Tuesday, 23 June 2026

Tuesday, 23 June 2026

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Start of Sitting Day

Karakia/Prayers

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

Debates

Immigration New Zealand—Withholding of Information

Urgent Debate

SPEAKER (14:01): Members, I have received a letter from Ricardo Menéndez March seeking to debate, under Standing Order 399, matters relating to Immigration New Zealand’s biometric capability upgrade project. In particular, the letter highlights the report on the project and allegations of withholding information from the Minister and from the Education and Workforce Committee. This is a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility. Parliament should protect its right to receive accurate information requested of public sector departments and entities. The strongest way to assert that right is on the floor of the House.

Wakari Hospital—Decision to Halt Admission to Ward 10A

Urgent Debate Declined

SPEAKER (14:01): I’ve also received letter from Ingrid Leary seeking an urgent debate on the decision to halt admissions to ward 10A of the Wakari Hospital. This is also a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility.

There can only be one urgent debate on any day. Where the Speaker receives multiple applications for an urgent debate, they give priority to the most urgent and important matter. While both of these matters are important, there may be further opportunities for debate on both, but, for today, the failure to appropriately respond to a parliamentary committee does need a response from the floor of Parliament.

Therefore, following oral questions, I’ll call on Ricardo Menéndez March to move that the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. I would caution members, in making comment in that debate, to refrain from anything that may impinge upon a future consideration of this matter by the Privileges Committee.

Presentation

Petitions

SPEAKER (14:02): Five petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK (14:02):

Petition of Graeme Edgeler requesting that the House recommend that the Government amend the Official Information Act 1982 to allow people to request information held by Crown Solicitors in their capacity as Crown Solicitors

petition of Aly Cook requesting that the House ban all advertising by pharmaceutical companies and of any pharmaceuticals on any New Zealand media

petition of Tala‘imalo Simanu requesting that the House review the impact of the Immigration Act 2009 on essential workers and their families

petition of Kelvin Anto requesting that the House condemn racial intimidation targeting Indian, South Asian, Chinese, and other Asian communities in New Zealand and review whether current laws adequately protect those communities

petition of Zhide Zhao requesting that the House review the effectiveness and transparency of the Office of the Ombudsman, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, the Independent Police Conduct Authority, and the Human Rights Commission.

SPEAKER: Those petitions stand referred to the Petitions Committee.

Papers

SPEAKER (14:03): Ministers have delivered 14 papers.

CLERK (14:03):

Interim response to Report of the Education and Workforce Committee on the Inquiry into the harm young New Zealanders encounter online

Government responses to the:

declarations of inconsistency relating to extended supervision orders and public protection orders

National Infrastructure Plan 2026

report of the Petitions Committee on the petition of Benjamin Plows-Kolff

Reserve Bank of New Zealand Monetary Policy Statement

2025-26 service agreement for the Accident Compensation Corporation

2026-30 strategic intentions for the:

Ministry for Regulation

New Zealand Defence Force

2026-30 statements of intent for the:

Accident Compensation Corporation

Serious Fraud Office

2026 statements of performance expectations for the:

Accreditation Council

Auckland Light Rail Ltd

External Reporting Board

Invest New Zealand.

SPEAKER: I’ve received the report of the Audit Office entitled Report on our Controller function work for 2024/25. Those papers are published on the authority of the House.

Select Committee Reports

SPEAKER (14:04): Fourteen select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK (14:04):

Reports of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee on the:

Commerce (Promoting Competition and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

review briefing on the 2024-25 annual review of Kordia Group Ltd

review briefing on the 2024-25 annual review of the New Zealand Tourism Board

report of the Education and Workforce Committee on the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill

reports of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the:

Infrastructure Funding and Financing Amendment Bill

Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations for the year ending 30 June 2026

reports of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on the:

international treaty examination of the Free Trade Agreement between the Government of New Zealand and the Government of the Republic of India

Ministry of Defence long-term insights briefing 2026

petition of Marcelo Rodriguez Ferrere and petition of Bianka Atlas

report of the Governance and Administration Committee on the Emergency Management Bill (No 2)

report of the Intelligence and Security Committee on the Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations for Vote Communications Security and Intelligence and Vote Security Intelligence for the year ending 30 June 2026

reports of the Justice Committee on the:

Crimes Amendment Bill

review briefing on the 2024-25 annual review of the Public Trust

report of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee on the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill.

SPEAKER: The bills are set down for second reading. The review briefings, long-term insights briefing, and international treaty examination are set down for consideration.

Bills

Environmental Reporting Amendment Bill

India Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill

Te Here ā Nuku (Nelson Tenths) Bill

Introduction

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

CLERK (14:06):

Environmental Reporting Amendment Bill, introduction.

India Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill, introduction.

Te Here ā Nuku (Nelson Tenths) Bill, introduction.

SPEAKER: Those bills are set down for first reading.

Oral Questions to Ministers

Prime Minister

Question No. 1

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition) (14:06) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all of his Government’s statements and actions?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister) (14:06): Yes.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does he regret promising a year of growth and prosperity, given GDP growth has fallen to 1.2 percent compared to a forecast growth of 2.8 percent before he fixed it?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I think the member would agree the results that we saw in the last quarter of 0.8 percent growth, a restatement of the previous quarter at 0.5, and actually the last nine months growing at 2.1 percent is good progress.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Why has GDP per capita dropped to just 0.6 percent when it was on track to reach 1.5 percent before he became Prime Minister?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I think the member needs to understand that we’ve been through high inflation, high interest rates, a recession caused by the actions of the previous Government. But this Government is actually working hard. We’ve got growth coming back, and we should be proud of it. I think it’s three times the size of Australia, twice that of the US, and two times what Treasury had forecast. The good news is, across the board, we’re seeing growth return to a number of sectors in our economy. That’s really exciting, and we should be celebrating it.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Why has unemployment risen to 5.5 percent under his watch when it was forecast to be 4.8 percent by now, when his Government took office, and does he still think that anyone in a job is a good thing given his Government’s put tens of thousands of people out of jobs?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I think the member would join us and say that the Budget, which highlighted through the Treasury forecast that we’ll be growing this economy at 2.7 percent on average over the next four years, creates 220,000 new jobs and, most importantly, wages growing faster than prices. That’s a very encouraging thing. Along the way: paying debt down faster and getting to a surplus quicker so we can deal with the tripling of debt that that member drove up last time.

Hon David Seymour: Why wasn’t the Prime Minister able to predict that a war would start in the Middle East, closing the Strait of Hormuz and doubling the price of oil for nearly three months?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well I’m close to God, but not that close.

SPEAKER: I think anybody can answer that question.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Why does the Prime Minister continue to claim his Government is driving down debt and getting back into surplus faster when the latest forecasts indicate that the Government has borrowed more than $4 billion more than was forecast at this point before the election, and the surplus is two years further away?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Look, the member and numbers are not a strong suit. There’s an $18 billion hidden bill that he’s not following the money for. So let’s just take a step back. It’s good to see that we’ve got growth in this quarter. We’ve been growing this economy at 2.1 percent over the last nine months. The last three of the four quarters we’ve seen growth. We’re seeing it broadly across a number of sectors. Let me go through them: manufacturing, 1.9 percent—there’s 220,000 jobs and 8 percent of our GDP sitting there; that’s a good thing. Business services up 1.1 percent; retail and accommodation up 1.2; wholesale trade up 2.4; exports 3.1; business investment up 3.7 percent. We are making great progress. This is an economy that’s actually in recovery and coming through this, and we’ve managed this crisis well. The member doesn’t like it. He can talk down New Zealand as much as he likes, but, actually, he should be celebrating good levels of growth returning to New Zealand.

SPEAKER: Can I just say to the Government benches that the question was to the Prime Minister; not the general support crew behind him.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: So if everything’s going so well, why is economic growth today lower than it was forecast to be at this point before he became Prime Minister?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, we’ve just gone through a pandemic, we’ve had to clean up a hell of a mess with inflation and interest rates and a recession, we’ve gone through Trump’s tariffs, and now we’re dealing with a Middle East fuel crisis, but I think the member needs to acknowledge that it’s great to see growth coming back into our economy. Isn’t that something that he should be celebrating? This is a member that has an $18 billion hidden bill. Where’s—

SPEAKER: That’s enough.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: —the money, son?

SPEAKER: That’s enough.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: When every single one of his key economic indicators—growth, unemployment, inflation, and debt—is worse now than it was forecast to be at this point before he became Prime Minister, why is he continuing to say that his plan’s working?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, let’s go through it. Spending is under control—we don’t spend a billion dollars on consultants like the former Minister for the Public Service did. We don’t drive inflation up to 32-year highs, to 7.2 percent; we’ve got it at 3.1. We don’t drive interest rates up 12 or 13 times; we’ve got it down nine times under us—thank you very much. We’ve got growth coming back into the economy of 2.1 percent in the last nine months. We’ve got unemployment down 10 basis points, and we want to see a lot more progress there, but we’ve got jobs being created in the next four years because of outstanding economic management. Spend more, tax more, borrow more—that’s the prescription. Same old Labour; same old economic mess.

Rawiri Waititi: Does he stand by his Government’s and Minister Tama Potaka’s decision to make up to 60 percent of conservation land available for disposal, given that these lands are already confiscated Māori land?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I’d just say that I’ve seen the reporting on that. It’s incredibly misleading; a lot of scaremongering going on there. Under our Government, we are not going to be selling off national parks or land of high value in the conservation estate. This is about getting rid of the borstal at Levin, this is about getting rid of the MetService building in Wellington, a couple of gravel pits in Selwyn, the Belvedere in Carterton, and grazing land that’s in the wrong place. So, I mean, like, it’s a pretty simple thing. There are lots of checks and balances. The director-general has to propose it. It’s got to be land of no conservation value—it’s pretty straightforward.

Rawiri Waititi: Does he accept that the bill makes it easier for private commercial interests to gain access to public conservation land?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No. This is about making sure that the Department of Conservation can resolve some very practical situations where it has land of no conservation value that it can sell. The funds from that can be used to actually make sure we’re investing back in the estate.

Rawiri Waititi: If his Government says it is protecting the conservation estate, why is it making it easier to sell, swap, dispose of, and commercially exploit parts of it?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I refer the member to the answer to the earlier question.

Rawiri Waititi: Can the Prime Minister give assurances to Māori that the Conservation Amendment Bill will not undermine conservation commitments contained in Treaty settlements?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I can tell you that we honour Treaty settlements in this Government, but we actually make sure we’re not selling off national parks or land of high conservation value.

Prime Minister

Question No. 2

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) (14:14) to the Prime Minister: E tautoko ana ia i ngā kōrero me ngā mahi katoa a tōna Kāwanatanga?

[Does he stand by all of his Government’s statements and actions?]

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

Hon Marama Davidson: Does he accept the Department of Conservation’s advice that conservation land status is one of the strongest protections we have for biodiversity and that without public ownership, the Government has “few levers to protect rare and distinctive species and ecosystems”, and, if so, why is he proposing to weaken protections for conversation land?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We’re not. There are strict criteria in place around the sale or disposal of any conservation land. First and foremost, it needs to be recommended by the Director-General of Conservation; secondly, it actually needs to make sure it’s not important for the conservation of threatened species or biodiversity—that’s good—and, obviously, it’s land that’s not regarded as a good example of the type. There are other protections and criteria in there. We’re going through a select committee process. If I can make that any clearer, I’m very happy to make an alteration to make that clear to everybody involved, but scaremongering and misleading information in the way that the member is presenting it is unacceptable. That is not what this bill is doing.

Hon Marama Davidson: Why is his Government pushing ahead with weakening protections when the Department of Conservation explicitly warned his Minister of Conservation that “examples of areas that could meet the proposed test include beech forest areas in the Lewis Pass area … hill country tussock and grasslands on the east coast of the South Island … and podocarp forests on the west coast of the South Island”?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: As I’ve said before, this is designed to help resolve some practical situations where the Department of Conservation has land of limited conservation or no conservation value—

Hon Dr Megan Woods: That’s not what the bill says.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Does the member seriously want to maintain the MetService building here in Wellington? Does the member seriously want to keep the borstal in Levin? Does the member seriously want to keep the gravel pits in Selwyn? That’s what this is designed to do.

Hon Marama Davidson: Does the Prime Minister consider beech forests near Lewis Pass, which the Department of Conservation have advised could meet the test for disposal, “bits and bobs”?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I’ve explained this to the member. We will not be selling national parks or high-conservation land. That is not what this bill is intended to do. We will go through a select committee process. If there’s any way that I can strengthen that, or we can strengthen that, to make that even clearer, we’re happy to do so.

Hon Marama Davidson: Does the Prime Minister consider hill country tussockland parks, which the Department of Conservation have advised could meet the test for disposal, “bits and bobs”?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No, I consider the Belvedere Hall in Carterton, I consider the gravel pits in Selwyn, I consider the borstal in Levin, I consider the MetService in Wellington as land that is not of conservation value and is quite OK to be disposed of.

Hon Marama Davidson: Does the Prime Minister consider podocarp forests on the west coast of the South Island, which the Department of Conservation have advised could meet the test for disposal, “bits and bobs”?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No. As I’ve explained to the member—let me go through it again—the MetService building in Wellington, an old gravel pit reserve in Selwyn, the Belvedere Hall in Carterton, and various grazing land. Oh, and the borstal in Levin—let’s throw that in, too.

Finance

Question No. 3

RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (14:17) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has she seen on KiwiSaver and retirement savings?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance) (14:18): I have seen reports showing that New Zealanders are contributing greater amounts to their KiwiSaver accounts. On 1 April, default employee KiwiSaver contribution rates increased from 3 to 3.5 percent, matched by an equivalent increase from employers from 3 to 3.5 percent, meaning that workers can now receive 7 percent contributions to their KiwiSaver accounts, rather than the previous 6 percent. While Kiwi savers have been given the option to opt out of this higher contribution rate, I’m pleased to report to the House that 99.5 percent of KiwiSaver contributors have instead chosen to contribute at the higher rate. That means that many, many New Zealanders will now be far better off in retirement or when they go to use a deposit for a first home. I think this small change that makes a significant boost to KiwiSaver accounts shows that New Zealanders understand the value of greater financial security and resilience for themselves and their families over the long term.

Ryan Hamilton: What does the strong uptake say about New Zealanders’ attitudes towards savings?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: It shows that New Zealanders understand the value of long-term financial security. Even while many households are still carefully managing their budgets, the overwhelming majority are also making higher KiwiSaver contributions in order to improve their future financial and retirement outcomes. This reflects a growing understanding that relatively small increases in weekly contributions can compound into very significant balances over time. For an example, an 18-year-old earning the minimum wage today, and whose career follows a typical path as their wages grow over time, is projected to retire with around $930,000 in KiwiSaver under the higher contribution settings committed to by this Government. That is approximately $190,000 more than they would have had under the previous settings. Of course, I want to note that actual balances will vary depending on investment returns and individual circumstances. Even so, the point is that relatively small increases in regular savings can make a very significant difference over time.

Ryan Hamilton: Why does the Government consider stronger KiwiSaver savings important?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Stronger household savings make families and the wider economy more resilient. New Zealand has historically had comparatively low household savings. In a more uncertain global environment, stronger personal savings improve financial security for families, support greater independence and retirement, and they also help build a deeper pool of domestic investment capital over time, which is good news for our economy. That’s why the Government believes helping New Zealanders build assets and long-term financial resilience matters.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is the Minister aware that New Zealand First “opened the window” to compulsory superannuation in 1997, and again as recently as May 2026, to boost individual savings and deepen New Zealand’s capital markets?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Yes, you’ve opened the window, and now we open the door. Good things sometimes take time.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does the Minister consider it “childish” to promote a policy that every baby born in New Zealand be provided with a KiwiSaver account and a kick-start payment, or are mum and dad finally listening now?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, I’m absolutely sure that the Minister agrees with me that putting a bonus payment into the account of every baby born will not only increase their retirement savings and the deposit available to them for a first time but, also, will grow financial literacy in this country. It’s a great idea and I hope that a future Government gets to deliver it.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I just want to welcome the question exchange that we’ve just seen and seek confirmation from you that questions from this side of the House to governing parties about their party political policy launches will not be ruled out of order.

SPEAKER: I’ll have to think about that and come back to you—simply because I don’t recall, actually, the words that were just said. It’s an important point you’re making; there’s no question about that.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Yes. Ministers answer questions as Ministers of the Crown, not as spokespeople for their parties, but we’ve just seen an exchange where spokespeople for their respective parties were asking about party political policies. You allowed both the questions and the answers. I’m quite keen on this innovation, because I’d quite like to question them on some of the policies that they’ve announced. I’m hoping that the same rule will apply for both sides of the House.

SPEAKER: Just a moment—just a moment. It’s not something we need a long period of time on, because I’ve said that I will consider it and come back.

Hon David Seymour: Point of order, Mr Speaker. If we were to have such a change in the rules, wouldn’t it disadvantage parties that don’t have any policies of their own?

SPEAKER: Did you see that coming?

Hon Chris Bishop: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker, I think the member makes a good point, except for the fact that the questions asked by the Rt Hon Winston Peters were along the lines of “Does the Minister agree?” All of those questions are perfectly in order.

SPEAKER: Well, that’s something that I’ll obviously have to consider, as I’ve said I will.

Ryan Hamilton: How do stronger KiwiSaver balances benefit younger New Zealanders?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: For many younger New Zealanders, of course, KiwiSaver is not just about retirement. Larger balances can also support first-home ownership, as people are able to accumulate the funds needed for a deposit on a first home. This has been taken up by many young New Zealanders, who are entering the housing market in a greater proportion than has been the case in many years. And, of course, as people make greater contributions to their KiwiSaver accounts, as has been able to happen with the policy changes of this Government, they will be able to accumulate a larger deposit for a first time. This Government wants more New Zealanders to have the opportunities and security that come from building assets over time.

Health

Question No. 4

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour) (14:24) to the Minister of Health: Does he agree with the Director-General of Health’s statement at Health Estimates hearings that “the average length of stay for first-time mothers is around two and a half days”, and why is only $1.6 million appropriated for the three-day postnatal stay initiative in each of the first two years?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health) (14:25): I am pleased to answer the member’s question again. The Government is committed to ensuring that mothers can stay in hospital or a primary maternity unit for up to three days after birth. That is why we’re progressing legislation and have provided funding in Budget ’26 to deliver on it. As I said as part of the announcement, the Government intends to phase the bill’s implementation to ensure the system is ready to deliver the entitlement safely. As I also said as part of the announcement, Health New Zealand will begin by using existing capacity and it will then work closely with maternity providers to meet local community needs. The funding will be rolled out through a staged implementation over three years, allowing time to grow both workforce and bed capacity. That is why the funding has been phased in the way that it has. In terms of the Director-General’s statement, I’m advised the average length of stay for a first-time mother is 2.1 days. This policy is about providing this entitlement to all mothers.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Could he please repeat the number of days that the average length of stay for a new mother is?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: As I said in the primary answer there, in terms of the Director-General’s statement, I’m advised that the average length of stay for a first-time mother is 2.1 days. This policy is about providing this entitlement to all mothers.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Has he kept his promise to New Zealand women to give them a three-day postnatal stay in this term of Government where there is only an increase of entitlement to half of the women concerned?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: As I said in my primary answer, as part of the announcement, the Government intends to phase the bill’s implementation to ensure the system is ready to deliver the entitlement safely. As I also said as part of the announcement, Health New Zealand will begin by using existing capacity and will then work closely with maternity providers to meet local community needs. The funding will be rolled out through a staged implementation over three years, allowing time to grow both the workforce and bed capacity. That is why the funding has been phased in the way that it has.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Is it correct that after two years, if more than half of the women want to use that entitlement, there still won’t be a bed for them?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: As part of the announcement, we also confirmed that there would be implementation planning. There would also be a review after 18 months, and if there is going to be a need for more capacity, there will be more capacity provided.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Isn’t the Government’s new plan to amend the bill proof that, with this reduced entitlement, they have broken their promise?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: No, what we are doing is we’re implementing the commitment over a period of time. We have received advice, which—[Interruption]. The issue here is we are committed to a policy, which we are delivering as a Government—something which was not delivered under the previous Government—and we are ensuring that it’s implemented in a way that grows the workforce and grows capacity so that it can be delivered. I would note, the previous Government talked big about—

SPEAKER: No, no, don’t talk—no, sorry.

Infrastructure

Question No. 5

NANCY LU (National) (14:28) to the Minister for Infrastructure: What announcements has he made about the Government’s response to the National Infrastructure Plan?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister for Infrastructure) (14:28): Last week, the Government released its formal response to the National Infrastructure Plan. The Infrastructure Commission published the plan earlier this year. It sets out a 30-year blueprint for how we can improve the way we plan, select, fund, deliver, and look after infrastructure. The plan was a wake-up call for many people. The Government is determined to do better. That’s why we’ve supported all 16 of the commission’s recommendations. We also have work under way on all 10 of the priorities for the decade ahead, including time-of-use pricing, fleet-wide road user charges, a national adaptation framework, lifting hospital investment, integrated spatial planning, and up-zoning around key transport corridors.

Nancy Lu: What are the most important recommendations in the National Infrastructure Plan?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: All the recommendations in the plan are important. Let me highlight a couple. Recommendation 2 is about reforming land transport funding. The Government agrees with the problems the commission has identified with investment, pricing, and delivery settings in land transport. We also agree that system reform is necessary. The second thing I’d highlight is recommendations 3 and 6 around asset management plans and long-term investment plans. The Government will introduce legislative requirements into the Public Finance Act and the Crown Entities Act 2004 to require these as a matter of law.

Nancy Lu: Will the Government’s response to the plan build a stronger pipeline?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Yes, over time it will. We need to move past the rhetoric of needing a bipartisan infrastructure pipeline, and instead build consensus on the right system settings to make sure we’re planning, selecting, funding, and delivering the right projects. Using these best-practice tools will lead to a stronger and more credible infrastructure pipeline. It starts with central government having asset management plans and long-term investment plans, and the changes we announced in April around infrastructure assurance will help ensure that those investment plans are good and quality for the Government to rely on.

Nancy Lu: What actions has the Government taken to build bipartisanship on the National Infrastructure Plan?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: The Government’s been very deliberate about trying to build consensus on the National Infrastructure Plan. There were multiple briefings to all parties in Parliament from the commission. There was a special debate on the plan when it was released, and I intend to ask Parliament’s Business Committee for another special debate so we can discuss the Government’s response. I also want to say thank you and acknowledge the forewords from the Green Party and the Labour Party who offered their support and broad direction of travel for the Government’s response to the plan. Some disagreements on the margins, but the point is now we have a plan that is broadly endorsed across all the serious grown-up parties in Parliament, and now we need to get on with it.

Nancy Lu: Will the Government’s response to the plan build a stronger pipeline?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Yes, over time it will. We need to move past the rhetoric of needing a bipartisan infrastructure pipeline and, instead, build consensus on the right system settings to make sure we’re planning, selecting, funding, and delivering the right projects. Using these best-practice tools will lead to a stronger and more credible infrastructure pipeline. It starts with central government having asset management plans and long-term investment plans, and the changes we announced in April, around infrastructure assurance, will help ensure that those investment plans are good and quality, for the Government to rely on.

Nancy Lu: What actions has the Government taken to build bipartisanship on the national infrastructure plan?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: The Government has been very deliberate about trying to build consensus on the national infrastructure plan. There were multiple briefings to all parties in Parliament, from the commission. There was a special debate on the plan when it was released, and I intend to ask Parliament’s Business Committee for another special debate so that we can discuss the Government’s response. I also want to say thank you and acknowledge the four words from the Green Party and the Labour Party, who offered their support, and the broad direction of travel for the Government’s response to the plan. There were some disagreements on the margins, but the point is that now we have a plan that is broadly endorsed across all the serious, grown-up parties in Parliament, and now we need to get on with it.

Transport

Question No. 6

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) (14:31) to the Minister of Transport: Does he stand by all his statements and the Government’s policies in relation to fuel taxes?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport) (14:31): In the context that they were made, yes.

