feel proud of our country that they live in today. We want New Zealanders to be able to swim in their rivers, to be able to grow food in healthy soil, to catch abundant fish from our ocean to feed their families, to be able to afford their groceries, to be housed, to heat their homes, to have the right to a good education and a secure job, to innovate, to create, to have fun.

We want New Zealanders to be happy, healthy, and safe—unified. But this Government is telling us, “Computer says no.” Today, they have released a Budget which tells us that they have no hope, no plan, no ambition, and no vision for this country—unless, of course, that hope, that vision, and that plan is just what we see here: allowing corporations to profit handsomely off the misery off regular New Zealanders; subsidising and supporting the very fossil fuels that Treasury’s Budget Economic and Fiscal Update tells us are the major vulnerability in our economy. This is not a cost of living crisis; it is a cost of greed crisis.

Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis: aren’t you sick of pretending—pretending that there is no money? The National Party can find money when it wants to. I’m not just talking about their rich-lister donations. In the last two years, they have found billions in their Budgets—in the tax cuts for landlords, tobacco companies, and the wealthy and sorted. There have been billions for fossil fuel production—billions and billions to meet Trump’s request to spend up large on new military equipment. So they’ve taken billions and billions from the poorest New Zealanders, cutting access for the homeless to emergency housing and cutting access to benefits, while thousands of New Zealanders are being pushed out of their jobs by this same Government, to the highest number since 1994, the year that I was born.

The books today show us that unemployment will in fact be higher in the next few years, as a result of the decisions that this Government was just clapping for, than were forecast in December. That means another 6,500 New Zealanders will lose their jobs thanks to the decisions of Christopher Luxon. These books show us that Christopher Luxon’s responsible fiscal management has resulted in further downward revisions of GDP growth forecasts.

Treasury today has also warned that his obsession with fossil fuels will raise costs for households and for businesses, which can slow spending, investment, and the very growth that they love to crow about, ultimately reshaping our economy’s structure and lowering our output and economic performance. It’s dressed up in a heck of a lot of fancy language, but today the Government is, effectively, choosing where our collective resources will go and who gets to be in charge of this country, who really gets to make decisions.

Throughout this week, Christopher Luxon has shown us, albeit being dragged kicking and screaming into broad daylight, as to who he sees it is his job to serve. We have seen laws stripping people’s rights to hold big polluters accountable, originally actually drafted by the country’s largest polluters, Fonterra and Z Energy, introduced by this Government with glee. And the Greens have exposed that the Government is taking on an extra $1.5 billion more in debt in order to try and quietly cover the tracks of their failed climate policies. This is why it is so important to understand that every time that this Government makes decisions to push more of our country’s wealth up to the top, they are also damaging our democracy. Fewer and fewer people get less and less money and less and less influence, while more and more people are being left with scraps that they are being told to fight over. Those regular people are being told to not look up.

Let’s run through some important facts, because despite this Government’s best efforts to starve our economy, New Zealanders are slugging away and working hard, and we have been lucky with global commodity prices. Our economy is growing in size, but more and more people are getting poorer and poorer, and the Government is cutting away investment in our basic collectively owned and operated public services. Our economy is growing, but regular people are getting poorer ,and our Government is shrinking while taking on more debt.

Where is New Zealanders’ money going? Well, just last year, the 100-odd households on the NBR’s rich list increased their wealth by almost $8 billion in one year. Supermarkets are making a million dollars a day in documented excess profit. Power companies’ net profits were $457 million in just the second half of last year. Banks raked in profits of almost $7 billion in 2025. That is $1,248 in profit for Australian banks, for every single New Zealander. But our economy is worth $445 billion. It’s actually bigger than it’s ever been. Yet our hospitals and our schools and our nurses and our doctors and our teachers who staff them are struggling. Our firefighters are striking twice a week because the fire trucks meant to save lives are falling apart.

But those public services don’t fail overnight. When we don’t invest in them properly, those services get slower, more stretched and further away with every year that passes. And there’s a word for that: austerity. It is how you break a country in slow motion. This Government is boasting today about new money for health and education. But once you actually count inflation, a growing and ageing population and what it really costs to deliver these things, much of that record investment is actually a cut in everything but name.

This Government will do anything in order to avoid taxing the mega-rich. They’ll take our school kids’ lunch money. They’ve made real-term cuts to our schools and to early childhood education, meaning higher fees for parents. They’ve cut $300,000 from programmes that help New Zealanders with energy hardship, when record numbers are struggling to pay their power bill. They have raided millions of dollars from food banks and taken away almost $700 million from public housing tenants. I guess just some of us are entitled to our entitlements.

Their decisions will close down sexual violence prevention services. Christopher Luxon promises that growth means more money in our economy. And, actually, he is right about that. But what he’s not being straight up and honest about is that he knows that that growth is not being shared. He knows that under his economic rules, that wealth goes straight to the top. But maybe I’m being too generous. Maybe he actually truly does still believe in trickle-down economics, just like some believe in the tooth fairy. Maybe he believes his own shtick about hard choices as he entrenches an economy that has been designated as a speculator’s tax haven by Australians—the same Australians from the same Australia where higher tax rates on those who can afford to pay means that there is the Government revenue necessary to invest in better public services and infrastructure; the same Australia that this Government is sending so many of our best and brightest to, because under this Government, New Zealanders are having a really hard time imagining a better tomorrow, here at home.

Look, I know politics is hard. I know that changing your mind and doing something differently in this environment, of all places, opens you up to all kinds of attacks—that you’re U-turning or backtracking or whatever we want to call it. But I would like to think, if I was privileged enough to be sitting in those seats over there making decisions about where our country’s collective resources are used, if I had spent two years making decisions that were hurting regular people‍—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: That’s not going to happen. You better start learning the song “Lonely Street”.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —that I would pause and reevaluate, Mr Peters—that I would listen to the chanting of the emergency service workers on strike for the longest industrial action in a generation, to the cries of babies that this Government knows are being born into unnecessarily and entirely preventable poverty; to the New Zealanders down at the returned services club who just wants some leaders with a spine.

Instead, this Government ploughs ahead with their economic doom loop. They’ve decided to mercilessly cut back on spending without any idea of how the market that they worship is going to fill the gap—that shocked business confidence that they said that they cared about—and the private sector investment also contracted by 2 percent. They cancelled thousands of new State builds and hundreds of infrastructure projects, which has meant the loss of 15,000 construction sector jobs. But each job lost isn’t just devastating for that person and for their family; it is devastating to the local community and to the local economy and to the small businesses where they brought a morning coffee or went on a date or did their home renos through. And what is this Government’s response to this doom loop of their own creation? It’s not to stop and think that maybe this thing isn’t working, because maybe instead of a plan, they’re running on instinct, a well-documented, well-exercised National Party instinct to hand over our collective wealth and control to a few people at the top.

Former National Governments sold off State housing, which now means we hand out billions to line the pockets of private landlords. Former National Governments sold off parts of our State-owned power companies despite an overwhelming referendum in opposition, and now we all pay for an energy system driven by profit at the expense of innovation and renewable generation. Former National Governments shut down and amalgamated ministries and departments, closing factories and putting a wrecking ball through the regions. This National Government is no different.

New Zealanders deserve so much better and the Greens have shown that better is possible. If we dared to tax multi-multimillionaires and billionaires so that they contributed fairly to the country that helped them to build that wealth, we wouldn’t have to rely on charity to get new ambulances on the road. We could use this big, old economy democratically to achieve the things that no one of us could achieve alone, because very few people have the individual wealth to build a hospital or refurbish old classrooms, but together we have more wealth than we have ever had. We can create jobs, we can build the things that we need, we can protect the natural environment that we literally rely on for life on Earth as we know it. Or are we just going to keep pretending that megalomaniac billionaires are going to solve our problems?

I actually agreed with the Prime Minister when two months ago as the fossil fuel crisis was hitting, he said boldly, “Hope is not a plan.” However, at exactly the same time, his Minister for Energy was quietly cancelling the long-awaited energy plan. The fossil fuel crisis has put a spotlight on the ticking time bomb sitting at the centre of our economy. While Luxton’s Government seems intent on finding new ways to lace this time bomb into the fabric of everything that we do, as this Government hopes and prays for new fossil fuel shipments and every time one is confirmed they just hope to restart that time bomb countdown timer, if that counter gets to zero, our entire country, our entire economy grinds to a halt. It’s not just sensible—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: It’s meant to be at zero already. That’s what you guys said 10 years ago.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: It’s not sensible, Mr Winston Peters, to spend all of our resources fixated on feeding that beast in the hopes to just reset the clock. We need to diffuse the time bomb.

The next step is rewiring our economy and country around something that will not blow up in our faces, because we do not get affordable, secure energy from expensive fuels that have to be hauled in from the other side of the planet; we get it when we tap into the abundant water, wind, and sun, and the geothermal activity beneath our feet. We get it when we electrify everything. That is what it means to build resilience. It’s what it means to insulate ourselves against imported inflation. It’s what it means to build a country.

It’s not just about nation-building; it’s common sense. It’s taking control over the things that we have control over. But this Government is giving up control, not to regular New Zealanders, but to corporations, to offshore shareholders, and the fewer and fewer people who are getting more and more of our resources. Funnily enough, if our country was the business that Christopher Luxon seems to think it is. It would also be a failing business, because in business you don’t succeed by firing all of your staff, cutting off your sources of revenue, and then begging rich out-of-towners to maybe pop over because they can avoid paying tax—close your eyes to the crumbling infrastructure. If things aren’t going right, you get a new business plan. You find a new strategy. But a country is not a company, and a Prime Minister is not a CEO.

Prime Minister, I have spent two years inviting you to come and walk the streets of Auckland Central, to meet the people, including the children, who your policies have made homeless. I invite you to go and stand in the middle of Bendigo in Central Otago and tell New Zealanders with a straight face that you want to poison the local waterways and churn out our pristine biodiversity into a mine to make a quick buck for an Australian mining company. I invite you to come and sit with me, with the regular people, at Mount Smart Stadium during a Warriors game to talk to the couple from Hamilton who sit next to me, who drive up every other week for the game, who tell me that your Government has been a wrecking ball for small businesses because you’ve sucked all the money out of customers’ pockets.

Prime Minister, I invite you to go outside, to touch grass, to breathe the air, to look the New Zealanders that you are supposed to serve in the eye. Those things are real; those things matter. And when your made-up economic rule book is destroying those very real things, those silly rules have got to change.

Here is the hardest truth, and it’s actually not for the theatre that is this place; it is for the New Zealanders beyond these walls: no one is coming to save us. New Zealanders are going to have to do this for ourselves. On 7 November, New Zealanders can resign this Government to the history books. But we are not going to spontaneously end up with a Government that is willing to take on the well-resourced lobbyists in this country and to work actively in the interests of regular people.

We are going to need a new kind of coalition. I am not talking about the boring circular talkback talk of which politician is going to negotiate with which. I am talking about New Zealanders coming together with a common, intentional idea about who we are as a country and where all of us want to go. Because when everything feels complicated and chaotic, I believe that we can agree on some basic things: every New Zealander is entitled to a safe home, a good education, affordable food, a secure job, reliable transport, renewable energy. Those are the non-negotiables that every New Zealander is entitled to and they can be the building blocks to help us rebuild our country, for all of us. These are the things that we should fight for, not just for ourselves, not just for the people who we know and love, but even for the people who we don’t know and don’t like.

To anyone and everyone who is listening, I am asking you not just to believe in the Greens; I am asking New Zealanders to believe in themselves, to believe in each other, and to believe in the country that we can create if we are willing to work together to make it a reality. I am asking New Zealanders, though, not just to believe; I am asking them to act, because if New Zealanders are feeling powerless right now, it’s kind of by intent. That’s exactly the strategy and the plan of this Government, to have regular people switch off so that power and wealth gets concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. I promise New Zealanders that they will find their power when they go out there and they talk to other New Zealanders about these basic things that we have in common that we are willing to fight for for each other. New Zealanders can do more than vote this election; they can join the campaign to rebuild this country.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) (15:48): There are easy lies and there are hard truths, and after years of easy lies about our nation’s finances, we are coming to the hard truths. We cannot spend and borrow our way to prosperity. We have to pay the bills and we have to balance the books. And finally, in this Budget, we are bringing together the hard truths to chart a course to honest prosperity where we pay our way, we balance the books, and people can again afford to live comfortably because the Government is managing its money as carefully as they’ve been forced to manage their own.

This Budget is backing the hard-working people who get up and make a go of it while cutting the things that don’t work to provide more of what does.

It is, I think, a tribute to three parties working together, associate finance Ministers and a Minister of Finance from ACT, National, and New Zealand First coming together to create this third Budget of our three-party coalition. That is a triumph that is better than our worst enemies’ worst nightmares—that we are able to deliver, in challenging times, in the middle of a global oil shock, a pathway to a balanced Budget earlier, with no new taxes. That is the choice that countries are facing around the world, because there are two paths to balancing the books: there is either tax more or spend less. As I remember Nicola Willis once saying, we don’t have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem in Government. If you want to solve the problem of borrowing and deficits, you must get on top of wasteful Government spending.

There is a contrast opening up, not just across the divide of this aisle but across the Tasman Sea. You look across the Ditch, and we’re not feeling like the lucky country so much now, are we, cobber? I mean, those guys are going to have deficits through to 2035, and new taxes to try and balance their Budget. What that tells you is that, if you try to squeeze people until the pips squeak, if you believe the path to prosperity is to take money from anyone you can find that has it, until nobody wants to create wealth in your country, eventually you will all be poor. In fact, the only thing that socialist thinking has done for the poor is give them a lot more company. That’s why this Budget is just what the doctor ordered.

The spending amount—the new spending—was going to be $2.4 billion in December; it’s now going to be $2.1 billion. That’s $300 million less, and it’s the same for the next four years. That’s $1.2 billion less spending than was expected just six months ago. That is a triumph, and it has been done with a plan to have fewer Government departments and fewer bureaucrats. It’s just what the doctor ordered, and it’s something the ACT Party doctor was prescribing years ago. It’s a prescription that has become increasingly popular. We’re going to see the amount of money taken up by Government down to 30.3 percent of GDP, after it peaked under Labour at 35 percent of GDP. That means that, for every $20 in the economy, we are saving people $1 by spending less every year. That is the kind of progress towards the smaller, more efficient Government that we need.

What are the dividends? Over 200,000 new jobs forecast, 2.7 percent economic growth year on year, and the surplus coming forward a whole year to 2028-29. This is a Government that is fixing what matters, and what matters is not finding new taxes and new revenue tools but fixing the spending to do more for less. On that, this Budget will be familiar to many New Zealanders, to many households. It will be familiar to many businesses, who have to cut something that doesn’t work if they see something new that they want to spend on. That means, wherever we’ve spent something new, the chances are it’s come from the $1.7 billion in savings that we have been able to make. If you want something new, you have to make savings elsewhere, and finally, after years of thinking that somehow economic gravity did not apply to Governments, especially those filled with Labour politicians, we have come back to Earth, back to reality, because, “Oh, there goes gravity.” We are passing a balanced Budget in just a few years thanks to our responsibility.

These choices allow us to do a number of new things that I believe will ensure New Zealanders have the opportunity in education, the care in health, the safety in the street, and the prosperity of knowing that, actually, your efforts can make a difference. If you make good choices, the deal can be kept: you can find yourself with a home and a career and a family and security by doing the right thing. For too many people, that has been lost for too long because the Government has been sucking up any extra cream that they created. We’re going to see $54 million more in Pharmac, all of these things made possible by saving more money. That comes after we gave $1.774 million extra money to Pharmac to fill in a fiscal hole left by Labour, and then another $604 million for extra medicines that have so far benefited a quarter of a million Kiwis with new medicines they would not have had access to, had it not been for this extra spending. And we’re now putting another $54 million into Pharmac, the largest of the specific headline initiatives under this Budget. Pharmac and medicines have experienced a revolution. I’d like to thank all of my colleagues, especially Todd Stephenson, who had been such a strong advocate for making better use of medicines.

It is now seven years and two months and 13 days since I sat over there and stood against the whole Parliament, against rushed gun laws, and I said these people who have firearms are not actually bad people. What has happened is bad, but they do not deserve to be punished for it. As a result, we, as the ACT Party, have stood up for the simple idea that, yes, firearms can be dangerous, and, yes, we need to ensure that people are kept safe from them, but that shouldn’t come at the expense of treating legitimate firearms owners with the basic respect and dignity that is due to all law-abiding Kiwis. With Nicole McKee, we see $45 million in this Budget put towards a new firearms safety authority. It never should have been the Police, and that will also ensure that those licence fees don’t have to go through the roof to pay for it. They will be stable.

All over the country, we see wilding pines sucking up water that could have been used to grow food and generate electricity. There’s $79 million in this Budget for Andrew Hoggard’s initiative to cut down those wilding pines. You might have seen on TV ONE that he’s already started. He’s not the kind of politician that leaves it to other people.

Then, with Simon Court and my good friend Chris Bishop, we have seen enormous effort to fix perhaps the biggest handbrake on New Zealanders’ opportunity in this country, and that is the bureaucracy called the Resource Management Act that has made it so easy for so many people to say no, leaving a whole lot of people wondering when on earth we are going to start saying yes in this country. Well, I’m proud that we have a Resource Management Act currently before select committee, coming back to this House soon, that will put property rights at the centre of resource management law. That is an ACT Party achievement. It’s probably something I’m prouder of than anything, but it also has got to be put in place with enormous expertise. Having Simon Court and Chris Bishop on the case makes me very confident and very determined to win the election so that they can do the implementation. They’re going to put in place electronic record-keeping in consents—like we’re a modern, civilised country—so you can get your consents faster and be able to develop your own property, which some would call tino rangatiratanga. Who says the ACT Party doesn’t support article 2 of the Treaty?

Then there’s infrastructure, and there are so many projects, but I just want to talk about two. My mum was the chief pharmacist at the Northland District Health Board, and in the school holidays or after school, I sometimes used to go into the hospital pharmacy. That was a wee while ago, and the building wasn’t in great shape back then—

Rima Nakhle: Three years ago.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Fifty years ago?

Rima Nakhle: Three—three.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Three years ago? Oh, you’ll keep. It was a while ago, and the building was not in great shape then. To see Whangārei Hospital built for the people of Northland, and restored, I think is a long-overdue investment. And the Waikato Expressway—whenever I venture down south, past the Bombays, I’m brought to life by the amount of energy in that part of the country, the “golden triangle”, and we have a road that is ready to go, has a benefit-cost ratio—or, as Julie Anne Genter would say, a “bee-cee-arr”—of 3.2 to ensure that we’re getting real economic growth and opportunity in that very fertile part of the country.

We’re also doubling the number of trade training apprentices. Paying wealthy constituents of mine their entire university fees for one year so they could kick the tyres—that was wasteful spending. I don’t know how many people came up to me and said, “My kids don’t need this.” They even said, “I don’t need this.”, the really honest ones. We’re going to finish that and double the number of people in trade training.

I see Cameron Luxton up there. I think it’s important. We haven’t had enough respect for the trades. We’ve sold the cap and gown dream with subsidised university degrees to all and sundry who show up for one, but the quality’s gone down and the trades have been neglected. Some people even get one of these degrees and retrain in the trades anyway. I actually met with the plumbers guild. They said the number one source of recruits for apprentice plumbers is Auckland University of Technology (AUT). I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with AUT, but that’s what they told me. We are slowly rebalancing from this oversold cap and gown dream to a practical reality of trade training.

We’re seeing $1.5 billion on naval capacity. In our party campaign, we said it’s not sustainable to have one ally that spends twice as much and expect them to help us when we won’t help ourselves. We were spending only 0.9 percent of GDP on defence. That’s heading quickly towards 2 percent. With Chris Penk, our defence Minister, a former submariner in his own right, we are seeing an enormous investment in naval capacity, and not just buying conventional stuff but the kind of drones, some of them made in New Zealand, that will define future military conflicts. Anyone who’s watching anything in Ukraine will know all about that.

I’m pleased to see $40 million in uplift for early childhood centres. We’re deregulating, we’re cutting the red tape, but they face cost pressures and they’re getting a 1.5 percent uplift, which, critically, will begin on 1 July. They don’t have to wait until the end of the year, like they normally do under Budgets. That money will start flowing. There will be additional funding for people who are bringing up the youngest New Zealanders. That will start almost immediately.

But the thing I’m perhaps most proud of in this Budget, of the new things that this Government is spending on is the council growth incentives. Brought together again with my good friend Chris Bishop, we have put together this policy that makes a long-term dream a reality. I announced this policy as ACT’s housing policy in 2016, much closer to when I was visiting Whangārei Hospital. We went out and we said, “Look, if we don’t give councils a reason to say yes, then they’ll look at all the reasons to say no.” All the infrastructure costs, the grumpy neighbours, the liabilities—so many reasons to say no to someone building a house. Why don’t we give them a reason to say yes?

Back then, we called it GST sharing. The spirit of that is here. If a council consents a building, then they will get a quarter of a percent of the value of that building. But if they do more than 1 percent of their existing housing stock, it goes up to half a percent. If they do more than 2 percent of their existing housing stock, if they consent that many houses in one year, then they will get 1.25 percent.

What that means in real terms is that if Auckland had done this last year, they would have got $32 million. If you think about the Queenstown Lakes District—one of the fastest growing regions in the country, under massive infrastructure pressure—they would have got $7.5 million. You think about Christchurch, you think about Selwyn—a lot of people flocking to Christchurch. It’s a cool place these days, you know? They’d get about $8 million each of those two adjacent councils. In the context of a council balance sheet, this is serious money.

What’s more, you have people—the mayor and the chief executive of the council—going down to the planning department and saying, “Hey, why don’t you issue a few more consents? We’ll get more money from the Government.” We’ve got to change that political economy. This was something that Brooke van Velden put up in a member’s bill five years ago. The whole Parliament except Labour voted for it and now it’s become a reality, because everyone on this side of the House knows if the next generation’s going to have the security and the affordability of housing, then it’s going to take getting the incentives right.

The ACT Party is the party of sensible economists. By the way, 100 percent of the economists in this Parliament are members of the ACT Party. Same with engineers; we’ve got 100 percent of them too. If it starts with “E”—we’ve got all the Es. I just want to say one other thing about this—

Hon Member: Building practitioners.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: And 100 percent of the licensed building practitioners, yeah. This is being done with no new taxes. In fact, there are even some reductions in taxes. For a long time, the Foreign Investment Fund tax has been a bugbear where people have said, “Look, I want to live in New Zealand, but sometimes I want to invest overseas and I don’t want a stealth wealth tax taking my money—5 percent deemed return that I just have to pay.” Lately, it’s been pretty hard to make that return and so we are introducing the revenue accounting method, not just for people who moved here recently, but for all New Zealanders who are liable for the Foreign Investment Fund tax.

We’re increasing the threshold for paying that tax to $100,000 from $50,000. I hope I’ve got that right, revenue Minister. Yes, I do. Thank you. I write my own speeches, so you can never be too sure. That amounts, on the Foreign Investment Fund, to a $72.5 million tax cut to encourage people to stay in New Zealand and invest, and that, to me, says hope and growth.

That is the choice that we face in this Government and that we face in politics in every country around the world. I said in my maiden statement to this House 12 years ago nearly, if you know the answer to a simple question, you know everything about a person’s politics. There are people who think there is only so much to go around and the point of politics is to take from one person and give to another person who will vote for you. That is zero-sum thinking. If you listen to, say, I don’t know, the Greens, that’s all they ever say, that your problems are caused by someone else’s success and we’re going to take their money to give it to you and you’ll be better off. That’s the only thing they have to say. I see poor Lan Pham, who in fairness is kind of a hostage in the Green Party but sometimes does talk about the environment. She’s honest with herself. She knows that’s all her colleagues ever say.

The other alternative is positive-sum thinking—positive-sum thinking that actually we can trade value for value with each other and get stronger together, that when people save and invest and put something away today, that’s not a bad thing. That’s actually the only way that we’re able to produce more each day, to save a bit more, to consume a bit more, to do things smarter and actually be able to provide the things we need while having the innovation to reduce our impact on the planet. That is positive-sum thinking that the only real resource in the world is human creativity. Human creativity thrives in a free society where we back people, even if they’re a bit different, even if we don’t quite like them. We say, “You’ve got a right to make the most of your time on earth.” You never know when somebody in that position—I see Julie Anne Genter; she’s perplexed. She’s shaking her head. She’s never heard of this before. Well, buckle in, Julie Anne Genter.

This is the way that people discover new things—new medicines, new technology, new sources of energy, new ways to move around the world, new ways to live happier, healthier, wealthier lives. On this side of the House, and particularly in the ACT Party, we stand for that simple idea that the creative powers of a free society are the only true resource that we have. If we unleash them under the rule of law, with respect for the equal dignity of each and every one of us who inhabits this free society, then you just don’t know what we can achieve, but maybe we will show that Kiwis really can fly. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon SHANE JONES (Deputy Leader—NZ First) (16:09): Thank you, Mr Speaker. In about 20 weeks, we will be trotting off around the country and New Zealanders will be making their way to the ballot box, casting, offering their views, and showing who they prefer to run the country. We’ve just heard from the Leader of the Opposition as to why the nation should prefer his menu of rhetoric, his preferences, without that individual offering one concrete idea as to why New Zealanders should move from this side of the House over there.

That is a classic case of him believing vacuous-sounding rhetoric, saveloy sausage—I was about to say pie eating, but I enjoyed the pāua pie the other day—but other gimmicks that, sadly, New Zealanders have begun to see as the distinguishing feature on that side of the House—not one single policy intervention, not one concrete idea, not one justification as to why they condemned New Zealand to the state of penury, fiscally speaking, where we find ourselves. We are not in a position to offer a Budget of glitz, of fiscal profligacy. We are rebuilding the nation. We are rebuilding the economy. If anything, it’s a brick house Budget. The analogy is when you’re rebuilding something brick by brick, you have to start with the foundations.

That is why one of the most handsome features of this Budget—and I have to acknowledge my colleague the Minister for Infrastructure—is the substantial amount of capital that this Government, facing straightened circumstances, has put into capital projects. Just to give a little bit of background, the size of our GDP is $450 billion. Now, sadly, Treasury tells us that we have rather challenging growth trajectories in front of us—sub - 3 percent. I personally would love to see it much higher; 3 percent is at the very bottom range of what New Zealanders expect us to do. However, we are still stuck with the overhang of what we inherited as a consequence of the massive spend-up on that side of the House.

When you do take an approach of rebuilding your economy and starting with the foundations, you need capital projects that are ready to be assembled and ready to be delivered, but for that, you need people who think and who represent the public in the State service and who are capable of delivering. Look no further than what our Government inherited, the Dunedin Hospital, a project driven by the last Government that left us with some very difficult capital project choices. Fortunately, we were able to make them. Fortunately, we were able to find the money as a coalition Government. But, boy, there are some sobering lessons in there! We need to ensure that our civil service is fit for purpose. We need to ensure, going forward, that when we spend 6 percent of GDP on capital projects, which basically means $27 billion—i.e., 50 percent of that is the Crown, the next 25 percent is local government, and the last 25 percent is private sector, including gentailers and other entities that are regulated in terms of their earnings, although you know as well as I do the gentailers aren’t regulated, but, taihoa, there will be more on that during the upcoming election.

So, yes, it is a rebuilding Budget. Of course, it’s not the Budget we thought we would enjoy passing back in 2023. However, when you are confronted by geopolitical challenges and unwanted outbursts of hostilities in the Middle East, and the imposition of uncertainty coming from the United States of America, then it does require skilful navigation. It does require a reordering of priorities, but that requires fiscal stewardship, not these empty promises from that side of the House, not these hackneyed phrases that, somehow, there’s a fiscal tree that you can shape every week, every month, and golden apples will just float around on the ground and that you don’t ever have to take account as to who’s funding them. So, yes, New Zealanders, this may not be the Budget that you hope to see in the context of an election year, but we are rebuilding—coming from a set of challenging circumstances—the foundations of your economy with new hospitals, with new roads, with a revamped military, and with energy.

It’s not our fault that firms up and down New Zealand find themselves marooned as a consequence of the Labour Party closing down the oil and gas industry and refusing to spend any money on finding other sources of energy. That fell with due modesty to the man standing in front of you to find the money, to ignite the investment in oil and gas with the $200 million, to underwrite the new investment in geothermal energy, to underwrite the new frontier developments in terms of nuclear energy, and to underwrite the developments of hydrogen. New Zealanders, these may not be the most sexy things in the middle of an election year, but unless we sink deep the foundation poles of our economy, in the capital sense, we will struggle—we will struggle. Please do not buy into the hollow, empty promises. Sadly, they believe that by saying nothing and keeping a small target either on the forehead or the back, votes will fall like leaves in an autumn storm into their electoral kete. I have more faith in the belief system of the average Kiwi for us as a country to fall into that rubbish.

No better remedy lies in rebuilding your country than investing in young people, rangatahi. That’s why I have to acknowledge my leader, who showed a level of pragmatism and adaptability to change our coalition agreement in consultation with Nicola Willis to steer the money away from universities to get the nephs off the couch—$300 to $400 million dedicated to meeting the costs of more of the young teenagers, school leavers, to prepare them for the jobs associated with building the infrastructure of the country. To all of the critics out there listening to Radio Waatea and listening to Waipareira, hearing that there’s nothing for the whānau in this Budget, that’s where you’ll find your young people knocking on the door, looking for a job, and the only way you’ll develop their skills for a job is to prepare them for the labour market. I personally have nothing against kapa haka, but my haka days are sadly over, but please don’t believe that you’re going to unleash a level of passion, skill, or talent only by focusing on cultural pursuits. Unless we prepare all young New Zealanders and endow them with the human capital capacity, we will not fulfil their ambitions. There will be thousands of young men and women, irrespective of their ethnicity, who will be the beneficiaries of New Zealand First working with the National Party and the ACT Party to transfer the dough that was originally dedicated to, and being enjoyed by, the students at university back into that area where we find people struggling, the blue-collar communities, the communities at the earthy end of our economic equation.

Now, look, I want to talk about the fact that our revenue is forecast to be about $9 billion in terms of growth. I know as well as you do that, up to 2030, it has to grow much quicker than that. But the question is: are we as politicians up for the interventions, the changes, to accelerate the growth in revenue? I can tell you there’s one party over here who wants to ban mining on the Department of Conservation estate. They are never going to be up for the growth of revenue.

Thirty-four, 35, 36 percent of our landscape is under the imaginary title of Department of Conservation land. We have got to agree, within certain guardrails, we can use the resources of this country. We must use the resources of this country, create those jobs that are high paying, attract the New Zealanders who have gone to Australia and other such places, because we can do what our forefathers and their wives and their aunties and their uncles did, and grow rich by using our own resources. Because, without a growth narrative, we will not achieve what we expect our children, and hope that our children will achieve.

It’s important that I move on and talk about another area of uncertainty in New Zealand society. As we have sought to boost the size of our New Zealand population through immigration and we’ve changed the demography of our country, it’s heartening to see nigh on $20 million has now been dedicated to cope with migrant exploitation. To all of the naïve scribblers with their breathless belief that somehow, by boosting—uncritically—our population and remaining blind to the opportunities that are exploited within those communities to do wrong to their own, we cannot remain blind to those practices; they are rampant.

Therefore, the labour inspectors need to be a lot more vigilant, and if it’s good enough for all those cuzzy bros of mine on Tairāwhiti, in the East Coast, to be snapped every month bringing illegal pāua back to shore, I expect to see the illegality rampant in those migrant communities snapped on television, on the radio, in the media, so that sunlight shows it offends what it means to be a New Zealander and to watch that level of exploitation, watch that level of criminality, offending every tenet of our Judeo-Christian background in New Zealand, to satisfy what? A new wave of migration to keep a small cast of employers happy? I can’t wait for the campaign to begin so I can really ramp my rhetoric up about that.

So full marks—full marks—for the migrant exploitation allocation that sits almost as comfortably with New Zealand First as the $50 million for front-line policing. I am that part of the rose tree between these two petals—the two police Ministers on either side of me—and I want to acknowledge their efforts for the $50 million of front-line policing. I won’t continue the analogy.

There are some deluded souls who regard policing as an affront and an attack on indigenous rights. Sadly, members of that political movement are akin to the moa: soon to be extinct. They misrepresent the bulk, mainstream Māori opinion in our New Zealand society. No one should fear the police; however, all should be capable of holding the police to account because they are not only the protectors of the community, safeguard our standards, but they know they operate under the law, and when we rely upon the law, we need to know that the police will be visible. We need to know that a new cadre, a new group of New Zealanders, will be attracted to represent their communities and uphold the standards of what it means to belong to a secure, safe element in our society.

Now, there has been a mad rush to claim authorship for the money associated with the road ambulance service. I know, it’s often said that success has many authors and failure is an orphan. Once or thrice in my career, I have been described as an orphan. However, we should all celebrate the fact that these are front-line service workers. We have managed in the final Budget, over our three-year journey, to address the needs and interests of, and support, our fellow Kiwis delivering those essential services; men and women often overlooked. Indeed, I know there are people in this House, including Minister Watts, who have volunteered their time, actually being members of this distinguished group of New Zealanders. It’s a matter of great pride for my leader and our caucus to have played a small role in contributing to the resilience associated with that group of Kiwis.

I can’t go much further before I finish this speech and remind everyone about the fuel resilience challenges. We most certainly can no longer continue blindly into the future and ever allow ourselves to be held hostage to Hormuz ever again. Sadly, it was Megan Woods, in her fanciful belief that somehow New Zealand under her leadership and that political refugee from electoral justice, otherwise known as Jacinda Arden—that somehow by closing down the refinery, New Zealand would save the planet. We now learnt 720 million litres of storage was destroyed.

I shall be there very soon; I shall be celebrating the arrival of the diesel storage, a recommissioned $100 million tank funded by a $1.2 billion fund negotiated by Winston Peters at the formation of the last Government. The $1.2 billion fund reflected the 2023 coalition Government. There will be another coalition—God willing—agreement, 2026-27. I don’t want to be boastful and talk about what that figure will be; that’s really up to the electorate. But those matters lie in the future. We have put pūtea tea aside; we have put money aside—$150 million - plus to ensure, in the event circumstances do worsen, we are not so flinty, we are not so short-sighted that we won’t allocate the necessary fiscal succour to keep our economy turning over.

Yes, it’s important that we retain an eagle eye over the scale of the size of the State, but this party will never buy into these very shallow, Thatcheristic ideas that we can walk away and completely trust the market. That’s just never ever going to happen in terms of any Government that Winston Peters, myself, and our caucus are blessed to be a part of, which is why we don’t actually believe it was a bad thing to spend money to secure resilience. We look forward in the future forming other governments to protect firms that we’ve done through the $1.2 billion gas resilience fund—i.e., the bank guarantee.

To all the businesses who came to see me, came to see Simeon Brown, came to see other Ministers, and complained that there was no light at the end of the tunnel, I say to you: “We need a dose, at all times, of optimism. We can grow, we can be strong, we have the resources that our forefathers could only dream about.” But what we need is to be unshackled from this risk-averse, woke-riddled, doubt-riddled culture that we have inherited. If we do that, the world will be our oyster. Kia ora tātou. [Applause]

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori) (16:29): Thank you for that, New Zealand First. I didn’t expect applause this afternoon.

All I wanna say is that

They don’t really care about us.

Throughout this term of Parliament, Māori voices have been consistently denied, and today Te Pāti Māori rises to give its contribution in one of the most important debates before November’s election. Here’s the gist of it: overall, Māori got 0.24 percent of the Budget, non-Māori got a $13.4 billion increase, and Māori lost $34 million, and there was a $136 million reduction of Māori development funding—the lowest investment into te iwi Māori in 15 years. It appears that it does matter if you’re black or white.

As Māori voices continue to be silenced inside this House, this Government continues to ignore the voices of struggling whānau outside of it: the voices of whānau at the supermarket checkout, the voices of kaumātua choosing between power and prescriptions, the voices of parents skipping meals so their babies can eat, and the voices of rangatahi packing their bags for Melbourne, Perth, and London because the Government has made it too hard to build a future at home. This Government might want Māori to beat it from the Budget debate, but our people are saying something much clearer: “They don’t really care about us.”, and the Budget proves it.

This Government has lost focus on the real issues facing our people. Instead of fixing the economy, they have been fixated on overseas culture wars, importing division, stirring up fear, and trying to start their own thriller here at home. But there is nothing entertaining about families struggling to survive. There is nothing iconic about poverty. There is nothing smooth about a criminal economy that keeps working whānau struggling. This economy is no longer designed to serve ordinary people.

Te Pāti Māori believes Aotearoa should be run like a marae. On a marae, we welcome you, we house you, we feed you, and we care for you. On a marae, you do not leave people standing out in the cold while a few sit comfortably inside. You do not lock the cupboards while whānau struggle to afford kai. You do not measure the strength of the marae by how much wealth one person has accumulated; you measure it by the collective oranga of the people you have cared for. But this Government’s Budget does the opposite.

This is not a Budget built on manaakitanga. This is not a Budget built on tikanga. It’s a Budget that looks our struggling whānau in the eye and says that it does matter if you are black or white, because the reality is Aotearoa has had two years of the worst economic performance in history.

The cost of living crisis has become a cost of survival crisis. The electricity costs are up more than 20 percent. Rates are up nearly 22 percent. Health costs continue to rise, food prices continue to climb, and behind every statistic is a whānau making impossible choices. Our parents are skipping meals so their tamariki can eat first. Our kaumātua are putting off doctors visits because the power bill comes first. Our aunties and uncles are putting $10 in the car and praying the fuel lasts until next payday.

This Government talks about economic growth, but whānau do not experience the economy through GDP graphs. Whānau experience this economy at Pak ’N Save, at the petrol station, when the rent comes out, and when the power bill arrives. Our people are asking will you be there—will this Government be there for workers? No. Will this Government be there for renters? No. Will this Government be there for kaumātua? No. Will this Government be there for rangatahi? No. Will they be there for Māori? Absolutely not—at 0.24 percent.

Under this Government, Māori unemployment has risen from 6.8 percent to 10.8 percent. That is not accidental. That is not just bad luck. That is political failure, and when our people are asking for help, this Government is telling them to look at the man in the mirror, as if poverty is a personal failure, as if unemployment is a character flaw, and as if homelessness is poor budgeting. But Te Pāti Māori says to look at the system—look at who benefits and look at who pays the price—because this is no longer the story of the haves and the have-nots; this is the story of the have-nots and the have-yachts.

The top 10 percent now own nearly half the wealth in Aotearoa, while the bottom 50 percent share just 6.7 percent between them. The bottom 20 percent now hold negative wealth. Meanwhile, billions remain protected inside family trusts while ordinary whānau are struggling to put kai on the table, and still this Government tells our people that there is no money. No money for housing, no money for health, no money for kai—no money for Māoris. Somehow, there’s always money for landlords, consultants, and tax cuts for the wealthy.

Te Pāti Māori believes in having an economy grounded in manaakitanga and collective wellbeing, but this Government has built an economy where the reward rises to the top, while the burden falls on working whānau. This is not a Budget for workers. This is not a Budget for renters. This is not a Budget for whānau trying to survive, let alone live. This is a Budget that rewards privatisation.

This is a Budget that pits people against each other. This is a Budget that sells off the strategic inheritance of our mokopuna, a Budget that asks our people to keep paying more, while the wealthy keep taking more, and then they wonder why rangatahi are leaving. Our young people are looking around and asking whether Aotearoa still has a place for them. Born here, raised here, educated here, loved here, but now forced to search for their Aotearoa hou somewhere else—Melbourne, Perth, London—not because they want to leave home, but because they no longer believe they can afford to stay. They are leaving because this Government has priced them out of their own future. You cannot build an economy by forcing our next generation offshore. You cannot claim to care about the future while selling the inheritance of our mokopuna today.

Te Pāti Māori believes Aotearoa should be a place our people can afford to call home: a place where everybody has a role, everybody is cared for, and nobody is left outside; a place where the vulnerable are protected, where our kaumātua are honoured and our mokopuna are supported; and a place where every whānau has the right to be housed, fed, cared for, and loved. That is not radical; that is manaakitanga and that is tikanga. That is what every marae already understands.

Why? Tell them that it’s human nature—and the truth is the wealth already exists in this country, but it is simply trapped at the top. That is why Te Pāti Māori will implement a wealth tax. Under our policy, 98 percent of Aotearoa will pay less tax. That means that more stays in the pockets of our working whānau, instead of the ultra-wealthy. A nurse should not pay proportionally more tax than a millionaire hiding wealth in trusts. A cleaner should not have to carry more of the load than someone whose wealth grows while they sleep. A whānau working three jobs should not have to be told to tighten their belt while the wealthy keep changing the rules to protect themselves. Our Te Pāti Māori tax calculator lets whānau see it for themselves. We are saying to check the numbers, look at the impact, and see who benefits under our policy, and while this Government attempts to suppress Māori representation, our people continue to rise.

Since this Government took office, 35,000 Māori have switched to the Māori roll, and 55,000 new voters have joined the Māori roll. Right now, there is an eighth seat waiting there, but only if our people enrol. That is why this election matters. This election is not just about changing our Government; it is about deciding what kind of whare we are building together. Will Aotearoa become a haven for wealth and corporations, or will it remain a home for its people?

This Government wants our people to stay quiet, but Māori are not quiet. Our people are rising, and this year our message is simple: get on the Māori roll, vote in this election, and make this a one-term Government, because when a Government shows us again and again that they don’t really care about us, then we do what our people have always done. We organise, we mobilise, we rise, we vote, and we tell them, once and for all, “Beat it.” Kia ora tātou.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Leader of the House) (16:39): I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to.

Debate interrupted.

Business of the House

Urgency

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Leader of the House) (16:39): I move, That urgency be accorded the first reading of the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill; the introduction and passing through all stages of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill No 3, the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill, and the Gas (Market Transparency) Amendment Bill; the third reading of the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill and the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill; and the remaining stages of the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Amendment Bill and the Patents Amendment Bill.

Today, we are moving urgency for Budget legislation as is done each year. The Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill is being progressed through all stages to give effect to Budget-related tax measures that will enhance economic growth.

The Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill is also being progressed through all stages. This bill will enable the Ministry of Social Development and Employment to administer the welfare system more efficiently and accurately and achieves forecasted savings from Budget 2025.

The Gas (Market Transparency) Bill will progress through all stages to secure New Zealand’s energy future by ensuring Ministers have powers to increase transparency on gas usage and supply.

There are also four bills currently on the Order Paper which the Government intends to pass in this Budget urgency motion. The Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill will have its third reading. This bill needs to be in force by 1 July so that the insurance sector has the current calculations for the end of the year.

The Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill likewise has the third reading scheduled. This is so that the legislation can be in force by 1 July to avoid unnecessary costs on businesses and consumers.

The Financial Service Providers Bill and the Patents Bill are progressing through their remaining stages. The Financial Service Providers Bill will provide guidance and independence of dispute resolution schemes. The Patents Bill will fill a gap in the legislation and is a good-sense, widely supported bill which was agreed to in 2020.

A party vote was called for on the question, That urgency be accorded.

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.

Bills

Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3)

Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill

Gas (Market Transparency) Amendment Bill

Introduction

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh) (16:43): I understand it is the intention of the Government to introduce bills.

CLERK (16:43):

Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill No 3, introduction

Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill, introduction

Gas (Market Transparency) Amendment Bill, introduction.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill is set down for first reading immediately. The remaining bills in the urgency motion are set down for first reading presently.

Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill

First Reading

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (16:43): on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill be now read a first time.

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

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3)

Legislative Statement

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (16:44): I present a legislative statement on the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill No 3.

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

First Reading

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (16:44): I move, That the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3) be now read a first time.

This Government is committed to building a tax system that is not only fair but works for businesses and taxpayers. It should be simpler for businesses and individuals to navigate. It should have lower compliance costs and strengthen the integrity of the tax system.

The first item in the bill introduces a ceiling on donation tax credit entitlements. The charitable sector does a lot for the community, especially in tough economic times. We continue to support the work they do and part of that lies in ensuring that the policy settings are targeted to achieve the most value for money for the Government’s contribution through the donation tax credit. The credit aims to encourage and reinforce charitable giving. However, the Government’s view is that the current open-ended tax credit does not provide value for money. Research shows that the increase in donations as a result of the tax credit is likely to be lower than the cost of the tax credit itself. The bill therefore introduces a maximum entitlement of donations eligible for a donation tax credit to the lower of $100,000 or the donor’s taxable income. The vast majority of donors will not be affected. To be clear, this proposal does not stop people from donating as much as they like. It merely places a cap on the amounts that are eligible to receive a tax credit. This is about giving the donating public confidence in the system and helping to assure the future of charitable giving.

The bill also supports New Zealand’s aviation sector by exempting aircraft leases from the non-resident contractor tax. In the industry and in the airline industry more specifically, operating leases have become more common owing to the global supply constraints and increasing global demand. It is a cost-effective way for New Zealand airline operators to acquire aircraft and aircraft parts, but a non-resident contractor tax is discouraging offshore aircraft suppliers from leasing to New Zealand. This is affecting the competitiveness of our companies. Affordable access to aircraft and parts is essential for economic growth and connectivity. If we lose access to aircraft passengers and freight, New Zealand and our economy will take a hit. That is why this bill makes a sensible change to exempt aircraft operating leases from the non-resident contractor tax. It’s about supporting more economic activity and encouraging more investment in our aviation sector, not discouraging it.

The bill also makes important changes to the rules around shareholder loans. We must always stay alert to the integrity risks in our tax system, especially when people are trying to avoid paying the tax that they should. Last year, Inland Revenue consulted on the growing number of issues of shareholders not repaying loans that they have taken from their own companies. While many loans are used appropriately, others can be used to strip assets from the company or generate other integrity concerns. That is why we are proposing that if a company is removed from the Companies Register, outstanding company loans will become taxable after six months. This strengthens existing rules that tax loans when they are forgiven by providing a clear and certain timing rule, will support tax compliance and improve Inland Revenue’s ability to collect tax. These changes will apply to companies removed from the register after 4 December.

The last set of changes amend and simplify the Working for Families scheme. We want to make it easier people to understand and to be clear on their correct entitlement. The rules for calculating the family scheme income currently are complex, making it difficult for many families to understand and apply correctly. Part of the application process requires people to calculate their family scheme income, which involves deciding whether a range of income adjustments apply to their circumstances. The proposed amendment streamlines these requirements by removing several income adjustments. It is about ensuring Kiwis who need support are getting what they are entitled to.

We are also proposing to simplify the residence requirements for Working for Families. All too often families moving overseas fall into debt because they have struggled to understand the residence requirements for entitlement to Working for Families. Currently, there are different requirements for the principal caregiver and for the dependent child, leading to inconsistent outcomes for families in similar circumstances.

We’ve proposed simplifying the residence requirements by requiring both the principal caregiver and dependent child to ordinarily reside and be physically present in New Zealand. This does not mean that people cannot travel; what it does mean is that families can travel overseas for up to six weeks at a time without affecting their Working for Families eligibility. Those travelling for longer and for specified situations, such as emergencies, will be able to seek an exception in order to continue to be eligible for those payments. This bill will strengthen our tax system. I, therefore, commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (16:50): This Budget and this tax bill are, in some ways, more notable for what they don’t do than for what they do actually do. We’ve already heard around the Budget—there were some interesting measures in it—that, in fact, those at the bottom of the heap are getting nothing from this Budget. In fact, they’re getting more pain. We know that’s coming through in subsequent bills. A whole lot of stuff has been announced, but there are also a whole lot of gaps in this Budget. Actually, it’s the same, in an odd way, with this tax bill.

Now, the Government announced a whole suite of tax measures today. It announced a whole set of changes around charities and not-for-profits, and that is sitting in today’s tax bill. It announced some work on non-resident contractors’ tax exemption for aircraft leasing, and that’s in this tax bill. It announced some work on company loans to shareholders, and that’s in this tax bill. It announced some changes to the Working for Families scheme income, and that is in this tax bill. Then there was a whole lot of material—a whole lot of things—that the Government announced that’s sitting in the Budget announcements around taxation, and that’s now sitting on the excellent website that the policy team at the Inland Revenue have put together. There were to be some changes to the foreign investment fund rules that has been announced, but they’re not in this tax bill. There were some changes to the financial arrangement rules to support migrants, but they’re not in this tax bill either. There was some work on modernising non-resident contractors’ tax—not in this tax bill. There’s some work that’s been announced on the research and development tax incentive—not in this tax bill. There has been something announced around changes to fringe benefit taxes around vehicles—not in this tax bill. And they’ve announced some changes to the thin capitalisation rules for foreign-owned banking groups—also not in this tax bill.

That’s interesting that this Government has announced a whole lot of tax measures, but it’s not announcing consultation on them or anything like that, and it’s not putting them in this tax bill. Why announce those measures on Budget day if it wasn’t going to put them in the Budget legislation? That is, I think, a real gap. In previous years, the Government has put substantial tax measures into the Budget tax bill; this year, well, there’s some stuff in there but not a lot. It suggests that this Government might be starting to run scared of us on committee stages.

Then I do want to talk about some of the issues that are in this bill. Now, at this stage, the four measures that are sitting in this tax bill—the four groups of measures—look fairly sensible. There are some issues around charity donations. I’d just note for the Minister’s benefit, since he didn’t seem to know it at that stage, that tax credits for charities have never been open-ended; they’ve always been limited by an individual donor’s tax-paid income. Nevertheless, there’s some interesting work there. There’s some good work, some sensible work, on the aircraft leases. It’s sensibly removing a barrier around aircraft leasing that’s been creating problems for our airlines. There’s some interesting work on shareholder loans. These have been a way for shareholders, perhaps, avoiding—well, I certainly don’t want to say evading but certainly deferring—taxation to the point that it is not paid at all. We can characterise that with various words. There are some changes to the family scheme income–so changes to the way that the family scheme income is calculated.

At this stage, this party, the Labour Party, will be supporting this bill through the first and second readings, but come the committee stage, there are some questions we do want to ask about all those measures and the impact on taxpayers and the impact on the Government’s fiscals, and some quite technical questions around some of the things which haven’t been done on them. For example, on the shareholder loans, I’m puzzled as to why addressing it has been done via the financial arrangement rules rather than via the dividend rules—that’s a choice but maybe not the best one. At this stage, we are supporting this bill, but we do know that this bill is a bill of gaps.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai) (16:55): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. The Budget, obviously, doesn’t have a lot to console New Zealanders who are struggling with the higher cost of living and the fossil fuel crisis, and staring down rising unemployment over the next few years. We would have liked to see more than what has been announced. There’s certainly much more that we could be doing to help people through these difficult times.

This taxation bill has some interesting and very limited changes to the tax system. Overall, at first reading—and we only received this bill in the last hour or so, so we haven’t had much time to get across all of the detail—it appears that the changes are reasonable and marginally positive. They are a long way from like structurally making a fairer tax system, which we would like to see in the Green Party, but introducing a ceiling on donation tax credits seems very, very reasonable to us.

It was interesting just now—very quickly, trying to skim read the regulatory impact statements, which were only just tabled, so I only had the eight minutes of the previous speakers to look at them—but it did say that “The existing donation tax credit settings result in Crown expenditure of around $350 million per year.”—that is quite a lot—“The empirical evidence is mixed on whether such a tax credit is cost effective in encouraging charitable giving.” Personally, in my family, we participate in charitable giving, but we’d much rather see a lot of the core services that are excellently provided by charities being more directly funded by the Crown and not relying on the whims of those who happen to have enough money. We’re seeing charitable organisations that do really important work, helping people who are homeless—like the City Mission, the Downtown Community Ministry, and Kaibosh in Wellington; there are heaps and heaps of charitable organisations in Rongotai and Wellington that do amazing work. They are all struggling because people are struggling with higher cost of living, unemployment, and reduced investment. That’s precisely the time at which those charities need more Crown funding, and I don’t think we’re going to find that buried in the Budget, but I do think it’s fair enough that we shouldn’t be spending that core money. It would be great if this $350 million—which, maybe, the Crown is going to get back by putting a ceiling on the donation tax credits—was going to charitable organisations and funding them so that they can help the people who are really struggling as a result of the Government’s policies. I doubt that’s going to be a line in the Budget. Again, we only just saw the Budget recently, so we’re still digging through it to understand it.

While we don’t have issues with most of the what’s proposed in this bill—the company loans to shareholders changes make sense, and the Working for Families changes seem, actually, kind of sensible and compassionate, and the aircraft leasing changes make sense—there are some amendments to the Student Loan Scheme Act 2011. It’s unclear what changes are being made just from the summary of the bill, so we’ll have to speak more to that in further debates today. Of course, we would expect, because this is happening under urgency, that there will be plenty of time in the committee of the whole House stage for scrutiny because, of course, this bill is not going to select committee to get the normal scrutiny that it should get in our democratic system.

So that is the Green Party’s position: support at first reading. We expect to have a fulsome debate in the committee of the whole House stage and be able to dig into everything that’s happening. Finally, I’ll just say obviously what’s lacking in this taxation bill are the substantial changes that are needed to create a fairer tax system in New Zealand, which would mean more revenue for productive investment in things that actually make peoples’ lives better, that support them in meaningful work that helps build our country, protect our environment, protect our climate, and electrify it, because all of that is common sense.

TODD STEPHENSON (ACT) (17:00): This is very exciting—my first speech in the budget debate on the budget bills. I want to thank Minister Watts for bringing this bill to the House: the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3), no less. Look, it’s going to be very exciting to work through this bill in all stages. Let’s get these changes in place. The Minister’s already outlined what they are. But alongside this, this really is fixing what matters on this side of the House in Government. There have been some other great announcements around simplifying the fringe benefit tax rules. That is going to help tradies and small businesses across New Zealand—very, very exciting. And for foreign investment funds rules—again, announced alongside this, time and time again we’ve heard about how this is actually holding people back. So the changes of lifting the threshold, which has been announced alongside from $50,000 to $100,000 is excellent. So I want to congratulate the Minister on all of the measures he’s put through in this Budget, and I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Can I just remind members, before the member starts, that this is the taxation bill. It’s not a general budget debate speech. Thank you.

Dr DAVID WILSON (NZ First) (17:01): Yes. And we’ll be talking about tax. Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3) 2026—thank you, Madam Speaker. The Government is looking to operate a predictable revenue system and the current main tax base is personal income tax, company tax, and broad-based taxes already are the main income earners for us. In a situation where we are attempting to return to surplus and rebuild the economy, we’d just like some of the people that are maybe still with us looking at Parliament TV to kind of be aware of what the alternative is here.

So far we have a policy-free zone from across the aisle. The only thing they’ve come up with is a capital gains tax, where they’re going to turn that into—what are they? Hospitals, private—what is it? [Interruption] Anyway, it’s completely incoherent. And then, across this side, we’ve got the approach to killing innovation and taxing success, otherwise known as the “Green envy taxes”. The Taxpayers’ Union, not usually our friends necessarily, but boy they’ve done a good piece of work here.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Point of order, Madam Speaker. Far be it for me to suggest to the Chair, but I think, when we have a Government member waving around documents from another party, we’re far from the bill being debated. You can sit down.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Actually, that’s my call. And before the member stood up, I did remind the House that this is a taxation bill—it’s not a general budget debate opportunity. So please return to the bill.

Dr DAVID WILSON: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I wanted the public to be aware of what they’re up against here. So the alternative has been outlined.

Anyway, thank you. I join with my friend from the ACT Party in approving of getting rid of the fringe benefit tax for tradies. Fantastic little bill and we’ll have more to say on all the other parts of the taxation bill as we go through this process. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Wow. That was close. I had my—

Ryan Hamilton: So much noise. I commend this bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I actually hadn’t called you, Mr Hamilton. I’m sorry, there was a lot of noise going on. So I call Ryan Hamilton.

RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (17:04): Oh, thank you, Madam Chair. Look, this is a great bill. It’s some simple tax hygiene, some incentives for leasing of vehicles, leasing of planes—a huge opportunity. I commend it to the House.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) (17:04): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is my pleasure to take a call—the first of many, I’m sure—on this Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3). Nothing screams budget legislation like kicking off with a piece of tax legislation.

Now, what we do know is the things that this bill is going to do. It’s quite a narrow piece of legislation and, as my colleague Hon Dr Deborah Russell indicated, at this stage, on the surface, these are things that Labour can get behind—the things that are done in this tax bill. But we will also have some questions as we go through these changes, as we go through the various stages of the bill, which is what you would expect.

So what we do know: the outstanding loans from company to a shareholder as taxable income of the shareholder six months after the lending company is removed from the register of the Companies Act 1993. That is not an uncommon situation where you do have companies having outstanding loans to shareholders. And making sure that we’ve got the legislative provisions right in terms of our tax legislation regarding that is something that we do need to cover off.

Charities—and this is introducing a donation limit of $100,000 per annum. As my colleague Deborah Russell pointed out, there has always been a cap, but this is about increasing it for natural purposes claiming a donation tax credit. So the change increases the tax received and the cap reduces the donation tax credits paid out. So one of the things that we really want to interrogate when we get to this part of the committee of the whole House stage is whether or not this might reduce the amount of money that is being donated to charities.

This is a very important question for us on this side of the House, because what we do know with a lot of other measures that are coming in through this Budget that are going to disproportionately make some of the most vulnerable people in our communities even more vulnerable, that never before in our history are our charities going to be called into action. We’ve had a release today that homelessness is at the highest point it has ever been in our history. And the role of charitable organisations when the Government is missing in action has never been more important. So this provision around any changes to the tax treatment of charities is something we will be interrogating with a great deal of scrutiny. Because, if we were to put any kind of handbrake on people donating to charities in the current context that we’re in, New Zealand would be in an even more precarious state. The people who are made even more vulnerable by today’s Budget would be put in an even more precarious state. So that’s something that we will be looking at.

There’s stuff around membership subscription and levies and there’s also about increasing the effective tax-free threshold for smaller non-profits. That’s increasing the effective tax-free threshold for not-for-profits from $1,000 to $10,000. Given that this threshold hasn’t shifted since 1979, there’s probably an argument that it probably is time to have a look at that threshold to see if it does need some movement. Again, this goes that we know for so many of our not-for-profits that are doing good work that this will make a significant difference not only in the amount of tax they pay, but actually in the compliance. So if that threshold is lifted, they won’t have the compliance that goes with needing to pay tax.

But as my colleague did indicate, there are a number of tax changes that were announced in the Budget today that are not included in this tax bill that we have that accompanies the Budget, and we’re interested to know why. So just signalling to the Minister that we are going to have some questions. For example, the changes to the research and development (R & D) tax initiative. Now, I can understand why in-year payments aren’t in this bill, because you can do them already. It’s just reannouncing something that has been the practice for a number of years in terms of making available to innovative companies their R & D tax credit so they can put that back to work in their business. So I can see why the Government isn’t at haste to change the law about that, given it’s already happening.

But I am interested that given that they want mining companies now to be able to claim any of their R & D tax incentives that that’s not in this Budget. So why is that not in this Budget and when is the Government planning to make the changes in order to do that? Because this is the only opportunity we get—[Time expired] Oh. I wanted to go longer. You could’ve given me longer!

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Actually, I was so engrossed I missed the clock myself.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (17:09): This is a good bill. Let’s get it done. I commend it to the House.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti) (17:10): Reo Māori. E te Māngai o te Whare, otirā koutou katoa kei ō koutou kāinga maha, tēnā rawa atu koutou katoa. E tū ana awau ki te kōrero mō te Pāti Reipa i runga i tēnei pire, arā te pire e pā ana ki ngā take tāke.

Māmā rawa atu te kite kāore rawa atu tēnei Kāwanatanga e paku mārama ki te ao tūturu e pā ana ki te iwi Māori, e paku mārama ki te ao tūturu e pā ana ki ngā tāngata puta noa i a Aotearoa.

[I will speak in the Māori language. Madam Speaker, and everyone in your various homes, I greet you all. I stand on behalf of the Labour Party to talk about this bill; that is, the bill relating to tax issues.

It is clear to see that this Government does not comprehend in the slightest the real-world issues relating to Māori, does not comprehend in the slightest the real-world issues relating to all people in New Zealand.]

It’s my pleasure to rise on behalf of the Labour Party to speak on the taxation bill. At a time where we know and we are told each and every day that the number one priority for people across Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and across Aotearoa is the cost of living, and yet, this Government have elected to make their first matter of business, post-Budget, a taxation bill that has very little relevance to what the people, my Electorate and Community Office (ECO) staff, and the staff of many MPs around Aotearoa are getting every day.

While my learned colleagues before me have advised that we are supporting this bill through to committee stage, it must be acknowledged that very few people in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and very few people in Aotearoa are contemplating making donations over the threshold of $100,000. People across Aotearoa are contemplating the 30 extra dollars a week they need to find to keep roofs over their heads. They are contemplating why, at the moment, there are more cuts impacting their families.

Another thing: the Hon Dr Deborah Russell, in referencing the aircraft leases said that it’s sensibly removing some barriers. But once again, no one in my electorate has come to me and said, “I’m having issues about all these aircraft parts that I’m leasing. Can you do something to help me out?” Not one—shock, horror from that side—of my constituents has said, “Hey, Cush, all these aircraft I’m leasing, I need help.”, and yet, this is the first order of business for this Government. How out of touch.

Hon Simon Watts: How did you get here?

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL: Probably on an aircraft you lease—probably on an aircraft you lease. I’ve just been asked how I got here—ha! Yeah, you should catch it home. For the whānau watching, you can’t hear, but the interjections from the opposite side are longer than the speeches they make in their contributions. Again, an indication of the value they put on what matters to constituents around New Zealand.

Cameron Luxton: Yeah, yeah—this is filibustering. Go on.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL: Sorry? You can wait your turn. You’re going to get time—and we’re going to get time to debate this further.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Wait for your 10 seconds.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL: Wait until you get your 10 seconds! So, yes, this is the first point of business.

Working for Families—again, that is actually something that comes up consistently throughout my ECO offices, throughout Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. Between Wainuiōmata and Rangitukia up the East Coast, Working for Families is something that comes up every day. Of course, simplifying that process will actually have a direct impact on families throughout Aotearoa who vote and put us all here. But I must reiterate, at a time when we’ve had cuts to Kāinga Ora; at a time when we have had cuts to Māori-specific education initiatives; at a time when we’ve had cuts to Te Puni Kōkiri; and cuts to services that directly impact Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and communities around Aotearoa, this Government is choosing for their first matter of business, post an underwhelming Budget, to discuss a taxation bill that will have very little real impact on the lives of the majority of Aotearoa.

So while we do support this bill through to committee stage, I must make those points.Tēnā koe.

NANCY LU (National) (17:15): In these days of unprecedented global uncertainty, this bill will join the rest of the bills that this Government will be delivering to fix the basics and build a future for all New Zealanders. I commend the bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): This bill is set down for second reading immediately.

Second Reading

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (17:15): I move, That the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3) be now read a second time.

I’d like to thank the House for considering this very important bill under urgency. One of the reasons for urgency is that the measures contained in this bill will help Kiwi families understand their Working for Families entitlements better and help them avoid debt during these tough economic times. Although the Working for Families amendments would only come into effect from 1 April 2027, Inland Revenue needs to have enacted legislation in place by December in order to ensure the correct system changes and procedural steps are in place to prepare to allow families to begin enjoying the benefits of the change by 1 April next year.

As I outlined in my first reading speech earlier, the detail of these changes will benefit the families who need them most. What matters now is progressing this bill so that the support can reach Kiwi families without any further delay. Kiwis who are feeling the pinch deserve a Parliament that responds with urgency when they need it most.

I would like to acknowledge my Inland Revenue officials for the stellar work they have undertaken during the Budget process, and including my ministerial staff in my office. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (17:17): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Ordinarily, at this time in the progress of a bill through the House, we would have had ample time to discuss the bill at select committee. Now, I absolutely understand that things differ when it comes to the Budget, and, in particular, there can be items in the Budget which need to go through fairly immediately because of the impact on markets, the way it might change people’s behaviour and so on. So, some of the time we absolutely need to be sure that we just keep on moving with a bill. We haven’t had the opportunity, therefore, to discuss a number of these measures. We also haven’t had, I guess, an explanation as to why each of these measures needs to go through under urgency as a Budget measure—and that’s certainly something that we’ll be talking to the Minister about. But it’s not clear that this bill was even needed on Budget night. Maybe the Government felt it ought to have something to legislate for on Budget day otherwise it was just not a very good showing, but it’s not clear to me, for example, as to why any of the measures that are in this bill couldn’t have gone to a select committee for at least some discussion. I think there are possibly some items in the measures that have come before the House that could be tricky.

Just to go through the measures that are sitting in the tax bill in terms of some of the tricky issues, now with the charities, for example, the Government has elected to cap the tax credit for charities—not the credit itself, but the amount for which one can get a tax credit—at $100,000. Now, that’s an interesting move, and as the Minister correctly points out—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Could members down there please keep it down. You’re distracting the speaker.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Thank you. As the Government correctly points out, people are still welcome to give more to a charity; they’re just not going to get the tax credit for it. That’s an interesting way of tackling some of the problems that we’ve seen in recent years around charities, notoriously with the Wright family and the alleged charitable transaction they engaged in with re-setting up the financial structures around the Best Start childcare centres.

Under this particular change, they certainly wouldn’t get a tax credit for what they had done, but that kind of mechanism would not be ruled out by these particular changes. There’s still a little bit of a gap in the charities law there. Now, again, of course, eventually the Wright family was caught, I think, by section GB 1, and so they did end up having to pay the tax, but there was some pretty interesting stuff went on there. This is all on the public record—it’s absolutely on the public record. There are just, sort of, issues that still need to be examined there, and we could perhaps have discussed them at select committee.

In terms of the shareholder loans, there’s a particular mechanism that has been chosen here around how shareholder loans—again, it’s a mechanism whereby shareholders, particularly of very small companies, could make loans to themselves as shareholders or to associated parties and, as I said previously, defer any tax on it in such a way that the tax was never paid.

Hon Simon Watts: Back to the bill, Deborah.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Now, the mechanism—this is in your bill, Minister. The mechanism which they have chosen is to use the financial arrangements rules for these shareholder loans. But, of course, the financial arrangements rules only apply to arrangements over $200,000. Now, perhaps there is something sitting in this legislation that works around that particular rule. It’s something that we could have examined at select committee, and we will certainly want to ask the Minister about it at the committee stage.

In terms of the changes to the family scheme income, given that we have only had access to the bill itself for a couple of hours—it was circulated earlier—and then we have only just now had access to some of the analysis from Inland Revenue, which is generally excellent, about the bill, I don’t know exactly how those family scheme changes will actually work yet. They’re adjustments mostly, in the first, to the residence of a person, so we’re going to judge it by actual residence in New Zealand rather than by tax residency. That looks like a sensible move to me. But in terms of the calculation of family scheme income, that’s important. The more family scheme income a person has, the less they get of the Working for Families tax credits. That’s sensible. The more income one has, the less assistance one might need from the State, so you want those things to change around. But there’s some interesting changes in there around the income equalisation rules and how they are counted for family scheme income—could have talked about that at length at select committee. Again, that’s going to be something—to, I’m sure, the Minister’s great enjoyment—we’re going to dig into at the committee stage for this bill.

There’s lot of work that we still need to go through for this bill, and, alas, I anticipate we’re going to be here for several hours doing that.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Oh yes.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Ha, ha! However, what I do especially want to go back to is, as I said, not so much what is in this bill. The measures that are in this bill, we think, at first reading—or the second reading now—we can sensibly support. They look, on the whole, to be sensible measures and measures that we can support. However, we’ll reserve our final call on that for after we’ve worked through the committee stage.

It is the measures that are not in the bill, or the measures which the Government announced today, said they were great measures, talked about them in their Budget materials, had material up on the Inland Revenue website about it, but those measures have not been included in the tax bill. I’m talking about the measures such as the changes to the FIF—the foreign investment fund—rules. Now, they promised in the analysis that’s on the Inland Revenue website there that they would be looking to extend the recent revenue account method changes to the FIF rules to all FIF taxpayers. It looks like quite a good move. But if we’re going to put these types of measures—which are not time-sensitive, except for maybe the family scheme rules—into the tax bill, why not that measure?

They announced today a set of changes to the fringe benefit tax rules—some particularly interesting changes around how we calculate the use of vehicles for fringe benefit purposes. Now, having spent quite a bit of time teaching my students how to manage those calculations for vehicles, and it was fearfully complicated, the particular set of changes that the Minister has said he’s going to put through look pretty good. So why not have them in this bill now—why not now—along with all the other things that he’s putting through here that could have done with some time in select committee? Now, maybe there’s some consultation—more consultation needs to be done around that—but why not in this bill? It could have been done.

There’s a whole set of measures that have been announced today, which the Government has taken credit for today, which are not in this bill, and, conversely, opposed to that, it’s not clear as to why these particular measures that are in the bill needed to be in here. It’s not clear why the charities measure needed to be in this bill. Why do we need to go into urgency? Why do we need to spend our time here all through Friday and on into Saturday debating this bill when it need not have been done? It could have gone through an ordinary tax process.

Those kind of unexplained absences are, in fact, I think, emblematic of this Budget as a whole—this Budget that doesn’t do anything for the ordinary people of New Zealand; that doesn’t help out the people who are doing it tough at the moment; that, in fact, looking at some of the legislation that’s coming down the track, actually makes things harder for some of the poorest people in New Zealand. My leader today characterised this not even as a “Robin Hood” Budget. It’s a Budget that kind of makes things work by making things worse for the poorest people in the country. That’s shameful. A tax bill of gaps, just like this Budget of gaps.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai) (17:27): Kia orana, Mr Speaker. I rise to take the second call on the debate on this bill—first one in the second reading. This bill is not huge. Ironically, in the first reading speeches, we had Government coalition members who were speaking about tax initiatives announced in the Minister of Finance’s Budget speech that are not contained in this bill at all. In fact, that was the only thing the ACT member referred to and the only thing the New Zealand First member referred to, other than waving around some propaganda from a fake union charity. Then the Government members, basically, didn’t take calls. It’s unclear if any of the Government members, aside from the Minister, know what’s in the bill or—are obviously not going to contribute to the debate around it. It is Budget night. They’ve got a lot of bills they want to ram through. They know that the Opposition is going to try and apply scrutiny, as is our role in a democratic system. The fact that these bills are bypassing the select committee process means they will not be subject to much scrutiny.

So that’s what’s going on, if anyone at home is watching. We’re debating a bill that we only just saw about an hour or two ago. Just for the benefit of Government members, the bill does not contain any changes to fringe benefit tax nor any changes to the foreign investment funds, but it does contain changes to the amount that one can claim as a donation tax credit. It does make changes to Working for Families, and it does make some changes to the student loan scheme, which seem to be pretty inconsequential and related to the Working for Families changes, but we still need a little more time, and we’ll probably dig into that during the committee stages, which will come up after the dinner break. It changes treating outstanding loans from businesses to shareholders as income when the company goes into liquidation, and we feel that is a fair income tax on those people.

Limiting the donation tax credit to $33,333 per financial year will really only affect the wealthiest people. We have seen, and it was in the regulatory impact statement, that there are issues with the donation tax credit being misused for aggressive tax planning, or—what’s the word for it? It’s not tax avoidance; it’s, like, the legal thing you do—tax minimisation? The legal thing super-rich people do when they’re greedy and they don’t want to contribute their fair share to our beautiful nation.

Dan Bidois: Everybody does tax minimisation.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Oh, here we go! Dan Bidois say’s everyone does it—everyone does tax minimisation. That absolutely expresses the values of the people who are currently in Government. They think it’s a good thing to be greedy and to not give forward and contribute to our beautiful country. That’s what they stand for: not paying their fair share. To be honest, I donate a lot to charities, and so does my partner and we never, ever, ever claim the tax credit. Why? Because we actually want to pay tax, because we actually believe that—why would we bother with going through this paperwork to try and save some money when that money is money that can contribute to things that we all buy together?

That is the fundamental difference in the worldview of people in the Green Party and people in the Government parties. They don’t believe in public good—they do not believe in public good, unless it’s a motorway. There’s 100 percent socialism for highways—they’re very happy to throw that on the credit card and make future New Zealanders pay back their insane highway plans, but when it comes to paying our public servants to do important work to help people that is the most important, they’re against it.

Dan Bidois: This is off track.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I think it is all very relevant to my speech. I say to the Government speakers—who are all welcome to take a call and speak about the detail of this bill—I’d love to hear you take a call. Other than Minister Simon Watts, no one is taking a call.

Hon Cameron Brewer: You don’t give this speech in Seatoun.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Seatoun—we’ve got Government members referring to my beautiful electorate, Rongotai. It is wonderful, and there’s a lot of people there who used to vote National. They don’t anymore. A lot of people in Rongotai used to vote National—who won the party vote?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Can I ask members not to conversate across the Chamber, and just a reminder that interjections should be rare.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: And pithy, right, Mr Speaker? Witty?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Rare and pithy—pithy would be helpful.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Apologies, Mr Speaker, I did get sidetracked—that was my fault. I got sidetracked by the interjections and heckling from the Government benches, so I’m going to come back to this bill, which is one that we’re going to support, but we’re going to have to dig into the detail at the committee of the whole House stage because this is not going to a select committee.

Going back to the issue around tax credits for donations: what it says in the regulatory impact statement is that the donation tax credit can be misused for aggressive tax planning, and donors can receive tax credits well in advance of funds being applied to charitable purposes, or derive private benefit, for example, through loans received back from the charity. Inland Revenue has observed an increase in such behaviour, which may be facilitated by New Zealand’s comparatively generous settings. I think that’s interesting. I think IRD has done a good job here, and I commend Minister Watts on bringing some sensible changes to the House on Budget night, which might limit the cost to the Crown.

We want that public money to be going to the genuine, public good purposes. That brings me to the other side of this, which is, as Labour members—I think it was the Hon Megan Woods—mentioned during the first reading speech, that there could be some concern that this will discourage charitable giving, and that charitable giving is needed now more than ever because the Government has been cutting funding to things like food banks and other core, public good purposes that are carried out by charities. I work with many of these charities in my electorate, Rongotai, and Wellington Central, like DCM—that’s the Downtown Community Ministry—who do some of the most important work dealing with people who have it the toughest. They’re people who have mental health issues, trauma, substance abuse issues, who might be homeless, we’re trying to get them off the street, and they’re trying to help them. I went to a beautiful chess day—they have a chess day once a year in Wellington—and played chess, and it was a fantastic opportunity to engage with people who, honestly, are living life in a much more precarious way than I am, and my family. I’m so lucky.

One of the things I would like to see is core Crown funding, from a fair tax system that is raising more revenue from those people who are trying to minimise their tax, and actually investing that in those core services that protect people; that mean that people are fed; that they’re getting the support services they need to deal with trauma—some of that trauma maybe came at the hands of the State in State care—that they are getting the treatment that they need to get off the addictive substances. All of that has to happen in a context where they have both safe, warm, dry, affordable homes—like a home they don’t have to pay for, a Housing First home—and they have access to those social support services.

We love the work that many charities are doing; we don’t want to see charitable status used by the ultra-wealthy to minimise their tax and to avoid contributing to things that are in our public interest and common good. Because those people, they could be any of us. People fall on hard times. Maybe they were born in a situation where their parents had suffered trauma, they suffered trauma, maybe at the hands of the State as a result of colonisation, and they just need some help. That could be any of us—that could be any of us.

The difference is that those members opposite, they like to believe that people in bad circumstances are there because they are bad, and that somehow those people pull themselves up from their own bootstraps thanks to their $200,000 loan from their parents to buy their first home or whatever it is. The world is not fair, but we can make it fair—the world is not fair, but we can make it fair, and this bill is just the tiniest, tiniest little move in the right direction, some little tweaks around the edges from this tax bill. We could be doing so much more on this Budget day, and we will next Budget day.

CAMERON LUXTON (ACT) (17:37): I’m glad to rise and take a call, and I’d like to speak to the virtues of allowing overseas aircraft to be used in New Zealand in a sensible way—especially for the good people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, where they will now be able to get their produce to the world, jobs, they’ll be able to import produce, fish, anything that needs to get out. They’ll get the money for that, they’ll be able to buy stuff in, and I’ll tell you what, the tourists will come in, there will be jobs, there will be improvements, all thanks to this Minister. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Just to note that everybody’s really excited—it’s the Budget—but try not to talk across the Chamber. There are two hallways where you can have a chat.

Dr DAVID WILSON (NZ First) (17:37): I might attempt something that’s maybe a little more dull, but not to everybody. I just want to congratulate my colleague Dr Dan—Dr? OK, you’ve been lifted up, Dan Bidois—for all the work that he did in the Finance and Expenditure Committee in trying to get the new part of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the prudential committee, under way.

In this bill we’re talking about a new prudential levy on banks and other financial institutions that will support the function of this prudential oversight. If we flip across now to think about company loans to shareholders, this is exactly the type of thing, and the outcome of that good work, where we are able to take that Reserve Bank and the prudential committee to look at those things and provide us oversight for them. I welcome the debate on this particular part of the bill for the rest of the night.

I’d also like to just congratulate many involved here, including ourselves You know the old John Maynard Keynes saying that “if the facts change, I change—what do you do? Well, fees-free for tertiary—yep, facts change. We found out really that wasn’t so great. Doubling Trades Academy? That’s right in our lane. Thank you very much.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ (Green) (17:39): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to note how excited the House is about a bill that everyone is actually supporting, technically, and how much argument there has been across this particular bill, even though we’re all actually voting for it. The Greens, as my colleague Julie Anne Genter has already articulated, will be supporting this bill.

I was actually in the Budget lock-up earlier today, at 1 p.m., and it impressed on me the need to actually read what’s happening on this bill and read the Budget really carefully, because I’m hearing speeches from members during the appropriations debate and now during this debate, and they’re seeing all sorts of things that aren’t actually supportable by the evidence. Look, the members opposite like to accuse the Greens of wanting to defund the police and they’ve bragged about how much they’ve increased police funding in this current Budget, but if you actually look in the Estimates of Appropriations, if you actually look at the line (M51) (A28), if you look at the policing services there’s actually been around a $50 million cut to policing. So this coalition is actually defunding the police. It’s richly ironic, and they’re not giving the police the pay rises that they need.

Look, back to this bill, and I really appreciate how my—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Can we keep the chatter down? It’s been difficult to hear the speaker. But just as a reminder, this is the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3), and so it would be good to focus on that.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: Yes, Mr Speaker. I was returning to the bill and I wanted to thank my colleague Cameron Luxton for mentioning the aircraft tax changes. He said that he was going to explain it, but, unfortunately, he didn’t actually explain what the changes meant to the aircraft leasing situation. I’m hoping he will elucidate on that during the committee of the whole House, because it really is unclear to me what the changes are actually doing. Like I have to admit to you, Mr Speaker, I’m not quite sure what dry leasing is. I would love to hear an explanation of what dry leasing is from the member or maybe the Minister during the committee of the whole House stage.

That does bring up another question, and this is a question that’s already been raised by my colleagues and comrades in the Labour Party, which is: why bring this bill under urgency? I mean, it does make some good changes. We don’t dispute that. We appreciate the helpful, minor tinkering it does around the Working for Families scheme. Those are all good, positive changes. But why rush through under urgency when it could have been done through a normal select committee process? It just speaks to the wider trend and the wider thread of this Government, which has really used urgency quite a lot during this term, the most out of any Government, I believe, according to an analysis from Newsroom—

Tamatha Paul: More than the last 40 years combined.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: More than the last 40 years combined, according to my colleague Tamatha Paul.

I wanted to also return to what this bill does and doesn’t do. I’ve already described it as “helpful tinkering”, and I stand by my description of that because helpful tinkering would be fine if we weren’t in the middle of the biggest fossil fuel crisis that we’ve ever had, if we weren’t at the highest level of unemployment we’ve ever had, if we weren’t facing an explosive cost of living situation—helpful tinkering would be welcome. The reality is that helpful tinkering isn’t enough and it doesn’t meet the gravity of the situation. It’s not what New Zealanders actually expect. It’s not something that meets the current moment.

I want to really emphasise the desperation that I see and that me and my colleagues see across the community at the moment. Just a month ago, or maybe it was a couple of months ago, it was really sad but it was also a privilege at the same time to be launching a report on the reality of student poverty today. And in that it showed that student food bank usage in Auckland had quadrupled since 2022, and doubled in Dunedin since 2022. The helpful tinkering that it does do here, including changes to the student loan scheme, isn’t going to help these students. In fact, the wider changes that the Government has made around the Budget to the Fees Free scheme that was articulated by the previous speaker is actively not going to be helpful.

So, yes, even though we do support this helpful tinkering around this bill, we do wish that it was more ambitious. Thank you.

RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (17:44): I’d like to use my time in this second reading 10-minute call, to say that I look forward to deliberating further in committee of the whole House.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) (17:44): Nothing says centrepiece Budget legislation more than the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, Ryan Hamilton, taking a two-second call on the first piece of legislation that has come to the House.

Now, it is hard to believe we’re at legislation piece No. 1. The piece where there should be Government members fizzing with pride about the legislation that they are bringing to the House, to implement a Budget they can get behind. Collectively, besides the Minister, there has been less than two minutes contributed by Government members. That’s how proud they are of the legislation that is coming to this House, they can’t even talk about it; it’s not even something they can muster more than a sentence about.

And this is the centrepiece legislation. This is the first piece of legislation that’s been brought to the House in this Budget that sets the story of what a Government is doing, because Budgets sell a Government’s vision. Buried in those lines, and every one of those spreadsheet line items, is the vision of a Government. What we have here could be best be described as a hodgepodge omnibus bill. This is not a bill that gives any vision; this is something that was quickly thrown together because someone in the Prime Minister’s office panicked and said, “Oh my God, we’ve got no legislation to bring on Budget day. There’s nothing there. There’s nothing that we’re actually doing. Someone, quick, find some legislation.”

What have we got here? We’ve got the bill and it seems to becoming quite a focus of it around the tax exemption for aircraft asset leasing. The dry leases for asset leasing. Now, obviously my colleague Cushla Tangaere-Manuel is going to have many questions on behalf of the people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti because a point she makes very well, there may be that—and Cameron Luxton can claim—so produce can get out of the East Coast. But the problem she highlights is there’s no funding for the roading to get that produce to the airports to get it out of the East Coast.

The question this Government will have to address is why—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Members—members, interjections: rare and infrequent. I don’t want a barrage of commentary from the side of the House. And if you’re going to do an interjection, at least make it funny, mate.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Well, Mr Speaker, I think some of those members should use their pent-up energy and take a call. They should actually get on their legs and say something about the centrepiece legislation that they have such pride in; obviously they want to. The whips should let them off the rein—let them take a call, have a say on this legislation.

We are supporting this, but the question we have for the Government is: why is this taking such a priority? When we look at the material that the Inland Revenue—and the Inland Revenue puts out very good legislation, a lot of very good information with the legislation that it introduces. It tells us that the current settings, “When a New Zealand business leases assets … it typically has to withhold non-resident contractors’ tax if the lease income is taxable in New Zealand.” Now, reading that out took the tone down, I noticed that; it’s a way to soothe the House—read out Inland Revenue advice.

The question is: why is it only applicable in this very narrow set of circumstances. What is the thinking of the Government behind it? What is the vision? What is the story they’re trying to tell New Zealand about what they see for New Zealand?

One of the other changes in this legislation, which we’re picking through the information that has been laid on the Table, is changes to the charitable donation tax policy settings. This is one we do have serious questions about this. As I indicated in my first reading speech, there has never been a time when New Zealanders are relying on charity more. We want to make sure that this is not going to have a dampening effect on people giving to charity. On a day when it has been announced that New Zealand has the highest level of homelessness in its entire history, down to this Government’s policy settings, that we’re not also going to damp down on what they are increasingly relying on, which is charities.

When I look through the regulatory impact statement, and we’ll be going through these in very fine detail, I do see on page 13, paragraph 41, “Owing to Budget convention, no direct public consultation has been undertaken on the problem definition, the proposed options, and the preferred solution.” Not only has the problem definition not been tested, but we haven’t tested the proposed options and we haven’t tested the proposed solutions. The question is: why aren’t these going to select committee, even if it was only for a few days? I would genuinely be interested to have a talk to NGOs, to get the read from a number of charities, about whether or not they perceive this as being a problem. I do not understand why it not going there.

One of the other changes that this law is making is improving taxation of loans made by companies to shareholders. The regulatory impact statement, in diagnosing the policy problem here, has some very interesting information. One of the things that the Inland Revenue data is showing is that, for the income tax year ended 31 March 2024, 119,000 companies were owed nearly $29 billion by shareholders who were natural persons or trustees. This is a staggering amount of debt that is being lent to companies in this way, and there is actually some good information in this regulatory impact statement. I imagine we’ll be hearing from the Minister a lot, when he’s in the chair, what the ill is that this is trying to put right, and make sure we’re not creating loopholes where loans are being used as a form of tax avoidance. When we consider $29 billion of finance going in through that route, it is a problem that we need to turn our mind to. Again, I ask the question: why under urgency? Why is it a piece of the Budget legislation? And why are we not testing something as important as this through a select committee process? This, to me, seems like an important issue that this Parliament should absolutely be turning its mind to, and that we should be doing that and we should be making sure there is robust questioning—that we’re pushing the problem around and considering it, because it is a serious issue.

The other issue that we have been raising through this is that, by convention, when tax changes are announced in a Budget, they’re legislated. Now, there is a number of tax changes that have been announced today that are not being legislated; they’re not in here. We had one the New Zealand First members take a call and talk about the bank levy that’s being introduced. It’s not in this legislation. We don’t have legislation for that, and that is a real question: why is that not there? When is this money expected to come in? Is it because it got caught up in such coalition friction that ACT stopped anything meaningful happening with it? Is this the reason why we’re not seeing legislation? They couldn’t even get it through the Cabinet process in that way?

What is truly puzzling is that you have changes to fringe benefit taxes announced and we’re not seeing those legislated in this omnibus, hodgepodge piece of legislation, which is throwing together the way in which we deal with the taxation of dry leases on aircraft, along with changes to how we calculate when a person is away and whether a volcano is stopping them from getting back to the country! We are also looking at charitable donations. Why wouldn’t you put fringe benefit tax changes in here too? The question we will have for the Minister is: what is the timeline? We don’t know when that legislation is coming. Are people going to change their behaviour? The reason we have the convention of legislating tax changes and their being well signalled is so that there is no retrospective treatment of them and that people can start to get their house in order and start to work within those rules. For the Minister: like, when is it those changes around the vehicle mainly for private use, the vehicle for business use, and there is a number of permeations that go through that. Where’s that going to come through?

As I said, I can understand why the R & D tax incentive, in terms of the cashing out of that, is not being legislated, because you can do it already, but when are they going to extend this to mining, which they announced today? It’s not in this legislation. There is a number of things. There is the non-resident contractors’ tax modernisation, the financial arrangements to support migrants, and the foreign investment fund changes. Now, I know this is something that the Government has had many people asking it to change. These are questions we will be asking as this bill progresses.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (17:55): This bill makes practical and sensible changes to our tax system. To the previous speaker, the Hon Dr Megan Woods, who just sat down: it’s coming; the fringe benefit tax legislation is coming later this year. Watch this space. I commend this bill to the House.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti) (17:55): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare, otirā, tēnā anō tātou katoa.

Kei te tūmeke tonu awau ki tēnei āhuatanga. Ko tēnei te kaupapa mahi tuatahi o tēnei Kāwanatanga i muri i tō rātou pūtea i tēnei tau. Ahakoa ngā taumahatanga o ngā tāngata, ngā whānau puta noa i a Aotearoa, ka tīmata rātou i tēnei pūtea i roto i ēnei āhuatanga, arā, ngā kaupapa tāke.

Ahakoa kāore te nuinga o ngā tāngata o Aotearoa e paku aro ki ēnei āhuatanga, kei te aro nui rātou ki ō rātou ake pūtea, ki ō rātou ake kāinga, ki ō ratou ake hauora, ki ō rātou ake mātauranga, ki ō rātou ake tamariki, mokopuna, kuia, koroua hoki. Heoi anō rā, i tēnei wā, ka huri au ki te reo tuarua.

[I am still shocked at this circumstance. This is the first task of this Government after their Budget this year. Despite the hardship of the people, of families throughout New Zealand, they start with this Budget and this issue—tax issues.

Even though the majority of New Zealanders pay heed to this issue, they are focussing largely on their own budgets, homes, health, education, children, grandchildren, and the elderly. However, at this time, I will change to the second language.]

Once again, I reiterate that I am shocked that this is the first matter of business for this Government while whānau across Aotearoa are struggling. Heoi anō, I want to revisit the removal of barriers for aviation companies.

As I said, we do support this bill to the committee stage, and those of us who live in the regions, and there are many of us across the House, naturally, want to remove any barriers that can fly people to regions across Aotearoa—for me, the airport being beautiful Tūranga-nui-a-Kiwa Gisborne. Gisborne takes us to some of the most beautiful parts of Aotearoa, as we all have in each of our respective centres of the universe.

Do you know where else Gisborne takes us, Mr Speaker? State Highway 35—State Highway 35 that was not mentioned in today’s Budget. We talked about resilience. We talked about connectivity. The member opposite wants to talk about all the amazing produce getting out of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. Well, how about thinking about all of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, not just the ones you know? Think about the ones you visited recently who are cut off and remain vulnerable every day, not just so they continue to contribute to this economy, which we know is thriving—the Māori economy is thriving. Think about that before you go around purporting to understand Ikaroa-Rāwhiti in its fulness. That’s a positive: removing that barrier from the aviation sector.

Another thing that I’d like to talk about is the Working for Families aspect of this bill—for those who don’t know, an amazing initiative introduced by the Labour Government under Helen Clark. At the time it was introduced, for my own sister, this represented a really good opportunity for her, being the sole breadwinner and wanting to transition back to work. This meant she could. As I said, many whānau throughout Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and throughout Aotearoa utilised this as a way to stay in work, get back into work, and advance their careers while still supporting their families. While we support the increase of the minimum payments you can earn outside your benefit, the reality is, if you’re looking at this bill and the overall impact it’s going to have on the quality of life of people throughout Aotearoa—who are still, with this increase of $3,000 a year, going to be struggling to afford the very basics.

We know of people around Aotearoa who actually enter into this scheme with the best intentions. They go in thinking they’re doing the right thing. Next minute, they find out they’ve overpaid, and then they’ve got to repay a debt. One of the things we must make sure, when implementing these changes in any parts of our system that are designed to support families, is that whānau understand the process and are supported to navigate it so that they meet all the criteria and are not having to pay back money in the aftermath.

My closing remarks for this contribution to this bill are that, in a time when whānau are facing more cuts, more pain, and more costs, this Government is prioritising this hodgepodge bill that is going to have very little relevance to everyday Aotearoa. Tēnā koe e te Māngai.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30 p.m.

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

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Good evening, members. I hope you all dined well. We are now on the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3). We have a split call of five minutes—Nancy Lu.

NANCY LU (National) (19:30): I cannot wait until we get to the committee stage so we can debate this bill. I commend the bill to the House.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (19:30): Thank you. I have the community and voluntary portfolio, so I’m going to devote my speech to that particular section of this bill. I want to remind the House that last year, Nicola Willis talked about changing the charity sector in a way that was quite concerning to that sector. It involved taxing the entities that supported those charities—the commercial entities attached—and all that money went back into our charitable sector. So it was our op shops and it was the kinds of things that support that sector to do the amazing work they do when, often, the Government’s fallen down on doing it.

Now, that went through a process of great alarm in the sector, and I met with a lot of the sector at that time. We were very pleased to see the Government back away from doing that, at that time. But it meant that I met with some incredible people working in that sector who really did understand it and were brave about it, and advocated. And for their troubles, tonight they get changes to their sector with no consultation whatsoever, and I have received feedback. Now, the reality is that because we are in urgency after the debate, we are avoiding most of the information that I need to do my job to look after that sector which is so important—to go and talk to the people who know this area like the back of their hands, who know what will work and what won’t.

A week ago, maybe two weeks ago, I was on a political panel in this area. Everyone stood up at that panel—ACT, National, and New Zealand First—and stood there and told us that they believed in this sector. They were there for them. And they did not mention any such changes in the rules for that sector. Now, because I have not had a chance to ask for the comments of the people who have sent me emails, I am not going to say which groups have come to me with their comments. But I can read you the headline from the email I received this evening, and it was from an incredibly reputable charitable sector source. It reads, “This is incredibly disappointing.” That’s what they think about the changes tonight.

There is a group of comments from various people—they are all people who I know and who do fantastic things for New Zealanders. They all talk about the lack of consultation on this issue, and they talk about particularly the issue over capping the amount, but they’re talking about it as doing some real damage. They’re concerned about it backfiring because there will not be the gifting that there should be in the situation. That is something I’d like to explore.

It may be that, in fact, it’s a robust discussion and we end up in a different place, but we’re not having that discussion tonight. We know Nicola Willis last year proposed changes to the sector that turned out to be against any kind of logic and good reason. And what has she learnt from it? Rush them through as fast as you can. Don’t talk to the people that really matter. Don’t talk to those people about what the actual effect will be.

Now, when I was at the political panel a few weeks ago, it was really evident that the difference between my position and that of some of my colleagues on the other side of the House, those in Government, was that I was putting up a proposal for a philanthropy strategy. We have a situation right now where we have a whole lot of people reaching the age where, in their wills, we need to make sure that they leave money to philanthropy, but we also need an ecosystem for philanthropy. It’s going to be incredibly important. It always has been, but it’s a particularly important time, and it’s really important we have a strategy, but we don’t have one. Nothing’s been announced in this Budget that’s a strategy. What we have is a couple of piecemeal takebacks in this particular piece of legislation. And what concerns me is this is absolutely, literally looking the gift horse in the mouth—these are the people who gift to our causes. These are the things that glue New Zealand together, and we’re ignoring it? We’re not having a philanthropy strategy? That just seems to me crazy.

Now, I want to just talk about the regulatory impact statement (RIS) on this, which concerns me. The regulatory impact statement makes the same sort of point. It’s not just the people at the end of my email who are making these comments. They are very clear in this RIS that one of the problems with it is that, owing to Budget conventions, public consultation on this proposal has not been undertaken. And then they talk in the RIS about the possible limitations on their judgment. This is of real concern to me because they say that some of the effects and impacts described may have been understated or overstated. For example, “we have limited information to access whether a reduction in taxpayer entitlements would produce a behaviour response in the following areas”—and then they actually list four areas, and the last one of them is the extent to which the donation tax credit supports giving behaviours by households. They say that it’s suggested it won’t necessarily get passed on. It also says that whether households withdraw or refrain from contributing financial resources to the community and voluntary sector is something that they’re concerned about.

I wonder: why are we here, in urgency, on a bill of this kind, rushing through a change when we don’t know what impact it’s going to have on our sector, which is so critical in New Zealand? I can’t for the life of me think that it is important to do this tonight unless there is some nefarious reason that we don’t want to hear the sector on this, because that’s how we make good law in this country, and we should be proud of it.

I expect urgent legislation on Budget day, but I don’t expect it to be misused to bring about change that is half-baked, that has not been thought through. Why would we do that to a sector that we rely on and that produces so much good for this country and has so much potential in it? Why would we do it, other than to hide from the reality that we don’t have any supportive relationship with that sector, that we’re not really willing to talk about how much that sector produces, and to build a plan with them that works better?

So I see this as a very concerning part of this particular bill. I am extremely concerned when that is the first response I get from the sector to the bill. These are good people. They know what they’re doing. Why wouldn’t we, at the first thing, be talking to them?

Now, in a few minutes, we will go through this piece of legislation, and we will end up, in this short evening, in committee stage. I’d also like to know why it is that the Government thinks that I can do my job properly in this kind of framework, on something as important as this. Why wouldn’t we put this into a process where we hear from these people? I just don’t get it, and I will be asking the Minister—but I bet I don’t get a good answer—why wouldn’t we want to build a situation of trust with this sector? Why wouldn’t we want to know if we were getting it horribly wrong?

Why wouldn’t we want to know if we were getting it horribly wrong? So I want to just return to this RIS one more time and talk about the issue about the wider concern about the plan. One of the things that the RIS talks about is that there are other options. There are other options, it says, including multiple rates, removing certain charitable purposes, or introducing a United Kingdom - style gifting aid scheme.

These were considered but not progressed due to complexity or fiscal timing constraints. Fiscal timing constraints? We’re not looking at our system as a whole, looking at the UK gifting system, deciding these things? I’m not saying we need to land there. I’m not saying the Government needs to land there, because it’s a job. It’s negligent not to look at those things before it makes these decisions because those plans—I’ve been to the UK. I’ve seen that work. It needs a decent plan, this area. Thank you.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) (19:40): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. This is a great piece of legislation. I commend it to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): I call Rachel Brooking. This is a Te Pāti Māori call—five minutes.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin) (19:40): Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Let no call go to waste.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: That’s right. We were on our feet there to talk about what my colleague the Hon Dr Megan Woods has called the hodgepodge omnibus—I nearly said ominous. Is it ominous? I don’t know; the Budget certainly is. I’m not sure about this.

It is interesting that, as Megan Woods said in her second reading speech, this is the centrepiece legislation for this Government’s Budget, and it does not seem to cover that many things.

Steve Abel: Has it got the environment in there?

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh, has it got the environment in it? No hint of the environment in it, Steve Abel. In fact, we’re not sure why any of it is urgent.

We’ve heard a couple of things already. We know that there’s this $100,000 maximum donation that you can give to get the tax benefit back and that’s 33 percent, so $33,000. We’re not sure exactly why this is in here, and I’m sure we’ll have lots of questions to the Minister about this, and what thought has gone into—well, what if to get around this, you are a husband and a wife or a wife and a wife or whatever arrangements you have and you both then give $100,000? And we’ve also, of course, heard the question, “Is this going to act as a disincentive for people to donate to charities?”, when we know that charities are crying out for donations. Because what happens in this Budget and the last Budget is that services are getting cut—cut, cut, cut.

We know and we keep hearing about the very real need for things like food banks and that they are becoming much more integral parts of our society, and that you have working people using those food banks. That is one line of questioning that, obviously, previous speakers have mentioned and that we will progress.

Another much talked about thing, even in some very tiny, short speeches from the Government side, is this dry lease for the leasing for aeroplanes. This is an interesting thing that maybe not all of us have spent a great deal of time thinking about—dry leases for aeroplanes and parts of aeroplanes, and this is when they are owned by someone who’s offshore. I imagine a company that owns aeroplanes is going to be quite a big company and then New Zealand companies want to loan bits of those aeroplanes or entire aeroplanes, and so there’s a tax exemption for those foreign owners of the aeroplanes—is my understanding. But, of course, the Minister will tell us much more in the next stage of this bill. I am sure about that.

Interestingly, this is retrospective. If you look at clause 2(2)(b), it relates to the aircraft. So that comes into force on 1 April 2026. And for those of you who have not observed, we are in May 2026. We’re almost in June, in fact, of 2026. So it would be interesting to know why that needs to be retrospective. Then we go on and we see that there are changes for a shareholder on an outstanding loan with a company six months after the company is removed from the Companies Register. I have some questions there. Is that just a simple tidy-up? What’s going on with this? And then there are simplifications and changes to Working for Families.

Again, if you look at the bill, at all these bits, they refer to lots of other pieces of legislation. So it’s hard to read on the face of it. So, of course, we’ll have questions to the Minister about that. Are they just really simple tidy-ups or are they something more substantive?

But my question is: is why are we here in urgency for things that clearly are not urgent? If this is all about this Government’s final Budget, I want to ask them: how does this bill make life better for the people of New Zealand? How does this bill improve the productivity of New Zealand? I don’t think it does at all, and there is no reason for us to be here in urgency tonight.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): This bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill No 3.

Committee of the whole House

Part 1 Amendments to Income Tax Act 2007

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members, the House is in committee on the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill No 3. We start with Part 1. Part 1 is the debate on clauses 3 to 23, “Amendments to Income Tax Act 2007”. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (19:47): Thank you, Madam Chair. I know that both myself and the Hon Dr Deborah Russell have a number of questions on this bill, and I’m just signalling to you, Madam Chair, that we do intend to take this bill clause by clause, even though there are some broader themes around this bill.

I want to start with clause 4, because clause 4 is a specific one around non-residents providing the use of aircraft in New Zealand. Now, I want to check with the Minister of Revenue: my understanding is one of the incentives when it comes to this particular clause is around the fact that there’s a concern around the lessor of aircrafts or parts of the aircraft passing some of the taxation cost on to New Zealand businesses as lessee of this. This is particularly in light of some of the changes regarding the fact that in the airline industry, operating leases are becoming more common. But I want to check that. Not including this particular section, my first question to the Minister is: has the Minister actually considered any other alternatives around this particular part, rather than providing an exempt income for the lessor? Surely there will be other ways to achieve the same outcome without giving a tax exemption because of the fact that they are passing a cost on to New Zealand businesses. I think I’ll start with that question. I know that the Hon Dr Deborah Russell actually has other ones.

I just mention that I do have an amendment on this particular clause. It will be a shock to the committee to know that I have an amendment. I would be interested in engaging with the Minister on my amendment, but I think that as a starting point I would ask the Minister if any other consideration has been taken when it comes to that non-resident contractor’s tax in relation to this particular clause.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (19:49): I too am interested in clause 4, and, as I’m sure the Minister has become used to, we do want to go clause by clause through this bill, especially given that it’s our only opportunity to discuss some of the measures in it.

Clause 4 modifies section CW 56B so that it says, “An amount of income derived by a non-resident from providing the use of, or right to use, in New Zealand, an aircraft or parts of an aircraft under a dry lease is exempt income.” That term “dry lease” is now, I think a new definition that’s added somewhere in the bill. Let me just check. Yes, it’s certainly in clause 22, which has the section Y definitions. It just sort of begs the question: why is this income being made exempt altogether?

We have an overseas entity that is deriving income from New Zealand. Ordinarily, in the tax law, income that is earned by a tax resident of New Zealand is subject to taxation, and income that is earned from New Zealand, by assets or investments or whatever that are in New Zealand, even if it’s earned by someone who lives overseas. Those are subject to taxation as well. That’s the ordinary way the tax law works, and giving some type of entity an exemption from that tax is actually quite a significant tax concession. They’re saying that there’s something so important about this type of activity that it should be exempt from income tax in New Zealand altogether. We’ve got to remember there is money going out of New Zealand—people in New Zealand hiring these aircraft, sending the money, the revenue, out of New Zealand—and the New Zealand Government, the tax take, doesn’t get any part of that whatsoever.

That would be my question for the Minister. Why make this income totally tax exempt? It is a very significant concession, and there needs to be a very good policy justification for it.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (19:51): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. This is actually a very short bill, 13 pages—most tax bills are quite long—so we’ll cover them off. Clause 4—a question raised by two members. A range of options were considered. The Inland Revenue Department recommended an exemption over other options because it was simpler and quicker, and on that basis that’s why we’ve landed on that option.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (19:52): Mr Chair, thank you. With respect, Minister, that’s kind of not an answer. It says that the Inland Revenue Department said this would be simple and quick. Well, I agree it is going to be simple and quick to put an exemption in place, but there are lots of things that can be simple and quick. That still doesn’t give me the policy justification for why this type of income should be exempt from tax. I really want to focus in on that: why this type of income? Sure, it’s quick and short and easy, but why is this income being exempt from tax?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) (19:52): Thank you, Mr Chair. While the Minister of Revenue gets advice on that, I do have some further questions around clause 4. I think this is probably something that, by taking a substantial call, the Minister can clear up the questions in relation to clause 4.

Now, in the very good bill commentary that Inland Revenue has put together around this, it makes the case really clearly. The amendments are intended to reduce the costs of accessing aircraft and parts in New Zealand. It talks about how the non-resident contractors’ tax (NRCT) does not function as intended in relation to aircraft leases, and we’ve heard a lot about that in this House, but one of the things I’m interested in, in terms of the problem definition, in terms of forming this policy, is how this came about. Was it from a broader look at the operation of NRCT in New Zealand and it came up that aircraft were a particular subcategory of that?

My reason for asking that is, really, to understand whether there are any other categories of assets that have been brought to the Minister’s attention, when they’ve been doing the policy work to bring this amendment, that potentially could qualify, using similar arguments. We know this is very much around the dry leases, so it’s not covering the fuel. It’s the operations, and there are questions still on the table—and, I think, very important questions—about any tax. But, really, is this something that has the potential to have creep into other asset areas, so that we can understand what that might look like? Understanding the policy process that the Minister followed would be useful for the committee.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (19:54): In regards to clause 4, it would be fair to say that, in regards to the policy problem, there is a range of compliance costs and complexities that come with the broader non-resident contractors’ tax scheme. In particular, for this item that has been put in this legislation, we did consider a number of options, including not making the income fully exempt. However, as I have noted, because of the compliance costs and the ability to fully remove those, that’s why we decided that the exemption was the most appropriate aspect. We also took into consideration different treatments that result from the application of double-tax agreements.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (19:55): Thank you, Mr Chair. I do appreciate the Minister of Revenue’s response, because I think, like the previous speaker, the Hon Dr Megan Woods, said, while the commentary for this is helpful, unlike some of the other parts of this bill, there isn’t actually a regulatory impact statement, which means that the responses in terms of the options that the Inland Revenue Department has considered is really, really important in order for us to get a clear understanding of how this came about. Again, it seems a little bit odd for this particular part to be included as part of a Budget bill and as part of Budget urgency.

I want to pick up on something that the Minister has said, just right at the end, in terms of some of the considerations when it comes to double-tax agreements. One of the things we do see, when we are looking at the airline industry, is that the operating leases are becoming more common but lessors of aircraft are often resident in countries ineligible for relief from non-resident contractors’ tax (NRCT) under a double-tax agreement. My understanding with this particular clause is that the exempted income is for everyone, as opposed to limiting it to those countries where the lessor is unable to get relief from NRCT under double-tax agreement. What about ones from countries that are able to get relief from NRCT under a double-tax agreement? Are they not exempted from tax, or does everyone get a blanket tax exemption, in which case what would it mean, then, for the lessors of countries who are eligible to get relief from NRCT under a double-tax agreement?

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (19:57): I note my colleague Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s questions on clause 4. I only have one related question remaining on clause 4, and then I am going to move on to the next clause that I am concerned about. That is, was the Minister of Revenue lobbied by any airlines for this change, and were there hard copies of any of the documents that have been handed over by policy advisers to the Minister—

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Or any other Minister.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: To his or any other Minister’s office? That’s a question we’d be quite interested in in this House this week.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Good question.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: I think it’s an excellent question, Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan.

I want to move on to clause 5. This is actually one of the more interesting sets of concerns in this, as the Minister knows, small tax bill, but there are some big issues in it. This is clause 5 and a very, very small part of clause 22, which is the definitions section, I’m not too concerned about—clause 22? Yep, that amends section Y, which is the definitions section of the Income Tax Act.

Clause 5 is going to take a wee bit of working through. What this clause does is deal with what is a known problem in New Zealand, and that is the problem of small companies, in particular, making loans to directors, shareholders, and associated persons of directors and shareholders, and those loans never being collected. Sometimes, when the company is wound up, they are absolutely never collected, so it becomes a way of initially deferring tax and then, ultimately, forgoing tax. I’m not sure what the opposite of “forgoing” is, but forgoing tax altogether. I don’t want to use nasty words in this case, but it’s a pretty cunning use of the tax system.

Ordinarily, what that represents is the loan is a transfer of value from the company to the shareholder, the director, or the associate of those people, and ordinarily that kind of transfer of value would be treated as a dividend, particularly if you’re shareholders, and subject to taxation in the hands of shareholders.

If we’re going to try to crack down on this practice—I agree it is something that needs to be cracked down on—we do need to find some way of making those loans subject to taxation, because, effectively, they are income or a transfer of value going from the company to the shareholder, director, or whatever. In principle, we are good with this measure. We think it needs to be taken.

I’ve gone through, at a broad level, the mischief that this clause is solving, but what I want to understand from the Minister is just the level, the amount, of money that is involved in this and the amount of revenue, of tax, the Government expects to collect by correcting this problem. That’s a very straightforward question to start off with as we examine this clause: just how much revenue does the Government expect that it will get in because of this measure?

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (20:00): Thank you, Mr Chair. Just in terms of waiting for a response from the Minister of Revenue with my previous question around clause 4, I have one final question on clause 4 and I’ll move on to clause 5 as well. I think the final part is that I mentioned to the Minister previously whether the Minister would consider my amendment, which, essentially, says that any amount of income that is payable derived from a non-resident from providing the use of or right to use a New Zealand aircraft or parts of an aircraft under a dry lease must not pass any tax on to businesses in New Zealand, which I think would address the main policy issue over here.

The concern I have with this particular clause is that rather than addressing the policy issue of overseas airlines, etc., passing cost on to New Zealand businesses, we then simply pander to overseas airlines by saying, “Well, why don’t we just avoid you passing the costs on to New Zealand by just making you exempt from tax?”. It’s, I think, a similar argument that sometimes we see when it comes to GST, etc., where there’s always a way, for example, for the lessor—particularly when you’re looking at a market-driven industry, at this stage—to increase the cost and pass that cost on to New Zealand businesses regardless. I just don’t know if making the dry lease an exempted income will actually ensure that either the price is reduced or it’s not going to be increased. Again, it comes down to being market-driven, as what it says in the commentary.

Now, moving on to clause 5, the first question I have—I know that the Hon Dr Deborah Russell has a lot of questions around corporate tax, and I always learn a lot through her in a lot of these tax debates as a result, as well as the Minister, who, really, in the past has been incredibly helpful and informative in terms of our questions. I want to just focus on some of the details later, but one of the first questions is on clause 5(3), which “applies in relation to a company removed from the register of companies on or after 4 December 2025.” Again, this is one part of the clause, unlike some other parts of the bill, that doesn’t have a regulatory impact statement, but the commentary doesn’t seem to address, as far as I can see, why that particular date is selected, so if the Minister wouldn’t mind enlightening the committee on why 4 December 2025.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (20:03): In regards to the question on clause 4 on double tax agreements, in effect, what we’re doing here is fixing an inconsistency between countries that have a double tax agreement with New Zealand and those countries that do not. As a result of this change, there will be no inconsistency between those two situations. There is a significant degree of compliance cost that results as a result of these types of transactions, and by exempting the income, it removes the compliance costs and the process. As you can imagine, an offshore lessee from any other part of the world having to engage and deal with the New Zealand tax system—in which they’re actually going to get that credit back in some way, but the process and the compliance cost just outweighs the benefit in that regard.

The question from Dr Deborah Russell on clause 5 in regards to the money involved—$146 million over the forecast period. Those are the two questions.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin) (20:04): Thank you. Covering both that answer to clause 4 and a brief question about clause 5—the Minister of Revenue has just said there in his response that the reason to not require these foreign companies that own aeroplanes to pay tax is because already some of those countries don’t pay the tax. He’s shaking his head. If he could explain what the difference is between the countries that he just referred to and if there’s been any analysis of how much tax will be lost because of this change, or if it is—I know he keeps talking about the complexities of it, but we just want to know what is at stake here, which I think is a reasonable question.

Reminding him, of course, that Deborah Russell also asked who has asked for this change, and has it been proposed by those foreign companies or has it been requested by domestic users of aeroplanes in New Zealand? Those are my questions on clause 4.

On clause 5, I just have a very simple, high-level question, and it is: is the policy intent here simply to have a date, have a trigger date, and that is all that’s happening to make this issue cleaner? If so, noting my Green colleague’s question about that date, 4 December 2025, I note that that’s when some discussion document was proposed—if there has been any analysis about how many people responded to that discussion document, if they expected the date to be 4 December 2025 because of that discussion document, and whether that timing makes any particular difference if it was retrospective to 2025 or if it was, say, April 2027, like most of the rest of the bill?

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (20:07): I’m happy to answer that, and Lawrence Xu-Nan asked a similar question. The 4 December 2025 application date is the date on which the consultation paper was released, and, therefore, in effect, by applying that date, it mitigates any structuring opportunities or people looking to make changes to take advantage of the fact that as of that date, it was made public. That’s why that date has been selected.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (20:07): Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you, Minister. That’s very sensible. I think that’s a really sensible reason for a date, then. I know that my colleagues have a lot of questions on this clause as well. I just want to focus on one other question at this stage, and this is to do with clause 5(1). This is the new subsection (9B). I want to just focus on the six-month period. Again, in some ways, what is the rationale for having six months there? Were there any other periods? Although it mentions six months in the commentary on page 11—“The period of six months allows for reinstatement of a company that is inadvertently removed from the register.”—what it doesn’t tell us is: is that a common period of time that’s already in existence? Is that standard practice for IRD, to wait six months just in case something was removed inadvertently?

Then, furthermore from that, what then happens—if the company was restored during that period, does that mean that this clause doesn’t apply anymore? Then what happens if a company is reinstated or—if the company is registered to have continued after that six-month period, is there a calculation where that whole year is then considered to be de-registered, or is it only going to be the period from the six-month cut-off date to when the company is reinstated? Those two questions, if the Minister of Revenue wouldn’t mind explaining.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) (20:09): Thank you, Mr Chair. My question to the Minister of Revenue is also on clause 5. I think that we signalled in our first and second reading questions that we can see that this is something we have to make sure that we have robust law around. We had $29 billion worth of loans to 119,000 companies for the income year ended the 31 March 2024. So we are talking about a very substantial figure here, so making sure that this is a robust regime is critically important.

My questions, going through the regulatory impact statement, are around the options that were considered. A number of options were considered—six, in fact—and they were measured against the criteria of efficiency, equity, minimising complexity and compliance costs, and integrity, as well as the overall assessment. As with any of these matrix that are put together in terms of measuring against various criteria, we can see that different options have different strengths. The option that the Government has decided to proceed with in this legislation is option five, which is tax shareholders on outstanding loans six months after the company is removed from the register. We can see that it did not score well for minimising complexity or compliance costs; on fact, it scored as being worse than the status quo in terms of that criteria.

There were other options that scored better on that score. So there was the status quo, but then there was also option six, which was improving record-keeping, which was one option that was put through, which also scored well on equity, scored well on integrity, and scored well in terms of the overall assessment. I’d like to hear from the Minister, given we don’t have a chance to really get into this at a select committee, some of the thought processes that he and his officials went through on landing on that option out of six, and what it was that made that option the one that they went with.

The other thing that I’m really interested in—and this would be something, again, that we would have asked through a select committee process—is whether or not this change brings the loan under financial arrangement rules, and whether that is the case. Does that mean then that loans under $200,000—which is the threshold financial arrangement—are not going to be affected? I genuinely can’t tell from the documentation that we’ve been given whether that is either the intent or the impact of the changes we’re seeing here in terms of bringing them under those broader tax definitions. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (20:12): A couple of questions following up on a couple of things that both Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, I think, has said and—I’m not quite sure who said it, actually. We were just discussing the discussion documents that went out, and the Minister of Revenue explained that that 4 December start date 2025 was related to the fact that once the discussion document is out there, the possibility of tax structuring is out there. I thought that’s a polite way, isn’t it? Tax structuring. I must remember that term.

But I just want to point to paragraph 20 in the regulatory impact statement. It says that in September 2025, targeted consultation was undertaken with 10 private sector advisory firms. Now, obviously I am not asking the Minister or his officials to disclose who those firms were. I have a pretty high regard for our tax community and the integrity with which they approach this sort of work and the consultation. Nevertheless, just as the possibility of tax structuring was opened up the moment that the discussion document went out, the possibility of tax structuring might also have been raised from that quite targeted consultation with private sector firms. Now, I know those people, the Inland Revenue Department does consult them in very strict confidence and that ordinarily we would expect that they would keep that confidence. Just some assurance from the Minister that they didn’t see any odd things going on between those dates.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (20:14): Thanks, Mr Chair. Just going through a number of the questions. There was a question before in regards to clause 5 around the revenue at stake as a result of the change of the non-resident contractors’ tax change: $17.85 million over the forecast period. That was considered in the context of the cost versus the benefits to the broader economy and the compliance aspect and the importance of this on the broader airline sector. So that was in that component.

Within our tax and social policy work programme, which is publicly disclosed and announced, we have had on there the modernisation of this area. It’d be fair to say—and I’m sure the member will appreciate—that this area is an area that many within the broader tax community see as an area of high compliance and broader burden, taking into account the cost-benefit of that. As we work our way through that, this example that we’re legislating through this evening was one of the examples that we had sufficient information to be able to progress through legislation. At this point, that programme is going. We’re continuing to assess and get feedback that the stakeholders involved are all of those stakeholders that the member would expect—Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, etc.—those types of respected and well-informed broader industry players.

In regards to Lawrence Xu-Nan’s question around the six-month time period, again, in regards to clause 5: is six months a common period? Yes, six months is a common period. It allows for reinstatement to register. Also, this period is used because generally we’ve had feedback from submitters that that’s appropriate. The question around what happens if the company is reinstated after the six months: the loan becomes taxable income.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (20:16): I just want to follow up on something that my colleague the Hon Dr Megan Woods was talking about—that’s the threshold around financial arrangements. You’ll appreciate we only got this bill in our hands just a few hours ago, and I have spent my time reading it and thinking it through, but there’s stuff I don’t always remember first up. I just want the Minister to clarify this—just thinking back to the financial arrangement rules. I didn’t quite have time to go back to them.

My understanding is that a loan is a financial arrangement and that the $200,000 threshold that my colleague Dr Woods referred to is to do with whether a financial arrangement is treated on a cash basis or treated on an accrual basis. So no matter what, once the loan is a financial arrangement, it is brought in under the—I saw somewhere around the base price or something like that—base price adjustment. What that, in effect, does if the base price adjustment happens, the loan gets treated on a cash basis, and that, in effect, means it’s brought into the tax net. So that would capture all the loans below $200,000 quite easily, but what about the loans that are over $200,000? I’m sorry to go back to this. It’s just taken me a while to remember this and to puzzle it through. As I’ve said to various rooms of tax people recently, I do know a fair amount about tax, but I don’t remember everything because it’s actually quite a long time since I dealt with it every day. I wonder if the Minister could just clarify that as to how that works around the threshold.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (20:18): Yeah, so the member is correct that loans under $200,000 are not affected by this new rule. Sorry, loans under $200,000 are—my apologies—affected by the new rule.

In regards to Dr Megan Woods’ question around why the shareholder loans option was chosen. The options that were assessed are not mutually exclusive. The option that we are progressing was supported broadly by the stakeholders that we engaged with, because on the basis of fixing the gap that’s in the current law.

In regards to the broader question around why this is under the financial arrangement rules—again going to the member’s question—it’s simpler than dividend rules. Again, preferred by stakeholders and, from a broader tax point of view, you’re going to get the same amount either way.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (20:18): Thank you. I just want to clarify, Minister, because I think you stumbled over your words slightly. Loans under $200,000 are captured?

Hon Simon Watts: Are captured.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Yeah, good. Ha, ha! Pretty happy with that. Thank you, Minister, for clarifying that.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (20:19): Thank you, Mr Chair. Apologies. Apparently, I picked up three of the regulatory impact statements pertaining to this bill, and I missed the fourth one, which is on this particular part. It’s very helpful, I think, getting a signal from the Hon Dr Deborah Russell when she was referring to the regulatory impact statement, so I can quickly grab a copy.

I want to check, in terms of the regulatory impact statement, one of the things I was interested in—and please, Minister, correct me if I’m wrong, because, again, we’re kind of analysing this bill quite quickly—in paragraph 66 of the regulatory impact statement. This is on page—doesn’t seem to have a page number. In paragraph 64 and then 66, it refers to the preferred option being a combination of option five and option six. But what I’m actually seeing here in terms of what’s in the bill is only option five.

Can I check with the Minister what happened to option six, which is improving record-keeping, which would help companies maintain the relevant information to support tax compliance with shareholder loans when the company ceases? How come option six wasn’t a part of this bill that I can see? If I got that wrong and option six is embedded somewhere in this bill, please let me know.

My second question is around what we see in the table just after paragraph 69. Part of that is to do with the regulated groups and their tax advisers and accounting software providers. It talks about the fact that Inland Revenue’s data indicates about 4,500 companies with outstanding shareholder loans are removed from the Companies Register each year.

Considering this significant number, I want to check how the Minister is planning on implementing this particular policy and being able to kind of get the message out there on what the new requirements are going to be, particularly when, I guess, some of the companies would have already been deregistered in the meantime. What is Inland Revenue’s general practice for getting in touch with the companies that are removed from the Companies Register as a part of this bill?

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (20:21): Just in regards to clauses 64 and 65 of the regulatory impact statement around shareholder loans, yeah, the member is right. The option that we went with was the option five around taxing shareholder loans six months after the lending company is removed from the register. Option six was more record-keeping. Yes, it would help with better information that the Inland Revenue could consider for compliance, but keeping it really simple, for low compliance, you just simply make it taxable after six months. That’s the option we went with.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin) (20:22): Thank you, Mr Chair. Staying on clause 5 and this to-ing and fro-ing with the Minister of Revenue, can he go up a level, noting I’m not a tax lawyer, unlike some other people here—

Hon Dr Deborah Russell: I’m not a lawyer.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: —or a tax accountant—accountant, sorry. I’m not an accountant—sorry. I’m a mere ex-lawyer.

Todd Stephenson: Do you pay tax?

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: I do pay tax.

You have said that this clause, this mechanism is to increase productivity, so what I’d like the Minister to explain is: am I right in summarising it as for these loans that are under $200,000—only those ones—you have this by inserting a removal date, six months being a normal number in these tax laws, then what happens is it falls away and you don’t have the burden of extra administration? Is that where the productivity is coming from or is it somewhere else? When he gives an answer—and I’ve got another question—if he can just go up a level in explanation about how this clause is productive, I think that would be helpful.

My second question goes back to clause 4. In his earlier answer, the Minister talked about different countries having different treatments and so the question there is this: is he still expecting those owners of the aeroplanes to pay tax or is the expectation that they won’t, and, therefore, is the justification that some of those owners of the aeroplanes from countries A, B, and C already don’t pay this tax, whereas the owners of the aeroplanes from countries X, Y, and Z do pay, and so we’re trying to treat them the same? If he could explain that, that would be useful too. Thank you.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (20:24): I have one final question on clause 5, though I may need a follow-up, depending on how the Minister of Revenue replies. Before I want to start moving on to clause 6, I just want a little bit of clarification around the nature of these loans. We’ve just been talking about the principal of the loan, but often these loans from companies to shareholders, directors, associated parties are low- or no-interest loans, so I’m just trying to think through what happens in that circumstance.

I guess if the shareholder gets a no-interest loan, that’s a considerable concession in itself, so how is that sort of interest discount treated? As the financial arrangement comes to an end, does the interest foregone by the company in the meantime get loaded on to the loan, which then gets taxed in the hands of the shareholder or something like that? I know that’s not particularly the focus of this particular clause, but if the Minister could just clarify the treatment of those loans just to be sure we’re actually capturing the right amount of income for tax purposes that has sort of been foregone to date because of the nature of the loan arrangement. That would be helpful to know. Then I do want to move on to clause 4 after that.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (20:25): What the member’s referring to there is not subject to this legislation. But going back to the member Rachel Brooking’s question around sort of stepping back and linkage to productivity, the major problem here is that when companies are providing loans to their directors, then that, in effect, is income going from the company to the director. If that loan is never repaid, then that income and the tax on that income is never crystallised. As a result, that is a loss to the broader system. As the Hon Megan Woods noted from the information available, the numbers are really big. That is an integrity issue and it is not fair, and therefore we’re dealing with it through this change.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Members, I’m aware that there hasn’t been a select committee and we’re getting some good short, pointed questions, but we still do need to be progressing.

Hon Dr Deborah Russell: We are just about to, Mr Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Well, I’m very pleased.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (20:27): I would like to move on to clause 6. That’s quite a new topic. It’s the change around tax credits for charitable or other public benefit gifts. It’s a really interesting change, because what this legislation does, it’s a really short clause, but it’s actually possibly got the biggest impact here of any of the—well, maybe not the biggest impact, but certainly the most public interest that people might have around this particular change.

It’s changing the ceiling on donation tax credits. The way it does this is it amends section LD 1. Section LD 1 is part of getting a tax credit for charitable donations. At present, the limit on that for natural persons is the amount of their taxable income. You can’t give away more than you earn in the first place, so that makes sense. Now they’re going to insert “the lesser of $100,000 and” before “the amount of the person’s taxable income for that tax year.” Basically, we’re now capping the amount of charitable donations that may be made. Of course, $100,000 is quite a lot. Most people in this country don’t have that much taxable income. Plenty of people do, but a lot of people don’t, so it’s pretty interesting to do that.

The first question, I guess, is—well, there’s a whole set of policy-related equations. The tax law itself is not complicated, but the policy here is, so I guess let’s start right at the top-ish level. One of the things we might consider with this is just the extent to which charitable giving might be somewhat discouraged because there is now this cap of $100,000 around the tax credit. It’s not discouraged just because people can no longer get the tax credit, but there will be a lot of noise around this. It’s one of the more easily understood tax changes from this Budget. I’m concerned that ordinary people will now feel that their own donation of $20 or $30 or $40 or $50 or whatever it is may not be eligible for a donation tax credit, so there might be a bit of a flow-on impact. It’s not because people haven’t read the tax law; it’s just because they’ve read the discussion around it. Was that given any consideration as the policy for this was being pulled together? Just the dampening effect on charitable donations.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) (20:29): Thank you, Mr Chair. I, too, am moving through the bill and have questions to the Minister of Revenue on clause 6. As my colleague said, this is one where there is going to be a great deal of public interest. One of the things that the regulatory impact statement—which we’ve only had for a short period of time—does go and do is some quite careful of analysis between the relationship between tax claim numbers and tax credit paid, and what the relationship of having this ability to make the claim is and what that will do to the number of donors in the amount of donations that will be there.

One of the things that I’m interested in discussing with the Minister and hearing more about the advice that his officials gave him is in para 46 on page 14 of the regulatory impact statement (RIS), and page 47. It seems that the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage were informed of the options considered by this RIS: “From DIA’s perspective, reducing entitlements puts the delivery of goods and services by the community and voluntary sector particularly in regions that are vulnerable and are not well serviced by either the Government or under for-profit conditions at risk.”

So this is very clear advice from the Department of Internal Affairs that they see there could be a putting at risk of the donations in the regions for some of the at-risk communities. Also, we had the Ministry for Culture and Heritage—and while the officials don’t seem to think that there’s going to be a large impact on either education donations or religious organisations receiving donations, there could well be in the arts. So I’d like to hear more around what the Ministry for Culture and Heritage—there’s only a very oblique reference to it in the RIS; I’d like to hear far more about what the impact on the arts is going to be, because “Both agencies [said] that the current policy setting for the donation tax credit is an important platform for the Government to further initiatives that promote philanthropy and deliver social and community outcomes and facilities.” Now, these are very serious questions for our communities.

It could well be that the changes being put through, particularly under this clause, are absolutely what we should be doing, but as Labour members signalled in their speeches in the first two readings of this bill, our decision whether or not we continue to support this bill hinges on answers we get around this clause about what it is going to do to donations. We are in a time when we have never needed our community and voluntary sector to be doing more heavy lifting than it is. Today, we saw that we have the highest level of homelessness in our history, and it is our community and voluntary sector that is doing the heavy lifting in the absence of the Government, who seems to have distanced itself and his taking a no, hands-off, it’s not our responsibility - type approach. So we take this clause extremely seriously. The RIS has made some quite strong statements in there and we would like to have a good discussion about this, because, as I said, our ability to continue to support this bill hinges on our ability to ask questions on this clause.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (20:33): Thank you very much to the members for the questions in regards to clause 6. The primary driver in regards to this does have implications in regards to text integrity—I refer the members to the regulatory impact statement—but we have undertaken quite a comprehensive degree of analysis on this issue. Inland Revenue did a regulatory stewardship review in February 2025. We had an officials paper as well, on the not-for-profit sector, and then also a targeted consult on donor-controlled charities. We’ve done a lot of testing with the sector in regards to that.

It is our view that the integrity issues around misuse of the donation tax credit for aggressive tax planning is an area—and Inland Revenue has observed an increase in such behaviour, which is, in our view, facilitated by New Zealand’s comparative generous settings. This change will impact, we estimate, 350 donors in New Zealand. Virtually all individuals, with the exception of 350, will not be impacted by this. The cap of $100,000 of donations is, in all fairness, a significant number—or the maximum of your income, i.e., you earn $30,000 in a year and you donate $30,000. You know, realistically, again, this is highly unlikely for virtually most taxpayers. It doesn’t impact anyone giving $20 or $50 to whatever their favourite charity is—it has absolutely no impact; we’re talking at the other end of the scale.

In regards to whether this will impact overall donations coming into the charitable sector, we did spend considerable challenge and effort around this to get feedback. Inland Revenue and Treasury’s assessment is that there is no empirical evidence that indicates that the change that we’re doing is going to have any significant material impact in regards to the overarching way in which individuals donate. In fairness, those that have the means to donate that type of scale of money are not doing it in the context of simply always just a tax reason. The feedback is that many of those large-scale donations will continue to occur irrespective of what the tax is because those individuals are driven by another purpose.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (20:36): Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you for that explanation because it does clarify. I guess my first question is looking at the diagnosis of the policy problem. I’m looking at paragraph 4, which says that the donation tax credit has a fiscal cost. I wondered if, based on what the Minister is saying, the idea is, by putting on that limit to the 350 donors who are going to be affected, what we are seeing would be, I’m guessing, less tax credit being given, therefore we’re generating more revenue. Is that part of the intention? [Minister nods] Cool. Thank you, Minister.

The second question I have here is—it’s also good to hear from the Minister that people are going to be donating regardless, and that the $100,000 threshold is not a consideration or a factor. But I want to check one of the things that we talked about in the previous section to do with clause 5. It’s around the commencement or the fact that the companies removed applies if it’s 4 December because of the tax structuring or restructuring that could potentially happen. So, you put that date, whereas, for this particular part it only applies from 1 April 2027 onwards, presumably to try to line up with the financial year. But what does it mean for people during this period, knowing that that is something that’s going to happen? Is there any consideration of, “Well, in that case, we then might just donate a lot more this year because then we can get more returns this year, and starting from next year, we’re going to start reducing it so that way we’re just meeting that $100,000 cap.”? Is that a consideration? Has that been something that has been considered as a part of this?