Tangi Utikere: Are the revenue forecasts in the Budget based on a cumulative 22c per litre increase in fuel taxes over the next three years?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: The forecasts for the National Land Transport Fund are predicated on those assumptions, yes.

Tangi Utikere: When households are already reducing spending on other necessities, such as groceries and electricity, to cover higher fuel costs, how does he expect families to absorb an additional 22c per litre?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: The member neatly highlights the difficult trade-offs that confront the Government in relation to this issue. We have publicly signalled that it is unlikely that fuel taxes will rise on 1 January next year, and that is the current position.

Tangi Utikere: When there are notable drops in things like supermarket spending, does he accept that, for many New Zealanders, filling the car already means cutting back on food and that his tax increase would make that worse?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: In a broad sense, yes, which is why the Government has signalled that it is unlikely that fuel taxes will rises. However, I would also make the point that petrol tax has not changed—and, in fact, has declined by 20 percent—in real terms since 2020. The National Land Transport Fund is massively oversubscribed, as the member well knows, and roads and rail and public transport and all of the things that the National Land Transport Fund funds have to be paid for. Dollars that are not spent on those things have to come from elsewhere.

Tangi Utikere: Does he accept that describing a 22c increase as “unlikely but still possible”, despite the fact that his Government’s books rely on it, gives households and businesses budgeting for next year no certainty at all?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Households budgeting for next year will, I think, struggle to know what the petrol price will be on 1 January 2027 anyway, because the situation when it comes to petrol prices today is markedly different and the outlook is markedly different to a month ago, which illustrates precisely the challenge that the Government is confronting at this time. Every day, when people wake up and turn on the news, they see a new piece of news out of the Middle East, which, of course, shifts the oil price and, of course, shifts the petrol price. Forecasting at this time is a difficult art for anybody, and the Government is just taking it as it comes. We have signalled publicly that it is unlikely fuel taxes will rise on 1 January. That remains the position, and we have to wait and see what happens in the next few months.

Hon Nicola Willis: Can the Minister confirm that one of the early actions of this Government was to defer the petrol tax increases planned by the previous Government and to remove the Auckland regional fuel tax, which also would have added to motorists’ fuel bills?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Yes, indeed, I can confirm that when inflation was 6-plus percent—in fact, peaked at 7 percent—the Government took the view that it would not be an opportune time to raise petrol taxes. However, I also make the point that parties in this Parliament are very fond of transport-spending policy announcements, and, ultimately, transport funding has to come from somewhere.

Regulation

Question No. 7

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (ACT) (14:35) to the Minister for Regulation: What actions has the Government taken to reduce the burden of regulations on New Zealanders?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Minister for Regulation) (14:35): Regulatory burden is limiting New Zealand’s potential, making it harder to make and do, to innovate, and to create. The Government has set up the Ministry for Regulation to make life easier and the burden of compliance smaller, as well as address Kiwis’ complaints about the many stupid rules built up by successive Governments. We’ve gone sector by sector, looking at early childhood education, agricultural and horticultural products, and medical conferences, carving away stupid rules that have held back our potential for too long.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: What has the Government done to reduce the regulatory burden on sectors starting with “H”?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Focusing on just that one letter of the alphabet, I’m happy to hoist a helping hand and hype up the hall of “Hs” that we’ve helped. There’s hemp growers no longer facing archaic restrictions and complex licensing processes. In health, we’ve expanded nurse practitioners’ and ambulance personnel’s ability to provide medicines, as well as making medical conferences viable in New Zealand. In hairdressing, we’ve eliminated all of the silly rules that they faced. The hospitality sector review is currently under way, and we’re halving the review time to bring new horticultural products into New Zealand. I could go on, but I’ll stop harping.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: When will the Regulatory Standards Act come into effect?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Soon: 1 July. This will increase the transparency costs of new regulations in order that people can see how a new rule proposed by any Government will affect their liberties and their ability to use their property. The Regulatory Standards Board will be formally stood up, and you can go on right now and let them know about rules you don’t think measure up to the principles of good regulation. With so many regulators and so many stupid rules impeding people reaching their potential, there needs to be a sheriff in Government to cut that red tape away.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: Can the Minister put a number on the benefits of these changes?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Yes, I can. Peer-reviewed analysis of the benefits of removing stupid rules has calculated the benefits so far at $223 million to $337 million over 10 years. The reason for the range of estimates is that we don’t know, for example, how many people will now take advantage of lighter regulations around growing hemp where they might have grown another crop and now make more money. We don’t know how many medical conferences will be hosted in New Zealand—only that they were almost certainly not going to be hosted here before. Interestingly, if you take the costs of the Ministry for Regulation, the benefit is calculated between $11 and $17 of benefit for every dollar spent. That doesn’t include many difficult to calculate burdens, such as being able to do probate on a will earlier, which nonetheless are extremely helpful to New Zealanders at difficult times.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: Why is it important to reduce regulatory burden?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Because we, over the last 40 years, have seen our society go from a place where a lot of effort goes into making and doing to a place where too much time is spent asking permission to do work, checking that work’s been done, and getting permits. In other words, we spend more time in transactional activity and not enough time in transformational activity. The point of the Regulatory Standards Bill, the Ministry for Regulation, and this Government’s whole deregulatory effort is to allow people to spend more time making and doing, producing for themselves, their families, and their communities, and less time enduring stupid rules that reduce our ability to reach our potential as a country.

Education

Question No. 8

KATIE NIMON (National—Napier) (14:39) to the Minister of Education: What update can she give on the Student Monitoring, Assessment and Reporting Tool?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education) (14:40): In 2026, the Government introduced the requirement for schools to assess reading, writing, and maths twice a year for year 3 to 8 students, to show progress over time using one of three nationally consistent assessment tools. Alongside PAT and e-asTTle, SMART, which will replace e-asTTle by the end of the year, is one of the consistent curriculum-aligned tools in schools that can be used and next year will be the only one that is available in both English and te reo Māori. Since its introduction, over 221,000 individual students across 1,331 schools have completed assessments in SMART. I’m proud to have promised, announced, funded, and delivered SMART, giving teachers, schools, and parents more information about how their kids are doing as we continue our reforms of the education system with a laser focus on raising student achievement.

Katie Nimon: What is the purpose of SMART?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: The purpose of SMART is to provide a free, nationally consistent and curriculum-aligned assessment tool that monitors progress over time in both English and te reo Māori. From 2027, schools will have a choice of SMART or PAT to contribute to and moderate teacher judgment over time. Results from SMART and PAT help inform schools’ reporting to parents so that they know more about how their child is doing at school and how they can help at home. It’s about measuring progress so we can support students and intervene early, because we can’t address what we don’t measure. Assessment data that is nationally consistent will allow us to better respond to and resource the education system, better meeting the needs of students and teachers so we can raise student achievement.

Katie Nimon: How does SMART support reporting to parents?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: To support reporting to parents, a SMART tool provides teachers with clear, consistent progress information and offers automated marking and reporting to save them time in the classroom and present both class and individual student progress. For parents, it gives them better insights into the progress students are making and provides clear information about progress against curriculum expectations, giving them greater confidence that their child’s learning needs are being identified early and supported across the year. SMART is just one part of a system-wide shift towards more consistent assessment, which includes the phonics checks, the year 2 maths and literacy check, the year 5 times tables check, and strengthened reporting to parents so they can be sure that we are raising student achievement.

Katie Nimon: How will the use of nationally consistent assessment address achievement and equity issues in education?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: The Auditor-General’s 2024 report found that to improve equity, the ministry needs to access high-quality information to be able to identify which student groups have inequitable education outcomes and what factors affect their achievement and progress. The report found that there is no comprehensive and authoritative summary of student achievement and progress in New Zealand, especially for year 1 to 10 and in Māori medium education. The introduction of the SMART tool and twice-yearly assessments to measure that progress over time will create a system-wide view of student progress and achievement so that parents know more about how their kids are doing, teachers understand next steps in learning, and the education system can better respond to needs so that we are fixing the basics and building the future by raising student achievement.

Prime Minister

Question No. 9

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green) (14:43) to the Prime Minister: E tautoko ana ia i ngā kōrero me ngā mahi katoa a tōna Kāwanatanga?

[Does he stand by all of his Government’s statements and actions?]

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister) (14:43): Yes.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Does he agree with his Minister of Finance that extreme wealth inequality is a bad thing?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What I agree with is that the proposal I’ve seen from the Green Party over the weekend is economic lunacy.

SPEAKER: No, hang on. Sorry, have another go. You can’t comment on—

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Can she repeat the question?

SPEAKER: Repeat the question.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Does he agree with his Minister of Finance that extreme wealth inequality is a bad thing?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I haven’t seen the quote that you’re referencing.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Does the Prime Minister think that extreme wealth inequality is a bad thing?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I think what’s important is actually to create more wealth in this country, and I think we saw a contrast to that on the weekend.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Does the Prime Minister think that it is a problem when 150 rich people in this country hold as much wealth as half of the rest of the country?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I just don’t think the answer to our economy is to penalise the wealth creators that are creating the jobs and the incomes for many other Kiwis. I just don’t understand how that actually helps move New Zealand forward or grow our economy.

Hon David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister believe that the inequality between business class and economy is extreme?

SPEAKER: Look, I think that given a previous interest, it’s an inappropriate question. Can we have Chlöe Swarbrick.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Does he agree with the OECD or the International Monetary Fund, who both say that inequality—for which we rank worse than the OECD average—erodes social cohesion and long-term economic growth?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, that’s why we are very keen to lift KiwiSaver contributions, and you’ve seen that actually in the last year, when we lifted it from 3 to 3.5 percent, and an 18-year-old earning roughly the minimum wage is about $190,000 better off by the time they get to retirement. We want to make sure that irrespective of your circumstances, you have a shot at the Kiwi Dream, and we actually set you up with retirement income and the ability to purchase a house.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Why, then, does the best available evidence show that extreme wealth inequality has gotten far worse under the economic decisions made by his Government in the past three years?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I just find it a little bit rich, literally, coming from a member who didn’t support tax relief for low and middle income working New Zealanders. You know, that was unbelievable; that actually, if you care about low and middle income working New Zealanders, that party did not support tax relief for the first time in 14 years.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Prime Minister as to why he didn’t determine, of the 150 so-called rich, what proportion of their wealth was offshore or onshore in this country, or, second, is it likely that that mistake was the same that made $500 million sound like $500 billion—that’s a week ago—and then just last week $800 million in mistakes on the front page of the New Zealand newspapers?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I don’t think the $800 million miscalculation in the policy was the worst thing about it. There are billions and billions of dollars that New Zealand will lose out. I just put it to the member: do you seriously think Rocket Lab, Halter, or Weta would stay in New Zealand when you’ve got a wealth tax, death tax, inheritance tax, gift tax, renter tax, and a 45 percent top income tax?

SPEAKER: Yeah, that’s enough—that’s the end of that. Let me just make it very clear to the House that question time is to ask the Government questions about Government policy, and I think—as pointed by the Leader of the Opposition—it would be unfortunate if, each day, I’m having to rule on matters that are more about parties’ policies than Government actions.

Conservation

Question No. 10

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (14:48) to the Minister of Conservation: Does he stand by his statement that he is “one of the hugest flagbearers for conservation, kaitiakitanga, and the environment”; if so, why?

Hon CHRIS PENK (Minister of Defence) (14:48) on behalf of the Minister of Conservation: Yes, and indeed this very day I am down in the South Island celebrating the establishment of five new marine reserves, the largest increase in marine protection in New Zealand in recent years.

Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: When he said to the Environment Committee last week that he will only get rid of “bits of and bobs” of conservation land, what is his definition of bits and bobs?

Hon CHRIS PENK: On behalf of the Minister, my comments at the Environment Committee, clearly, were in the context of the fact that the purpose of the Conservation Act will remain conservation. The amendment bill is simply modernising and simplifying its processes. There is no plan or programme for large-scale sale or other disposal, including exchange, of New Zealand conservation land. Subject to strict criteria, it may be from time to time—very infrequently—that low conservation land, or in fact land that is not conservation at all, except in name by being owned by the Department of Conservation, might be appropriately disposed of with net environmental benefit, and that’s exactly the regime that’s being established.

Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Will he guarantee that no parts of the Aotea Conservation Park on Great Barrier Island, the Cathedral Cove recreation reserve, the Remarkables Conservation Area, or the Catlins Conservation Park will be sold or exchanged as a result of his Conservation Amendment Bill?

Hon CHRIS PENK: On behalf of the Minister, I’m very confident that those iconic conservation locations that the member has listed will not be subject to disposal, sale, or exchange, including because, in some cases, they are under the categories that are explicitly excluded, such as national parks, national reserves, ecological areas, wilderness areas, sanctuary areas, nature reserves, scientific reserves, marine reserves, and Ramsar sites, otherwise known as wetlands.

Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: If he has no intention of flogging off high-value conservation land, why is he changing the law to make it easier to sell up to 60 percent of public conservation land?

Hon CHRIS PENK: On behalf of the Minister, I am doing no such thing. The point about having a regime that simplifies and modernises a number of processes under the Conservation Act, including the sale, disposal, and exchange of land, is that the net environmental benefit would need to be established. The process would include the inviting of comments on any proposed or possible disposal by the Director-General of Conservation, allowing at least 30 working days for input; the public notification of that; analysis of impacts on Māori rights and interests; the question of whether it would likely be subject to future Treaty settlement negotiations, as well as existing rights of first refusal; and, as the Prime Minister set out earlier in his answers to questions Nos 1 and 2, it would also need to be the case that the land was not important for the conservation of a threatened species or ecosystems—[Interruption] listen and learn—that the habitat provided is not one of the best examples of its type, and the director-general would have had to recommend it. Even then, if all those criteria were satisfied, there might still be conditions imposed by way of covenant or easement.

Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: How is he one of the “hugest flagbearers for conservation” when his record as Minister is watering down protections for the Hauraki Gulf, cutting the Department of Conservation’s funding, ending Jobs for Nature, and now changing the law to sell off New Zealand’s precious conservation land?

Hon CHRIS PENK: On behalf of the Minister, I reject the characterisation of all those different elements of the member’s question.

Trade and Investment

Question No. 11

MILES ANDERSON (National—Waitaki) (14:52): My question is to the Minister for—sorry, Trade and Investment. What recent reports has he seen—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Just a moment—just a moment. All questions are heard in silence, other than the person asking the question.

MILES ANDERSON (National—Waitaki) (14:52) to the Minister for Trade and Investment: What recent reports has he seen on primary sector export growth?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG (Minister of State for Trade and Investment) (14:53) on behalf of the Minister for Trade and Investment: I’ve seen the latest Situation and Outlook for Primary Industries, which shows our food and fibre sector continuing to perform strongly. Exports are on track to hit a record $64.3 billion this year. That’s up 6 percent, driven by strong demand and the hard work of Kiwi farmers and growers. This Government is backing that growth through new trade agreements and targeted investment, and we are on track towards our goal of doubling export value in the next 10 years.

Miles Anderson: What is driving that growth and what are the key trends in the sector?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG: We’re seeing strong global demand and prices, particularly for dairy and red meat, alongside excellent production conditions, like a bumper kiwifruit and apple crop season, which is boosting output. That’s translating into real export growth, with dairy expected to reach $28.6 billion, meat and wool up to $14.1 billion, and horticulture a record $9.5 billion. But, just as importantly, the sector is adapting and diversifying into new markets, maintaining supply chains, and, despite disruption, shifting towards higher-value products.

Miles Anderson: How is the Government supporting that growth?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG: We’ve taken a very deliberate approach this term to back our farmers and growers and set the sector up for long-term success. That starts with opening markets, including our new free-trade agreement with the United Arab Emirates, which is expanding access and cutting tariffs across key products. On top of that, we’re supporting on-farm innovation and lower-emissions technology, improving water infrastructure and land-use options, and backing practical support through services that connect farmers to advice and recovery.

Miles Anderson: Why is export growth so important for New Zealanders?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG: Let me count the ways—but mostly because exports are how we grow the economy, and the primary sector is underpinning that. The food and fibre sector supports around 12 percent of employment—over 360,000 jobs—so when it does well, a huge number of Kiwis benefit. That obviously flows into jobs, stronger regional communities, and higher living standards.

Tertiary Education

Question No. 12

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour) (14:55) to the Minister for Tertiary Education: Does she stand by her statement regarding Budget 2026 that “Funding is also being provided to meet additional forecast demand for tertiary education and training”; if so, why?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for Tertiary Education) (14:55): Yes. Budget 2026 provided a total of $320.4 million across the forecast period to fund 99 percent of forecast demand for tertiary education and training across the 2026 and 2027 calendar years and an additional 1,000 Youth Guarantee places per year from 1 July 2026.

Shanan Halbert: How much of the $1 billion from fees-free was reinvested into the tertiary education system, and how much was not?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: Well, of course, this Government, being a very responsible Government, looked at all the line items in the tertiary education budget, found an initiative that had cost over $1 billion during its lifetime, and found that it had not met the objectives of that initiative. As a responsible Government, we decided not to continue on with wasting $1 billion. We took some savings out of that to reprioritise into things like Youth Guarantee, into trades academies, and the remainder—and I make absolutely no apology for this—returned to the centre so that this Government could ensure that we reach a surplus earlier and prevent having to spend over $9 billion on interest for longer.

Shanan Halbert: How many work-based learners and polytech students are impacted by scrapping fees-free?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: Well, of course, it depends on how many would have been enrolled, but the savings is approximately $1 billion over the forecast period.

Shanan Halbert: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That’s the second question—I’ve been quite specific in my first supplementary and my second supplementary—[Interruption] The first supplementary was specifically around how much of the $1 billion from fees-free was reinvested into the tertiary education system. I don’t think she answered that question, but I went on to the second supplementary, which was “How many work-based learners and polytech students are impacted by scrapping fees-free?”. She did not answer that second question either.

SPEAKER: Well, with all due respect, the first question was answered with the words “the funding was returned to the centre”. The second part is that it’s not possible for anyone to know what enrolments might have been or might not have been, and I think that was the answer that was given by the Minister, which is quite reasonable.

Shanan Halbert: How will 1,000 Youth Guarantee places touch the sides when under her Government, the number of people not in education, employment, or training has reached 100,000?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: Well, of course, those that aren’t in education, employment, or training are supported across a very broad range of initiatives from Government programmes—including, of course, the Youth Guarantee support that’s given through tertiary, but also including the Ministry of Social Development, employment services programmes, and a number of other initiatives that enhance and support those young people.

Shanan Halbert: Is she simply trying to pass the buck onto students when scrapping fees-free at the same time as hiking student fees for a third year in a row?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: The AMFN, the maximum fee allowed, after consultation, may well go to 6 percent. That doesn’t require any provider to lift by 6 percent; it gives them that opportunity. What it will do is align approximately with what inflation was from 2018 through to now. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: I beg your pardon? That concludes oral questions. We’ll take a short break before I call on the member Ricardo Menéndez March to move a matter of urgent public interest.

Debates

Immigration New Zealand—Withholding of Information

Urgent Debate

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (15:01): I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to raise this urgent debate for the fact that this isn’t just an ordinary IT failure; this is an IT upgrade that was supposed to enable the sharing and collection of people’s biometric information—data that is extremely sensitive. As I noted, this is due to the fact that there was a failure by Immigration New Zealand to update Ministers and members of Parliament on the project. I would say that we can all agree that Ministers expect to receive reliable, accurate, free, and frank advice from their officials. This is fundamental to the functioning of democratic and accountable government here in Aotearoa. Ministers and MPs receiving misleading information from officials, denying Ministers and MPs accurate oversight of expensive and failing IT projects, undermines democratic and accountable government, and it is of great significance.

This botched IT project has quite a bit of a timeline. I just wanted to take us back to the fact that this goes all the way back to 2018, when Immigration New Zealand launched the upgrade to their biometric systems without first conducting detailed analysis. That already highlights concerns ranging almost 10 years ago. In 2019, Immigration New Zealand developed two business cases for the upgrade programme, with optimistic assumptions, insufficient evidence, and incomplete option assessments, as noted by the review. In 2020, Immigration New Zealand rescoped the project to address project issues following COVID-19 cost pressures without doing due diligence, such as detailed business requirements or market testing, and this led to continuous delays, missed milestones, and increased evidence that the NEC solution—the company in question—was not fit for purpose.

Moving all the way back to 2025: after a series of concerns, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment paused, and ultimately discontinued, the project, with effectively no public notice, adequate briefing to the Minister, or adequate transparency, as we saw in March 2026 when members of the Opposition, in this case Phil Twyford, asked for an update on where this IT project was at. I think that particular incident in 2026 highlights a broader concern about whether the processes that we have in Parliament to scrutinise Government officials over their use of resources and the enablement of Government programmes is actually fit for purpose if MPs are not able to adequately receive information that is accurate and fulsome.

Last week, we received, through the Minister during a scrutiny session, a report that highlighted the range of failures that were conducted by Immigration New Zealand in this upgrade. The Minister Erica Stanford at the time revealed to us that, effectively, the ministry deliberately withheld information from her about the failed technology upgrade; that Immigration New Zealand had released an independent report, which was kept from the Minister for several weeks; that it identified major flaws in the department and the handling of it—and more on that in a second—and that this project effectively included a $31 million write-off. I think that’s of concern to taxpayers as well, who would expect that that money would have been used responsibly. As of this week, we know that there is a Public Service Commission investigation, led by Michael Heron KC, into this botched system upgrade, and I look forward to the results of this investigation.

In terms of the purpose of this, the biometric capability update—BCU, which I may refer to it as later—was supposedly intended to modernise our Immigration New Zealand identity management solution by upgrading the NEC. The software provider—I want to note, by the way, that this is a provider that is used by several other countries, including in the United States at the airport, as far as I’ve been able to ascertain from public information. So this is a company that is used quite extensively worldwide. The idea was to replace our old systems and replace the in-person enrolment IP component.

The thing that I want to tie here with something else that the Government is part of, is that—and I don’t think this has received enough, and adequate, public discourse on it—is that, ultimately, what we do know is that this upgrade was put in place to basically better align us to our other Migration 5 pact nations. I think that’s quite important, because the biometric information that is supposed to be collected through this upgrade would have included information on refugees and asylum seekers, or immigrants. In the case of the former, we’re talking about groups of people who would have been fleeing potentially life-threatening situations. I would expect that members of Parliament, as well as the public, would want a robust system with adequate safeguards to ensure that that information does not land in the wrong hands. Already, there’s a lot of secrecy and lack of public information over the Migration 5 pact.

There are also concerns around, for example, what happens to that information once it lands in the hands of those other host countries. For example, we have very little oversight over whether that biometric information is used adequately by the likes of the United States, who currently have a Government that is very much targeting migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. This is related to the botched upgrade, because if you look at the report that the Minister dropped in the select committee session last week, we know that there were a range of cyber-security concerns.

I’m going to just quote some of the stuff that we received at the time. Now, in the report that we received, it was noted that “Cyber security remained a persistent and material issue throughout the project.” There were “Multiple attempts … to reach agreement with NEC on resolving [identified] vulnerabilities”. The report goes on to say that “NEC was often slow or unwilling to address concerns raised by MBIE.” This report also noted that, all the way back in 2024, there were reviews on this security assessment “which identified numerous technical vulnerabilities, including seven rated as High risk.” There were attempts of remediating these issues with NEC that were deemed impractical, such as short notice, and the report goes on to talk about how, effectively, very out-of-the-box solutions had to be created in order to address this.

Now, this is particularly concerning, because we have an IT upgrade project relating to people’s biometric information where there were a lot of cyber-security issues attached to it. On top of that, Ministers and members of Parliament were not actually being updated over the risks that came alongside this programme. That raises huge concerns over what could have happened if this project had continued to go ahead with a company that clearly wasn’t actually up to standard. It raises further concerns about Ministers being kept in the dark over cyber-security issues that could have massively compromised people’s privacy, or worse, safety. When we talk about biometric information from the likes of asylum seekers and refugees, like I said earlier, we’re talking about groups of people who are fleeing persecution. We’re talking about information that could be obtained through bad faith acts, by agents that seek to harm them, or the very same agents that they’re escaping persecution from. The fact that this report identified that there were humongous cyber-security concerns and yet Ministers were being kept in the dark, to us, raises humongous concerns and further questions that I think sit a little bit outside of the scope of what this review commissioned by the Public Service Commission is carrying out.