The other question I have is based on what we see just after paragraph 16 of the regular impact statement in terms of graph 1. This is graph 1 on page 9. We are seeing that the total number of individuals who are donating is kind of reducing, whereas the average tax credit per individual has increased over the last few years. I’m going to draw attention to what we see in paragraph 25 on page 11, where an Australian Productivity Commission study says that “household income is a much stronger predictor of how much a household gives” rather than tax benefits. I wondered if, as a part of this work the Minister’s doing and in terms of the revenue generation for Inland Revenue but also potentially looking at a reduction of some of the tax credit, whether it has also been considered that, with households potentially doing it tougher, we are now going to be seeing an overall reduction in the amount of tax credit anyway because there are going to be fewer and fewer people who would be donating—if we are to go by what we’re seeing in paragraph 25 of this regulatory impact statement. So those are my two questions for the time being, but just signalling to you, Mr Chair, that we do have further questions on this particular part.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (20:39): Just to finish off clause 6, the Government will spend approximately $19 million less per annum as a result of these changes. The 350 donors that I noted represent about 10 percent of donations submitted. For the main recipients—to the question before—about one-third of those donations are through to religious charities, and less than 5 percent go to schools.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (20:40): Thank you. I hope that the Minister is not correct that these would be the final statements on this clause, because this is an incredibly important clause. I have the portfolio for community and voluntary, and I have concerns already being raised in my emails about this particular clause. They are damning of the clause. I hope the Minister takes it seriously because I have a job to do, putting these questions, and I would like answers to them.

The first thing I want to ask is: when we look at the regulatory impact statement (RIS), there is talk under the heading “Tax integrity” about how the issue is “aggressive tax planning”. Now, I understand there may have been concerns about controlling entities etc.—those have been discussed—but this is not actually a clause that does this. This tax change applies to anyone who gifts $100,000. That people would give, to me, seems to be something that is in the interests of New Zealanders. If there are 350 of them gifting over that amount, that’s an important group to grow, so I’d like to know from the Minister why this was the chosen mechanism, because when I look below at “Fiscal sustainability”, it looks, here, like what the RIS is saying is that the donation tax credit operates as an open-ended subsidy, limiting the Government’s ability to manage costs. Is that really what’s going on? Is it that the Government doesn’t want to subsidise or to contribute that amount by this mechanism and that it wants to cap its liability for such donations? That to me seems a dangerous reasoning, given that we are getting so much benefit for that money, which is coming through our charities into our communities so much.

Then I’d like to look at part of the RIS that talks about the impact on this being lumpy. It says that some charities that use these big donations will be much worse off than others. Has the Minister done work in that area? Is it going to be lumpy? If so, can he give us more specifics about who is going to be affected—what charities? I appreciate that he said, “some religious charities”, but what charities are going to be impacted? What I’m getting on my email is widespread concern from philanthropists that they are going to be cut off at the knees by this clause and that they will not be able to donate in that way but, further, that the charities won’t be able to attract those big donations that they rely on and with which they do good work. It’s not just religions—in fact, it’s probably not any of the religions that do that.

The Minister raised the issue of doing testing in this area. Can he explain what that testing was? I am being told by my people—and I’ve got good relationships—that they knew nothing about this. What testing is he talking about? There doesn’t seem to have been any consultation with the sector itself.

Then I would like to know from the Minister—given his disastrous announcements last year and the fact that they really were misguided, which the Government conceded by withdrawing them—why this is coming to us in urgency, this particular clause, given that it seems like there’s plenty of opportunity to consult with the sector and get it right? Why are we seeing this in this form? It just doesn’t strike me as a very sensible thing to do, because the major concern I’m hearing is that this is going to have very backfiring consequences and we’re going to see donations dive. Now, I also have seen from the RIS that there is a dive in a graph on page 9. There is a complete dive in individual donations. It’s dramatic—it’s absolutely dramatic. Could the Minister explain that dive and why this is helpful, given we are having a dive in individual philanthropic donations, and why he thinks that is happening at the present time? Thank you.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (20:45): Yeah, I’ll give you a simple answer for that. That’s when inflation goes really high and interest rates go really high under the last Government, surprisingly, people don’t have any money to donate, because they’re trying to keep themselves alive and pay for food and living costs. Take some accountability for your policies. Anyway, going back to the other points of the question, the regulatory impact statement document, again, if the member reads the regulatory impact statement, every question that she’s asked is included in there. It outlines clearly who was consulted as a result of that. I’ve already answered that in a prior question. It outlines the issues around tax integrity, and nothing that is being announced today is going impact those people that the member’s getting emails from, because they can donate whatever they like to charities. It’s just that the Government isn’t going to have an open cheque book and give them a subsidy over $100K. I’m sorry, but that is not unreasonable.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (20:45): Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, I just want to take the Minister up on that last statement. The Minister has opened something up there by saying that, in fact, the reason that the number of charitable donations has dropped is due to inflation, but if the Minister cares to read the chart—cares to read the chart—in actual fact, the biggest dive is under his Government. I think the Minister’s going to need to find a better explanation than that. I know it was enjoyable getting that political jab out there, Minister, but I think that the explanation simply does not stack up, not when one actually reads the graph properly.

Just moving on from that, I do want to come back to a couple of issues here. This one has been canvassed slightly. The Minister has said that the reason for putting this part of this tax credit in place was, “Well, first of all, we shouldn’t have Government subsidising charities to the extent of over $100,000.” Those were the effects of his words. Then he said, “The impact was only $19 million a year.” Now, $19 million—you can do some stuff with that, but in the context of the Government’s accounts, that’s a fairly small amount. In actual fact, I don’t think the motivation can have been just that the Government revenue has been affected. Now, that leaves, then, tax integrity reasons as to why we might change around this particular tax credit, but that simply begs the question: why, then, were we not doing more work around the charities that are donor-controlled charities?

That’s where the tax integrity problems are. It’s not with genuine philanthropists giving money; it’s around the donor-controlled charities. Now, I note that there’s a bit of a throw-away line in the regulatory impact statement, I think, or somewhere in one of the documents I read, that, perhaps, that was better controlled through the charities register and looking at whether something was a genuine charity or not. But in actual fact, the real mischief we know has been done through donor-controlled charities. That is exactly what happened with stuff that’s been particularly well canvassed and some really fantastic investigatory work by Matt Nippert around the Wright Family Foundation and so on. That was a donor-controlled charity and a complete rort, and eventually the tax law caught up with them. That was exactly what was going on, but it was the donor-controlled charity that was the problem, so why not address that problem instead of sticking a cap in there at $100,000? There are those particular issues I would like the Minister to address.

I’m a politician. I enjoyed the Minister’s political gibe, but it didn’t actually answer the question. I finally want to carry on with this. [Interruption]

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Please don’t show it across the Chamber while a member is speaking.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: I’m happy to be quiet while they do it, if you like.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Well, they can get up and take a call.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Yeah, take a call. I was going to raise that one around the donor-controlled charities—oh, the second issue I’ll raise here. Look, this deals with individual donors with natural person donors. That’s who the particular tax credit is oriented to. But natural persons—you, me, other people—can get this tax credit. To be honest, I’m one of those New Zealanders who doesn’t bother claiming it. If I’m giving to charity, I’m giving to charity. That’s that. But there’s another set of entities who can, in effect, get a Government subsidy for making charitable donations, and that is companies, but companies get a tax donation for making charitable donations.

I am sure that if we’re going to start controlling the amount that individuals can give as charitable donations, is there work being done around companies giving charitable donations as well? Now, in some ways I would hope not because I don’t want our charitable sector to be scrambling for funds—I think they value those funds that they receive from companies as they value the funds from philanthropists. But if the Minister could let me know: is there any work being done around the amount of donations that companies make in which they get a tax subsidy?

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The Hon Rachel Brooking, and I just want to remind the committee that this is a committee stage and so it’s a question-and-answer session. Please actually make sure the answers are coming through and not speeches.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin) (20:50): Thank you, thank you. Mine is a clarification question for the Minister of Revenue and then a new question. We’ve had, with the back and forth—we understand that the policy problem is that it’s a revenue issue for the Government and the $100,000 has been set and it’s explained why in the regulatory impact statement (RIS). The issue at paragraph 90 of the RIS goes through—and I think the Minister referred to this before, saying that the donations of that $100,000 nature go to religious charities at 27 percent, other charities at 68 percent, and schools at 5 percent. That compares with all donations—that they are all totalled, so not just the $100,000 donations but all of them—having a much higher proportion of religious charity. That’s 63 percent, and other charities is 29 percent and schools is 8 percent, so not too much difference there.

But the point is that these $100,000 big donations seem to be more likely to go to other charities. The question is if he’s done analysis or wants to comment on what the impact will be on those other charities that are not religious and they’re not schools; and if he agrees with my reading of the RIS there.

Of course, then my separate question—not clarification question—is: we turn the page and it talks about Inland Revenue to monitor substitution behaviour. I raised in my second reading speech: is this the issue where Inland Revenue will be looking at families of donors to see if—like a husband and a wife, if they both donate $100,000, what happens there? Is that something that Inland Revenue is going to be looking at?

Then my third, last question on this is: this proposed change is for 1 April 2027, so it’s not retrospective—that’s what it says in the RIS; I think it’s the same in the bill. But if the Minister could confirm that, and then if there’s been any analysis about the expectation talked about in the RIS at paragraph 91, that some very high-value donations might be brought forward, if that’s something that’s of concern or it’s just something that has to happen.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (20:53): Yeah, I thank the member for the question. The question around why aren’t we—just looking at clause 6—changing the donor-controlled charities rules? The short answer is that this would be too complex, and the reason why: when we look at that 350 donors and the proportionality in that, one of the areas that we are, and IRD is, very concerned about is there is a growing area within that area of grouping around, in effect, donations going through to donor-controlled charities, and then those loans are coming back from those charities to these individuals. I’m not saying those are the individuals that are emailing members here, but that’s what some people are doing around tax integrity. Obviously we don’t and can’t have that, and that’s why we’re tightening up.

What we said is, “What’s a simple and practical way to deal with this entirely?” Simply, the cap of the $100,000 or total income means it’s just across the board. We don’t have to go straight into a donor control; we can cover the whole lot.

The primary purpose is not one around revenue. There is a revenue benefit to the Government as a result of this change, yes. But as the regulatory impact statement (RIS) outlines clearly, the tax integrity matter, balanced off with the fact that we don’t have evidence that indicates that this is going to have a reduction in the overall donor responsiveness to making large donations. On that basis, we believe that we’ve got the balance right.

The question around what about companies? In effect, across the whole board, about 90 percent of the donations are coming from individuals, 10 percent from companies. IRD’s monitoring of that area—and they do monitor it—is not signalling any material concerns, but the IRD will monitor that area. If they do have greater concerns, then that’s something that we may look at the future, but right now we’re not.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) (20:55): Thank you, Madam Chair; and thank you to the Minister of Revenue for those answers. I had some questions that are related but go into paragraph 17 of the regulatory impact statement (RIS). I think one of the things this RIS gives us is a fascinating insight into kind of the broad category of donations of philanthropy in New Zealand. I think one of the interesting things it says for the last decade—and my colleague mentioned some of these categories—the proportionate value, not volume, gifted to schools and that was entities registered under the Education and Training Act, religious entities, and then of course there were the other categories there. There is some really good analysis that sits behind this RIS, and I wondered if the Minister had received any information or advice when coming to this around in which of these categories the most mischief in terms of the misuse of charitable status in our tax law was lying.

Because I think one of the things that we are concerned about is that “other” category, which involves medical research, animal welfare, international aid, donations to the arts—that’s the 29 percent that make up the other entities that are identified in the RIS. We do have concerns about a decreasing level of support for these entities and whether we can see whether or not there was a predominance—we have 8 percent of it going to schools and 63 percent going to religious and 29 percent going to other—where the mischief most fell within those three categories.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (20:57): Thank you, Madam Chair. I too wanted to just follow up with the Hon Dr Megan Woods’ question and just ask one more layer from that. I think the distribution question based on what we see in paragraph 17 is important. But I also want to check on whether there’s been any analysis on, you know, with the $19 million that the Minister of Revenue has mentioned, what would be the impact to—for example, if it’s majority from schools, then will there be an impact on children; or either schools or religious or other, if there’s any particular understanding around what the impact is to certain Māori organisations as well?

I only have one other short question for this clause, Madam Chair, before I’m going to move on to clause 8, but others may have questions for clause 7. My final question around this is around—oh, I don’t know where my final question went. I will move on to clause 8 and maybe I will remember what it is on this particular part. Just moving on to clause 8—I know that I’m moving on to the next major topic, which is around the calculation of family scheme income—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I just want to double check if there’s a question on clause 6, and I’ll give you another call if there is.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: OK, that would be great. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): OK. The Hon Dr Deborah Russell. I thought you had another question on that—

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (20:58): Yeah, thank you. I did have one final on clause 6, which I wanted to—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Yeah. OK.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Yeah. Thank you, Dr Xu-Nan, and thank you, Madam Chair. A remark first of all and then the question. The Minister of Revenue said the reason we didn’t go down the donor-controlled charities route was because it’s complex. Complexity in the tax law has never stopped anything, Minister, but be that as it may.

In terms of this legislation, though, I note that this doesn’t come into effect until 1 April 2027. The question is why this had to be passed under urgency. The Government has to put through an annual rates bill by 31 March next year. There was another completely suitable vehicle for this legislation going through. Now, I’m trusting that, in fact, I will be the person seeing that annual rates bill through the House, though the Minister might beg to differ. But nevertheless, it does say: why did this need to go through under urgency? It’s not as though it’s controversial. We know there are some issues to be sorted out. We also know there was a tax integrity issue that needed to be dealt with around charities. I would just like the Minister to let us know exactly: why? Why has it gone into Budget urgency?

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (21:00): Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I’ve remembered my second question now. My second question is around the amount of entitlement ceiling in options 2, 3, and 4. I note that there is 4,500, 15,000, and then 100,000. It seems to be quite a broad gap between option 3 and option 4, and I just want to check if the Minister has tested with officials on any of the range between 15,000 and 100,000 in terms of additional balance that will both provide tax integrity and those of fiscal sustainability.

Just to say that both myself and my colleague Francisco Hernandez have got two amendments in there for, I think, roughly around 70,000 and 80,000 if the Minister wouldn’t mind considering that. Just to check with you, Madam Chair—oh, you know, I think the Minister’s ready to answer—just to signal that I’m ready to move on to clause 8.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): OK, thank you.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (21:01): Just in regards to the question from the member around Māori organisations, Māori are not expected to be disproportionately impacted. The member will note that. I’m not wishing to repeat again, but it is noted in the regulatory impact statement document in front of the member.

Dr Deborah Russell: why is it being passed under agency? Well, this Government places a high priority on certainty and it allows people to plan.

Helen White: Madam Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I do think from the period of time I’ve been in the House, I do believe that we have done clause 6. We’re moving forward, and Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s indicated that he wants to take a call on clause 8. Is this clause 8 or beyond?

Helen White: No, this is my last question on clause 6, but I could keep it extremely short.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): We’re moving on from charities. I’m going to go to Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, and we’re up to clause 8 now. Thank you.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (21:01): Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for that very clear signal. I want to check with the Minister around clause 8, and I think I want to start by just kind of unpacking in terms of the calculation. I have a simple question and I’m sure other people have additional questions. I just want to check, I’m trying to go through all of the regulatory impact statement for this bill, but the first one that jumped out at me is that the original consultation for this was back in 2016; why has the Minister waited? I guess, why has this come about now after 10 years? That’s my first question and I have broader questions later on.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (21:02): I’m quite interested in this particular set of changes. They’re very rough. Well, basically, it’s some changes to the family scheme income for Working for Families tax purposes. Now, for everyone listening along at home, the way that Working for Families tax credits are calculated, they’re calculated off the basis of looking at what a person’s family scheme income is. And as I recall—I didn’t have time to look up the exact legislation, but family scheme income is basically taxable income, plus or minus some stuff. Those pluses and minuses are what we are talking about at the moment. The higher a person’s family scheme income is, the lower their Working for Families tax credit is. And the lower the family scheme income, the higher the tax credit.

So if we decrease family scheme income, we increase a person’s Working for Families tax credit and vice versa. That’s why this becomes important because we’re tidying up some stuff around the edges, but it does give people some tax advantages—it can give people extra tax credits or take them away from people. The calculation is complicated. There’s lots of pluses and minuses. For some of them it is a good idea to tidy it up. So we do support this in principle, in terms of the tidying up. But what we want to be sure about is some of the particular pluses and minuses that have gone on here.

The first thing I want to ask is not the particular pluses and minuses—when we get on to clause 8. But again, all these adjustments apply from the 2027-2028 tax year, so that is starting on 1 April 2027. So, again, why did this need to go through tonight under Budget urgency? Now, the Minister has said that in actual fact we need to provide certainty for taxpayers. That’s a very good point, except that that doesn’t quite stack up with some of the other stuff that’s gone on. For example, in the Budget announcements, there has been, very, very clearly signalled, some changes to fringe benefit tax and the way that cars are valued for fringe benefit tax purposes. But that legislation hasn’t appeared tonight. Perhaps taxpayers would like certainty around that as well.

So why is this particular set of legislation in here when the rules around fringe benefit taxes are not? There are some changes to the foreign investment fund (FIF) rules, now extending the revenue account method to all taxpayers, and I’m sure that some of those people would like some certainty as well. In fact, it has been a regular complaint. I think the first tax inquiry I got into my office back in 2017 was someone who was upset with the FIF rules, and I agree that it needed to be changed, but how is it that that set of taxpayers don’t get certainty, but this set of taxpayers do. So it does seem curious, the particular items that have gone into this tax bill and the particular items that have been excluded from it.

I don’t think certainty is going to stack up as an answer, Minister. Maybe the more straightforward answer is that we’ve just gotten so good at working our way slowly through tax bills as no one wanted to risk it.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (21:06): Yeah, well the member would understand that the success for tax is that it is quite boring and we want to take things quite slowly, because when you rush, you make mistakes. I remember the good old days of a number of mistakes that I had to tidy—you know, we had to go over here.

In regards to this, we need this in force by December of this year, which allows the Inland Revenue Department then the ability to put in place the processing systems to get this in place so that individuals can be aware in February of next year. If we put it into the August bill, it won’t be passed until March or April of next year. And so that’s the reason, it is literally because of the operational need to have this ready by the end of the year.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The Hon Dr Deborah Russell—I hope the member’s recovered from—

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (21:07): —people saying that tax is boring!

I thank the Minister for that explanation, that’s a perfectly plausible and good answer, so I appreciate him giving it.

I do want to move on to all these adjustments to clause 8, “Section MB 1 amended (Adjustments for calculation of family scheme income)”. The first set of adjustments, “an amount derived by the person in the income year is not treated as exempt income if it is an amount referred to in section CW 32 (Maintenance Payments).”—phew! What it’s actually saying is that some overseas pensions and some salaries and wages paid under international agreements are treated as exempt from tax so that they’re no longer included in family scheme income. Remember I said that family scheme income was based on taxable income, so if it’s exempt from taxation, it’s no longer included in taxable income. So that means it’s not counted as family scheme income either.

There’s a couple of questions there. The first one is why treat those as exempt from tax? Are they fully exempt from tax? So they are no longer included in family scheme income, does that mean that that income is completely tax free or is it only excluded from the calculation of family scheme income for the purposes of family tax credits?

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (21:08): Yeah, I’m just going to let the members know—I mean, there’s a huge pile of amendments that have come on to the Table here—I’m not going to be accepting any of those amendments. They’re not aligned with what we’ve talked about; this is reasonably narrow and straightforward. So we are going to be spending about half an hour going through amendments that we’re going to be declining. So just to give the member a bit of feedback.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (21:09): I want to continue on, and I think that the Minister of Revenue wounds us by saying that this is not an exciting bill! I want to check. There were my earlier questions, and also, I’d like to just pick up where the Minister has left off. I understand the Minister is saying this needs to be passed by December so there is certainty for the IRD by March, but I wanted to check that, because this is going to be only for the tax year starting with the taxation year of 2027-28, it would mean that, for those families who we are looking at here, they are not going to be able to see the potential benefits starting from when they do their tax returns on 1 April 2028, which is quite a while in advance. Could I just check with the Minister that that is the correct interpretation and that families are not going to have that option until that far in advance? That’s my first question.

I wanted to pick up on what the Hon Dr Deborah Russell has mentioned in terms of the changes in clause 8(1), which is replacing section MB 1(2), and I wanted to just draw on the original in the Income Tax Act. That is part of section MB 1(2)(a), which is now to be removed, and it is the part about overseas pensions. I think that’s a really important part because there are different types of overseas pensions. There are the types of overseas pensions that are kind of like our KiwiSaver, and you can accumulate that, but there are also other types of equity or private schemes overseas. I know, for example, from a seniors perspective—one of the things that I get asked a lot by seniors with pensions overseas is that, while income is not means-tested as part of super, the overseas pension is means-tested as a part of superannuation. I just wanted to check whether this is something that also differentiates the different types of overseas pensions that we are seeing.

I do have questions for—I guess that I wanted to also check and see. Clauses 8 to 12 kind of cover this similar block, and so I’m just signalling to you, Madam Chair, that they’re all part of the same issue, and I will be kind of moving and weaving through some of that.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): In that case, I’d encourage you to—because you can ask quick questions—go through that block of questions for those clauses, and that won’t prohibit the others from asking questions on those clauses.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: OK, and I’m just signalling to you, Madam Chair, that that was the last part—pensions—that I needed to kind of set up a potential scene around. I will be asking more succinct questions from now.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (21:12): I have just one follow-up question on this particular clause, around these overseas pensions and salary, which I hope the officials can give some advice on. I’m just wondering how much of that sort of income was being counted for family scheme income purposes and if they have any data on that, as to just how much money was involved in the first place, and whether or not this change has a big fiscal impact. My guess is that it doesn’t, otherwise we wouldn’t be treating it in this fashion, but it would be good to get some assurance around that.

Following on that line, clause 8(2) repeals a number of sections, and ordinarily I don’t really worry too much about repeals of sections, but in this case it does do that while moving in and out of family scheme incomes, and so it does have an impact. Again, by repealing section MB 1(5B), it removes the retirement scheme contribution exclusion from family scheme incomes, and the same question applies there, which is: does that increase or decrease family scheme income? Why is it a good idea to remove this from a calculation? How much of these retirement scheme contributions were going into being counted for family scheme incomes? Is there a reason for getting this exclusion in there?

I found this one quite hard to follow, in that we actually wanted to support retirement savings, and so there’s no point in then decreasing the amount of family tax credits that we can get, because that contribution is included in the family scheme income—which gets quite complicated without a whiteboard to draw it on. For those two questions for the Minister, there is just a little bit of an analysis of the amounts of money involved, and then I actually have some rather more serious questions about the income equalisation scheme adjustment.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (21:14): Just in regard to the questions in regard to clause 8—and this is also related to clause 12—the macro, or the bigger, picture here is that we did the discussion document around empowering families in 2025. We got a lot of feedback around the challenges and issues for families in regard to calculating the entitlements and the need to provide information around the income aspect. We did a costing around actually removing the entirety of looking at that other income. It had a fiscal cost of just under $14 million. We then said, “Well, we already have de minimis. Why don’t we increase the de minimis from $5,000 to $8,000?” We went for that option—that costs us $3,000, because, obviously, we’ve got very limited funds—but the feedback and the feedback from the consultation signal that that would take a significant amount of compliance and pain out of this calculation process.

What we’re trying to do here is make it easier for families to be able to comply and get this option. We also recognise and acknowledge that there are going to be a range of income adjustments required, and with a de minimis that is higher than the status quo, that allows more flexibility. That’s what’s going on here. It’s actually quite straightforward and simple, and I’ll leave it there.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (21:15): I take the Minister’s point that this is in some ways rats and mice, there’s not a lot of money involved fiscally, and it does actually make life a lot easier for people who are trying to do their family scheme income calculation. I accept all that.

I do, however, have some rather more serious questions around repealing section MB  1(5D) and (5E), and both those subsections in the Income Tax Act mean that deposits to income equalisation accounts aren’t included in family scheme income. Now, it takes a little bit of explaining. Businesses in the primary sector have access to income equalisation schemes. Very roughly, how that works is that in a high-income year, rather than copping those higher tax rates at higher margins, a primary sector operator can pay some of what they have earned into an income equalisation account, and in a subsequent year they can pull it out and it comes back into taxable income again. It has to be actual money paid over. It’s held on trust, and the policy justification for this—it looks like it’s an outrageous concession to the primary sector, because you can manipulate your taxable income doing this, but it’s not.

Look, in the primary sector, as we know, people are subject to droughts. They’re subject to all sorts of—

Hon Andrew Hoggard: Labour Governments.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Actually, farmers always do better under Labour. They’re subject to all sorts of—

Hon Andrew Hoggard: Oh, withdraw and apologise—withdraw and apologise!

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Take a call—take a call. They’re subject to all sorts of events that mean that their incomes can fluctuate for reasons beyond their control, and it does make sense. The difficulty is that there doesn’t have to be an external event triggering whether or not a person may use an income equalisation scheme, and anecdotally, I know of some of my own relatives, actually, who have used income equalisation accounts to ensure that their family income was down below a sufficient level so that their children could get the student allowance, and things like that. Anecdotally, it does give the capacity to change one’s income levels around in response to events that are not necessarily the ones for which the scheme was intended.

I understand why the Minister might want to include these income equalisation accounts in this calculation, but, to me, the difficulty is that unlike those other factors which have been taken in and out of the calculation for family tax credits, and the deposits into income equalisation accounts or withdrawals from it, it does lend itself to a degree of—I wouldn’t call it “aggressive”, but a degree of tax structuring, shall we call it? I’d like to know what advice the Minister received around that, to what extent there is data around how much income equalisation accounts are then counted or not counted in terms of family scheme income already, and, obviously, what the fiscal impact is. I just feel as though this does open it up for a little bit of mischief around Working for Families tax credits, and I’d like to hear at least a little bit of the advice that the Minister received on that.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (21:19): Thank you, Madam Chair. As per what I’ve said before, I have just a couple of quick questions. The first one to the Minister is this: in the regulatory impact statement, I can’t see anything at this stage on the overseas pensions bit, as well as the superannuation bit that we see in clause 10. Would the Minister just quickly point me to where in the regulatory impact statement I would find any information on that?

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (21:19): Just in regard to the overseas pensions question that was raised before, the overseas pensions are excluded from the family scheme income, which affects the Working for Families tax credits. There is a fiscal implication for that, of around $3 million over the forecast period. The member was also referring to the different types of pensions and whether that changes the deal with the different types in that context. The answer is yes. It applies broadly to overseas pensions for family scheme income, but only in terms of Working for Families—I’m not really giving page numbers.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (21:20): No, actually, thank you, Minister; that is already incredibly helpful. I want to check with the Minister again, very quickly, on clause 10, because it also relates to the superannuation scheme and pensioners. Does that mean that the superannuation scheme is exempt from calculations for the family scheme income as well—that’s the domestic superannuation scheme? I just wanted to check—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Keep going—keep going. The Minister will get up and answer the question. I know you had a couple of extra questions—

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: Yeah, just a few; very quickly. Thank you for the response on overseas pensions. Can I just check with the Minister as to whether there has been any consideration if, then, the overseas pension is not considered to be the family income scheme, and, as a part of this bill, has the Minister also considered changes to the superannuation scheme where overseas pensions will also be excluded from the superannuation scheme, so that way, people’s superannuation here will not be means tested as a result of receiving the overseas pension? That’s just my final question.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (21:21): I have a question on this; it’s not quite so much on tax, but it’s clause 13. It talks about a family scheme income from employment benefits, and it’s around employees not controlling shareholders. In this particular clause, it’s the income year which can be specified by the Governor-General. It’s done by Order in Council. That seemed odd to me. Let me just check that I had copies of the source legislation—I’ve lost track of it. I couldn’t understand why this was having to be done by Order in Council. It seems an odd way to do tax law. I know we do it in various places, but it just seemed to me to lend itself to some kind of, I guess, manipulation. I wanted to know why this particular change could be put in place by Order in Council instead of it just going through the tax law, as you would expect it to be going through legislation. There are, after all, many tax bills every year—a couple of them—so it seems odd to have something that could be put in place by Order in Council.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (21:23): Very similar to the Hon Dr Deborah Russell, I too want to move on to clause 13 and clause 15. Going a little bit further from what the Hon Dr Deborah Russell said, I want to know more about “by Order in Council” —number one, because we haven’t had a chance for this to be examined by the Regulations Review Committee. I’m also concerned in terms of some of the regulation-making power that we do see here, because what we are saying is the intention of this section is that, by Order in Council, the Governor-General is, on the recommendation of the Minister, able to make certain changes to some of the things we have just been discussing, in terms of the exemption or in terms of—what’s the term that the regulatory impact statement used?—the declaration or things that no longer need to be declared.

I wanted to check with the Minister: has the Minister explored whether this a “Henry VIII” clause? It does seem that the regulation-making power goes beyond what is expected and makes changes directly to the primary legislation in terms of exemption. That’s for clauses 13 and 15.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (21:25): Thanks, members. Let’s hope we’re coming to the end of this, which is good. Income equalisation structuring—I did consider that, Deborah Russell, and it’s not considered a high risk; that’s because of the fiscal impact being $3 million. Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan—are super schemes exempt? Yes, they are exempt. You had another question around superannuation and pensions in relation to Working for Families. That’s not in the scope of this bill.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (21:25): I just want to—sorry, Dr Xu-Nan, have you discussed section MB 10?

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Very briefly.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Very briefly. Sorry, I just want to check—

Hon Dr Megan Woods: She’s thorough!

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: I’m thorough. This section in the original legislation excludes some exempt income from being included in family scheme income, so the effect of the repeal is to decrease the amount of family scheme income and, therefore, to increase Working for Families tax credits, I think, as I worked it through.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: That’s right.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: There’s some reassuring nods there. But, you know, this is still money that is coming into a household, so I’m sort of wondering why we’re excluding it from the family scheme income. It’s quite interesting looking through this particular piece of legislation around the family scheme income and what’s counted and what’s not counted, and to me it’s a little bit reminiscent of the definition of a dividend. If you look at a definition of a dividend, you’ve got the basic definition, and then you’ve got all of these things added to it over time as people have found ways around the law.

I’m wondering if this was a section that was there right from the start, or if it was brought in at a later stage because, at that stage, people were aggressively tax planning around their Working for Families tax credits. It’s just trying to track down, again, I guess, that broad overall question of: are we being fair here? Working for Families tax credits do get changed around because of the amount of income in a household. If we are excluding some income that a particular household is getting, is that fair to the household next door, and so on? It’s a fairness question sitting in there.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (21:27): Yes, I mean, I’m sure we are, by increasing the de minimis, providing more flexibility for families—acknowledging this is a complex and difficult area. More de minimis gives some more optionality and more flexibility in there and, at one level, more fairness in the context of complying.

The member also asked around Orders in Council. Primarily, the mechanism there in this instance is the ability to actually move faster and in a more timely manner to deal with any integrity issues that are identified with the adjustments—again, the annual rates bill that we will be tabling, with a number of announcements that we’ve made today, will miss the December implementation date.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (21:28): Just signalling, Madam Chair, I’ve got one final question on clause 16 of this bill, regarding the de minimis, and then I’m happy to move on to, I think, the final block of Part 1 of the bill, which is around the Working for Families residence requirement.

The final question I have—thank you, Minister, for your explanation—I do see in paragraph 16 of the regulatory impact statement where it talks about increasing the de minimis from $5,000 to $8,000, due to inflation. Has the Minister considered increasing it even further than that—for example, to $10,000?

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (21:28): Yes, and I answered that before. It was fiscally not within the bounds we had available.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (21:28): There is one final set of changes that we do need to discuss, at least a little bit, and they are the changes around the residence conditions for Working for Families. Ordinarily for tax purposes, we worry about not residence as it’s defined by visa requirements, and so on; we worry about tax residence, which is calculated in a different way. Given that these are tax credits, we’d expect, for people to be eligible for them, for it to be done around tax residency, but this particular legislation now changes that. It says, “No, we’re not going to worry about tax residency any more. We’re going to have a different set of residency rules for eligibility to claim Working for Families tax credits.”

I wonder if the Minister could please explain the reasoning behind that, because it’s quite an interesting thing to do within a tax Act—to step away from the tax residents rules. Could he tell us why this is a more appropriate way to go when it comes to determining the eligibility for Working for Families tax credits?

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (21:30): I’m happy to do so. The basic premise here is that the residence requirements that we’re putting in place ensure that Working for Families is only paid to families who are living in New Zealand. That is therefore to help them with the costs related to raising their children. These rules are difficult for some customers to understand and therefore for IRD to apply. The reality, and what IRD has observed, is that there are instances where individuals are leaving New Zealand. Hence, by leaving New Zealand it puts at risk the principle that I’ve just noted, and hence we’ve put a limit on the amount of time that you are able to be outside of New Zealand before the Government stops paying this. Again, I think that’s reasonable based on the premise I’ve just outlined.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) (21:31): Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the Minister for that answer around what has been put in this legislation. There are some quite detailed definitions and scenarios, actually, given in the commentary on the bill, and I think they’re very useful. They do go through a number of reasons why people could be away. In developing these certain 42 days and the 42-day requirements and an absence of more than that, I just wondered whether or not this was a period of time that the Minister chose to align with other requirements in other pieces of legislation around physical residency in terms of the ability to receive pensions or other transfers within the welfare system and whether that was something the Minister took into account when reaching these definitions.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (21:32): Yes, the Minister did take into account those factors. We also considered a wide range of reasons why individuals do need to leave New Zealand, such as seeking medical care and attention overseas, and other complexities in regard to serious illness and injury, etc. We did a wide range of assessment around that and we landed on this, also taking into account the precedent.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I’m going to take a call from Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, but I do want to remind the people to my right that this is urgency and this is the first opportunity that the Opposition have had to see this, and we are working our way through methodically, and I’m happy that it’s progressing.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (21:32): Thank you, Madam Chair. Just on what the Minister was mentioning, I know that I’m jumping a little bit but since we are on that topic—this is clause 18, “New sections MC 5B and MC 5C inserted”.

In section MC 5C(4), we are looking at “Absence for other events”. I understand it’s around the 42 days, but this is the part that drew my attention, because all of these refer to either the person or the child, or a family member, seeking medical treatment that is not available in New Zealand. I want to check in terms of paragraph (b) specifically: if we get a situation where we have a migrant family—for example, my generation—whose parents potentially are back in China or India or another place and they cannot be here, would the person or the child seeking medical treatment not available in New Zealand also encompass family members to the person or the child who actually cannot be in New Zealand for treatment because they have no eligibility to be having treatment in New Zealand?

That’s quite important because if, let’s say, people from the migrant communities need to go back because they are the only child and their parents are, for example, in China—they have to go back and look after their parents when their parents are going though medical treatment—their parents technically can get medical treatment that’s available in New Zealand but they cannot be in New Zealand for medical treatment because they have no eligible visa status. Would that scenario be considered under subsection (4)(b)?

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (21:34): I am likewise interested in this “crisis event”, as to what constitutes a crisis event. This is new section MC 5B(7), in clause 18, and it states, “(a) means an unexpected global or regional event; and (b) includes an act of war, terrorist activity, political or social unrest, pandemic, or industrial action;” but it’s not expected if “(i) while the person or child was present in New Zealand, the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade had published a warning not to travel to a country affected by the event; and (ii) the person or child travelled to that country regardless of the warning.”

Those all make sense to me. I just want to check—it means “an unexpected global or regional event” and it includes those things. Is that an exhaustive list, or is it possible that there would be other events that would prevent travel? Here I’m thinking of things like significant weather events taking out airports and things like that, which is entirely possible. I just want to know whether that’s an exhaustive list or just a list of the types of things that could be considered a crisis event? I think we’d all accept that a hurricane is a crisis event, but I want to know whether it’s sufficient to count in terms of its being a crisis event in terms of Working for Families tax purposes.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (21:36): Just to round this out, I think it would be unreasonable to try and define fully every unexpected event. What has been done here, when you talk about natural disasters, floods, bushfires, earthquakes, regional or global crisis events, is giving a signal of the degree of materiality of that unexpected event, in addition to medical attention not available in New Zealand, overseas, or taking care of a family member with serious illness or injury. We’ve gone across what you would expect would be the normal instances of that scale, and I don’t think there’s too much more to be added.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (21:36): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m still waiting for the Minister’s response to my question, which is not related to the emergency events but more related to the eligibility criteria under section MC 5B. That is an important question, and I want to check on that, looking at the fact that there were limited consultations according to the regulatory impact statement. Has, for example, even the Ministry for Ethnic Communities been consulted as a part of this process? Frankly, that’s probably the one community that would be most affected by the change we’re seeing here. That would be my second question.

My third question: when we’re looking at the fact that the seven weeks—I’m just checking to see if there is any rationale for the 42 days that’s been given. I think it just says, based on the commentary on the bill, that 42 days is seven weeks, but I can’t seem to locate where it actually specifies why that is.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) (21:37): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m interested in proposed new section MC 5C(4), in clause 18, and section MD  7C(4), in clause 20, which talks about a principal caregiver or dependent, if present in New Zealand, and if they are overseas for more than 40 days for “any of the following reasons”, and one of those reasons is the death or serious illness or serious injury of the principal caregiver, dependent child or family member, or if they are seeking medical treatment, and a range of other things.

I’m just interested in the interplay with the earlier rule in MC 5B(7), which specifically excludes “an event would not be considered unexpected”. So, for example, if someone went because of the death or serious injury of a family member and it was to a country that had a “do not travel” or red flag from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and while in that country a crisis event occurred—a pandemic, an act of war, a terrorist activity, political and social unrest, or industrial action. I won’t ask whether industrial action as an airline strike includes whether or not you’re willing to cross the picket line—I won’t ask the Minister to answer that question. But I am interested in how those two areas intersect and whether, if you have gone to a country with a red flag for one of those reasons, you’re still excluded from those provisions.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (21:39): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m just seeking the Minister’s engagement on my previous questions. I do have another question which is around this definition around the person, the dependent child, but again what I’m not seeing is the clarity in this bill. Again, noting that we’re just kind of trying to quickly analyse the bill urgently just this evening. What happens when you have a couple where one person and one dependant child is overseas, but the other spouse and potentially another dependant child is here in New Zealand? What happens then? If one half of the family is away for over 42 days but the other half of the family is here consistently, are they going to get half of the Working for Families scheme family credits or are they just not eligible altogether?

Hon Simon Watts: Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The honourable Minister.

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (21:40): I was just stretching there, Madam Chair. Anyway—Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, I’ll just come off, just to finish this off. I do appreciate the questions. This was around the migrant family question. So the example given is covered by the bill. So the family would not lose their entitlement to credits. The question around agencies engaged: yes, as part of the Budget process, the Ministry for Ethnic Communities and other agencies were engaged. You also had a question around the 42 days aligning to anything which links back into school holidays, for example, and also Working for Families supports households with children of school age in most cases. That’s why the 42 days is school holidays. So that’s the logic behind that. Thank you.

MILES ANDERSON (National—Waitaki) (21:41): 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.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 3A is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment replacing clause 4 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 5(1), new subsection (9B) of section EW 29 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 5(3) replacing “4 December 2025” with “1 July 2025” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 6(1) replacing “$100,000” with “$80,000” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 6(1) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 6(2) replacing “1 April 2027” with “1 April 2026” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 6A be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment deleting clause 7 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment to clause 8 inserting new subclause (1A) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The amendments lodged by Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan and Francisco Hernandez to clauses 8, 9, and 12 to 16, which relate to family scheme income, to change the application dates of the amendments from “2027-28” to “2026-27” are a single proposition. I will put a single question on these amendments.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendments to clause 8(4), 9(4), 12(4), 13(3), 14(2), and 15(3), and Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 16(2) replacing “2027-28” with “2026-27” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 13 deleting subclauses (1)(a) and (2) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 15 deleting subclauses (1)(a) and (2) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment replacing clause 16(1) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 16(1) replacing “$8,000” with “$10,000” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 16(1) replacing “$8,000” with “$11,999” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section MC 5(1)(b) replacing “all” with “any” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 18A be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 22A be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

Part 1 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair. The committee is suspended until 9 a.m.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Friday)

Urgency

Friday, 29 May 2026

Bills

Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3)

Committee of the whole House

Debate resumed.

Part 2 Amendments to other enactments

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members, when we suspended last evening, we were considering the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3) and had concluded Part 1. We come now to Part 2, the debate on clauses 24 to 28, “Amendments to other enactments”. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (09:00): Madam Chair, this is a very short part, too, and not a lot to—

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Very interesting.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: —I’m sure it’s very interesting, Dr Xu-Nan, and there’s not a lot to discuss in it, but I do want some clarification here from the Minister of Revenue. The major change here is some amendments to the Student Loan Scheme Act. What it does is it says that the Governor-General may add a statute or remove a statute from Schedule 3, clause 5(2), and then in Schedule 3, there’s a new subclause (2) coming in. There’s a whole set of Acts that are referred to—the Arbitration (International Investment Disputes) Act, the Consular Privileges and Immunities Act, the Pitcairn Trials Act—which can be taken in and out of Schedule 3, clause 5(2). This can be adjusted by Order in Council.

Now, this seems like a reasonable mechanism for when we’re doing this, but this is adjustments to net income for the purposes of section 73 of the Student Loans Scheme Act. There’s a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and back and forth between schedules, clauses, and what this net income means, and the impact of this. So, obviously, this is just tidying up some issues in the student loan scheme, and it looks like it’s fairly—I shouldn’t say low level, because it matters to the student loan borrowers, but I wonder if the Minister could just explain what the impact of this is and how it affects student loan borrowers.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (09:01): Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have similar questions to the Hon Dr Deborah Russell, but, first of all, I think one of the things that I’m seeing here is that a lot of these are taken from Schedule 38 of the Income Tax Act. I do have questions because, currently, this bit in terms of Order in Council, I agree it does offer some flexibility. However, what it doesn’t specify—and we see this being quite a common practice when it comes to secondary legislation—is that the Minister must notify publicly or, in this case, with the student loan scheme, possibly in the Gazette as soon as practicable if any of what we’re seeing in subsection (1), with the addition and the removal of a statute, has been done. I think that’s an important element, and, again, like I said, we do see this in other legislation, most recently in the Education and Training Act.

I wanted to check this is to do with the exemption of income and this has come down to the family scheme income. I do want to draw the Minister’s attention to clause 27(2). As the previous speaker, the Hon Dr Deborah Russell, pointed out, there are five Acts being referred to. I presume that these five Acts have been selected because they are the income that is exempted as a part of a family scheme income, or income from tax. I guess, in some ways, I understand the Consular Privileges and Immunities Act, the Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Act, and the International Finance Agreements Act; should they get any form of income as a part of that?

What I don’t understand is in subclause (2)(a) and (e). The Arbitration (International Investment Disputes) Act is predominantly about a convention on the settlement of investment disputes between States and nationals of another state that was opened for signature in Washington in 1965.How is that in any way related to an income exemption from tax? Presumably, in that particular Act, it does mention certain awards. Are we saying that any awards as a result of international investment disputes are exempted income as a part of a student loan scheme?I’m just a little bit perplexed at how that all ties in together.

Even more peculiar is the Pitcairn Trials Act. Now, that is legislation that allows the trial here in New Zealand to take place, as a part of what we saw in terms of the broader Pitcairn trials in the early 2000s. In there, at least in the legislation itself, it doesn’t actually specify any form of income or award. It is a mechanism to allow trials to be conducted, which we saw in 2005 with, I think, six people who were sentenced on 41 charges as a result of what we saw earlier, but again, it doesn’t mention anything in terms of income. I’m curious as to why these five in particular have been included as a part of this.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (09:05): Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and for those tuning in this morning, they probably are quite surprised that we’re talking about the Pitcairn Trials Act and the Arbitration (International Investment Disputes) Act as part of a tax bill. We are at Part 2 of consequential amendments, and we are now getting very, very, very much into the detail.

In summary, what you are seeing play through here is that the Student Loan Scheme uses the concept of adjusted net income in that legislation, and by repealing Schedule 38—which is what we’re doing in this bill—it means that certain income under other listed Acts, such as the Pitcairn Trials Act and other items that have been noted by the member, will not apply for Working for Families. However, these Acts are still relevant to the Student Loan Scheme Act, and so we are simply, by doing this, moving the relevant provisions out of the tax Act and putting them into the student loan legislation. That’s what’s going on in regards to that quite detailed question from Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan.

In regards to the questions from Dr Deborah Russell—and, as she’s acknowledged, there’s not too much in this area—the family scheme income that is referenced in other legislation—I’m referring to consequential amendments, clauses 25, 26 and 27—they are referenced in other legislation, and the consequential amendments of that are required to be reflected in the proposed changes. Schedule 38, which currently applies for family scheme income purposes, which is requiring certain salary and wages that are exempt from income tax under the Acts to be included in family scheme income calculations—the removal of this requirement means that Schedule 38 will no longer apply to Working for Families. That’s the key thing we’re doing in this part of the Act. It is in the detail, but it is required.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central) (09:07): Thank you, Madam Chair. I am interested in this part of the bill. In particular, I’m just curious because these, as I understand it, are administrative provisions to enable the student loan scheme, but the power to forgive or repay student loans is actually an administrative power. I guess my question to the Minister of Revenue is a really short one: in terms of the decision of this Government to do away with the third-year fees-free, is that encapsulated in this piece of legislation, or is it in fact part of the delegation of the Minister of Education to the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC)?

It’s important because, obviously, whilst these provisions empower the Inland Revenue Department to do the administrative work behind it—which is, essentially, to provide the rebate—the financial decision appears to be a decision made by the Minister delegating power to TEC, in terms of what it does with its funds. If the Minister could explain where that financial power comes from and the interface with the tax Act, that would be really good.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (09:09): The aspects that we are discussing here relate to Working for Families. There is no interaction with the points that the members have noted; they are out of scope. We’re talking about the Working for Families portion.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): As we say, it is a very small part, but I will explore Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s next question.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (09:09): Thank you. This is a very short question, and Madam Chair, this is my final question. This is still clause 27(2). I understand what the Minister is saying—that we’re taking it out of Schedule 38 and putting it in the Student Loan Scheme Act because it might still have some relevance to the student loan scheme.

But can I just check, again, when it comes to subclause (2)(a) and (e) in particular, are they still relevant to the student loan scheme? This is wholesale copy and pasted from Schedule 38. Was there any exploration as to whether those two actually still are relevant?

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (09:10): Yes. I answered that in my response to the last question. While they will not be relevant in the context of Working for Families, they are still relevant in the student loan scheme. Some of those Acts may have income that is derived that is relevant for student loans. That’s why we’re moving it to the student loan Act.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (09:10): 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.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 29 is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 26, new section 215A, inserting new subsection (1A) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

Part 2 agreed to.

Committee of the whole House

Clauses 1 and 2

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members, we come now to clauses 1 and 2, the debate on “Title” and “Commencement”.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (09:13): Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to start with the commencement date, and I want to specifically just focus on two parts of the commencement date. I think my colleague the Hon Dr Deborah Russell may have more details on some of these. The first one is around clause 2(1), “This Act comes into force on 1 April 2027.” Just checking—very reasonable, 1 April 2027; start of a financial year. I get it. But then why does it need to be under Budget urgency? There is more than sufficient time for us to go through this process more fully. Again, even—as we see with some of the other bills—a truncated select committee stage would suffice.

I’m more curious about clause 2(2)(b). This is the part that we debated around dry leasing and aircraft in New Zealand, and I note that this is retrospective in terms of the commencement date. I do want to check why, in that case, is it retrospective? We were kind of hoping to save that question for the commencement part. I’m going to start with those two short questions.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (09:14): I have just a couple of calls take on this part, and the one of them—I’ll do this call now, because I was going to talk about the title, but I’ll do the commencement date call right now, and then I will be seeking another call. Again, it’s around the commencement date of 1 April 2027. Now, my particular concern here again is around the Budget urgency and the Budget urgency for the changes to the donations tax credit. That donations tax credit, it will apply from 1 April 2027. It just strikes me as odd that, then, this particular piece of legislation needed to go through under Budget urgency. Now, if it’s not going to apply until 1 April 2027, then this legislation could have gone through as part of the tax year beginning 1 April 2026 annual rates bill. There was no particular reason that it needed to go through as Budget urgency.

This is really important with respect to the donations tax credit, because overnight we’ve been hearing from people working in that sector—in particular, my colleague Helen White has been hearing from them—and Philanthropy New Zealand is dismayed by the change. Yet this change did not go through a select committee process. Now, that select committee process would have been an opportunity for people in that sector to bring their concerns to the table and have an opportunity to speak to them, to justify why that particular tax credit was needed, why it made a difference.

The Minister has already told us that in terms of the fiscal cost, I don’t—oh, no, it’s different one that might have had a different cost. But it’s not a big fiscal cost, so it wasn’t to do with trying to balance the Government’s books or anything. I think the Minister told us yesterday that it might have made a difference of about $19 million in terms of the Government’s fiscals. There’s no particular financial reason to do it this quickly. It’s just a matter of why, then, this bill had to go through under Budget urgency and why, in particular—because it does mean that the voices from the sector have not been heard, and that’s a real shame. I wonder if the Minister could explain exactly why it had to be done under Budget urgency.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (09:17): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I’ll cover the questions that have been asked. I actually did cover the answer to the question around the urgency point last night, just for those that didn’t hear. Particularly for the Working for Families portion, we need to make the changes by December of this year in order to ensure that the systems changes within IRD are operational so that we can then notify the families for it to be effective from 1 April 2027. That’s why we need to pass it now. I would not have and we would not have sufficient time if we ran it through the standard tax bill to give that lead time, because the tax bill is not passed until March of next year. Again, repeating myself, but that is the reason around that. Having that certainty is also helpful to give people certainty in advance of next year.

The question raised by the Hon Dr Deborah Russell in regards to the donations portion is outlined clearly in the regulatory impact statement, and it involves tax integrity. We talked at length last night about this point in part A. The impact of this is on 350 donors, remembering this is donors that donate more than $100,000 or the maximum of their income, so, again, a very small group. But what IRD has observed is that there is an increase within that area of donors using donor-controlled entities to, in effect, donate to a charity, which can sometimes be their own charity, and then getting a loan back from their own charity to them.

That is an area of tax integrity that the IRD has noticed is increasing. Hence why we’ve stood back and said we need to make sure that this is a level playing field, and that we’ve got integrity in the system. It’s not an open cheque book and the advice from Treasury and IRD is that this change will not happen—there is no evidence to indicate that it will have any impact on people donating to charity. In the vast majority of cases, people donate to charity because they want to donate to charity. They do not do so, particularly with a donation of over $100,000, because of the fact that they’re going to get a tax rebate from the Government. On that basis, we don’t see any issues.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (09:20): Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to challenge the Minister a little bit because I disagree that this is repetition, because we did yesterday cover the dates, but it’s irrelevant to those specific sections in Part 1, and specifically we asked about the things with family credits, etc., and that was to do with the fact that the only calculator is from the financial year 2027-28, so people won’t necessarily see it until 2028.

The Minister added additional information that’s not relevant to the commencement date of the entire bill. In this case, for example, in clause 2(1), if there is implementation needed, what the Minister could have done is say that “this Act comes into force the day after Royal assent” but in the individual sections, as we see here over and over again, in clause 6(2) or clause 5(3) that addition dates are put in there. The Minister did answer, which I’m grateful for, but I want to challenge his idea that it is a repetition.

I want to check the Minister’s response to clause 2(2)(b) on aircraft and why that was retrospective. I’m still waiting, so I’d like the Minister to enlighten us on that particular date. The other thing I want to challenge is actually clause 2(2)(a). This is about section 5 and it comes into force on the day after Royal assent, but then again, in clause 5(3)—which this part relates to—it says it applies to anything on 4 December 2025. If we already have a retrospective date in clause 2(2)(b), which is 1 April 2026, why not make section 5 come into force on 4 December 2025? Clearly, the retrospectivity is not a factor here, in which case we would avoid having clause 5(3) altogether. If the Minister wouldn’t mind just highlighting why, in that case, it’s the day after Royal assent even though the effect is retrospective.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (09:22): Just in regard to that last point, we did, again, discuss that last night, as well 4 December 2025. In regard to the question by both members around why the non-resident contractors’ tax for aircraft is retrospective, the reason for that is that it avoids the need for transitional rules and it removes a tax obligation, so that no new obligations are being imposed retrospectively. In effect, if we didn’t do that, then we would need a mechanism to deal with this before the legislation is effective, and transition rules create additional compliance, and we don’t want to do that.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (09:23): Madam Chair, I just want to follow up from the question I asked previously around the donations tax credit. I accept the Minister of Revenue’s reasons around tax integrity. Those are good reasons, and I support that. However, he still hasn’t answered the question of why this is being done under Budget urgency. Now, I note that the Chamber is fairly subdued this morning, and we all know that Budget agency takes a bit of time. There was no particular reason for this, the donations tax credit, to be included in the Budget urgency measures, so I wonder if the Minister could just speak to why that particular change had to go through under Budget urgency.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (09:24): Thank you. I’d like to ask about the title, and this is a serious question that is related to the Hon Dr Deborah Russell’s earlier point about the commencement date. I have this shadow portfolio—community and voluntary—and I can’t see that the title is indicative of what’s happening to this sector. The title at the present time is the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3), but this has got nothing to do with the Budget, essentially, at all. This stands right outside of it. It doesn’t affect the Budget. It’s something that could have been done in a normal way, and it could have had that process associated with it.

I propose that we change the title here to reflect that reality. After all, that’s our job and the title is always to reflect the reality. I am suggesting that we change the title to “Taxation (Budget Measures and Sundry Measures which affect the Charitable Sector, Particularly Reducing High-end Giving) Bill”, because that’s what it does. This is a blunt instrument. We have produced a rule here which caps the amount that the Government is prepared to give a tax rebate to. It isn’t money that they’re spending. A person is giving $100,000 and the Government is allowing a 33 percent reduction. It isn’t actually something where the Government is paying out money. In fact, it is an incentive for generosity. It allows people to give more. In this situation, we are reducing the amount that we are going to get. I point out to the Minister that what we are also doing is not just reducing the people who do that at the present time, we are reducing the capacity to incentivise that as a whole.

I know that somewhere like Australia, the incentives are always almost greater. These very same people will find a place where they can get the best bargain, the best bang for their buck, in terms of gifting. They’re often associated because they’re at the high end with both countries, so I would like the title to seriously reflect what we’re doing here. I’m not satisfied that this has anything really to do with the Budget at all. I’d like an answer from the Minister on why we wouldn’t have a title that reflects the two purposes that are going on in this bill. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Sorry, just for clarification, I’ve had a look and I can’t see an Amendment Paper (AP), so I’m just checking. Are you speaking to an AP?

HELEN WHITE: No, I’m not speaking to a written paper. I’m speaking on the principle of changing the title of the bill to something.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Thank you. I just need to mark my sheet appropriately.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (09:27): It does feel like we’re coming to the end with those types of contributions. However, I will note Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s questions around the commencement clause. The drafting of that is very consistent with other tax legislation. In regard to Dr Deborah Russell’s question around why this is being done under urgency in relation to the charities portion, it is to give donors certainty regarding entitlements. They will have until the end of this tax year. These changes—the cap—will come in from 1 April 2027 and beyond. Between now and then, the rules remain the same, but we are sending a clear signal in that regard.

To the questions and points raised by Helen White, we are not reducing the amount of donations that people are able to give. What we are doing is capping the Government subsidy that is provided to those individuals on donations over $100,000 or donations that are equivalent to 100 percent of the donor’s income. That data that we’ve reviewed does not reflect or indicate that the change we are proposing will reduce the amount of money that people donate to charity. I’ll leave it there.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I will take one more call to see if there’s any new material.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (09:28): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m grateful because this will be my last call in this committee stage. I too wish to address the title of this bill. It’s currently titled the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3), but I suggest that a more appropriate title would be the “Taxation (Not the Budget Measures) Bill (No 3)”. Now, there’s a very good reason for that, because sitting on Inland Revenue’s website and in the Budget announcements yesterday a great deal was made of all the tax measures, and in fact there were 10 tax measures introduced.

If we go through them, there was the “charities are not for profit” measures, sitting in this bill. That’s one of the 10. There was the non-resident contractor tax exemption for aircraft asset leasing. That is another of the measures—two of the measures actually in the bill. There was the “company loans to shareholders”, this is a good measure, something that needs to be done—three of the measures—that is sitting in this tax bill. There are the changes to Working for Families, and as we’ve discussed why it needs to be in here to provide some certainty to people claiming their Working for Families tax credits, that’s sitting in this tax bill.

But then there are the other measures. Now, it’s interesting. There are the changes to the foreign investment fund rules. These are some changes which have been signalled, they are excellent changes, they are extending the revenue account method to all taxpayers who have foreign investment fund income. That’s a good change, but it’s not in this tax bill. There are some non-resident contractors’ tax modernisation rules—announced yesterday as part of the Budget—not in this tax bill. There are changes to the research and development tax incentive—interesting changes—not in this tax bill. There are some changes to fringe benefit tax—announced yesterday, much heralded yesterday—not in this tax bill. There are changes to the thin capitalisation rules for foreign-owned banking groups—not in this tax bill. There are changes to financial arrangements rules to support migrants—not in this tax bill.

It’s interesting. Deloitte partner, Robyn Walker, who is very well respected in the tax community has a bit of commentary in the media this morning and has been contacted around the tax changes in this Budget, and the two changes that she highlights are the changes to fringe benefit tax and the changes to the foreign investment fund rules. Excellent changes, she says, but they are not in this tax bill. In actual fact, this particular bill is characterised not by the Budget measures it contains, but by the Budget measures it doesn’t contain. For those reasons, I think this bill should be renamed the “Taxation (Not the Budget Measures) Bill (No 3) 2026”.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) (09:32): 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.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 1 replacing “Budget Measures” with “Working for Families Scheme Simplification and Other Matters” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the Hon Julie Anne Genter’s tabled amendment to clause 1 replacing “Budget Measures” with “Company Loan Adjustments and Other Matters” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 1 replacing “Budget Measures” with “Donation Tax Credit and Other Matters” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 1 be agreed to.

Ayes 88

New Zealand National 48; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8, Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 34

New Zealand Labour 34.

Clause 1 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 2(1) replacing “1 April 2027” with “1 July 2027” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Can I just remind members in the House that votes are taken in silence.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 2(1) replacing “1 April 2027” with “1 July 2026” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 2(2)(a) replacing “the day after Royal assent” with “1 April 2026” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the Hon Julie Anne Genter’s tabled amendment to clause 2(2)(b) replacing “1 April 2026” with “a single date set by Order in Council” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 2(2)(b) replacing “1 April 2026” with “1 July 2026” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 2(2)(b) replacing “1 April 2026” with “1 April 2027” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3) and reports it without amended. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): This bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Revenue) (09:44): I move, That the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3) be now read a third time.

As we have traversed in the hearing of this bill already over the last day or so, we have seen that this bill introduces a number of practical reforms focused on simplifying our tax system, strengthening integrity, and supporting economic growth. For the benefit of the House, I’ll provide a quick overview of the bill.

The bill introduces a maximum threshold of $100,000 on gifts qualifying for the donation tax credit. We want to continue to support the work of the charitable sector, but we must ensure that that support is targeted and represents the best use of taxpayer money.

The bill also proposes an income tax exemption that ensures non-resident contractors’ tax is no longer payable on the dry-leasing of aircraft and parts. This ensures that non-resident contractors’ tax will no longer be an obstacle to airline operators in New Zealand accessing leased aircraft and parts from offshore suppliers. It will also support our aviation sector, improve access for passengers and freight, and help ensure that our tax system supports rather than hinders productivity.

The bill also contains changes that tax a company’s shareholder on an outstanding loan from the company six months after it is removed from the Companies Register. The proposals were designed to minimise the impact on existing loans or ordinary practices where company drawings are used to manage cash flow.

Finally, the bill gives effect to simplification changes to the Working for Families scheme, including removing low-risk adjustments from the calculation of family scheme income and simplifying the resident requirements. These changes will make it easier for Kiwi families to get the entitlements which they are eligible to receive, reducing compliance burden, reducing process and bureaucracy, and making it simpler for Kiwis.

The contents of this bill strike a balance between simplification, fiscal sustainability, and integrity measures. They provide sound, careful, measured, and considered support for New Zealand businesses and New Zealand families. I would like to thank the IRD and Treasury policy officials in particular who drafted this work, and for their hard work in bringing this bill to its third reading. I’d like to acknowledge the IRD private secretaries and ministerial advisers for their work on the Budget process. We have just on 4,000 men and women who work for the New Zealand Inland Revenue Department across New Zealand, including in my home electorate of North Shore. As your Minister, the Minister of Revenue, I am very proud of your contribution that you make to our country, and the work that you do. It is with considerable pleasure that I commend this bill to the House.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (09:47): Madam Speaker, I want to begin by acknowledging the very last remarks the Minister of Revenue made about the sterling work done by the staff at Inland Revenue. They’re a great team. I wanted to especially acknowledge the policy team there, who are people of great integrity who work hard to keep our tax system in shape. They all do a fantastic job, and I trust that they will all be retained in their employment in the next few years. As has been well signalled and is contained in the Budget documents, Government departments are expected to reduce their costs, and that means jobs. I trust that all those excellent people at Inland Revenue will actually be retained in their jobs.

This Budget has been a disappointing Budget. It’s a Budget which was much hyped, but it is a Budget of gaps, and this particular tax bill in many ways symbolises those gaps. In terms of the gaps in the Budget, there’s a whole lot of gaps around support for people who are doing it tough. We know that things are tough out there at the moment. We know that there is increased pressure on food banks. We know that even families in work are having to go to food banks. Yet there is nothing in this Budget to support those people. We know that many Public Service entities are struggling to provide the services they need. There’s nothing in this Budget for those people. We know that the health sector is under pressure; there’s been some money allocated to the health sector, but we know that there are still massive problems on the front line.

This Budget is remarkable not so much for what it does do as for what it doesn’t do. And this tax bill is remarkable in many ways for what it doesn’t do as much as what it doesn’t do. There are a number of measures contained within this tax bill—four or five measures within it, really.

On the whole, we support those measures. The Labour Party will be supporting this tax bill at the third and final reading. Let’s go through some of those measures. The work that is being done on loans to shareholders and loans to directors and associated persons; it has, historically, been a way of transferring value from a company to the shareholders or directors of that company, and, over time, through some tax structuring, avoiding paying tax on that transfer of value. It was a rort and it is a rort that needs to be stopped. Although, perhaps, we might not have gone about it in the same way as the bill does, it is, nevertheless, a good measure and a measure that needed to be taken. So we support that particular measure.

The work around Working for Families is interesting. Calculating Working for Families tax credits is difficult. It’s complicated. There are a number of inclusions and exclusions from net family income—some of them which, really, have only the smallest impact on the Working for Families tax credits that the person may be entitled to. It made the process of claiming them unnecessarily complicated. And, at times, because it was so complicated, it resulted in people inadvertently owing money on Working for Families tax credits they shouldn’t have had in the first place, which created further stress. So that work, contained in this tax bill, to tidy up some of that calculation there is very welcome and we support those measures.

I remain concerned about the use of income equalisation accounts around claiming Working for Families tax credits, but I’m sure that it is a measure that the excellent staff at Inland Revenue will be keeping an eye on, and, if necessary, that can be adjusted again at some stage in the future because, of course, our tax law is always under review. So that was a good measure.

The work on aircraft leases is a little technical and it does mean income forgone by the New Zealand Government, but it does seem to be a sensible—that even though it is going to cost, in terms of revenue forgone, it will, actually, overall, enhance the New Zealand economy. So again, a sensible and good measure, which we do support.

In terms of the donations tax credit, that is a little bit more vexed. There was a problem in this space—there is a problem in this space—with people, again through pretty aggressive tax structuring, using donations to charities to, really, shelter income and to force it out in different ways. That is inappropriate. The way that this Government is moving on it is by removing the tax credit for donations over $100,000. Now, that’s a good move, but the difficulty is is it may not actually solve the central problem. People can still make substantial donations to charities and can still aggressively tax structure in order to shelter income in that way. So that problem remains even though part of the incentive for it is gone. We’re also concerned that removing that incentive will have a chilling effect on the amount of donations that are received by charities. And again, right at the moment, charities are struggling to provide, they are receiving fewer donations, and, in particular, I am concerned about, in these tough times, when charities like food banks are doing their best to support people, the very fact that this donation credit is being capped, it may have a chilling effect on the amount of donations that are received, even though those donations fall below the new limit.

We support this measure in terms of the way it is acting to remove some of the incentive for tax rorts, but we note a real caveat: we will want to see that this is actually working as intended, that it does not chill the sector, that philanthropy still continues. So it will need to be up for review. Those are the measures we support, but this is a Budget of gaps, and those gaps show in this tax bill.

As previously canvassed in earlier stages of this debate, Inland Revenue has a whole set of information sheets up on their website. Ministers made announcements yesterday about measures that are contained in those information sheets, but those measures are not in this tax bill. One of the measures that was announced yesterday was some interesting changes around the fringe benefit tax rules. Now, these look like interesting and good changes to me. What they will do is make it much, much easier for people, for businesses, to work out how much fringe benefit tax is payable on vehicles. So instead of characterising vehicles by the type of vehicle, which can be complicated, so rules around cars and trucks and utes and this, that and the other, instead it will look at the purpose for which a vehicle is used and calculate fringe benefit tax accordingly. Now, that is a sensible change. This morning we’ve had tax partner at Deloitte, Robyn Walker, who’s much respected in the tax community, heralding that change. But it’s not in this tax bill.

Likewise, there have been some changes announced to the foreign investment fund rules, extending the new revenue account method to all taxpayers who derive foreign investment fund income. Now, that is a good and sensible change. When the initial changes to foreign investment fund rules went through in last year’s annual rates bill, one of the calls at the select committee stage was for the method to be extended to all taxpayers. So again, Robyn Walker hailing that change in the commentary on the Budget this morning, but that measure is not in this tax bill

There are a whole other series of measures, which have been announced, but have not been included in this tax bill. One of the interesting ones is around charities and not-for-profits. Now, there is a change in the amount of income that a not-for-profit can receive before it is up for tax—sorry, change has gone from a threshold of $1,000 up to $10,000. That’s quite a significant change and it’s heralded in the information sheet, it was announced yesterday, but it is not in this tax bill.

The challenge remains. There’s only a small number of measures in this tax bill. A whole lot of their measures that were announced have not actually been included. This is a bill of gaps. Just like it is a Budget of gaps, this is a bill of gaps. Mind the gaps.

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

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai) (09:57): The Budget announced yesterday—Madam Speaker? I think my mic’s not working. Oh, there we go.

We saw in the Budget documents yesterday that the Luxon Government is failing on all the things that really matter: child poverty not being reduced; greenhouse gas emissions not being reduced—potentially increased; even on their own target or goal of economic growth, they are failing. And it’s because they have made political choices that take money from ordinary working people, disabled people, people living in social housing, and they’ve given it to the big corporates, the landlords, the tobacco companies, fossil fuel companies and whatever their slogans—they’re very careful with their slogans. We hear them all through the Budget speeches. We hear the Ministers claiming to be measured, balanced, etc., the reality is they are not, and they’re taking the country backwards at quite a rapid pace. And it’s because they’re there to serve the interests of a few: the few that are wealthy and powerful and sordid. But that’s not how we build a country, in Aotearoa New Zealand, that we could have.

When it comes to this particular tax bill, as the previous speaker the Hon Deborah Russell was alluding to, many of the tax changes that were announced in the Budget speeches are not contained in this bill. This is actually quite a thin bill, and it makes some pretty sensible and small changes, but we don’t yet have the legislation to implement the changes that were announced yesterday by the Minister of Finance. The changes in this bill are fine. They go some way to, you know, tweak around the edges. As we’ve spoken to, through all of our debates since the bill was first dropped yesterday, the main changes are: limiting the amount of tax credit one can claim for donating to charities—and that’s, I think, a reasonable thing to do.

In fact, right now, charities are delivering core services that, really, the Government should be funding, and they shouldn’t have to rely on charitable donations in order to be able to deliver the services that help those who are homeless and those that have mental health issues or who are struggling on the streets. I see a lot of charities and I talk to people in my electorate here in Wellington, and they’re struggling. The Salvation Army food bank ran out of food, and that’s because of decisions this Government has made elsewhere in previous Budgets.

The Government has made decisions that have taken money away from ordinary working people, and now people are struggling to make ends meet and the charities are trying to fill the gap, but they’re not able to, because, on the other hand, the Government is still making cuts to funding those front-line services and those charitable services. But what’s good about the change that’s been introduced is that wealthy people will not be able to use charitable donations to claim tax deductions over a certain amount, and I think that that’s a reasonable change.

The next step that the Government needs to take is to fund the services that are needed so that we aren’t having to rely on charitable donations as much. What we know is that the ultra-rich, the super-rich, actually do not give as much—they don’t. They don’t give as much, and now the whole society suffers as a result.

The next change in this bill is that it is introducing an income tax exemption that ensures that non-resident contractors’ tax is no longer payable on the dry leasing of aircraft. It’s a very technical change. Apparently, allegedly, it’s going to make it easier for us to lease aircraft that might be needed in the short term—fine, whatever. The next change is treating loans by companies to shareholders that remain outstanding six months after the company is removed from the companies register as income, and it is taxed accordingly. That’s reasonable—that’s fine. Then there are some changes to Working for Families which mean that Working for Families eligibility does not cease immediately when a caregiver retires or is temporarily overseas, and it allows exemptions for longer overseas absences when it’s for specified reasons.

All of these are completely moderate and completely reasonable, but, fundamentally, what was in the Budget is not taking us in the right direction. It’s not taking the opportunity to have a much fairer tax system and it’s not ensuring that we’re funding the front-line services that we need, and so we’re seeing homelessness increase, we’re seeing child poverty not reduced but just stubbornly staying at the same level, and all of that costs us in the long run.

We aren’t building public housing any more—huge mistake. Building public housing is one of the best ways to achieve the outcomes that we would all want as a country, and so is funding social services and ensuring that those people who are doing the really hard mahi like caring for those with disabilities, with special needs, and with mental health and addiction issues are paid properly for their work.

The last Budget was paid for by working women and all people in female-dominated industries not being able to access the pay that they deserve. Not paying them what they deserve makes these less attractive professions, it makes it harder for people to stay in New Zealand to do that work, and it means that they’re less able to make ends meet, and then there’s less of their income being spread around the community—which is actually what is good for our economy, if we can just keep that flowing. When we pay people properly for their work, we will find that there are more people willing to do the work that needs to be done, the people doing that hard work are more able to make ends meet, and that’s good for the local small businesses. That’s the opportunity that was missed in this Budget.

Throughout this, the Green Party has asked a number of questions. During the committee stage, my colleagues were able to dig into the detail of the bill. It still is a bit strange that this is happening through Budget urgency, as opposed to having a proper, full select committee process. It’s unclear why that would be needed for these particular measures. Fundamentally, the Green Party wants to see tax changes that address the fact that our lowest-paid people are overtaxed and are not supported enough through hard times while the wealthiest people in our country are accumulating more and more wealth and not paying their fair share, and that’s not good for any of us. It means that we don’t have the ability to invest in the things that really matter.

Todd Stephenson: Who’s “we”?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: The country—the society. I know that the Government doesn’t believe that we’re a society but that we’re just a bunch of random individuals who are competing against each other, and that’s why its economic policies fail.

The economic policies of the Luxon Government, with the ACT and New Zealand First extremist parties, are failing New Zealand, and that’s why we see unemployment increasing. It’s harder for people to find jobs here in New Zealand. Nothing in this tax bill and nothing in the Budget is going to make it easier for people to find jobs. Nothing in this tax bill is going to make it easier for people to struggle with the rising cost of fuel.

Those members are just doing the absolute bare minimum to try and pretend, and then they just repeat ad nauseum “balanced, sensible, fixing the basics, building the future”—it’s all nonsense. Most New Zealanders who I talk to—some of whom were even like naive enough to believe National at the last election and voted for them—are seeing through the Government now. They’re seeing that the people pulling the strings are the corporate lobbyists, the big climate polluters, the tobacco companies, and the landlords.

What actually, genuinely increases productivity in this country? It’s the workers. What would be a smart investment? Education. What would be—

Tom Rutherford: More roads.

Grant McCallum: Businesses.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: What would—

Tom Rutherford: $4,500 per $1 billion spent on infrastructure.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Why don’t you guys actually just take a call?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I love being heckled by the ignorant fools on the other side.

I mean, we have only about five months until the next election, and that’s plenty of time, I think, for it to be clear that the Luxon Government has no plan and no vision for the future, but only a vision of “We can dig up our conservation estate for minerals, we can sell off our assets to foreign investors, and we can allow the super-rich to get even richer and exploit workers.” That’s their plan.

TODD STEPHENSON (ACT) (10:07): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT to speak on the taxation bill. This is a small but important bill which supports our overall Budget that was delivered yesterday. We’re going to return the Budget to surplus, we’re cutting waste, and we’re investing in what Kiwis care about, and I commend it to the House.

Dr DAVID WILSON (NZ First) (10:08): I’m speaking on behalf of New Zealand First to commend this bill to the House. We really, really want to pay a compliment to our National Party colleagues. We’ve heard a lot about the philanthropic sector that’s struggling and may or may not have considered the Active Investor Plus criteria being added to that one. We’re really pleased about that—thank you very much for that. We commend this bill to the House.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ (Green) (10:08): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3). As my colleagues have already articulated, we will be supporting this bill.

I want to get a little bit philosophical in my speech, and maybe I’m about to do something very dangerous as a backbencher, which is to actually develop some independent thought. I want to talk about one of the things that actually cuts to the heart of this debate, which is: what is the role of the charities in the charitable sector versus the State? I think what some members opposite are asking what the relevance is, but, actually, this does come to the heart of it because this bill does introduce a maximum threshold for gifts and it caps what you can claim back in tax credits if you donate to a charity.

Now, charities have a really important role in New Zealand. I myself have a lot experience through having come from the charity sector.

I was born and raised, and still am, a Catholic, and I know that the Church and the institutions associated with it have lot of charitable giving associated with it. When I was at university, I helped found a St Vincent de Paul chapter at my university, the University of Otago. We did things like visit prisoners. We did things like redistribute food that would otherwise have gone to waste. We did things like run op shops. These were all very good and worthy things. Then, after I finished university, one of my first jobs that I took in the capital was working at Caritas, which is a Catholic care and relief organisation.

Now, we’ve heard from the charitable sector, and we’ve heard it really clear, and we’ve heard it right across the country, and the theme that is true and that they’ve said and that is being felt consistently across the country is that things are tough for the charitable sector right now. Things are tough because when the economy is tough, people have less to give, and when people have less to give, the charitable sector has less resources. But it’s ironic that, at the time when things are the toughest, the charitable sector has the least amount to give. It’s kind of like a negative doom loop in a way, because the economy is bad, people have less to give, and the charities have less resources to be able to pass on to people who need them the most.

It is a philosophical debate on what the role of the State should be versus the role of charities. I myself am not a conservative, but a lot of my family and a lot of my community members are conservative, and I’m familiar with the philosophical thinking that underpins conservatism. The steel man scenario for it is, they say, that the State is unnecessary because good people from the community will self-organise on the ground. It’s kind of distributed in that charities and communities should fill in the void and not be what they deem to be an uncaring, oppressive State. This is a little bit ironic because they are passing a bill right now, which we do support, that actually limits the tax credit that you can get back from giving to charity, so it does have a little bit of a maybe intended—or unintended—consequence of weakening the charity sector a little bit.

I wonder why they are actually passing this bill, which theoretically goes against that sort of narrative of an individual, conservative community, “Let’s have the charity sector handle it all.” It’s because the Government is desperate for revenue. They’re trying to look under every floor. They’re trying to squeeze every available source for revenue to fund their deficits. We’ve heard members opposite talking about how they’re getting back to surplus, but what they don’t mention is that they’re only getting back to surplus on a fake measure that the finance Minister has developed, a measure that’s actually not been done before, the operating balance before gains and losses, excluding ACC revenue and expenses measure, which artificially excludes liabilities from ACC, which doesn’t really make sense if you think about it. Again, we do rise in support of this bill. I’ve given a minor philosophical treatise. Thank you for this opportunity.

RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (10:13): I’m so inspired after that rant by Julie Anne Genter about looking for jobs. Well, the Budget promotes 220,000 new jobs over the forecast period, and for every $1 billion of capital expenditure, it’s estimated there will be 4,500 jobs, so hurrah to that! I commend the bill to the House.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) (10:14): It is indeed a privilege to follow after the most substantive contribution we’ve heard from a Government backbencher in this entire debate. Ryan, well done! You made 12 seconds.

We are here, finishing the final reading of the centrepiece legislation of this Government’s Budget, the omnibus hodgepodge bill around tax, that had absolutely no need to come through urgency. What we actually have is a number of tax measures that the Government put in the Budget that aren’t even in this legislation. It doesn’t seem that the Minister could actually get his act together to get all those tax changes in this Budget. Throughout this debate, we have been asking: where are some of these other tax changes that are scattered throughout the Budget? The foreign investment fund changes, nada; changes to financial arrangement rules to support migrants, missing in action; non-resident contractors tax modernisation, not there; the research and development tax incentive, those changes not there, as I said, probably because their big idea of being able to cash it out you can already do.

Then there’s the fringe benefit changes, and my colleague the Hon Dr Deborah Russell talked about how there’s actually been some commentary that these are some quite good changes. That begs the question: why has this not come before the House? Why is this not part of the suite of legislation? Why is it that we’re debating about the tax treatment of aircraft—a very niche change in the tax legislation? Why are we looking at the lease arrangements for aircraft and the tax treatment of that, rather than debating some of the changes that the Government has brought in? Then, of course, missing in action also are the changes to thin capitalisation rules for foreign-owned banking groups. There are some substantive changes in there. We have no idea when those legislative changes will be coming to the House; how it is that people should be planning; and, particularly in the case of some of these fringe benefit changes, how is it that people should be structuring their business and structuring what they’re doing; and when these changes are coming.

The fact that this is the centrepiece of the legislation shows that we’ve got a Budget that delivered absolutely nothing for New Zealanders. What we’ve got is more cuts and more pain for some of the most vulnerable people in our communities—

Dan Bidois: Back to the bill!

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: —and nothing is more emblematic of that than this bill, Dan Bidois. The fact that this is a bill that is in no way connected to the real lives of ordinary New Zealanders and does nothing to help them—what do we see in other parts of the Budget? What we’ve seen in other parts of the Budget are cuts to housing. What we’ve seen in other parts of the Budget are cuts to the things that can make a difference to people’s real lives. We’re seeing a lot of excuses and no real solutions, and the no real solutions part of it is utterly embodied by the bill that we’ve got in front of us here. It is not putting people’s jobs, it is not putting people’s health, it is not putting people’s homes, and it is not addressing the cost of living—the things that New Zealanders want to hear about, the things that New Zealanders know will make a difference to their lives. We are not seeing that in this bill.

Now, we are supporting this bill. There are some changes in it that are sensible, including the non-residents providing use of aircraft in New Zealand provisions—that seems sensible. The change that we have, throughout this debate, however, raised some real questions around is around the changes to the way in which charities are taxed. Now, the question as to why this needed to go through urgency is absolutely front and centre. The regulatory impact statement material that accompanied this bill made it clear that there hadn’t been problem definition work—there hadn’t been time for it. There hadn’t been time for consultation. Even a few days at select committee would have allowed us to tease out some of the problems that we raised in the committee of the whole House stage. The Minister did not have an answer for why it had to go through under urgency, and the answer from the Minister of “cos” doesn’t really cut it. It doesn’t explain to us exactly why that needed to go through as an urgent piece of legislation.

One of the things that we know is that, actually, charities have never been more important in New Zealand than they are right now. It is our charitable sector that is doing the heavy lifting while this Government is failing its people. It is the charitable sector that’s doing the heavy lifting in feeding people, in clothing people, in housing people, and in looking after New Zealanders. It is this sector that is raising some real concerns around what is happening in here. The regulatory impact statement that went with the bill actually provided some really good analysis around charitable giving in New Zealand, about where it fell, and 29 percent of it fell to other—which is our community and voluntary sector, our arts sector, our research sector—and these are all sectors that are not being supported by this Government in this Budget. This 29 percent of giving that comes through the charitable sector is so vital to these organisations. My colleague Helen White—and she’ll talk about it in her contribution—has been in communication with a number of organisations overnight who have raised with her some real concerns around these measures and what they are going to be, how they’re going to play out.

Labour is putting on record that this is an aspect of this legislation and this change that we will need to monitor and we will need to make sure is working and is not having a chilling effect on our charitable sector in New Zealand, because we simply cannot do without that giving that comes through to these organisations. That’s something that we want to make abundantly clear, because one of the things that we do know is that when we put something through under urgency, we need to believe that it is going to make a difference.

I think one of the things that is a big question for us is that this is a change that came from the Minister; it wasn’t driven by officials, and it wasn’t driven by the department. So the real question is why, and the only answer to that why that we can come to is you go back one year in time and you go back to Budget 2025, where the Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, was breathing fire about how she was going to clamp down on the misuse of charities taxation law in New Zealand and charities in terms of how they were shirking their responsibility in terms of the tax system. She was going to go hard on that, and what happened? The Government didn’t actually do that work. They crumbled.

From the fire that the finance Minister breathed at the last Budget, we can only describe this as the faint embers that emerged from that work plan—that it got thrown up there, the Government thought, “Oh God, we’re going to have to do something about charities tax law because last Budget the finance Minister made such a to-do about it and said she was going to do some work.” That has not eventuated, so we’re going to have to put some ill-thought-out propositions in place that we don’t test properly, we don’t put through a rigorous process, and we don’t see if it’s actually going to work. We don’t talk to the organisations who might say to us, “Look, your analysis says there are 350 people at this top end of giving”—which is what the regulatory impact statement tells us—”but, actually, we can tell you there are more than that.” At that very top end, there is actually a growing sector of people that want to give. Many of them fall within that 29 percent of giving that goes to our community, our NGOs, to our arts, to our research and science organisations, and these are where we need to make sure that we have got that going.

The other concern that’s been raised is that Australia has a much more attractive regime around charitable giving. The concern is that charitable giving in New Zealand might, like many New Zealanders, pack its bags and head to Australia. So this could be another example of the Government’s utter success in the “Everyone Must Go” campaign, because it might be that all of our charitable giving at the big end of town packs its bags and moves to Australia along with all our construction workers and tradies, that that’s also transferring over there.

We are supporting this bill, but we are eyes wide open in that there are many things that we will need to monitor. This could be yet another thing that when we are in Government, we could need to come back and fix, because this Government has missed the opportunity to do the real work.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (10:24): It’s going to be a few years before they’re back in Government. The bill that we’ve been debating, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3), is all a part of this Government’s plan to fix the basics and build the future. I commend this bill to the House.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson) (10:24): Oh, look, can I just say that was first equal from the National Party backbench. Mr Bidois also lasted for the full 12 seconds. So well done to the National Party backbench. Well done to them.

I’m just going to get back to the seriousness of this bill, but can I just say that this Government is showing they’re not taking the Budget seriously. As my colleague the Hon Dr Megan Woods pointed out so eloquently a few minutes ago, the Government trumpeted their Budget yesterday as being the answer to all of New Zealand’s prayers, and this is what we’re getting for the very first bill, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill (No 3), that, instead of actually talking about all of the things they’re supposedly going to do in the Budget, talks about a whole lot of things that aren’t related to the Budget at all, things that probably could have come through to a select committee. Now, my colleagues Deborah Russell and Megan Woods have listed all of these things, but there are a whole lot of other changes in the bill that aren’t there, around foreign investment, migrants, the non-resident tax threshold, R & D tax incentives—all of these things that are supposedly amazing in the Budget that are not featuring in the taxation Budget measures bill.

What’s also not in the bill, which is the massive missed opportunity for this Government, who had one last opportunity to prove that they were going to do something about the cost of living for working people and for our vulnerable communities—there is nothing for them in this Budget and nothing for them in this bill. So I’m going to talk to that a little bit when we’re talking specifically about one of the changes in this bill that other colleagues from my party of Labour and also the Green Party have talked about, which is the changes to charitable giving.

Now, I am the spokesperson for the arts for the Labour Party, and, unfortunately, we have been seeing cuts to the arts under this Government. Yesterday, on the same day that we celebrated New Zealand’s most talented musicians, this Government cut $27 million from the arts. I can’t repeat her speech here because, unfortunately, the language is very unparliamentary, which we would expect from this wonderful taonga of New Zealand, but the speech given last night at the Aotearoa Music Awards from Dame Lynda Topp is a must-watch speech for every member of that Government around how the arts community—who represent New Zealand on the world stage, may I say—are feeling at terms of how they’re treated by this Government.

Now, the other community I want to talk to particularly who could face real challenges from these changes around charitable giving are those who provide food support and community support to our communities. I understand my wonderful colleague Helen White will talk to this in a lot more detail in her speech, but there’s one organisation in my community of Nelson that could be on its knees, and that is New Zealand’s oldest environment centre—running for 40 years later this year—the Nelson Environment Centre, of which I was a board member when we began our Kai Rescue programme, that rescues hundreds and thousands of tonnes of food waste, redirects it from landfill. They are going to be closed by the end of this year if they don’t get a funding injection from somewhere. They feed thousands of people in Nelson and Tasman, and there is a massive, growing need.

This Government is doing nothing, and the community stepped up. The community of Nelson is stepping up to support the Nelson Environment Centre, to support the Nelson food bank and all of the charities who are supporting working people—many of the people receiving food support in my community are working people. One of the things in this bill could limit the amount of charitable support that goes to amazing organisations like the Nelson Environment Centre, like our Nelson Community Food Bank. So in the absence of proper Government support and the absence of a proper cost of living package, the community is stepping up.

Where is the support in this Budget? Where is the support in this bill for working people? I see they’ve all got their heads down, and I’m looking forward to another 12-second contribution from a member of the National Party backbench, which I’m sure we’re about to get in a few seconds.

This Government is on its last legs. They will be turfed out in November because this community of New Zealand can see that this Budget is a dud. It does absolutely nothing for working people, it does absolutely nothing for vulnerable people, and this Government deserves to go.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) (10:29): Oh, I’m going to let the member down: it won’t be 12 seconds—I commend it to the House.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (10:29): Thank you. I am going to focus on the issue of charities because it’s the one of most concern to me. I am the portfolio holder in that sector, and last year we had a concerning announcement from Nicola Willis that she was going to look at taxing the entities that were supporting the charities—so, your op shops, etc.

That was something which went through a due process, and out of the end of that due process of talking to the people who really matter in this sector, the proposal was dropped. That was because it went through that process. It was going to backfire on New Zealand to do that, and people got involved and explained that, and those explanations were accepted, and it shows the power of process.

I suspect if this particular part of this legislation went through due process, we wouldn’t end up with the same solution that we started with, and that is after, as my colleague has said, consulting with those in this area. I have talked to people, this morning and last night, who are working with high-end donors, and I’ve also talked to charities in general and the philanthropic organisations that are so key to actually holding up New Zealand at the moment, which is desperately struggling.

I want to connect this with the reality that we are shooting ourselves in the foot here. What we know about gifting—there’s actually a graph in one of the documents we were given, you can see there’s a plummet in gifting, and it’s an alarming plummet. What we know is that as times have become tougher, those small donations are harder to get. We’ve also got—ironically, because we have a widening gap between rich and poor—and appetite at the high end to donate, but what we are dealing with there is we are dealing with an ecosystem that’s actually international.

If our settings are so much less generous and less beneficial in terms of getting that money out of high-end donors than Australia, guess what will happen! The very same people will just simply go to where their money is going to do the best, and for good reason. I think if I was in that privileged position, I’d probably be thinking, “Where can I do the most good with my money?”, and if New Zealand cuts the amount at $100,000 and says at that point we are no longer giving you a rebate of 33 percent, then, actually, wouldn’t you go to Australia, which isn’t going to do that? They will get that there and they’ll be able to serve people in the very same issues, but they’ll be able to serve. If you are a charity in that way, that is a concern.

What our reports say—and we’ve been given a lot of documents, and we’ve gone through them. What they say, what the regulatory impact statement says, is we don’t really have a lot of evidence—that’s what it actually says. The Minister said we’ve got evidence; that’s just not actually correct. It says in those reports we don’t have a lot of evidence. We’re making a lot of assumptions. We haven’t really been able to talk to anyone because this is under Budget urgency, so we’re predicting but we don’t really know. That’s a very, very dangerous context for this, because we could see a plummet in high-end donations, which New Zealand desperately needs.

I went to a really interesting panel the other day, and it was the sector asking the people on every side of this House to come. I heard my colleagues from every other party say that they thought that the work that our charities and philanthropic organisations were doing was really important. There was a lot of gush, basically, about how wonderful they were, and nobody—crickets on this—mentioned that we might be changing the settings without talking to the very people we said we respected. Now we have a dramatic change to those settings that will affect some organisations—because that’s what the regulatory impact statement says, it’s lumpy. Some depend on those high-end donations; others don’t, so we’re not even sure who it’s going to affect. Those organisations woke up yesterday, saw the Budget, and they’re trying to work it out—how is this going to affect us?

I wanted to talk about what the problem was we were trying to solve. That, to me, seems one of the most interesting lessons of having been an MP, is that we constantly miss the mark on trying to solve the problem. Here there is a problem—the problem is in people avoiding tax by using charitable mechanisms. That is a problem, and it’s not in the interests of our philanthropists or our charitable sector to have that continue, and our obligation is to nail that, to deal with it.

One of the things I know about tax law in New Zealand is we have one of the best settings in the world on tax avoidance. We did that, historically, because in the 1870s, I think, we didn’t have a big population, we didn’t have a big Parliament, and so we created settings that were quite flexible. We said, “If we find it’s avoidance, it’s avoidance”, and we set up a system for challenging it. We have great law that other countries don’t. Sometimes, in other countries, until you call it “avoidance” it’s not—we have to actually have a whole lot of people breach the rules and they get away with it. That doesn’t happen in New Zealand if we do our job. I can see a very good argument for a crack team of people involved from IRD and charitable services dealing with this problem, hitting the nail on the head.

I’m also interested in the issue of controlling entities. It’s quite complicated, but it’s very well worth looking at. I’m less interested, as I explore this, in the issue of religion, and it was raised by the Minister that a lot of these organisations that are giving a lot of money are religions, or they’re giving to religions. I’m not religious, but it’s interesting how much the moral group of motivations that motivate a lot of people to help their communities in charities are actually being undermined here. If religions are doing good things with their money, like feeding our kids when the Government turns its back, by making sure that we have food security—people like the City Mission, for example, in Auckland. They’re incredibly important people at the moment. If they’re doing that with religious purpose, I’m all for it. So I’m not as interested in that, but I’m willing to explore those issues around whether that’s the way that we should target charities.

This is a blunt instrument. This is anyone who gives over $100,000 losing that 33 percent. That is absolutely a disincentive for generosity at a time when New Zealanders desperately need help and the Government is failing on its basic obligation to provide it. Do you know that we have people going to food banks at the moment who both parents in that family are working full time? What kind of society do we get if that happens? We have a problem in this country when a Government is just closing its ears. The next piece of legislation up is about making sure that we punish and scrutinise those on benefits—that is what is going on, and that is where this mind-set is.

We look at the charities and we look at them with some sort of lack of generosity, where we don’t think that they’re doing the right thing, we don’t look after the people who are, we treat them all like they’re criminals if they actually donate $100,000. On the same day, we make sure that we target people’s upset on people who are actually hurting under this Government. What kind of mind-set does this Government bring to this Budget?

Hon Melissa Lee: You let them sleep in cars last time.

HELEN WHITE: We are in real trouble in this country because of that mind-set. We are absolutely in trouble and the next time somebody decides to yell at me about people who are living in cars, they need to think about the fact that I see them sleeping in their cars right now—right now. This is not a problem that’s gone away; it is a problem that’s got a lot worse. Thank you.

NANCY LU (National) (10:39): It is quite enough to hear from ourselves, but let’s hear from people are saying outside. The review comments from Deloitte this morning on the Budget is that the Minister of Revenue, Simon Watts, is actually fixing things—actually fixing the tax system—and therefore the National Party is fixing the basics and building the future.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (10:40): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just want to start by picking up what the previous speaker said about the people outside: can I just put on the record and say, Deloitte is not “people outside”. In fact, it is far from anything that people outside have genuinely expressed experiencing.

Now, I rise on behalf of Te Pāti Kākāriki. We do support this bill because—well, what can I say about this taxation bill? It’s the first bill out of this year’s Budget, the final Budget for this Government. I would describe it as bland, benign, beige, because it literally doesn’t address any of the issues and any of the problems that the people of Aotearoa are facing today, in a cost of living crisis, in a fuel crisis, when we have sectors, we have major cuts—further cuts—coming to the Public Service. Now, this bill doesn’t address any of that.

In fact, one of the few things that potentially is helpful if you’re looking at the simplification or the removal of some the criteria when it comes to the family scheme income—it doesn’t even take effect until the 2027 financial year. If they really care about the working class and the everyday people of Aotearoa, they would have made major changes sooner. Even for people who are looking at the changes to the family scheme income, they’re not going to be able to start benefiting or will be able to utilise it until 1 April 2028, when they can start making claims and start making those returns for what they are seeing in the 2027/2028 financial year. That is almost two years away, and even then, it’s bland. It increases the threshold from $5,000 to $8,000. That is simply adjusting for inflation since it was last changed in 2011.

There’s nothing in here—much like the Budget. They talk about how much additional money they’re putting into it: into education, into health. A lot of that is not even meeting the inflation, which is currently at 4 percent. Early childhood education got 1.5 percent; the schooling operational fund got 2 percent. That’s still well below 4 percent of the Consumers Price Index. We’re seeing successive Governments continually underfunding all part of the society, then bring a weak, weak, weak taxation bill like this into the House.

I do want to address the donation tax credit, because I think that is probably an area where the Green Party actually does strongly support, in terms of not so much capping how much people are able to donate. People are always able to donate however much they want. We do agree with the fact that there should be a threshold for how much people are claiming, the threshold now being limited to $100,000. If you look at the tax credit, you’re looking at, possibly, a tax return of no more than $33,000. That is a good thing, because people are using this as a way of gaining additional tax credit.

But here’s the thing. Clearly, as we have heard from the Minister at the committee stage, we’re not over here writing blanket cheques or with an open chequebook for tax cuts for the wealthy, which is deeply ironic, because this is what the Government has been doing consistently over the last 2½ years. By the changes we’re seeing with a donation tax credit, it means that this Government is actually open to a wealth tax and they do understand that the ultra-wealthy in this country should be taxed, but this is the way they choose to do it, rather than genuinely doing what the Greens has always been champion for, which is a wealth tax.

That way, we can, as a country, generate more revenue, because all of this is skirting around the edges, and the revenue that is going to be generated from the tax donation credit is no more than $90 million, according to the Minister. Imagine how much more we can generate if we have a wealth tax in this country. Imagine what we can do to our Public Service and structural deficit in our infrastructure if we have a wealth tax in this country. So the Greens will support this bill, and we hope that the Government one day will support a wealth tax.

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

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children) (10:45): on behalf of the Minister of Internal Affairs: I move, That the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I’m pleased to be here today on behalf of Minister van Velden to present the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill. This is an omnibus bill that deals with the regulatory systems overseen by the Department of Internal Affairs. The bill’s primary objective is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of those regulatory systems. The bill addresses not only minor errors, gaps, and inconsistencies across legislation; it also addresses the overly prescriptive and out-of-date provisions.

On behalf of the Minister, I thank the Governance and Administration Committee for its work on the bill. This was a significant undertaking. The breadth of the bill meant the committee had a wide variety of topics to consider, with amendments across 30 different Acts. It covered topics from boxing and wrestling to reproductive technology, passports, and charities, as well as many others. I thank the select committee for their recommendations, which have helped us focus and improve the bill.

On behalf of the Minister, I would also want to acknowledge everyone who took the time to submit on the bill. The committee received 46 submissions, including from the New Zealand Law Society, the Office of the Ombudsman, the Insurance Council of New Zealand, Fertility New Zealand, and the New Zealand Mixed Martial Arts Federation. There are too many amendments to cover what all of them do, but I’d like to give an overview of some of the key provisions of this bill.

Changes to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 2021 will clarify how overseas marriage dissolutions are recognised, as well as when the name changes should be publicly adopted. The bill will strengthen privacy by amending this Act to allow sensitive information to be removed from birth certificates. It will also be amended to improve access to historic records. Amendments to the Citizenship Act 1977 and the Passports Act 1992 will make it easier to issue, cancel, and revoke documents, and will update language to align with modern drafting standards.

The Electronic Identity Verification Act 2012 is being refined to simplify the process for approving participating agencies that wish to use RealMe. The bill will also make a range of changes to the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993. The bill will amend this Act to enable the Chief Censor of Film and Literature and the Deputy Chief Censor to delegate some administrative powers and functions under the Act to classification officers. Doing so will help improve efficiency by preventing bottlenecks and administrative duties during busy periods. Other changes will see updates to the names of the Classification Office and the Classification Review Board, removing “Film and Literature” from their titles to better reflect their broader roles. Changes to the Act that provide for information sharing with overseas law enforcement agencies will enable faster direct information sharing with overseas partners to improve cross-border efforts in combating online harm.

Other amendments will reduce compliance burdens and address outdated provisions. For example, amendments to the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Act 2017 simplify levy administration for insurers, while changes to the Gambling Act 2003 will support harm minimisation by restricting those under 18 from purchasing tickets for lottery products.

An update to the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Act 2004 will enhance donor information, and registering and sharing. It will do this by allowing a personal representative of a donor to provide updated medical information to a donation clinic. This will enable important medical information to be passed along to genetic relatives. Another update will enable the registrar-general, upon request, to tell a provider of the number of donor offspring births recorded for a particular donor, which will help prevent potential relationships between donor siblings.

I want to acknowledge the time and effort that the Governance and Administration Committee put into considering this bill. The committee has provided sensible recommendations, taking into account submitter’s suggestions. The committee’s unanimous support for the progress of the bill shows a consensus that the regulatory systems managed by the Department of Internal Affairs will be improved and will benefit Kiwis who interact with those systems. I also consider that the committee’s recommended changes to the bill are reasonable and will improve clarity, privacy, and legal certainty across the legislation and regulations under consideration. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I commend this bill to the House.

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

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour—Māngere) (10:51): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m very pleased to take a call on this Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill, but I do question that should this bill be used and be submitted and discussed and debated on in urgency time, given that it’s a tidy up bill. However, I will continue.

Thank you to the Minister for her comments in terms of this amendment bill. It’s an omnibus bill; it’s a tidy-up in terms of the Department of Internal Affairs. It is to improve the effectiveness and the efficiency within Internal Affairs, giving them clear direction of their operational role. In the bill, there were unnecessary provisions, outdated references, redundant provisions, and technical inconsistencies that were received by the Governance and Administration Committee. I do acknowledge the members of the committee and the officials, but I really want to thank the submitters. There wasn’t a lot of submissions, but they provided very good submissions that the select committee discussed, and we were able to make recommendations. So in terms of the submitters—I do want to focus my contribution on the submitters, because we got the opportunity to raise it in the first reading, in the second reading, and through the committee stage. It was important to hear from New Zealanders that have very strong views with regards to this tidy up of regulatory systems that is operated by Internal Affairs.

I want to focus my first opening comments on the amendments to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 2021. We received a submission from Matua Rāti and his concern was: what is the commitment of this bill towards Te Tiriti o Waitangi? He was asking the committee, in terms of the provisions that were not clearly included in terms of making amendments to the amendment bill. He said: “The Bill has no Treaty clause, no Māori oversight, and no data sovereignty protections.”, and he questioned what the committee’s work was doing in recommendations. And in Matua Rāti’s written submission, he was questioning the “Whakapapa and historical information [that was] altered or shared without Māori consent or cultural assessment.” In my view, that is quite valid, and it was put forward to the committee, but the committee chose otherwise.

I want to just quickly reflect on some of the figures. In Aotearoa, the population is now 5.3 million, just under 45 percent; you either come from Māori or you are ethnic or Asian, or you are Pasifika. That reflects that the New Zealand demographic is changing quite rapidly because of immigration policies and the like, and it will be important as we go into the future. For example, the next 10 years of legislation that is operated or administered by Internal Affairs to reflect that the information in births, deaths and marriages is (a) correct, and (b) it reflects some of the new New Zealanders who are not from this country but who have adopted our laws and legislation. So I just want to leave it there.

Another submission that came to the select committee was from the New Zealand Mixed Martial Arts Federation, who provided a submission with Part 2, the repeal of the Boxing and Wrestling Act 1981 and the revoking of that provision. It was important, and they were putting forward that it’s a good thing to repeal and for the select committee to review, but (a) what is going to replace it, and (b) in terms of New Zealand’s slightly growing sports in this combat area, they wanted to have input into the system. Even though we heard their submission, only some of those things were recommended.

Labour does support the sensibleness of these changes through the committee, but we do want to highlight that through the public process of public submissions, our communities will want to still have their say. That is important, because it’s important for us to hear from New Zealanders that care about the laws of this land.

Another written submission that was put in was by the New Zealand Property Council, who had real concerns about the fire and emergency levy that was described in the bill. They wanted fairness about the increasing costs to New Zealanders around the apportionment of that levy and how things are calculated. So the work that the select committee carried out was valuable. It was helpful to hear the different recommendations and then through the legislation we were able to review that.

Another submission that was put through was by members of our disability community, and I don’t recall that I actually raised this, but they were very keen for the select committee to understand the issues that are faced by many of our disability community by way of certification and by way of clunky documents when you’re actually sometimes physically impaired and you need to provide, like, your passport or your birth certificate. Through the written submission of these two individuals, Ms Liu and Mr Faville, they were asking would the Department of Internal Affairs consider a photo ID as opposed to a clunky thing like a passport, etc. Because the physical challenges that they have with sometimes having to produce documents when you need to—be it through Customs, if you’re travelling, be it through different Government departments, we need to sometimes think about those physical challenges. They were just some of the issues that were brought before the select committee.

It is very helpful that when New Zealanders are going through a rising cost of living in terms of day-to-day costs, sometimes when departments are trying to achieve efficiency and effectiveness through different legislation, we actually sometimes need to ensure that we are making good recommendations through the select committee process to our officials. Because sometimes it will be the language or written provisions through what we have to do, but when you’re actually a Department of Internal Affairs official, sometimes there are serious challenges for members of our community, either from the disability community or even the languages.

The languages was one of my questions to the Minister through the committee process, because there is a strong assumption that many members in our community, either everyone’s got degrees and you’ve been through quite a seasoned education in your life, or not. And sometimes people with different languages—English might be your second or third language. So there’s a sometimes incorrect assumption that when laws are put out that sometimes the language can be quite challenging. It is helpful for officials to understand because we are a growing, diverse community.

We’ve got big centres, whether it’s Tāmaki-makau-rau, whether it’s the middle of the North Island, Wellington, and further to the South Island. It is important that when the select committee and public submissions are received, people understand the diverseness of New Zealand. It’s changing. It’s a changing thing.

Through this Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill, it’s a good bill that we’ve had the opportunity within the select committee to be able to communicate, to converse, and also to receive advice from our officials—really important advice. What we’re trying to achieve is a quality piece of legislation that, then, everyday Kiwis and New Zealanders will understand.

It was helpful to understand that through this process, 23 of those Acts, which cover internal affairs, health, local government, transport, justice, community and voluntary sector—those are important departments in our community. It is the purpose of this House to ensure that we have a robust process and that when we are reviewing, particularly through a technical regulatory systems amendment bill, we actually get it right; that it’s updated. This Government has used the term “modernise”. Now, “modernise”, on this side of the House, to us, means “cut, cut, cut”, and that’s what we’ve seen in yesterday’s Budget.

But I do thank the select committee for their work. I commend this bill to the House.

MIKE DAVIDSON (Green) (11:01): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Outside it’s 11 a.m. on a Friday, but in here it’s still Thursday and we’re in urgency. I was sitting in my office this morning, looking through the next bill we’re going to look at, the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill, and I was just shaking my head. It was very clear this is a Government that’s not for all of us. If you’re poor, if you’re a student, you’re Māori, disabled, this Government doesn’t care. Then I got told—

Andy Foster: That’s not true.

MIKE DAVIDSON: That’s true, Andy Foster—it’s true. Then I got told, oh, the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill is up next. It’s urgency, and here we are, having the third reading on a bill that’s about, really, housekeeping—a technical tidy-up—in urgency. Is this really what urgency is for? Is this really what urgency is for—this bill?

Tim Costley: Well, then, just commend it to the House. Crack on.

MIKE DAVIDSON: No. Well, this is actually important that we let people know what we’ve sat in urgency for. I think it’s really important that people realise that we’re stuck in urgency discussing a bill that’s just about housekeeping, technical tidying-up.

But what’s coming is really, really bad. What’s coming is, once again, punching down on the poor, a typical response—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Having announced we’re discussing the bill, let’s discuss the bill.

MIKE DAVIDSON: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Let me get back to the bill.

Now, I’ve, obviously, come in recently, and this bill had already been introduced and was part-way through. I managed to actually sit on a couple of the hearings, but I didn’t work on, obviously, refining the bill through the select committee. I’d like to acknowledge the work of the select committee, which is very well chaired by Camilla Belich, and good work in making some changes. Obviously, this is quite a technical bill. I think it’s really important.

I did do the second reading and sat through the committee of the whole House. It, obviously, went on for quite a few hours. It’s important that we, I guess, really interrogate these bills, because we know this Government likes to slip little things in here and there that, actually, once again, make it harder for people to live. I did outline all the Acts that were being amended. We heard in the first reading there were 30, but I’m not too sure. I read in the report there were, like, 23, but maybe there were a few more that they’re sneaking in there. In the second reading, I did read out all those Acts, and I did that for the people that watch online. It’s probably important that I do that again, because for the hundreds and hundreds of people that do watch along—well, maybe it’s tens and tens, or less than ten, but there may be different ones, so it’s probably really important that they understand all the bills and Acts that are going to be amended from this. So just give me a minute while I go over them.

Hon Member: Well, you’ve got seven.

MIKE DAVIDSON: Oh, excellent. I probably don’t need seven to get through all these, but there’s a few that we need to talk to as well. What were they? OK: the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 2021; the Charities Act 2005; the Citizenship Act 1977; the Electronic Identity Verification Act 2012—it’s a long list—the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993; the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Act 2017; the Gambling Act 2003; the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003; the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Act 2004; the Inquiries Act 2013; the Land Drainage Act 1908; the Legal Services Act 2011; the Local Authorities (Members’ Interests) Act 1968; the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009; the Marriage Act 1955; the Passports Act 1992; the Public Records Act 2005; the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal and Public Bodies Empowering Act 1915; the Reserves and other Lands Disposal and Public Bodies Empowering Act 1917; the Reserves and other Lands Disposal and Public Bodies Empowering Act 1920; the River Boards Amendment Act 1913; the Rotorua Borough Act 1922—

Camilla Belich: I’m glad you mentioned that one. It’s a good one.

MIKE DAVIDSON: It is. As well as amending them, the bill would also repeal the Boxing and Wrestling Act 1981 and revoke the Boxing and Wrestling Regulations 1958.

It was touching on a lot of Acts, and some are very old Acts. I see one from 1908—the Land Drainage Act 1908. Some of them were actually important tidy-ups. We must state that. It was actually quite good to bring these up to speed, because some of them were quite old. I’ll touch on a couple of Acts. I think it was really important that the Boxing and Wrestling Act—we heard a lot of submissions on this one. Really, there was concern. We know there’s a lot more combat sport than just boxing and wrestling, and what we had was an Act that covered just one. It was outdated, but there was one Act. There was a lot of concern about the fact that, actually, just because we don’t have an Act to cover everything else, do we repeal the one Act that we have that covers a couple of those combat sports? It was good to know that, actually, the timing of the repealing of this would try and align with bringing in an Act that would cover everything. I think that’s really needed, and I think it needs to make sure that we follow through that process—that we don’t actually have a legislative gap there. We have seen in combat sport that there is serious risk, and we need to make sure that that is regulated properly.

Another one I just want to touch on, and I brought it up in the committee of the whole House, and I’m not too sure—I don’t really think I got a great answer from the Minister, but that’s not surprising. It was around the fire and emergency changes to that Act. I just need to find it. It was around the meaning of a dwelling. What happened is they’ve, basically, got the Natural Hazards Insurance Act, and they’ve done a bit of a carbon copy across to this bill, to the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Act, just so they can define what the meaning of a “dwelling” is, what the meaning of “multi-use buildings”—which makes really good sense, to have Acts that align.

When I was reading through it, it had a section where it defines a dwelling. Basically, it makes sense, right, what a dwelling is. It needs to have somewhere you can “cook, sleep, live, wash, and use a toilet”. It kind of goes through, and then it goes, “A building, or part of a building, that meets the criteria in subsection (1) or the criterion in subsection (2) is a dwelling even if it is used some of the time to provide temporary or transient accommodation.”, which is fine. But then further on in the same section, it then goes to “Clarifying uncertainty”, and it goes, “To avoid doubt, a building, or part of a building, is not a home or a holiday home (and is therefore not a dwelling …) if it is used to provide temporary or transient accommodation, being accommodation that is ordinarily provided for periods of less than 28 days at a time (such as a hotel or motel);”.

Well, the other thing that would fall into that category is short-term accommodation like Airbnbs, and whether, if they’re sole use, they are actually covered by this bill. And if they’re not covered by this bill, they will not be covered by the Natural Hazards Insurance Act, and therefore, potentially, we’ve got thousands of properties across this country that may be paying the levies but legally are not covered.

Unfortunately, the reply I got from the Minister was that it aligns with the Natural Hazards Insurance Act, which I’d already said in my question. So it kind of left a bit of a question there: have we created legislation that is leaving a lot of people exposed in the event of an earthquake? We know from the Canterbury earthquakes that there was a lot of issues and ambiguity in the Act that has caused a legacy of issues for the last 15 years. I’d really hate that actually we’ve created not just the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Act 2017 but also the Natural Hazards Insurance Act with issues there that would actually hurt a lot of people moving forward.

All in all, I think what we’ve done here is actually just tidy-up a number of Acts. It’s still very, very concerning that we’re actually using urgency for this housekeeping matter. But on that, the Greens will support this bill. I commend it to the House. Kia ora.

TIM COSTLEY (National—Ōtaki) (11:11): This bill fixes some basics, and I want to point to clause 108 and also clause 116(2) where it makes Lotto now R18. That’s a good idea. I commend the bill.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First) (11:11): This bill is largely about minor changes to 23 Acts. I’d love to speak to several of them but in the interests of keeping it short, I won’t. I will just mention one, which is the Public Records Act. The bill originally proposed removing the requirement for organisations that were working overseas under multinational arrangement, for example the Defence Force, to be able to be exempted from complying with the Public Records Act. New Zealand First’s long-held and well-communicated view, coloured by Operation Burnham in Afghanistan, is that was inappropriate, and therefore the majority of the select committee agreed to continue to require transparency and complying with the Public Records Act while asking for further work to be done on this matter.

Finally, I would note that while we’ve had a lot of complaints about doing this in urgency, this does not change in any way the consideration of this particular bill, because it’s just the third reading. I commend this bill to the House.

CELIA WADE-BROWN (Green) (11:12): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I have a few points to make in supporting the third reading of the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill. It is non-controversial in general but there a few points I would like to raise nevertheless.

There’s the small matter that some of us went to a presentation recently about tiny homes on wheels, and I just want to draw the House’s attention to the fact that the definition of “dwelling” in no way really covers tiny homes on wheels. I’m just putting on the record that across the House it would be really useful if we could work through the chance for housing implications, and, of course, it’s mentioned here in terms of Fire and Emergency New Zealand implications of actually creating cheaper housing for people so that they can own a house but don’t have to own the land and some of the agreements that come along with that. So that’s something new in the third reading to add.

The other area that I want to look at is the modernisation of gender. I think it’s really interesting that we agree on a bill that modernises the definition of “gender” for the citizenship roles. It replaces many instances of “he” or “she” with “they”, “his” or “her” with “their”, and that there are certain parties in this House that seem to have been exceedingly allergic to understanding the use of the pronouns “they” and “their”. Yet today, they deem it completely non-controversial. I did raise this with the Minister in the committee of the whole House, and one point we absolutely agree on is replacing some of the references, sections 16, 17, and 19, in Schedule 1. We replace “he” with “the Minister”, because, thank goodness, in 2026 we can have many Ministers who are not men.

I’m really surprised that these excellent aspects of modernisation don’t seem to have actually trickled down to a party that can put up such a divisive and unpleasant and unscientific bill that seeks to categorise human beings who are far more interesting and diverse than just a binary male or female.

I am delighted that we will be agreeing this unanimously, and I think this should provide excellent ammunition for all of those people who want to be inclusive, fair, and friendly to other human beings.

This came through a portmanteau bill, a wide-ranging bill, when I was on the Governance and Administration Committee, and I thank Camilla Belich for her leadership there, as ever, and the other members, Tim Costley, Andy Foster—a great committee. I miss it. I hope you miss me too. Also there’s the Hon Melissa Lee, Tom Rutherford, Lemauga Lydia Sosene, and myself. Again, I don’t remember Andy Foster raising any issues about those gender definitions and the lists moving “his” and “her” to “their” at that point at all. So maybe it’s just been a later surprise to us all. On behalf of the Green Party, I support this bill.

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangārei) (11:17): The bill is to improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the regulatory systems overseen by the Department of Internal Affairs. Again, as other members have said, thanks and congratulations to the select committee. I commend this bill to the House.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) (11:17): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, well, well, here we are in Budget urgency discussing the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill. How fascinating.

I have to say that in the lead-up to the Budget, and we are now in Budget urgency, we see the country dealing with a cost of living crisis. We heard the Government make some pre-Budget announcements about sacking 9,000 New Zealanders. So in the anticipation leading up to the Budget, although the finance Minister was very keen to lower expectations, we thought that surely there’s going to be something in this Budget, something that we’ll be discussing in Budget urgency that’s going to really set out this Government’s vision for New Zealand and really show that they haven’t been wasting the last three years and have a vision for a better life for everyday New Zealanders, with some of the issues we’re facing, like forecast record high unemployment, for example.

I have to say I didn’t anticipate that one of the bills that they would bring before the House in Budget urgency would be the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill. That was a surprise because not only does the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill have probably the least amount of urgency of any bill on the Order Paper, it is something that, by the Minister’s own words, has been being prepared by Internal Affairs for decades—decades. But, apparently, in this opportunity of Budget urgency, where the Government has their last chance to really stamp their mark on New Zealand, this is what they choose to prioritise,

It is also an interesting choice for Budget urgency for another reason, and that is because there is just so much material in here, so many Acts that are being amended and so many things to talk about. I have to say I was thinking about this bill. I think I remember every single stage of this bill. I remember the first reading. I think I was on the speaking list but unfortunately I had leave and my colleague Barbara Edmonds took a call on it. I think she said at that stage that she was surprised to see levy-setting in a regulatory systems bill, and I think that’s a fair reflection.

Levy setting, as it is for Fire and Emergency New Zealand, is slightly unusual to have in a regulatory systems bill because it would be seen as a slightly more substantive bill. A levy is very closely related—and I won’t get into the semantics—to a tax, and so having that in a regulatory systems bill was somewhat unusual. Then I had the honour of chairing the Governance and Administration Committee that looked into this bill, and we heard from a number of different submitters, and we heard about a number of different things. I just don’t think I’m going to have enough time to go through all of them in the time that I have remaining, but I will try and pull out a few highlights. I want to acknowledge, as other people have, the collegiality in the select committee and the way that the submitters brought up issues on a range of subjects. I think, actually, in many ways—probably more than most bills that we see through select committee—a lot of suggestions that submitters actually made were incorporated into the final version of the bill that we have before us today. That is the next part that I recall.

Then, of course, very, very recently—in fact, I believe it may have even been this week or last week—we had the committee stage, and we were able to go through this bill with an extreme level of attention to detail. Every single clause, or most, was scrutinised. There were a few in there—some very, very old Acts from over 100 years ago—that have been amended under this Act. Again, that really emphasises for me the irony of using Budget urgency for this type of bill when things have been able to not be urgent for 100 years, and yet the Government has decided to use this opportunity to make this change in the House.

However, I won’t labour that point too much further, but I do believe it shows a lack of ambition by this Government to make a real change in the lives of New Zealanders. This bill, as the Minister of Internal Affairs stated in her third reading speech, really looks at out-of-date matters and minor matters—so that is what the bill does. That doesn’t mean the things in it are not important, but they’re certainly not urgent, and certainly shouldn’t be of a substantive policy nature, because otherwise it wouldn’t be a regulatory systems bill. It would be another type of bill; one that we might more expect to see during Budget urgency.

Some of the interesting things that we discussed in this bill—and I haven’t actually, I don’t think, been able to make this point and it’s been something that I’ve been wanting to discuss throughout the period of time that this has been going through the House. In this regulatory systems bill, we are making changes to the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Act. I support those changes, but we heard a number of submitters say and come to us about further changes that they wanted to see in that Act. I just want to be really clear about an area of law that was raised with us in select committee for inclusion in this bill that we were advised could not be included in the bill due to scope; due to the fact that it’s a regulatory systems bill—it only updates details in bills and covers minor matters. But I do think that this warrants the attention of the House, and I do think this is an area that we should be looking at seriously because there is injustice that is occurring according to submitters.

The actual recommendation that I think many of the committee would have liked to have seen some action on that we weren’t able to progress was the Ethics Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology at the moment does not have any discretion to consider applications for extension for the storage limit for frozen embryos. There’s a 10-year cut-off limit—that includes overseas time, it includes time in New Zealand. There isn’t, as we were advised, a scientific basis for making it a cut-off of 10 years, and of course, this can have huge implications for people’s lives. People have individual circumstances. They might have frozen embryos at a certain point. They may have had a diagnosis from a certain member of their family. They might have lost family members. They might be facing personal challenges where those embryos take on increasing importance for them, and there is no good scientific reason we heard that those embryos should not be able to be used at 11 years, 12 years—there’s not a reason for that, necessarily.

Of course, those of us in this House, and those of us on select committee, are not expert doctors in this area. The people who are experts are the Ethics Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology. I do think something that this House should look at is bringing in a bill that allows that committee to have discretion to consider an extension. I think that that would be a great member’s bill and I think it would be a good Government bill to bring to the House. I think many people, including submitters to the committee on this bill, would be very pleased to see a bit of common sense and a bit of discretion being able to be put in place in this particular area. So I did want to say that and I’m grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to do that.

There are a number of other areas that have been changed by this. The Gambling Act has been mentioned—it’s raised the age of buying Lotto tickets to 18. The committee did quite a lot of good work to make sure that those purchasing Lotto tickets who are under 18, if they were to win in a transitional period, were still able to claim their winnings. That’s a particularly interesting thing that we looked at.

Tangi Utikere: Win the lottery. Maybe we can talk about that at Budget urgency.

CAMILLA BELICH: That’s right. There’s been a bit of mention of lotteries recently, and certainly, the chances of people winning the lottery from this Budget are very, very low. Certainly, those of our most vulnerable in social housing are also not in that position, probably couldn’t afford a ticket actually—they’re quite expensive, as I understand, these days.

We also made changes to the Boxing and Wrestling Act. That was something the committee felt strongly about, that understanding that the boxing and wrestling community wanted to have a system in place and not have the regulations just simply removed, and so there’s a review happening. I would look forward to the Minister for culture and heritage, maybe during scrutiny week, being able to give an update on this review. Because 1 April 2028, it’s going to be no joke for those in the boxing and wrestling community if the review has not been completed, that they will have no regulation around that particular sport at that time, and so that’s no joke for them.

In the closing few seconds of my contribution, I just want to note that as we are in Budget urgency, it does mean that instead of being a Friday as it is in the rest of the world, it is actually Thursday, 28 May, which just happens to be our deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni’s birthday. Not only can her birthday celebrations start on a Thursday, they can in fact continue until this Government chooses to finish Budget urgency, so I send my very happy extended birthday wishes to her.

Hon MELISSA LEE (National) (11:27): Thank you. Mr Speaker. As many members have actually said, this legislation amends 23 Acts, and it is for the Department of Internal Affairs to continue well into the future and the legislation that they oversee remains fit for purpose. I commend it to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Georgie Dansey.

GEORGIE DANSEY (Labour) (11:28): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Five-minute split call.

GEORGIE DANSEY: Hmm?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Five-minute split call.

GEORGIE DANSEY: Oh, thanks. This is my first Budget urgency and I was excited about what the Government might present in urgency—real action on the cost of living for New Zealanders. I wasn’t sure where they’d go, but I can see now the direction that this Government has decided to go in is the third reading of the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill. The second bill up in Budget urgency is the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill. What an introduction to Parliament for me for my first Budget urgency. I look forward to the Budget next year, which I know will be a Labour-led Budget and will have real relief for people struggling with the cost of living in this country. Instead, for now, I’ll talk about the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill administered by the Department of Internal Affairs.

As other speakers have spoken to, it makes changes to multiple pieces of legislation administered by the department, and in this case has provision over 23 Acts. There are a few of the Acts that I wanted to touch on today. Following on from the comments of my colleague, Camilla Belich, around the changes to the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Act, this is an important step for us to consider the way that we look at donors in our country.

As rainbow spokesperson, I have a lot of conversations and have a lot of friends who have been through the process of having a donor in a same-sex relationship. There’s a lot of work to do in this space because too often there are concerns—it’s a very sensitive time, it’s a very high-pressure time, it can be very stressful—and the more we can do to break down the barriers to accessing that and making it as easy as possible is good.

So I support these changes because they’re going to have long-term effects in New Zealand. I’d say that the use of donors in this country has grown considerably over the last few years, which I’m stoked to see, including single parents accessing the donor space. So I’d like to see more in this space and as part of this Act, but this is a very good step in that direction.

The second one I wanted to talk about a bit was the Boxing and Wrestling Act. I was reading through the submissions for the bill and I was really interested in the submission from the New Zealand Mixed Martial Arts Federation (NZMMAF). I think that they had some great points around protections in wrestling and boxing. This bill puts New Zealand in line with international boxing and wrestling organisations: requirements for rings, boxing gloves, rounds, and durations. Other speakers have spoken to this and the NZMMAF spoke to this about extending those provisions. We want good regulation in this space, we want good safety in this space. There is room to go further to ensure that we’re reducing unnecessary risks in combat sports. They wanted to see an enforceable, clear, regulatory framework that covers the entirety of combat sports.

The last one I’ll mention is the changes to Lotto and the submission from the New Zealand Lotteries Commission which supported that age change to 18 for all Lotto games. I really support that and it’s good to see that we have both the Lotteries Commission as well as consumers supporting this change; this is going bring more safety into our communities.

To finish up: what a time to be alive; what a time to have your first Budget urgency, to talk about the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill. I look forward to next year with a more progressive Government.

Dr HAMISH CAMPBELL (National—Ilam) (11:33): It is a great honour to rise in support of the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill. What we’ve heard across their House is support for this bill so therefore I commend it to the House.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (11:33): I guess I looked at this bill for the first time because I wasn’t on the Governance and Administration Committee when it was put on the Order Paper, and I was thinking about how we come here in urgency at the time of the Budget, and we expect to see some new vision for our communities, and then we get—on Friday morning—this, which is the rats and mice, isn’t it?

It doesn’t mean that these things aren’t important or that the Governance and Administration Committee hasn’t done a valiant job on looking at issues that are clustered in this piece of legislation. But, by its very nature, they have to be minor changes and just be the rats and mice. That’s the nature of the very bill. It isn’t just an analogy; it is a deep irony that that’s what we end up doing straight after the Budget of this Government. It shows just how little is on the table for New Zealanders today, of any great significance, that this is what we’re dealing with today.

I was quite passionate in my last speech about my concern about the degree to which working families in this country are now dependent on food banks. Nothing that I’m reading in this bill comes anywhere close to even tweaking our laws in a way that will expedite the feeding of our families or the changing of settings in a way that might mean that two people working in a family can actually feed their kids. That’s a pretty sorry moment in New Zealand, when we get to that point and we’re there. That’s what New Zealanders have to face when they open their newspapers this morning—that’s where we’re at. It isn’t funny; it’s incredibly tragic. But you could look at it in a comic way, that that’s where we’re at today. It’s deeply ironic, and by which use of the term I actually mean ironic, which the song by Alanis Morissette never really did. I think it misunderstood that phrase deeply.

Now, I want to talk about what’s in the bill, and it will be—and I did say, I don’t want to derogate from some of the things that this will affect, so I want to start with the very sensible suggestion that our local electoral officers will be able to take an oath or a declaration. What a sensible thing to do, and it is something that I’d like to see a lot more of: that kind of dissemination of that kind of power to people, that makes it really accessible and that honours the people who do those jobs and often do them with little recompense, but are really important in our community. It’s really nice to see that.

I was very interested to see the changes to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act. I hadn’t really understood that there was a problem with the kind of information that was published there but it clearly has been problematic, and I can see the utter sense in the Registrar-General looking at whether the disclosure of information is prejudicial to the personal safety and wellbeing of people named in the certificate or their family. That’s the kind of thing that I think we’re going to have to do more of. I think we’re seeing a lot of little indications in the law before us that privacy settings have to be revisited in a modern world where a lot of the information that used to be something somebody went and dug out and often had a search clerk involved in getting that information, is now online, it’s now available, and it is being misused quite a lot. There needs to be a rethinking about that balance.

So I do think that little change is an indicator that there’s a bigger, more joined up vision of that balance to be talked about. We’ve talked about it in other areas of the law recently, one being the issue over the Companies Act and the registration of directors with their addresses on those Companies Act registers. I do think we need to have a good look at that because access to information has become quite weaponised in this country. I was interested in that one.

I was also interested in the boxing and wrestling, which is actually a removal of the law, as I understand it, and a refresh, ready for a regulation and an Act that might cover a whole lot of different combat sports. Again, that’s an area—I’ve had the privilege in my work in Mt Albert to realise how important boxing has become in my community and how wonderful that can be as an opportunity, particularly for young men. But I’ve seen a lot of young women getting involved, too, in that sport. I’ve also seen it being used in the family violence space where little children are actually getting involved in something that is an outlet for some of their energy, but it’s a positive team-based, connective outlet.

I think boxing is a really interesting area, and what has been pointed out to me by people working in those areas is that there are some hidden issues around being able to box at an international level, and it does need a real look at it to encourage that sport to flourish well, but also that there is very little funding for the sport—no Government funding at all for a sport like that. I think the issue of these sports and their place in terms of wellbeing, I think that’s a big one where we probably don’t have a handle on the benefit that it brings to our communities.

When I’ve looked at cost-benefit in that area, it’s been underwhelming in comparison to what I think the reality is—that it does offer huge advantage. Recently, I got taken by a wonderful man who had the tragedy of his daughter dying by way of domestic violence—a guy called David White. His daughter had been killed, and he showed me this beautiful little boxing ring in the middle of nowhere where those children were being engaged in that way. He definitely sold me on the idea that it’s things like boxing that may well bring a lot of value to our community in terms of getting kids out of cycles where they are seeing violence and they haven’t got the community around them to support them in a healthy way beyond that problem.

I also just want to talk about the issue over the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Act. Look, this is huge. We’re going to have to look at this again. It was good to see the work that was done. The issues are obviously being balanced by a very conscientious committee—issues around holding and storing embryos, etc. Also issues that have been flagged and that are hard ones to solve around donors who donate a lot, and then you may have a myriad of children who don’t know each other, and then they may form relationships because, in fact, they’ve got the same father. It is something that we’re going to have to look at in a much more comprehensive way. Those kinds of changes, they’re a big deal, and this is a good start, but it’s by no means the end.

Finally, I did want to just spend my last few seconds talking about the gambling issues. We have a huge issue coming in this country with youth gambling. We’ve got people online looking at youth gambling. This fixes a little, tiny thing—the lottery tickets—but there’s a bigger problem we’re going to have to face head-on. It’s a huge one, and it’s doing huge damage in our communities.

KATIE NIMON (National—Napier) (11:43): Look, we’ve heard that this is a very detailed and helpful bill, and so, with that, I think it’s very important that I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Tangi Utikere, taking the five-minute Te Pāti Māori call.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) (11:43): Meitaki maata, thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call on this Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill. The regulatory systems bills are always actually quite interesting ones. They often don’t gather a huge number of submissions, but they do have quite broad impacts.

It is interesting, however, that on the day after the Budget—the physical day after the Budget, not the date after the Budget, because we are in urgency. We are in Budget urgency, which is used as an opportunity for the Government to signal what is so urgent to set aside what would normally be happening on a Friday or a Saturday and to place the Parliament into urgency. To have this bill within the urgency motion, I tell you, is something of a surprise because what is contained in this bill, I think many people would agree, would not warrant bringing people back on a Friday—the fact that staff have to come here and staff the Parliament over the Friday and into the Saturday. This is a bill that would normally be part of the Order Paper and would not need to proceed under urgency. There is nothing in this bill that warrants the use of urgency by the Government. There are changes, no doubt, but it is intriguing to wonder why it is that the Government intends to place us into Budget urgency to consider these changes.

I will just touch on some of the changes. There are 23 Acts and associated regulations; I don’t intend to go through them all, but there are some that are worthy of mention. The first one is the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act. The bill would change that so that it actually gives some power to the Registrar-General to ensure that if there is some information that might make its way on to a births or deaths certificate or a marriage or civil union certificate, the law currently does not give the Registrar-General to remove or not place on those records some information that might actually be prejudicial to safety or wellbeing—whether that’s around perhaps location, addresses, those sorts of things. This change will mean that the Registrar-General will have some flexibility in terms of them making that particular decision.

One of the other changes is to the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Act there. Now, wouldn’t it be great if we were actually using Budget urgency to discuss the suggestion of the Government making pumping more money and resourcing into Fire and Emergency New Zealand, given that in about 14 minutes, they will be going on strike to send a signal to this Government that they are doing nothing to support them in their current crisis and their dire emergency? Instead, the Government’s preference and priority is to spend Budget urgency debating and talking about clause 92, which is going to replace regulation 15(1) of the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Regulations around the valuation of property that’s deemed to be less than 50 percent residential. This is the priority of this Government in terms of progressing this the day after the Budget when it comes to Fire and Emergency New Zealand. I want to acknowledge those who will go on strike in about 13 minutes’ time to continue to send a very strong signal to the Government that they are not supportive of the work that they do.

There is also the Gambling Act, which many members have already touched on around Lotto. I want to acknowledge the Governance and Administration Committee, which made one change around, OK, what about the circumstance where someone legitimately purchases one of those tickets, then this law change comes in, and then they can’t redeem that because they would be ineligible? The select committee has fallen on the side of, well, actually, let’s allow that a ticket that’s validly purchased prior to that can still be redeemed by someone who is able to do that.

The final one that I want to touch on, my colleague Helen White has already referenced. This is the Local Electoral Act changes. When there are local elections in communities, there are electoral officers, deputy electoral officers, and other officials who undertake work. At the moment, there is no clear steer or direction around who can actually witness those declarations that are taken; what this law change will do—one provision of the bill—will mean that’s actually specified so that those who hold or occupy those electoral officer or deputy electoral officer roles can undertake that work.