One of the things that I think is critical to ascertain from the Minister moving forward is what involvement we’re going to continue having with the Migration 5 pact. More importantly, what are the next steps in updating our biometric data gathering regimes in order to comply with the likes of those other nations? I don’t think we have had answers on the future of our IT systems in relationship to biometric information from the Minister herself. So I think while we scrutinise this botched IT upgrade by Immigration New Zealand, questions remain over the future of our participation in the Migration 5 pact and whether we’re going to continue trying to move ahead with better complying with the expectations from our partners on automated information sharing of the likes of migrants’, asylum seekers’, and refugees’ biometric information.

I hope that, throughout this debate, the Minister will be able to clarify the future of this IT upgrade, our future participation in the Migration 5 pact, and that we’re able to also get clear answers from the Minister over the next few weeks and months over exactly what are her expectations when it comes to, for example, cyber-security, or how this information is handled by other countries in the Migration 5 pact, which this IT project was actually effectively for. I look forward to other members highlighting their concerns, but more importantly, I look forward to Government members laying out their expectations over the future of our participation in these programmes, which ultimately led to a nebulous, secretive, and botched IT upgrade. But I don’t think that anyone, any service—certainly not taxpayers, members of Parliament, or the Minister—is involved in it.

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Immigration) (15:11): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Before I begin, I’d just like to say I’m going to stick to the scope of this debate. There have been some wild assertions made by the previous speaker that are somewhat outside of this scope that I’m not going to address. They are for the future. I’m going to stick to the facts that we know so far, and also the scope of this debate today.

This is a project that has been going on for some time—in fact, since 2019—and really had its problems start from day one. It’s very clear in the report that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) commissioned that I was able to provide to the Education and Workforce Committee, which I’d only had two or three days before, that the problems with this biometric capability upgrade started on day one with a business case that was not up to standard. There are many questions that need to be asked through the Public Service Commissioner’s report, and I’ll go over those in a moment. But the history of this case goes back to that fatally flawed business case, and then fast-forwarding to 2020 when officials decided to drastically change the scope of the project from what, essentially, was an off-the-shelf biometric capability piece of technology into something much, much bigger—into, essentially, that merged with what is described as a workflow programme. Now, that, as far as I have been briefed on, was not something that had been done before by this particular vendor, and when you trace back all of the details, this was the second and also most crucial decision that was made to take something that, potentially, could have been delivered to something that, actually, probably never was able to be delivered.

The next range of things that happened were delays—of course, COVID was in there, but the eventual delays of the project and cost escalations because of the poor business case, over-optimism, and the fact that decisions had been made around that change to scope, that fatally flawed the project. It’s interesting to delve into that time frame because of the questions that now need to be asked with all of those changes to the cost, changes to the time frames, and decisions that were made around changing the scope.

The report was damning. It laid out the fact that, essentially, this project was being undertaken under the cover of darkness almost—those are my words, not the report’s words. Essentially, lots of decisions were made without any scrutiny, and I will run through the timeline. Importantly, it lays out three things. Firstly, that there was misleading information that was given to Ministers, and I would also put forward that misleading Ministers was not only in the form of the information that they got but in the fact that they were not given a lot of information, and I’ll go into that as well. The second thing was the claim of creative accounting to keep these escalating costs and the whole-of-life costs, as it increased and needed to go to Cabinet, away from Cabinet. I’ll talk about that. Then, also, the extraordinary claim of people who were raising concerns being moved sideways from the project, and who were not listened to. Those three things are really “the trifecta of terrible things”, as I have described this in the media.

The thing, obviously, that I did first when I received the report in my weekend bag was make a phone call to the Public Service Commissioner and, then, send him, very quickly after that phone call, a letter asking him to undertake an independent inquiry. The terms of reference of that inquiry have been released this morning with Michael Heron KC, who will be in charge of that.

Now, some of the things that I expect to be looked into are some of the things that were raised by the report that I tabled at the select committee but, fascinatingly and importantly, are all the steps along the way that officials were taking without the scrutiny of Ministers or of Cabinet. While I’m not passing any judgment, I’m just raising some of the things that will need to be looked at by the Public Service Commissioner. The original business case in 2019 with the whole-of-life cost of $19.49 million—as far as I can see, with all the information that I’ve asked for—was not signed off by Ministers. Now, at the time, as far as I understand, $15 million was the amount needed to have sign-off by Ministers. This was $19.49 million, and I can’t see any sign-out by Ministers.

Then, May 2020 was the second crucial point where the scope changed dramatically from an off-the-shelf product into a workflow product that was to be merged and eventually not able to be delivered. As far as, again, I can see—and I’ve asked for all information that was given to previous Ministers—that massive change in scope was not signed off by Ministers or not given to Ministers to sign out. Then, the whole-of-life cost starts at $19.49 million in May 2020; it’s $22.83 million. Again, no paperwork was signed out by Ministers because it exceeded its original whole-of-life cost. In July 2020, the whole-of-life cost had reached $30.75 million—not signed out by any Ministers. In July 21, there was still no sign-out by Ministers.

The first paper that I can find that had been delivered to Ministers to alert them to anything was in November 2021—two years after the original business case—where it simply said, “To Ministers, note that the whole-of-life cost is now $30 million”, and then, “approve another $22-odd million from baselines to keep the project going.”, which was approved. That was properly signed out by the Minister of Finance and the Minister at the time, Kris Faafoi, with Grant Robertson. That was, as far as we can see, the first time that Immigration had come to Ministers to say, “Hey, the whole-of-life cost is now $30 million.” That’s the first time they’ve said it has exceeded, as far as I can see, the original whole-of-life cost of $19.49 million. You will note, from what I’d said earlier, by November 2021, when I can find this first paper, it had already exceeded the whole-of-life cost and had already been at $30 million since July 2020. It wasn’t until November 2021 that a paper went to Ministers to say “not approve but just note that it is now $30 million”. These are some of the questions that I expect to be answered.

Of course, the project carried on, and then in July 2023, officials went to the new Minister of Immigration, the Hon Andrew Little, and said, “Look, again, costs have blown out, and time has blown out.”, and requested that it go from $30 to $35 million—those whole-of-life costs. That was signed out. I think I mentioned in select committee that it was a pamphlet. It was literally two pages of scant information provided to the Minister. Then, one month later, in August of 2023, officials came back to Mr Little—not with a paper because I think he sent them packing before they could give him one—and asked for Cabinet to sign off an increase from $35 to $40 million.

Now, I think that at that point the Hon Andrew Little said, “No, thank you. We’re not doing that.”, and from there, when I became the Minister—as I’ve already laid out, and I don’t need to go into it now—the information that I received was, as I think I have described it, diametrically opposed to the truth, which we uncovered very quickly by asking lots and lots and lots and lots of questions about the whole-of-life costs. We said, “No, we’re not taking that to Cabinet; you’re going to deliver it.”, and we asked for regular updates, of course.

But what the Public Service Commission (PSC) now needs to look at is those three things: how were Ministers misled, if they were; the information they were given; and—importantly—the information that they were not given, because, as I can see, over the last six years of this, Ministers were given scant information. Who was moved on and how were those creative accounting practices actually undertaken? I have a fair idea, but I’ll leave that to the PSC.

This spans multiple Governments and multiple Ministers. There are many, many questions to be answered. I’ve laid out some of the ones that I believe should be answered, and now I have faith in Michael Heron KC to undertake this review. Thank you.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) (15:21): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Last week, Minister Erica Stanford came along to Parliament’s Education and Workforce Committee and dropped a report that set out multiple, compounding failures by MBIE—the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment—in managing a project known as the Biometric Capability Update, a project that had been running since 2018. The report contains a litany of poor governance, mismanagement, over-optimism, and inadequate decision-making, but even more shocking than the incompetence on display in this report, to my mind, are the integrity issues that have been exposed: repeated selective and misleading advice to a succession of Ministers, creative accounting to keep the project below the $35 million threshold that would have triggered Cabinet oversight, and reports that MBIE employees who criticised or raised questions about the project were moved sideways or moved out.

The Minister has, rightly, asked the Public Service Commissioner to investigate, but I want to add to this debate another element. On 4 March, senior officials from the ministry came along to Parliament’s Education and Workforce Committee during the annual review hearings, and at that meeting I asked Nic Blakeley, the Chief Executive of MBIE, and Alison McDonald, the Deputy Secretary of Immigration New Zealand, about a number of reports and independent reviews that I understood had warned about delivery risks. I asked them to tell the committee what the key risks were that were identified and whether any milestones had slipped in the implementation of the project, and what I got can best be described as flannel: a long answer that, in my view, was dissembling. No facts that we would now recognise about the project were delivered.

I asked why the full review reports had not been released publicly, and Alison McDonald said, “I don’t know, actually, why they haven’t been, because the reviews have just kind of been of the programme as we’ve gone along to help and guide us, so we haven’t actually needed to have a public review as such.” We now know that the project had been completely disestablished at the very time that the officials were answering those questions. They had already apologised to a Minister who was on the warpath about this project because of the dissembling and the manipulation and the lying by omission. In no way did those very senior public servants answer the questions that I asked them in Parliament’s Education and Workforce Committee.

I believe that the acting chief executive of MBIE and the deputy secretary responsible for Immigration misled Parliament. They came along to this place to appear at hearings that had the very purpose of scrutinising the Government’s activities through the annual review and they dissembled. It’s fundamental—

SPEAKER: Yeah, can I just—I think that the member can certainly talk of his experience, but because there are other considerations going on, it would be inappropriate to make specific allegations that might be better tested in another forum. I think that the member understands what I’m saying.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: OK, thank you, Mr Speaker. It is fundamental to Parliament’s purpose to be holding the executive accountable for the spending of public money and the implementation of policies. This isn’t about an IT project and it’s not about some officials who have said this or that; it’s about whether our institutions remain worthy of the trust that people place in them.

New Zealand built the Public Service, which is respected around the world, in a tradition based on integrity, professionalism, and public service, and whatever our politics, that’s worth defending. The villain here isn’t the individuals involved; it’s the erosion of accountability and the erosion of public trust in Government, and it’s my hope that, in a non-partisan way, this House takes this issue seriously and applies sunlight as a disinfectant, and that the Public Service Commissioner does an investigation that’s thorough and that holds people to account.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (ACT) (15:26): Thank you, Mr Speaker. As the immigration spokesperson for the ACT Party, I was actually quite disappointed and concerned when we heard about this issue. We were in our scrutiny week, waiting for the Minister of Immigration to arrive, ready with our scrutiny questions about the Budget, when the Minister revealed this very serious issue of the failure of the Biometric Capability Update project. It was quite obvious that the Minister was really disappointed—disappointed on so many levels—and, as committee members, we were disappointed, as well.

I would have to say that it came as a shock because we know that select committees are the engine room of our democracy. In our select committees, we know that it is our role to scrutinise these different entities, and just three months ago, they had the opportunity to reveal this information to us, but Immigration New Zealand didn’t reveal the information to us that this project had been already axed at the end of last year. This project, which ran for around seven years, had had so many issues, delays, costs, and challenges with implementation, and there were so many things happening in the background. The Minister was unaware that the project was axed at the end of last year, and the select committee didn’t know that the project was axed until the Minister revealed this to the select committee.

The important issue is this: it’s not just one project that has failed that is a big issue. With any project we try to implement, sometimes—yes—there might be cases where the project will fail, but the issue here is bigger. Yes, I do want to give some consideration to the $33 million of taxpayers’ money that has been wasted—that is important, too—but beyond these two issues, which are that the project has failed and how much money has gone into it, this actually creates a bigger issue for us, because this is an issue of how our democratic oversight works and how our scrutiny works. We rely on our public servants to tell us the information and provide us with the information in the select committee process and provide the information that the Minister should be aware of, and, as the Minister has said, so many decisions were made without any scrutiny.

What is also very concerning is this: most of this money has already been paid out to external agencies, and so this money cannot be recovered. The money is gone for ever, and the money has been wasted. Seven years is a very, very long time. In our departments, if we take seven years to decide whether a project is working or not working, that is a very, very long time. If you’re running your own business, would any business owner wait for seven years to see if something is working or not?

That was the second issue that I want to raise, and then the third issue that I want to raise in this contribution is this. We were made aware that those staff who raised concerns about the failures of this project or concerns about this project were sidelined, and so what was happening in there?

There are a number of questions that need to be asked, and I am aware that the officials have apologised. They have publicly apologised to the Minister and have apologised in general to the public, as well.

I would say this: in this case, an apology is not enough. We are looking forward to the findings of the investigation that the Public Service Commission is doing, because there are some bigger questions that need to be answered. The questions are about the integrity of our Public Service; the questions are about our democratic oversight and scrutiny as well. Thank you.

Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Minister of Customs) (15:30): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on this debate and, first, commend the Minister for her articulate and detailed summary of the issues that are at hand in this discussion. This is a critically important issue around the faith and trust that the New Zealand public can have in our Public Service and in the processes that are followed in delivering projects and spending taxpayer money.

I think we’ve seen across this debate that there is violent agreement around the importance of a thorough and robust inquiry, and I don’t think that we need to litigate further the discussion points that have been raised. We have all collectively recognised how important this inquiry will be. The terms of reference have been released today, and the Public Service Commission have been proactive in appointing the head of that investigation. The fact that the Minister has proactively announced this information, and has been very forthcoming since coming into her role, around the questions that were asked, and the scrutiny that was applied—she identified clearly where the failings had arisen, and now we’re awaiting the answers.

I think further litigation in this House is no longer necessary. The fact that we have all agreed that it is critically important that we, as members of Parliament, this House, and Ministers of the Crown, have total faith in the Public Service and the information provided to us and that all are acting in good faith and in accordance with their responsibilities—therefore, I conclude my comments.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) (15:32): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think we can all see from the seriousness of this urgent debate this afternoon the importance of this matter and the gravity with which it’s being treated. I think there are two issues which I hope Michael Heron KC will be able to investigate as part of his investigation on behalf of the Public Service Commissioner, and that is, firstly, the historical background that led this project to where it is today, and the alleged purposeful avoidance of scrutiny. The second matter is, really, how Parliament and, in fact, the Minister, was informed when those key pieces of information came to light.

The Public Service is an integral part of our Government, and, of course, they act in a way that is politically neutral, but in a way that answers to the Government of the day. Although they are not party political, they are answerable to the Ministers who happen to be in office, and that’s because of the important way that our democracy works. The Minister and Mr Twyford and others who have contributed to this debate are right to be concerned when there is a question of whether that information that has been provided to Ministers over various Governments has been correct or not—or if, in fact, there was a situation where information was not forthcoming when it should otherwise have been.

I think this is a very serious issue. I have looked at this not so much from an immigration perspective but from the Public Service in general, and I think it’s very important that this matter is dealt with quickly. We do know that this matter has gone on for a very long period of time, but it is really important the Public Service Commission, I think, has a review and instructs Mr Heron KC to do this in a way that can be done quickly and does not, ideally, go into a further Government, because I think the answers that the House needs and the public needs are more urgent than that.

There is something which I hope will not happen from this, and that is a greater distrust of advice. It is very difficult to see how a Government can work when they can’t rely on the information which is provided to them by their officials. We know that 99.9 percent, if not all officials, are always trying to do their best job and that it will a tiny minority, if any, who would ever think of hiding relevant information from a Minister. We must not use this as a way of justifying smaller Government or distrust in the Public Service; we must see this for what it is, and that is a very serious failure to allow the proper scrutiny. Use of public money is hugely important within this; this is not a small amount of money—$35 million is not a small amount of money—and it does show the complexity of IT projects that the Government may undertake.

Now, many people come into this Parliament from many different walks of life and many different professions before they become parliamentarians or indeed Ministers, but the scope of the complexity of the way that the world is now with artificial intelligence and different platforms in terms of IT projects is very, very sophisticated. It does mean that Ministers do have to rely on expert advice. This is going to be a problem facing future Governments as well; how do you scrutinise effectively the very complex, very technical advice that is being put in place? The responsibility for that, I believe, lies with the officials to allow Ministers the opportunity to exercise their judgment and their scrutiny over that spending. In this case, it does not appear that that has occurred; that is hugely disappointing.

A final point is that we do need to make sure that when we have these big ministries like the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, the size of the ministry is not affecting the type of scrutiny or the type of reporting which is able to be provided to Ministers. I hope that that isn’t a more widespread issue, but it’s something that we need to be mindful of moving forward.

KATIE NIMON (National—Napier) (15:37): Look, I think it’s important to stand as the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee to speak to some of the technical aspects of the hearing in question. On 4 March, the committee scrutinised Immigration New Zealand as part of its regular annual review hearing process. This is in line with the annual review scrutiny. We had an in-depth, de facto review for three hours with Immigration New Zealand. That was, as mentioned by Phil Twyford, with Nic Blakely and with Alison McDonald, who acknowledged at the time that she was retiring.

The thing about these three-hour reviews is that a structured agenda is given to the agencies in advance. Part 2 of the structured agenda was service delivery and very clearly stated “New IT systems and paperless applications”. It was very, very clear to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and Immigration New Zealand that there would be questions asked on those areas. It then comes to a part within part 2, and we can go back to the transcript, but I will just recount it from my memory. A question was asked about the biometric capability upgrade specifically by member Phil Twyford, particularly speaking to a couple of the reviews that we’d been made aware of around risks being raised with Immigration New Zealand and with MBIE. The question was asked around what has the agency done in response to those reviews.

Now, there was sort of a little bit of answering in the committee—not substantive—and I think this is the point where I say they were very much aware, in the structured agenda, that they would be asked about new IT systems. There was some light answering of the question. Now, we make a really good case—and I know that all of the members of the committee will agree—to follow up on anything that is not answered sufficiently in the committee. It’s on the transcript, in fact, where I asked for Immigration New Zealand and MBIE to make sure they follow up on that and that the secretariat take note of what hasn’t been answered and to follow up directly. Within the post-hearing writing questions was a follow-up question asking about what work has been done into those reviews that raised risks about that particular software implementation. It’s worth noting that in the written responses to that question, and a number of those responses are quite long—multiple paragraphs, three, four, sometimes even five paragraphs, this was one, maybe two sentences that said, “extensive work has been undertaken”—not what has been done, but that extensive work has been undertaken. I think it’s worth noting that it says also that it has “positively guided a change in approach”, and then goes on to say, not in direct quotations, a system-wide change.

Look, I can’t comment as to whether or not they knew what they knew at that time. We know that a report came out in April. I can’t comment to that. I think the point that I want to make very, very clear is that they were very well aware in that hearing that they would be asked about the new IT systems. They were asked about the new IT system. In fact, it wasn’t actually that new, as we’ve made very clear—seven years—and they were asked in the committee and weren’t able to answer extensively, then asked in follow-up questions, and did not answer in depth. Look, there may be reasons for that, reasons that we would quite like to find out. We will discuss that as a committee.

I just want to make it very, very clear to the House and to anybody listening that our committee takes this very seriously. Like the Minister has raised and like everybody else has mentioned, we need to be able to trust the advice that we are given. We also need to trust that when we are scrutinising agencies, answers to questions that are genuine questions that require substantive answers are answered. So we are yet to report that back to the House. I think that’s worth noting. So the committee will discuss how we deal with that going forward.

I thought it’s very important for me to raise with the House, and people listening, that technical aspect of that particular hearing and what was or wasn’t answered and what preparation that that agency had in advance of that particular hearing. Thank you. I’ll leave it there.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour) (15:42): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to contribute on this debate, which concerns a matter of significant public trust, and to join with colleagues across the House in commending the Minister for calling this out at her earliest opportunity to do so. And in doing so today, also indicating that this appears to be a failure that has been occurring for some time. And to also thank the Hon Phil Twyford for the issue that he’s raised, which, concerningly, appears to show that it’s an issue that’s occurred until very recently.

I come back to the issue of public trust, because, I’ve said it before, I think democracy is a very fragile institution and that there’s an obligation on all limbs of our democratic architecture to perform their functions with integrity. Now, in New Zealand, I believe we’re actually very fortunate in that when people have been surveyed about their personal interactions with the Public Service, there’s a very high positive rating on that in terms of people’s personal experience. However, in terms of their perceptions of how those public institutions function, we are seeing a divergence, and that is a huge problem whenever we hit one of these issues, because the Public Service brand is actually quite fragile in itself, very easy to damage, and very complex and difficult to restore.

So an incredibly important piece of work that we now see the genesis of and the terms of reference for the independent review have been released. I was reading through them earlier this afternoon and they do, in my view, thankfully, appear very broad. So there is a broad list of specific issues listed that relate to the report that we already have and what was and wasn’t told and given to the Minister. But the final point on the terms of reference is any other matters needed to meet the purpose of the inquiry. So just responding to my Green Party colleagues concerned that perhaps the terms of reference may not be broad enough, I suspect that there will be sufficient powers to investigate as is required.

Reading through the review of the project itself, again, like colleagues, I was horrified to see some of not only the timelines in terms of when some of these discrepancies had occurred, when information wasn’t provided, but the breadth. So it relates to governance, to the inadequacy of processes informing the Minister. It relates to things having to be escalated outside normal management lines. It relates to high turnovers of staff as well. So not only the period of time we’re talking about, just the scale of the errors that occurred here is troubling.

I did want to mention, again, I understand the sensitivities of what we have in front of us given the inquiry that’s now afoot, but this is quite rare for Parliament to be debating something of this nature. So without making any conclusions, I did just want to point to the potential parallel system that exists within the parliamentary architecture to examine issues like this as they come up. So, as members of Parliament, we know that there’s the ability of the House to find us in contempt if we produce information that isn’t adequate; Parliament also has the possibility of examining the conduct of non-members of Parliament and for that conduct to be referred to the Privileges Committee as well. The criteria by which that group of individuals would be considered as separate from members of Parliament. But that function is there.

Now, my view in this case is that it’s entirely appropriate for the Public Service Commissioner to be the one conducting this review or arranging this review independently. But there is a tether between that process and what could potentially happen in the parliamentary context if fault were to be found. The penalties there are fairly minor. There is, interestingly, a financial potential penalty of $1,000, but, again, I think that the appropriate place in this instance is for it to be dealt with in that separate way. I look forward to reading the conclusion of that report, which I understand may take us several months to receive at this stage, but, for the time being, again, I am grateful that the independent review has now been commissioned.

CARL BATES (National—Whanganui) (15:47): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a disappointing day when we have to be in the House here discussing a report and a process that has led a Minister not to have the information they need in order to make the right decisions for New Zealanders. We’re only talking about $32 million, which in the context of a Government Budget is not necessarily the biggest number, but it impacts Kiwis’ trust in Government, and that speaks to the heart of our democracy. In the scrutiny week discussions last week, I never in my mind, upon becoming a parliamentarian, thought I would be sitting in front of Government officials asking them to justify why a report in front of a parliamentary committee was suggesting, indeed stating, that there had been creative accounting undertaken in order for those officials or that department to continue with a project that it couldn’t face up to the fact had failed.

Right at the heart of this is trust. We have a Minister who was rightly focused on the fact that the information that she was being given was misleading. And she took action very early to bring in an independent expert to report directly to her to ensure that she was getting updates about the project and actually understanding what was at the heart of this project and what was going wrong. Ultimately, the decisions Ministers make are only as good as the information that’s provided to them.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector) (15:49): Thank you, Madam Speaker. My colleague the Hon Erica Stanford, as the Minister of Immigration, has laid out the background to this very serious issue, an issue that has traversed not just this Parliament but two prior, which I think is deeply concerning. She has quite rightly fronted the issue and laid out the background in this House today, asked specific questions that she remains concerned about today, and has instigated an independent investigation by Minister Heron KC, and I know every member in this House looks forward to the findings of that. We take this matter seriously because trust and confidence in Government and public agencies is critical.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The time for this debate has expired.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Vote Correction

Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Amendment Bill

DEPUTY SPEAKER (15:50): On 28 May, when the committee of the whole House stage of the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Amendment Bill was being considered, the result of the vote on the closure motion to Part 1 was incorrectly recorded as Ayes 66, Noes 44. The correct result is Ayes 67, Noes 43. The record will be corrected accordingly.