These are important pieces of work, but they certainly don’t justify the use of Budget urgency, in my mind, to progress these changes. We could have come back in June or July to progress this. There are no immediate changes—certainly in the local government space, that need to be given effect to right here, right now. So, yes, we will support this bill, but it is unfortunate that this a priority signal from the Government that this is where the House’s time should be spent, rather than on matters that really will make a huge difference.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill

Legislative Statement

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (Minister of Statistics) (11:49): on behalf of the Minister for Social Development and Employment: I present a legislative statement on the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

First Reading

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (Minister of Statistics) (11:49): on behalf of the Minister for Social Development and Employment: I move, That the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

The bill makes practical changes to modernise how our welfare system operates. At its heart, this bill is not about changing who gets support; it’s about making sure the system delivers that support properly and sustainably.

The Ministry for Social Development (MSD) makes millions of decisions every year. Many are, of course, routine and rules based, but the legislation that governs it has not kept up. That means unnecessary manual processing, duplication, and inconsistency. It also means staff are spending less time supporting people into work and more time on administration. And that’s not good enough for the clients of MSD or taxpayers. This bill fixes that.

New Zealanders expect a welfare system that is fair and accurate, and too often the current system falls short. The use of automated decision-making has increased in recent years to improve efficiency, free up resources, and improve services so the welfare system can be faster and more effective at meeting people’s needs. In simple terms, business processes are automated when systems are used in place of people to complete actions. These processes automated decision-making where decisions are made without substantial human involvement. These systems can range from straightforward business rules through to more advanced tools. But the systems in this bill are rules based. They apply clear legislative settings consistently and do not rely on discretion. These are straightforward, common-sense changes aimed at improving efficiency and clarity while maintaining fairness and accountability.

The Government is intent on delivering efficiencies in the public service, both for the taxpayer who pays for it and for the end user who interacts with it. Through public service reform and bills like this one, the Government is ensuring the public service keeps pace with modern innovations, ensuring taxpayers benefit from technological advancement. It’s about public service that grows smarter, not larger. It means a public service that is modern, productive, financially sustainable, and focused on front-line delivery.

The bill has four key objectives: it will, firstly, enable a more efficient and modern welfare system through appropriate use of automated decision-making; secondly, it improves consistency and accuracy through updated mandatory reviews; thirdly, it requires medical evidence where appropriate for medical benefits; and lastly, it will clarify the process when a child turns 18 and is included in a caregiver’s benefit.

I’ll now turn briefly to each of those four points. MSD already uses automated decision-making in limited areas, but there is no explicit general authority to use it across the system. This bill introduces that authority. The bill is about using technology sensibly. Automated decision-making will be used for simple rules-based decisions and human judgement will remain where it is needed. Clients will be advised of any decision and will be able to seek review. This is about freeing up staff so they can have high-value conversations with people about getting off the benefit and into work. Importantly, this bill strengthens automated decision-making safeguards in law, requiring MSD to ensure these systems address risks such as bias and discrimination, legal and policy compliance, fraud, transparency, human oversight, and assurance. It will mean, also, that MSD is required to consult not only the Privacy Commissioner but also the human rights commissioner and other relevant groups to ensure the interests of vulnerable communities are properly considered. The bill enables MSD to use automated decision-making where appropriate, with safeguards in place, and that means faster decisions, more consistency, and a system people can trust.

I want to now turn to the mandatory reviews. Mandatory reviews play an important role in checking that people receiving assistance remain eligible and are paid the correct rate. They help maintain confidence in the welfare system and support its financial sustainability, as well as reduce over or underpayments to people, avoiding the unnecessary creation of debt.

The bill expands the range of benefits that are subject to mandatory reviews, including certain domestic and overseas benefits and childcare assistance. It also updates and refines review settings to ensure they are applied consistently and in keeping with the intent of income support. In a number of cases, the bill introduces clearer expectations around the information that must be confirmed, and these changes help ensure that the assistance is targeted to those who are genuinely eligible while streamlining the process for clients.

The next area I want to raise with the House relates to medical reviews. For medical benefits, eligibility depends on up-to-date medical information. Over time, existing settings have not always provided sufficient clarity about when medical evidence must be provided or renewed. This bill clarifies that, where appropriate, clients must provide a medical certificate or other medical evidence before a medical benefit is granted or continues when existing medical coverage ends. At the same time, the bill recognises that people’s circumstances can be complex. It allows for extensions or deferrals in exceptional circumstances, ensuring the system remains flexible and responsive. MSD will also continue to have discretion to require an assessment by a prescribed health practitioner if a person’s eligibility is unclear.

The next area I want to focus on is the end of school year review process. The bill clarifies the process for when a client’s dependent child turns 18. MSD will be required to exclude a child from a caregiver’s benefit when the child turns 18 unless the caregiver confirms, and MSD is satisfied, that the child is still financially dependent and in school or tertiary education. MSD will continue to support caregivers who have 18-year-olds in their care who are still in education. In those cases, the child can continue to be included until the earlier of: them becoming financially independent, leaving education, or 31 December in the year they turn 18. The bill includes clear notice requirements, so caregivers have time to respond and provide information before changes take effect and this improves transparency, certainty, and consistency.

In conclusion, some aspects of mandatory reviews, medical reviews, and the end of school year processes will be supported by automated decision-making. This is only for established rules-based processes where automated decision-making reduces delay and administrative effort without compromising fairness. Taken together, these changes support a welfare system that does what it’s meant to do: provide help to those who need it, while being financially sustainable, efficient, and consistent. They also support MSD staff by reducing unnecessary manual processing and allowing more time to be spent supporting people with complex needs who have barriers to work or who are in challenging life circumstances.

We in the Government believe that people who genuinely need support should receive it, and, equally, we believe the system should be clear, consistent, and modern so it works well for clients, for staff, and for taxpayers alike. That’s what this bill is designed to achieve, and therefore I commend it to the House.

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

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (11:58): Mr Speaker, thank you. And I want to—I’ve just heard a shout-out from Ricardo Menéndez March and he’s going to talk about, I anticipate, the Australian example here of automation, and so is Priyanca Radhakrishnan. So I’m going to leave that alone, but I’m going to talk through my concerns as they are at this point. And again, I point out this is coming through a system where we just won’t have proper scrutiny of this bill.

I went to the regulatory impact statement (RIS), which we’ve all got, and it told its own story. This is what it says when you get to the bit which says, “What is the policy problem or opportunity?” Paragraph six says: There are two aspects of the problem. Paragraph seven says: This has been deleted due to legal privilege—is the basic gist. So I’m not allowed to know what the two aspects of the problem are. And eight is also largely redacted. It just has one single line and then it has a line saying: officials have categorised these processes covered in the RIS into three groups: mandatory reviews, end of school processes, and medical reviews. Everything else is absolutely locked out. Now, I used my imagination and I thought, what could the possible legal privilege be around not telling me what the problem was? I thought, well, it could be that perhaps the Ministry of Social Development have been acting in this way without the law behind them. That is the only thing that I can think of that would allow that to be privileged, that there’s been some illegal act or some risk of one. Other than that, I really don’t know. I genuinely am not informed by the RIS as to what the nature of the problem we’re fixing today is. It puts us in a terrible position. It continues, by the way—there’s a whole lot of grey in this. It is very, very difficult to know what is going on here.

Now, I can tell you what people are saying and it puts this in perspective, because what we have here is a bill that automates, but it also requires medical examinations, and it requires them of people who are quite vulnerable. It has an ability to do that without—where, really, they’ve got no choice. If we’re real, they have got no choice. Those things, for ordinary people, are quite frightening because they lose the autonomy they have over their own life. They do worry about automation in this day and age because they lose the human connection that we all rely on instinctively, because there will now be automated decision-making.

We know that we associate that with a sort of George Orwell - style world. We know that—that’s not like hidden wisdom; that’s the reality. That’s how people feel. They feel totally overwhelmed in a society where they cannot connect with another human being to talk through an issue in that way. People do have a lot of distrust around these things, and they’re right to. They’re right to expect human contact to be part of our system.

So while I see enormous advantages in the technology that’s coming—this sea change of technology—I’d be cautious about this. I’d be absolutely cautious about this because you’re talking about the very group of people who are most disconnected. It’s very, very important that we safeguard that connection between the people who are most vulnerable and the systems we put in place, which either provide a safety net or further alienate them. That is my concern here, that we are looking at a movement that is dehumanising, and we don’t even know what the problem is, do we? Because no one will tell us. Thank you,

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (12:03): Thank you so much, Mr Speaker. This is a Government handing out the power to an automated decision-maker to effectively make decisions over people’s livelihoods, over people’s ability to survive, and over people’s ability to keep a roof over their head—and you don’t need to believe me, Mr Speaker; you can just read the bill. In fact, in the explanatory note, it says, “The Bill enacts a general authorising provision that enables MSD to approve the use of an automated electronic system by a specified person to make any decision, exercise any power, comply with any obligation, or take any other related action under any specified provision”. Now, we’ve had the Government telling us previously that, you know, automatic decision-making was only going to be used for very narrow things. Yet no matter what the Government says, if you look at this bill, there’s a carte blanche expansion to basically allow a robot—a machine—to have power over people’s lives.

Now, the previous member referenced it, and I was going to comment on the Australian system of Robodebt. In fact, yeah, this does remind me of Robodebt or other automated systems overseas that have been an absolute failure—beyond failures; they have actually cost people’s lives. People died in Australia because of automated systems that ruined people’s lives and made mistakes, put people into debt, and it literally drove people to suicide.

It’s extremely concerning that we have a bill under urgency where the Minister did not make any proper announcements. All we know, though, is that this Government wants to use automation to get rid of thousands and thousands of jobs. When I see the bill, and when I see the regulatory impact statement that has most of it—or the bits that actually would make us wiser about this bill—redacted, all this leads me to believe is that we’re none the wiser about the true intentions of the Minister and the Government when it comes to automated decision-making.

I am extremely concerned that this is bypassing a select committee process. I think it’s ironic that the regulatory impact statement (RIS) itself assumed there was going to be a committee process. In fact, on page 3, when it talks about limitations on consultation, there’s even a line that says, “the Select Committee process will provide opportunity for wider consultation and input from the public.” This is not happening. We will not have this. We will not be able to have input from the public or from officials to understand the scope and the intention from the Minister of exactly just how much he intends to use automated decision-making. For example, when the bill gives the ability for automated decision-making to have power over basically anything in the Act, I have questions about whether this will be intended to be used for things like the delivery of hardship grants for food, which is one of the lifelines that allows people to survive. Will this be used to actually replace jobs at the contact centre, and then, basically, automate those with an automated decision-maker? What exactly is the Government’s intent? If it is narrow, why would they give the power to the ministry to use it for—and, again, I quote—“any decision, exercise any power, comply with any obligation”. That’s a huge expansion of powers over what automated decision-making could be used for.

I share the concerns that perhaps part of the bill and part of the reason why the regulatory impact statement is so redacted, is because the ministry may have been acting unlawfully. Again, you don’t have to believe me, you can just look at the regulatory impact statement. One of the few bits that wasn’t redacted, on page 27, is around one of the options being considered, and one of the questions was around using automated decision-making to request the subsequent medical certificate. The RIS asks, “Will this option be feasible to implement?”—should we be doing it to begin with? The answer to it was, well, actually, “As this option is already current practice, no operational changes would need to be made.” OK, great. We know that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has already been using automated decision-making to ask people for subsequent medical certificates and this is just simply legalising operations that were already happening that quite likely could have been unlawful.

A select committee would have provided clarity from the Minister and from officials about whether MSD had been acting unlawfully. Just recently, we had a bill with a really short select committee process that was trying to address exactly that. So why is the Government pushing this through urgency during Budget week, with no scrutiny, and massively handing out people’s livelihoods to automated decision-making under the guise of what, cutting jobs, ruining people’s lives, making people’s life harder? All I know is that if a beneficiary doesn’t show up to an appointment when they have an obligation, they get sanctioned, but it seems that very same standard does not apply to Ministers that do not show up to explain what their intentions are for this bill.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (ACT) (12:08): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m taking this call to support the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill. The ACT Party is supporting this bill.

As the bill’s name says, it’s about modernisation, and we know that technology is needed to modernise our systems. Automated decision-making is about modernisation of our welfare system. So, yes, it is already used, but we want to make sure that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) is able to apply it broadly without any legal risks. Just to clarify for the Labour member and the Green member who spoke before, yes, it has been used so far, but we want to make sure that MSD is able to apply it broadly. Of course there will be humans there to help, and if people need any help, they can just go to any MSD office and seek help and talk to a human there. Nobody’s taking that human element out from this bill. This bill also makes it very, very clear that it will be communicated in a very, very transparent manner to the clients how automated decision-making is going to be used. There will be enough of these safeguards. This is to improve efficiency of our systems. I’ll just focus on one change in this bill because I have seen that it has been the focus for Opposition members. The Minister has already talked about the other three changes, and they are good changes. The ACT Party supports this bill. Thank you.

JAMIE ARBUCKLE (NZ First) (12:09): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill. Firstly, I just want to congratulate the fine finance Minister and Ministers for their responsible Budget that was delivered in this House yesterday. Today, we take a significant step towards a more efficient, modern welfare system that serves both the taxpayer and those in genuine need. On that, I commend the bill to the House.

ORIINI KAIPARA (Te Pāti Māori—Tāmaki Makaurau) (12:10): It’s only right I give rise to the voices of te iwi Māori today, specifically those who are most affected—not the only ones affected but the most affected—by this piece of legislation. This bill claims to modernise welfare, so let’s define that based on what’s in the bill. It does modernise things. It modernises suspicion, it modernises surveillance, and it modernises poverty. The most dangerous part is that modernises the removal of humanity from decisions that determine whether our people—the people of Aotearoa, including non-Māori—eat, and whether they survive and live with dignity.

Once again, this Government reckons that it’s about efficiency. We just heard that word. My question is: efficient for who? For the ministry? For Ministers taking their terrible toki to slash public spending after cutting over 10,000 jobs? Or is it efficient for the māmā waiting on hold for three hours, trying to prove she is still disabled enough to receive support to survive? This bill expands automated decision-making, artificial intelligence systems and automated electronic systems into the lives of our people. The Minister says there will be safeguards, but we’ve heard that before—our people have heard that before. We heard it when the ministry unlawfully targeted beneficiaries through debt recovery, we heard it when Māori were disproportionately sanctioned, and we heard it when whaikaha, our disabled community, were forced repeatedly to prove that they were still disabled. Technology isn’t neutral when the system itself is unequal. Let me repeat that for the people in the back and in the ivory towers: technology is not neutral when the system itself is unequal. The system is biased. The system is corrupt and kino to our people.

Around the world, the evidence is very clear. Automated welfare systems disproportionately harm indigenous peoples, poor people, disabled people, and sole parents. This Government wants to expand mandatory reviews and medical reviews, and they want to expand powers that suspend support—all while living costs explode. This bill says to a beneficiary, “You’re guilty until the algorithm says otherwise.” This is not mana-enhancing, it’s not manaaki, and it is far from tika.

It goes without saying that Māori will carry the burden most heavily because Māori are over-represented in every category that this bill targets. That’s why Te Pāti Māori opposes this bill in its entirety. Mana motuhake cannot exist when our people cannot feed their whānau or house their babies or care for their kaumātua. Mana ōrite cannot exist when Ministers, earning $300,000 a year, lecture beneficiaries surviving on less than $400 a week. Mana mokopuna cannot exist when we normalise replacing workers and case managers with machines that cannot understand trauma, whakapapa, violence, addiction, or even poverty. A computer cannot see whakamā. It cannot see shame. A computer cannot recognise grief. A computer cannot hold compassion. Only people can do that—well, some of us.

The Welfare Expert Advisory Group, already told us what dignity looks like. They said that whakamana tāngata restores dignity to social security—not punishment, not surveillance, and not automated suspicion. This Government ignored that advice. Instead of doubling benefits in line with the advisory group’s recommendations, they’re building a digital gatekeeping system around survival itself. Don’t even get me started on the medical-review provisions.

Whaikaha, the disabled community of Aotearoa, are exhausted. Chronically ill people are exhausted. Whānau caring for disabled tamariki are exhausted. But this bill is creating more hoops, more forms, and more opportunities to lose support, because paperwork expires or because the Ministry of Social Development wants a second opinion from a preferred health practitioner. Preferred by who? Certainly not by the communities who have repeatedly told this Government that they don’t trust systems that already fail them. This bill is not reform; it is retrenchment disguised as technology. History teaches us that when Governments talk about efficiency in welfare systems, Māori communities pay the price. We oppose this bill.

CARL BATES (National—Whanganui) (12:15): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill says where medical coverage expires, you’re required to bring a new medical certificate before Ministry of Social Development can grant a continuation of a medical benefit. Therefore, I commend it to the House.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (12:15): Today is a shameful day. It is a day when, once again, this cruel Government is using urgency in the Budget process to make a fundamental shift away from the values of this country and this Parliament. In 1938, when Michael Joseph Savage brought in the Social Security Act, it was predicated on the need for Christianity in practice. It recognised that anyone in their life could experience hardship, and it recognised explicitly, in those Hansard debates, that providing that judgment of who needed help was to be done in a humane and dignified way and not subject to mathematical algorithms. The same debate was had in 2018 when there was a pulling together of the legislation. People recognised that automation was on the horizon, and yet they also recognised that there was a matter of dignity and human judgment in the ability to access welfare first and take people out of hardship and then require the compliance and evidence. That was a humane thing to do.

My family benefited from that. My father was born in 1936, and in 1942, his mum, struggling to bring up six kids on her own, had to endure the house burning down. They would have been destitute on the street, but my father and his family lived in one of the first social welfare houses. My father’s dad tragically died when he was 14, and as a result—luckily or, perhaps, unluckily, whichever way you look at it—my father was able to go to university on a scholarship, which none of his brothers and sisters were able to do. My father became a doctor, and he lifted our house and our household out of poverty. He contributed taxes all his life, and he gave us the best start because of that safety net.

What we are seeing now is a turn-around that would not enable that to be possible, because of the cruel compliance and the automation that is designed to save this Government money so they can make their Budget add up. When we looked at the Budget fiscals yesterday, the large majority of the cuts to the fiscals is coming from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). The automation is their way to replace the many, many staff that will be lost on the front line, the many staff who would be able to take into account the circumstances and make rational, intelligent judgments about what needs to happen to keep people safe and well and make sure that compliance is occurring.

That has been wiped away because this Government ridiculously thinks that automation and artificial intelligence is going to solve the problem. Well, how did that work in Australia? It resulted in a cover-up. It resulted in hardship. You know what? This Government knows that, but they don’t care because they are very, very happy to kick the disabled community to the curb. They do not have the experience or the vision or even want to see sections of our community who should not have to turn up time after time after time to present medical certificates.

What about my friend Charlotte Cleverley-Bisman, the young woman who suffered meningococcal as a baby, who has no arms and no legs, who is an outstanding young woman, and whose mother does an incredible job? Why should she have to turn up with the indignity every year of being required a medical certificate to say that she has a disability? Why should somebody, now, through an automated system, require that she go to a specialist or a doctor to prove that she has a disability? What possible function does that serve?

Let’s look at what this terrible bill prescribes. It sees that people will be directed to certain practitioners appointed by MSD. Well, we’ve seen what happens under ACC when that happens. We’ve seen how fair that system is. I can tell you: legislatively, with the drafting of this terrible bill clause by clause, it is a terrible piece of lawmaking. It lumps everything in together, it creates regulatory powers that are an absolute overreach of what the extension is designed to be, and I wholeheartedly agree with Helen White: the only possible explanation for the fact that the problem is redacted is because, probably, this is what MSD is already doing. We want to scrutinise this fully. There’s been no select committee, the regulatory impact statement is damning, it says that disabled communities will be impacted, that Māori have not been consulted and will be impacted. We need to do this for the shameful decision making of this Government.

DANA KIRKPATRICK (National—East Coast) (12:20): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, this bill, the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill, supports a welfare system that does what it is meant to do: provide help to those who need it, while being financially sustainable, efficient, and consistent. As a result, I commend it to the House.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (12:21): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a bill that is unnecessarily cruel. It’s punitive, and it’s absolutely out of touch. It smacks of a Government that is out of touch both with the realities that those who are struggling face, but also the realities of this very move overseas that is proven to be harmful to the very communities that it aims to, or purports to, serve.

I don’t understand why we’re here debating this, yet again, in Budget urgency. This is the second part of a bill that we debated under Budget urgency last year. This expands the targeted ability that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has had to automate decisions, and it opens it up—wholesale—to virtually any decision that MSD is allowed to make. This is in the context of a Budget that is going to cut an additional almost 9,000 jobs, and the Government that wants to replace those social workers, support workers, and people who protect our borders with artificial intelligence. That’s really what this bill also boils down to. It is within the context of 82 percent of households with a disabled person facing food insecurity in the last one year. It’s in the context of cuts to the Total Mobility scheme that will increase transport costs for disabled people, and 27,000 disabled people who live in social housing who will see their rents increase. What does this Budget and this bill do? It makes life even worse for all of them.

I also want to say that—something that was stark in the departmental disclosure statement was the fact that this bill will return $158 million of savings. So not only does the Budget make life worse for those who are already struggling, but they’re making savings off the back of those people who are struggling. All of that is just from kicking off 18-year-olds from caregivers benefits. Incredibly cruel.

Now, what does this bill actually do? As my colleague Helen White has pointed out, so much that should have been in the regulatory impact statement is actually redacted. So we don’t see the most egregious bits of this, but it’s an absolute overreach of the State into the lives of people and into the livelihoods of people as well.

I’ll touch very quickly on this experiment in Australia, which has led to a very good letter that was written by, I think it’s the chair of the Australian Neurodivergent Parents Association, where they make the point that this isn’t actually just a conversation between human intervention and automated decision-making; it’s actually about improving a fundamentally flawed system that doesn’t allow for independent, genuine decision making, just genuine discretion, on the part of decision makers, whether human or automated. But the reason that this bill is so dangerous is because it takes us even further away from genuine discretion and makes the problem even worse.

They’ve said here, and I absolutely agree, that “Automated and highly standardised decision making systems are also recognised as potentially brittle within complex human environments involving disability, trauma, fluctuating capacity, poverty, cultural difference, and intersecting disadvantage. Unlike human decision makers exercising genuine discretion, automated or semi-automated systems may struggle to appropriately account for nuance, context, atypical presentations, or cumulative disadvantage. This creates significant risk of rigid or mechanistic outcomes that fail to reflect the realities of individual lives.” It also goes on to make the point that it, in a very dangerous manner, “risks entrenching bias and discrimination against specific groups of people.” All of those groups of people who were not consulted on this change; where we are pushing through change, in all stages in urgency, that will allow MSD to reach into the lives of people, require them to get medical reviews—by a health system that is already stretched—time and time again, but with doctors picked by MSD.

The level of State overreach represented in this legislation is horrifying and it is disproportionate to what we need. The fact that we are debating this under all stages in urgency is particularly egregious. What is also egregious is members opposite who just stand up and say, “This is just about modernisation. Nothing to see here. This is not going to change people’s lives.” as though it’s not going to take away a huge amount of income from people who are already struggling.

KATIE NIMON (National—Napier) (12:26): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, as we’ve heard in the Budget yesterday, this is all about securing our future, and a social security system needs to be sustainable. That is exactly what this bill aims to address. I commend it to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Social Security (Modernisation) 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.

SPEAKER: This bill is set down for second reading immediately.

Second Reading

Hon CAMERON BREWER (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs) (12:27): on behalf of the Minister for Social Development and Employment: I move, That the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

This bill is focused on improving the way New Zealand’s social security system operates in practice. It recognises that while the purpose of the welfare system remains unchanged, the way it is delivered must continue to evolve to keep pace with modern expectations. People rely on the system at important moments in their lives. They should be able to expect that decisions are made properly, accurately, and consistently.

However, some parts of the current framework still rely on manual processes that are time consuming and, at times, unnecessarily complex. That can create delays and reduce the system’s overall effectiveness. This bill addresses those issues through a set of practical, targeted changes. A key feature is enabling the appropriate use of automated decision-making. Many decisions within the system are straightforward and rules based. Allowing these to be processed automatically will improve timeliness and consistency while maintaining safeguards and the ability for the decisions to be reviewed. Importantly, this does not replace human judgment where it is needed. It allows staff to focus their attention where it adds the most value.

The bill also strengthens mandatory reviews. These reviews are essential to ensuring the support remains correctly targeted and reflects people’s current circumstances. By clarifying and expanding the benefits they apply to, the bill supports greater accuracy and consistency across the system. In addition, the bill introduces clearer expectations around medical evidence for certain benefits. Up-to-date information is key to ensuring ongoing eligibility. The changes support existing processes, ensuring more reliable decision making while still allowing flexibility where circumstances are not straightforward.

The treatment of a caregiver’s benefit when a dependent child turns 18 is also addressed. The bill provides a clearer and more consistent framework for determining whether a young person should remain included in a caregiver’s support based on financial dependence and participation in education. This improves certainty for both clients and MSD, and MSD will continue to support caregivers who have 18-year-olds in their care who are still in education.

Taken together, these measures reduce unnecessary complexity and improve the system how the system functions on a day-to-day basis. They enable faster decisions where appropriate while preserving fairness and accountability. The Government is delivering efficiencies in the Public Service both for the taxpayer who pays for it and the end user who interacts with it. Like with the Government’s Public Service reforms, this bill ensures taxpayers benefit from technological advancement. The Public Service should be modern, productive, financially sustainable, and focused on front-line delivery. That’s what this bill does.

This is a sensible and measured set of changes. It strengthens the operation of the system without altering its core purpose. It supports both the people who rely on it and the staff who deliver it to focus on the things that matter. I commend this bill to the House.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (12:31): Thank you very much. I pointed out in my first speech that I was very concerned about the regulatory impact statement (RIS) and the redactions that have been made about what the problem was, and nothing that I’ve heard so far has given me any security around that issue. In fact, I intend, in the committee stage, to ask those questions that we need to ask, which is: what on earth in the problem definition is something that would mean that there be a legal risk of telling us all? I think that is an interesting and important question in this House, but also interesting in terms of the use of urgency, because this matter won’t go through a select committee and we won’t be able to ask those questions there.

That concerns me; that if there is a legal risk here, it’s not being explained in any sense to anyone. We are not being told, in the Opposition, about the legal risk. It may be that the activities that are going on at present are illegal, and that’s of concern to the public, it should be of concern to journalists, and I’d urge them to look at this RIS and to make their own inquiries about that. But it is of concern to me. We’re not silly on the other side of the House. We actually have a pretty good handle on these things, but, actually, we are being denied the capacity to properly prosecute this situation because we simply can’t see what the problem is we’re trying to solve, and that is fundamental. So we will be asking questions about that.

I wanted to talk for a minute—and I think my colleague Priyanca Radhakrishnan did an exemplary job of talking about the humanity of the situation. These are people who are often our most vulnerable, and in this piece of legislation we are suggesting that the best thing that we can do is automate. We know that’s gone terribly wrong in Australia. We know that it hasn’t worked well, and yet here we are suggesting that we loosen the links between that group of people and human beings who work for our Government. That is of concern to me.

Artificial intelligence can be many things. It can be very helpful. It can mean that we create a more productive society. I’m not against it; I think it’s an interesting and huge change in our society. But this area is one where I would be very cautious, because of that connection of people to the State. We already know that’s a problem. We know it’s a problem just because people get institutionalised, there’s systemic knowledge, and people feel alienated from those processes and it’s difficult. And yet here we are today looking at this as our solution, when, actually, what it does is it allows us to close our eyes and not see the reality of people’s lives, who are actually our most vulnerable.

And we’re talking about orphans and veterans, etc., but the one I would like to focus on in this contribution is my concern over the issue about children who turn 18, because we’ve seen other legislation come through about children who turn 18. We know that they are in that group that is the highest group of unemployed in the country; we know that the Government has said they are no longer eligible for income support and should rely upon their families; and now we have a piece of legislation that seems to suggest that they will also—if they’re not in education, if they’re in a beneficiary family, there will be no support for them from the State. We’re talking about the practical situation of, say, a solo mother with three children, one of whom is 19 and is not in education. So we already might be dealing with someone who has learning difficulties or is disconnected in a way, and that mother is now in a situation where it doesn’t look like there’s any support for that child at that point in any way, and there’s an automatic removal of that child unless they meet certain criteria.

That’s the reality that we face, and it does look like there’s nowhere for that mother to turn in terms of trying to support a teenager with quite a financial need. And, in fact, it looks like the only solution in that situation is that child ends up outside of that family, leaving that environment and then having to navigate that world on their own independently, because there is no support for them to remain in the family unit.

I’ve had that situation in my own family where I’ve had a young relative who had been through COVID, who had become very involved in the internet in quite a destructive way. He’d come from a very difficult background and it had involved has his immediate blood relatives being involved in the drug world, and he was being looked after by another relative. He actually ended up—he was a difficult kid. He was difficult, and he didn’t end up qualifying and going into education, but he’s on a journey and he needs support in that journey. I’m presuming that a lot of people in this situation where they may be dependent on the State, on one of those other benefits—that those kids would be like that. That’s a human reality. Humanity’s pretty messy, and now we’ve got a situation where there doesn’t seem to be any support at all for that kid or their family navigating maybe the most difficult time of a teenager’s life.

I would say, while it’s great to look at trying to get that kid into education, we should be using carrot, not stick. It’s really important we wrap around those families and recognise that’s a really, really tough ask, and it’s really about a village raising a kid. It’s not about someone having another burden upon them and the judgment of the society that they are worthy of no support in what is actually a really important job.

I also just wanted to talk for a minute about my concern over medical examinations. I remember as a lawyer, in the area of ACC, which was peripheral—as an employment lawyer, there were ACC cases, so it was by no means my specialty, but I did do some of those cases. It became well known that there were certain doctors preferred by ACC and certain doctors preferred by claimants. I could name the ones who were preferred by ACC and would turn down claimants constantly. That was the reality. That’s humanity, I guess—that while these things are supposed to be objective and scientific, that’s what it became: that there were specialists who were preferred.

I’d be really worried about this in this situation, moving into that area of “Right, we’re going to go and get a report from such and such, who happens to think everybody’s a bludger, basically.” I’d be worried about that. I’ll be asking questions around that, but I’ve seen nothing in the legislation that reassures me that that won’t happen in a situation where there’s any lack of clarity. I think that that’s an important issue, because I think we have to start with as much empowerment of people as we can get. When we’re talking about medical examinations, that’s a really delicate area.

Thank you. I will look forward to the committee stage.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (12:41): Under the traffic light system, there’s green, yellow, and red. When somebody fails to, for example, show up to an appointment multiple times, they get moved closer to red in the traffic light system. In my view—I was reading Speakers’ ruling 29/1—and I do genuinely feel that the absence of the Minister for Social Development and Employment to be here to actually outline why this bill needs to be introduced in urgency, why this bill actually has so much of it redacted in the regulatory impact statement, and whether there’s legal risk associated with this bill—to not have the Minister even be here in multiple readings to outline what her intentions are to use automated decision-making, when it’s expanded by so much, makes me feel like she’d probably be in red, actually. For a beneficiary who fails to show up multiple times to an appointment to prove that they are making efforts to, say, for example, apply for jobs, I find it galling that we haven’t had the Minister explain to us exactly what her intentions are to use automated decision-making for.

When I hear the members of the other side just talk about this bill as if it was just some simple, quick change, I hear a lack of understanding, a lack of interest, and also, at the core of it, I would go as far as to say that I see a lack of recognition in the dignity of the very same people that this bill is affecting. For all the talk about how this is just about efficiency and productivity and whatnot, well, if you look at the Budget, they’ve already forecasted that they’re going to save $55 million in hardship assistance through the automated decision-making. They are expecting that less assistance and additional payments will be provided to people as a result of the use of automated decision-making.

As I said earlier, what this bill does is it gives the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) the power to use automated decision-making for any decision—any decision. Again, I go back to the fact that this bill could, in theory, allow automated decision-making to remove human discretion, to replace that with, say, a chatbot or, for example, an artificial intelligence system to be making decisions over whether someone should have a hardship grant for food to make ends meet or otherwise. That system will be unable to see the individual circumstances of that person when making these decisions. That system won’t be able to see the consequences of declining that assistance and the impact it could have on children.

I don’t say this lightly. I have been at the front lines. I have sat at a Work and Income office up until the very last minute before they closed, trying to get emergency housing and hardship grants for food for people. I have seen how being able to showcase the human impact of decisions can make a difference. You cannot replace that human discretion with an automated decision-making system and expect that decisions will be made in the interests of the wellbeing of people. It will, if anything, be used as a premise to cut jobs, to remove that human interaction between MSD and people on the benefit, and will be used, in my view, as an excuse to simply cut assistance for people who need it the most.

Now, if the Minister believes that this isn’t the case, if the Minister wants to guarantee us that she does not intend to use automated decision-making for the delivery of things like hardship grants, emergency housing, or even just benefits and income support altogether, then she should be here to make that clear. She should be here to reassure us of what she will not be using automated decision-making for. The bill actually still—and this goes back to it. If this bill was simply for medical reviews or benefit reviews, then why is the bill not granting the power to the ministry to use it simply for those things? Why is it that the Minister feels compelled to give the ministry the powers to use automated decision-making for any decision?

When I say “any decision”—and I heard a member of the ACT Party kind of just brush off the concerns that we have. Decisions that MSD makes over people’s lives can literally be a matter of life and death. Decisions that MSD makes over people’s lives are literally whether someone can keep a roof over their head or otherwise. I do not say this lightly. I have seen it play out at the front lines. I have seen people begging for MSD to use their discretion to ensure that someone can have kai before an operation so that they can actually gain weight so that they can safely proceed with that operation. I have seen human discretion either being used to harm people or to actually enable them to be well. An automated decision-making system cannot simply be used to replace that.

I am so concerned that also we do not have the Minister here to tell us whether, for example, as the regulatory impact statement outlines—

Dana Kirkpatrick: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That is not the first time the member has mentioned the Minister not being here. The previous speaker for Te Pāti Māori also mentioned the Minister not being here—

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: And now you have.

Dana Kirkpatrick: —and I understand that’s against Standing Orders.

SPEAKER: Yes, it is, and—

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: If they didn’t hear it before.

SPEAKER: It’s not a good idea to interrupt me while I’m considering this matter. It’s not appropriate to reflect on a member’s presence or absence.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Speaking to the point of order.

SPEAKER: Well, I’ve just ruled.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: OK. The only reason—and I won’t reference the Minister again, but I do think that the absence of the Minister in this case is of sufficient importance—

SPEAKER: No, just a moment—

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: —and that’s why I quoted the Speakers’ ruling. I will no longer mention the Minister.

SPEAKER: No, no. Sorry. I’m terminating your speech. That was just trifling with the Chair in the worst possible way. Thank you very much.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Where is the Minister to be accountable?

SPEAKER: No, no, sorry. It’s not what you were saying at all.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (ACT) (12:48): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I did try to explain what the bill is about in the first reading speech of mine to that member, but it seems that the member still doesn’t get what this bill is about.

Very quickly, I want to address one issue. It’s about the savings. One member said that we are all about savings. Yes, we do like savings—we do like savings—and we like to direct those savings where they are really needed. In this case, the staff members will have more time to deal with people to help them get into employment. We know on this side that people, if they stay on benefits for a very long time, it’s going to actually create more hardship for them, and we don’t want people to be in hardship. We want to see that people are getting into employment. That is why we support this bill. Thank you.

JAMIE ARBUCKLE (NZ First) (12:48): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in this second reading to support the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill. As I said in my first speech, this is about a modern welfare system that serves both the taxpayer and those in genuine need. We will hear through the committee of the whole House process about the automated decision-making section and the safeguards that are in place; the mandatory reviews that are over the 52-week period—having a mandatory review; the medical reviews before a benefit is granted; and the end of school year review process. On that basis, I commend the bill to the House.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Leader—Labour) (12:49): Point of order, Mr Speaker. Just looking at the Speakers’ Rulings, and I want clarification just based on the termination of the previous speaker Ricardo Menéndez March’s speech. The Speakers’ ruling is 29/1, where it says, “It is a convention that we do not make reference to the fact that a member is away or is not in the member’s seat; but (2) if it is felt that the absence of a member is of sufficient importance, then the real or suggested importance of the absence overrides the convention.” Now, we are in Budget urgency, and I think the member who had his speech terminated was making the point that the Minister’s presence should be required.

SPEAKER: Don’t compound the problem.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I’m just asking for clarification.

SPEAKER: Yeah, but don’t compound the problem in asking that question. Please carry on.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: My question is to you, Mr Speaker, seeking clarification on whether or not the fact that we are in Budget urgency, the importance that that member is trying to impress on the House that the Minister is here perhaps overrides the convention that you do not make reference to the fact that a member’s not here. So can I ask for your clarification on that, given Speakers’ ruling 29/1?

SPEAKER (12:51): Yes, I think it clearly indicates the—firstly, it is a convention that you don’t mention the absence of a member. The absence of a member, according to the 29/1 that you’ve referenced, talks about the importance of a Minister being there. This is a Cabinet decision, a decision made by a three-party coalition Government. It’s not a reasonable suggestion that only one Minister could possibly have enough depth of knowledge on this particular bill to be able to represent the Government position. Therefore, we’ll now go to the split call, with the first five minutes being taken by Oriini Kaipara.

ORIINI KAIPARA (Te Pāti Māori—Tāmaki Makaurau) (12:52): This bill reveals something deeply disturbing about this Government: that it does not trust poor people. It trusts landlords, it trusts corporations, it trusts consultants, and it trusts Ministers claiming accommodation supplements on houses they already own, but it does not trust beneficiaries. Now the Government wants algorithms, mandatory reviews, expanded medical surveillance, and automated reassessments, but why? Because they believe poverty is a compliance issue instead of an economic failure.

This bill expands mandatory reviews into areas affecting some of the most vulnerable tamariki in our country: orphans’ benefits and unsupported child benefits. Think about that. Children who have already experienced instability, abandonment, violence, and grief are now being dragged deeper into bureaucratic review systems because this Government believes suspicion should be the foundation of welfare. That is morally wrong. The Government says reviews are necessary to ensure people receive the correct entitlement, but where is the urgency when people are underpaid? Where is the urgency when beneficiaries are unlawfully denied support? Where is the automation for rapidly granting hardship assistance? Automation only appears when the Government wants to monitor, sanction, and reduce payments, never when people need help.

Māori know this pattern all too well. We’ve lived generations under systems that treat us as risks to manage rather than the communities that need to be invested in, and tangata whenua to respect and partner properly with. This bill will deepen that inequality, that inequity, because Māori are disproportionately represented among beneficiaries due to generations of land loss, wage inequality, housing deprivation, State violence, and systemic exclusion. That is the truth this Government refuses to acknowledge. You cannot create justice while ignoring colonisation, you cannot create fairness while ignoring Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and you certainly cannot automate your way out of poverty.

This bill even empowers the Ministry of Social Development to exclude young people from caregiver support once they turn 18, unless their caregivers repeatedly prove dependency and education status—again, more suspicion, more bureaucracy, and more pressure on struggling households, at a time when kai prices are sky-high, rent is high, power bills are continuing to rise, and jobs are disappearing by the minute. What kind of Government responds to economic hardship by making benefits harder to keep? A cruel one, a kino one, one without a heart and half a head. The Welfare Expert Advisory Group called for a welfare system grounded in dignity, trust, and adequacy. Instead, this Government has delivered surveillance, compliance, and punishment.

Te Pāti Māori believes social security is not charity. We know it isn’t. It is a collective obligation. It is the Crown’s duty to ensure people live with dignity in the nation’s wealth, and that includes Māori communities, who have endured the intergenerational impacts of raupatu—confiscation—assimilation, and systemic under-investment. We should be expanding support, expanding trust, expanding opportunity, not expanding automated power over vulnerable people.

This bill belongs in the bin with every other social services bill introduced to this House by the Minister responsible. Responsible, from where I’m standing, is remembering who stood up for and beside our communities when this Government attacked the poorest of all of us. Te Pāti Māori proudly stands with our people and will let them know that we opposed this bill from the absolute beginning.

Kahurangi Carter: Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Ah—

Ricardo Menéndez March: Kahurangi Carter.

SPEAKER: Yeah, Kahurangi Carter—apologies.

KAHURANGI CARTER (Green) (12:56): “Nothing about us without us.”—this is something that we have heard over and over from disabled people throughout this term. Disabled people have been through enough. Machines should not have power over our lives. Putting this bill through urgency means that disabled people do not have a voice, do not have a say through the select committee process. We will not get a chance to hear from the people that this bill will affect the most. We need a Government who listens to people on benefit incomes. We need a Government who listens to disabled people. We need a Government who listens to experts—they are the ones who know these issues. Disabled people are not broken; the system is broken, but we have no chance to hear from them, and the Government members who are pushing this through urgency have no respect for this process. They are giving 10-second speeches on something that means children living in poverty are going to be worse off; disabled people who are already vulnerable, who are already experiencing poverty and instability and are already fighting to be seen, supported, and heard—I don’t think that it is too much to ask for disabled people to be believed.

One of the main concerns I have with this bill is it takes away human contact; it takes away trust. This bill expands the use of artificial intelligence (AI), or automated decision-making, to assess whether somebody can access income. We’re not against technology and modernisation; we need to recognise when there is a time and a place for it. It is cynical and short-sighted to think that a workforce can be replaced with AI when it comes to Ministry of Social Development workers who work with disabled people who have highly complex needs.

This bill is an absolute travesty. This bill is about replacing human contact with machines, and machines should not have power over our lives. These changes will make it harder to get medical certificates, harder to access incomes for disabled people, and harder to get support to people who need it. Making life harder for disabled people is not the answer. Disabled people should have enough to pay the rent, to afford groceries, to keep the heat on. I want to stress that pushing disabled people deeper into poverty and closer to the brink is not the answer, especially when we are not hearing from them because of this truncated, urgent time frame.

This morning, I listened—via Zoom, because technology is great when it is used appropriately—to the Child Poverty Action Group speak at the St Peter’s church post-Budget breakfast, and it was clear that children living in a family with a disabled person are more likely to be living in poverty. At the core of any Government, at the heart of any Government, should be lifting children out of poverty, and this bill does the exact opposite.

It’s already hard to see a GP in Aotearoa. We know in New Zealand you can’t even enrol with a GP in some places, let alone afford to go. Are we seriously going to make members of our disabled community go to multiple appointments to keep proving the disability that they already have?

We need a welfare system that is proactive, accessible, and inclusive, and this bill is none of those things. All we are asking is for disabled people to be able to live a good life by having the things they need to put food on the table and pay the rent. That’s not too much to ask.

SPEAKER: The House is suspended until 1 p.m. for the lunch break.

Hon Members: 2 p.m.

SPEAKER: 2.10—OK, yeah.

Hon Member: P.m.

Hon Member: We’ll go with that.

SPEAKER: Oh, well, if people want a longer time—the House is suspended till 2.10 for the lunch break.

Hon Member: Thank you!

SPEAKER: 2 p.m.—not 2.10; 2 p.m., sorry!

Sitting suspended from 1.01 p.m. to 2 p.m.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Members, when we broke for the lunch break, we were up to the second reading of the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill and up to call No. 7, which is a National Party call.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland) (14:00): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak very briefly on the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill, which amends the Social Security Act 2018 and the Social Security Regulations 2018. It aims to enable the administration of a more modern, efficient welfare system through the use of automated decision-making. I commend the bill to the House.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (14:00): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is incredibly disappointing that members opposite stand up and say for 10 seconds that this bill is about modernising the system, read off their notes, and don’t bother to debate anything in this House, given that this bill is unnecessarily going through all stages in urgency today, when it doesn’t really need to.

That aside, while members opposite insist that this is just about modernising the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and it’s just about modernising Government systems, what they’ve failed to recognise and what they aren’t saying on that side is that this is just a money-grab by the Government. It is very clear that one provision in this bill alone will save the Government $158 million and that it will also result in reduced reliance on front-line jobs, and those jobs will go, as well. When we debate decisions that this Government has made, and the fact that they have said that close to 9,000 more people will lose their jobs in the Public Service, this is what we’re ultimately talking about.

I want to lay out, in the time that I have for this second reading contribution why this is dangerous and why it is disingenuous. Those speaking and claiming that this is just about modernising the system fail to recognise the harm that it can potentially lead to for some of our most marginalised communities in our society, and that’s not just a hypothetical claim. We have seen that happen across the Ditch. We have very clearly seen what broadened automated decision-making powers in Australia have led to, which—as Ricardo Menéndez March has said and as many within the disability community said to me last night—has led to suicides as a result of the support that was taken away by the Government to people who were already struggling.

I’m going to lay that out in a little more detail and make the point that this harm is just to save the Government money at the expense of communities that are already marginalised and—

Joseph Mooney: I didn’t realise you were a Luddite.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: —ultimately, it will make people worse off.

Members opposite, when they heckle, should really maybe read the bill and maybe talk to some of the communities who will be impacted by this, because, again, at the second reading of a bill, we should be talking about submissions that were made at select committee. They have made the political choice to take that away from the communities who will be most impacted by this bill, and if all they can sit and do is heckle from across the aisle, then perhaps they should be out there talking to some people who will tell them how they are already not well served and how this system takes us away from genuine discretion by humans, who can take into account what the other person’s circumstances—

Joseph Mooney: No, it doesn’t.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: —are, and it takes us closer to what we have seen in Australia. So you can huff and puff, Joseph Mooney, all you want on the other side, but what you are doing is voting for a system that will further penalise people whose lives are already incredibly difficult.

What have we seen now over in Australia? I take the point that some have made that MSD has already had the capability to use ADM—or automated decision-making—powers. Those were very narrow, those were targeted, and that was meant to be just focused on some of the administrative tasks that could speed up the process for beneficiaries. What we are talking about today, here, is not that. We’re debating a bill—we’re meant to be debating it; it’s only us on this side that are debating this bill—that will broaden the powers of MSD to such a point that they can use ADM for virtually any decision that they make.

If you read the objectives of the bill in the legislation, the first one is to “improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the administration of the welfare system”. Now, what have we seen in a comparable jurisdiction where the powers were broadened to do the same thing, which was, ostensibly, to improve efficiency and to modernise the system—it was the exact same language that was used across the Ditch, as well—and to make it more effective, and yet we saw what led to a thing that was called Robodebt across the Ditch. That was where automation replaced human judgment to the point that debts that beneficiaries apparently owed to the Crown were unlawfully generated and collected, and the disproportionate harm that disabled people experienced in Australia has led to a royal commission off that. There were number of cases where decisions that were automated and that led to this harm were then reviewed and found to be incorrect and unlawful.

That is the trajectory that this Government is taking us down, and, really, the onus is on those members to stand up and explain what are the safeguards in this bill that will not take us down that track, but not one speaker from the Government benches—not even the speakers who were delivering the Minister’s speech—had the humility to explain what the safeguards are. We will do our best to interrogate that at the committee of the whole House stage, but I do want to point out that we haven’t heard one justification around safeguards there.

If it then leads to a point in the road where decisions have to be reviewed, the onus is then on the people who are impacted by the decisions to take that to a review. What is the review mechanism in the bill? Perhaps members opposite, in their 10 seconds, can explain that to us in their contributions, as well.

This may take us down a road of efficiency for the Government, but definitely not for the people who will be impacted by this decision. The effectiveness of this is questionable, as well.

The second point under the objectives section of the explanatory note to the legislation says that it will “enable the use of ADM with appropriate safeguards”. What are those safeguards? Who decides whether they’re appropriate or not, because they’re not laid out with any clarity in this legislation. I would really appreciate it if members opposite would explain what those safeguards in this bill are. What are the decisions that will be automated, what are the decisions that won’t be automated, and, if they are not and if there is human intervention there, will it be such that the individuals working in that system are given the administrative leeway or the bandwidth to be able to make those decisions with genuine discretion and independence?

The third part is to expand the list of specified benefits that will be subject to the mandatory reviews provision in the Act. I look forward to interrogating each of those with great clarity at the committee of the whole House stage, because there’s a lot in there around mandatory reviews and medical reviews.

That leads me to the to the next point under the objectives of this bill, which says that it will “require beneficiaries to provide a medical certificate, or other medical evidence, where appropriate, before MSD can grant, or continue to grant … a medical evidence benefit (to be known as ‘medical reviews’)”. On the face of it, it sounds pretty reasonable until you get to the detail in the bill, which then says that “MSD will have discretion to require a beneficiary to undergo a medical examination by a preferred health practitioner when there is a question about a beneficiary’s eligibility for a medical evidence benefit”.

Now, there’s a lot in there. A case worker, basically, gets to decide when a beneficiary needs to go and get a medical examination. How are they trained? They’re not health professionals. They’re not medical professionals. How are they trained to determine when and where it’s appropriate to require a beneficiary to get a medical examination?

Then they get to choose who does the medical examination—“a preferred health practitioner”. What do we have now? A specific list of doctors that MSD can require a person to go to to get a medical exam. Where in our health system do we have support and time and the leeway for doctors to be able to add this to their workload, as well?

Then what the bill says, further on, is if there is a backlog and a beneficiary can’t then get a medical examination within a time period that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) specifies, then their benefit can be automatically shut off. This is where the harm to communities comes from, and I don’t understand why members opposite cannot see this, and just stand up and say, “This is about modernisation. Oh, if they need help, they can go to MSD.”

It must be so freeing to have the privilege of members opposite to not understand how this is going to lead to money being taken away from the very communities who are struggling to put food on the table to be able to pay what it costs to go and see a doctor right now. I look forward to the member who’s about to stand and speak telling me what safeguards there are in this bill that means we won’t experience that.

DANA KIRKPATRICK (National—East Coast) (14:10): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, in this second reading of the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill, I’m sure we will cover many of the other aspects in the committee stage but the bill essentially makes practical changes to modernise how our welfare system operates and, at its heart, the bill is not about changing who gets support; it’s about making sure this system delivers the support properly, sustainably, and in a fair way. I commend the bill to the House.

REUBEN DAVIDSON (Labour—Christchurch East) (14:11): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I’m pleased to have the opportunity to stand and take a call on this bill. I’m also pleased to let you know that I will take the full time assigned to me in this second reading to deliver my contribution this afternoon because it is such an important issue, and we oppose the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill.

This is a bill that talks about introducing automated decision-making into the process for the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), and giving wide-reaching powers for that to happen. The irony of all of this is that the speeches coming from the other side of the House are automated decision-making speeches. They are 10 to 20 seconds, they do not examine any of the facts, they have no real-world experience, and they are only intended to try and shove this bill through under urgency in all stages. So, I think it’s very important that we remember that what we’re talking about is human involvement in what are very human decisions.

I wanted to take this time, this afternoon, to speak to some of the kinds of human decisions that come through my electorate office door, where people have been let down by a system that the other side of the House suggests can now be done by a computer. One of those constituents came to see us after MSD had funded the removal of all of her teeth, and upon the removal of all of her teeth, when she went back to get the dentures fitted that she had been promised, she was told, “You have used the available funding.” The Ministry of Social Development had taken from this woman all of her teeth, committed to replacing them, and then walked away. A very, very difficult, difficult time for that person; a very difficult time for that person.

Joseph Mooney: Did you actually do some advocacy for them?

REUBEN DAVIDSON: Thank you so much for asking. We absolutely advocated for that person, as is the role that we have in our electoral offices.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Is that rare and reasonable? It actually doesn’t sound very rare and reasonable to me.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Actually, none of it sounds very rare and reasonable, at the moment, so I’ll just leave the speaker on his feet to do all the talking, please.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: This is just one of many examples. More recently, I had a phone call from a solo mother who was putting a tent up in the rain, in the backyard of her friend, after MSD were unable to help her with temporary housing. This is very human; this is very challenging. These are the kinds of decisions and the kinds of support that require an immediate and human response. What is being proposed in this bill is the ability to step well away from that. It’s framed as low - level decision-making but if you read the bill, if you look at the detail, it opens the door to all manner of decisions being made that will have deep impacts on the human beings that the system should be serving. All of a sudden, the human in the loop could be taken out as a result.

I could speak for hours—I couldn’t, because I won’t be allowed. Given the opportunity, I could speak for hours detailing further cases of people who have been let down by the system and—to assure the member from the other side—who we have advocated strongly for because that is our role: to ensure that they get the support they need. But what we see from the other side of the House, from this Budget, and from bills like this, is that this is a Government content to make life harder for those people.

When we probe into that, when we ask the Minister responsible for digitising Government exactly how he has forecast the spend, examined the local options, and looked at a plan for how to progress the use of artificial intelligence, he cannot answer the questions because he either doesn’t care or he simply has not done the work. This bill is very broad. It puts at risk the people who are most in need in our community and it takes the humans out of the decision making that will impact their life every day.

SUZE REDMAYNE (National—Rangitīkei) (14:16): What’s not to love about improving the efficiency and the effectiveness of how our welfare system operates? I commend this bill to the House.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (14:16): I do not know how Government members can sleep at night. The utter contempt they have for our communities in New Zealand that they say they represent. They either don’t care or they really don’t know what this bill does. That seems pretty apparent to me, given that they’ve done 10-, 20-second cursory speeches, reading off their notes. If they went through this bill clause by clause, Madam Speaker, as we have, they would see what a terrible piece of lawmaking this is.

It pretends to do one thing while doing another. It is being pushed through under urgency, which is deeply cynical as an attempt, I think—by the Cabinet, by the executive—to ram this through, knowing that they probably wouldn’t have got the full backing of their caucus had they discussed it fully, because I think the people on the other benches are better than that. Otherwise, I do not know how they can sleep at night.

We have principles in New Zealand around a welfare State that started in 1938, and it was very, very clear that welfare was something any New Zealander could need at some point; that it was to be administered as a form of Christianity in action. Those were the words of Michael Joseph Savage; those were the revolutionary words that changed New Zealand to be an exemplar of people looking after each other. The Hansard debates showed that people even then thought about mathematics and algorithms and rules that were fixed that didn’t allow discretion, and they turned that down because they knew there is an element of judgment and that the first principle, when we come to welfare, is looking after people.

The second principle, hot on its heels, is making sure they are entitled to that welfare. That was how we have always done it but this Government is the one that has changed there, and it didn’t start this year; it started last year. It started in the same cynical process: rushed urgency with a bill that changed a whole lot of entitlements, particularly the accommodation allowance, spread over two bills, put in an order into the House that didn’t make sense so that the first bill was passed and then the second one related to the first one, and damaged people’s ability to access accommodation and cut their accommodation entitlements.

More importantly, what it did—we saw that last year—was it ruled out people that they knew were vulnerable; they knew there would be an outcry. Those people were orphans, were veterans, were 18-year-olds, were people living overseas, were widows and widowers. They were ruled out. But guess what! The money-grab hasn’t been enough and so this time, the Government has come back and said, “No, we need more. We need more to balance our books. How can we do it? I know. We’ll kick the beneficiaries while they’re down. We picked on one lot, but we haven’t picked on this lot over here. We thought they were too vulnerable, but now who cares? We won’t say that we’re trying to cut their benefits; we’ll simply make it so damn hard for them to get them that eventually, some of them will drop off. And when they do, guess what! We’ll save our $150 million cuts that we need to make from MSD”—that were revealed in the Budget documents yesterday—“We will get 50,000 people off jobseeker benefit, and we will ensure that we can cut the front-line staff at MSD, because we’re replacing them, essentially, with robots.” That’s what automation is.

It is such a cynical thing that is happening here, so do not be fooled, if you are watching at home, into thinking this is about efficiency and this is about taxpayer value for money. Where is the value for money when we have record numbers of people living on the streets? Where is the value for money for taxpayers to push the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff even further down, so that the taxpayer bill is even more, because people have fallen into homelessness, into real hardship? Maybe they have committed suicide, as did happen in Australia when they had Robodebt. When caregivers and parents and partners of disabled people are so damned tired that they can’t carry on any more, that they have mental health issues, that they clog up our hospitals, how is that value for money?

Yet this cruel National Government will try to sell it by saying that is what it’s about: “It’s about efficiency.” It’s not about efficiency, because if they were worried about taxpayers’ value for money, they would not have given tax breaks to landlords; they would not have given tax breaks to tobacco companies. Those are the choices they’re making, and it is very, very clear who matters to them. The fact that they are coming into this House today, when there is no select committee process, with a really badly drafted piece of law that contains “Henry VIII” clauses, that contains regulation-making powers that go far beyond the intent of the bill, is just beyond me. Then they have the contempt to stand here and speak for 10 or 20 seconds, because they cannot be bothered defending themselves on why they support this bill. It is absolutely shameful.

I would have expected that some of them might have read the bill—might have had a least some arguments to defend their stand. We were looking forward to it. The Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan has asked them repeatedly, “Please, give us your justification. Let’s have an adult debate here.” They’re not even debating. That, along with the regulatory impact statement, which is damning of this piece of legislation, which assumes a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act process that didn’t happen, which assumes a select committee process that isn’t happening, which assumed consultation with Māori that didn’t happen, which says that Māori will be negatively impacted, which says that disabled communities will be negatively impacted, and which actually doesn’t recognise that the powers that are being created go beyond what the intent of the bill is—that is why we expect a very fulsome to and fro with the Minister this afternoon. There is a huge number of unanswered questions here. It would have been helpful if the Government members could have helped us out with some of those, but we have heard absolutely nothing from the other side.

Some of the problems that we will be talking about in the scrutiny stage will be around the comprehensive continuity proof of eligibility regime. Those will be in clauses 4 to 22. We’ve seen language that has changed from “discretionary” to “must provide”, “must suspend”, “must cancel”. Clause 22 is particularly punitive: mandatory suspension powers, cascading cancellation powers, strict evidential deadlines. Disabled people will risk losing their support because of administrative non-compliance, not because their disability has changed. That embeds a documents-before-subsistence model, and what I can see from the actions and behaviour of this Government in relation to this debate is that they are doing that on purpose. That is what is making me feel so sick on this side of the House.

If that was an unintended consequence, perhaps they would address it, but this is being done deliberately; it is being done to unpick the welfare principles that we have cared about and valued for so long in this beautiful country of ours, because they couldn’t manage the books, because they couldn’t manage their Budget, and because the National Party had two minor parties that made huge asks of them that they were happy to concede to, including from tobacco companies and including from landlords. That is why we are here today kicking the beneficiaries, kicking the orphans, kicking the widows, kicking the 18-year-old. Why is there suddenly a carve-out for a provision that used to be available from Australia with good reason? Why is that suddenly appearing in this bill with no select committee stage? Who is going to ring? Is the Minister going to ring the parents of those kids and say, “Oh, by the way, sorry, we just passed a law where you’re no longer eligible. Sorry about your planning.” Who is going to face up to those communities? Those of us who have electorate offices face them, as Reuben Davidson has said.

In my electorate of Taieri in particular, with 65-year-olds and over being a quarter of the population, disability is a huge issue, and they are already struggling. We should be changing and augmenting the support to the parents and caregivers and partners of disabled people. That is what they have been asking for. That is what our international obligations would suggest we do. That is a hard ask, but it is something that needs to happen if we don’t want to see people under mental stress and filling up our hospitals. This legislation goes in exactly the opposite direction. It is saying, “Who cares? Not our problem. Who cares?” Those are the pieces that taxpayers will ultimately be picking up because of the short-sighted, transactional, cruel mentality of the members opposite, who can’t even hold their heads high, who can’t even give a decent contribution, who can’t even defend the decisions they have made. It is shameful. We look forward to questioning the Minister.

GREG FLEMING (National—Maungakiekie) (14:26): Good heavens, this Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill is literally about modernising the system for more efficient delivery of welfare to the people in our communities who need it most. It’s going to save nearly $160 million over four years. That’s going to be another $160 million that can help the people in our communities. I wholeheartedly commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill be now read a second 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 second time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): This bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I decare the House in committee for consideration of the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill.

Committee of the whole House

Part 1 Amendments to substantive provisions

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members, the House is in committee on the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill. We start with Part 1, which is the debate on clauses 3 to 59, “Amendments to substantive provisions”. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (14:29): Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to kick off with some comments in the committee stage. I think it is a very opportune moment to do some fairly significant myth busting and to set the record straight, in terms of this piece of legislation. There is nothing that changes the principles of the welfare State. There is nothing that changes entitlement, in terms of the welfare system. This is a standard that has been in place since 2022, when a different Government was in office, and has been used since then for automated decision-making, with examples like Inland Revenue child support payments and jobseeker support reapplications.

This is the next phase in how we use automated decision-making (ADM) so that very simple, straightforward decisions and business rules can be automated so that the amazing people who are at the front line in the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) can actually use their time and expertise to deliver value to the people that they serve. That is at the guts of this bill. If you’ve been listening to speeches on the other side, you would have thought we were debating a very different piece of legislation. This is very straightforward. As I said, MSD is already using automated decision-making. They are not using it unlawfully as was suggested by a member in an earlier speech.

This is really important because it relies on discretionary powers to review certain benefits and request information. When there is a review coming up, the most up-to-date information is requested from those who are receiving benefits, and using ADM in Government decision-making is an area, of course, that is developing with pace, and we want to ensure that there is the legislative authority and safeguards to do this. There is a standard. The standard has been consulted on. The standard is refreshed every three years.

There was some suggestion in an earlier speech that this is like Robodebt. It is absolutely not. I will say that again—it is absolutely not Robodebt like Australia. The New Zealand MSD automatic decision-making standard has been developed with some of the lessons of what has happened overseas. That’s why we refreshed the standard every three years, and all existing and future uses are assessed against the standards, which is, as I say, refreshed every three years and consulted on and published in the Gazette.

In terms of the regulatory impact statement (RIS), I will preempt some questions about that. Any RIS that has legal advice, it’s not appropriate for that to be published. That is no different from any other RIS in any other piece of legislation. Another absolute myth—the savings are not as a result of losing front-line staff and they are not reducing the case managers. The case managers are absolutely critical front-line staff who support those on welfare, who, actually, if they are not spending time where automated decision-making can make the process more efficient, they can have much higher-quality conversations with the person they’re facing, and that is what we want to see.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (14:32): Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Minister for Social Development and Employment being in the Chair, and I just want to signal to the Chair that what I intend to do is I’ll first do some questions on the material from the regulatory impact statements (RIS), and then I will move clause by clause. The intention to go through the RIS, and questions arising from the RIS themselves, is because we don’t have a select committee stage. I’m just going to start off with questions that would have arisen in a select committee that arose from the regulatory impact statement.

First of all, can I please ask the Minister, there’s about $55 million that is being saved from supplementary payments that are due to the use of automatic decision-making. Can she confirm where that $55 million is coming from and what kind of assistance she is producing savings as a result of the automatic decision-making? That’s my first question, and if she has a full breakdown, I would massively appreciate it.

Now, I also wanted to ask in relationship to the RIS—on page 3 of the RIS, on limitations on consultation, there’s a sentence that says, “The Select Committee process will provide opportunity for wider consultation and input from the public.” Now, we obviously do not have a select committee stage. The RIS alluded to one. Can I ask whether the Minister still intends to seek any form of public consultation as per the RIS’s commentary?

Now, moving to page 27 of the RIS, and I know that other members will have questions in relationship to the changes to automated decision-making for the process for medical reviews. But on page 27 of the RIS on paragraph 104, it talks about the options being considered, and option one was to “Amend legislation to allow MSD to use automatic decision [making] to request a subsequent medical certificate.” Now, in the RIS, it asks “Will this option be feasible to implement?”, and the answer was, “As this option is already current practice, no operational changes would need to be made.” Now, my question is, was the RIS identifying that MSD was already using automatic decision-making for something that it did not have the legal powers to do so? Because the RIS actually identifies that no operational changes would need to be made as a result of this law change, which leads me to believe that MSD was already doing something which it didn’t have the ability to do. Would the Minister be able to confirm what exactly paragraph 104 means to her? Because I heard the myth-busting components of her commentary, but the RIS would lead me to believe that part of the reason for this law is that MSD was already doing medical reviews through automated decision-making.

Finally, on the RIS—and, actually, just the explanatory note more broadly before we even get there, because, again, this would totally be a question that I would have asked should we have had a select committee stage. The explanatory note talks about how automatic decision-making would be allowed to be used for—and I quote—“any decision, exercise any power, comply with any obligation.” Would the Minister please be able to rule out the use of automatic decision-making for the purposes of decisions that have to do with things like hardship grants, to do with advances, to do with granting benefits to begin with? Because if the explanatory note talks about those powers being granted to make any decision, that’s a huge carte blanche granting of powers to MSD. Now, I would like to know if the Minister would be willing to be really clear what she intends to use those powers for and what she’s willing to rule them out for. Because, again, we’re none the wiser by the RIS on what exactly the Minister’s intents are around the huge expansion of power.

Those are my first three sets of questions arising from the RIS. I will get on my clause by clause set of questions. And so, to summarise—paragraph 104 of the RIS, if she would like to provide clarification as to why this was current practice despite it not being lawful. Keen to know the $55 million savings, where they’re coming from and which kind of payments is she producing savings from? And I also want to know whether she intended this to have a select committee stage, as per noted in the RIS regarding public consultation. Thank you very much.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (14:37): I just wanted to clarify, in terms of this general authorising provision, a lot of the focus is on mandatory reviews. The list of specified benefits to be included is listed in the bill, so I’m not going to repeat those here, and also the medical reviews. The intention of where the savings will come from is there will be people who are receiving benefits that are ineligible for doing so, which is where some of the savings come in from, and people are overpaid, which leads to a debt. We’ve had many conversations in this House about how distressing it is for people to have debts. Probably the best example of that is the end-of-school-year review process, which is basically requiring the Ministry of Social Development to exclude a child from a caregiver’s benefit after the child turns 18, unless the caregiver confirms that the child is still in school or tertiary education, for example. These are not massive changes. They’re very simple changes. We don’t want to see people going into debt. As I say, there are business rules that already exist, very simple ones that say you’re not eligible for that if your child turns 18 and isn’t in school. That’s an example of where some of the savings come from.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (14:39): Thank you, Madam Chair. I really appreciate that the appropriate Minister is here to take our questions. I think that’s really important, particularly given—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I’d just note to the member that all Ministers are appropriate.