Sittings of the House

Extended Sitting

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Leader of the House) (15:50): I move, That the sitting of the House today be extended into tomorrow morning for the continuation of the second reading of the Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill, the third reading of the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill, the Appointments to Intelligence and Security Committee, the second and third readings of the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, the committee stage of the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Bill, the interrupted debate on the second reading of the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill, and the second reading of the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill.

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

Ayes 67

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

Noes 49

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill

Second Reading—Budget Debate

Debate resumed from 28 May on the Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (15:52): I’m delighted to rise in the House today to speak to Budget 2026, and the incredible Budget delivered by our very competent, capable, and confident Minister of Finance, the Hon Nicola Willis. This is a particularly important Budget, because it is the Budget that leads into a very important day and a very important decision for New Zealanders: a very clear choice on 7 November.

Let’s just take a look back at what the Government has had to grapple with in its third Budget. So reflect on the time that the Government—the coalition of three parties—came into office when the economy was absolutely wrecked. The damage was substantial. We had inflation—it’s hard to believe, really—at a record high of 7.3 percent. Thank goodness today we are at 3.1 percent. Imagine what it would be like with the current fuel challenge in the Middle East if inflation was still at 7.3 percent. So we saw that mortgage repayments at that time when we came in had absolutely skyrocketed. There were families and households struggling day to day to pay the mortgage because of those incredibly high interest rates. Wages had stagnated. There were hundreds of ram raids a year. Crime was out of control. What we saw was just terrible results in our kids’ education. I think the thing that most New Zealanders worry about the most is “Are our kids doing OK at school?” Because, when they’re not, we know that they don’t have a shot at a great future.

Of course, what we saw was the number of people on welfare was absolutely plummeting. What was crazy: some of the time that the previous Government had overseen was when we had record low unemployment, and yet their jobseeker numbers escalated by 60,000 in six years. That was an increase of 54 percent in a six-year period. I want to come to that in a few moments.

It’s very clear that our plan to fix the basics and build the future is paying off. Budget 2026 is a really significant part of our work to do that. We are absolutely relentlessly focused on growing the economy. Why is that important? Because a growing economy means—

Dan Bidois: Prosperity.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Absolutely—growing prosperity. When you have businesses that are growing, they are more confident, they take on more staff, the staff they have get the opportunity to work more hours, and wages lift. Do you know what the most important thing is that people must remember from Budget 2026? It’s that wages will grow faster than prices. That’s what means that New Zealanders will have more in their back pocket when their wages are increasing faster than prices.

I want to go through a couple of the highlights in the areas that I look after that didn’t get a lot of air time in the immediate days after the Budget, but there are a couple in particular that I think are incredibly important. The first one is our continued work in welfare reform. In Budget 2026, we’re investing $93.3 million to support more sole parents into work. How do we address the number of children who are growing up in material hardship? Support their parents into work. This is a very, very focused campaign over the next two years of investing in sole parents so that 25,000 sole parents will be in case management. We know that case management is the most effective intervention that we can use—and the data and evidence tells us that. That’s why we’re investing in sole parents. What we do know is, on average, sole parents spend 17.5 years of their life on welfare. Now, Madam Speaker, you’ve heard us say on this side of the House that we don’t think that that many years on welfare is a great life. That’s why we are committing, we are investing, we are doing the things that we know work, and that’s case management.

Now, talking about doing what we know works, this is the first time ever a Government has put baseline funding into Food Secure Communities. I’ll say that again, because, again, the other side just failed to mention that in all of their Budget criticism. They failed to mention for the first time ever that Food Secure Communities have been baselined. So what does that mean? It means $38 million over four years to organisations who are providing infrastructure and distribution of food to regional and local food hubs. They support about 4.5 million meals a month—we have locked funding in. So no longer are they waiting year to year to see if they get funded. Also, for the first time ever, we have baseline funding for the KickStart Breakfast programme. That currently reaches about 46,000 children. Our side of the House knows what works and we’re investing in it. We’re investing in the areas that we know are incredibly important.

On that theme, again, one of the areas that didn’t get a lot of air time in the days immediately after the Budget and that I’m sure the members opposite will be incredibly supportive of is the response that our Government has made to the Dame Karen Poutasi report into child harm. There were 14 recommendations, and we’ve accepted every single one of them. We have delivered three of them already. But, most importantly, we have put money into ensuring we deliver. What happened on the other side? They got the report, sat on it, said nothing. They did nothing and invested in nothing. Unlike this side of the House, we take the protection of children seriously and we are funding across the board. So where is that $90 million going? To strengthen the safety nets. The first: we are rolling out mandatory child protection training to over 20,000 New Zealanders. That is a step on the path towards mandatory reporting. But we know when there is significant change like this, we’ve got to focus on the front line. That is a significant investment in consistent, high-quality training for 20,000 children’s workers. That’s happening over the next two years.

We’re also ensuring that based on that additional training, there is additional capacity to respond safely and effectively to more reports of concern, because we expect that will follow. Also, we’re supporting Health New Zealand to increase participation in the Child Protection Protocol. We are taking a phased approach. We know how carefully you must implement changes of this scale. That’s why the funding is over four years and over significant areas that we know will make a big difference.

Budget 2026 builds on previous Budgets where we focus the effort and we focus the welfare system on being more active. We are focused on our goals around child material hardship, which is our investment in sole parents and in food programmes that we know work, as well as in reducing child harm.

I do also want to talk about disability because, this Budget, $2.9 billion is the largest Disability Support Services annual appropriation to date. So it is an absolute myth that the other side continues to perpetuate that our side don’t care about people with disabilities. We care so much we are fixing the system that they allowed to be broken for years.

So is it easy? Absolutely not, but it is the right thing to do, and we have funded more in every Budget: $1.1 billion in Budget 2024; $1 billion in Budget 2025, and this is the highest appropriation ever. But unlike the other side, for us it’s not just about money. You actually need to make sure the system is fair, transparent, consistent, and goes to where it is needed; that the system performs, and it hadn’t been, and that’s what we’re fixing.

I also, of course, want to talk about tourism. We had a really ambitious target to grow the number of visitors into New Zealand because for every visitor that comes to our shore, they spend money in our businesses, whether it’s a local petrol station, a café, accommodation, a bed and breakfast, a campground, a rental car. They are spending money in New Zealand and that money goes into local businesses to support local employees. Growing tourism and hospitality supports one in nine New Zealand workers.

Suze Redmayne: Second largest.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: So that’s why—second-largest export earner. That is absolutely why we are focused on growing it, and it’s paying off. We are now at 94 percent of the figures that we saw pre-COVID, in 2019. Our goal, of course, is to get to 100 and I’m sure we’ll get there by the end of the year.

Let me give you one figure that just shows how rapid the growth has been, very deliberately based on actions our Government has taken. Compare the Chinese visitor numbers in April this year, compared to April last year: a 52 percent increase—52 percent—because of very consistent actions that we have taken to grow the number of visitors. The US market’s grown—it’s over 100 percent—so is Australia, and China is picking up because we know for every visitor, they’re spending money in local business, and that is great for New Zealanders and great for our regions.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Leader—Labour) (16:02): The last member who spoke from the National Government wanted to not only talk about the Budget but the National Government’s track record for the last 2½ years. So let’s go over the National Government’s and Nicola Willis’ record.

Now, Nicola Willis will tell Kiwis the economy is turning a corner, that things are getting better, but the people I’m meeting aren’t feeling that way. What they’re feeling is the squeeze, working hard while the costs continue to go up. They feel it at the checkout, they feel it at the petrol pump, they feel it when the power bill arrives. Christopher Luxon and National promised to fix the cost of living; it has got worse. They promise to grow the economy; it has shrunk. There are 40,000 more New Zealanders out of work than when National took office, and more Kiwis have left the country than at any other time on record.

Christopher Luxon stood in front of New Zealanders and said help was on the way. It never came. Here’s who did get help, though: landlords got billions in tax breaks, the tobacco industry got tax breaks, they found millions for ferries that still have not arrived. But when it came, or when it comes to the things you actually rely on, their only answer is to cut. They won’t even tell New Zealanders what’s on the chopping block. New Zealanders deserve to know because, right now, everything is on the chopping block. New Zealand: you can’t trust National with your job, you can’t trust National with the health service. New Zealand, you can’t trust National with the economy.

Nicola Willis and Christopher Luxon have given up on New Zealand, basically. Three more years of this and nothing changes except New Zealand; New Zealand ends up worse off. When they tell you the economy is getting better, we all need to ask one simple question: better for who? If the vast majority of Kiwis are not feeling it, that means it’s not working, and three more years won’t change that. New Zealanders deserve a Government focused on what matters. National was elected to fix the cost of living; instead, they have made things worse and there was nothing in this year’s Budget that will provide any reprieve or glimmer of hope that things will get better under their watch.

I sat through a 15-minute hearing with the Ministry for Women’s Vote. Not much you can traverse in 15 minutes, but given the way in which this ministry has been minimalised under this Government, it quickly became apparent that there were very few answers on key issues impacting women that the Minister or the ministry were in a position to answer. Even the answers to pre-hearing questions were flawed; the first pre-hearing question: what outcomes does the Minister intend to achieve with the funding in this Vote and when are they intended to be achieved? Their response?” The funding is for improving the lives of New Zealand women, women nominees for appointment to boards and committees, support for the National Advisory Council on the Employment of Women, providing support for wāhine Māori claimants to participate in the permanent commission of inquiry in the Waitangi Tribunal judicial proceedings.” These are not even specific outcomes; they are largely outputs.

How can the Minister purport to improving the lives of New Zealand women, when a year out from being part of a Government that scrapped pay equity, the Minister for Women has said she has still not made any moves to monitor the impacts of the scrapping of pay equity. In fact, she not only has not sought to monitor it, she herself has not even read the well-traversed report from the People’s Select Committee hearing on pay equity.

I, like many others in the House, feel a real moral obligation to make sure that we do the mahi to ensure that women in these roles here in Aotearoa are paid what they deserve; they are essential workers. The demand on these women is not declining. When I listen to the Minister talk about increasing the number of women on the list of potential Government board appointments by 20 percent, I was dumbfounded. To what end? I’m a big supporter of more women on boards but what is the point of increasing the numbers of women on boards when they will then be confronted with a Government Minister who belongs to a Government that will not advocate for some of the hardest-working women in this country to get paid what they deserve?

With this Government in office, how can they possibly help improve the lives of women? How can they possibly improve the pay and working conditions for them and alleviate the many cost of living pressures they face? As Chris Hipkins said on the steps of Parliament the day that the Government announced their pay equity changes, Labour will reverse the changes that this Government have made to pay equity.

Dan Bidois: How will you fund it?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: We are committed to paying women what they deserve and, as the members of the public can probably hear from the shouting from the Government benches, they are not committed to the same things.

A couple of weeks ago, I was supporting the Sunday Blessings initiative at the Ellen Melville Centre in Auckland City. Social services and food services take turns preparing and handing out dinner parcels on Sunday nights. That week, it was Fair Food from my electorate that were providing the support. We gave out 250 parcels that night, but there were still more people arriving at the end after the parcels had been distributed. Michelle from Fair Foods was reconfirming what many others had said in the health and social service sector: the demand has doubled in the last two years. Those lining up for food parcels were a mix of peoples from a mix of backgrounds, from a mix of communities: Māori, Pacific, Pākehā, Asian, Indian, youth, children, disabled, and senior citizens. I’ll say it again: National were elected to fix the cost of living. Instead, they have made things worse.

Many of these people were also homeless. What a slap in the face to all of these people and others that are in similar circumstances to then open the paper the very next day to an article where the Government was celebrating increases in declines to people who were seeking emergency housing. A decline in the rates of emergency housing does not reflect people getting into the housing that they need. What did the Budget hold for them? Nowhere near enough. There was some additional funding to help house some of the people that have been pushed into homelessness, some additional houses for housing, but very little in the way of support for additional public housing builds. This Luxon-led Government made the conscious decision to dramatically decrease the public housing build programme that the previous Government started and then refused to acknowledge that the dramatic increase in homeless Kiwis comes down to the decisions and choices they have made.

I can’t speak to the issues of low pay, poverty, and homelessness without touching on jobs or the lack thereof. I participated in the Ministry for Pacific Peoples hearing during scrutiny week. One of the key roles of the population group ministries is to provide advice across Government agencies. For Pacific peoples that surely must include employment, with an unemployment rate of 11.9 percent, double what it is for the general population. You’d think the Minister would be pushing his ministry into overdrive to provide advice to address the desperate situation of employment for many Pacific whānau, but no. You could hear the tumbleweed rolling across the Parliament forecourt when I asked the Minister what advice he and his ministry had given the Minister of employment on the desperate rate of unemployment for Pacific peoples. This is off the back of a successful Ministry for Pacific Peoples employment programme being cut by the millions.

Everything has been on the chopping block for the Ministry for Pacific Peoples, a reflection of the way in general this Government has dismissed the needs of Pacific communities. I’m not going to shy away from stating on record that the under-resourcing and undermining of the ministry is a cynical attempt to prepare it for disestablishment in the future if the Government were to get another go. The Government will not get another go. New Zealanders do not trust them. They have gone back on what they have promised.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.

RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (16:12): Thank you, Madam Speaker. What a privilege it is to speak in the second reading of the Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill, essentially known as the Budget debate. There is so much good stuff to talk about.

If there was an award for the loudest speaker on the Labour Party side, I’d have to give it to Carmel Sepuloni. She’d definitely get the “Loudest Speaker” award. If I was to give an award for the silliest comment from the Labour Party, it would be really challenging. If I had to give the “Silliest Comment” award to a member of the Labour Party, it would have to go out for the jury. It would be really tough, because there are so many silly comments that are made, but I reckon Ginny Andersen—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Back to the appropriations, thank you, Mr Hamilton.

RYAN HAMILTON: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ll come back to that in the education section.

We are rebuilding the economy. We inherited an awful mess, with high inflation. With inflation, that is the biggest driver of the cost of living crisis, and we inherited a 7.3 percent inflationary period. We brought that down, with restrained Government spending, to now 2.25 percent. The OCR has continued to drop it down and stabilise the inflation rate, and now, for the first time, we’re seeing job growth and wage growth outstripping inflation—i.e., it is cheaper to buy things than it was when we came into Government. It doesn’t feel like that for many New Zealanders right now, but they can have confidence that we are on track.

After three Budgets now, our Minister of Finance has delivered prudent, fiscally responsible, disciplined Budgets. We’ve been able to deliver safer streets, stronger savings, smarter investment, and we’re doing that now with a path back to surplus. In fact, our path to surplus is now one year earlier than we expected, coming back in 2028-29, which is just fantastic to see. The Budget can be quite an overwhelming process for the general public. In fact, the Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations is over 900 pages, and it can be a lot for Kiwis, even us humble politicians, to get our heads around. We’ve got a little blue book here which is actually really helpful, and it’s called Budget at a Glance.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: It’s the Ryan Hamilton Idiot’s Guide.

RYAN HAMILTON: Well, Duncan Webb, if you knew what you were doing, you probably wouldn’t retire.

There are some bullet points I’d like to go through and talk through the Budget elements. “Secures New Zealand’s future by getting back to surplus and reducing debt as a share of GDP.” For the first time, we’re seeing the debt curve bend, which is just incredible. We’re investing to drive better results in health, education, and law and order. If there was to be one winner out of the Budget, it would have to be health, under the great leadership of Simeon Brown. There are some incredible investments that I’d like to just quickly talk on. In fact, this Government has committed to investing new money in health every year since we came into Government, and this year is no different, with a $5.5 billion investment in health.

I have to put my glasses on for this: “A $5.5 billion increase in funding for frontline health services.” One of the special ones was the funding for post-natal stays. I’d like to acknowledge the member for Tukituki, Catherine Wedd, who helped as a catalyst for this, the genesis of this idea, by extending the stays for mums. Rather than getting kicked out one night, sometimes two, after childbirth, they can now have three nights, appropriately paid and managed, which is just fantastic. What a great start for mums and babies coming into this world. The other really special thing was special specialist palliative care, and a new specialist paediatrician is going to be implemented every year around New Zealand. That is a tremendous thing for parents with children who are suffering, inflicted with cancer and other conditions, which are just terrible to deal with. That is really something special.

“An additional $54 million for Pharmac”. You recall, when we came into Government, there were these things called “funding cliffs” and Pharmac had a $1 billion funding cliff. Pharmac is one of those things that we take for granted. It’s the bread and butter of medicine for New Zealand. It’s the important, the essential, pharmacological support. We understand the need for time-limited funding sometimes—you have to put things in for a short-term measure; we saw a lot of that around COVID, for example. Maybe for Jobs for Nature—that sounds like a time-limited thing—but, for Pharmac, it needs baseline funding, and so one of the first things we had to do in Budget 2023-24 was correct that anomaly. We’re continuing to invest wisely in that Pharmac infrastructure, which is just huge. And, of course, “$35 million to boost support for road ambulance services.”, a much needed front-line service. They haven’t had a lot of funding, for a long time. They do an incredible job on the front line, and I’m really pleased to see them get the support they deserve out of this Budget.

Of course, the fuel crisis nobody saw coming, and we’ve talked about it. Thank goodness we’ve built some fiscal buffer into our resilience. Thank goodness we’ve got a Government that has created resilience around fuel supply and security. We’ve invested $90 million to give us an extra three days’ additional diesel supply in Marsden Point, which is fantastic. Of course, talking about targeted, time-limited support, the $50 per week in-work tax credit for working families—time limited—to help get through this period of crisis around fuel. It’s really important, and, of course, there is “$150 million for additional strategic fuel reserves”.

Infrastructure is something which I know we’re all passionate about on the side of the House. Roads of national significance, we love and we invest in, and in fact, we had a lot all set to go in 2017 when the new incoming Government mothballed those. One of those roads was Cambridge to Piarere, one of the most dangerous stretches of road in our country. I’m pleased to say, as a member from that region, that that is now completely funded: $1.7 billion. It’s an extra 16 kilometres of, I’d assume, 110 kilometres per hour, which is always great. It’s safe, resilient roading infrastructure. Roads aren’t just about cars; it’s about productivity, it’s about safety, it’s about building this economy and this country.

Our Opposition talks about electric vehicles a lot. They talk about the need to reduce fossil fuels, which we agree with, but the thing is that they still need roads to go on. We’re very much supportive of those sorts of things. Of course, Treasury tells us that for every $1 billion we invest, we’re going to see about 4,500 jobs, and we’re investing $7 billion in capital through the next Budget. Treasury is also saying, not just with the infrastructure investments we’re making but with the complete Budget forecast, with the fundamentals being reset, with the economy growing, that we’re looking at an additional 220,000 jobs over the forecast period. That is what we’re talking about: jobs, growth, employment, savings. It just keeps on going. It’s so good.

What about education? We just heard from the wonderful Minister of Education, Erica Stanford. There was a huge investment in packages to support infrastructure. The great thing is that not only do we invest money but we actually work out how we can do it better. The Opposition will spend more money and assume that means better outcomes. We know that’s not true. In fact, with school infrastructure, we’ve now got twice as many classrooms for the same amount of money—twice as many. As the member of Parliament for Hamilton East, I was fortunate to see Hillcrest High School being one of those recipients, with eight new classrooms to meet growth and two new learning support classrooms and, of course, for night and normal as well, four new classrooms. It’s not just about the curriculum, the syllabus, and the way we teach, but it’s also about the hard infrastructure.

I was referring to Ginny Andersen earlier when she said, “If I was the Minister, I would not have mandated testing, as important teachers are working within their schools to understand what works for your communities.” In other words, the Opposition thinks that if it feels good, if it looks right, and if the vibe’s good, then they’ll probably be all right. Why would we test our students? To see if they are not learning. Why would we test them? To assess maybe this isn’t working; maybe we could do something better. We test, we measure, we test, and we measure. This side of the House is pleased to see that influence coming through to the education area.

Another big area is defence, which is really exciting. When we talk about defence, it’s not just about our battleships and army; it’s about resources. It’s about the state and the conditions which our workforce is living in, down in Waiōuru and Linton and Burnham and making sure that they’re in homes that aren’t cold and damp and wet, and reinvesting in assets which have been sweated and sweated for such a long time. We are investing in our defence force because, as our Prime Minister says, national security is economic security and economic security is national security. They are interlinked.

This Budget is just the beginning, but it’s wonderful. Our future is bright. The opportunity is there for us to grab it with both hands. It’s a bright future for Kiwis. The changes coming in KiwiSaver, the changes in education, the changes in our police force, law and order, and education—it’s terrific. We’re fixing the basics and building the future.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) (16:22): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I have been itching to get up and offer a contribution to this appropriations debate. My goodness! Budget 2026 from this Government showed absolutely no plan, no ambition, and no vision for our country. There was nothing in it, and we know that was intentional. Actually, they themselves even went on and on and on about—what is it?—no lollies and no scramble. Yep, that’s it—no vision, no plan, no ambition. The Prime Minister and his Government, in the meantime, can find billions and billions of dollars in tax cuts for landlords, tobacco companies, the wealthy and the sorted, and fossil fuel barons; even appeasing a president who is not our own to make sure that we are appeasing his commands to spend up large on military equipment but not actually supporting the actual workers on the ground of the actual defence force. That’s what we’re hearing from the people on the ground: shiny equipment but no actual support for the actual people. I would love to see you answer to that which we’re hearing from the ground.

Then we had more slashes of funding for protecting the things that make us who we are—the natural places, our taonga species, the tracks that we love and enjoy, the huts, the rivers, the forests, and the incredible coastlines that we all boast about; slashed funding year on year under this Government because, actually, they do not see, and are moving away from, an actual purpose of conservation in the Department of Conservation—already under enormous pressure. The Budget documents actually show that the Department of Conservation is facing almost $400 million in unfunded cost pressures, but that is on top of the $194 million that this Government has cut from the baseline spending.

That’s not careful stewardship at all, it’s not ambition, it’s not vision, it’s not value, and it’s certainly not an enduring solution and looking ahead to the generations coming after us that we are responsible to. It is a structural deficit imposed on the very, very agency who is responsible for protecting one-third of the country. They determine the health of our native species. Our biosecurity programmes are all supposed to be properly resourced because they are there to protect us all, including whether pest control happens at the scale required, and those very fragile and very specific fundamental habitats that are unique not just to this country but to particular places around the country where you can find a plant in the North that does not grow in the South. These are very fragile habitats, and we’re a small country, and the fact that we have species and habitats that are special to specific places around our country just shows you how fragile they actually are.

Then this Government is asking DOC—the Department of Conservation—to do so much more with so much less. There are over 4,000 native species that are threatened or at risk of extinction, so what does this Government do? It slashes and cuts the baseline funding to them year after year after year. Biodiversity decline is not actually slowing down. Climate change impacts, including on living systems and habitats, are not improving.

Two of the most important areas that have been hit directly by this Budget and all the previous Budgets under National are predator control, which actually has been reduced by $7.5 million, and the asset maintenance, which has been reduced by $20.4 million. These are not marginal programmes; these are essential programmes. They’re the core business of our Department of Conservation, and they depend on the ability to protect native species and keep public conservation land accessible and safe. This is all about balance and correction to the habitat health that we so enjoy.

There were lots of cuts in taiao and in protecting our special places and our wild places alone, but I am absolutely wanting to pick up, in my contribution, on the changes that this Government is proposing, which are going to open up and enable development or disposal of conservation lands and shifts the Department of Conservation mandate from conservation towards development. There are plenty of other agencies who have that mandate, but they’ve gone and taken it from the very agency who are supposed to be conserving our special places, moving away from conservation. I’m hoping that this Government and these members of this Government can see the rightful uproar that is happening across the country from communities of all natures who are not going to get sucked in by the lack of guarantee that the Prime Minister and the Minister are trying to sit on the fence about, are trying to gaslight people into saying, “You’re scaremongering.”, yet they offer absolutely no guarantee that these special places will not be sold off to corporations and bulldozers.