INGRID LEARY: Sure. Great to see a lead Minister who I know can tell already has been answering the questions quite fulsomely.

I, too, would like to go through the regulatory impact statement (RIS) for some initial comments, in terms of how we would like to frame the debate, because we literally have dozens and dozens of questions, but I think it’s important, given that there is no select committee phase, and that people have not been able to have time, really, to look at the regulatory impact statement, which was only uploaded quite late on to the tool, to make some framing questions for the Minister to turn her mind to and to indicate what other speaker’s will be interrogating more fulsomely as we go through step by step.

The reason that I do this is that I am really quite intrigued to see a regulatory impact statement that is quite different from many I’ve seen before. It looks like the officials themselves actually don’t like the bill because there are admissions, assumptions, and direct contradictions of the safeguards narrative around clause 36.

Now, I’ve already talked to the Treaty principles—the problematic parts of the RIS in paragraph 21 and paragraph 18—around consultation with Māori; in particular, the Treaty principles of active protection and equity may not be satisfied. That is specified in the RIS at paragraph 21. So we will be having questions on that and also disabled people in paragraph 18—saying some disabled people may find it difficult to respond to their review within the required time frames. Those are unusually candid acknowledgements of risk and they’re very difficult for the Minister to dismiss because they come from the officials themselves. I’m just pointing out that we will be asking the Minister very closely around that because it raises very big questions about what the intent of the changes are.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): There is nothing stopping member’s contributions referring to those now.

INGRID LEARY: Thank you, Madam Chair, but when we—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): No need to book them in.

INGRID LEARY: No, that’s fine, but we do want to go through clause by clause to be sure that a closure motion doesn’t occur too early. I think it’s in everyone’s best interest that we go through the clauses one by one.

The additional questions that I have really that relate to the RIS are—the Minister has referred to the legal advice, and I understand that she’s saying it’s not normal practice to release it, and I understand that. The problem is that the RIS itself assumes that the automated decision-making is accurate and safe. It assumes that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has social licence. It acknowledges that Treaty principles are being difficult to meet, and it acknowledges that some disabled people may struggle to comply with review requirements. So it’s very difficult to understand what the problem is when the problem part of the RIS has been redacted and the Minister is saying it’s on legal advice. But it’s very, very difficult to then understand how those assumptions have been made and whether some of the advice that is being withheld from this committee actually questions those assumptions. So they would be some of my questions.

The other ones that we will be looking at will be the number of beneficiaries currently impacted by the process versus how many will be impacted in the future and the modelling around that. We also will be asking a lot of questions about the difficulty of disabled people in particular to be able to comply with review time frames. Why has the automation been given precedence over their welfare? And what evidence demonstrates that extensions adequately protect disabled people? And when we go through clause by clause, there are contradictions in the clauses and then there are broadening powers that are made through regulation that simply, from our view, we cannot see the safeguards that that would be afforded to disabled people.

We also want to ask questions around the impacts and the equity impacts on other groups of people such as rural communities, Māori, Pacific, those who identified as priority groups, where clearly they are going to be more difficult for them. And we will be asking about the cost burden on those people as well as the longevity of relationship that they have with their current medical practitioners versus those who might be assigned by MSD.

We also will be wanting to know—Madam Chair? Madam Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I’m reluctant to extend the member’s time because, basically, what you’re doing is indexing the intention for further debate. There is no need to index that and alert the committee to what you are going to talk about. This is your time now to talk about.

INGRID LEARY: Thank you, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I just want you to understand why I’m saying that: because you are raising multiple issues that then risk being repetitive later and I don’t want you to miss that opportunity later because of repetition.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Point of order. Madam Chair, I think it’s standard convention and practice that the first speaker in the Opposition who opens in committee stages will often set the scene for where we as an Opposition or where that member intends to go, in terms of the line of questioning. That’s not unusual, so I don’t know why the Chair is questioning that.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): This is the second contribution regarding the same topic. So I’m just alerting members to the to the risk they run by raising topics now that could, in fact, lead to repetition later.

INGRID LEARY: Thank you, Madam Chair. And for clarity, I have asked a number of questions to the Minister. However, the point is that there are—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Are you speaking to the point of order?

INGRID LEARY: Sorry, no, I was just finishing my contribution, if I may?

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Your contribution had finished.

INGRID LEARY: Madam Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Ingrid Leary.

INGRID LEARY: Thank you. The reason that I am asking these broad questions is because there are a number of implementation questions under each of them and we would be very happy to go through those clause by clause. So as my colleague the Hon Carmel Sepuloni has said, this is really about framing how we are looking at it, and, if I may, we talked about the RIS, I won’t be referring to that again, but what I can also say is that the bill’s disclosure statement—I will ask the Minister, now, some questions around that, because while it is strong on automation, mandatory reviews, and medical evidence reviews, it is pretty light on the expected cancellations, the compliance burden on disabled people, the health system capacity to provide medical evidence, fiscal consequences of the review regime, and so on. So if the Minister can enlighten us as to how much time was spent on the preparation of the disclosure statement and why it is so heavy on the procedural elements and light on the policy explanations, that would be helpful. And we will be going through it clause by clause.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (14:47): I don’t intend to traverse any paragraph of the regulatory impact statement (RIS), but I will just say the RIS clearly outlines the population considerations in the document and that really, if I look at Māori for example, they’re disproportionately represented in the welfare system so are disproportionately affected by anything like this, which is purely automated decision-making. I will state again, because I said it in my opening comments, nothing changes in terms of the principles of the welfare system. Nothing changes around settings or policies for things like mandatory reviews. They are mandatory. They are reviews. All this is doing is automating some of the process associated with it. Just as it is, medical reviews are already required and the automating of it will make the process more efficient. I think the members opposite are imagining some myths here that don’t exist.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Leader—Labour) (14:48): I’m going to make very quick, sharp contributions in terms of direct questions that I have to the Minister. I have a lot, but I will just concentrate on two or three at a time and am hopeful that the Minister is able to respond in succession so that we can get through the queries that we all have in this committee about this legislation.

Acknowledging that automated decision-making has been in place for a while, I guess the concern on this side of the Chamber is the extension of automated decision-making (ADM)—I’m not going to keep saying it; I’ll say ADM—the extension of it and the transparency around how it will be used. There seems to be limited information with respect to what we have on how it will it be applied. And so one of my questions is whether or not Ministry for Social Development clients will have full knowledge and understanding of when ADM is being used with respect to any decisions being made about them and their entitlements, even if those decisions or the ADM has only been used for part of the process. Can the Minister tell us whether or not MSD clients will be informed and whether there will be that transparency, because at the moment we seem to have limited information in front of us with respect to how that will be applied.

And the other question I have—so just two questions—is: will ADM decisions be appealable? So if a client wants to appeal a decision that was made through automated decision-making, will they be able to appeal that and take it through the usual review committee process as they would if the decision had been entirely made by a case manager?

Ricardo Menéndez March: Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Francisco Menéndez March.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (14:50): Oh, OK—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Oh, sorry, that was morphed. Ricardo—thank you.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: A different Hispanic name—yeah, all good. Just some follow-up questions from the Minister for Social Development and Employment’s previous contributions and her comment in response to some of my initial questions on the $55 million worth of savings. She talked about those coming from overpayments. Can she confirm what proportion of the $55 million in savings will be from overpayments, or does she have a breakdown of how much will be from overpayments and what will be from, for example, preventing people from accessing other forms of assistance? That would be useful, because the Budget documents don’t really have a breakdown, and so we’re none the wiser on the fiscal implications of this bill.

Then can I also just get a confirmation from the Minister that automated decision-making is currently being used for medical reviews and, if so, is that lawful? Again, I go back to the regulatory impact statement (RIS), which says that it’s current practice and no operational changes are needed. Therefore, my question is: if it is current practice but we’re needing to change the law, what went wrong? Again, I go back to the question: are medical reviews happening through automated decision-making right now—yes or no—and, if so, is that within the law?

Moving on to clauses 5, 6, and 7—and I’ll primarily focus on clause 7—because we haven’t heard from the lead Minister on the policy issue, can she please outline why there is a need to create additional requirements on what medical certificates should contain? We don’t have a RIS for, for example, the provisions in these clauses.

The only regulatory impact statements that we have are to do with automatic decision-making. We actually have no analysis on anything on the clauses relating to the medical documents. I actually don’t know from officials or from the Minister herself what exactly the policy problem is that she’s trying to address by adding additional requirements in the medical documents—and the medical certificates, specifically—that must be presented. I don’t know whether that comes from, for example, an assumption being made in those clauses that perhaps doctors were handing out medical certificates that were allowing people to move on to jobseeker medical, for example, when they shouldn’t have, or exactly what the problem is.

I also want to know in relation to clauses 5 to 7 whether the Minister consulted with the Ministry of Health in relation to these changes. Obviously, those requirements will add additional pieces of information for those prescribed health practitioners to put on paper, and I wanted to know who she consulted with in relation to the changes, or whether her ministry consulted with, say, the Ministry of Health or any of the bodies of psychologists, nurse practitioners, or medical doctors on this. Ultimately, there will be an interface where those prescribed health practitioners will need to fill very specific information, and I want to know whether she actually had received any feedback from any of those bodies of health practitioners in relation to clauses 5 to 7.

To summarise, I want to know the breakdown of the $55 million. Is it the claim of the Minister that it’s all overpayments, or what’s the breakdown of those? Can she confirm that medical reviews were happening using automated decision-making right now, and, if so, was that lawful?

Thirdly, on clauses 5 to 7, I want to know who was consulted, because we don’t have any documents. Was it the Ministry of Health and professional bodies, as well, and what kind of feedback the Minister received? If she or her ministry consulted with any of these bodies, were people in the medical profession welcoming of those changes?

Finally, the other body that I wanted to ask about was whether anyone from Whaikaha was actually consulted on this, or any groups of disabled people or any leading organisations around this? I don’t know so far who was actually talked to in order to come up with these additional requirements.

I will just want to flag with the Chair that I’d love some answers, and I will then get on to some of the very specific lines in clause 7, in particular. Thank you.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (14:55): I just want to reiterate that automated decision-making (ADM) has been used since 2022, and there is a standard in place. What happens is that clients are advised already, and will continue to be advised, when ADM has been used to make a decision. There is nothing in this bill that changes the ability of clients to request a decision to be reviewed. There is no change in eligibility there in this bill.

In terms of the savings, I just wanted to reiterate that the net operating savings of $158 million over five years mostly arises from people being paid benefits and supplementary assistance that they’re not entitled to, and I think most taxpayers would accept that the welfare system absolutely should be there to support people, but not if they’re not eligible. That is where the savings come from. Basically, if people don’t respond to a request for what is already a requirement, which is a mandatory medical review, then it’s kind of common sense that that payment would stop, and that’s not really going to be a surprise.

Going back to the standard, it’s refreshed every three years. Consultation happens with agencies. They’ve been consulted in this, and for every piece of legislation, there is consultation with relevant agencies.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (14:56): Thank you, Madam Chair. Just picking up on what the Minister for Social Development and Employment has said, it’s really interesting her choice of language, because she didn’t talk about people getting help who were in hardship and who needed it. She said that people couldn’t get help if they weren’t entitled to it, and what this legislation is doing is changing that entitlement by requiring them to have additional medical checks when the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) deems it so. I’m really wanting to understand the policy intent.

I do have some practical questions about the working of clause 5, because clause 5 prevents a person from receiving jobseeker support on health grounds if they’re considered to be entitled to the supported living payment. The questions that I have are about what “entitled” means in practice where a supported living payment application is still under assessment or being disputed or reviewed. Do they still get it pending the outcome of that, or does it stop, and then would it be retrospectively paid? How does that work?

What happens if they are denied jobseeker support before they’ve actually been granted the supported living payment—so do they get any kind any kind of support there? What protections exist to ensure disabled people are not left without income while moving between benefit categories?

Has there been any kind of assessment of the provision to see whether it will disproportionately disadvantage people who have got episodic illness or mental health conditions or neurodivergence? We know there are complications around accessing any kind of support, depending on whether someone is classified as having a neurodivergence or a disability, or fluctuating impairments that don’t fit neatly into the MSD categories. I’ve also got some natural justice and human rights questions which I’d like to ask later.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (14:58): Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to ask the Minister for Social Development and Employment around clause 5, as well, and to ask specific questions around the standard.

The first is, given that the Minister was very clear that this would not lead to a situation like Robodebt in Australia—and just for clarity for the Minister, this isn’t just something that we’ve made up on this side of the House. This is as a result of disabled people who have contacted us, who are anxious that this will lead to what Australia experienced in terms of Robodebt. To allay their fears, then, can the Minister confirm that no aspect of debt collection will be automated as a result of the expansion of automated decision-making (ADM) that she is bringing to this House? That is the first one.

The second is about the fact that the Minister mentioned the standard. I have now looked up the standard on the MSD website. I see that it was updated this year, 2026, and that it will only be reviewed every three years. I would like to know from the Minister whether the update of the standard includes provision and safeguards around the expansion of the powers that she has in this legislation that we are debating.

I would also like to know why a three-year review period was considered appropriate for a standard that is meant to provide robust safeguards for this, the automation that we’re seeing here. I would also like to know, in terms of communication, her response to questions from the Hon Carmel Sepuloni in terms of how beneficiaries, including disabled people, will be communicated with about this change. She has said, and I see on MSD’s website, that they will be sent, I think, either an email or a letter advising them that that specific decision will be made via automated decision-making (ADM).

How does she expect particularly disabled people with cognitive disabilities, intellectually disabled people, to—will there be any addition provision put in place to ensure that it’s not just MSD ticking a box that an email or a letter will be sent but that what is being communicated can actually be understood by the person who will be impacted by these decisions?

I’d also like to know, in response to the Minister’s point that nothing really changes in terms of eligibility as a result of what she’s bringing through the House, a little bit more about the breadth of the decision making. The Minister has said that reviews are already mandatory, that medical reviews need to happen for specific benefits—it’s just that where that might have been made by a person, they will now be automated. If I have got that correct, that is what the Minister has said. I see on the standard there is also a requirement for the outcome made by ADM to be similar to what one would expect would be made by a human who was looking at that.

Given that that’s part of the standard and that’s a requirement through the standard, I would like the Minister to explain what checks and balances are in place to ensure that the outcomes made through the expansion of ADM will actually be similar to a human who was looking at that.

I also want to ask the Minister: given that even when we had a system prior to the expansion of ADM where individuals making these decisions didn’t always get it right—there have been some pretty high-profile cases that have been talked about in the media. There was in fact someone who was an accountant who was on the jobseeker benefit for more than a year and was then told by email or letter that his payments would be cut by 50 percent because he didn’t attend a meeting—a meeting, it ultimately eventuated, that MSD never told him about, and he had no idea that he was meant to be at this meeting. As a result, 50 percent of his benefit was cut.

So given that that was already something that people were experiencing when there was human intervention, and given that we know that the expansion of ADM has led to even less discretion on the part of agencies in Australia, what confidence can the Minister give this House that decision making will actually improve, not just stay at the status quo? We have already cut so much of what people are entitled to that this isn’t going to make a difference, but how is this Minister improving the system to ensure that those sorts of mistakes that have dire consequences for people do not get replicated or get worsened as a result of this expansion?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (15:03): That was around a number of different quarters but let me try and address some of them. I have said before that clients will be advised in communications when automated decision-making (ADM) has been used to make a decision. That is done in letters or emails to clients. There is no change in this bill in the way that the Ministry of Social Development and Employment communicates with clients. That doesn’t change, and the way that decisions can be reviewed doesn’t change.

In terms of medical reviews, ADM is already in use and is it used when clients submit a subsequent medical certificate that has no change, which, again, is pretty efficient. So if you have a medical certificate and you then require another medical certificate, if there is no change, then, of course, the benefit is just regranted and carried on. So it is really about efficiency and effectiveness. I know members opposite are trying to make more of this than there is.

In terms of the review cycle that the member asked about, as I said, the first standard was introduced after ADM was initiated in 2022, and the time sequence for refreshing that was set at three years, which is how it is done, and each part of that is really considering the safeguards that are in place, and I’m confident that the work that’s been done in the most recent refresh considers not only the way it has been used but future use.

Listen, colleagues—we’re going to have to look at this a lot if we want to have better service to our most vulnerable New Zealanders. We’re going to expect that there’s going to be greater use of technology, and we should all be embracing that and encouraging it. If I think about a policy that the previous Parliament introduced—around child support pass-on—if that had not been done with automated decision-making, that would have required an extra 150 staff, which is crazy. So when technology can do these processes, following business rules, and there is a standard it’s following, it is just actually making the work that can be done easier and faster. Businesses are doing this all over the world, and in some ways, we’re just catching up.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (15:06): Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to have a look at the issue of medical certificates in clause 7. You may recall that in my speech I raised some concerns around the certificate. The first that I can see as a very practical issue is that the Ministry of Social Development and Employment (MSD) are going to have the right to choose the person providing the medical certificate, and I raised the issue that I saw when I was practising law—the manipulation of that process by choice of provider.

I know that that happened in ACC, and there were certain people that were very much preferred, particularly by accredited employers, and people who sent off for an examination of that person, and they were preferred because they declined more applications. So I am concerned to see MSD having that kind of unilateral power. And I’d like the Minister’s comments on the safeguards that she’s put in place to make sure that that isn’t abused and doesn’t become part of a systemic abuse of the system.

I’d also like to know who pays for the medical certificate in this process because, again, my concern is that we are dealing with a situation where such things cost money. I’m also concerned that there is a specialty often in these areas. So you often wait for a long time to get the right person to look at an issue, particularly one that is nuanced or grey or requires a specialty.

So I want to know what happens in those circumstances where the person has to wait for that information, particularly because when I look at the clause, I can see at the new section 27, which is in clause 7, that the provision at subsection (6) talks about “Until MSD has received, from, or on behalf of, A, a medical certificate that complies with this section, MSD must not grant A jobseeker support”. So it’s a prohibition that takes away any discretion. Now, we’ve had a talk today about the concerns of the Opposition that what is happening here in automation is much less humane. It doesn’t have that discretion, and we were reassured that at the end of everything it was just about making the system work better but that the ultimate issues here would be with individuals. But words like “must” have to be followed. So are we going to end up seeing situations in our constituencies where people have had a delay, they haven’t got that certificate, they simply haven’t got the money to get it, and they’d have to go to a specialist and it takes a while to do so? There is some reason why they have not been able to get that medical certificate. And in the meantime, there is a prohibition on giving them that kind of help, even when an intelligent MSD staff member will be able to see that this is a legitimate need.

So I’d like to know what happens there.

Again, this is all these discussions about safeguarding, and I do note that the regulatory impact statement talks a lot about the need for safeguards, and I am concerned by those issues in a really practical manner. I urge the Minister to identify what those safeguards look like. Thank you.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (15:10): I know there’s been a couple of questions raised about the health practitioner—what do we call them?—the prescribed health practitioner. I just want to clarify that that is a decision that is made between the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and the client in terms of who that health practitioner is. And only if a decision can’t be reached together does MSD choose who it is, and if required, MSD funds that assessment.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (15:11): Thank you so much, Mr Chair. I’ve got some questions on clause 7. But I just want to, for the avoidance of doubt, get something really clear from the Minister for Social Development and Employment because I think we’re talking past each other. On paragraph 57 of the regulatory impact statement, the status quo names that automatic decision-making, and it uses the discretionary review powers to decide whether to commence a review for specified benefit request information from clients suspending council assistance. I wanted to check because that does not currently include a request for a subsequent medical certificate. I go back to my questions—I really, genuinely want to get a straight answer from this: has the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) been using automatic decision-making to request a subsequent medical certificate right now, and, if that has been the case, where are the provisions under the Social Security Act, as written right now, that legally allows for MSD to use automatic decision-making (ADM) to request a subsequent medical certificate? If it turns out that that wasn’t the case, are there any issues with retrospectivity in relation to what is being proposed in this bill?

So, again, I just want to ask a straight-up question: does ADM, right now, allow for MSD to request a subsequent medical certificate? I hope I can get a really clear answer now.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (15:12): The answer is yes, and I’ve already said so.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (15:12): I just want to clarify that she hasn’t actually been clear on this. She said mandatory reviews. She hasn’t named requesting a subsequent medical certificate; that is different from medical review. But anyway, if the Minister is very confident, I will move on.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): She did say yes, but if you want to expand on that.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Yes. So moving on to clauses 5 and 7, the Minister said, when I asked about consultation, that adequate agencies have been consulted with. Can she please name the agencies because she, I think, is conflating my questions in relation to the changes for the requirements for a medical certificate with the questions on automatic decision-making. What I want to know is were any disabled people’s organisations, Whaikaha, or medical organisations consulted in relation to the provisions in clauses 5 to 7? That has nothing to do with automatic decision-making—nothing. So, putting aside the review of automatic decision-making that happens every three years, which I know the Minister referenced in relation to my question, I want to know: who exactly did she consult?

This is something we would have had access to should there have been a select committee period, which is why I don’t think it’s adequate engagement from the Minister to just say, “Adequate industries were consulted.” We would normally get a list of who was consulted. We would even normally get a list of the feedback that was received. I don’t think this is a constructive engagement from the Minister if we just get some sort of like blasé answer like, “Oh, yeah, adequate agencies were consulted.” Can she name them please? Can she name the feedback that she received in relation to the additional requirements for medical certificates?

I want to know, as well, whether she received any feedback on additional workforce pressures that having more requirements for medical certificates could create for the health workforce. I want to know what her communication plans are to ensure that prescribed health practitioners are made aware of the new requirements under clauses 5 to 7.

Now, I also want to ask about a potential drafting error that I want to give credit to my colleague Mike Davidson for actually finding. I want to confirm with the Minister whether she thinks it’s a drafting error or whether this was written as intended. So in clause 7, at section 28(5)(b)(i) it says, “the nature of the health condition, injury, or disability (which, if P is at least 27 weeks pregnant, must include the date that the PHP diagnoses is the date on which A may give birth to a child);”. Now, there’s a reference to “P” there which talks about a person being 27 weeks pregnant, but then it says that some other person “A” may give birth to a child. These are two different people being named and that very same provision. So can I confirm whether that’s drafted as intended, and, if not, does this not speak to the need to have a select committee stage where drafting errors could be found and addressed? Can I just get a confirmation from the Minister as to whether the bill, as written in that part, is actually accurate?

Now, I also want to go to this very same clause. Can I ask the Minister once again, because I haven’t had engagement on this issue, what exactly is the policy problem? Why were medical certificates, as they exist right now and the requirements for medical certificates to have the information as they exist right now, not good enough? Why is there more prescription over what a medical certificate needs to contain? Like, I don’t understand, and the Minister has actually not been transparent and open about the fact that there’s additional requirements for these medical certificates. Like, was the medical profession actually telling her and giving her feedback that, you know, the current requirements were not good enough? Where did the policy problem arise? Like, who actually alerted her that people needed to actually outline far more detail than medical certificates cover, for example; or, for example, more information on what exactly a disabled person needs to get from their prescribed health practitioner in order to be able to access jobseeker medical or the supported living payment?

Now, I have one additional question I am going to ask from the Minister on clause 7, and I just want to signal to the Chair that clause 7 is quite long, so I have a lot of questions. But between lines 15 and 20, clause 7, section 28(3) where it says, “The PHP must be agreed for the purpose between P and MSD or, failing agreement, must be nominated by MSD.” Can I ask, does MSD hold a list of prescribed health practitioners that MSD can tap into to then nominate them; if so, how many PHPs are on it? And what is the breakdown between a psychologist, a practitioner, nurse, or a doctor that MSD may have on their database when it comes to the PHP that MSD may be able to nominate, should the person P in this case and MSD fail to find agreement on who this PHP should be?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (15:17): So just covering off a couple of those. In terms of—and I did say this previously—the policy and the Cabinet that authorises these policy settings, population agencies are consulted and give feedback at that point.

In terms of the requirements for the practitioner, as I said in my comments literally just before, that is a choice between MSD and the client. It is only if they then can’t agree that MSD would determine who that should be. One of the things that’s really important and why automated decision-making is really important in terms of improving efficiency and effectiveness, is actually making sure that people are on the right benefit. That means they get the right entitlements. And so often that’s not the case. Particularly with jobseeker health condition and disability, it really does need to be an assessment of somebody’s work capacity. In some cases, it might be inappropriate that they are on the jobseeker health condition and disability; they should be on the supported living payment. That’s where additional requirements and that medical review are really important.

Equally, somebody might not have a health condition and disability, they might be a job seeker that would be deemed to be work ready. What we do know is, in terms of case management and some of the programmes that MSD refers people into, more of those are available to those who are job seekers and work-ready.

So, yes, there has been feedback about the medical certificate. That’s why there is quite a lot of focus on that. We want to make sure people are receiving the right benefit and that, equally, they are getting the right support. That’s why we are making changes in this section.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Leader—Labour) (15:19): Thank you, Mr Chair. The Minister for Social Development has stated that she’s responded to the questions around how a health practitioner will be chosen, and she thinks that her answer is adequate, and that answer is that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) will make the decision. That’s not an adequate answer. What we want to understand from the Minister is: what is the criteria that MSD will be using to determine who is an appropriate health assessor? Also, what is the criteria that will rule someone out from being an appropriate health assessor?

This is very important information, because we would all want to ensure that there’s consistency across MSD offices and also transparency on how MSD is determining the appropriateness of any health assessor that will be making decisions about a person’s future and whether or not they can get access to MSD benefits and entitlements.

I’m going to say it again, because the Minister seemed to be missing what was being asked of her from other colleagues: what is the criteria that the Minister will ensure MSD have to rule in or out appropriate or inappropriate health practitioners?

MIKE DAVIDSON (Green) (15:21): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ll just take a short call. I just have a few questions I want to ask around clause 7, new section 28. I note a number of these clauses are already in the existing Act, but there definitely are some new clauses added.

In here, it’s basically describing that the Ministry of Social Development can, at any time, require someone to undergo examination. My question is: how often can that happen in a number of months? Can they do it, like, every month? Does it have to be every three months, four months? It just doesn’t say. I’ve done a number of amendments so we can actually put some clarification around that, because I just don’t think that’s fair that someone could have to be forced to go and have a medical examination, technically every month, by the definition of this bill.

Then who pays for that? We are talking some very vulnerable people that don’t have much money, and if they’re being forced to go and have medical examinations, who is actually going to have to pay for that? I don’t think that should fall on to these vulnerable people that have very, very little money.

Following down—and this is where it does become a lot newer—it talks about what the medical report must contain. It does say it needs to state “the nature of the health condition, injury, or disability”. I’m very concerned, actually, about someone’s privacy, because some of these health conditions could be very sensitive, very personal, and I just don’t think they should just be freely shared to another agency or organisation. I do have an amendment which is time-stamped 10.30.14, which actually allows the prescribed health practitioner to withhold that information if it’s in the best interests of the customer so therefore it doesn’t actually cause them any distress or harm.

I’m just wondering if the Minister is actually concerned about these vulnerable people’s, many of them with sensitive health conditions—whether she’s concerned about their privacy, and whether she’d have a look and accept my amendment. I think it’s really important, when we talk about some vulnerable people who have some very serious and sensitive issues, that, actually, we respect privacy. We should not just be stating someone’s health condition on medical certificates and then mailing them off.

They are my questions. It’s around how many times can someone be required to go to a medical examination within a given period of time; who actually pays for that—especially if they’re being forced to go multiple times in a year; and then are we looking at the privacy—is there actually regard for someone’s privacy that has a very sensitive health condition? It would be great if the Minister can answer—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): What was that amendment number again?

MIKE DAVIDSON: The one around the privacy was 29 May 2026, 10.30.14 a.m.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (15:24): Thank you, Mr Chair. Just to add to the questions that my colleagues Carmel Sepuloni and Mike Davidson have asked, and I’ll leave that for the Minister to respond in terms of the criteria for health practitioners—what’s the criteria to rule in or out those decisions—and also whether there’s a ceiling on the number of times such a request or—well, it’s not really a request under the law, is it? It’s that someone can be compelled to go and see a health practitioner. Is there a ceiling in terms of the number of times they can be required to do that?

I also want to ask the Minister what the criteria is to determine the appropriateness of the health practitioner. Will it be the GP of the person that they usually see, or will it be a specialist, given the specific health condition or disability that the person is experiencing? Who makes those decisions around appropriateness? Will it be the beneficiary, the person themselves? Will it be the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), and, in that case, what would the criteria be that is used for that and who determines it?

Given that this will also have, then, a flow-on effect, potentially, on the health system, if people are required, with no cap on the number of times they can be required, to go and see a health practitioner to get a medical review, what is the Government’s view or what is the Government doing to ensure that there will be capacity within the health system to be able to support this? The reason that is applicable or relevant here is because a benefit can be suspended if someone doesn’t come back with a medical examination within a specified time period, as far as I read this legislation. Given that we already have a backlog within the health system, that it’s not easy for people to get in to see their doctor, how is it then fair to cut their benefits if there is an increase in requirement there and they’re not able to go and see their doctor?

The final question that I have, and this, again, if we had gone through a select committee process—and, actually, I would like to ask the Minister why we’re doing this under Budget urgency. What is the urgency with this legislation? This seems to be the other half of legislation that was considered under Budget urgency in 2025. So what is the urgency here? Why couldn’t we go through a select committee process and ensure that people who are potentially impacted by this have a say?

I’ve been contacted by someone who has said if the determination around appropriateness of the health practitioner is made by MSD—again, the Minister has said that it’s only in the event that MSD and the beneficiary can’t agree that MSD will make the call. Keen to hear criteria from there. But if the call is not for the person to see their GP, is that not then disconnecting that person—it particularly holds true for disabled people, who see one particular doctor who understands their disability or health conditions. MSD requiring that person to see somebody else seems to be unnecessary, unfair, and pretty punitive on that person. Can the Minister give us an explanation and the criteria that’s been asked for, please.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (15:28): Just to say again: there are not more requirements for what’s required in the medical certificate. All this is doing is clarifying what the requirements are. How to determine who a health assessor could be—clearly, registered with the Medical Council to ensure appropriate checks and balances. In terms of ensuring client privacy, the Ministry of Social Development has to comply with the requirements in the Privacy Act, and they have done. There are no changes around any of that. In terms of the issue raised by Mr Menéndez March, it is not a drafting error. Section 27 refers to A, an applicant, and P is referred to in section 28, who is a person who may be an applicant already granted a benefit. There is nothing incorrect there.

KAHURANGI CARTER (Green) (15:29): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m going to be speaking to clauses 5 to 7, particularly in relation to the regulatory impact statement population group impacts on page 7 and disabled people. Now, earlier, my colleague Ricardo Menéndez March asked the Minister which agencies had been consulted and implored, please, to list those agencies, because we would usually have this information through a select committee process—we would usually have advice—and that is not available to us. The Minister does have advisers here, and I again ask can we please have a list of the agencies that were consulted with, that gave advice, and particularly, as I’m talking about here, for disabled people—Whaikaha and any disabled-led organisations, any disability organisations. Who was consulted?

Now, from the Minister’s response, which was “relevant agencies have been consulted”, I am now assuming the Minister has then consulted with Whaikaha, disability-led organisations, and disabled organisations, so my questions are: what advice was sought from those disability organisations, like Whaikaha, like the Disabled Persons Assembly, around the problem definition, which of course we can’t see and which has two parts, because they have been redacted? What advice has been sought around those? And because we haven’t had that select committee process, I would also like to know around any advice they gave around the automated decision-making process in relation to what the Minister answered around the medical reviews—that medical reviews would only be undertaken by automated decision-making (ADM) if there was a change to a medical certificate. So can the Minister please confirm that any change to a medical certificate, whether it is a word—“and”, “or”, “but”—or does it have to be a copy and paste of the exact medical certificate for ADM to say that there has been no change? Or is the Minister referring to a change in diagnosis? What does the Minister mean by “no change”? Just to summarise that, what advice was sought, and—please—where did this advice come from, specifically around disabled people?

I’m going to read from the regulatory impact statement (RIS) in that population group impact section on page 7, paragraph 18, where it says, “If not used with appropriate safeguards, the use of ADM can have implications for disabled people including people with health conditions.” What advice was sought from Whaikaha, from those disability-led organisations, around what safeguards are needed to ensure that the implications for disabled people are not going to make things worse for them?

For the Minister to participate fully in this committee of the whole House—because we’re not getting a chance to be in a select committee where we would be able to hear from people that actually are impacted by this or from advisers from these different ministries if the select committee requested it. If the Minister could please participate fully in this process so that people watching at home and people who this law is going to affect can have some stability and understanding of how it’s going to play out in their lives. Please tell us which agencies have been consulted with. I am specifically asking around disabled people: what feedback they gave, what advice was sought from them, and, even if the advice wasn’t sought, what they provided. Thank you.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (15:34): As I have said before, the agencies were consulted. These are Government population agencies that are consulted when you do policy work and draft a Cabinet paper, so Whaikaha were included in that process.

As I also said before—which is not directly related in the bill but I think is important to this conversation—the automated decision-making (ADM) is standard. That is of course taking into account additional requirements for safeguarding. It is why that is consulted on and considered and updated every three years to take account for the very populations that the welfare system serves.

Members should not be confused about anything in this bill. It does not change any entitlements. It does not change any access to benefits. All it does is clarifying where there is a medical certificate reviewed, how that process works, and also in terms of a benefit review. So it is very simple.

There was a question before about what if the medical certificate is not provided. The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) communicates with clients when there is a period of time in which that is required. Twenty working days—that can be extended by 40 working days if, for example, a client was having difficulty accessing the agreed medical professional. But I just want to reinforce to the House, ADM is already in place; it’s about making the processes within the MSD more efficient. It is not making any changes to policies, to entitlements, or anything of that matter.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Leader—Labour) (15:35): Thank you very much. Mr Chair, I’m going to refer back to the question I asked before because I feel like the answer I got was inadequate. The question was: what criteria would be used for ruling in or ruling out health practitioners who can assess? The Minister’s response has been that they need to be a registered professional and they need to respect privacy and work with the ministry to make sure that the privacy of the client is maintained. Well, you would expect that of any health professional, and so I can’t understand, then, how someone could be ruled in or ruled out. So, I think that the Minister needs to elaborate on her answer.

My other question does follow up from something that Ricardo Menéndez March talked about earlier and that is in reference to how far the automated decision-making (ADM) goes here. When we look through the regulatory impact statement (RIS) and the bill, we see that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) wanted this to be in place so that they could preserve existing ADM practices. That meant, basically, to ensure that their existing practices could be legitimised. That speaks to what Ricardo Menéndez March was saying earlier about his concerns that the practices were potentially not legitimate, given that this legislation is seeking to legitimise the existing practices.

The question alongside that for me is if MSD were only asking for the legislation to be changed to ensure that their existing practices were legitimate, then why have we got in front of us a broad new statutory authorisation? In terms of the requirement here, it goes above and beyond just confirming and legitimising existing practices. So why have we gone further and what’s the purpose of that? We have to understand what the agenda is of the Government and of the Ministry of Social Development for extending ADM. We understand it already existed. The Minister’s said that over and over again. We do understand that, but it’s the extension of that and the extent to which the Government is going that we are struggling to understand.

Ultimately, for us, data protection is integral. The privacy of people’s information and making sure that people are informed about what that information is used for and how that information is used is of the utmost importance for us here. So there were a couple of questions in there. Firstly, I don’t feel that the Minister has gone to the extent that she should do in telling us what the criteria is for ruling in and out health practitioners. Secondly, I’m trying to understand why this legislation has gone above and beyond what MSD had wanted, which was to legitimise existing practices with ADM.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (15:39): Look, as technology advances, there are more things that ADM can be used for, for greater efficiency and gains in the Ministry of Social Development. As I said, I think the real opportunity here is that front-line staff get the opportunity to have higher-quality conversations with their clients if this kind of routine decision-making is taken care of by automation. The members to my left are trying to dream up something very different from that. I would have thought that they would also be supportive of ensuring that legislation covers the right environment. Again, as I said before, taxpayers would like to know that those who are supported by the welfare system with funding, for people who are eligible for the support, are getting the right benefit.

As I’ve said before, in some cases, having a medical review might say, actually, you should be on a supported living payment, not a jobseeker health condition and disability. We do want to best serve the clients that Ministry of Social Development (MSD) serves, and using automation to do that better is a really critical part of it. I feel like I’ve said it 10 times already. If the members opposite haven’t heard it, I’ll keep repeating it.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (15:40): I think we’re really getting to the heart of what we are seeking to ascertain, on this side, from the Minister’s responses. My colleague the Hon Carmel Sepuloni raised it, because it’s about why the powers go further, but it’s not only that; it is why those broadened powers are being relegated to regulation, which comes up later on and we’ll have a lot of questions about. It really kicks the door wide open to using these automated systems for things that have not been considered currently under the current bill. That is what we are seeking to interrogate. This is not paranoia. This is about legislative drafting—and quite Machiavellian drafting, I would say—that leaves the door open for the Government to be able to change the rules again through secondary legislation. That is the problem.

If I go to some of the legal questions—again, we could have had legal advice if there was a select committee—and if we look at the ways that that is occurring, there’s extremely broad drafting. If we look at clause 7 again, in new section 27(6), it overrides multiple existing provisions. It basically overrides sections 20, 25, 301, 302, 307, and 308. That’s exactly the type of drafting that the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee (LDAC) says shouldn’t be used when we’re talking about safeguards. It should be clearly justified, proportionate, narrowly framed, and subject to safeguards and scrutiny—that’s from chapter 14 of the LDAC guidelines—yet we see exactly the type of drafting here where, instead of harmonising the sections, basically overrides them. Why on earth would that happen unless there was a reason to broaden the powers? Did the Attorney-General or the Parliamentary Counsel Office actually raise concerns about the breadth of the overridden drafting? Could that be what is in the secret legal advice that we have not been able to see?

When we look at the drafting, again new section 27(6), which is changed by clause 7, it’s been drafted as an absolute prohibition rather than preserving residual discretion for urgent cases. That is very strong, and there is a question around whether there is unnecessary fettering of discretion when it comes to what the primary purpose of the legislation was in the primary legislation. It removes flexibility even where incapacity is obvious and undisputed, so it creates hardship through this overreach.

If we look at other parts of the administrative, evidential, and procedural issues in new sections 27 and 28, they contain uncertainty, they challenge review rights—they leave those uncertain and confused, which is bad lawmaking—and they are internally inconsistent. If we go back to some of the other legal things—we haven’t even asked any questions yet on clause 6—it’s the same kind of scenario. There is an administrative principle about not fettering discretion, and that is where there are human rights at stake. We have not had an New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report, and the New Zealand classic authority on that is CREEDNZ Inc v Governor-General. There is a question about whether clause 6 is, effectively, fettering MSD hardship discretion by making medical certification an absolute precondition to assistance. If that is the case, is that lawful? Has she had legal advice on that? Is that in the hidden legal advice that we haven’t been able to see? Why have we not been able to get answers about that and the problem and the regulatory impact statement (RIS)? That would be very helpful. If the Minister could just indicate what part of these questions the legal advice pertains to, we might get a clue as to the answers of why there are these really Draconian overriding provisions.

Finally, I just want to go back to clause 5. My last question’s on clause 5, which I did indicate I would ask. Did the Ministers seek any advice on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities around the application of clause 5, regarding natural justice, the principle of autonomy, and equal access to social protection? Does she plan to do New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report, because somewhere in the RIS there was an assumption that would happen, but it hasn’t happened, so will she put on record, in this House, that it will happen so we can see for ourselves where the inconsistencies are so that at least this Parliament can own those. Are the provisions of clause 5 consistent with principles of natural justice, particularly where there are complex and medically contested medical certification requirements?

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Just before I take the next call, members, just note that questions have been asked on clause 6 and just note as well that there has been engagement from the Minister. Yes, perhaps members might not like how those questions have been answered or indeed addressed, but there has been engagement on that, typically between clauses 5 to 7. So I’m just indicating here that I’m looking for new material between those clauses or perhaps looking for people to ask other questions on other parts.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (15:46): This is just to confirm that there is a positive New Zealand Bill of Rights Act assessment that has been completed. The other thing I would just—

Ingrid Leary: Where is it?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: It’s online. The other thing I would just say—because there have been a number of comments about it—and so I will say it again is that there is clearly an understanding that, in the use of automated decision-making (ADM), there are risks that come with making decisions in place of a human, which has the potential for bias, discrimination, and inconsistency. That is why the bill strengthens the ADM standard by making it a statutory requirement, and the standard must consider bias, discrimination, legal and policy considerations, fraud considerations, transparency, human oversight, and compliance and assurance. That is exactly what this bill is doing.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (15:47): Thank you so much, Mr Chair. I will be asking one more question of clause 7. That’s on the lines between 25 and 30 in relations to the comments on pregnancy. This is also in relation to the medical certificates coverage. Now, it says, “However, if the health condition is that A is at least 27 weeks pregnant, and A has no other health condition, injury, or disability,”. At the last line before “Consequence of not providing medical certificate”, it states that, basically, the date of the medical coverage must be when A’s pregnancy ended.

Now, I want to ask, for clarification, why it has been worded on the day that the pregnancy ended? If the prescribed health practitioner (PHP) wasn’t able to comment, for example, on whether perhaps he expects that there may be medical complications after birth, then why wouldn’t that PHP be able to, actually, extend that medical coverage to after the birth? There may not be, for example, health conditions that the person may have—that’s basically what this line says—because it’s possible that the only medical coverage is that someone is 27 weeks pregnant. But, perhaps, the PHP expects that there may be complications afterwards. Why wouldn’t the PHP be able to extend that medical coverage later on down the track, or is it, for example, even if there were no medical issues for the person, for the reason that, perhaps, they expect that the baby would have medical complications after birth? I wonder whether there’s a gap here or whether this is covered by the subsequent child policy. I just want to triple check what the intent is of having worded those particular lines between 25 and 30 the way they are.

Now, I want to reiterate that we did not have any analysis documents on things other than automatic decision-making, really, so I wanted to just draw your attention to new material on the departmental disclosure statement. The document noted that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner remains concerned about the use of the general authorising provisions that will broaden the Ministry of Social Development’s (MSD’s) ability to use ADM.

What are the concerns of the Privacy Commissioner, because that’s not noted in the departmental disclosure statement. I’d like to know: if the Privacy Commissioner indicated that there were concerns, can the Minister please relate to the committee what those concerns were from the Privacy Commissioner and to what extent did she seek to address the concerns that were raised? Clearly, the Privacy Commissioner is not satisfied, and so I would like to know exactly what feedback she has received from him on the concerns of the use of ADM.

Now, I also wanted to seek clarification. I know that when the previous Chairperson was there, we had a little bit of a back and forth when the Minister answered two sets of questions just with “yes”. This was in relation to the coverage of automated decision-making, and Carmel Sepuloni talked about the existing use. I just want to seek clarification from the Minister that all the current uses of ADM are legal. That’s just the question I’m asking: are all the current uses of ADM legal and covered under the current legislation?

Moving on to clause—this is new. I know that my colleagues may have questions on clause 10, but I did want to just move to clause 12 briefly. I wanted to just talk about new section 41 in clause 12, and this goes back to how PHPs may be able to assist some of this stuff. In new section 41 in clause 12, it talks about PHPs being able to, through their coverage, certify whether P is expected to require C’s full-time care and attention but for which P would have to receive institutional care. I just wonder why the threshold was put in requiring full-time attention, or otherwise P would need institutional care.

Why is it that the Minister may have not considered, for example, whether, just simply, that the quality of life of P could just be worse off or deteriorating? Why is it that someone would only be allowed as a caregiver to be on the supported living payment (SLP) if someone would be in institutional care if they’re not receiving full-time attention? Some people need full-time attention, and if they don’t get it—they may not necessarily go to institutional care or need institutional care, but their quality of life could be massively affected by it, and I wonder whether that is setting a really high bar for caregivers to access the supported living payment.

It goes back to a bit of a broader question around the comments that the Minister raised. She talked about how this isn’t really changing anything, but it was clarifying stuff. I go back to the issue of: well, if it’s just clarifying stuff, what was the policy problem?

That leads me to a subsequent question, and this relates to clause 12. The Minister talked about how some people who may be on jobseeker medical should be on the supported living payment—you know, she really wants to make sure that people can go on the SLP. Now, having worked at the front line, it’s extremely rare that case managers are actually actively trying to get someone to the supported living payment from jobseeker medical. Quite often, it’s the opposite. There’s a lot of gatekeeping to actually get someone on the supported living payment from jobseeker medical.

Does the Minister have any statistics or data to back up her claims that, for example, people want to actually move someone to the SLP, but they’re unable to do so, and that this clarification will enable them to do so, because I don’t think that we actually have the evidential basis to support that right now, the front line is really trying to move people to SLP when they’re on jobseeker medical. Quite often, it’s the opposite.

Further, I’d like some engagement—and, Mr Chair, I take your guidance that perhaps some of the engagement that we’ve received hasn’t been satisfactory. But this is a question that I’ve asked, but I have received no engagement on it, which was around feedback from medical professionals around the burden that the current medical certificate requirements could put on them. For example, I have concerns that if there was no feedback sought from medical professionals, I wonder whether—you know, she’s confident that the ability for MSD to send someone back to a doctor as many times as MSD wants could actually cause pressure on doctors, basically, because why would a doctor be wanting to spend their time assessing a beneficiary over assessing someone who actually needs medical treatment?

I assume that the medical professionals would not want to be spending their time actually seeing a beneficiary just to fill out some forms. They would rather be spending their time providing actual healthcare. So did she receive any feedback whatsoever from—and I note the three bodies that are defined in PHPs—psychologists, nurse practitioners, or medical doctors on the pressure on the workforce, and, if not, I’m really keen to know why she wouldn’t have sought that.

Finally, does she have, on clause 12, any estimates that were made on how the provisions in clause 12 may change the number of people who enter the supported living payment on the ground of restricted work capacity or total blindness? I’m interested to know whether the Minister, when designing the changes to the medical certificates, had any estimates on how this would affect benefit numbers for people on the supported living payment. Does she have any statistics or a breakdown by population groups on how this is likely to change access to the supported living payment? I guess this would relate to clause 10 itself, as clause 10 actually also talks about the supported living payment.

If she does not have any information on this, are there any parts of this bill or these clauses that actually help support her target of having 50,000 less people on the benefit? Does this bill or the clauses in it—and particularly clauses 10 and 12—help in any way or shape?

Finally, my last question in this line of questioning, and I want to go back to the use of automated decision-making. Now, the Minister keeps mentioning the current uses of automated decision-making to justify giving carte blanche approval for ADM to be used just more broadly, but something that the Minister hasn’t really engaged with is giving us assurances or a direction or an intent on what else in the future she would plan to use ADM for. Again, the question that I think remains unanswered and has not even been engaged with is why, if there’s only a list of specific uses for ADM that the Government wants to, basically, legalise, you would just open it up. I know the Minister has said, “Technology is great; we should have more technology.”, but can she actually engage in naming some of the potential uses that she would expect that sort of carte blanche, open slather use of ADM to be used for? Finally, does she expect automated decision-making to be used to automate anything within the workforce that could lead to a reduction in full-time equivalents?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (15:57): I’m repeating myself yet again. This whole Part 1 is about medical certificates and medical reviews. No requirement has changed.

This is about the use of automated decision-making (ADM) in applying and using that technology to allow ADM to be used to make greater efficiency. I gave the example. This whole part is all about it. If, for example, somebody gets a medical certificate that is exactly the same as the last one and you use ADM, that then means that it is saving front-line staff’s time so they can use that time for higher-quality conversations.

I’m saying, again, that for the whole of Part 1, there is no change. There is no change in the requirements. This is just enabling and authorising so that in law it is clear about what we are using ADM for. Look, I’m sorry if the member hasn’t understood that yet, but for the requirements and the eligibility, nothing is changing.

To the comment around the jobseeker benefit and whether this will help: absolutely, because it will help ensure front-line staff can spend their time having meaningful conversations with job seekers, as opposed to comparing a medical certificate to the last one, when you can get technology to do that for you. I want the front-line staff of the Ministry of Social Development having conversations with job seekers about what are the barriers they face in getting a job, and they are the best people to do that, and so if I can save them, through this legislation, the time involved on really simple things, that’s exactly what we’re doing.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (15:59): It’s great that the Minister for Social Development and Employment wants to see front-line staff talking to beneficiaries about moving into work, given that there are more people out of work under this Government’s watch—

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: More people on benefit.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: More people on benefit under this Minister’s for Social Development and Employment’s watch. I have a few specific questions and it’s really unfortunate that the Minister for Social Development and Employment keeps saying that there’s nothing to see here—that there are no substantive or material changes—because all they’re doing is expanding the use of automated decision-making (ADM). That is the change that we are here to debate, because what we have seen is that when that expansion happens, it leads to different outcomes for people. That is the very point that we’re trying to get some answers from the Minister about.

I want to ask the Minister in the Chair some specific questions in relation to a response earlier, and given that it’s a different Minister, I will outline what that response was. It was specifically to do with the standard that is being used. Now, the concern that has been raised, particularly by disabled people, is the fact that the expansion—the very expansion that we’re debating here—is the same expansion that was seen in Australia where outcomes, then, were harmful to disabled people. So while the Minister keeps saying there’s nothing to see here and gaslighting members on this side of the House, there is something to see. There is a real anxiety around it, and we want to tease that out.

Two things to do with that. One was the Minister of Social Development and Employment has said in her response that when it comes to ADM, there was a standard that was set up in 2022 that governs the use of ADM. We all get that; we get that on this side of the House, as well. New information from the royal commission in Australia showed that internal standards alone are insufficient. One of the reasons that the Minister gave us for why the standard is a good thing when it comes to safeguards is that it is meant to not entrench bias and discrimination that you would have otherwise seen or could have otherwise seen if a human had been making those decisions.

Unfortunately, the new evidence that we’ve seen from Australia is that the very standard—the internal standard that is also being used here—entrenches bias and discrimination against specific groups of people; here, particularly Māori and disabled people. I want to know what, in the existing standard that has just been refreshed, will stop us from going down that trajectory that we have already seen in a comparable jurisdiction. That is my first question around the standard.

The second is also: why an internal standard, given that the best evidence that we have that is new shows us that that is not the gold standard when it comes to robust safeguards? So why is there only an internal standard within the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), and not an independent standard?

Now, in terms of clause 12, specifically, which replaces sections 41 and 42 in the main Social Security Act with these new sections, I want to know specifically, given that this is around the supported living payment—particularly when someone is applying for it on the grounds of caring for another person—it seems to be that there is new information here in this new section of the bill, particularly when it comes to 41(3), where the medical certificate must be given by a prescribed health practitioner (PHP).

In response to the Minister of Social Development and Employment’s answer that a preferred health practitioner, according to her, is any health practitioner who is registered in New Zealand, in what cases could the beneficiary’s preference then be overruled by MSD? Can the Minister give me an example where that might happen, because it says in the legislation if the beneficiary wants a particular health practitioner and MSD doesn’t agree with that, MSD can overrule the preference of the beneficiary. Can the Minister give me an example where that might reasonably happen, such that MSD picks who the preferred health practitioner is?

Now when it comes to 41(3)(b), (i) and (ii), specific clauses around certification: “whether, in the PHP’s opinion, … P requires C’s full-time care”. That is the crux of applying for a supported living payment. Is it new that the health practitioner has to determine whether one person requires the full-time care of another person? This goes back to the question that we’ve asked the Minister previously, that we’ve received no response for: what is the criteria? If the criteria is just that a health practitioner needs to be registered in New Zealand, the bar seems very high here. It seems incredibly high that somebody will not get a supported living payment just if an arbitrary health practitioner decides that the person they care for doesn’t need a level of care that is high enough that it firstly requires someone to provide full-time care, or if that full-time care isn’t provided, that that person goes into institutional care. That bar seems incredibly high in this particular clause.

I want to know from the Minister whether this is new; if so, which part of it is new and why is the bar set quite so high, such that the criteria seems to have been tightened quite a bit? Those are my questions, currently, for clause 12. I will leave it there and give the Minister an opportunity to respond.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (16:05): I know that we need to swap people in the chairs—not you, so much, as the Minister—but I am extremely confused about the previous remark from the Minister of Social Development and Employment where she is not engaging on our questions from clauses 5 to 12, claiming that it’s all about automated decision-making. Could the Minister in the chair please outline whether automated decision-making is referenced in any of the clauses we’ve referenced so far, because, I think, otherwise we’re going to speak past each other. As far as I’m aware, the only clause in which automatic electronic systems is specifically referenced is clause 36.

I think we’re going to have quite a bit of a problem in this debate if we just get poor engagement on claims that the issues around prescribed health practitioners and medical certificates are solely to do with the use of automated decision-making, when we have a very specific clause that we haven’t actually named or touched on that is to do with that. Now, I want to give one more chance to the Hon Matt Doocey to clarify to us if he is certain that there are no drafting errors in this bill, because that’s something that I particularly wanted to note.

Now, something that I also haven’t had engagement on from the Minister that I would like to reiterate—and I genuinely want engagement on the issues that the Privacy Commissioner raised; that has not been addressed yet. The other thing that I wanted to note that I haven’t had engagement with is whether all existing uses of automated decision-making—whether they have been legal like that—have not been addressed and/or touched on. I think this is critical because, as others said, the risk—has a bunch of stuff that is completely covered because of legal privilege, but that makes me feel, based on what is not redacted, that that hasn’t been the case.

Now, wanting to move on to issues relating to clause 12: one of the things that we keep trying to debate around, for example, what’s in line 30 to 35 on page 20 in clause 12, relating to the medical report having to have the prescribed health practitioner’s (PHP) on P requiring “C’s full-time care and attention; and … were it not for that care and attention, P would have to receive institutional care;”.

One of the reasons and the connection to the fact that we’re concerned that there’s this line across the legislation on the PHP being agreed by Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and P—I’m concerned that there seems to be no language or clarification or engagement from the Minister on what basis MSD can say no to a proposed PHP by P. Because the PHP in the bill—the prescribed health practitioner—has huge power over someone’s ability, in clause 12, to enter the supported living payment for carers, for example.

What I’m concerned about is that, say that I need to support someone in full-time care and I’m looking at clause 12 and I’m thinking, “OK, cool. My PHP that I want to propose to MSD is someone that I know very well. It’s someone that I trust. It’s someone that my family member—in this case, C—trusts.” What basis would MSD have to say, “Nope, I don’t agree with you that that’s the PHP that should be actually making this medical certificate.” That’s nowhere in the bill to be found. It actually just gives MSD carte blanche to just say, “You know what? I don’t like this prescribed health practitioner, so I am going to decide for you, because I don’t agree.” There’s literally nowhere in the bill that outlines what reasons a case manager could, for example, say, “Nope, I’m not going to agree with that PHP.”

What that means, though, is that, for example, we could see further systemic discrimination of people, and people being prevented from being carers of the family members or loved ones that they want to support. Can the Minister please clarify how they intend to operationalise the grounds in which MSD can say, “Nope, I’m not going to trust this PHP to be the one producing, for example, medical reports that will outline in their opinion whether P requires C’s full-time care.”?

I go back to a question, finally, that hasn’t been engaged with, which is: does MSD have a list of PHPs that then they can draw on? If there’s no agreement between MSD and P, does MSD actually have a list of these prescribed health practitioners; if so, how many are there?

What is the breakdown between how many of them are psychologists, nurses, or medical professionals? The reason I say this is that if you live in rural area, you may not have many to choose from, and that leaves me wondering then what happens if somebody says “Nope, I don’t like your PHP”? If the Minister would like to engage, I would appreciate it.

Hon MATT DOOCEY (Minister for Mental Health) (16:10): Thank you very much, Mr Chair, and just to thank those members for their contributions and their questions.

We had a question: is the automated decision-making (ADM) expansion the same as Australia? I’ve been advised it is not the same. The standard is reviewed and consulted every three years. The question is: what’s in the ADM standard that would stop something similar to Robodebt? The answer, I’ve been advised, is that the standard has requirements for accuracy, reliability, transparency, and compliance. There was a question of why ADM is not referenced in clauses 8 to 12. I’ve been advised that the changes in clauses 8 to 12 add clarification to the law to allow the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to use ADM in relation to aspects of medical reviews. The changes set out clear requirements for how ADM is used; this is an additional safeguard.

There was another question: in what case could a beneficiary’s choice of prescribed health practitioner be overruled? I’ve been advised that MSD has a pool of prescribed health practitioners; some will be local to the client; one of these will likely be selected mutually between the client and MSD; if not, MSD will choose because a decision about eligibility needs to be made.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): I note that I’m getting closure motions on the right. I hope those that are making those closure motions have got the bill in front of them and realise that we’re not very far through it. On the other hand, you will have heard the encouragement from the previous Chair to keep moving. We’ll get that balance about right.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (16:12): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to take the first question on clause 11 but, just before I do so, pick up on what the Minister said about the standard. The question really is: why is the standard under this bill not in legislation; why is it left to MSD process? That is the crux of the question, which has not been answered.

As far as clause 11 goes, this is again about the supported living payment for carers. This is really a question about why the Government has not followed its own advice about the carers’ strategy—its own strategy—which is the New Zealand Carers’ Strategy and Mahi Aroha Carers’ Strategy Action Plan. The Minister will be well aware and I think have some sympathy for the position that carers of people affected under this bill are some of the hardest-working and most compassionate people that we have, and they, if anything, need more recognition, not less recognition, and the Government’s own strategy says that. The Government’s own strategy says that carers should be people who are treated as recognised, supported, trusted, and assisted to navigate systems more easily.

My first question is: how does clause 11, which is requiring that carers expressly be subject to the new medical certificate requirements in section 41—how does that help them navigate repeated medical certification processes while managing intensive caring duties; how does it make that easier? I just can’t understand the conflict there. It also says in the plan that there should be the support for the wellbeing of carers. It talks about having a whānau-centred approach; it talks about carers’ voices being heard. Well, which carers were consulted, Minister? We’ve had questions previously about which disability groups were consulted, but we have not had questions about which specific carer support groups were consulted. There are many, and they are organised and mobilised, because they have such a high level of need. If the Minister could please let us know which, if any, have been consulted.

Further questions on clause 11: we’ve had questions about the fiscal savings arising from the tighter evidential requirements for disabled people or people caught by the legislation. What are the fiscal savings specifically related to carers, and has any modelling been done to show what the baseline is of how many carers are falsely or dishonestly collecting a benefit when they should not be? What is that baseline data? Is there modelling? Secondly, what do they anticipate the fiscal savings will be when those carers who are caught by these evidential requirements, if they do not meet the threshold—what are they expecting that fiscal envelope to be?

Has the Government consulted with the carers—not just the communities of Māori and Pacific, because we’ve heard that before, but the carers of Māori and Pacific, because they significantly are disproportionately providing more unpaid care for whānau than other groups. Has any consultation been had with those groups? Why has the Government, from a policy perspective, increased the evidential requirements? This is not about automation; this is about creating another hoop for people who are already incredibly busy, already not paid properly for the work they’re doing, and already crying out for support. What is the policy reason, outside of the automation argument, which I don’t believe applies accurately to disabled and other people; that aside, why apply that to carers? The number of carers who would be claiming a benefit fraudulently must be absolutely miniscule. Where is the problem that this particular clause, clause 11, is trying to solve?

Hon MATT DOOCEY (Minister for Mental Health) (16:16): Thank you, Mr Chair. There are two questions there I can answer at this point. Why is the standard not in primary legislation? I’ve been advised that is because it is an operational standard. In the legislation, clause 36 sets out the requirements for what the standard must including.

Another question: why has the Minister not followed the advice of the Mahi Aroha Carers’ Strategy? I’ve been advised that the bill does not change eligibility settings for the supported living payment for carers. The bill does not change the requirements for the frequency or type of evidence carers provide. I’ve also been advised that Whaikaha and the Ministry of Health were consulted.

TAMATHA PAUL (Green—Wellington Central) (16:17): Kia ora, Mr Chair. I just wanted to ask some questions but also alert the Chair that this is my first call on this bill. I did miss the first 60 minutes or so of the committee of the whole House, so please do feel free to interrupt me if I’m repeating any questions. I know where we’re up to; we’re up to clause 12, Mr Chair—I’m aware of that—just if there are any areas that have been jumped ahead to, please do let me know.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Well, that’s probably up to you to get a briefing from some of your colleagues on that.

TAMATHA PAUL: Yep, we have. We’ve been working hard, breaking down a really big bill. They have let me know, but just in case—just in case.

We do have a lot of questions, because one thing that stands out about this bill is that I’ve never seen a regulatory impact statement with this much redaction in it before, so there will be a lot of questions coming from this side of the House at least. I think one thing that’s been hard to go through the clauses, and maybe the way that I prefaced the question in the way that I did, is because the Minister in the chair before referred a lot to the automated decision-making, which is quite confusing, because we’re only around clause 12, and you don’t actually see the automated decision-making coming in till around clause 36. we’re just trying to get some answers to all of the information before that.

Now, I have an electorate office in Wellington Central, so this is bill is really important, because we get a lot of people coming through asking questions about the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). One thing that I have noticed in the electorate office recently is that people engaging with MSD who are met by an automated response or met by artificial intelligence (AI) in order to answer their inquiries are quite frustrated—particularly our seniors, who did not grow up in this world of AI in the same way that we did.

I had some further questions. My colleague Ricardo Menéndez March asked some questions around the primary health practitioners (PHPs) and how those will be chosen, and the Minister has given us a brief amount of information about how those PHPs will be selected within a region. I think one thing that makes it difficult is that one thing that we’ve canvassed quite a bit in this term of Parliament when we were dealing with bills such as the Treaty principles bill is the systemic racism or inequities that Māori and Pacific communities face within the health system.

What I wanted to understand is what engagement has the Minister done with Māori health professionals in terms of curating that list of approved prescribed health practitioners (PHPs). If you, say, have an older Māori kuia living in rural New Zealand, how will you make sure that she is able to access a Ministry of Social Development certified PHP that also meets her cultural needs and is able to understand her life and her health and her abilities? And what understanding and thinking has actually gone into this bill in terms of those health inequities as well? Because, obviously, this bill requires medical examination by the prescribed list. We want to make sure that the priority populations that are covered in the regulatory impact statement—Māori, Pacific people, elderly, seniors—that their discreet needs within the health system are covered within these prescribed listed PHPs.

The other thing I wanted to ask a question about is what about people who need these medical examinations or these medical certificates who have got trauma from the health system as well? So one thing we learnt through the royal commission of inquiry into abuse in State care is there are a number of people out there who suffering ongoing trauma and disabilities that they experienced through the health system when they were examined, and they were abused within the health system. Now, some people might have never heard of that before, but there are, actually, a lot of survivors of sexual violence who actually would prefer, perhaps, to have a medical examination undertaken by, say, somebody of the same gender or of the opposite gender. So what thinking has gone into making sure that the person who undertakes that medical health examination of P in this bill is the right person for that person culturally and in a trauma-informed way as well?

The other question that I have is about C. So C talks about—so under clause 12, it says, under replacement section 41(3)(b)(i) “P requires C’s full-time care and attention;”. So it says, “P requires C’s full-time care and attention;”. So, obviously, in this bit, C refers to the full-time carer of P, right? So what I want to understand is can C be multiple people? Sometimes when you have people in your family or even friends that you are looking after, that might not be just one person who is undertaking full-time care of, in this instance, P. So, for example, if there is a family where, say, the mother has got a disability, she might have five children, and all of them partake in full-time care of P. So when this says all of the sections around “(C) who is required to give full-time care and attention at home to another person (P)”, is C a single person or could C be multiple people? Because we need to recognise and acknowledge that sometimes people that are being cared for might be cared for by multiple people.

So I will come back to that, because we do have a lot more questions around C and that person in the bill and their role and how that might interact with other recent changes within the law under the Disability Support Services Bill. But, for now, I’ll leave my questions there.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (16:24): Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to move on to clause 13. Before I do, I want to be clear about something, so I put this as a question earlier. I have not actually understood, so is it true that people who get these medical certificates by requirement will have to meet the cost of those medical certificates? Has there been any discussion with ACC about its arrangements with such medical examinations and certificates?

But I would like to go to clause 13, which is about the winter energy payment. Now, this clause is one that is of concern to me, because the winter energy payment was brought in very much as a universal, very broad brush, “Just let’s give people the money to use for this purpose, but we’re not looking any further.” So I’m concerned about this clause eroding that principle. So could the Minister please tell me about the logic with regard to this clause? For example, was advice sought from public health experts regarding the risks associated with any reduction in the winter energy payment? My understanding is here we’re talking about people who are on benefits who are vulnerable and they’ve been hospitalised.

So can the Minister tell me why this was a priority in this situation, given that energy is at an all-time high in its prices at the moment? And that erosion of that universalism that we’ve had, is this, Minister, a change in policy and restriction on winter energy payment, or is something else going on there? Because we’ve heard from the Minister that there is no change other than automation in this situation. Can I be assured that that is all that is happening here, not a restriction in access to the winter energy payment? There’ll be people who are actually quite worried about this out there. I’m going to keep it short, because that’s just what I want to know. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): For those members who have newly arrived, get some consultation from your friends so that I don’t have to make the same speech again. I would expect the member would have a copy of the bill in front of him so we’d know when we might be getting near a closure. The noise that comes from my right is no guarantee of a closure; I can guarantee it. So where we are—Ricardo Menéndez March.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (16:27): Thank you very much, Mr Chair—appreciate it. I wanted to move on to clauses 14 and 15. So this is in relationship to the child disability allowance requirement to provide medical evidence. Now, I want to make it really clear that throughout these clauses, while the Minister says that eligibility for support of living payment, for example, hasn’t changed, there is more prescription in primary legislation over the type of information that needs to be put on those medical certificates. There is no doubt about that.