“Just change and amend the law” is what we’ve been asking for. If the Government members think that people and agencies are scaremongering, then they should rule it out, amend the law, and put them in a safe basket in the legislation. All of those solutions are available to those members if they are upset and using words like “scaremongering”. Put some teeth into it. Show the guarantee to the country that you are, indeed, going to protect those very special places. If leaders in this House had the courage to fix our broken tax system, then they wouldn’t need to be opening up conservation lands to enable development and/or disposal to mega-corporates. But that is because they have handcuffed themselves when it comes to unlocking the resources that we absolutely have—to make sure that everyone in Aotearoa can live a good life, to make sure that we are prioritising the protection of these beautiful taonga species and these beautiful natural environments that we absolutely all adore.

I have seen the members of this Government take pride in natural spaces in their own electorates, in their own communities. I have been on fishing trips with the members of this Government who take pride in these natural spaces that we all love. And yet, where is the courage and the voice in pressuring your Minister to stand up and rule out the development or the sell-off of the most special places that are included in the scoop-up of this Minister’s bill? They have that option open to them. It’s still there; it’s not too late. They are able to show the communities who are rallying and organising and advocating right now that, instead of opening up our precious lands, they will, in fact, tap into the resources that we have, because Aotearoa does have enough. We just need to make sure that we can shift the burden of revenue for Government away from the ordinary working person—which is where it has been for a long, long time—and, instead, pay fair-share taxes. The super-rich and the megacorporates can pay their fair share, and we do not leave the burden simply on the shoulders of the ordinary working person.

I am proud that we have been showing the solutions that have been lacking in this Government’s Budget and, especially, to show how we can indeed protect and conserve our wild spaces. We do not need to rip them up and tear them open with bulldozers. And if the members think that I am scaremongering, then, again, they have it on their shoulders to rule it out—to amend the law, to put all of those precious lands in a safe legislative basket where they will not be touched, because the people will be with you. They are rallying up and down the country. They are giving these Government members a clear pathway to show some spine and show some spirit for the beautiful taiao that we should all be good ancestors about and protect for generations to come. Kia ora.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (16:32): It’s a pleasure to rise and bring this back to the debate that we are actually in today, which is the Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill. I listened to the previous member and, I believe, at least half of her speech was not even on the Estimates debate.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member was referring to spending on conservation throughout that last five minutes.

DAN BIDOIS: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I wish to respond to the member with a simple statement, because, as I listened to her, something dawned on me, and that is that this member believes that money grows on trees. I wish to say to the Hon Marama Davidson that there is no magic money tree; we either get the money off other people or off future generations. She needs to own up and tell the public of New Zealand how they’re going to pay for their spending commitments. But I digress.

This Budget was about securing New Zealand’s future. It is a Budget that continues to enable this Government to fix the basics and to build the future. In this fantastic document called the Fiscal Strategy Report, it outlines the fiscal goals of our Government with this Budget to boost economic growth and, in particular, real wage growth, which is all about real wages adjusted for inflation. The good news is that in this Budget, real wage growth is forecast to be positive. This Budget reduces the role of the State on the economy. For years, since the previous Government, the share of the economy devoted to Government spending ballooned, and we are reining it back and the forecasts indicate that.

Thirdly, this Government forecasts a return to surplus one year earlier than forecast, and that is great news for those of you who are concerned about the level of borrowing and interest bill in this country. Fourthly, this Budget puts us on a downward trajectory with respect to our debt. For those of you on the opposite side who have actually read the Budget—and, in particular, the Fiscal Strategy Report—you’ll know that the debt is forecast next year alone to be $216 billion. That’s $216 billion that the New Zealanders of this country will need to repay. We know from the Budget forecasts that the amount of interest on that debt is set to be about $9.7 billion in the 2027 forecast year, and that is unsustainable. This Budget helps close the lid on the fiscal numbers and puts us on a downward trajectory to pay down that debt.

I do want to acknowledge the hard-working Minister of Finance, who’s been doing an outstanding job managing the impact of the fuel crisis. We, of course, announced, as part of Budget 2026, a $50-per-week increase in the in-work tax credit, there’s additional funding for front-line services, and $150 million is earmarked for strategic fuel reserves. No one knows how long this is going to go on for and so we best be prepared.

My colleague Ryan Hamilton talked about the great news in this Budget for health. I do want to dive down into the specific items that I’m proud of. The first is $35 million in extra support for our ambulance services. Our ambulance services throughout this country do a great job protecting our men and women, and they are delighted to receive this additional support, I know—very much.

Second, we’ve got $54 million in additional Pharmac funding for life-saving medicines. We’ve talked about the three-day post-natal stay promise, which we’ve just allocated $34 million for. What we haven’t talked about in this debate is something that Simeon Brown announced, which was the lowering of the bowel-screening age from 58 to 56. That’s actually going to make a difference to well over 200,000 New Zealanders per year.

We had really good, targeted support for education at the primary school level to boost reading, writing, and maths achievement, and for more teaching resources for our students to help with literacy and numeracy. But, also, I want to talk about this fees-free, because I have had a bit of feedback about this. We scrapped this fees-free—and, to be clear, why did we scrap it? It was making no material difference to the outcomes on enrolment numbers or achievement—

Hon Penny Simmonds: A billion dollars.

DAN BIDOIS: A huge fiscal hole and cost, according to Minister the Hon Penny Simmonds. But, as a result, we’ve allocated those funds and we’ve been able to secure 20,000 extra places for the successful trades academy. That is great news for people up and down New Zealand to get into a trade. Remember that quote from years ago: “Got a Trade? Got it Made!” We believe that, actually, to be able to earn and learn at the same time is great for New Zealanders, and this project will and funding allows for that to happen.

Law and order was another winner in Budget 2026, with half a billion dollars for Corrections services: funds for new courthouses, new police stations—I understand Whanganui has got a new police station; that’s great news. We’ve got $21 million for tackling crime, as well.

There were a lot of other positives in this Budget. The alternative approaches—and talking and discussing this with the Minister of Finance, there were alternative approaches. If we didn’t make the tough decisions in Budget 2026 and in the previous two Budgets, that would have had a roughly $50 billion impact on the Government’s books. Looking at some of the alternative views from across this House around what they would have spent it on, it seems to me like there would have been a huge greater fiscal hole as a result.

And so we made some tough decisions around pay equity. The other side likes to talk about reversing that, but they need to be honest and upfront with the public about where they’re going to cut to fund those pay equity differences. We’ve come out with our fiscal hole of $18.2 billion. For those of you who have actually dived down and looked at the numbers, you’ll see it not only includes pay equity but it also includes this Future Fund that the other side talks about. They haven’t even spoken to us and to New Zealanders about where they’re going to cut, to fund that Future Fund.

This public transport cap—they’re not being clear with us about that either. We’ve just got to get that on record. I know it’s not part of Budget 2026, but it is a part of what else could have been done in Budget 2026. On this side of the House, we’re clear around our Government’s approach around strong fiscal management, getting the Government finances back to surplus, managing debt well and paying down our debt, and doing whatever we can to grow the economy because that is how we become a wealthier and a more prosperous society.

On that side of the House, they seem to think that this pie is stagnant. We don’t believe that the pie is stagnant.

Ryan Hamilton: Grow the pie.

DAN BIDOIS: You’ve got to grow the pie, as Ryan Hamilton said. In fact, every successful country out there manages to grow the pie. A Budget like this is targeted at making sure we can grow the pie so that all New Zealanders, no matter where they live, where they come from, can get ahead, can earn more income, and can provide for their family.

This is a good Budget. It is a Budget that secures New Zealand’s future, provides for growing real wages, a reduced state of the economy, a more prosperous nation; a country where we go out and back ourselves on the world stage, where we do trade with India and Middle Eastern countries, and every country out there, and people can succeed. It’s great for New Zealand. It’s all a part of our plan to continue to fix the basics in health and education and infrastructure, and also to build the future. We haven’t talked about KiwiSaver, but we will talk more in the future about KiwiSaver. We had a great policy announcement at the weekend, and I commend this bill to the House.

Hon ANDREW HOGGARD (Minister for Biosecurity) (16:42): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to rise in support of the Budget 2026/27—or whatever the official name of the bill is. As the previous member was talking about, the Budget isn’t a lolly scramble. It’s not an episode of Oprah. You can’t just hand out free stuff left, right, and centre. You know, that’s not how it works.

I’ve come here, to Parliament, from running my own business for 28-odd years, and I’ve always done a budget. The key thing about it is making sure you get the basics right within that budget, making sure you’re balancing, you’re investing in the things that are important. What are the things that are going to grow your business, and. in our case, what’s going to grow the economy? What is the stuff you just have to do? What are the key things that have got to be done year in, year out? That’s the key thing for a budget. It’s not about—and, you know, I’ve heard it in previous Budget debates—this attitude that everyone somehow gets something or their life is determined by what gets handed to them in a Budget. No, the purpose is for us to set up a structure that the economy can run and individuals can make something for themselves in this life, in this country, because they’re empowered to do it because we’ve got the settings right.

We have worked on that. We’ve got inflation down—under control from where it was; interest rates back down. These are key things. For any business to be able to flourish, you need those interest rates down, you need that stability; you don’t need out-of-control costs. So that’s key thing that we’ve been doing over the last three years, and, obviously, we’re getting a lot better at it in this Budget now, as well. I think that returning to surplus a year earlier is absolutely so critical because you’ve got to be able to live within your means.

Now, I want to touch on three things that I thought were, particularly for me and the ACT Party, really important in this Budget. Number one is something that the ACT Party’s been talking about for a while now, and that is getting spending under control and right-sizing the public sector. You know, we’ve had a situation where the Public Service just exploded and blew out. It’s good to finally see that we’re making more cuts there.

We’re looking at consolidation. Obviously, in the ACT Party, we’ve talked about the need to consolidate more, to have less ministries, to have less Ministers, to make sure a ministry is directly accountable to a Minister, to be able to drive the efficiencies and the effectiveness of those Government departments.

We hear about that story of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), and, supposedly, I’m one of the few Ministers that doesn’t have a responsibility with MBIE. I think virtually every other Minister does have some sort of area where they control in it. That, to me, is so critical. You cannot have good outcomes and productivity where you’ve got a ministry that just doesn’t know who’s in charge, who’s calling the shots. You’ve got to have those clear lines of accountability—so important. Now, we’ll certainly be campaigning on more of that coming up, but, to me, that is really important.

I’ve heard some scaremongering out there: that it’s all going to be about cutting the front line—in particular, in one of my areas, biosecurity. No, it is not, because the key thing that people seem to miss is that those front-line services are cost-recovered. When you come back into the country and you pay—or maybe I think it’s people visiting us—that border levy, that’s what funds those people on the front line. So that service is dependent on how many people are coming through. If there’s lots of people coming through, we’ll get more money, we’ll need and be able to afford more people to do that work on the border. That’s how it works.

Any cuts that are made or efficiencies that are gained will be in the back room, and there’s certainly stuff we are doing in biosecurity to look at how artificial intelligence (AI) can help to deliver things a hell of a lot faster. Import health standards are taking far too long to develop; AI offers great potential for us to streamline that and make it a lot more effective so our plant breeders can get new genetics into this country so much quicker.

The other thing I’m quite keen to talk about, and I think it was probably the really important thing in the Budget that didn’t get the attention it deserved, is the $294 million that’s going into the implementation of the Resource Management Act—oh, sorry, the replacement of the Resource Management Act. That was one of the problems with the Resource Management Act: implementation was never done properly for it. We had all these courts and everyone else trying to decide what it meant and how it worked, and it led to the mess we’re in now. Now, this investment is going to go into ensuring that we’ve got an awesome IT network that sits behind all of these plans.

Now, an example that the Minister shared with me was if you want to know how can I do something in my district, my region, wherever? I mean, the example I used was if the neighbouring farm were to come up for sale and I was to purchase it—and, yeah, Mark, if you’re watching, I am still interested. At the moment, suddenly you have got to go and trawl through the regional council rules and regulations and all this other stuff and work out, can I do this? Often, people will go and hire a consultant and spend a whole bunch of money on a consultant to work out what they can actually do with this land or business or whatever it may be that you’re investing in. This system will enable you—assuming we can get it built right and done correctly—just to be able to go online and go, “What can I do? What are the rules? Can I have dairy cows on this bit of land?”, and “Yes, you can, and here are the rules you’re going to follow.” That’s going to make things so much easier for people to get into business, do things, get ahead, and create opportunities, rather than having capital just sitting in bank accounts waiting for consultants and all the rest, and going through rigmarole and process, That money’s doing nothing sitting in a bank account, but if we can speed this process up, then that money is moving through the economy, it’s doing stuff, and spending on other businesses who are also then spending and doing new things. That’s so important. We’ve got so much capital in this country that’s just sitting idle because we’ve got this culture of saying “no” around resource management. So that’s why I think that’s such a critically important piece of this Budget, that just didn’t get the attention it deserved.

Now, finally, the final point I want to talk about, and of course it’s my favourite, and that’s the $79 million that’s going to go into controlling wilding pines. So yep, get your chainsaw started—in a safe manner, of course—or whatever works for you. Obviously, I’ve got a sore back, so standing upright works well. But look, this is so critical. We’ve all heard about the challenge that wilding pines play across the high country. It affects 2.2 million hectares—I think was the number, or somewhere around that—could potentially go up to 7 million hectares of land. When it does this, not only is it cutting down the ability for animals to graze pasture, because it’s covered in wilding pines, it’s also impacting biodiversity. The member before was saying, “What’s this Budget doing for biodiversity?” Well, getting rid of these wilding pines is a huge win for biodiversity.

I remember visiting the Branch/Leatham station north of Marlborough, and just seeing—there was one valley that was absolutely choked with wilding pines. There was nothing—you could barely move through these trees, there was nothing in the understory. It just looked an absolute desert. Just these spindly little pine trees; everything was dry. Go over to the next valley: native bush, absolutely idyllic New Zealand scenery. That’s what we want more of.

It’s not just about the biodiversity, it’s also about our energy sector. You know, these trees can suck up a huge amount of the water that’s in a catchment. They’re very preeminent in the areas where we’ve got our hydro lakes. That’s taking water away from electricity generation, impacting the cost of living for all New Zealanders, but also impacting our irrigation for our agricultural sector and our horticultural sector. You know: they don’t have water, they can’t grow—that impacts food prices.

So overall, I think it’s a great Budget. We of course would have probably gone a bit further with some of the cost cutting in terms of getting the right size of Government, but there will be more opportunities for that in the next three years, I hope. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The next call is a New Zealand First call. I understand it’s a split call.

Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Minister of Customs) (16:52): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on behalf of New Zealand First for the Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill. I think what I want to highlight first of all is there has been such a clear example in this House today as to the reason we cannot let Labour hold of the purse strings again. Because their deputy leader stood up, and after two years and two Budgets of the “tax cuts for tobacco companies” they still cannot comprehend the fact that you actually allow for reduced excise if you want people to stop smoking. That is the point. But that side of the House cannot seem to understand what is the difference between a tax cut and a responsible Budget. A responsible Budget allows for those conditions that you need to meet within your fiscals to deliver a Budget.

Therefore, I just think we need to get rid of this despair, get rid of this idea that we are in doom and gloom times and actually start thinking about—we all left the Budget debate and went to Mystery Creek. We stood in that space talking about our economy, talking about the hope, the opportunity that exists because this Government has done what’s needed to invest in growth. I think that is a fantastic message.

But I just want to use my few minutes to actually talk about some of the really positive things. Yes, we came in with a commitment to fix the cost of living, but we also came in with a commitment to get law and order back in control. That is exactly what we’ve delivered. We continue to deliver it, and this Budget did exactly that. With the $70 million investment into Customs to strengthen our border, to actually ensure we’re doing the things that matter to front-line services, to make their jobs easier and better. That is about upgrading X-ray equipment, strengthening security of Customs facilities and Customs controlled areas, new defence equipment and enhanced training for the protection of the customs staff, and increased capacity to store and manage seized illicit goods. These are the practical things that this Budget delivered that seems to get lost in this discussion. It is fantastic to see those initiatives being delivered.

We also touched earlier on the boost to ambulance services. Now, there will be the contract negotiations and the costing uplifts of the contract terms for ambulance services, but this was an additional $35 million delivering practical things. This is about establishing two ambulance hubs in Auckland—essential for those workers working in the front-line to be as efficient and effective as possible. Deployment of electronic patient clinical records, additional training and support for ambulance communications centre staff, and additional clinical resource to improve safeguarding of patients. That is what this Budget does. This is the delivery of practical things that make a difference in our everyday lives of our hard-working Kiwi battlers that are out there making New Zealand the great country it is.

Then, just recently, we’d also announced the investment of an additional $75 million to the aged residential care providers. This is another uplift that has been delivered to the care sector to ensure we have a sustainable system moving into the future, as well as the work we’re doing on totally reviewing. But one of the other practical things that I think is a really positive step for recognising the importance and value of our older New Zealanders is about changing the SuperGold card into a primary form of legal ID—something that is practical, something that is usable by all of our seniors to make their lives just that little bit easier and a little bit safer. Those are the things that I think this Budget really is important to deliver.

We’ve also just a really small investment that is about this front line, about our communities, about our people that are out there making our communities safer and stronger. That is the investment that was being delivered by police into Community Patrols of New Zealand, Neighbourhood Support, and our Pacific Wardens. That investment is about those regional and small communities that actually rely on those volunteer services. It is fantastic, proactive stuff that makes this country what it is. We are tight-knit communities. We go in and we rally for each other. This investment is exactly that. We are investing in infrastructure—we’re building our police stations in Greymouth and Whanganui. There is great stuff in this Budget, and I am—without hesitation—commending it to the House.

Hon MARK PATTERSON (Minister for Rural Communities) (16:57): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to take a call on behalf of New Zealand First in this Budget Estimates debates. Looking at it through my lens of Minister for Rural Communities, and, actually, as one of the many Members of Parliament that has just come back from the Fieldays—and if you want to see the recovery in action, you should have been at the Fieldays. The buoyancy there, the prosperity there that was on display through the incredible uplift in our exports from that critical primary sector, our rural communities, absolutely thriving. If we look at I think 6 percent up above even what we thought back in December, the last time when the SOPI report—the Situation and Outlook for the Primary Industries—came out. So it’s absolutely fantastic. New Zealand’s economy is under way; it is coming over the hill in Red Bands, as it always does.

Look, in terms of the Budget, it was great to see us with a number of initiatives supporting rural New Zealand. A few were actually announced post-Budget at the Fieldays through the appropriations, some of them big. There was a $140-odd million land use change package where we’re going to work very closely with various sectors to look at how they can sustainably change land use into higher values while still protecting our environmental sustainability. A really smart, targeted investment to help us in our ambition to actually double our exports. You know, it’s great that we are up to $64 billion, we need to get that up to around $100 billion to fulfil that goal. So there’s still work to do, the trajectory is really encouraging, but we know that we’re going to have to keep investing strategically to help these sectors along the way.

Some of the smaller ones, though: the emergency management package—there was some funding in there for Taskforce Kiwi, and anyone that’s been in the involved in emergency response has seen the evolution of this new group of volunteers, primarily from a services background, Armed Services, Police, Fire, that are organising themselves into groups to help with the response to our severe weather events. So some funding for Taskforce Kiwi to help them in those endeavours, I think, was a really, really good spend. As was, as part of that package, our rural advisory groups that advise in the response and recovery: funding to upskill them to get them forward planning—to give them the capacity to forward plan as more of these events seem to be occurring.

Some of the bigger stuff within the Budget, in the time that I have left: the rural resilience; the roads—those six highways that we are upgrading: Awakino, the State Highway 2, the Tākaka Hill Road, State Highway 6 down in Haast, and a couple of others. That’s absolutely critical. They’re key choke points; they’re being hit by these weather events and are really impactful for our rural communities. So I’m very pleased to see that funding.

The 10,000 new jobs for the skills and trades academies, the pivot away from fees-free into actually building the skills that we need, particularly in our rural communities and our primary sector—things like chainsawing, so that Andrew Hoggard does know how to properly start a chainsaw. Tokomairiro Training in Milton is a great example, and I know—Minister Hoggard and I have actually been there, so I know he does know how to do it properly. But those sorts of initiatives are going to get increased funding and an extra 10,000 places. I know my colleague the Hon Shane Jones was very instrumental in bringing that forward.

But my very favourite investment was the $8 million from the Primary Sector Growth Fund that got invested into the Wool Source pigments, particles, and powders. I know tomorrow—oh, it’s the 25^th actually—everyone’s on tenterhooks to see the next bull auction. We’re going up, by the auction , 8 percent last week. We’re all on tenterhooks to see how it’s going to go tomorrow, but we have to get out of that commodity space. It’s a great trajectory we are on, but the pigments, particles, and powders is a game-changer for the wool sector, where we take it into a high-end bio-agent to go into dyes and inks and nutraceuticals. That’s in the hundreds of dollars a kilo opportunity. This could transform the wool sector and get it past our ambition of returning to a billion dollar industry for New Zealand. So much to be grateful for in the Budget. Thank you very much.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): This call is also a split call.

NANCY LU (National) (17:02): I stand to support and commend the 2026-27 Budget announced by the National Government at the end of last month. Particularly this Budget, as noted on that cover, is securing New Zealand’s future. I think this is the important part, that, particularly given the condition we are in, the global uncertainty and also the major disruptions that we have experienced domestically in New Zealand, we, as a country, need to look forward. And we, as a mature Government, the National-led Government, need to be able to provide to New Zealanders that vision of security and a prosperous future. This is exactly what Budget 2026 is doing.

Budget 2026, announced by the National Government, is fixing the basics and building the future on many, many fronts, particularly, overall, the Budget is fixing the basics by returning the Government’s surplus one year before the forecast by Treasury. Budget 2026, and, in fact, the two Budgets beforehand, also led by the National Government, has, overall, $50 billion of savings across the three Budgets. Budget 2026 also has borrowing down by another $6 billion. This, in my professional work as a chartered accountant, is what I call fixing the basics for the books at the Government.

It is also building the future. It’s already seen in the work done by the National Government in the last 2½ years, particularly noting the latest GDP growth number issued by Stats New Zealand of a 0.8 percent growth in quarter one in 2026 before the oil crisis in the Middle East.

This is a Budget delivering for the security and the prosperous New Zealand future, but also by delivering investment projects and capital projects that would offer 220,000 new jobs for New Zealanders. Now, that’s 220,000 new jobs for all New Zealanders with the forecast that the average wage growth will outpace the average inflation for New Zealand. So that means, New Zealanders are getting better security in having new jobs and a career path to grow, but also having better prosperity in future wage growth that would outpace the inflation.

Now, this Budget is also fixing the basics and building the future in health by investing an impressive amount of capital Government budget into front-line healthcare. That includes something that is very personal to myself, which is extending to new moms of newborn babies, a three-day post-natal care. As someone who has had the lived experience of a very horrific birth giving birth to my daughter, this is a very practical Budget policy and Budget investment that a caring New Zealand National Government is delivering for all new mums and new babies. That also includes the new capital invested into, for example, expanding or developing or redeveloping different wards for hospitals across New Zealand.

Now, this Budget, Budget 2026, is also fixing the basics and building the future for infrastructure. Like I said a bit earlier, the Budget, invested and committed by the National Government, will create 220,000 new jobs in the next four years and that is from ready-to-go, shovel-ready projects—in fact, for some of them, the construction has already started—in new roads, in new bridges, and like I said a bit earlier, in the hospital wards, as well as solar panels for schools, and as well as, for example, building resilience upgrades and also upgrades to New Zealand rail. Now, that is what I call a Budget that is building for the future that New Zealanders need.

Now, this Budget is also fixing the basics and restoring law and order for New Zealanders by already exceeding our Government’s target of reducing victims of crime by 46,000 victims—that is 46,000 individual victims as well as their families and friends in the communities that they’re in. That’s what I call fixing the basics. But the Budget is also invested into building the future for a safer and more secure New Zealand in terms of better front-line policing, so they have the funding and the tools to continue to provide a safer community for New Zealanders; and expanding and building into more courthouses and also Correction services.

Now, very quickly: fixing the basics for education. As a mum of two young children, this is the most proudest moment that I see from this Budget, which is building the future for the younger generation in New Zealand by giving them extra classrooms, better classrooms, better teaching materials. So I commend this Budget to the House.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) (17:07): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to rise to speak on Budget 2026 and follow on from the great contribution from my colleague Nancy Lu.

Budget 2026 is about securing New Zealand’s future. It’s really easy to come to this place and spray money around, particularly when it’s not your money, and to promise the world and put lots and lots of funding behind it. But sometimes you have to be the adult in the room and sometimes you have to make the difficult decisions. Just like every New Zealand household is experiencing, we, as a Government, have to live within our means, and that’s what this Budget this year has focused on. It would be really easy to promise the world and to increase our taxes, increase our borrowing, but guess what? It’s my generation and the next generation that would have to pay for it. That would make us an Afterpay Government, and that’s simply not what we are.

Because decisions we make today impact future generations, if we increase our debt today, it’s my generation and the next that would then have to fund the borrowing that comes with those decisions and the repayments required on the interest associated with that. We, as a Government, have said, “No. We will put future generations’ interests at heart in preparing and delivering this Budget by making the right but tough decisions so that we can set our country up for success in the future.”

One example included in this Budget is the redevelopment of the Tauranga Hospital. We are now New Zealand’s fifth-largest city, and our hospital is in urgent need for an upgrade, and I’m delighted to be part of a Government that is delivering that redevelopment for our community.

For so long, many people across Tauranga and the wider Bay of Plenty have cried out for the redevelopment of our hospital, and finally, our community has got a Government that cares and is doing something about it.

The Budget focused on four primary things: create jobs with a growing economy, and lift wages. In this Budget alone, wages will grow faster than prices, making life more affordable for everyday Kiwis. Our second focus was to keep taxes low by restoring fiscal discipline, so we avoid further borrowing and tax increases. We’re cracking down on crime; 49,000 fewer victims of violent crime across our communities. That’s 49,000 families who don’t have to put up with the disrepair and destruction that that violent crime has impacted on them. In our Budget—

Hon Dr Deborah Russell: Not counting domestic violence, of course.

TOM RUTHERFORD: It is part of this Budget, because we’ve increased funding for our front-line services. If we just think about one example, we are increasing the funding we’re giving to upgrade police stations in Greymouth and Whanganui, but, additionally, $34 million to go to St John and to our ambulance services across the country—

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Oh, man, you’re giving me more material!

TOM RUTHERFORD: —the men and women who, every day, put on their uniform and run towards the danger—run towards the danger. The other side laugh—they laugh at the expense of our ambulance services across the country. They think it’s a joke—they think it’s a joke—that those men and women who put on their uniform every single day is a laughing matter. That is a disgrace from that side, that our men and women who work in our ambulance services are a joke to that side. They should hang their heads in shame—they should hang their heads in shame that they think it is a laughing matter.

Finally, the fourth priority of this Budget was to improve outcomes in health and education.

Hon Willie Jackson: Oh, you’ve done nothing there!

TOM RUTHERFORD: If we want to make the greatest investment in our future generations, it wouldn’t be for Willie Jackson to resign; it would be for us to invest in our education sector. It would say to our future generations, “We care about you, and we’re going to set you up for success.”

This Budget was fiscally responsible. Many will say, “Where were the sweeteners? Where were the lolly scrambles?” But many Kiwis are saying, “Thank goodness we’ve finally got adults in charge—those who know how to fiscally manage our country’s finances and keep us on the straight and narrow.” Not tax and borrow our way to prosperity, but actually live within our means and bring us a brighter future. This Budget is securing New Zealand’s future. We’re fixing the basics and building the future.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour) (17:12): Well, when it comes to healthcare, the one measure that matters in this Budget is whether it makes it easier for New Zealanders to get the care that they need in a GP clinic. The fact is that the answer is no. In fact, since the Budget has been announced, there have been more cuts announced to health services in the central North Island. Thousands of jobs have already been laid off by this Government—particularly impacting those who look after the health data and digital systems—but now we’ve moved on to front-line cuts in the Te Manawataki part of the central North Island, where over 126 clinical jobs are set to go.

This Budget does not set New Zealand up for sustainable healthcare delivery. No, it is cutting healthcare delivery, and people are losing their jobs right now because of it—psychologists, cancer care workers, physiotherapists, social workers, counsellors. The Government promised no cuts to the front line, and that was a lie. They can find millions of dollars for tobacco companies and for landlords, but they can’t find money to make it more affordable to see the doctor or to make sure that our doctors and nurses in our public hospitals can continue to work there.

We’ve had women’s cancer care cut in the lower North Island. Women from this community are having to travel to Christchurch in order to get cancer treated. We’ve had efforts to cut maternity beds; we’ve misled mothers about the three-day stay policy—we absolutely have—and that is why the bill is going to have to be amended by the other side of the House. You’ll recall that the three-day post-natal stay proposal was for a three-day post-natal stay, but now that’s going to be amended so that it’s clear that they can’t deliver on their promise in the first two years to anyone except new mothers, and after that, only half of the eligible women will be actually funded to have a bed. If more than half want it, they won’t be able to get it.

I’d like to take my colleague’s points up about ambulances. Well, that was an unimpressive delay by the relevant Minister at Estimates hearings. She could not explain how on earth the small contribution—less than $10 million a year—was going to meet St John’s deficit between their operational costs and the amount they’re funded for, which is more than $100 million. She could not explain it, and yet that same Minister, Minister Costello, had made statements in the press, gloating about this announcement because it was more than 95 percent of St John’s costs covered. Absolutely not true.

You might have noticed that Christopher Luxon has stopped talking about the cost of living. He’s given up on fixing it. Well, Labour has not. We’re focused on what matters. Affordable healthcare: we know it’s got more expensive to see a doctor in the community under this Government; we know that costs of maternity scans are going up to $90 across the country—quite a lot when the average woman needs five scans throughout her pregnancy. We know that the cost of prescriptions means that 155,000 New Zealanders are not getting their prescription, and we know that cost remains a barrier to women getting their cervical screening. What did the other side decide to do about it? Nothing. Nothing but write mean things about Labour’s policy on the internet.

By the way, they are obsessed with Labour—they are obsessed with Labour, absolutely—but what they can’t justify is the fact that healthcare is getting more and more expensive. A lot of people are missing out. Before we get lectures from the other side about the fact that they want to see healthcare better targeted, well, go ahead—do it! You’re the Government. Go make sure that the 650,000 New Zealanders who can’t afford to go to the doctor, can’t afford to go to their community GP—go make sure that they actually get care. But you’re not: costs have gone up under your Government. Make sure that the 155,000 who can’t afford their prescriptions get it: you’re not doing that either. You implemented a complicated policy that meant many working New Zealanders cannot afford their medicines.

We know that when people cannot get these basics—ambulance call outs, pharmacists, their prescriptions, access to cervical screening, to their general practitioner—looking after them gets more expensive down the line. That’s the problem with this Budget: it’s all short-termism, under-investment, kicking the can down the road—and I should add, by the way, that for the first time, there’s no money in the out-years for increases in health cost pressures. This Government is underfunding the health system.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (17:18): We’re debating the Budget in the House, and I think it’s worth stepping back just for a minute to say, what is the Budget? Well, it’s the summary of initiatives, the economic and fiscal update—it’s numbers [laying stacks of Budget documents on desk], after numbers, after numbers, after numbers, after numbers. It’s all about the Government’s plans for the future, and it’s a dense set of numbers.

The Government has talked numbers. It’s talked about—and this was in a speech today from the Hon Louise Upston—getting inflation down. They say that they got it down from record highs. It’s worth remembering that when that Government took office, inflation following the pandemic had come down. It had come down by then, to a number that was still high—4.7 percent—and it was on its way down. Under their watch, inflation is now going back up, thanks to the decisions that that Government has made.

They’ve talked about their record on jobs and what they want to do for jobs. But under that Government, since they took office, 40,000 New Zealanders have lost their jobs—40,000 more people on their watch, when they are responsible for the books. There are 40,000 more people out of work. On their watch, when they are in Government, business liquidations are at a 15-year high. This is the Government that touts itself as being a responsible manager of the economy. What kind of manager is it when there are 40,000 more New Zealanders out of work and when business liquidations are at a 15-year high?

There was one very salient thing that one of the speakers spoke about. That was the money that was being put into the food distribution system. This is, in some ways, a good venture. It is money being put towards helping organisations gather and then distribute food to food banks. As I’ve said, when I visited Fair Food in Avondale—which does exactly that job, gathering food from supermarkets, from hotels, and from producers and then redistributing it to food banks—what it shows is that we have now industrialised our system of food banks. When food banks first started appearing, they were a temporary thing. They were run by churches to help out people in temporary need. They were small and low scale. These days, we have become so wretched in this country that we cannot feed our own people and we have industrialised the system for helping food banks to run. That is a huge shame. While that Government might tout the numbers it’s put in to supporting the food distribution system, it ought to be a mark of shame for our country that we have done so little to support our people and they must rely on an industrialised surplus system for food banks. The figure that was given was 4.5 million meals a month being assisted through the money that this Government is putting in there. That is a mark of shame. That is not a good thing at all.

What we need in this Budget was some signs of a vision for New Zealand, some signs that there was a plan to help New Zealand get on its feet again, and some signs that there would be assistance for ordinary everyday people to deal with this cost of living crisis. Was it there? It was not. They say two things when we say, “What are you going to do to grow the economy?” One is they say they’re going to reform the RMA, but that just ignores the fact that they chucked out the five years of work that we had done on reforming the Resource Management Act and said, “Oh, no, we can do it better.”, and that it is still not being done. They wasted all the work that had already been done. Then they say, “Well, perhaps you could support the fast track.”, but we had a fast-track Act. If they didn’t like it, it was up to them to change the bits they didn’t like, instead of chucking it entirely out and bringing their own one in. That is a wasteful Government. It’s a Government that has wasted the time and effort of this House, that has thrown out good work that was already done because it was done by Labour, and that has gone its own way, ensuring that New Zealanders are doing it tough.

CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki) (17:23): Look, we secure New Zealand’s future by growing a stronger economy This is what this Budget delivers, a responsible Budget focused on growing our economy and lifting wages, investing in the things that matter—health, education, and law and order. Budget 2026 forecast the economy to grow and shows that wages are growing faster than prices. What does this mean? This means that New Zealanders will have more to spend. It also projects 220,000 more jobs. On this side of the House, we have an economic plan, and that member, just then, spoke about plans. Well, on that side of the House, all we’re seeing are more taxes promised, more spending, and more debt. On this side of the House, we are all about fiscal management and responsibility, and that is what this Budget delivers.

Look, a personal highlight of this Budget for me was the funding for better post-natal care, supporting my three-day stay member’s bill, so that we get better outcomes for mums, families, and babies across New Zealand. Look, it was really disappointing to hear that the Opposition members are not in support of this, because it is really important that we do support better post-natal care for mums. This Budget invests $34.4 million over four years to expand post-natal care, maternity beds, and workforce support. This is a good thing. This means mothers matter. We want to support our mums and babies because having a baby is one of the most special moments in your life. But, hey, it can also be really overwhelming having to grapple with so many things when you have a new baby, and mums deserve that support. I was thrilled to see our Government supporting new mums and babies. As a new mum, you shouldn’t be forced to leave the hospital or a birthing unit when you aren’t ready. Having a baby is a really special time, and you need that support. This is what Budget 2026 does. It puts more support towards post-natal care, and I encourage members on the other side of the House to get behind this, because it means that mothers have choice and it means that we have better support for mums, families, and babies across New Zealand.

Let’s talk about the Budget’s record investment in health, especially health infrastructure. This is particularly exciting because Hawke’s Bay Hospital finally has the investment committed for the first stages of its upgrade. Our Government is the Government of infrastructure, and, wow, are we seeing roads, hospital buildings, and classrooms progressing at pace across the country—on time and on budget, I might add. In fact, it was wonderful to visit the Hawke’s Bay Expressway yesterday and see this project driving forward at pace, because this is the project that’s been talked about for years and years and years but no one has delivered it. Well, construction is well under way, it’s happening, and our Government is delivering it. Now, we have the commitment to our Hawke’s Bay Hospital, another project that’s been talked about for years that, finally, we are committing to.

We’re already seeing a wonderful upgrade of our radiology department. We opened that. Of course, the radiology department is the beating heart of our hospital. Then we’ve seen the construction of a 28-bed ward, which is also progressing at pace. It’s going to be so exciting to, very soon, be able to have a new linear accelerator cancer treatment machine in our region, which will mean that families do not have to travel to Palmerston North for their cancer treatment. We’re seeing a real investment in health from our Government. We’re putting patients first, and we’re wanting to see better outcomes for patients.

Education is also another huge area that we’re laser focused on—lifting performance in education—and it’s great to see a real focus on classrooms, on new infrastructure. Just this week, we’ve announced three new classrooms for Raureka School, which is going to be fantastic, a school in Hawke’s Bay. On this side of the House, we’re committed to fixing the basics and building the future.

Hon Willie Jackson: Mr Speaker.

MILES ANDERSON (National—Waitaki) (17:28): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You’re a bit early there, Willie. Look, I wanted to talk about a couple of initiatives from this Budget that really impact the Waitaki electorate. In the Waitaki electorate, we have the Otago Central Lakes region, and the Otago Central Lakes region represents 70 percent of the people who live more than two hours from a hospital, and they have been missing out on health services for quite some time. We’ve announced $180 million going into public health services in the Otago Central Lakes region. Phase two of this will be full maternity care, which is really important. Forty-nine percent of expectant mothers leave the area to have their babies because they don’t have the emergency care required when something goes wrong in the birthing process. Over the next three or four years, there’s going to be transformation in the Otago Central Lakes region. It’s going to make a big difference to Dunedin Hospital, which takes all those patients currently, and that’s going to have a knock-on impact for South Otago and North Otago, and they’re going to be able to get access to Dunedin Hospital much faster.

The second initiative that really pleased me is the announcement of an extra $79 million for the wilding conifer elimination and eradication process. In New Zealand, there are 2 million hectares of wilding pines. That’s an enormous area. Most of the wilding pines are on Crown property, and the bulk of them are on Department of Conservation (DOC) land. It’s estimated that 1.995000 hectares are on DOC land. They currently spread at 90,000 hectares a year, which is an enormous amount.

They are problematic in so many ways. Not only are they gobbling up land, changing the landscape, but they also are water hungry. For example, the catchment of Lake Pukaki, which represents 43 percent of New Zealand’s stored hydro water: at the current rate of spread, it is estimated that anywhere between 30 percent to 50 percent of that water will now be gobbled up by wilding pines. That’s going to lead to some major hydro challenges just for the Pukaki catchment—and that’s just one lake: Tekapo, Ōhau, Hāwea, Wānaka, and the Waitaki hydro schemes are all at risk from wilding conifer.

There’s also a fire risk that is posed by wilding pines. We had a sneak preview of what the fire risk is like a few years ago when we had the Ōhau fires. Because of the topography of the country around where the wilding pines are spreading, it makes it very, very difficult to fight those fires. Access is difficult, the topography is steep in most cases, and a fire has the potential to burn for months and months and months.

The other area that wilding pines are really causing issues in is indigenous biodiversity. There’s a photograph—an iconic photograph, I’d call it, because I took it—that’s been in a number of publications, showing the difference between a fenced-off area of land, probably 400x100 metres square—

Hon Willie Jackson: Get to the point.

MILES ANDERSON: I’m getting there, Willie—I’m getting there, Willie. Outside of that area, the area’s grazed. Within the fenced-off area where the wilding pines are taking over, there’s only one native species. Outside of that area, there are 18 native species. So that’s an indication of what the wilding pines are doing, not only to our—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The member’s time has expired.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour) (17:33): That’s a hard act to follow. That was riveting stuff from that member. I want to thank you very much for the brilliant speech. It’s sad, as we’ve listened to some of the speeches today, how naïve this Government is in terms of the damage that they’ve been causing in terms of our Māori, and not just Māori communities—I’m going to talk about Māori development, obviously—but in terms of our communities right across the country who have suffered because of the terrible, terrible Budget.

In terms of Māori, things couldn’t be worse. We’ve got 11.5 percent Māori unemployment at the moment; we’ve got record Māori youth unemployment at the moment; 60 percent of the homeless are Māori; homeownership in terms of Māori is at a record low; Māori health outcomes are getting worse by the day. So it’s a sad state of affairs that, when we turn and we look to who should be supporting us—and it surely has to be our Minister for Māori Development, our Minister for Whānau Ora, the Minister of Conservation, the Minister for Māori Crown Relations, Minister Potaka. But what have we found in terms of Minister Potaka? He’s trying to sell off as much conservation land as he can before anyone notices. It’s as simple as that. He’s taken the self-interest of Shane Jones’ Fisheries Amendment Bill and applied it to our conservation land for the mining interests and property speculators.

It’s sad what’s happening. The Government’s coalition policies have negatively affected all Māori institutions, our te reo, and every Treaty-related issue. Funding decisions have disproportionately harmed Māori communities, so much so that Minister Goldsmith’s previous Minister, Chris Finlayson, is now hanging his head in shame at the work of this coalition Government. He came out very clearly the other day—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: You always blame me.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: You know this is right, Minister Goldsmith. Chris Finlayson was very clear: the Māori-Crown relationship is at an all-time low. Why? Because of this useless Minister Goldsmith over here and Minister Potaka, who’s been a disgrace in terms of what he’s been delivering for Māori. It’s all culture-war politics, and Tama Potaka has sat there while his fellow Ministers are watering down Treaty causes, and while his fellow Ministers are taking funding away from Maōri in the housing area and the house area.

The question’s got to be asked: what has Minister Potaka and these other Ministers delivered in terms of Maōri over the last three years? The reality is virtually nothing. Yes, maybe $12 million for the next 12 months—$12 million from the Minister for Māori Development for the interests of Māori. Absolutely disgraceful. Where is the money for Māori housing? Transferred out to the mainstream fund. Where is the money for Māori health providers? There’s nothing happening. All that’s happening from this Government is constant attacks, in terms of Treaty clauses, watering down Treaty clauses; attacks on the Waitangi Tribunal; attempts on the language, te reo Māori—and we have a Māori Minister, aided by Minister Goldsmith, aided by useless Māori MPs on that side who sit by and do nothing in terms of these attacks on Māori. It is a shameful state of affairs.

The books may balance, but families and the whenua don’t. That’s just the reality. The Government has money for roads but not for people. This coalition is spending billions while delivering less. You have to ask the question: what are you doing for Māori? Rather than supporting Winston Peters’ nonsensical strategies with regards to te reo and Māori words, how about supporting Māoris in their communities? Shane Jones had to dump his Fisheries Amendment Bill because it was so full of fish-hooks that it was just nonsensical. How long will Minister Potaka’s privatisation of Department of Conservation land last before he is forced to do the same?

That’s the reality. People are denying it out there. The reality is, in terms of a Māori development budget, it has been virtually zero. Māori people are rising up, Pākehā people are rising up, communities are rising up. Look at the polls; look what’s happening. They’re going to get rid—we’re going to get rid—of this useless, rotten Government. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti) (17:38): [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

[Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

Aotearoa are warming up to Matariki. Like Matariki—the promise of a new year—Budgets should also promise new hope. This Budget is absolutely bereft of hope. All we’ve heard is numbers straight out into the air—ideas, promises. We already know this Government promised to fix the cost of living. You only need a stroll through your electorate to see you’ve failed. This Government have not fixed anything, in spite of all the ideas thrown out there, all the promises.

Just to add to the list of broken promises in the last 2½ years, you know what we haven’t heard? People. We haven’t heard how this is going to impact whānau; grown families who are moving back in with mum and dad, with their children, in spite of working. There are whānau in Wainuiōmata who are taking their growing families and moving back in with their parents because, in spite of working, they cannot afford to live in the Aotearoa governed by this National-led coalition. We’re not hearing about whānau in the Hawke’s Bay who are watching services close and leave their communities, whānau who are telling us that when costs increase, so does domestic abuse, and yet they are seeing services close and leave their communities.

We’re not hearing about whānau in the Wairarapa who are noticing an increase in homelessness. We are not hearing about the support for farmers still devastated by the recent weather events in Tairāwhiti and Wharekahika. We’ve heard ideas and promises that allude to all these things, but never people-centric policy or people-centric spending.

Katie Nimon: I just don’t think you were listening.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL: Oh, no, don’t worry, I was listening and so was Aotearoa. Worse than listening, member for Napier, people are living it. People are living the broken promises of this National-led coalition. They are listening with their hearts and their souls because they are suffering.

Now, you know why this Budget is also flawed, further to the fact that it is not people focused. I’ll give you an example, and that is the Māori economy, which is often lauded in this House, an economy modelled No. 1 on whānau, people, whakapapa, longevity. Not just three-year ideas about projects for now and for another three years, if you get that far. It’s focused on whenua, and our connection to it. In this Budget, you hear a lot about land use—the use of land. You don’t hear about the connection and the value beyond financial outputs in this Budget. That’s why it’s flawed. That’s why people around Aotearoa are hōhā, and that’s why I’m so proud to stand with the many across Aotearoa who opposed the potential sale of bits and bobs of whenua around this country—whenua that may seem like bits and bobs to members opposite, but represents significant value to whānau. And of course, there’s whairawa—whairawa. Naturally, people can make money. The Māori economy has proven that—$126 billion—it’s probably actually worth more. We need to measure the value that our Māori businesses and iwi put into our economy more effectively.

The point is that’s why whānau across Aotearoa are hōhā—they’re exhausted—because every promise that we hear from this National-led coalition is bereft of hope, and it is not focused on the people who actually build and sustain an economy.

[Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

[Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

and I would like to welcome Te Maringi Haerewa, the newest member of the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti team, servicing the Tairāwhiti from Pōtaka to Ūawa. Tēnā koe e te Māngai.

KATIE NIMON (National—Napier) (17:43): Look, it’s a great opportunity to speak to this wonderful Budget on behalf of the people of Hawke’s Bay and northern Hawke’s Bay. Following that performance from the member opposite, I can talk about the things that are in here for everyday families and people in Napier, Wairoa, all the way up to Poverty Bay.

This has been what I think is a really substantial, back-to-basics Budget. No frills, not saying, “Oh, we’re going to do this big spandangled Budget.”, and then not deliver it, which we’ve had from previous Governments. We have got an extra $5.5 billion of funding into healthcare. We don’t hear that from the Opposition because that’s not convenient for them.

Let me take you through some of the amazing things that we are seeing for everyday people. Look, on the surface, it might sound like this is for councils, for property developers—they build houses for people; they build houses for people and family to live in. So look, I’m going to take you through some of these highlights.

Financial incentives for council to consent more housing growth. Who benefits from that? Everyday Kiwis looking for homes in their communities. We are going to incentivise development and growth in our regions. This is a big deal.

Another one that I think is key, especially for the people—

Cameron Luxton: Grown-up thing to do.

KATIE NIMON: Yeah, I know, isn’t that nice?

I want to see more spending in education in Hawke’s Bay, and look at that. We’ve had it. A huge increase in funding for education across New Zealand. And in fact, that is the future economy for our entire country. The better educated our Kiwi kids are, the better that we succeed. Now, this is a massive spend in secondary achievement, but also across the entire sector. We’ve got primary as well as secondary, but we’re having the roll-out of the change from NCEA to the New Zealand Certificate, which is going to make a massive difference. The better we have a global benchmark for our students, the better they can achieve. But one thing I’ve been saying, and I really think is important, is we want global standards for our kids, but we want those global opportunities to be in New Zealand, and more importantly, I want those global opportunities to be in the Napier electorate.

The other thing that’s going to make a big difference for everyday Kiwis is pushing the banks to pay more for financial regulation. Now, on the surface that might seem like a sort of bureaucratic financial change, but that is one less thing for everyday Kiwis to have to pay for. We don’t want to put up taxes. We are the party of less taxes. So guess what? We see banks making profits. We make them pay for the services that they benefit from.

More changes across social development and employment, across healthcare. Now, part of that $5.8 billion of extra funding into health—let me talk about the redevelopment design for Hawke’s Bay hospital.

Cameron Luxton: That’s not for people, is it?