Now, for the purpose of child disability allowance, the Minister in his previous engagement around the prescribed health practitioner (PHP) pool that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has, what we didn’t get engagement on was on a breakdown of, for example, out of the categories that PHPs can be—I’m just going to wait, because I really want an engagement on this. So I can see that the Ministers are talking to each other, so I am just going to wait until they finish talking to each other, because I just know they’re not listening to my question.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The member can start again if he likes.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Thank you, yes—appreciate it. They’re still talking to each other, Mr Chair, so I just don’t know how I know that my questions are going to get listened to or engaged with. So I am just going to—OK, I think the Minister is ready. Thank you very much.

So now, on child disability allowance, my question was in relationship to the pool of PHPs. I haven’t had engagement on the breakdown of how many PHPs MSD has in their pool. I particularly would like to know a breakdown of, for example, how many psychologists, nurses, or doctors they have in it. Because, for the child disability allowance, there are some needs that a child may need to be met through material costs that sometimes only very specialist groups can actually assess. For example, we have people who may specialise on assessing kids with foetal alcohol syndrome. For example, we could have specialists who are experts on being able to diagnose neurodivergence and particularly with rising awareness of things like ADHD, for example, people still know that they may want to go to a specific health practitioner to be able to get the right type of diagnosis to have the right criteria being met.

Now, for the purposes of child disability—[Interruption] Pardon?

Tamatha Paul: Masking.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Yeah. My colleague rightfully talked about how some health practitioners, for example, may be better placed to assess whether a child may be masking, for example, their neurodivergence and to be able to assess whatever needs they may have.

I really care about access to the child disability allowance because I have seen firsthand, in my work at the front lines, how access to that child disability allowance can make a huge difference for children. My question is: does the Minister know what breakdown MSD has, within that PHP pool, of people who are specialists in being able, for example, to provide a diagnosis on issues like ADHD or fetal alcohol syndrome?

What I am concerned about is that, because of the way MSD can just send someone to a PHP of their choice, perhaps they will be sent to a PHP that is not adequate for them. I know that my colleague Kahurangi Carter, our disability spokesperson, deeply cares about the provisions in clauses 14 to 16 and has been trying to take a call for 30 minutes on this, so I am borrowing some of her question lines on some of this. That’s the final question.

The other thing is: can the Minister guarantee us that the so-called clarifications on the medical certificates won’t lead to fewer people being able to access the child disability allowance, per the requirements in clause 15, or does the Minister have any modelling on the changes to access to the disability allowance due to the requirements in clause 15?

I will leave my questions there, but I genuinely do want to get engagement on the breakdown of the pool of PHPs that MSD has within their system, because, otherwise, I have no confidence that MSD will be making responsible decisions on who to send children to to have them assessed for their material needs under the child disability allowance.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment) (16:31): Thank you, Mr Chair. As I go through the answers here, my apologies, I’m just not sure who asked which question, but we will respond to the questions.

The systemic racism and inequality; how can we ensure that rural communities can access timely and appropriate—I think it may have been from the Green Party. Generally, clients will provide their own medical evidence, and if a referral is required, this will generally be with someone agreed between the client and the Ministry of Social Development (MSD).

In terms of the clarification about whether a client’s rate of payment is reduced to a hospital rate, MSD may use discretion to stop. There is no change in the current policy, just clarification of what happens after a mandatory review.

And “Can C be multiple people?” No, because C must be providing that full-time care so that they can be eligible for a benefit, and there are no changes to this requirement.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (16:33): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to go to clause 18, which is significant, because it, basically, replaces the existing section 103 with an entirely new framework which governs what happens when a dependent child turns 18, and it includes rules for removing children from benefit calculations. It includes suspending entitlements, and it creates limited exceptions for continued education.

I think, if we look at families that are impacted by this, and we think about the rate of unemployment, and also the types of training opportunities that may be available to some families, it raises real questions around whether there are unintended consequences that haven’t been thought through with this provision. I’m sure the Minister will accept that dependency doesn’t suddenly end on a child’s 18^th birthday, so we are trying to understand why tertiary study is treated differently from secondary school attendance under the structure of the new clause.

Has she considered the impact on low-income families who are supporting young adults who are transitioning through education or through work, or maybe through less orthodox types of training courses, special training courses for at-risk kids, and so on, where suddenly there is this cut-off and there is an incentive for some of those kids to actually just be pushed straight out into a lower-paying job because that safety net is no longer there for them, which might make the difference to them going on to become higher skilled, being able to contribute more to society, being able to get a higher level of qualification and contribute more to their families? Those are some of the unintended consequences. I’m wondering if the Minister has thought about those.

Where does the assumption come from that 18-year-olds are suddenly financially independent? It seems to be present in other pieces of legislation. Can the Minister explain why 18 is that cut off? Is it an arbitrary number? Is there a rationale around it? Has she assessed the impact it would have on child and youth poverty or housing insecurity? We are seeing more and more young people on our streets at the moment. Young people are facing the highest levels of unemployment that we’ve seen in decades—young Pasifika people in particular, record-high unemployment. This is the very vulnerable group that could get caught out by this, and suddenly there is a drop-dead date when they are no longer eligible.

Can the Minister, also, just explain why 31 December has been used, given that many courses don’t suddenly start or stop there? Educational pathways are different. They’re much more fluid than that, but we have one date. Were other dates considered, or is there a way perhaps she could consider amending that to make it correlate to the training pathway, so that there isn’t this anomaly where 31 December is this very blunt, arbitrary date that has been selected?

The big question, really, is whether the automated systems could be used to identify children turning 18 and trigger exclusion or suspension processes. Currently, that doesn’t happen. The Minister has said this is just tidying up and it is not creating new powers, but could the automation suddenly capture that cohort, that very vulnerable cohort that are dealing with the very sharp end of the cost of living?

Are there any human oversights guaranteed for reductions or cancellations that will affect families impacted by this particular clause—for example, rights of appeal—or if something is just a really crazy anomaly to do with the “31 December” date where it would make no sense to stop the support? Maybe it just means a few months’ extension, but that is going to be the difference between getting that young person into a training institution versus them becoming completely dependent or being forced out to work, or even being kicked out of home by some families, which is a reality for some of our people.

On the redesign of section 103, which youth did the Minister speak to? Which young people’s groups of advocates did she consult with to understand the unintended consequences? There is a lot at stake with this. It is a complete redesign, and with some tweaking, perhaps there could be a bit more human input and we could avoid some of those motivations that would see people not reaching their full potential.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (16:38): As I have said throughout my contributions in Part 1 of this bill, it doesn’t change the eligibility, it doesn’t change the policy, so the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) will continue to include 18-year-olds who are financially dependent and still in education in their caregiver’s benefit until the end of the school year or when they become financially independent. Nothing changes around eligibility. All that will happen: MSD currently notifies the beneficiary when their dependent child is turning 18, and they request that they ask if that child is no longer financially dependent or in education. If they don’t contact MSD, they may get the wrong entitlement, which is what this bill is about. It is the process underneath. It doesn’t change the policy.

There was a question there about substantial human involvement in the end-of-year school process, so let me go through that. I’m sure that will answer questions that members may have around many of the clauses in Part 1 that cover the end-of-year process. When a client gets in touch to let MSD know their child is still financially dependent on them—i.e., not working full time and in school or tertiary education—when the client receives a discretionary benefit, e.g., an emergency benefit, a staff member will need to review the benefit in order for the payment to continue, and only when the last only child turns 18 and the entitlement relies on a dependent child being included, the payment will generally stop automatically. Human involvement is required to resume the payment if the client provides information to confirm they are still eligible for the payment.

As I’ve said, the process for the end of the school year is woven through Part 1. I hope my comments there address the questions that members have, and, again, I reiterate there is no change in eligibility.

KAHURANGI CARTER (Green) (16:40): Thank you, Mr Chair. It has almost been an hour that I have been jumping up to take a call, and so I am very glad to be here. We are at around clause 18 of Part 1, which has 59 clauses in it, and so we have got a lot more questions. We’ve already gone over some clauses that I did have questions for that weren’t answered, but what I will do is I will move forward in the hope that we can have a really fulsome kōrero and engagement from the Minister for Social Development and Employment, who has said things like “I’m repeating myself again.” and not actually addressing a lot of the questions that have been asked. So I do implore the Minister to fully participate in these questions, because these are pertaining to things that affect our children, and children should be at the heart of every Government decision.

When we look at this effect of having a child turn 18 years old, I would like the Minister to tell us what advice was received from Oranga Tamariki and from the Children’s Commissioner in relation to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, around prescribed health practitioners (PHPs) and their appropriateness for children, because, of course, children have a very complex and special set of needs. For example, for someone living in a rural area who may take three or four hours to drive to a PHP, children—

Simon Court: Where is that? That’s Auckland to Ruapehu, OK?

KAHURANGI CARTER: Thank you, Simon Court. This is actually from when I was accessing the child disability allowance for my child. We lived in Ohakune, which is a four-hour drive from the psychologist who had diagnosed my child, and what happened was our needs were such that they needed to be dealt with in person, and for every assessment, every year, we had to go back and prove that my child still needed access to the child disability allowance. We were going to a trusted doctor who could do that in a way that was mana-enhancing and making sure that my child was being cared for, and so we travelled those long distances.

I want to come back to the questions, which are around clauses 14 and 15, and they also pertain to clause 17. Then we will talk about new Subpart 18, around who will pay for an advance medical cost when you need a PHP. That was in a question that was asked by my colleague Mike Davidson and it wasn’t addressed by the Minister. We have amendments on the Table to clause 15, which are things like “If an examination by a PHP is required by MSD, MSD will pay (a) section 80(1) in advance for the actual cost of an exemption by PHPs”.

My questions are these. Who is paying for the PHP, especially when we know in the former clauses that this can be asked for at any time? It doesn’t have to be every 52 weeks; it can be at any time, and so who is fronting up for those costs?

We are talking about many children who are already living in poverty. What advice was received around medical professionals and their appropriateness for people living in rural areas or people living away from someone who can actually give an appropriate medical diagnosis—not online, because that’s not appropriate for children—and then what advice was sought under the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child?

Because Minister Upston is the Minister in the chair right now, I would like to implore her to answer some of the questions that she did not answer, and we would love her not to be repeating herself.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (16:45): I’ve already answered questions about who pays for the assessment. I just do want to confirm in terms of the child disability allowance that the previous member asked about that clients will provide their own evidence from their own health provider. It doesn’t need to be from a prescribed health practitioner if the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) is satisfied that the evidence provided determines eligibility.

In terms of the question around the Children’s Commissioner, etc., the child disability allowance, obviously, is something that the parents apply for. The end-of-year process for 18-year-olds, as I’ve gone through before—it’s not changing the eligibility. Therefore, there was no requirement to consult the Children’s Commissioner. It is simply the process by which MSD determines whether there is still eligibility for a benefit or not, and that is assessing whether or not that child is independent. As I said, that is scattered through all of Part 1.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Look, I’m aware that this hasn’t been through select committee and there will always be a lot more grace from the Chair. However, be aware that taking a full five-minute call does increase the risk that you’ll be covering a lot of material that probably has already been. At this stage of the bill, what we’re looking for is material that is clarifying issues in what is a relatively substantial bill, but we still need to keep moving forward. So just bear that in mind.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (16:47): Mr Chair, thank you. This question is about clause 18, and it’s a question that you’ll see is utterly genuine because I’ve raised these issues in the speeches, so it’s very important that I put this to the Minister for Social Development and Employment. We had a piece of law change recently which was all about taking our 18-year-olds out of the system so that they were not independently able to get benefits if they didn’t have a job. Now, I appreciate that the Minister has talked about this as simply being the status quo in terms of entitlement, but given that there is now nowhere for that child to get a payment if they have not found a job, and given we have really high youth unemployment, we no longer have the same safety net because of that.

So my question for the Minister is: did she consider that issue? Was it something that she took advice on? Is that on purpose—is she actually saying, “Well, if they’re not in training, then we’re going to make it very, very hard for parents in beneficiary families, because if their child’s not in training, they’re going to have the full cost of that child on their hands, and that’s a good thing.”? Is that what’s really going on logically? I wouldn’t agree, but at least I’d know where the Minister stood on it. Did the Minister take advice on that, and is that something that she talked to the Children’s Commissioner about—because what does seem relevant is the issue about where that child is sitting.

Also, did anybody give her advice on the implications for beneficiary parents? Now, I gave a really good example of someone I knew who was in a difficult situation. They were looking after a child who had turned 18 and had fallen out of the system. I think that this is a real question for real people out there, and I’d really appreciate an answer on it. Thank you.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (16:49): Speaking about this bill, a child can be included in their caregiver’s benefit if they are financially dependent on their caregiver and are in school or in tertiary education. A child can only be included in their caregiver’s benefit up to the start of the pay period following 31 December of the year that they turn 18, if they meet that criteria. They cannot be included in the caregiver’s benefit for the following year, even if they are ineligible for jobseeker support due to the jobseeker settings for 18- and 19-year-olds.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (16:49): Thank you. I’d like to turn to clauses 23 and 24. Clause 23, it looks technical but if you unpick it, it’s a core organising feature of changing the weighting from discretionary support towards systematised support. And that’s why it is worthy of review.

My first question is very simple, and it’s just: does the Minister accept that it is actually what the impact of that clause is, and if she doesn’t, why not? Because we keep hearing her say this is just a kind of technical thing but, in fact, that is what that clause does. And if she says it doesn’t, then why is the mandatory review system being elevated structurally within the architecture of Part 6? Because surely the Minister understands that the guide provisions influence how legislation is interpreted and administered by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) staff. So the signals appear to be around reducing discretion, reducing the ability for there to be human reviews, and increasing automation and algorithms. If that is the case, then surely that is also the signal for the culture of MSD that she is expecting going forward—that is going to lead to those cost savings that we have heard about.

If we look at clause 24, what 24 does is, again, it looks technical, but it just begs the question: why does it exist? Because if MSD already has broad powers under section 298 to inquire into claims and beneficiary circumstances, why is the Government creating a new mandatory regime and explicitly preserving both powers? It’s additive. And if you look at clause 24, clause 30, clause 32 and 36 together, every one of those clauses seem to be adding a layer of power to MSD and changing the weighting from a human-judgment philosophy to an automated-mathematical-algorithm philosophy. And that does not stack up with the Minister’s claims that this bill is merely a technical bill that is enabling technical things to happen.

There is a significant policy shift if the clauses of 24, 30, 32, and 36 are read together. The question to the Minister is: does she accept that there are already broad powers under section 298; and if she does, then why do we have these additional powers that are being created in this clause?

The other questions are around the administrative burden. Has the Minister considered, with all of this, whether duplication will happen because of investigations that are happening at different levels of this compliance architecture that she is initiating. Can beneficiaries, for example, be subject to multiple reviews of the same circumstances under both section 298 and Subpart 3A? And if not, can the Minister rule that out because otherwise there is duplication both for MSD—that’s a taxpayer problem, that’s a legislative problem, it’s a duplication problem, but it’s also incredibly stressful for the beneficiary who is now subject to two layers of interrogation and compliance rather than one.

So what is the practical gap in the current legislation that clause 24 is intended to address? It is not clear, from our view, that it is doing anything except giving more power to MSD to be able to make more requirements and more hoops for people to jump through. If that is not the case, and if she accepts that section 298 already has that broad power, then what is the purpose of having these sweeping powers in all of those clauses together? The only conclusion we can come to is that it is around a policy shift. If that is not the case, the Minister needs to tell us really clearly what the grounds for that are; not a sweeping statement saying this is about automation, but something that tells us why those additional powers are needed for compliance, not for changing the regime, which is what they appear to intend to do.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (16:54): So medical reviews is, again, scattered all through Part 1. The review process for beneficiaries receiving a medical benefit is not changing. I’ve said that before. MSD will continue to require beneficiaries applying for a medical benefit to provide a medical certificate or other medical evidence at application. The evidence is used to determine the period of medical coverage. When their medical coverage ends, MSD will require beneficiaries to provide further medical evidence. The bill just makes it a requirement for MSD to ask for the medical evidence and for the beneficiary to provide it.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (16:55): Thank you. I am looking at clause 25, and I can see that that is a section that talks about grants and them being declined if there’s no evidence. I want to ask the Minister whether the intention is to shift from a system where we used to have eligibility, and then we would seek the evidence, to one where we are looking at evidence first and then the grant. Because one of the questions I’ve got in this particular clause is: if there was a delay, so the delay was beyond the actual power of the person involved, would there be any mechanism, now, without that evidence being produced, for them to get the grant? Is that an outcome that has been built into the system, that kind of discretion? It seems to me that that’s not a fantasy; that’s a likelihood we are going to get people where there is that kind of delay beyond a doubt and it’s not going to be their fault. One thing is that it may be very apparent that there’s an issue, and the other is that, in that situation, sometimes, it’s simply someone else who creates the delay.

So can I just ask the Minister: is there an actual shift here? Is she willing to acknowledge this shift here from a situation of, actually, we make the judgment and then we gather the evidence, and now we don’t: we gather the evidence and then we make the judgment. Thank you.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (16:57): As I said previously, the review process for those receiving a medical benefit isn’t changing. And what I also said much earlier in the debate is if there is a reason, then an extension is required, and it can be requested and granted. I have covered this ground much earlier in the debate and so I’m hoping I don’t have to—

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: It’s a section. We go through the section.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: No, but the medical reviews are covered all through Part 1. And you’ve asked me a question that I’ve answered before. If there is a valid reason where somebody can’t get the medical review information that they need, they simply contact MSD and say, “Here’s the reason why.”, and they get granted an extension of up to 40 working days.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: It’s the words in the section.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I’m explaining Part 1, which is medical reviews covered all the way through it. And I’m sorry if you don’t understand that, but I’m trying to make it clear for you.

KATIE NIMON (National—Napier) (16:58): I move, That debate on this question now close.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): We’ve still got a little bit more there. But be aware, on my left, that we need to keep moving and be quite specific now. There’s a lot of ground that’s been covered reasonably commonly.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (16:58): Thank you, Mr Chair, and appreciate the guidance. We have been using a new clause per call. It is really difficult if the Minister is answering comprehensively on one part that has got so many clauses and I’d have to say, actually, that, in our view, it’s a case of pretty bad drafting because normally this would be contained in multiple sections. But nevertheless, we’re having to deal with the bill that’s in front of us—that probably was done in a bit of a rush by the looks of it.

So my questions are around the amended section 301, that is done by clause 25, and it’s about the supported living payments and how that will actually work from an implementation perspective overseas. The bill’s telling us that they will be reviewed more systematically, but there’s very limited detail on how those reviews will be conducted. And then there’s a, kind of, very weird thing, where suddenly there’s a carve-out for Australia and it just pops out of the middle of nowhere. I have no idea how many people are impacted by that. The new requirement to provide a medical certificate or other medical evidence does not apply if the benefit is or would be payable in Australia.

If the Minister can just give us some guidance on what that’s about, how many people will be captured by it, and what is the difference between Australia and other neighbouring jurisdictions. Is that going to, for example, have an impact on particular communities who might affiliate to other countries? Would it have a negative impact or a positive impact on them? Is there some reciprocal agreement or something that Australia has done that has made this a requirement now on our side? That is something we would have been able to see at select committee and ask questions about, but we haven’t had that opportunity.

My question is really on clause 25. There’s a lot I could say about it, but I’ll keep my contribution brief. How will the medical evidence from overseas doctors be assessed? We haven’t had clear answers about the hierarchy of considerations of medical practitioners in New Zealand, let alone which of those will be in or out, because those are relegated to regulation, which is interesting and problematic. But what are the standards that the foreign medical practitioners would have to meet? Would it be the medical standards of their own jurisdictions or is it the medical standards of New Zealand jurisdictions? How is the Ministry of Social Development going to actually verify that information? If there’s a time lapse, which there often is—I mean, if anyone’s done immigration and tried to get a police certificate, it can take months and months. This automation system seems to suggest that that person would then not be able to collect that financial support until that medical information has been verified. If that is not the case, can we have it on the Hansard here, because we’re really worried that that will jeopardise people’s ability to be able to get money that they might otherwise be entitled to.

How will the automated decision-making actually work for overseas cases? Does the technology distinguish or is it all handled in one go? How will the reviews work when a beneficiary lives in a country with different health systems or documentation practices? They’re very practical implementation questions, that, again, we could have heard in select committee through submissions or asked official advice. We don’t have that opportunity, so could we please have an answer to each of those so we can understand that people are not going to be unfairly disadvantaged.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (17:02): Thank you, Madam Chair. Eligibility for medical benefits is determined using, as you would expect, medical evidence. If you don’t have the evidence, you can’t grant the benefit, and so that hasn’t changed.

The member asked a question around the change, or the specific reference to Australia. We have a reciprocal welfare system. I don’t want anyone listening thinking that you could be on a benefit granted from New Zealand and then go travelling around the world in a whole range of different countries—that’s not the case. In terms of Australia being specifically mentioned, we have a reciprocal arrangement with them, and we still have the expectation that while somebody’s medical condition continues to exist, they are eligible for the benefit. If their circumstances change, they still have a requirement to notify, but we felt it wasn’t practical to dictate the same conditions here in New Zealand for those who receive it in Australia.

Hon Members: Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I’m not about to take a closure motion, but what I am about to say is that I’ve been watching this debate for quite some time and I’ve heard the Minister say on a number of occasions that this is not about the criteria; this is about the process. It is time to clearly move to other questions, because I’ve heard the Minister state on a number of occasions this is about the process, not the criteria, and I have heard a lot of criteria questions. I would expect that those asking questions would be asking questions, and not making five-minute speeches, so that we can move on to new topics. Otherwise I will be tempted to take a closure motion.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (17:04): Point of order, Madam Chairperson. I appreciate your guidance on that, Madam Chair. The issue is that as we go through clause by clause, there are different processes and different criteria that can apply, and when there hasn’t been a select committee stage, it is really important—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I get that, and I’ll say to the member that if I have this correct, the criteria is not changing; the process of what operates inside the system is changing. We could go through all of these, criteria by criteria, but we’re going to get the same answer, which is actually not going to be productive if the criteria hasn’t changed, and so that my decision. I want to move on to other—Willow-Jean Prime.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) (17:05): Thank you, Madam Chair. I do just want to signal that the guts of this is actually, I think, in clauses 30 to 32. However, we are moving clause by clause, and I do take your points that you’ve just made. There has been a contribution on clause 25. I want to make a contribution on clause 26, and, in particular, when you look at clause 26 and you look at the current section 302, it looks like—it’s a bit more significant than it appears. I would like to exchange with the Minister a number of questions around that, because this is the ability of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to make an immediate provisional grant in some circumstances and sort out entitlement issues later. Clause 26 makes that power subject to the new medical evidence requirements, meaning that MSD cannot use provisional grant powers to get around the requirement for a medical certificate or other medical evidence before granting certain benefits.

Clause 26 appears to be designed to make the answer a no for the affected medical evidence, and the question I’ve got for the Minister is: can the Minister give us some practical examples of how section 302 will continue to operate for health and disability - related benefits after this amendment, given that the new medical evidence provisions appear to override the provisional grant mechanism? Can the Minister please explain whether section 302 retains any meaningful role for these benefits after the amendment or whether clause 26, effectively, removes provisional grants in the medical evidence context—this goes to process.

Can the Minister please tell me how many applicants currently receive assistance through provisional grant mechanisms before all documentation has been completed? Has the Government assessed the average wait time for obtaining the medical evidence required by this bill? What happens when MSD agrees that a person is likely to be eligible, but the medical certificate has not yet been completed? Under the current settings, how often are provisional grants made in circumstances where medical evidence is still outstanding? Has MSD estimated how many additional hardship applications may result because people can no longer access provisional grants while awaiting medical evidence?

Will this simply shift applicants from one form of assistance to another form of assistance, into emergency or hardship assistance—and I note that other changes are happening in other places around temporary additional support. What proportion of expected savings from the bill arise from the latter commencement of these payments?

Again, it looks like this clause is more significant than it may first appear when reading this, because this requirement or ability to have these provisional payments seems like that’s been quite significantly changed by the new clause 26 that is being put in place. I would appreciate the Minister addressing those.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (17:08): As I said earlier, this doesn’t change the eligibility. This is about the use of automated decision-making (ADM). ADM is not used in the initial granting of a benefit, and I’ve also said that before.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: I asked about provisional grants.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I have said—this is not covering hardship grants. The section we are talking about—

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: This is provisional grants.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: We are talking about medical reviews and the initial granting. If you want to hear the answer, I’m happy to give it. If you don’t want to, I’ll sit down.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (17:09): Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I appreciate the call. I just ducked out for a bit and I—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I just hope the member heard my previous conversation on coming into the Chair that we are moving on from going benefit by benefit in terms of the criteria, because we’ve heard the criteria is not changing but the process is changing, and I want to start making some progress through the remainder of the clauses. Thank you.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Thank you. I wonder, I would say to the Minister, whether it makes a difference of—there’s a difference between the criteria to the benefit not changing and the information in the medical certificate changing. That is changing, Those two are different, and so let me just, once again—and I don’t believe that’s been addressed. The information in the medical certificate does change what is required to be in the medical certificate, and that’s different from the benefit eligibility.

I want to go back to an earlier issue that hasn’t been engaged with, which is that when the information required in the medical certificate is different, and a bit more extensive, I would even say, we’ve heard from the Minister previously that there is a pool of prescribed health practitioners (PHPs). What I haven’t had engagement on was on the matter of whether those PHPs—there was a breakdown of how many were nurses, psychologists, or medical practitioners, and I particularly wanted to know this because despite the benefit eligibility not changing, because the information in the medical certificate does change, I want to seek assurance that the PHPs in the pool that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has actually have the required competencies to be able to assess people on complex things like fetal alcohol syndrome or, for example, neurodivergence.

I know that’s very different from the benefit eligibility but what I am concerned about is that because there are more requirements for information in the medical certificate that then leads to the benefit being assessed, I am concerned we don’t know whether MSD has a broad enough range of PHPs in the pool. So that is one of my questions.

The other one that I haven’t had engagement with was around the concerns of the Privacy Commissioner noted in the departmental disclosure statement. So in the departmental disclosure statement, the Privacy Commissioner actually noted that it had concerns over the use of automated decision-making. I have not received engagement from the Minister whatsoever over what were the concerns from the Privacy Commissioner in relation to the use of automated decision-making.

A third thing that I haven’t had engagement with throughout this debate that I would love some engagement with was that I hear that benefit eligibility isn’t changing, but what this bill effectively does, particularly in clause 36, is on the carte blanche expansion of the powers of automated decision-making. Can the Minister please outline what future uses of automated decision-making she’s intending to have for MSD? I haven’t had engagement on that because that’s different—that’s clause 36 very specifically, not on the different types of benefits. And clause 36—I’m pretty sure it’s clause 36—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I don’t think the Minister can—the Minister’s actually speaking to what’s in the bill; I don’t think it’s a fair question to ask the Minister about some sort of future—unless it relates specifically to something in the bill.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Yes, because clause 36, what it does is that it expands the ability for MSD to use automated decision-making for any decision—anything—literally just all of it. Like all the administrative programmes, all the specified provisions. Then it talks a bit about the standard. But, I guess, if I see a bill that says, “Hey, automated decision-making can now be used for anything and everything”, but I haven’t heard from the Minister saying what is the intention behind expanding it for any decision; we’re none the wiser. And it’s hard for us to actually make a judgment on the merits of expanding automated decision-making, not for the previous narrow set of decisions that MSD could do but now for absolutely anything.

If it’s not going to be intended in the future to be used for something else, then why give MSD the power to use it for absolutely everything? When I’m saying everything, I’m not being dramatic or you know, using a hyperbole; it literally is what clause 36 allows the ministry to do. That’s why I’m curious to know as to whether the Minister has already embarked on any work programme or has started a work programme, because we don’t—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Perhaps we’ll let her answer the question.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (17:13): So we’ve had a lot of conversation around the authorisation of automated decision-making (ADM), about when it can be used, and one of the really important things is to enable flexibility in the past, which is what I have talked about. That’s why I’ve also talked about the fact that we have an ADM standard, and the ADM standard is what has been consulted on with agencies including the Privacy Commissioner, the Human Rights Commission, etc. So it is really important that in order to give the Ministry of Social Development the ability to use ADM in future, that is the safeguard; through the ADM standard. As I said, I have explained that.

Will there be more minor processes that don’t require human intervention that may be used in the past? Yes. And the safeguard is the ADM standard, as I said. It was created under the previous Government, has been refreshed in 2026, will continue to be refreshed in 2029. This is about enabling greater time of the front-line staff to be able to have those conversations that really have an impact with their clients.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (17:15): Thanks, Madam Chair. I’ve come to clause 30, which is amending section 305, which is “(Information for review)”. This is really another belts and braces provision, and I’m curious to understand whether this clause is necessary based on what the Minister has told us, because it seems to entrench a number of information-gathering processes, and this is a process question. So at the moment there is one information-gathering process. Now we have multiple processes and then there is this kind of belts and braces articulation in clause 30, which I’m trying to understand: what is the need for having that? Is that about speed of decision making or is this to really identify clearly that the administrative compliance is the overwhelming principle at stake? So that is clause 30.

I also want to go to clause 32 and it is really the guts of the bill because as Ricardo Menéndez March has said, not only does it create this ability to use automation, but a lot of that is put into secondary legislation. And then we have the standard being the Ministry of Social Development standard, not a legislated standard. So there’s nowhere that we can see safeguarding about the reach and use and purpose of the automated systems, and that is the problem that we have on this side of the House.

There is also the problem of the absolute response that needs to happen when there isn’t compliance, and so I would like to speak to the tabled amendment from the Hon Dr Duncan Webb to change—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Which number is the amendment?

INGRID LEARY: So the amendment is number—hmm—1.43.23.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Thank you.

INGRID LEARY: To insert a new subsection into new section 205G inserted by clause 22, which takes away the brightline level of pass or fail around compliance, and say that, “Before suspension, the chief executive must consider partial compliance and whether a lesser response is appropriate.” And it’s really about bringing a bit of humanity back into the legislation. It’s a little bit more nuanced.

It strengthens the integrity of the system by recognising effort and intent of people wanting to comply with the system who, for whatever reason, that has been traversed in this House—whether it’s lack of GPs, waiting times, living in the rural sector, not being able to get a doctor’s certificate in time, waiting for something to come overseas—that there is an element that can just soften the impact of that so that we don’t have this kind of algorithmic, I would say, cruel, response that is currently in the legislation. So that would be a new subsection in 205G to soften that provision.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (17:18): We have a bit of an ironic thing happening here because members want greater clarity and then when there is greater clarity with the information review, they don’t want it in there. So I’m not sure that I can actually answer that.

We’ll go back to a member’s former question about the number of prescribed health practitioners (PHPs) in the pool—134 PHPs and medical appeals board, 65 specifically PHPs, 69 as medical appeals board, six are nurses or practice nurses and PHP, and 15 are nurses. As I said before, there is also the opportunity for the Ministry of Social Development and clients to work together to determine who should be doing that medical review; this is only if they can’t decide.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I’m going to take a question from Ricardo Menéndez March, but this has become very repetitive and it does worry me when I hear, after several hours of debate, that this is the clause that’s the guts of the bill—not from the member that’s currently on their feet. So I’m going to give one more chance. But it’s getting very repetitive and the Minister has repeated a lot of answers.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (17:20): Point of order, Madam Chair. The question about the Ministry of Social Development connection to general practitioners or health practitioners has been asked multiple times, but this is the first time that the Minister has told us that there is a group—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): It’s not the first time I’ve heard the answer—

INGRID LEARY: No, of the number of practitioners and that they are already identified. This is brand-new material, and I think it’s incredibly important—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): No, it’s not brand-new material. I heard it before I came to the Chamber.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (17:20): Thank you very much. Out of the breakdown that we’ve just been given, does she have a further breakdown of any of them, particularly for assessment of children, who have expertise, as I said, on fetal alcohol syndrome or neurodivergence?

Now, a new point that hasn’t been raised—and, again, I go back to the fact that this is exactly the kind of stuff that we could have assessed in the select committee—is: are there any costings associated with any IT upgrades that may be required for the expansion of the use of automated decision-making (ADM)? Has she forecast what the IT costs will be? I’m aware that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), obviously, is embarking on a broader piece of work to update their systems, but what is the overall cost of that in relation to any costing associated with the overall bill in relation to IT upgrades, particularly in clause 36? As I mentioned, that’s the one that actually talks about the broadening of the use of automated decision-making, so I’m interested to know if there are costings associated with it.

The other thing that I just want to reiterate and haven’t had engagement from the Minister on was on the feedback from the Privacy Commissioner and the departmental disclosure statement. I think this is particularly important because, in clause 36, there’s a part between lines 15 and 25 where uses of the automated decision-making need to be approved in consultation with the Privacy Commissioner, but we still don’t know what concerns the Privacy Commissioner holds. I guess, in order for us to have confidence that the Privacy Commissioner will just not go back each time that new regulations are made around that to say, “I kind of hate them.”, I want to know if the Privacy Commissioner endorsed this, or what the severity of the concerns of the Privacy Commissioner were on this.

Other members have touched on, for example, privacy implications of the medical information etc., and I am none the wiser on this issue. Again, overseas—and I know Robodebt was used as an example—more recently, in Europe, we have seen a whole Cabinet resign over automated decision-making in a welfare system. There’s huge risk associated with this that have literally brought Cabinets in other countries down because of policy failures very similar to this. I’m curious to know what the feedback was from the Privacy Commissioner and the IT costs associated with the potential expansion of this to just basically use it for anything and every decision. Finally, can the Minister guarantee us that there will not be any changes to existing fulltime-equivalent (FTE) positions within the ministry as a result of these uses? I know that she, in the early part of the debate, touched on how she wanted the staff to be having more conversations on employment, but will this mean that every staff member that will no longer be used to manually process something that will now be overtaken by automated decision-making will be transitioned into having conversations on employment? Or will ADM be, potentially, used to see a reduction in the FTE within MSD? Just a clarification on that would be useful. Thank you.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (17:23): In my very first comment in this Chamber, I made it very clear that the savings were not savings related to a reduction in fulltime-equivalent position. It was the very first opening comment that I made, so it is frustrating to have to say that again. IT changes have been forecast and costed. In terms of the privacy around medical reviews, there are already extensive rules around how they occur. Nothing in that area is changing with automated decision-making (ADM)—nothing is changing with the use of ADM.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Well, why is the Privacy Commissioner concerned?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: You’re talking about two different things. You were talking about privacy breaches and interactions with people getting medical certificates. There is no change. There is no change in that. It would really worry me if the member is scaremongering and using this opportunity in the Chamber to do that.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) (17:24): 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.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment deleting clause 4 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 5 deleting new section 22A be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 5, new section 22A(1), replacing “cannot be granted” with “must be granted” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 5, new section 22A(2), inserting new paragraph (d) where the applicant has explicitly elected to apply for, or consented to an assessment for, a supported living payment be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 5, new section 22A(2), inserting new paragraph (d) where the applicant is currently receiving supported living payment, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment deleting clause 6 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(1), replacing “must” with “may”, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendments to clause 7, new sections 27 and 28, replacing “health condition, injury or disability” with “injury” in each case, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(1), replacing paragraph (a), “include any medical certificate consistent with this section”, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27, inserting new subsection (1A), is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(2), replacing “must” with “may”, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(2), replacing paragraph (a), creating an exception where the beneficiary has provided a medical certificate in the last 10 years, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(2), replacing paragraph (a), creating an exception where the beneficiary has provided a medical certificate in the last 5 years, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(2), replacing paragraph (a), creating an exception where the beneficiary has provided a medical certificate in the last 12 months, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(2), replacing paragraph (a), creating an exception where the beneficiary has provided a medical certificate in the last 6 months, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27, inserting a new subsection after subsection (2) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(3), replacing “must” with “may” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(3), replacing paragraph (a) to include “registered occupational therapists” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(3), replacing paragraph (a) to include “registered social workers” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(3), replacing paragraph (a) to include “physiotherapists” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27, deleting paragraph (c) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendments to clause 7, new section 27, deleting subsection (3)(c)(iii) and subsection (4) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27, deleting subsection (4) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(4)(a), inserting “or 12 months, whichever is longer” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(4)(a), inserting “12 months from” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(4), replacing paragraph (b) to include “an exception if the health condition, injury, or disability is permanent” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(4), replacing paragraph (b) to include “an exception if the applicant’s privacy rights would be breached” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(4), replacing paragraph (b) to include “an exception if it would cause distress or harm to the applicant” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(4), replacing paragraph (b) to include “an exception if there are reasonable grounds based on professional medical opinion for not specifying the review period” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27, replacing subsection (5) to apply where the applicant is at least four weeks pregnant be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27, replacing subsection (5) to apply where the applicant is at least eight weeks pregnant be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27, replacing subsection (5) to apply where the applicant is at least 12 weeks pregnant be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27, replacing subsection (5) to apply where the applicant is at least 16 weeks pregnant be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27, replacing subsection (5) to apply where the applicant is at least 20 weeks pregnant be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27, replacing subsection (5) to apply where the applicant is at least 24 weeks pregnant be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new sections 27(5) and (5)(b)(i), replacing “27 weeks” with “13 weeks” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27, deleting subsection (6) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27, deleting subsections (6) and (7), be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27, replacing subsection (6) with new subsection (6), be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27, replacing subsection (6) with new subsections (6) and (6A), be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(6), replacing “must not” with “must”, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(7), deleting “20”, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(7), deleting “25” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(7), deleting “301”, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(7), deleting “302”, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(7), deleting “307”, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(7), deleting “308”, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(7), deleting “310R” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 27(7), replacing “310R, and 310S” with “and 310R” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Can I just, ask at this point, for the Green Party member doing the voting, as I did to another member the other day, I just ask when the Labour Party stands up to do their vote, I’m happy for you to stand up because you’ve got a number of votes and I’m happy for you to stay standing for the other votes in order to just—just because there’s so many votes, it all takes time. So, yeah, if you could stand a bit sooner and stay on your feet, that would be really helpful. Thank you.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 12 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Thank you. Much more efficient.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 6 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): OK, I’m just going to wait for the Clerks to just do a quick swap over.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 4 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 3 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 8 weeks” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28, deleting subsection (3) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28(3), deleting “or, failing agreement, must be nominated by MSD” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28(3), replacing “must be nominated by MSD” with “must be nominated by P” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28, inserting new subsection (3A) be agreed to.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28(4), replacing “the PHP must prepare and must send” with “the PHP must prepare and send” is out of order as not offering a serious alternative form of words.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28(4), inserting “and P” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28(4), inserting “electronically and by post” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28(4), inserting “electronically” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28(4), inserting “by post” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28(4), inserting “as described in subsection (5)” is out of order as being of no legislative effect.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28(5)(b)(i), inserting “12 months from” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28(5), inserting new paragraph (c) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28, deleting subsections (5)(b)(iii) and (6) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28(6), replacing paragraph (b) is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28, deleting subsections (5)(b)(iii) and (6) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 7, new section 28(7)(b)(ii), inserting “24 months from” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 8, new section 33(5), to replace “does not” with “may” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to delete clause 9 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to delete clause 9 is out of order as being the same in substance as a previous amendment.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 36A(1), replacing “must” with “may” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 36A(2), replacing “must” with “may” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 36A, amending paragraph (a) and deleting paragraph (b) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 36A(4), replacing “must” with “may” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 36A, deleting subsection (8) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 36A(8), deleting “34” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 36A(8), deleting “301” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 36A(8), deleting “302” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 36A(8), deleting “307” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 36A(8), deleting “308” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 36A(8), deleting “310R” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 36A(8), replacing “310R, and 310S” with “and 310R” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Good evening. The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 36A, inserting new subsection (9) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 37(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 12 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 37(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 6 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 37(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 4 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 37(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 3 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 37(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 8 weeks” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 37(3), replacing “must be nominated by MSD” with “must be nominated by P” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 37, inserting new subsection (3A) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 37(4), replacing “The PHP must prepare and must send” with “The PHP must prepare and send” is out of order as not offering a serious alternative form of words.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 37(4), inserting “electronically and by post” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 37(4), inserting “electronically” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 37(4), inserting “by post” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 37(4), inserting “as described in subsection (5)” is out of order as being of no legislative effect.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 37(5), inserting new paragraph (c) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 37, inserting new subsection (7) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to delete clause 11 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 41(1), replacing paragraph (a) to read “include any medical certificate consistent with this section” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 41(1), replacing paragraph (a) to include a reference to providing a medical certificate in the last 10 years be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 41(1), replacing paragraph (a) to include a reference to providing a medical certificate in the last five years be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 41(1), replacing paragraph (a) to include a reference to providing a medical certificate in the last three years be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 41(1), replacing paragraph (a) to include a reference to providing a medical certificate in the last 12 months be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 41(1), replacing paragraph (a) to include a reference to providing a medical certificate in the last six months be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 41(3), replacing paragraph (a) to include “registered occupational therapists” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 41(3), replacing paragraph (a) to include “registered social workers” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 41(3), replacing paragraph (a) to include “registered physiotherapists” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 41, to delete subsection (5) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 41, replacing subsection (5) with new subsection (5) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 41, replacing subsection (5) with new subsections (5) and (5A) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 12 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 6 months” be agreed.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) (19:00): Point of order, Mr Chair. I just wanted to inquire. There doesn’t appear to be a Minister in the chair, and usually, during the committee stage, it’s a requirement for there to be a Minister in the chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The Hon Simon Watts will sit in the chair. There we go; continue. You’ll get to hear my voice up close now!

The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 4 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 3 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 8 weeks” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42(2), replacing paragraph (a) creating an exception when a beneficiary has provided a medical certificate in the last 10 years be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42(2), replacing paragraph (a) creating an exception when a beneficiary has provided a medical certificate in the last three years be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, clause 42(2), replacing paragraph (a) creating an exception when a beneficiary has a provided a medical certificate in the last 12 months be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42(2), replacing paragraph (a) creating an exception when a beneficiary has provided a medical certificate in the last six months be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42(2), replacing paragraph (a) creating an exception when a beneficiary has provided a medical certificate in the last three months be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42(2), replacing paragraph (a) creating an exception when a beneficiary has provided a medical certificate in the last month be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42(3), replacing “must be nominated by MSD” with “must be nominated by P” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, Kahurangi Carter has tabled 10 amendments to clause 12, new section 42, replacing subsection (3) providing for the PHP to be nominated by various persons or bodies. I intend to test the will of the committee by selecting a representative sample.

The question is that Kahurangi Carter’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42, replacing subsection (3) providing for the PHP to be nominated by the Disability Rights Commissioner be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Kahurangi Carter’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42, replacing subsection (3), providing for the PHP to be nominated by Whaikaha - Ministry for Disabled People be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Kahurangi Carter’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42, replacing subsection (3) providing for the PHP to be nominated by an independent panel of medical experts be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Kahurangi Carter’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42, replacing subsection (3) providing for the PHP to be nominated by a District Court judge be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, the will of the committee having been tested, Kahurangi Carter’s remaining six tabled amendments to clause 12, new section 42, replacing subsection (3) are out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42, inserting new subsection (3A) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42(4), replacing “The PHP must prepare, and must send” with “The PHP must prepare and send” is out of order as not offering a serious alternative form of words.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42(4), inserting “electronically and by post” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42(4), inserting “electronically” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42(4), inserting “by post” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 42(4), inserting “as described in subsection (5)” is out of order as being of no legislative effect.

The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment deleting clause 13 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Kahurangi Carter’s tabled amendment deleting clause 14 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 80(1), replacing paragraph (a) to read “include any medical certificate consistent with this section” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 80(1), replacing paragraph (a) to include a reference to providing a medical certificate in the last 10 years be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 80(1), replacing paragraph (a) to include a reference to providing a medical certificate in the last five years be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 80(1), replacing paragraph (a) to include a reference to providing a medical certificate in the last three years be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 80(1), replacing paragraph (a) to include a reference to providing a medical certificate in the last 12 months be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 80(1), replacing paragraph (a) to include a reference to providing a medical certificate in the last six months be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 80(2), inserting paragraph (d) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 80, replacing subsection (4) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 80, deleting subsection (5) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 80, replacing subsection (5) creating an exception if it would eliminate C’s only source of income be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 80, replacing subsection (5) with (5) and (5A) requiring MSD to provisionally grant the benefit if delay would leave C without a primary source of income be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 80, replacing subsection (5) with (5) and (5A) requiring MSD to provisionally grant the benefit if delay would C’s family income by more than 50 percent be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 80, replacing subsection (5) with (5) and (5A) requiring MSD to provisionally grant the benefit if delay would C’s family income by more than 25 percent be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 81(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by PHP within the last 12 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 81(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by PHP within the last 6 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 81(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by PHP within the last 4 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 81(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by PHP within the last 3 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 81(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by PHP within the last 8 weeks” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 81(3), replacing “must be nominated by MSD” with “must be nominated by the person who applied for or who is receiving the allowance for C” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 81, inserting new subsection (3A) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 81(4), replacing the “The PHP must prepare, and must send” with “The PHP must prepare and send” is out of order as not offering a serious alternative form of words.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 81(4), inserting “electronically and by post” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 81(4), inserting “electronically” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 81(4), inserting “by post” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 81(4), inserting “as described in subsection (5)” is out of order as being of no legislative effect.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 87(1), replacing paragraph (a) to read “include any medical certificate consistent with this section” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 87(1), replacing paragraph (a) to include a reference to providing a medical certificate in the last 10 years be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 87(1), replacing paragraph (a) to include a reference to providing a medical certificate in the last five years be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 87(1), replacing paragraph (a) to include a reference to providing a medical certificate in the last three years be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 87(1), replacing paragraph (a) to include a reference to providing a medical certificate in the last 12 months be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 87(1), replacing paragraph (a) to include a reference to providing a medical certificate in the last six months be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 87A, deleting subsection (4) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 88(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 12 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 88(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 6 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 88(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 4 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 88(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 3 months” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 88(2), inserting “unless P has undergone an examination by a PHP within the last 8 weeks” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 88(3), replacing “must be nominated by MSD” with “must be nominated by the person who applied for, or who is receiving, the allowance for P”, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 88, inserting new subsection (3A) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 88(4), replacing “The PHP must prepare, and must send” with “The PHP must prepare and send”, is out of order as not offering a serious alternative form of words.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 88(4), inserting “electronically and by post”, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 88(4), inserting “electronically” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 88(4), inserting “by post” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 17, new section 88(4), inserting “as described in subsection (5)”, is out of order as being of no legislative effect.

The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment deleting clause 20 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 22, new section 205E, replacing “20 working days” with “60 working days”, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 22, new section 205E, inserting new subsection (7) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 22, new section 205F, inserting new subsection (6) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 22, new section 205F, inserting new subsection (6) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 22, new section 205F, replacing subsection (1) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 22, new section 205G(4), inserting new paragraph (f) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 22, new section 205G, inserting new subsection (8) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment deleting clause 22(3) is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

The question is that Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment to clause 22, new section 205F, inserting new subsection (2A) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment to clause 22 inserting new section 205JA be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment to clause 22 inserting new section 205JB be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 31 inserting new section 310AAA be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 32, new section 310A(2), inserting new paragraph (ga) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 32, new section 310B, inserting new subsection (3) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 32 inserting new section 310DA be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment to clause 32, new section 310F(1), be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 32, new section 310H, inserting new subsection (3A) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment to clause 32, new section 310I, inserting new paragraph (c) is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

The question is that Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment to clause 32 inserting new section 310IA be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment to clause 32 inserting new section 310IB be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 32, new section 310K, inserting new subsection (5) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 32, new section 310L, amending subsection (7) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 32, new section 310L, inserting new subsection (9) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 32, new section 310N, inserting new subsection (4A) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 32, new section 310O, inserting new subsection (6) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): There was a lot of talking going on to my left while there was a vote going on.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Yeah, sorry about that.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Thank you. We won’t have it again. The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment—

Hon Matt Doocey: That’s right.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I did not need a comment to my right, because I had to tell somebody off over there before for exactly the same thing.

The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 32, new section 310Q, inserting new subsection (11) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 32, new section 310R, inserting new subsection (3) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 32, new section 310S, inserting new subsection (3) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s amendment to clause 32, deleting subclause (4), is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 36, new section 363A, replacing subsection (1) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment to clause 36, new section 363A, replacing new subsection (2), is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation

The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 36, new section 363A, inserting new subsection (6B) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 36, new section 363A, inserting new subsection (6B) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 36, new section 363A inserting new subsection (6B) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 36, new section 363A, inserting new subsection (6C) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 36, new section 363A, inserting new subsection (6C) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 36, new section 363A, inserting new subsection (6D) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 36, new section 363A, inserting new subsection (6E) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 36, new section 363A, inserting new subsection (7) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment to clause 36, inserting new section 363AA, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment to clause 36, inserting new section 363AB, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment inserting a new section after section 363A is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 59, new regulation 176B, to insert new subclause (4) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 59, new regulation 176C, to insert new subclause (1A) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan’s tabled amendment to clause 59, new regulation 176D(1), to delete paragraph (a) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendments to clause 59, new regulation 176D(1), to delete paragraphs (b) and (c) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan’s tabled amendment to clause 59, new regulation 176D(1), to delete paragraph (d) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan’s tabled amendment to clause 59, new regulation 176D(1), to delete paragraph (e) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 59, new regulation 176D(1), to delete paragraph (f) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 59, new regulation 176D(1), to delete paragraph (g) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Dan Rosewarne’s tabled amendment to clause 59, new regulation 176D(1), to delete paragraph (h) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 59, new regulation 176D, to insert new subclause (7) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 59, new regulation 176E, to insert new subclause (3) is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 59, new regulation 176F, to insert new paragraph (e) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 59, new regulation 176G, to insert new paragraph (g) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 59, new regulation 176H, to insert new paragraph (c) is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 59, replacing new regulation 176I, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 1 be agreed to.

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.

Part 1 agreed to.

Committee of the whole House

Part 2 Amendments to transitional, savings, and related provisions, and Schedules 1 to 4

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Members, we come now to Part 2, the debate on clauses 60 to 65—“Amendments to transitional, savings, and related provisions”—and Schedules 1 to 4. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (20:36): Thank you, Mr Chair. This is a small but really important part, because it is where the Government decides how and when the new powers will apply to existing beneficiaries. So, clearly, there are some issues for people who are currently on benefit to have a sense of what is going to apply to them and when under this section.

For the purposes of scrutiny, really, the key clauses in this section are clauses 61 and 63, because what we have seen are broad transitional regulation-making powers and important operational details to regulations that are involved in this part. If we look at clause 61, what it does is it basically applies the new mandatory regime—the review regime—to existing beneficiaries and inserts a new Part 14 into Schedule 1. It basically says that existing benefit recipients can be reviewed under the mandatory review system. Although this is a new provision that will apply in a new way, it does have retrospective application in practice, and there are questions of fairness.

So my first question to the Minister for Social Development and Employment is: why should beneficiaries who entered the system under one set of review conditions be subjected to a substantially different review regime without a fresh application? That doesn’t seem to be fair, it doesn’t abide by natural justice, and wouldn’t it be better to have a transition period so that only new applications were captured by that provision? What is the point of capturing this cohort?

If I look at the second issue around Part 14, it’s got a “Henry VIII” - style transitional regulation power. It’s not actually a “Henry VIII” clause, as such, as we know from lawmaking, but it does have the power to have broad regulation making instead of placing all transitional arrangements into primary legislation. If the Minister was authentic and sincere and reassuring in her analysis of this bill and wanting it to be about automation and not about anything else, why is that regulation-making power here rather than placing all the transitional arrangements into primary legislation? That would be the true safeguarding. We have consistently said on this side of the House that there isn’t safeguarding—adequate safeguarding—in this bill, and this is yet another example in Part 2.

The other part that is really concerning is the unequal commencement dates. Basically, what the bill does is it creates staggered application dates for different benefits in different review categories. For example, there’s a transitional rule that, for a child who turns 18, it happens on or after 4 September 2026. Now, what that does, in effect, is if a child turns 18 the day before, the old law continues to apply. What is the point of that brightline test? It’s an arbitrary cut-off date. Two families with a child a day apart would be treated very differently for the purposes of this legislation.

But, equally, there are other dates that apply to other benefits captured under here, and I will not go into that now, because I think they belong better in the commencement questions. But I do want to know whether the Minister can assure us that the Ministry of Social Development is ready to go, essentially, because there are these different transition dates for these different beneficiary groups, and we don’t have any explanation in the regulatory impact statement, in the departmental report, or anywhere else that explains why different groups will be treated differently under old rules or new rules depending on when the commencement starts. So I have some more questions on clause 63, but I’d love answers to those ones, please, Minister.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (20:40): The reality of this, as I’ve said in the first part of the debate, is there’s no change in eligibility, no change in rules. This is just the application of the new automated decision-making, so it would make sense to have phased dates in which it is rolling out, the first of which is from 1 July. There’s really nothing more to it than that.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (20:40): Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you for that response, Minister, but I think there is still quite a lot, because, when it comes to Schedule 1—and also, actually, when we’re looking at all of the schedules—there are certain parts of this that do deserve some attention. I do want to start by looking at clause 61, Schedule 1 amended, subclause (2), which says, “In Schedule 1, clause 55(2)(a), after “the widow or widower continues to meet the conditions of entitlement to that benefit in those provisions”,” I do want to check—this is something I don’t know. I have been watching on Parliament TV for Part 1, but I don’t believe it has been discussed at length around the compliance requirements for widows. So would the Minister for Social Development and Employment just briefly talk us through why there’ve been specific changes in terms of compliance with conditions for widows or widowers for clause 61(2)?

I do want to then move on to a little bit further. I note that my colleagues may have questions for subclause (3) and subclause (4) of clause 61, but I want to move on to subclause (5), which is Schedule 1. Noting that there are a number of dates that we are seeing. I think others may understand the specificity and some of the requirements around dates, but I want to focus on clause 120, which is the “Regulations for transitional and savings purposes”. This is important, because anything with regulatory-making power requires additional scrutiny in the way that we are looking at it, because of the fact that any regulatory-making power would not—as the Minister will recognise as well—go through a parliamentary process.

One of the things I believe that is important over here, if you’re looking at Schedule 1, clause 120(1), is we do have the standard phrasing of ability for “The Governor-General may, by Order in Council made on the recommendation of the Minister, make regulations”. But what it doesn’t state is how those regulations will be published. I have an amendment on the Table, if you wouldn’t mind considering, Minister, which just, basically, says that any regulations that are made under subclause (1) must be publicly published. And notified publicly could come in different formats. I’m happy to do it as in some other legislation we’ve seen, where that public format could be on an internet website maintained by the Ministry of Social Development—that is a possibility. I think, in my amendment, I also said, “noting that sometimes there is a delay of some sort” and rather than putting a specific length requirement around it, my amendment just simply says they just need to be notified publicly as soon as practicable. So I think that is something I want to check with the Minister to start with: my questions regarding clause 61(2) and then in Schedule 1, clause 20(1).

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (20:44): Thank you, Mr Chair. I wanted to follow up on Ingrid Leary’s question and some of the sort of differences of the commencement date. Look, I think adequate engagement from you would look like just not simply saying that nothing is changing in terms of benefit entitlements. But if we had had a select committee, I would have had answers and an explanation as to why, for example, in Schedule 2 we have a lot of 4 September dates versus, for example, others in Schedule 4 where we have 1 July 2026. I haven’t heard from the Minister for Social Development and Employment the rationale specifically why 4 September 2026 was chosen for the parts of Schedule 2. As far as I’m aware, it feels like an extremely arbitrary date. I’d like to understand why 4 September was chosen for the language in Schedule 2 itself.

I also wanted to follow up on Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s amendment with a new point, which is that should the amendment from my colleague not be accepted, can the Minister, well not mandated, commit to at least publicly communicate any regulations that she makes as part of this bill? What assurances can she give us about the level of transparency and open communication she’ll give to the public?

I note this because in the regulatory impact statement, one of the assumptions that was made under this bill was that the public—the regulatory impact statement (RIS) noted that there was an assumption being made that the public would be in support of automated decision-making. But the RIS noted it was an assumption. So any regulatory-making powers could undermine that assumption that was made as part of the regulatory impact statement if they’re not communicated publicly. So if the Minister does not give us reassurances that she’ll commit to communicating any of these regulations publicly, does she worry that this could undermine the trust in the automated decision-making regime?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (20:46): I just want to reiterate that clients are already subject to regular reviews, so there’s no change to that. That includes the widow’s benefit. The difference with that is that’s a grandparented assistance—it’s not one that is available to be granted now; it’s grandparented. So part of what we’re doing is just making sure that the change is to make those reviews clear and consistent.

In terms of the different dates and preparedness, that work is well under way with staff with implementation and training and communication to ensure that they know when those roll-out dates start. But as I say, from a client’s perspective, it won’t change anything from what they are required to do. As I said, it is the decision making in the automated decision-making that is changing, and there’s just a phasing of the dates to do that.

REUBEN DAVIDSON (Labour—Christchurch East) (20:47): Thank you, Mr Chair. Just working through clause by clause, coming to clause 63. It stuck out to me, and I wasn’t sure why at first, but then I realised it’s because the date in here is actually going to be my birthday. So that did catch my eye. But just to dispel the myth that it’s only ever self-interest that gets us out of our chair, what I actually wanted to examine here is a relatively serious issue, because what we see here in Schedule 1 on 30 November 2026—for anyone who wanted to know that date—is that it potentially creates transitional provisions for the medical evidence regime and updated medical certificate requirements. So the new Part 17 governs how those new medical review rules apply to existing beneficiaries.

The issue here is that existing beneficiaries, by virtue of this, become subject to new compliance requirements. So people who are already receiving support become subject to the new medical evidence framework after commencement. So this means new certificate requirements, it means new review dates, it means suspension risks, and it means cancellation risks. So a number of new scenarios, situations, potential outcomes that come about as a result of that clause. So I guess the question really here for the Minister is: why is it appropriate to impose new compliance obligations on people who are already receiving support without grandfathering their existing entitlements?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (20:48): As I’ve said previously, there’s no change in terms of requirements. There’s no change in eligibility. So I want to just make that point very clearly. So in terms of somebody who’s already receiving a benefit, they’re clear about reviews, they’re clear about the fact that they have to provide a medical certificate or medical evidence. From a taxpayer’s perspective, why would a benefit continue to be paid if there wasn’t any eligibility? It’s very normal. Change of circumstances are already a requirement on beneficiaries. As I said, there’s no change in any of that. All this is doing is allowing for automated decision-making to be used in some of the processes to free up front-line staff.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) (20:49): Oh, thank you, Mr Chair. I think there are many of us that disagree with the point the Minister for Social Development and Employment’s making in terms of whether there are new requirements or not, because it’s very clear that there are and there are new dates and suspension risks and so on.

But moving on from that point that my colleague just asked, I’m particularly interested about the risk of benefit interruption. The medical review framework elsewhere in the bill will permit the suspension, and eventual cancellation, where updated evidence is not provided. Part 17 is the mechanism that brings existing beneficiaries into that system. My question for the Minister is: what modelling has been undertaken on the number of beneficiaries likely to experience suspension or cancellation during the transition?

I also want to ask a question around the potential administrative or likely administrative burden. So the transitional provisions potentially require a very large number of existing clients to move into the new review system. So the question to the Minister: is she confident that Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has sufficient staffing and clinical capacity to administer the transition without increasing review delays? And I just note a project of about $150 million being cut, plus all the job losses from MSD. If the Minister would like to address that.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (20:51): I’m not sure if the member had heard earlier when I said the savings provision does not reduce the number of full-time equivalents (FTEs). The savings is from people who are overpaid, where they are paid benefits but they are no longer entitled to.

The member refers to an interruption or a disruption of a benefit. New Zealanders who are paying tax would expect they pay welfare when it is required and someone is eligible. When they are no longer eligible, absolutely is it expected that the benefit would stop. That’s just common sense. This doesn’t change that. It’s puzzling that the members are confused that where somebody is no longer eligible, if they have a medical condition that is no longer a medical condition, then, actually they won’t be eligible—and actually, that’s a good thing. If somebody has improved their health and is no longer eligible, that means that they’re in a better condition than they were when they started.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (20:52): I just want to seek your guidance, Mr Chair. Because I think if the Minister for Social Development and Employment is starting to start opening a very wide net in terms of eligibility of benefits and requirements and paying your taxes—paying it on things like accommodation supplement—then we could actually be here for a little while.

So I just want to remind the Minister that when we are focusing on this, I do want to discuss the operational aspect, but I also think it’s disingenuous if we start talking about—as I repeatedly said, because, again, I feel like if you’re looking at Schedule 1, one of the things that is particularly important under Schedule 1 when it comes to transitional measures is the fact that if there is nothing to see here, then something would have been operating unlawfully. I know this has been covered under “1”.

I want to check with the Minister that, in that case, would we then assume—we’re looking at Schedule 1, clause 116, when it comes to the application of new provisions, general rules—that we are looking at some level of retrospectivity that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) need to encompass things that they have always been doing under that particular clause in Schedule 1. If not, would then anyone who feels that the current process—because there’s nothing to see here—would be conducted unlawfully; therefore, has there been any work that’s been done on how much it’s going to cost MSD if there are going to be legal challenges if the retrospectivity component isn’t covered under Schedule 1. So that’s my first question to the Minister.

My next question is—I’m still waiting for a response from the Minister regarding my amendment to clause 120 in Schedule 1 regarding regulations. I want to focus on the regulatory-making powers of clause 120 in Schedule 1, which is the specific requirements for the recommendation from the Minister. I want to check, with regards to the requirement under clause 120(3), how would the Minister ensure, I guess, that the recommendations she’s making are “consistent with the amendments made by the amendment Act to this Act.”, and also, I guess, in that sense, with the overall purpose of the Social Security Act—being my second question.

My next question is around what other criteria do we think that the Minister also should consider. We do have a few amendments by my colleagues on the Table as well that are other things that I think are important to consider as well as a part of this.

Before I forget, I know that other people will have specific questions around Schedules 1 to 4. But there is one particular part in clause 64—in Subpart 2 of Part 2—that I want to address. The Social Security Regulations 2018 is a really interesting aspect of this Part 2, because in the Social Security Regulations, for example, it makes a determination of who is qualified as a prescribed health practitioner (PHP). Now, I know we’ve discussed a lot in terms of PHP in Part 1, so I won’t discuss around those requirements. But the people who are qualified and who are defined as PHP fall under Subpart 2, particularly when you’re looking at clauses 64 and 65.

Now, I have a few amendments on a new clause 64A. This is section 8 of the Social Security Regulations amended, as well as section 9 of the Social Security Regulations amended. I’m sure that the Minister is familiar with both sections. But just in case, section 8 refers to the certification when it comes to prescribed health practitioners, and section 9 refers to the medical examination. Now, there are certain ones that are listed there, but considering part of what we’re discussing here is, for example, to do with blindness or vision impaired—I note this is part of Part 1—I’m curious to know and I want to see if the Minister wouldn’t mind accepting my amendment: since dentist is there, why is optometrist not part of the list of people who are able to certify?

I’m going to start with those questions, but I do have a few more around the Social Security Regulations for the Minister.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Just before I take the next call, I don’t agree with the member’s interpretation about opening it that wide.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (20:56): Thank you, Mr Chair. Clearly, there is a disagreement on this side of the Chamber about what the scope of the bill is. The Minister for Social Development and Employment is saying that this is just automation and that there’s nothing to see here, and we are saying, actually, it’s about eligibility.

If I can use an analogy: if there was an obstacle course and if there were more obstacles put in the way on the course so it became increasingly difficult to reach the other end, would that make a difference to whether people would reach the other end and be able to get their so-called entitlement? That is exactly what we are dealing with here.

I think it’s disingenuous of the Minister to say that the entitlement hasn’t changed when everything leading up to it in the process has. That is what we are arguing about. And I just want to put that on the table, because it’s very easy for her to sweep that under the carpet, but that is what we’re talking about: increasingly difficult challenges being put in the way of people so that they will fall off by the wayside.

Mr Chair, I’d like to draw your attention to clause 65, Schedule 1 amended. Looking at Schedule 4 of the bill that basically adds Part 16 to Schedule 1 of the Social Security Regulations, it manages how the new mandatory review regulations are phased in and it contains commencement and review timing arrangements for mandatory reviews.

Now, the scrutiny concern here, along with so many other parts of this bill, is: why has this been put into regulation into secondary legislation? That is bad lawmaking, and when we consider the analogy of people going on an obstacle course, and these obstacles coming up—these additional obstacles that are not transparent in the primary legislation, that are referred-to regulation that could be made at a future date, that they don’t have transparency about, then why is that happening in regulation? That is incredibly bad lawmaking, and we see it time and time again in this House. We saw it with Online Casino Gambling Bill, where one of the fundamental things there was advertising—relegated to regulation. It is happening again. This is about the smoke-and-mirrors type of approach from this Government.

That raises a question that still has not been asked over the total, whole debate, raised several times by Ricardo Menéndez March, which is the expansion of the review powers, also subject to regulation—subject to that—reduced parliamentary oversight. We have not heard the Minister say what her thinking is about how that will be expanded or not. That is why we are so concerned about what is happening here tonight. This is being dressed up as a sheep in wolf’s clothing. We’re being told the entitlements haven’t changed; yes, technically she is right. But when you put every single challenge in the way to get to the entitlement and then you say it’s not even transparent, we’re going to put it into regulation and you won’t be able to see it, there won’t be parliamentary oversight, there won’t be scrutiny, there won’t be a chance for a select committee, there won’t be a chance to be consulted—that is the reality of what is happening here.