KATIE NIMON: It is for people, Cameron Luxton. Now, Hawke’s Bay hospital— we’ve actually had a really contentious conversation over the last wee while as to whether we redevelop the current site of Hawke’s Bay hospital, which is on Omahu Road, or whether we go for a greenfield option. While greenfield sounds like a really exciting option, the best value for money for everyday Kiwis, and the best promise of constant—sorry, continuity is the word I’m going for, thank you very much—is expanding the site that’s there. We have a wonderful footprint. We have just invested in the radiology department that has recently been opened by Minister Simeon Brown. We have got a 28-bed inpatient unit being built at the moment which is being delivered on time, under budget, which is really exciting. All of these things are part of that master plan and that programme. This Budget saw money for the redevelopment design for the Hawke’s Bay regional hospital. This is a big win for Hawke’s Bay.

We’ve got a additional funding for resilience work. Now, access to—

Hon Member: Very important.

KATIE NIMON: Yeah. Access to Gisborne, the Poverty Bay flats from Ōpōtiki, the Waioweka Gorge State Highway 2 is incredibly vulnerable; we’ve seen that under recent weather events. The Government has committed more money to ensuring that the resilient access to infrastructure, to economy in Gisborne prevails. Now, that effects the entire region, but, of course, we saw an immediate impact when those weather events shut down access to that area. We want to make sure that people can get places, access education, access healthcare, access business, and move food around the country.

Another thing we did was double the trades academy places for high school access to industry. Now, this is massive. We’ve been to the Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT) a number of times and EIT is a huge part of Hawke’s Bay, and we have schools—

Hon Penny Simmonds: Great polytech.

KATIE NIMON: We do, Minister for Tertiary Education, Penny Simmonds; a fantastic polytech that is really delivering outcomes for our regional industries. They want to see more trades places at trades academies. We are delivering that as part of our Budget.

In my final few seconds, as a new mum, there is a 1.5 percent increase to early childhood education (ECE) subsidy rates, which means a lower impact on young families putting their kids through ECE so they can get back to work.

Dr CARLOS CHEUNG (National—Mt Roskill) (17:48): Budget 2026 is about fixing the basics and building the future. It is a Budget to support New Zealanders at every stage of life, from birth through to retirement, while investing in the services and infrastructure that will strengthen our country for generations to come.

It begins with giving every Kiwi the best possible start in life. This is why Budget 2026 funds three days of postnatal care for new mums and their babies. Those first few days are critical and this investment ensures families receive the support they need during one of life’s most important moments.

As our children grow, education becomes the foundation for their future success. This Budget continues our education reforms, including changing the NCEA—reforming NCEA, building more classrooms, ensuring young New Zealanders leave school with the knowledge and skills they need for success in a changing world. We are also investing $69 million to double trades academy places to 20,000 alongside free trade training, creating more pathways for young people to gain critical skills and build rewarding careers. Of course, skills and qualifications must lead to opportunities. This is why Budget 2026 forecasts the creation of 220,000 new jobs over the next four years. These jobs will be driven by major infrastructure investments in roads, rail, hospitals, and other projects that not only strengthen our economy but improve the lives of everyday New Zealanders. At the same time, vocational and skills-based—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Members down the back, if you’re going to have a conversation, please leave the Chamber.

Dr CARLOS CHEUNG: At the same time, vocational and skills-based pathways will ensure young Kiwis are ready to take these opportunities.

As people build careers, raise their families, and contribute to our economy, they deserve access to quality healthcare. Budget 2026 delivers an additional $5.5 billion for front-line health services, helping reduce pressure on our healthcare system and improving access to care. We are also investing an additional $54 million for Pharmac to purchase medicines, ensuring more New Zealanders can access the treatments they need. Looking to the future, this Budget also includes capital investment to support planning for a potential fifth public hospital in Auckland to ensure our health infrastructure keeps pace with our growing population.

Besides health, a strong society also requires safe communities. This is why Budget 2026 provides an additional $50 million for front-line policing, helping to keep our streets safe and supporting the officers who work every day to protect New Zealanders. These investments contribute to New Zealand being recognised as the second-safest country in the world. Let me repeat: the second-safest country in the world.

As we move into middle age, preventative healthcare becomes increasingly important. This is why this Budget extends eligibility for the bowel cancer screening programme to the age of 56, helping detect illness earlier and improving health outcomes for thousands more New Zealanders.

When New Zealanders reach retirement, we continue to support them. Budget 2026 invests another $36 million to make the SuperGold card an official form of identification, making it easier for seniors to access services and participate fully in their communities.

This Budget follows New Zealanders through every stage of life, from birth through to retirement, from supporting mums and babies to educating our young children, creating jobs, strengthening healthcare, building safe communities, improving preventative health, and supporting our seniors. It is a Budget that fixes the basics while building for the future. It is a Budget that invests in people. Like the previous speaker said, “It’s all about the people.” This Budget is about the people. It’s about creating opportunities and it helps ensure that every New Zealander can look forward to a brighter future. We are here to fix the basics and build the future. I commend this Budget to the House.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) (17:53): I would like to know if there is just one thing in this Budget that helps Kiwis with the cost of living—just one thing. Because I’ve listened to all of those speeches, all of those points from that side of the House. I’ve been listening really clearly, and I haven’t heard one single thing that would help New Zealanders struggling right now with the cost of living. Not one thing to help with buying food at the end of the week when there’s not enough money to buy bread for the school lunches, to pay rent or go towards your accommodation costs. There’s nothing in there that helps Kiwis pay for their rent and their accommodation costs that continue to go up. There’s nothing for transport, at a time when transport costs have got higher. Nothing to help New Zealanders pay for getting to and from work, to and from school, to and from training—nothing in there for those New Zealanders. And there’s nothing in there for those parents who are struggling to even buy clothes for their kids in winter as it gets colder. There is nothing in this Budget at all that helps New Zealanders with the cost of living.

It goes dead silent over there, because all we’ve heard so far about what this Budget has evidently done for New Zealand is somehow make the economy better. But it hasn’t—it hasn’t. Because, if we look between the forecast for 2023 and the forecasts that we’ve got right now in 2026, we can show a stark contrast in the economic deterioration that has occurred under this Government’s watch. GDP growth went from 2.8 percent in 2023 to 1.2 percent in 2026. GDP per capita growth: 1.5 percent to 0.6 percent. Unemployment: from 4.8 percent, now to 5.5 percent under this Government’s watch. Inflation: 2.2 percent to 4 percent. All the while, debt $4 billion higher than forecast when this Government came into action. So not only did this Budget not give Kiwis anything to help with the cost of living pressures that they’re currently struggling with, but it didn’t even do what they promised, which was to make our economy better. It has actually deteriorated under their watch.

What I think has occurred is National’s actually given up. They’re walking away. They’ve given up on actually even trying to address the fact that the cost of living is a problem for New Zealanders. That is really sad, when there are so many families out there who are just struggling to try and get by. There is no actual change to what’s happening right here in the Wellington region, where we have seen record numbers of liquidations. Businesses that actually withstood the global financial crisis, businesses that withstood the shocks of COVID, have folded under this Government’s watch. In my main street in Jackson Street, I’ve visited businesses that cannot any longer survive the economic downturn that has occurred in Wellington due to cuts and the downward spiral of our local economy. People know that. People know that that has happened under this Government’s watch. It has detrimentally impacted, whether it’s a hairdresser, a restaurant, a cafe, a nail technician—all of those small businesses that rely upon Kiwis having a bit of money in their back pocket have had to close their doors permanently because there is nothing here to help New Zealand get going again.

When I think about whether or not National has given up, we only need to look at their conference that happened on the weekend that was held in the Hutt. When Chris Bishop himself was asked about the seat of Hutt South, he said, “Well, that’s traditionally a Labour seat.” Case in point, they’ve given up—they’ve given up. They’ve even conceded in this own area. National has not given one piece of evidence of how they are delivering on the cost of living crisis for New Zealanders. That speaks for itself.

Because when we meet people in the street, when we talk to the mum trying to make lunches out of no food, when we meet with the kids who need an extra pair of shoes but mum or dad can’t afford those things, when we see those elderly seniors who can’t afford to buy anything except a can of soup and some crusty bread that they’re eating day after day because that’s all they can afford to purchase and their nutrition goes down because that’s all that they can afford to buy, this Budget gave nothing to those Kiwis that are struggling to be able to just feed themselves, to be able to make basic repairs on their homes after a weather event, to be able to get on a bus and get into town, to be able to keep themselves warm in winter. This is a heartless Budget, because at a time when New Zealanders are suffering more than they have ever done before, there is not one scrap thrown out to those people who have got their hands out waiting for something. What they’re waiting for, I think, is a change of Government before they will ever get a decent cost of living response from people who care.

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

Sitting suspended from 5.58 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Good evening, members. When we broke for the dinner break, we were debating the Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill. The next call is the second half of a split call.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa) (19:30): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ve been thinking about the way that New Zealanders have trust and confidence in Governments. Today, we’ve spent our time in the House talking about the Public Service coming along to Parliament and giving answers that New Zealanders can have faith and confidence in, and at a time when around the world elections feel increasingly tilted and major parties aren’t speaking to the concerns of people, it is incumbent upon not only public servants but all of us in this House to maintain the trust of the people and make sure that we are governing in their interests. That is why it’s hard to sit on this side of the House and listen to backbenchers on the Government side reading their speech notes about all of the good things in this Budget that they say will change New Zealanders’ lives.

Ordinary New Zealanders are pretty reasonable people. They will give you a fair go if you are defending your Budget and the idea that austerity will be the thing that will help them, because that is part of a story which we also, as New Zealanders, are telling ourselves, which is that we have to pull up our socks in times of global uncertainty but that things will be hard. There are New Zealanders out there who are working harder and longer hours to pay for their bills, and they believe in having this Government deliver for them because they are told that if they work hard, they will be able to afford the groceries and the power bills and they believe that they will be able to save enough for their families to get ahead and for their children to buy houses.

We hear these speeches that tell us that small, incremental change for things like maternity care will make up for the deep and lasting cuts to our Public Service, and for the most vulnerable people in our society who need it the most right now, it’s pretty hard for them to stomach that, and it is pretty hard to look at our Government and find that trust and confidence that we need people to have in Aotearoa. This was a Budget that was balanced by shifting cost on to the people who are already three steps behind.

Young people are out of work in record numbers, one in five of them—100,000 New Zealanders are out of work, most of them young. There is nothing in this Budget for those working people who are putting in hundreds of job applications now that they have been laid off, or who are paying to go to job interviews with petrol that is more expensive or buses that are more expensive because of this Government’s choices.

There is nothing in there for the disabled people who will lose access to the vital care and support that they need in our community, and the Government has responded by putting up rents for social housing tenants. Who is that? That is the man I met on Sunday who was in a wheelchair, living in a social house—a Kāinga Ora house—with his disabled son. The Minister has said that this Budget will make it easier for him to get a house, and so he is earnestly looking to Government MPs to tell him how, when a Government Minister is cynically making that comment, knowing that he has put up his rent by $31 a week, and that will make him worse off.

Just to win the argument, and just to make a good speech, the Minister has said that 30 percent of these tenants in social houses can afford to pay more. That is a cynical assessment based on one night of census data. When we need people to have trust and confidence in Government and to fill in the census truthfully, he has used that data at an aggregated level to make decisions about what he thinks people can afford. This is the same Government with Ministers who have said that these people had “effectively won the lotto”, and it is shameful.

Youth homelessness is at an all-time high, and those things are connected. Last week, there were two brothers who were dropped off by one of their family members to sleep under the eaves of the Methodist church. There is nothing in this Budget that helps them. We were lucky to have LinkPeople assist them and reach out to them, and they saw this as being urgent because, they told me, it was a matter of days before they would be injecting meth. Meth because it’s cold and meth because that is the best thing in their lives, if you are 17 and 20 and you are brothers who are sleeping, homeless, on the streets in South Auckland. There is nothing in this Budget that will help them.

What could this Budget have done? It could have addressed rising grocery prices, which we know are a problem in our economy. They’re a chokehold on small businesses, as well as on the people who rely on the grocery duopoly to get by. It could have addressed petrol price shocks, which are hurting workers and manufacturers. It could have addressed insurance costs, which are rising. It could have addressed personal debt, which is papering over the cracks for too many families.

Is anything in our economy more affordable now than three years ago? From a Government that stood at the election hustings and said, “We will fix the cost of living.”, this is one more thing where ordinary New Zealanders, who are doing what they have been told to do—they are saving as much as they can and they are working more hours—look at their institutions and say that it’s not true any more. The deal is being broken, and they’re the ones who are being asked to pay for this Budget.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I understand that this is a split call.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (19:35): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Budget 2026 by this Government is a far cry from what the people of Aotearoa truly deserve. On one hand we see a Government that is pandering to the super-rich by their tax cuts for landlords, their tax cuts for tobacco companies, their tax cuts for offshore oil and gas companies, and by their selling off Aotearoa one piece at a time with Investment NZ.

This is not just us saying it. As we saw in the National Business Review just last week, the wealthiest in Aotearoa, collectively, have added $27 billion to their assets in one year. What does that mean in context? Minister Nicola Willis has said that we need to tighten our belts and we need to have austerity measures, and, therefore, the net operating package in Budget 2026 is $2.1 billion for the entirety of the country, while the wealthiest, who own more than more of half of the people in Aotearoa New Zealand, added $27 billion—more than 10 times this Government’s operating budget—in one single year. That is disgraceful. Those are the decisions—and they are political decisions—that this Government has made.

Those are the political decisions that this Government has made, on one hand pandering to the super-rich, and, on the other hand, punching down on those who need support from this Government the most. We have seen them punishing our beneficiaries over and over and over again while giving tax cuts to the super-rich.

We have seen that in Budget 2026. To give a specific example in one of my shadow portfolios, if we are looking at education, we have seen further centralisation and further politicisation by this Government when it comes to education. We have seen that, once again, the budget for the operational fund for schools has not met inflation. For schools, they received a 2.5 percent increase when inflation in the Government’s own fiscal strategy is going to increase to a peak of 4 percent, not to mention that it’s even higher for schools when you’re looking at a fuel crisis.

When looking at the previous year, the Budget had an increase of 1.5 percent for operational funding when the forecasted Consumers Price Index (CPI) was 2.3 percent. This year, for early childhood education, the increase was 1.5 percent while the CPI was 4 percent, and so we continuously see that the Government has undercut, underfunded, and, effectively, cut our education budget—not to mention that to match operational funds with the CPI was a National Party election commitment in 2023, and they couldn’t even meet that. That is disgraceful.

We have seen that the changes that this Government has made with KiwiSaver have meant a $700 million fiscal hole in its Budgets both last year and this year. This was confirmed in this year’s Budget when it did not factor the KiwiSaver cost pressures for teachers as part of that, and so another $160 million needed to be added in this year’s Budget for that fiscal hole by the Government changing the KiwiSaver settings.

We have seen that this Government, effectively, has punched down and has screwed over teachers, nurses, doctors, public servants, lawyers, academics, workers, students, women, migrants, Māori, young families, disabled communities, and rainbow communities, not to mention the environment. So who is this Government really here for?

Hon Matt Doocey: The working people.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: Apparently not, because what we are seeing is that this Budget does nothing for the working people. We are not seeing any of those benefits going to the working people.

What we need to see—and the Green Party has developed it—is, therefore, a tax system that is for all of us. We need to have an education system that is for all of us, a health system that is for all of us, and public infrastructure and digital infrastructure that are there for all of us. We’re not seeing any of that in this Budget, so the Green Party will not be supporting Budget 2026.

SCOTT WILLIS (Green) (19:40): Thank you, Madam Speaker. We have seen further evidence, from this Government, through the Budget, of the chaos, the confusion, and the clear incompetence of the Government, and I don’t say that lightly. In line with this Government’s fascination with fossil fuels, the Government decided to reallocate funding from the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund to ensure we funded the liquefied natural gas (LNG) procurement process. The high spot prices from 2024 revealed clearly to the Government something that they simply weren’t aware of before—surprisingly, that we have a dry year occasionally. Their first response was to say “hard cheese” to industry and to manufacturing. It was to say “hard cheese” to those people in the regions losing their jobs. It was to say “hard cheese” to those people facing unemployment. Little by little, it seems to have clicked that this is not a winning strategy for votes. It’s not a winning strategy for votes in the region. It’s not a winning strategy if you want to get re-elected.

That’s when LNG became the solution for a Government bereft of ideas and unwilling to lead, for a Government tied to the fossil fuel sector, and for a Government that campaigned on electrifying New Zealand but is actually seeking fossil fuel molecules instead of our renewable electrons that are available if we only went looking for them. The Budget tells us where we’re going with this Government, but you can’t drive to the Rapture in an SUV.

During scrutiny week, the Minister for Energy clearly stated that, whether the power companies wanted it or not, the Government will require them to buy LNG—no ifs, buts, or maybes. It’s guaranteed. You’ll be required to do it. When they are compelled to pay, they’ll pass that cost on to ordinary Kiwis, who are already struggling with the cost of living. We’ve heard from the big power companies that they don’t have any need for LNG. They have firming secured till 2035. There is no need for our LNG. The Sapere report by David Reeve, Stephen Batstone, and Corina Comendant has also rubbished the LNG proposal for the electricity sector. It’s a rushed response by this Government, who really doesn’t know what it’s doing. The Concept gas market outlook report says that the electricity sector is in good condition with the forward curve indicating no expectation of dry-year stress at least until 2029. And yet the Minister is seeking to force the gentailers to pay for LNG when it’s not wanted and it’s not needed, at a time when the orange narcissist who squats in the White House continues to cause chaos with his warmongering, threatening fossil fuel deliveries. Kiwis aren’t fooled by this Government’s claim that the power companies will somehow not pass on the LNG cost to consumers. Kiwis aren’t fooled by that. If the Government forces them to take LNG, of course that cost will be passed on. This Government seems to have become high on the fumes from a gas well.

Winter is hitting hard in the South, and those working at the front line report more energy hardship than anywhere else. Sumaria Beaton-Sikisini, the general manager of Awarua Synergy in Invercargill, said that “showing up in cold homes, constrained budgets, and tough choices between heating and other essentials”, that’s where hardship is shaping up. I have been into numerous homes in the deep South. I’ve been into homes where the black mould was like paint in the bathrooms. I’ve been into homes where there are holes in the floor where there needs to be repairs done. I’ve been in homes where people are really suffering, and yet this Government claimed $8.5 million of savings from the Warmer Kiwi Homes programme in this year’s Budget. That’s $8.5 million taken from the people most at risk. That’s $8.5 million taken from our most vulnerable. Not only are we condemning Kiwis to greater hardship; we’re going to push more hardship on them.

Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula) (19:45): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This year’s Budget is a credit, I think, to Nicola Willis, who has delivered a very sensible Budget at a time where it could be tempting to offer some lollies and some excitement for the general election. This has been a very careful Budget, and when I say “careful”, it’s because this is a time in the world where there is uncertainty and national security is at risk all around the world. Our Prime Minister has explained our strategic plan to make sure that we are playing our part in the world, that we are securing our own future, fixing the basics in our own place, and securing our place and building our future so that we can contribute further.

One of the ways, actually, that we need to be self-sufficient and secure in our future is in our energy sector. The previous member speaking claimed some strange things about the energy sector, but it is important that New Zealand is aware that this Government is delivering more renewable energy projects than has been delivered in the last eight to 10 years. It has, in this Budget, committed to co-paying and funding more electricity generation through Genesis Energy. We have committed to the Solar on schools programme, reprioritising some funding from the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority on to the schools so that they’ll have solar panels and batteries or other ways of redistributing electricity within their own schools to reduce their bills but also to improve the security of the electricity in their communities. For them, across the country, having a wide, distributed solar system is very important. We’ve got more investment into geothermal, into wind farms. It’s how you set up the system to be able to enable those that is very important and practical.

In this time of uncertainty with fuel supply, we’ve also put aside money just in case more disruption occurs; $450 million has been put aside as a contingency in case we need to extend and fund more initiatives because of fuel insecurity; $150 million is for families who are getting the in-work support payment. That’s continuing on until we get to a point—and we’ve been very careful to define a time and a targeted population of people who get this money, and we’re being very careful to explain when it will come to an end. Once fuel prices get below $3 a litre for more than four weeks, that subsidy will end. We’ve also funded for more fuel to be landed in New Zealand, so we’ve got an extra nine days, I think it is, with 90 million litres of diesel that’s onshore. All of those things that we are doing are creating security of our energy supply, whether that be for driving our industries or for heating and warming our homes.

Energy is the absolute core of our security as a nation, but also so is our defence force. That’s why we’re increasing our budget, looking after our people within our defence force, looking after them by making sure that they stay working for us. I’m hoping that that will mean better working conditions and pay—but also where they live, the homes for them, and their working conditions and where they work on bases.

We’ve already had a process of updating facilities within our bases. Glad to see some of those happening, including some in Burnham Military Camp where I used to work—the medical treatment facility has been upgraded there, not from this Budget but from previous. So these are continuing on and it’s important that we fix these basic requirements within our energy sector and our Defence Force so that we can continue to be safe and secure here at home, and develop our industries, but also contribute overseas. That’s another way that National is fixing the basics and building the future.

SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga) (19:50): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s great to be able to stand on behalf of the Government and support the Budget that was sent through the other week. It was a good Budget; a confident Budget from a party and a Government and a country that is turning around and fixing the basics and building the future. It was a sensible Budget. It’s always tempting at this time of the cycle to go spraying money around, and we’ve seen that happen. But we are a sensible Government and we know that that isn’t the way to fix things. The consequences of that sort of recklessness will be incredibly, incredibly damaging. We’re about fixing the basics, Madam Future—we’re about building the future, Madam Speaker. My apologies.

It was a good Budget for Tauranga—and that’s a confident region, if I’ve ever seen one. It reminds me every time one of our Ministers from Wellington comes up and he says, “Sam, this is a fantastic electorate. I can just feel the positivity—people out there building stuff and getting ahead.” We saw the Tauranga Hospital redevelopment—desperately needed for a growing city. People keep coming because it’s so good. You’ve seen the GDP growth in Tauranga almost double the national average since 2000. Significant population growth as well. We saw $1.8 billion into the Cambridge to Piarere, which will connect it to State Highway 29. We need to keep going, and I can promise you I’m going to keep pitching for a tunnel through those Kaimais as well, because we need to boost our productivity.

We’ve got the best port, the biggest port in New Zealand, and we need to be able to get those goods from the port out to the rest of the country, and more importantly, our world-leading primary produce from the Waikato and from our horticulture regions into the port and out there to the world. We are New Zealand’s gateway to the world, and frankly the Port of Tauranga also needs its berths approved. That needs to be extended, and I’m getting pretty sick and tired—I know a lot of people are too, and it’s having a significant economic impact on us at home and it’s holding up our country. But I was back in Tauranga on Friday, I got back to see the Young Grower of the Year awards. You want to see how good positivity looks? You get into Tauranga and you go and chat to young people working in horticulture. They are smart and they are innovative and they are the next generation. We’re up at $6 billion now, kiwifruit, as an industry. It is going from strength to strength, and its industries like kiwifruit that are going to help us double our exports by 2035.

Now, what was in this Budget for health? I can tell you what was in there: a significant amount. Building on record investments from previous Budgets, a $5.5 billion increase in funding to front-line services from a Government and a Minister. Thank you, Minister Doocey, as well, for all your work and some incredible mental health statistics coming out there from our first mental health Minister.

We are making sure that we focus the money on the front-line services, we’re delivering for patients. That is what we are focused on. A number of new hospital rebuilds and redevelopments; I’ve already mentioned Tauranga, but there’s a few others in there as well. I know Dr Reti was instrumental in the Whangārei Hospital redevelopment upgrade, and he’ll be very proud of that legacy as he is soon to depart this House. Thank you, Dr Reti.

Law and order also got significant investment, and you don’t see it in the news anymore like you did three years ago because the problems are nowhere near substantive as they were previously. That’s the main—if you don’t have a country with law and order, well, what happens? It slips away; people don’t want to be there anymore. We’ve got that under control.