The Minister needs to tell us what is on her table, what is on her plans about the expansion or, if she’s not planning to expand them, can she rule out and say which powers she will not put into regulation and that she will not expand? So we have it on the Hansard and we know that this is not about the automation of welfare in New Zealand.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (21:00): Thank you so much, Mr Chair. I’m glad that the members opposite are finally showing this from the bill. But I want to ask about Schedule 1. This is “New Part 14 inserted into Schedule 1 of Social Security Act 2018”, and I wanted to particularly go to clause 116. Now, there is some language here that I would like some clarification from the Minister for Social Development and Employment on, and that is because the “Application of new provisions: general” talks about “A new provision applies, on and after commencement, only to (a) a benefit, or other assistance, granted before commencement; and (b) a benefit, or other assistance, granted at or after commencement.”

I’m particularly interested in the “granted before commencement” part because I am struggling to interpret this as to whether the automated decision-making regulations could basically review, for example, decisions that have been made prior to the commencement of the bill. I would like the Minister’s clarification on what exactly clause 116(1) is supposed to try and capture.

Again, this is exactly the kind of thing, Mr Chair, that if we had had a select committee, I could have sought clarification on what that actually means, and what the scope is of the decisions that automated decision-making can review and how far back it can go. That’s particularly what I’m interested in, because: are we to interpret that language “granted before commencement” as automated decision-making then being able to, for example, for the purposes of reviews of benefits or other uses, as being able to look back at decisions that have been made or information that had been granted to the Ministry of Social Development by beneficiary from quite far back?

It’s really unclear what this actually is intending to do. Like I said, if we had had a select committee, this could have been very easily answered by officials and by the drafters or whoever else is assisting us with this. But, for now, all I have is the Minister to guide us on what her intentions are in relation to the provisions in clause 116 under Schedule 1.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (21:02): Thank you, Mr Chair. We’re just seeking further engagement from the Minister for Social Development and Employment because, as we’ve heard with my colleague Ricardo Menéndez March as well as Ingrid Leary, we still have some outstanding questions that the Minister hasn’t responded to yet or engaged with, particularly the sections I’m referring to in terms of the social security regulation and who, in some ways, can certify and also examine when it comes to qualified prescribed health providers (PHPs).

I think this part is quite important. I mentioned to the Minister previously that when you’re looking at certification, there is a list of four different groups—medical practitioner, dentist, midwife, and nurse practitioner—but, as I’ve mentioned, when we’re looking at certification of, for example, when they’re looking at vision impairment or blindness, I wanted to check: considering dentist is there, why is optometrist, for example, not there? Which is different when it comes to the definition of medical practitioner, if you’re looking at the definition of, I believe the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act (HPCAA). That’s my first question.

But then, further on, it’s interesting as well that if you’re looking at it in combination with section 9 of the Social Security Regulations around who could perform medical exams or the prescribed health practitioners for medical examination, is: “a medical practitioner: (b) a psychologist: [or] (c) a nurse practitioner.” I also wanted to check: in which case, why is it that a psychologist can be a PHP for medical examination but not a PHP for certification? I think that is an important question because it does mean that there is some sort of inconsistency between the two groups.

The other thing I wanted to check with the Minister—and this is, in some ways, quite a niche issue but an important one—is one of the regulation-making powers of the HPCAA, which is where we draw all these definitions from, there was an order made in 2021 regarding the Chinese Medicine Council as well as Chinese medical practitioners. This is important because, in a lot of those cases, as we heard in the Regulations Review Committee as well, those people are able to practise and are able to advise similarly to GPs, etc., or even on par with a nurse practitioner in some cases. For certain communities—and particularly for my community, for the Chinese communities—sometimes they may not go to a Western nurse practitioner or a medical practitioner. If you’re looking at Māori practitioners, particularly when you are looking at rongoā Māori, they may not strictly fall under the requirement or definition of those four.

Can I check with the Minister if the Minister would be interested in expanding the scope of the PHPs who are able to certify and also able to provide medical examination in terms of the groups I just mentioned? As well as creating some sort of consistency between what we’re seeing in section 8 and in section 9 of the Social Security Regulations.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (21:06): There are no proposals in this bill at all to make any changes to prescribed health practitioners, so that rules that out. When somebody signs on for a benefit, they know that there will be mandatory reviews and that, if they are applying for a benefit that is on a medical ground, they will be required to provide medical evidence. This isn’t retrospective; automated decision-making (ADM) will be used for the next review period, so it’s not retrospective.

CARL BATES (National—Whanganui) (21:06): I move, That debate on this question now close.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Lawrence Xu-Nan. We’re getting there.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (21:07): One last tiny question. Just following up that the Minister for Social Development and Employment didn’t mention that it was not considered. I want to just ask the Minister: why? Because if we’re looking at a bill that is about modernisation, surely the required list of people who could be prescribed health practitioners would be in scope of the bill. Was that ever considered?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (21:07): It’s part of automated decision-making (ADM).

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) (21:07): 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.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to delete clause 61(2) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to delete clause 61(4) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment inserting clause 64A, amending section 8 of the Social Security Regulations 2018 to insert “an optometrist”, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment inserting clause 64A, amending section 8 of the Social Security Regulations 2018 to insert “a Chinese health practitioner”, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’stabled amendment inserting clause 64A, amending section 8 of the Social Security Regulations 2018 to insert “a psychologist or counsellor”, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment inserting clause 64A, amending section 9 of the Social Security Regulations 2018 to insert “an optometrist”, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment inserting clause 64A, amending section 9 of the Social Security Regulations 2018 to insert “a Chinese health practitioner”, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment inserting clause 64A, amending section 9 of the Social Security Regulations 2018 to insert “a nurse practitioner”, is out of order as being of no legislative effect.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 2 be agreed to.

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.

Part 2 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): We come now to Schedule 1. The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendments to Schedule 1 amending the definition of “new provision” in new clause 115 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendments to Schedule 1 replacing “1 July 2026” with “1 July 2027” in new clause 117 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendments to Schedule 1 replacing “1 October 2026” with “1 October 2027” in new clause 117 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendments to Schedule 1 replacing “30 November 2026” with “30 November 2027” in new clause 117 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendments to Schedule 1 replacing “6 September 2027” with “6 September 2028” in new clause 117 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendments to Schedule 1, replacing “1 July 2026” with “1 July 2027” in new clause 117, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendments to Schedule 1, replacing “1 July 2026” with “1 July 2027” in new clause 118, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Kahurangi Carter’s tabled amendment to Schedule 1, replacing “1 July 2026” with “1 July 2027” in new clause 119, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to Schedule 1, replacing “1 July 2026” with “1 July 2027” in new clause 119(b), be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to Schedule 1, inserting new clause 120(1A) requiring the Minister to notify regulations as soon as possible, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

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

Noes 67

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Kahurangi Carter’s tabled amendment to Schedule 1, replacing “1 July 2026” with “1 July 2027” in new clause 120(4)(a), be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to Schedule 1, replacing “4 September 2026” with “4 September 2027” in new clause 120(4)(b), be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to Schedule 1, replacing “30 November 2026” with “30 November 2027” in new clause 120(4)(c), be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to Schedule 1, replacing “third anniversary” with “fourth anniversary” in new clause 120(7), be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Vanushi Walters’ tabled amendment to Schedule 1, inserting new clause 121, be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Kahurangi Carter’s tabled amendments to Schedule 1, inserting new clause 130(3)(c), relating to consistency with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendments to Schedule 1, inserting new clause 130(3)(c), relating to consistency with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendments to Schedule 1, inserting new clause 130(3)(c), relating to consistency with the UN Convention on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendments not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Schedule 1 be agreed to.

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.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): We come to Schedule 2. The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendments to Schedule 2, replacing “4 September 2026” with “4 September 2027” in each case be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendments not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Schedule 2 be agreed to.

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.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): We come to Schedule 3. The question is that Ricardo Menendez March’s tabled amendment to Schedule 3, replacing “30 November 2026” with “30 November 2027” in each case, be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menendez March’s tabled amendment to Schedule 3, replacing “on and after commencement” in new clause 129(1), be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menendez March’s tabled amendment to delete new clause 130(1)(b) be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Schedule 3 be agreed to.

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.

Schedule 3 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): We come now to Schedule 4. The question is that Kahurangi Carter’s tabled amendment to Schedule 4, replacing “1 July 2026” with “1 July 2027” in new clause 30, definition of “new provision”, be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendments to Schedule 4, replacing “1 July 2026” with “1 July 2027” in new clause 32, be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menendez March’s tabled amendments to Schedule 4, replacing “1 October 2026” with “1 October 2027” in new clause 32, be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendments to Schedule 4, replacing “30 November 2026” with “30 November 2027” in new clause 32, be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendments to Schedule 4, replacing “6 September 2027” with “6 September 2028”, be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Kahurangi Carter’s tabled amendment to Schedule 4, replacing “1 July 2026” with “1 July 2028” be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Schedule 4 be agreed to.

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.

Schedule 4 agreed to.

Committee of the whole House

Clauses 1 and 2

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Members, we come now to clauses 1 and 2, “Title” and “Commencement”.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (21:41): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to take a call to just ask the Minister some questions about this title, Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill. Really interesting to me, to understand why the “Modernisation” is in brackets.

Given the officials’ comments in the regulatory impact statement (RIS), perhaps it’s that they didn’t really believe that this is what this bill is about because of the commentary where they questioned what the impact would be on Māori, questioned what the impact would be on disabled communities, and where we saw a problem definition that was completely redacted from the RIS. So the fact that the officials didn’t have confidence in what this bill was really about, maybe, suggests that the “Modernisation” is in brackets. That’s my first question to the Minister: why is “Modernisation” in brackets?

Secondly, perhaps there is—given that it is in brackets, would she entertain my amendment? It’s not on the table. But really, we know that this bill is about welfare compliance, review, and automation. Wouldn’t it be better just to be straight up? Rather than trying to pretend that this is about modernisation and that it is not changing anything for the beneficiaries who are—the thousands, tens of thousands, actually, hundreds of thousands, who are captured by it, that is not modernisation for them.

If we look at what the definition of modernisation is in a humanitarian aspect, this bill goes completely against that. I look at the objectives of the bill, which is in the explanatory note. It says to “improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the administration of the welfare system”. How is the efficiency improved when it is going to basically make more people be able to access less welfare, which means that it just pushes them further down the time line to the point where they are going to have to access more welfare at a later stage at a greater cost to taxpayers? That is not efficient, and it’s certainly not effective.

So perhaps we could make it “Social Security Welfare Compliance Review and Automation Amendment Bill”. And if I may, Mr Chair, I would like those words not to be in brackets because we’re very sure, on this side of the House, what this bill is about. We are not tentative like those that wrote “Modernisation” in brackets.

The other part is the mandatory reviews. How are those modern? How are further requirements for mandatory reviews that take away a trust situation with beneficiaries, particularly with the disabled community, who will have lifelong disabilities in many cases. Why make them go through hoops? Why make them go through mandatory reviews? That is turning back the clock to the dark ages. That is nothing about modernisation. The expanded medical evidence requirements. How is that modernising for those people who have the indignity of having to go multiple times for a medical certificate and at any point in time, now, under these new provisions? That is not modernising. How are suspension provisions modernising. How is it that we were able to grasp the modern understanding of welfare in 1938 when the people who stood in this Chamber and realised that this is about humanising welfare, it is about accepting and understanding that all human beings, all New Zealanders, may need welfare at some point. They understood that then. This is not modernising it; this is taking us backwards.

I’d really like to see if the Minister could please remove the brackets from the “Modernisation”, strike out the word, and use the words “Welfare Compliance Review and Automation” and be straight up with the people that she is throwing under the bus with this terrible piece of law.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (21:46): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I just wanted to check with the Minister if she would consider some of our amendments; these are tabled. I just wanted to run through them.

I think “Modernisation” as a title, in and of itself, doesn’t leave the lay person with much of a picture of what the bill is actually doing. “Modernisation” could be interpreted in so many ways.

Some of the amendments that I’m proposing under my name that are on the Table, I think do a much better job at describing what this actually does. So for example, one of my tabled amendments talks about changing and replacing the title from “Modernisation” to “Expansion of Automated Decision-Making and Other Matters”, which I actually think that would be a far more plain-language and accurate way of describing the bill.

It’s a genuine proposal to the Minister, because I think if the lay person is thinking, “Well, what’s on the Government’s agenda?”, just “modernising” doesn’t tell you much. But I think if we actually give it a far more descriptive title, such as “Expansion of Automated Decision-Making”, it actually gives people a far more accurate description of what the Minister’s trying to achieve here.

I also proposed of a title such as “Expansion of Mandatory Review and Other Matters”, which would cover elements of this bill. I think other Government bills that have been previously proposed do actually have titles that tend to describe what this bill is trying to do in far more descriptive ways.

I have also proposed in one of my other tabled amendments to swap the word “Modernisation” to “Automation”. So that’s in the tabled amendments that were tabled by Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan at 9.51 p.m., but they’re under my name. “Automation”, I think, is a far more descriptive and accurate way of portraying what this bill is trying to do, which is to literally automate processes and to give the ability for the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to automate any decision, any process, rather than simply trying to portray them as something that is modern. There’s many things that we could to do to modernise the system, not just automate decisions.

Finally, I’ve got another amendment that the Minister may want to consider if she wanted to have a much more accurate title, which is to replace “Modernisation” to “Medical Certificate Requirement Adjustment and Other Matters”. I think, again, I go back to the point of having something that better describes the bill.

And finally, the last amendment on the Table would seek to change “Modernisation” to “Unaltered”. And that goes back to, so far in the debate, we’ve had all these reassurances from the Minister that this isn’t changing anything. No changes to eligibility criteria to benefits, no changes to just how the welfare system works. If the Minister thinks that this is not really achieving anything of substance, then maybe she’ll just want to call it “Social Security (Unaltered) Amendment Bill” and leave it at that. Because I guess if that’s what the Minister’s telling us, maybe we should just take her at her word and have a bill that actually says what she says it does, which is, apparently, nothing.

Finally, just on the commencement date. One of the suggestions that I’ve got is that on clause 2(1), to replace “1 July 2026” to “1 September 2027”. Now, the reason why I’m proposing a shift to next year is because I don’t believe that the National Party or other coalition parties, for that matter, campaigned or sought a mandate to allow for the automation of the whole of the welfare system. I don’t recall during the election any political party, in fact, campaigning for this. I don’t believe that the Government has a mandate to actually authorise MSD to actually automate every and all processes.

This change in the commencement date would allow, basically, the Government parties to campaign on this matter, and should they win the election, then this bill would come into effect. Otherwise, you know, so be it.

Again, we’ve got other amendments that will seek to replace the commencement in clause 2: in clause 2(2)(a) replace “4 September” on page 8, lines 10-11, with “a single date set by Order in Council”; as well as an amendment moved by my colleague Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan which seeks to replace “30 November 2026”in clause 2(2)(b), page 8, line 13, with “a single date set by Order in Council”.

I want the Minister to particularly consider the title proposals that I’m putting in there. Like I said, these are just some simple, plain changes to the title that I think better describe the bill. So I hope the Minister considers those ones in good faith.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (21:51): Thank you, Mr Chair. This bill has been rushed through all stages under Budget urgency. I asked the Minister for Social Development and Employment what the reason was for that and did not get a response.

So I want to use my call here, as I suggest some amendments to clause 1, the title of this bill. I want to bring in the voices of a few people who have written about this bill. Of course, given the lack of time, there hasn’t been a lot of commentary in the public domain about this bill, but Dr Rebekah Graham has written a really interesting Substack analysing this bill. I think the title of her Substack should actually reflect what this bill achieves better than the bill’s own title. So I would suggest to the Minister that the title of this bill should actually be “Social Security (The Government Wants More Power Over Disabled People’s Medical Information) Amendment Bill”, because that is pretty much it’s about.

It could also be “Social Security (Expansion of State Power into People’s Lives) Amendment Bill”, because it is, essentially, as the Minister has said, about the expansion of automated decision-making (ADM) into beneficiaries’ lives and the lives of disabled people.

Dr Rebekah Graham goes on to outline her concerns about privacy: basically, autonomy of information, the broad expansion of ADM—which, ultimately, is what this bill is about—and, finally, what that represents, which is the growing expansion of State power over people who receive income support, particularly disabled people and those who are unwell.

It could also be the “Social Security (Making it Harder for Those Getting a Supported Living Payment) Amendment Bill”, because that is also what this bill does. It significantly increases the authority that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has to compel people who are receiving the Supported Living Payment (SLP), the disability allowance, even the child disability allowance, to undergo medical examinations, including an exam by a health practitioner that, ultimately, MSD chooses. Again, we asked the Minister questions as to what would trigger that, but there was no information about that.

I think we can see the trajectory of this. Although the savings identified is $158 million from taking an 18-year-old off a caregiver’s benefit, we can see what happens. There’s no clarity around the health practitioners that MSD would rule out. What happens when there’s a disagreement between the doctor that the beneficiary wants to see versus what MSD could think is not appropriate. There was no clarity around that. So what happens if they deem that a doctor has approved too many medical reviews? Is that the pathway that we’re going down, where some doctor has been, in the Government’s eyes, too lax, approved too many medical reviews, not enough beneficiaries are being kicked off the benefit, and that person is not deemed an appropriate health practitioner. Is that the trajectory that we are going down?

The fact that MSD can request a medical review at any time is also worrying. We asked the Minister if there was any maximum frequency or minimum interval or clear threshold to trigger when a medical exam could be asked for. What are the reasonable grounds here? Nothing—nothing forthcoming there, either.

So it could be, as I said, the “Social Security (Creates More Hurdles for Those on Supported Living Payment) Amendment Bill” because there are already so many administrative burdens that they have to go through. New section 36A, inserted by clause 10, prevents MSD from granting an SLP on grounds of restricted work capacity or blindness until MSD has received a medical review.

I don’t know how, with 122 pages, this could be called, as the Minister would like it, the “Social Security (There’s Nothing to See Here) Amendment Bill”, because apparently this 122 pages of a bill that we haven’t had much time to consider changes nothing—just makes things more efficient and more modern.

We’ve seen the trajectory in Australia. The Minister keeps saying that that’s not the trajectory that we’re going down, but it’s the same safeguards that got them into problems across the Ditch as well, and she’s given us no comfort that we’re not going to see the same thing that we saw with the likes of Robodebt and the likes of disability payments across the Ditch.

It really could be, finally, “Social Security (Retraumatisation of Disabled People) Amendment Bill”. It could be “Social Security (Expands ADM Like They Did in Australia with Disastrous Results) Amendment Bill”. But the current bill doesn’t really reflect what this bill does.

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (21:56): 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.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 1 replacing “Modernisation” with “Expansion of Mandatory Review and Other Matters” be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menendez March’s tabled amendment to clause 1 replacing “Modernisation” with “Expansion of Automated Decision Making and Other Matters” be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 1 replacing “Modernisation” with “Medical Certificate Requirement Adjustment and Other Matters” be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 1 replacing “Modernisation” with “Automation” is out of order as not being an objective description of the bill.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 1 replacing “Modernisation” with “Unaltered” is out of order as not being an objective description of the bill.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 1 be agreed to.

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.

Clause 1 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 2, replacing “1 July 2026” with “1 July 2027”, be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 2, replacing “1 July 2026” with “1 July 2028”, be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 2, replacing “1 July 2026” with “1 July 2029”, be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 2, replacing “1 July 2026” with “1 July 2030”, be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 2, replacing “1 July 2026” with “1 July 2031”, be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 2, replacing “1 July 2026” with “1 September 2027” be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 2(2)(a), replacing “4 September 2026” with “a single date set by Order in Council”, be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 2(2)(b), replacing “30 November 2026” with “a single date set by Order in Council”, be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 2 be agreed to.

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.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): This bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (22:10): I move, That the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

This bill amends the Social Security Act and the associated regulations to improve the way the system is administered, introducing changes that support more efficient processes and more consistent decision making. It delivers a system that better reflects how services are expected to be delivered in a modern environment.

The bill enables the Ministry of Social Development to use automated decision making, where appropriate, to make routine decisions. It strengthens key administrative settings, including mandatory reviews, clarifies requirements for medical evidence, and sets out a clearer framework for the treatment of a caregiver’s benefit when a dependent child turns 18.

These changes are expected to improve the overall operation of the system, reduce administrative burden, and allow staff to focus more of their time supporting more people to move from welfare into work. These changes will come into force in stages, allowing time for systems and processes to be updated to support their implementation.

This is a practical and measured set of improvements. It strengthens the administration of the system while maintaining its core purpose. I commend the bill to the House.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (22:11): Thank you. It has been a long day, and this bill has taken a long time to get to this stage. It is late at night, and I want to get to the guts of what I have learnt about this bill in the interim.

I started by reading the regulatory impact statement (RIS), and I was dismayed by seeing something I’d never seen before, which was the redacted contents regarding the problem that we faced. I just want to explain why that concerns me. What we had was a RIS that says the problem, and then it says, “There are two aspects of the problem.” Then there are nine lines redacted, so I have absolutely no idea what aspect No. 1 is. It then goes on to say, “Options to address the issue of clear legislative authority with appropriate safeguards are covered in Section 2.1 of this RIS.” I can only guess what aspect No. 1 of the problem was, because it has got to be something that was legally privileged in order to be redacted.

It then goes on to talk about, “Secondly, MSD is currently using ADM for some processes that contain discretionary decisions.” And then we have another redaction. It’s another four lines of redaction on what the second aspect of the problem is. I simply get told, “Officials have categorised these processes covered in this RIS into three groups: Mandatory Reviews, End of School Year process, and Medical Reviews”. Then, guess what, more redactions, so I am not very much wiser.

It then talks about an opportunity to deal with this two-part legislative solution, but then we have two paragraphs of redactions. I start at a real disadvantage in the Opposition doing my job. How can I do my job when I don’t understand the problem? I appreciate there have been officials sitting here all night, and they have been sitting here, hopefully, with more information on that than I have got, but people’s time has been wasted because we can’t do our job properly. I am concerned that something is awry here—that something of legal concern is the reason we are here tonight—and I have no idea what it is, and that is of concern to me.

Now, I want to talk about what I saw as the day went on. I saw the impact it might have on certain groups—these decisions that were being made—and the Minister was happy to tell us over and over again that nothing was happening here, that it was simply an automation of what was already there, but that didn’t square with what I heard in the evidence and what I read in the various sections. The first thing I noticed was with regard to people who will be sole parents on benefits, because, when their children turned 18, they were going to automatically drop off having any benefit for that child. While that has actually been the case in the case of a child who has not been in education, there has always been a safety net there for that child until now. That child who is looking for work at 18 has been able to get support from this Government, and they can’t anymore.

I realised that one of the things that is happening tonight is that we are ingraining the idea that someone on a benefit who has very little to start with is now going to be responsible for a child if they are unemployed. We know that unemployment is through the roof. It is not the fault of that family or that student or that solo parent that it is so hard for that particular age group to find work at the moment. We know that’s true. We know—we all know—kids at that age who have been looking for work, and they’ve applied and applied and applied and they haven’t got it. There are often reasons for that. They’re good kids. Some of them might be difficult kids—teenagers are—but they’re good kids, and what we’re saying to parents who have got so little financial ability to support those children is, “Tough, you will be doing that from now on. In addition to the other poverty that you have to face, you will be responsible for that 18-year-old, because they’re going to have nowhere to go.” This piece of legislation was, I realised, related to the other one, and that was being skated over—absolutely skated over.

Then what I noticed was the issue about medical certificates. What I saw was a system where medical certificates could be demanded. Now, we heard that what we’re going to do with those is that we can do them any time but, actually, the person involved will help choose the person who does that. Medical examinations are actually extremely invasive of privacy; they’re quite a big deal. They’re quite often really intimate, and I don’t want just anybody to do them. I would be pretty careful about that, but we’re told, “The taxpayer has got this right.” What that system looks like it does is say that, ultimately, MSD gets to choose who is going to be the person who examines you. You may get a list, and there may be some element of choice, but if MSD doesn’t like your choice, they will decide.

Carmel Sepuloni stood up and asked some really good questions about that. She asked, “Where is the criteria? Where are we making sure that (a) you’re being reasonable about when you want those medical certificates, and (b) that there is criteria around who can do those examinations, and why?” Where are those things? And we were told nothing, crickets; we don’t have a good indication of safeguards around something that is a big deal. It is a big deal to do medical examinations on people, and it needs a whole process of caution around it. It needs that. That’s got nothing to do with modernisation, by the way, has it? Nothing at all. This bill might be called a modernisation, we might be told there is nothing to see here, but none of the things I have talked about tonight has to do with modernisation. It’s not about that; it’s about making things more difficult for people going through the process.

I also noticed that there was an absolute prohibition on staff creating solutions in difficult situations—temporary amounts of money. Temporary granting couldn’t happen—temporary grants—even if you could see there was a problem in front of you. Say you’ve got someone with mental health issues in front of you and you clearly know they’re not going to be able to work, but, no, you’ve got to send them off to some specialist before you can say yay or nay, and, in the meantime, what do they do? Do they, by any chance, sleep in their car? I think that’s the likely outcome.

If you take away the humanity in the system and if you take away the discretions, don’t come and tell me that this is just simply a modernisation. If people are doing that, then they need to accept that that’s what they’re doing. If Ministers are making those decisions to reduce the number of people that are able to, actually, access our safety net, then that at least should be an honest conversation. We should know that, and people should know that. They shouldn’t just bump into the barriers as they’re put up in front of them—a solo mother who has an 18-year-old child and who’s looking for work in an economic recession—yes, let’s face it—where her kid is very unlikely to even be able to get a job at McDonald’s. That solo mother should know that she’s not facing a modernisation; she’s facing a cruel Government that’s made some decisions that are based on judging her harshly and telling her that she has got to be more responsible, rather than accepting that responsibility belongs to us all. I’m proud of the safety net. I’m sorry about this piece of legislation.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (22:21): This bill is brought forward under urgency with no public scrutiny by the same Government whose Prime Minister called beneficiaries “bottom feeders”; by the same Government who has left thousands of low-income homeowners $42 a week worse off; by the same Government who is leaving 14,000 people who have boarders $100 a week worse off, in some cases; by the same Government who is leaving thousands of State housing tenants on average $32 a week worse off; by a Government that boasts about a record number of benefit sanctions, and by a Government that is entrenching debts for sexual violence survivors who needed a benefit before receiving ACC payments.

This is a bill that does damage, and I always can tell what a bill does by what the Minister has chosen to omit. This is not the first time that the most problematic components of a bill have been left out in the Minister’s speeches. I remember when we were discussing the bill, that I mentioned earlier, that left 14,000 people worse off. The Minister didn’t mention that once in her contribution. You know what else the Minister didn’t mention in her contribution about this bill? One of the key paragraphs in the explanatory note in front of us says that this bill allows “MSD to approve the use of an automated electronic system by a specified person to make any decision, exercise any power, comply with any obligation, or take any other related action under any specified provision,”.

This bill is a massive expansion of the powers that automated decision-makers have over our lives. It gives powers to machines to make decisions over whether people can survive. The Minister has not adequately justified why this bill needed to be brought under urgency as part of the Budget legislation. We are none the wiser about why there is a rush to give the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) such sweeping powers, but what we do know, from the regulatory impact statement that we have had, which is one of the few documents in front of us that we have to scrutinise this bill, is that there’s an admission that MSD was already using automated decision-making for requesting a subsequent medical certificate for disabled people, despite actually not being allowed to do so under the law. The regulatory impact statement was assessing whether anything would change by expanding automated decision-making powers to be able to do this and, basically, said, “Well, the ministry’s already doing it.”, and then it has a bunch of stuff redacted in it.

This leaves me wondering whether MSD has been acting unlawfully and using automated decision-making for things that it wasn’t legally allowed to do. It wouldn’t be the first time—not even in this year—that MSD was found to be acting unlawfully by putting, for example, debts on people, like sexual violence survivors who needed benefit before requiring ACC, as I mentioned earlier. What is extremely problematic about this bill is that it got brought forward as part of the Budget under urgency and, as I said, with zero public scrutiny. We didn’t even get to hear from the ministry why the Privacy Commissioner had concerns about this bill. I think it’s actually such an essential part of this. If we’re giving such huge powers to machines over people’s lives, I would like to know why the Privacy Commissioner had concerns about this bill.

In a working and adequate democracy, we would have afforded this bill the select committee process so that the public could give their views about whether they actually want to hand over their ability to make ends meet in the welfare system to a machine. We didn’t even get reassurances from the Minister as to whether she would be allowing, in the future, MSD to actually make decisions on things like food grants and on things like granting other types of emergency assistance that allows people to keep all the roof over their head, to have access to prescription medicine, and to have access to the things that they need to do well in order to survive. We did not get adequate engagement from the Minister on any of this. All we got told, in a patronising manner, was that this is not changing any benefit entitlements and that this dismissal—and, I would say, almost pretending—that this bill isn’t doing anything significant. Well, if it is not, then why the rush? Why the rush? We were never told or given adequate justification of this.

What this bill does do is add additional requirements on what needs to be on a medical certificate so that people who are on a jobseeker benefit can move on to a jobseeker medical or supported living payment. We had a debate about, for example, why it is that the Ministry of Social Development could, effectively, compel a beneficiary to go to a specific doctor that the ministry chooses for them, and we didn’t get any adequate answers. I find it extremely problematic that people struggling to survive could be compelled to go to a doctor of the ministry’s choice, as opposed to someone they trust, someone they have a relationship with, and someone that they believe will treat them or their family members or the people that they care for with the respect and dignity that they deserve. Why do we need to hand the power to the ministry to be able to basically choose for someone else the kind of medical assistance that they can receive to, for example, get a diagnosis to be able to qualify for a benefit that has higher income support and, more importantly, no work obligations? It’s almost as if the Minister wants disabled people to stay on the benefits that have sanctions and that have obligations so that she’s able to kick them out of income support to meet her target of 50,000 people less on the benefit.

This bill is a punch-down approach to disabled people. We need a high-trust model for disabled people. We need income support that allows disabled people to live well and to be able to fully participate in their communities. Across other fiscal decisions that the Government has made, we’ve seen how they have already deprioritised support for disabled people and done the exact opposite—create more barriers for them to do well. This bill simply continues to entrench this. This is a pattern of behaviour, by both the Minister and the members of the Government, of not supporting beneficiaries’ right to a life with dignity and also of lacking acknowledgment—for all the talk of the Minister and the Prime Minister asking young people to get a job, there’s no acknowledgment that there’s just not enough jobs out there. This is a Government that has focused on cutting jobs and then punishing the unemployed after cutting those very same jobs that, for example, graduates could have gone into.

This bill has not been given any good reason to be put forward here, as I said, without any adequate scrutiny. This does tell me that this is part of the broader narrative that the Government has of pretending like automation is the pathway to freedom. At the same time, they are not addressing the fundamental basics—like people having access to affordable housing, adequate healthcare, and the tax system that actually taxes work less and taxes wealth more, as it should. Workers are already struggling as they are, despite being the very same people who hold up the economy, and many people on the benefits are the people who are supporting our community organisations and the food banks that are actually feeding the people who do not have the means to survive.

Once again, this bill just simply does nothing genuinely to modernise our welfare system. All it does is it gives power to a machine to make decisions over people’s lives, and that is extremely dangerous. The regulation-making powers that are in this bill could allow this or a future Minister to massively expand how automated decision-making is used. Yep, right now it’s used for a relatively narrow set of issues in this bill, but, in fact, we have already heard feedback from disabled people that they have already, as I said earlier, been asked for a subsequent medical certificate despite, as it stands right now, that not being a legal thing that is allowed to be done under automated decision-making. I think this is something that members of the Green Party will be keeping a close eye on, because we suspect that there’s something extremely dodgy happening under the process of this bill, and the reasons why this bill was brought forward under urgency with no public scrutiny haven’t, I think, been genuinely and transparently communicated by omission. We hear, “There’s nothing to see in this bill; this bill doesn’t change much”, and yet we’re hearing, “We’ve got to rush it on Budget week. And hey, by the way, we’re going to save $55 million from benefit entitlements at the same time”. When I queried the fact that this will actually produce savings and will take money away from beneficiaries, the Minister was not able to give me a breakdown of where exactly that money was going to come from, and whether that money was going to come from people who are going to be put in an even more difficult position to survive.

The Green Party will continue campaigning and fighting for a welfare system that allows people to fully participate in their communities, to see the dignity in each other, and just stop treating our neighbours as the enemy. This is not a race between the left and the right in our communities; this is a fight against those at the top and the rest of us, and this Government would rather pit us against our unemployed neighbour whose job the Government just cut. It’s a race to the bottom, to create an economy that is based on low wage jobs, that is not actually about improving productivity or whatever bumper sticker the Government want to come up with next.

This is the bill that cements the approach of punching down on the people who need our support. The Green Party does not support this bill, and the scrutiny of what this bill is genuinely about is absolutely not over. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the Minister’s approach to automated decision-making for the months to come until we change this Government on 7 November.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (ACT) (22:31): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m taking this call on behalf of ACT to support the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill. Actually, I’m not surprised to see that the Greens are against the use of technology. Yeah, I’m not surprised at all.

So there were just two points in that speech. One point was they don’t like technology—the use of technology. And the second point the member made is the use of the ministry’s choice of medical services to provide medical reviews, and I want to very quickly respond to these things because we have had a really good committee of the whole House.

The first thing I want to say is this: no matter how clear the facts are, these facts don’t suit your political narrative on that side—I know that you don’t want to accept these facts. The second point: this concept of the ministry’s choice of medical review, getting the medical review done from the outlet that is approved by the Ministry, is not a new concept because the ministry of immigration already provides a list of approved doctors, those who do the medicals for people who apply for immigration. So it’s not a new concept. So it’s a good bill and the ACT Party supports this bill. Thank you.

JAMIE ARBUCKLE (NZ First) (22:32): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill in its third reading. And today, we have taken a significant step—

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Tell us about “New Zealand Last”.

JAMIE ARBUCKLE: —a significant step, for the side opposite me—towards a more efficient, modern, wealthier system that serves both the taxpayers and those in genuine need.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Tell us about how much you hate New Zealanders.

JAMIE ARBUCKLE: We don’t know how much genuine need there is on that side of the House.

We heard about the safeguards that are in place in the committee of the whole House stage. And on that, I will commend the bill to the House.

KAHURANGI CARTER (Green) (22:33): The “Computer Says ‘No’ Bill”. Today, we have debated this Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill through all stages and now we are at the third reading. We’re nearly into 12 hours of debating, and it is really important that we highlight Prime Minister Christopher Luxton’s Government’s use of urgency.

Around the world, there are not many countries where you can pass a whole law, a whole piece of legislation in one day. It usually takes six months for us to get through this process, because there is a reason for this process. It is so we can scrutinise a bill, so that we can have people with lived experience, the people that are actually going to be the most affected by a bill, to have their feedback, to have experts to look at the reports, the analysis from all of the different ministries, from the people that are most affected.

What we have is a bill that we were given yesterday afternoon, which clearly the Government members didn’t read because they didn’t even have the respect to take more than 30-second calls on this bill. This bill is so important. It would have been great to have speeches that were more than 30 seconds that actually looked into this bill and scrutinised it. We did not have one question from the Government members during the committee of the whole House stage around how this bill actually affects the people of Aotearoa. That’s what we do during the select committee stage—a stage that we weren’t able to go through.

It is really disappointing to see that the Government is again using urgency in a way that it was never intended to be used. And so that makes us ask: what is there to hide? Because one of the only reasons that you would use this process is when you have something to hide. That’s why when we see this regulatory impact statement, it is redacted, redacted, redacted. I have never seen a regulatory impact statement that has been so redacted before. What have you got to hide and why have you not been scrutinising this bill?

When we’re in the select committee process, we get to ask questions, we get to go back to officials, we get to really look at the nitty gritty of these bills, and it’s really hard to trust the Minister when she says she’s not making any changes, when she will not engage fully in the committee of the whole House stage. She won’t engage with our questions. In fact, she continues to repeat, “Oh, I’ve been repeating myself. I’m repeating myself.”, while not even answering questions that are being asked. It is disingenuous.

We know that the use of urgency in this term has been used to slash things that benefit disabled people, disabled people whose carers have had their pay equity slashed under this Government. Just last week, we had Disability Support Services come through in response to workers getting paid because the Supreme Court hearing said that they were employees of the Crown. Why not face the people who this bill affects the most by having a select committee?

I want to take a minute to shout out to my Green MP colleagues. We take our job really seriously. When we got this bill yesterday afternoon, we dug into this bill to really understand what it means to the people of Aotearoa. And not only that, other MPs in our team of 15 worked to write hundreds of amendments that would have improved this bill. But not one of those was voted for by this Government because I doubt they even read them. I just want to say to my colleagues, I appreciate you, I’m so proud to be in the Green Party where we take our responsibility to the people of Aotearoa so seriously.

The lack of vision and hope from this Government, from this Budget, is so evident. And you know what? It just leaves space open wide for our party to come in with a bold vision, one that puts kids at the heart of every Government decision. That makes sure that children and families and disabled people who are doing it hard right now know that someone in this Government is actually here for them and actually going to make decisions that make their life better—so that they can turn the lights on, so that they can put food on the table for their children, so that they can have a nice time with their families instead of worrying about where they’re going to live, what this Government is going to bring in tomorrow under urgency that affects their lives and makes it harder for them.

Let’s talk about the child poverty action Act that came into effect and child poverty rates started to fall. But when this Government came on in, they have forced 48,000 more children into hardship than the previous three years, and that was in mid-2025. You—sorry, Madam Speaker; sorry about that—this Government is pushing more children into poverty, and the rates of poverty are greater for Māori kids, for Pacific kids, for disabled kids, for kids who live in a home with a disabled person. The rates are far higher, and this bill does nothing to address it. In fact, it actually makes it harder for disabled people to access a benefit income.

What is it like to be a child that lives in poverty in Aotearoa? A country that has enough for everybody, that has enough for every child to go to school without feeling hungry, for every child to actually have a bed to sleep in. We have enough in this country. So what does it feel like? Well, this morning, the Child Poverty Action Group told us about a survey that they did of year 9 to 12 children. I would implore the Government members to listen to this—listen to the children of Aotearoa, who should be at the heart of this bill, instead of giving power to machines to make decisions about their lives.

That survey of young people asked about what they worried about, and what they worried about was having food on their tables. They worried about having hygiene products—things like shampoo, things like conditioner. I don’t know what it must feel like to go to school feeling smelly. That is what is happening here. The Government is giving away children’s right to dignity by saying, “Hey, you know what? We can just let a computer say no to a medical certificate.”—a medical certificate by a GP.

Now, that’s a slippery slope. If we are looking at the medical profession and we are saying, “Hmm, actually, no, computer says ‘no’. Your medical certificate, no, no, no. We’re actually going to say that you have to go to another doctor, because the computer said ‘no’—the computer said ‘no’.” But what that means for our children is that this Government is entrenching poverty for children into legislation. It is a crying shame that we have not been able to even see why this bill has been brought in, because it is redacted. There are two problems in the regulatory impact statement, and they’re both redacted. How can we actually scrutinise this bill?

We can bring humanity back into the halls of power. That is what the Green Party will always fight for: making sure that we are making laws that ensure that children in New Zealand aren’t living in poverty, instead of giving over control to an automated system. We oppose this bill completely.

CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki) (22:43): This bill is about creating a modern, efficient welfare system that makes practical improvements and reduces administrative burden. Look, I commend this bill to the House.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (22:44): It’s not often that I stand up and feel really ashamed in this House about what we have done collectively to our fellow New Zealanders. But this is one of those days that on this side of the House, we have tried and tried to show the Minister and the members opposite, who didn’t engage with the bill before them, what was at stake here. I just want to apologise, really, to our disabled community, to our sole parents, to our carers of disabled people, to young people who are transitioning into adulthood, to recipients of supplementary assistance, and to families caring for vulnerable children. It must have been really difficult for you to sit and listen to the debating today, to see the disdain from the Government members, who couldn’t contribute more than 20 or 30 seconds of their time to what we were looking at before us: a fundamental shift in what we are doing with welfare in New Zealand.

Before I make my next point, I would like to refer to Speaker’s ruling 29/1, which says that although we can’t talk about members being absent from the House, we can do so where there is a suggested or real importance to do so. I would like to say that that was noted today when the Minister in charge was not here for the bill for the first reading and some of the other readings. She did come back for the committee of the whole House stage. I’m really grateful to her for that, because it must have been even worse for those at home to read in the media that the Minister who is putting through this draconian bill—dressed up as automation, dressed up as something around administrative efficiency, that takes away some of their rights and takes away their ability to thrive and takes away their ability to look after people they love—wasn’t even there for the totality of the debate. That is the level of contempt that we have seen in this House. I apologise to the people—“Nothing about us without us.” Sadly, they could not be in the House with us, and they could not be at the select committee to have their voices known and to have their voices heard.

I’m grateful to my colleague the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan, who brought some of those voices into the House; to Reuben Davidson, my colleague, who brought another voice of one of the constituents he has dealt with to the House—a harrowing story about somebody who was let down badly—and to the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, who asked really valid questions about what this was going to mean, because she has had the role of being the Minister for Disability Issues. But what we have seen today is just increased hoops for people to jump through in the pretence that the fundamental settings of welfare are not changing.

Instead of being transparent and saying, “Do you know what? We don’t like giving welfare to fellow New Zealanders. We’d rather give money to tobacco companies and to landlords, so we’re just going to take it away.”—that would probably be better than the callousness and the gaslighting of saying, “Oh, no, we’re not changing anything. Nothing to see here. But we’ve got this really long bill, and we are going to just pretend that it doesn’t impact on people’s access to get those benefits.” That’s exactly what we’ve seen.

It’s not just about the disabled community and the other communities I’ve mentioned but the carers—the carers—who are now dependant on the medical certification requirements. We know those carers are some of the hardest-working New Zealanders, who don’t get paid and don’t get recognised for what they do. They do it for love and they get bloody little support for what they do. Every report that has come out has said that we should be moving in the opposite direction—that we should be providing more support, we should be enabling them to navigate the system. How are these people going to be able to support their loved ones and then have to run off and make logistical arrangements and pay further costs to get more medical certificates, which can be required at the drop of a hat for no reasonable cause, just because an automated system required it, and with no apparent safeguards? Because that is what has come out of the debate today.

Everything we asked about the safeguarding was not answered adequately by the Minister. Everything we asked about the medical certificates was not answered adequately. What were the maximum number of requirements that could be made? What were the minimum requirements? Did there need to be reasonable cause? No. The Green member asked many times about the specifications for the medical practitioner or the health practitioner. Finally, towards the end of the debate, it was suddenly revealed that there is a list of Ministry of Social Development preferred providers. That is a fundamental thing for people to realise that, basically, what the Minister has admitted to is the kind of setup we see with ACC, where there are preferred health practitioners who will now be able to make these decisions unilaterally. The only response we got was, “Oh, no, it’ll be sort of a negotiation. It’ll be done in a kumbaya way with the disability people who we are scrutinising. And if we don’t like it, oh well, then we’ll require that.”

These are people with complex medical needs in many cases, with mental health needs in many cases, with particular diagnoses, with particular trajectories of their illness where they can circuit through wellness and unwellness, and the people that know their health status the best are the practitioners they deal with and have for years. That right has now been taken away, and instead the automated system, and then MSD, through their preferred list of suppliers, is going to make that decision. We all know—as an electorate MP, and as any other electorate MP in this House knows—what has happened with ACC and how the burden on those wanting to challenge the system and show their eligibility has played out.

It’s not about having safeguards in the bill. There are none in this bill. It’s not even a legislated standard; it’s an MSD standard. So there are probably fewer protections, I would say, than in the ACC legislation, and we are doing this to New Zealand’s most vulnerable people, least represented people in this House, and doing it callously and with the disdain of the Government members who couldn’t even engage with the material or give the time to the debates or to answer the questions.

It was also done with urgency. It was also done with the excuse of the Budget. There was no need for this to happen through Budget urgency; this could’ve been put to a select committee and done separately. It is important enough. There is no massive urgency to do this unless, as others have said, there is something happening unlawfully at the moment. That does happen from time to time, and sometimes Governments get agreement from the other side of the House, or at least it’s done transparently. Now, I’m not going to say that would’ve happened, but if that was the case and all the legal material was redacted, as was the problem definition in the regulatory impact statement, then there could’ve been some transparency about why we are doing this. But no, there hasn’t been. Instead, we have seen badly drafted legislation, the fettering of discretions; we’ve seen “Henry VIII” - type provisions that are making sweeping powers and putting them into regulation, things that can be expanded.

Really, it’s not just the communities that we’ve talked about tonight who should be worried about this; all New Zealanders should be worried, because what has happened, on the pretext of saying that this is about automating something that’s happening now, is there’s suddenly a whole lot of secondary powers available that can be expanded at any point to any power for any reason when it comes to automating decision making in welfare in New Zealand. That is an absolutely massive change, and I’m so pleased that the media have picked up on it and realised what was being done through sleight of hand under urgency under this Government.

The other thing, though, and probably the worst of it, is why we are doing this. Why are we here in urgency doing this? Really, it is because of the economic mismanagement of this Government. They are trying to dress this up as a value for money proposition. It’s not about value for money, because if people can access support at the right time, ultimately there will be better value for money. We’ve seen the argument about young people who might be pushed out to work because their parents can no longer support them through some kind of training course, some kind of less conventional training course that would upskill them. Suddenly, they don’t have access to that because they are no longer supported through this regime.

This is a Government that does prefer landlords, it does prefer tobacco companies, it does prefer corporate welfare; it doesn’t prefer human welfare. New Zealand is better than this—New Zealand is better than this. We used to be the exemplar globally of what welfare meant. Michael Joseph Savage talked about Christianity in action. Welfare was about dignity and humanity and judgment and recognising that any one of us at any point might need a helping hand from another New Zealander. This sweeping law takes all of that away, and I think that everybody in this House today needs to hang their heads in shame.

DANA KIRKPATRICK (National—East Coast) (22:54): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, this Government is one that welcomes innovation, technology, and advancement, and we should not be afraid in this country of a more efficient, modern welfare system. I commend the bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Reuben Davidson—this is a split call.

REUBEN DAVIDSON (Labour—Christchurch East) (22:54): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am standing to take a call on the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill and just stand in opposition, because what we have heard over the last few hours as we’ve gone through this bill and examined it very thoroughly is that we have a Government that wants to make life harder for New Zealanders. That’s what we’ve heard. We’ve heard about what the opposite side believe this bill does, and then we’ve heard, actually, as we’ve stepped through it and as we’ve decoded what’s included in the regulatory impact statement, but, more importantly, what’s not able to be seen in that—we can see exactly the impact it will have in our communities.

I spoke in my first contribution about some of the types of issues that people who come and meet with us in person in our electorate office have, and some of the challenges that they have. These are very, very distressing challenges for these people. They need to engage with and deal with people to help them through these processes. But what the Government has said and what the other side of the House have said to us is that they think that this can all be done through an automated system, that this can be done through the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

Now, other speakers have talked about some of the distressing situations that have happened overseas, some of the very real impacts this has had on people’s health, on their mental health, and, in some cases, on their lives, dealing with systems like this. But the Government seems to be intent on cutting jobs in the Public Service—real jobs going—and claiming that AI will simply come to the rescue. Well, AI might be able to come to the rescue in some situations, but you need a plan and you need to have some clues.

Now, I’m going to revisit some of the questions that I asked just last week to the Minister for the Public Service and Digitising Government. I asked the Minister just last week which specific roles he expected to be replaced by artificial intelligence in the Public Service, and the Minister, just last week, said, “Well, that is the process that we will be working our way through over the next three years, and it would be wrong to make any predictions.” Less than a week later, there is a bill introduced to the House in urgency. Did he not know that there was a bill coming? If he did, why did he not explain or talk about, potentially explicitly, that bill that was going to be introduced just the next week?

When I then asked: does he have evidence that shows AI can safely do the roles of the Public Service at scale—and we have heard so many examples of where it hasn’t been able to in people’s contributions in the House today—the Minister said, “Well, it depends on what particular roles one has in mind.” Well, we have heard about what this Government has in mind for the use of AI in this context through this bill, and we have heard about some of the challenges and some of the terrible things that have happened in other countries and in other places when they have tried this.

I asked: does he have a coherent AI workforce plan, especially given that one of his colleagues, Minister Penny Simmonds, had stated that departments can simply work through how to use AI. He said, “Well, all of that is in the process of development.”

But most interestingly, from a Government who are claiming they will save billions of dollars but slash thousands of jobs in the public sector—real people who do important work—when I asked, “What is the roll-out and licensing cost of implementing AI technologies across the Public Service?”, the Minister said, “Well, I don’t have that exact figure at the moment.” Now, if you’re looking for a cliche this week, I would suggest to the Minister that that is a cliche, especially a week before Budget, when allegedly major savings are being made.

In closing, we tried to fix this bill. We took our time going through amendments. We went step by step and clause by clause. We highlighted what was wrong with it. The damage it does will not be unintended consequences.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (22:59): This bill is all a part of our plan to fix the basics and to build a future with tech. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (22:59): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Sadly, all we’ve heard from members opposite are slogans once again about “modernising the system” and about “fixing the basics”. I’m being generous when I say that it’s just one part of what this bill is about. What it really does, though, is to make people who are struggling even poorer. It needs to be seen in the context of promises that Luxon and Willis have made time and time again about apparently working to make life better for New Zealanders, but they have only ended up making life worse for everybody. More cuts, more pain, and higher costs is all we’ve seen in the 2½ years that this lot has been in Government, and it’s all that we’ve seen from this Budget as well.

The Minister said that this is about freeing up time for front-line workers so that they can help more people into jobs. Yet 40,000 more people are unemployed after Luxon took office and this Government took office.

Simon Court: Madam Speaker, point of order. For the second time, that member has failed to use the full name of another member, and I just ask that that member pay heed to Standing Orders.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I did not hear the second time.

Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Settle, petal.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): A point of order is heard in silence. I didn’t hear the second time. I did hear it the first time, and I did not interrupt the member’s speech, but please refrain from doing it now.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: OK—since Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis have taken office, we have seen 40,000 more people unemployed; out of work. When this Minister says that they are so focused on getting people into work, jobseeker forecast alone is meant to be 200,000 in 2030, miles from her own target of 50,000, which is what this is, a desperate attempt to chuck people off the benefit to get to this Minister’s target, and yet the forecast is that there will be 10,000 more people on the jobseeker benefit than when even they took office.

What is this bill about, then? Well, according to the Minister, 122 pages of this bill are really about nothing. It is just about business as usual: “Nothing to see here. Let’s push it through Budget urgency when there’s absolutely no reason to do that. Let’s just all sit here from 12 o’clock in the afternoon. It’s 11 p.m. now. We’ll push it through all stages. We’ll cut out public participation because, hey, who cares about democracy anymore?” Not that Government of Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis.

This Budget and this bill take no action to help people who are struggling with the cost of living. Let me just talk about what disabled people are struggling with at the moment since this Minister, of course, is also the Minister for Disability Issues: 82 percent of households with a disabled person are facing food insecurity—82 percent. Disabled people: 14 percent unemployment rate. That is more than three times the unemployment rate of non-disabled people. The Total Mobility scheme is being cut by 10 percent—that 10 percent makes a huge difference.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would the member please come back to the bill that we’re speaking about tonight.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Sure. Because this bill is going to make life so much worse for people who are already struggling. In the name of modernisation, what this Government is doing is to carte blanche expand the automated decision-making (ADM) of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). That’s what the Minister says, “There’s nothing to see here. MSD already has ADM.” What she doesn’t say is there’s a broadening of it to a point that MSD can require a medical review at any time, that they can override the wishes of the beneficiary and decide for the person who should conduct that medical review. There are no thresholds around this. We have asked the Minister in the committee stage whether there’s a maximum number of medical reviews that can be allowed. Is there a minimum interval? Can a person be asked every three months to go through a medical review and if they don’t complete within the stipulated period or if they don’t even reply to the email or letter within the stipulated period, their benefit will be cut?

These are people who are already struggling with food insecurity, not being able to afford to go to the doctor, making choices between food and healthcare. This bill is going to drive them further into poverty, so it is very relevant. It is also in the context of 18- and 19-year-olds with parents who earn over $65,000 being chucked off the benefit, even if they have a health condition or disability. This bill also impacts those on supported living payments who already have to jump through a zillion hoops to get that payment. This Government through this legislation is adding to the administrative burden that they face. How is that fair either?

In terms of the ADM specifically, I do want to make the point because members opposite have stood up throughout the course of this debate and said that those of us on the Opposition benches who don’t agree with this bill, who condemn this bill, are doing so because somehow we are anti-technology. That is what members opposite have said. It couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re not about being anti-ADM. In fact, ADM started under our watch because we felt that automated decision-making had a place when it came to targeted, narrow administrative decisions that MSD could make. We’re OK with that.

What we’re not OK with is the broadening that this legislation will result in. That is because it then significantly expands, I guess, the State’s power to get into people’s lives and to dictate to them what they need to do and then to penalise them when, for example, carers are already struggling to be able to keep reviews that have been extended. Jobseeker reviews were increased to 26 weeks, for example, by this Government, and now they’ll need to undergo reviews at any point in time with no justification and no triggers. That is what we are against when it comes to this bill.

One of the reasons that we are worried about this legislation is because something very similar was done in Australia not too long ago and the results there have been disastrous and have led to an entire royal commission about the Robodebt.

Todd Stephenson: Nothing the same.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: For some reason, when we mention Robodebt on this side of the House, members opposite get really triggered, and that in itself is rather telling.

Broad ADM is problematic because a number of these decisions around keeping medical appointments, around replying to emails and letters are much more difficult for some people. There are disabled people with cognitive issues—

Simon Court: Todd-bot. Log him. Ha, ha!

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: —intellectually disabled people—Simon Court, you might want to stop laughing when I talk about the issues that disabled people are facing because this legislation makes it worse for them, so maybe tone down the arrogance a little bit.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member was actually laughing at the person next to him having a private joke, which probably wasn’t appropriate either, but I can assure you he wasn’t laughing at what you were saying, so carry on.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Well, that is good. That is good to hear because otherwise it would be quite sad, really. But the point that we are trying to make on this side and the concern that we have on this side of the House is that you need a system that has genuine discretion when it comes to some of these decisions that are being made. You need genuine, meaningful, independent judgment to take into account the different circumstances that people are in. Just bringing in a broad sweep that is automatic, that takes away substantive human discretion from decisions that have such significant impacts on the wellbeing of people and the ability for people to survive is punitive.

It should have undergone a select committee process or at least the Minister should have talked to us about the safeguards in this bill and the thresholds that will mean that we won’t go down the trajectory that everyone is so worried about. The Robodebt royal commission in Australia demonstrated clearly what happens, the profound human and institutional consequences that can arise when automated administrative systems outpace lawful governance, accountability, and meaningful human judgment. That, ultimately, is the problem that we have with this bill.

When the Minister stands up and says, “There’s nothing to see here.” in 122 pages of this bill that we only got to see yesterday, that we didn’t get a huge amount of time to interrogate, where the voices of the public are not allowed to be heard, when people cannot come and share with us what impact this might have, when a Government institution can dictate when someone goes through medical review with no triggers, can dictate who the doctor is that the person needs to see, then the worry on this side, when the Government also has targets to meet, is that we will see medical practitioners that will be off the list.

We’ve suddenly learned that there’s a list that MSD will now have. If perhaps the doctor approves too many medical reviews and people are getting too many benefits, perhaps that doctor will be struck off MSD’s list. That also cuts off the genuine connection that disabled people need with their doctors, because not everyone understands the condition that they are going through or the particular disability that they have. So it is incredibly problematic when we have all of this, when the stakes are high, and we cannot get any information about safeguards for the wellbeing of people. For all of those reasons and the context within which we’re debating this bill, I do not commend this bill to the House.

GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland) (23:10): Thank you, Madam Speaker. On this side of the House, we believe in embracing technology and embracing a prosperous future, where, clearly, on the other side of the House, all they want to do is take us back to the coal age. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill be now read a third 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 third time.

Gas (Market Transparency) Amendment Bill

Legislative Statement

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Climate Change) (23:11): on behalf of the Minister for Energy: I present a legislative statement on the Gas (Market Transparency) Amendment Bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

First Reading

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Climate Change) (23:11): on behalf of the Minister for Energy: I move, That the Gas (Market Transparency) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

This bill amends the Gas Act 1992 to introduce a new regulation-making power to improve the transparency of the gas market. The Government is focused on delivering secure, affordable energy for Kiwi households and businesses, and improved gas market information is essential to making that work. Better gas information would support better decision making by market participants and Government, helping to keep the lights on as gas supply tightens.

Information on New Zealand’s gas market, including production, consumption, and pricing, is currently fragmented and, in some cases, incomplete or out of date. This lack of good information makes it difficult for gas users and market participants to confidently assess gas availability and make informed decisions about running their business or making investments.

Given gas’s ongoing role in generating the electricity if it keeps the lights on when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing and the lakes are low, then limitations of gas market information also affect decision making in the electricity market. These limitations make it harder for the Government and others to understand developments in the gas sector and to take timely, effective action to manage the impacts of constrained supply on Kiwi households, businesses, and jobs.

Existing information disclosure mechanisms under the Gas Act are too slow, too uncertain, and limited in scope to address the current challenges with the gas market information effectively. This bill responds to these challenges by creating a new regulation power to enable the collection and publication of relevant gas market information. The new power will enable us to do two things: firstly, provide greater information to gas market participants to better inform their decision making; and, secondly, collect information that is just for Government use to better inform decision making on policy.

Access to information is increasingly important as New Zealand’s gas reserves and production decline, following the previous Labour Government’s ban on offshore oil and gas exploration. In other words, as gas reserves go down, the need for reliable information goes up. The latest reserves data forecasts a further 15 percent drop in gas production for 2026, compared to last year’s forecast, with total reserves down 23 percent on a year ago, to their lowest levels in 20 years. As supply tightens and the gas market is expected to become more volatile and uncertain, it makes high-quality information even more critical to ensuring market participants and the Government can plan for the future.

When gas runs short, power bills go up, batteries shut, and Kiwis lose their jobs. That is exactly what happened in 2024 when wholesale power prices soared above $800 per megawatt hour during a dry year and the aluminium smelter cut production, and some businesses closed for good.

Given the urgency of improving the gas market information and the considerable and wide-ranging economic impacts of declining gas supply on business sectors and on the New Zealand economy, I am seeking to progress this bill under all stages today.

What we will do after the bill is passed is important. Once this bill is passed, we will develop regulations following consultation with stakeholders to determine what information should be collected and how it will be used. Information disclosure requirements set out in regulations will focus on collecting high-value data for users while taking into account the compliance burden on gas market participants. I expect that both existing and newly published gas market information will be made available in a way that is easy for gas users and market participants to access.

This bill is needed to progress these urgent changes to improve gas market transparency and to support our wider work rebuilding New Zealand’s energy security after years of Labour’s neglect. It is all part of our focus on fixing the basics and building the future. I commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) (23:16): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is my pleasure to take a call after the Minister, speaking on behalf of the Minister, introduced this bill to the House, because, last week, the Government made an announcement: the Gas Transition Loan Guarantee Scheme. It was the Government finally realising that they’d mucked up big time when they scrapped support for industry for transitioning away from fossil fuels and making sure that affordable energy was there for our businesses, and Government was standing shoulder to shoulder with them while they did that. In order to do that, the Government announced that they needed to progress the work on this Gas (Market Transparency) Amendment Bill, to make it clear what the state of our gas reserves were.

This is why we have this bill in the House: the Government realising that they needed to make a U-turn on walking away from supporting businesses and go back and continue a programme of work that had started under a Labour Government, when the Government had started a work programme with the Gas Industry Co. to introduce reporting requirements for understanding what the state of our gas reserves were, because what could actually be quite a nice little multipartisan moment—because Labour supports these measures, the Minister decided that he needed to try and be nasty. I think, when he goes through this bill, what he’s going to realise is that the reporting is required because the gas is running out, and the gas is running out because of geology. The gas has been running out for more than a quarter of a century; in fact, it has been 25 years since there has been a commercial find of offshore oil and gas in New Zealand. That is the reality. This is a Government that is refusing to plan for a future without gas. They think that legislating for gas is somehow going to beat the geology, which, the reality is it’s not there. Make alternative plans.

It hasn’t been for want of trying. In fact, even after Labour started planning for that transition and ended new exploration permits in 2018, nearly $2 billion was spent on existing permits, looking to seek out additional gas from the existing permit field. Nothing was found.

Let’s face facts. Let’s plan for a future where New Zealanders have affordable energy, where our industries know where they’re going—they have a Government that supports them and doesn’t walk away from them for over 2½ years and, with a looming election, think: “We’re going to have to put a band-aid on because we’ve left industry to flounder, we’ve seen industry shut down, and we’ve seen job losses because we have been asleep at the wheel.” That is exactly what has happened under this Government. They have refused to plan and have an energy strategy. They have not progressed work under a gas transition plan, and they certainly have not put in place what needs to be done in terms of the reporting requirements.

This was work that could have been progressed well before now, because I think it has been abundantly clear, and certainly the work programme that was started between 2017 and 2023 put in place the framework for introducing reporting requirements around gas. All of this could have been progressed much more quickly. Because I agree with the problem definition that the Minister put in front of us: we do need greater transparency. As our gas reserves fall—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’ll make the member aware of the time. It’s a five-minute call, but we’re having some technicals with the clock.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: OK. Because as we do have dwindling gas reserves, we have to understand what is there so that our businesses can make better choices. But there will be some questions that we have through committee stage. It’s quite a technical bill—we’ve already seen the Minister have to come and do some patch-up with an Amendment Paper that’s been tabled today because it’s hastily drafted legislation despite having 2½ years to do it. We’ll have lots of questions as we progress through.

STEVE ABEL (Green) (23:21): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This bill is a striking admission by the most pro - fossil fuel Government in a generation that we cannot trust the oil and gas industry to tell us the truth. We cannot trust the gas industry, number one, because it is an industry that denies climate change. It might say it believes in climate change and then does all the things to show that they don’t believe in climate change. It’s an industry that pollutes the land, the water, the air, the atmosphere, and does it for private property. This bill exists because the gas industry has lied to us about how much gas they actually have in the reserves.

Now, for the benefit of Simon Watts, the former Minister for Energy, who has been misleading the country for the whole term—[Interruption]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just watch the language. But also I’d like this group on the other side to watch the noise because I’m actually having a struggle to hear Mr Abel.

STEVE ABEL: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, I would say of the people on the other side: they doth protest too much, methinks, because they are so cut by the accuracy of the comments being made,

I believe it is within my rights, Madam Speaker, to point out that the Minister has been misleading the country as to the cause of the decline in our gas supplies. For his benefit, his own regulatory impact statement gives us a diagram that shows that gas supplies in New Zealand have been declining since the year 2000. That’s 26 years ago—26 years ago—down, down, down, down, down, down, down. And the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration had no impact on that decline.

One of the interesting facts that this bill recognises is that the industry overstates how much gas they’ve got. Why would they do that? Because that is the basis of their value. Here we find in New Zealand that Todd Energy was arguing that there’s plenty of gas available in Taranaki back in 2009. In fact, they said: “There’s plenty of gas. The general assumption is that gas is in decline”—this was in 2009, I might say—“but the assumption is flawed. Remember, it was not that long ago that we were supposed to run out of gas [in] 2010.” He believed known gas reserves would last New Zealand “well beyond 2030”. This is a classic lie from the gas industry because—

Simon Court: Madam Speaker, point of order. Madam Speaker, I think it’s unhelpful for the member to suggest that industry participants who contribute information and contribute to this process of developing the bill in good faith have been lying.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, I had warned the member of using his words wisely before, and I would say again that I won’t accept that in the future part of this speech or this debate.

Simon Court: Madam Speaker, just further to the point of order. I think it would be, actually, helpful to ask the member to withdraw and apologise to the gas industry.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I’ve just asked the member to modify his language. He hasn’t accused a particular person, but I would want him to change his language because I don’t think it’s an appropriate word to be using.

Simon Court: Excuse me, Madam Speaker. I don’t want to litigate it—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’ve ruled; I’ve asked the member to stop using that word. I’ve deemed that it’s not appropriate for him to continue using it.

STEVE ABEL: Can I speak to the point of order, Madam Speaker? I believe the gas industry are lying to the New Zealand public.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No. Mr Abel, I’m sorry. I’m going to actually stop your speech now because I’ve asked you not to say that again.

Steve Abel: Point of order, Madam Speaker. Can I table a document from the library showing fraudulent reporting by the gas industry from around the world?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is sought for the member to table the document. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is.

Steve Abel: Madam Speaker, can I just double check you on this?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No. No, no, I’ve ruled. Mr Abel, I’m sorry. I asked you not to say that word again and I have terminated your speech, and I am—

Steve Abel: Point of order, Madam Speaker. Can I ask you to recall the Speaker, please—point of order, Madam Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No. Don’t trifle with the Speaker. Sit down, Mr Abel, or leave the House.

Steve Abel: I ask that you recall the Speaker on you ruling my speech out of order.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, I am the Speaker. Sit down, Mr Abel. I’m calling on Simon Court to start the next—

Steve Abel: Madam Speaker, I believe it’s within my rights to express my freedom of opinion. The gas industry—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Abel, sit down or please leave the House. I’m calling on Simon Court to start his speech.

Steve Abel: Outrageous, Madam Speaker.

Debate interrupted.