I also want to give a brief mention, in this short five- minute speech, to our wonderful education Minister Erica Stanford, and all that she has done. She was up in Tauranga recently, and everyone loves her wherever she goes around the country. She continues to invest, and we’ve seen it through this Budget—$131 million in teacher and learning support, a $74 million package to support the implementation of refresh curriculum. And frankly, Minister, if it wasn’t you, it wasn’t our Government in charge of education, my wife and I would be seriously considering where we send our kids to school. Our kids are all at State schools; we’re very proud to have them there. But I wouldn’t have that confidence if it wasn’t a National-led Government and Minister Stanford in charge of it, because we saw the mess that we had previously, the horrid declines of a future of New Zealanders, a generation of New Zealanders’ potential left to waste because the Government didn’t care and didn’t fix the basics, didn’t lay the foundations. Well, our Government is laying the foundations, whether it be in the economy, whether it be in the export space, whether it be in health, law and order, defence, education, the National-led Government is fixing the basics and building the future.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour) (19:55): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I often think it was one of my greatest privileges to start my political journey when Grant Robertson was the Minister of Finance. He understood the value of Budget documents, that they are more than the numbers on a page. He called them “moral documents”. He said that “A strong economy is important, but we must not lose sight of why it is important, and it is most important for us all to have better lives.” It’s not just an accounting exercise; it’s a statement of priorities and values. The inverse is also true. When we see what isn’t funded that tells us what’s being devalued, what this Government does not value.

Today, I want to talk about priorities, because the Government is making decisions here. They are continuing to support some questionable priorities at the cost of other expenditure. There is an ongoing choice to give tobacco companies a 50 percent reduction in excise on heated tobacco products. So that’s lost revenue—lost revenue which I believe is in the millions of dollars—that could otherwise be spent on areas to address the cost of living. It is a choice to prioritise the tobacco industry. Members of the Government benches talk about lollies being given out or not, and say they’re not giving out any. There are lollies being given out. This is simply a choice.

One of the things that the Government has, unfortunately, very sadly chosen to devalue is our natural environment. Now, I’m an MP based in Waitakere. It’s beautiful. We live in the Waitakere Ranges; it’s an area that Bob Harvey refers to as “the lungs of Auckland”. In New Zealand, we’re extremely fortunate to have such a rich and diverse natural environment. But what we know in the area, in the Waitakere Ranges, is that you cannot just assume environmental protections. They need to be legislated for, they need to be budgeted, and our community champions on the ground need to be supported to continue those protections. But sadly, we’re seeing the opposite—in successive Budgets, and now in this one.

We’re seeing the disestablishment of the Ministry for the Environment. Government members will argue that that function is being rolled into the superministry and that we’ll see better outcomes in terms of housing and transport and environmental outcomes. But that claim, I would argue, is hollow after more than two years of sustained cuts to environmental staffing, funding, and programmes. It’s also quite revealing when we have Ministers who will use the words that “the pendulum has swung too far towards environmental protections”. What happens when budgets are amalgamated is we have a budget blur, and what I will be watching very closely is what happens to the allocation of spending on environmental priorities versus other spending of that “mega ministry”. As Forest & Bird have already pointed out, this year’s Budget delivers an additional $38 million in baseline conservation cuts. Now, that’s following a $1 billion cut in the previous Budget. This affects specific programmes, including things like the National Predator Control Programme. Our environment is suffering.

But as are our social services, as are the people who are doing it worse. I visited Haumaru Housing in Green Bay, and these are people who have served the community well, as teachers, as engineers, as people in our community who are struggling now, who the Government is asking to pay an additional $30 in their social housing. These are not people who already buy cheese and have to cut that out of their budget. They talk to me about the very real costs that this means for them on their weekly grocery bills. They are suffering now. They see that this Government is not considering the cost of living issues that are very much hitting them and their whānau, and they know that an election is coming up around the corner. What they want is a Government who are focused very squarely on addressing cost of living priorities, and that is what a Labour Government will do.

REUBEN DAVIDSON (Labour—Christchurch East) (20:00): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m standing to take a call on the Budget debate, and I think it’s worth remembering, at the beginning of this call, that this is a Budget that was delivered by National, who promised New Zealanders they would fix the cost of living. That was the promise they made, and the reality is that they have made it worse. The further reality and the further insult is that they’ve done it consciously. The choices they’ve made in this Budget will make the cost of living harder for New Zealanders.

Now, I want to start by talking about one person, because it’s very easy when we talk about Budgets for us to talk about hundreds of millions or billions of dollars that have been spent on one thing or the other. It’s also very easy for us to forget about the individuals in our community who are deeply impacted by the choices we make in Budgets and by the choices that are made in this House.

One of those people is a woman called Mary, who came to a street-corner meeting I had in Linwood. She brought her power bill with her, because she wanted to show me her power bill and she wanted to ask me how she could be expected—or anyone could be expected—to be able to afford to pay for their power bill with all of the other costs that she has every week, every month, coming into her home. She also wanted me to know that it’s not just her that struggles with her power bill; that there are people in her street who can’t afford to keep their homes warm, who can’t afford to heat their homes, who will go to the library down the road and sit in the library for the day because the library is heated. She wanted me to know that there is a woman on her street who will get on the bus and spend hours a day on the bus riding around Christchurch because at least, on the bus, she knows that she’s safe and she knows that she’s warm.

That’s the New Zealand that we’re living in at the moment. That’s the New Zealand that this Government promised that their pain, their challenge with the cost of living, was going to be solved. Then was delivered the Budget that we have seen, and the deep cuts to many of the supports and services that people like Mary and hundreds and thousands of others rely on.

We’ve had a big game talked up by Christopher Luxon and by the National Party and about this Budget. At the same time, in this term of Government, we’ve seen business liquidations at a 15-year high. We’ve seen 40,000 more people out of work since National took office. And to come back to Mary, who bought her power bill to me, we’ve seen power bills go up by 18 percent. If I ask members on the other side of the House, who brought this Budget to the House and who supported it, to find me the line items in that Budget that support people like Mary who are struggling with the cost of living, which is the issue you promised to fix going into the election and the issue you—not you, Madam Speaker, but the Government, the National-led coalition Government—have made worse, then I find it unbelievable that anyone from the other side of the House would choose to support this Budget. But you have—you have.

Not only did you come into the last election promising to fix the cost of living, you have now, in fact, instead—not you, Madam Speaker—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I was just about to remind the member.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I must be getting used to doing that, because I was able to remind myself on that occasion. But not only did the Government come into power at the last election on a promise to fix the cost of living, and not only has the Government made it worse, but in this Budget there are more cuts and there is more pain and there is less action on addressing the cost of living for hundreds and thousands of New Zealanders.

Hon CAMERON BREWER (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs) (20:05): I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): This debate is adjourned and is set down for resumption next sitting day.

Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill

Legislative Statement

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education) (20:06): I present a legislative statement on the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill.

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

Third Reading

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education) (20:06): I move, That the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill now be read a third time.

I’m proud to speak to this legislation today and the difference this Government is making to educational outcomes for children and young people in this country as we lay the foundations for a world-leading education system that is focused on raising achievement and closing the equity gap. The bill is focused on lifting school attendance, identifying and supporting struggling schools earlier so that we can respond sooner, and better measuring of system performance and outcomes to focus the system on raising student achievement.

The bill makes significant changes to how parts of the early learning and schooling systems are regulated. It transfers regulatory functions for early childhood education, school hostels, and private schools to the Education Review Office, bringing key regulatory functions into one agency to reduce duplication and improve efficiency, and to ensure the right tensions and accountabilities exist to deliver high-quality public services.

The bill establishes the New Zealand School Property Agency—NZSPA—as a Crown entity to manage, plan, build, maintain, and administer the education property portfolio. NZSPA will drive essential changes to ensure the system delivers effectively for schools and for students, including delivering warm, safe, dry, and functional classrooms and schools with a value-for-money approach to investment so we can continue to deliver more classrooms, upgrades, and maintenance projects.

The bill also focuses on ensuring the system is set up to deliver a high-quality curriculum, alongside significant workforce changes to support a high-quality teaching workforce. High-quality teaching must be grounded in a high-quality, nationally consistent curriculum. The bill proposes to make the curriculum more effective and to futureproof it by requiring regular rolling curriculum reviews and updates and providing for one type of curriculum statement. Regular reviews will provide more certainty and predictability to the sector and avoid this overly disruptive complete overhaul every 20 years of the entire curriculum, which is incredibly disruptive for the sector.

I want to address two main concerns that were raised during select committee—and, indeed, since—as misinformation has been spread. First is the incorrect assertion that the bill gives the Minister a new power to change the curriculum at will, and second is a claim that there are insufficient requirements for the Minister to seek expert advice and evidence. Both of these things are, in fact, the opposite of what the bill is doing. Since 1989, legislation has enabled the Minister of Education to make, amend, unmake, and revoke the national curriculum. This is a largely unconstrained power that can be exercised at any time, and, indeed, has been on many occasions.

This bill constrains and limits this existing power by adding more criteria on how the curriculum is made, including the five-yearly predictable cadence of rolling reviews and updates. The new provisions say the Minister can only amend a curriculum statement if they consider the Secretary for Education’s report; information about the educational achievement of students in that learning area, subject, or wāhanga ako; and relevant evidence—for example, from new developments in educational research and international practice relating to the setting of curricula. This change means that there is more accountability and more transparency in the system and, in fact, a limit on the Minister’s ability to make changes—more so than there has been for many decades.

The proposal combines the separate curriculum statements in to one type of curriculum statement, called the national curriculum statement. Currently, the Minister must split what is to be learnt, from how the curriculum is to be taught, learnt, and assessed, into two separate curriculum statements. This can make the curriculum difficult for schools and kura to use.

The bill also introduces the ability for curriculum statements to vary by different groups of schools, instead of having to apply as a blanket requirement across all State schools. For example, it may be appropriate for schools with a special character to have different curriculum requirements.

When I introduced this bill, it made significant system reform changes to the regulation of the teaching workforce. The bill did this by transferring responsibility for professional standard setting from the Teaching Council to the Ministry of Education, bringing us in line with many other jurisdictions, including England and Singapore.

A large body of evidence in recent years has shown that our teachers enter the workforce with variable levels of knowledge and preparedness. Too much has been left to chance in ensuring teachers have the necessary knowledge, skills, and experience in the classroom to be effective and to support students to reach their full potential.

Currently, responsibility for initial teacher education is split over multiple agencies, and the Minister has limited ability to affect change or drive improvements. Shifting responsibility for standard setting to the ministry will drive improvement in initial teacher education, which the sector has been calling for for many, many years. This will be through setting high standards for initial teacher education and ongoing teacher practice, making sure that these standards align with the changes in the curriculum, best practice and evidence, and other Government priorities.

In alignment with this, the bill gives, in fact, more powers to the Teaching Council in monitoring and assurance of teacher education providers, giving them the tools they need to work with providers to ensure that programmes are meeting the standards. Setting high standards for teacher preparedness will only bring improvement if those standards are implemented with fidelity and consistency. I know how important it is that the Teaching Council is supported to effectively carry out their role in teacher registration. These changes provide better tension and accountability in the system.

Finally, the bill also works to streamline the council and enable it to function effectively, by reducing the size of the council, and ensuring appointment processes put people on the governing council, and ensuring the appointment processes include people with the necessary skills and experience, including governance and regulator practice. The profession deserves a professionalised board that will not only have people with sector experience but also have experience in regulatory functions, disciplinary function, and governance skills, as well.

These are important changes which will drive improvement in the council and teacher regulation. However, since the bill was referred to select committee, I’ve received two reports, both have highlighted serious shortcomings in the Teaching Council’s previous leadership, culture, purpose, and priorities—these were the Debbie Francis report and the Public Service Commission review. I’m particularly concerned about findings that show the council has an inadequate focus on child protection and safety, which should be its top priority.

To address these concerns, during the committee of the whole House, I introduced five further changes to the Teaching Council. The first of these changes elevates the role of child safety, as you would expect, within the Teaching Council’s statutory purpose. The Teaching Council needs to be focused on safeguarding students through its core statutory role of teacher registration, competence, and conduct oversight. To achieve this, the council’s statutory purpose statement will be amended to clearly prioritise the safety and interests of students in the care and oversight of teachers. Secondly, there are changes to strengthen the council’s reporting and monitoring arrangements to provide external oversight and ensure it operates effectively and delivers on its priorities.

The third change replaces the existing requirement for the council to “have regard” to relevant Government policy statements, with a requirement to “give effect” to them. This supports system coherence by aligning the council with Government direction and policy. However, I acknowledge that it is important that the council retains its independence when making decisions, with the scope of its regulatory functions on individual cases. To make this clear, the bill confirms that the Minister may not intervene in, or give any direction in, any specific case relating to registration, competence, or disciplinary decision-making.

I’m also making further changes to the council’s governance structure, moving the council membership of seven to nine members to be all appointed by the Minister. The Debbie Francis report emphasised the importance of maintaining a high standard of governance. To give proper effect to this recommendation, I’m making the change to introduce stronger levers to address the poor performance of the council members and to be able to hold the council to account. At the same time, the Amendment Paper requires that three of the appointed members hold a minimum of five years education sector experience each. I know how important it is for the council to be grounded in sector expertise and responsive to the voice of the profession in carrying out its regulatory functions.

The changes place a limit on the term of the council’s chief executive, in response to the recent findings that have highlighted the need for leadership of the council to be responsive to emerging challenges, and focused on carrying out core functions. Applying term limits to this position will be a useful tool to allow a periodic refresh of leadership style and approach. Together, these changes will ensure that the council prioritises child safety alongside the effective quality assurance of the professional teaching workforce.

This is a package of reforms that builds on the work already under way by this Government to ensure that we have a world-leading education system underpinned by clear, coherent, and accountable structures that deliver for every learner. I commend the bill to the House.

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

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) (20:16): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. As parents, we all want our children to do well, we want them to succeed at life, and we want the best for them. I don’t think that’s under debate at all. But this one-size-fits-all approach will leave many children behind, and that is our fear on this side of the House. The changes that have been swept through will risk, severely, meaning that many kids don’t keep up, aren’t having their needs met in the classroom, and fall further behind in school.

Let’s have a look, to start with, at the changes that have been put through under the curriculum. What this legislation provides is that there is a specification never seen before in terms of the level and detail of this curriculum. A good example to demonstrate the level of prescription that we will be heading for in New Zealand, under this model, came from the Minister’s own visit, when she took a group of principals to Australia, to look at how explicit learning and how this type of curriculum would be operating in Australia. In one classroom, it was reported back, by more than one who attended that visit to see a model example of a classroom of how we were heading, where children sitting on the floor, looking at images on a screen were required to repeat back the image, and if they got that correct, a dog clicker, a dog instrument, was used to indicate that they got that correct. This is where we are heading—unsatisfied to many parents that there are instances where this type of teaching is being pushed out into New Zealand, where teachers are being given scripts, and parents lose control of what is actually happening in our classrooms, and having input into what’s happening.

What happens—I’m interested to know—about a parent who has a child who we know has either learning- or neurodiversity, and we’re in a curriculum where you’re expected to meet an exact fact on an exact page in an exact time—and if that child isn’t keeping up, what happens? I asked that question to some of those providers. I asked some of the questions—“What happens if the child’s not keeping up?” The answer I got was “You turn the page—you turn the page and you keep going.”, and if that child can’t keep up, that’s the way it goes.

What we want to be able to have is that I would like my child to have a relationship with their teacher, where they get them, where they understand them, where if my child wants to be learning a way of reaching them and an understanding of what keeps them interested and gets them reading and gets them learning. Reading from a script and teaching off a PowerPoint presentation is moving away from an ability where parents get our children being talked to and explained to and understood in terms of what they’re going through. There is no room for that in a curriculum that directly prescribes, step by step, how things are going to be happening in a classroom, and in a world where you can walk along the corridor and every classroom has the same picture and the same thing on the board as you walk down that corridor, where there’s no artwork on the walls—in some of these examples, there’s no artwork on the walls because that might distract the children.

The second point I’d like to make is Kiwi content—where is the Kiwi content in this whole system? The benchmarking of this curriculum was not even offered up as a contract to New Zealand providers. We know that there are very willing and able New Zealand providers who are able to deliver the curriculum that is being prescribed in this bill, but they never even got an opportunity, because that went to Learning First in Australia, who have already told us that they helped source the curriculum information. They helped source that information and it was dumped at the Ministry of Education, and that is what our children are learning under this bill. That is what is being prescribed in this bill: that the Minister’s control over the curriculum is unprecedented in New Zealand’s history—absolutely unprecedented. So not only that but we have an Australian outfit who’s been generating the information for our curriculum. We have an Australian tool, the Student Mentoring, Assessment and Reporting Tool (SMART) tool, which is coming in to check it, and it’s also going to be putting the data into all those schools, and where is that data kept? Well, if we look, as parents, at the parent information about that SMART tool, it says it’s kept safe here in New Zealand, but the information going out to school leaders says it stored in Australia, so I’m still at an odds to know as a parent where my child’s data is going to be stored.

In terms of Kiwi content, we should be proud to be New Zealanders. We have content that our children are learning that they are proud to be who they are, we know our stories, and this should be part of our education system. This bill moves away from a system where we are Kiwis and we’re proud to be Kiwis and we teach our children about our history and who we are and our place in the world. All of that has been removed from our curriculum, and, sadly, it takes us backwards.

I believe—I genuinely believe—that education is more important than politics. I do believe that it’s greater than that, and that is why, seeing the changes that have been made by the Minister to the Teaching Council and also to ERA, is absolutely astounding. We know for a fact that the Minister attended the farewell of the new appointee to the Teaching Council, David Ferguson. We’re still unaware how someone who was so deeply conflicted could have remained in that role for such a long period of time. Someone who received well over $5 million of Government funding to set up his own private teacher-training institute was able to sit in on meetings deciding where the Initial Teacher Education (ITE) providers were going to be able to carry out the teacher training. The whole shift under teacher training away from ITE and into on-site training happens to have really favoured someone who’s done a lot of work for the Minister in making these reforms actually occur. So we still don’t know. I think the conflict’s got so great and that’s why David Ferguson was moved from the Teaching Council into the Education Review Office (ERO).

Before we move away from the Teaching Council, I would like to highlight that the Amendment Paper tabled—the one that held everything up because the home-schooling bit didn’t go down so well, but the other bit that probably shouldn’t have gone down so well was the part that removed the last three democratically elected positions from the Teaching Council without any consultation with anybody. It didn’t even get to go to select committee for submitters to be able to have their say about that. Those last three democratically elected positions were removed by the Minister in her Amendment Paper, at the eleventh hour, without any input or any submissions from the New Zealand public: no parents, no teachers, no students, no one got to have a say on that.

After that occurred, we had the announcement that instead of David Ferguson being head of the Teaching Council, he was going to be moving to ERO, the Education Review Office. So this is the new, I guess, enforcer of the way that we’re going to be moving forward under this bill, which is that those schools that aren’t complying with the boxes and the ticking off in the curriculum and meeting all the requirements that kids have to do on each day, and meet those things and fix that—if they’re not doing that, they’re going to be ranked. New Zealand’s going to have all their schools ranked, and those schools that are not achieving, those schools that aren’t meeting those metrics that will be set down, will be publicly labelled as schools of concern. Instead of assisting schools or providing resources with attendance, and providing resources with supporting our communities to help assist, we’ve got this punitive way of penalising those communities even further. I think it’s important to note that it is those communities that are struggling with the cost of living more so than any others. Those communities are already having a tough time being able to pay the bills and being able to make ends meet. Their lives will be made even worse under legislation which is actually determined to punish people who are having a really tough time.

We know attendance is part of it. We know from good information and research that some of those kids at high school actually go out and have to work a second job to be able to make ends meet and be able to pay rent and pay for food. So instead of actually addressing some of those underlying drivers of why children might not be attending school, this system looks at penalising them and driving them down further.

We will see, as a result of this bill, once they are ranked, that those ones at the bottom who are schools of concern, are able then to be taken over by charter schools. This legislation also makes the amendment that charter schools can now start up a chain. You can purchase a whole lot and have a chain of charter schools. And do you know what? I think the Minister is going to get her wish of the increased Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores, New Zealand’s international rankings, because all those schools, once they are charter schools, will fall off the bottom. That will mean that New Zealand will rise up in the PISA rankings, and “Oh, we’re all doing well, aren’t we?” Well, there’s a bunch of other kids who aren’t even getting their basic needs meet.

There is nothing in this bill that addressing inequality. There is nothing in this bill about addressing the equity. Because if you really want data, if you really want to use the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, the one story it tells is that the big driver is inequality in New Zealand. That’s what stops educational achievement. The sad thing is that this bill drives a wedge right down the middle of New Zealand and it says, “If you’re all right, if you’re doing OK and you’re well and you’re great, big tick, go to the top.” In fact, we’ll give you A+ under our new system of NCEA. No B+, no C+, but you guys get an A+, and the rest are left to make it even harder and struggle even further. That is why this is a sad, one-size-fits-all bill that does not serve the needs of New Zealand children.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (20:26): Thank you. Madam Speaker. The Green Party will not be supporting this bill because not only is this bill deeply problematic from its inception but it’s also full of ironies.

Let’s start with the curriculum. The Minister talks about the fact that they’re not introducing anything new in this curriculum. Let’s look at the wider context. Every week we get emails from teachers, experts, and principals saying how the junior curriculum isn’t working, how it is full of mistakes, how it is written by AI, and how it is written by people from overseas. There is no clarity on what is happening to Phase 1 and Phase 4 of the curriculum development while Phase 5 is going. We get correspondence from secondary schools, teachers, principals, parents, and experts saying, “Why are the curriculum changes happening at the same time as what we’re seeing with the qualifications and the scrapping of NCEA?”

That’s just one example. Isn’t it ironic that the Minister is talking about how she’s doing anything new, yet she has stopped listening to the sector to the point that anything she has put forward has zero trust from the sector. Isn’t it ironic, don’t we think? A little too ironic—

Hon Member: Do you think so?

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: Yeah, I really think so.

Let’s continue on and talk about other parts of this. Let’s talk about the Teaching Council. On the one hand, the Minister and the Government talk about how much they care about our teachers and what amazing jobs our teachers are doing. Well, first of all, let’s just refresh the fact that in the entirety of the media stand-ups the Minister did on certain parts of this—the NCEA refresh being one of them—she didn’t teachers once. I have been calculating and I have been counting, but she didn’t mention teachers once. If you really trust our teachers, why would you poach—

Katie Nimon: What about students?

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: Yeah, I wasn’t going to mention students, by the way. There’s no part in any of this where students were involved. Also, I’m not the Minister, but if you make me the Minister, yeah, I will mention more students. But isn’t it ironic that at the same time she talks about how much teachers are doing, she is taking the last ounce of independence away from teachers and the Teaching Council? We are seeing the most egregious attack on the teaching profession that we have seen in Aotearoa in a long time.

Isn’t it ironic that the Minister keeps on quoting the Debbie Francis report as if somehow it is a gospel on why or how she substantiates the changes she’s made to the Teaching Council? But let’s bear in mind that the Debbie Francis report had no terms of reference. It had no specific methodology. It was written as if the recommendations were premeditated—and somehow that person can magically get appointed on to the Teaching Council. Who knew?

Isn’t it ironic that when you are looking at a Government who talks about how much they are doing in education and talks about how much they are doing in phonics, yet it is the same Government who knows only how things are pronounced but not what it means?

Isn’t it ironic that when we should be looking at evidence-based decision-making and listening to our experts, what we’re seeing is decision-based evidence-making by this Government in education?

Let’s move on to other parts of this bill. One part of this bill is moving the Director of Regulation—which, by the way, there is only now possibly a permanent member as the Director of Regulation; previously it was the Acting Director of Regulation—without even knowing what this role is going to do. This role has been expanded and given more power and moved from the Ministry of Education, to the Education Review Office. That’s not good policy decision-making.

Isn’t it ironic when the Government talks about student achievement, but, at the same time, in the last Curriculum Insights report, and the latest report in general, we have seen that there is the fear that under the current Government’s curriculum, maths achievement will go down, because of the way that they’re looking at standardisation and perpetuating the one-size-fits-all model that doesn’t really help our students most at risk, particularly from marginalised and vulnerable communities?

Isn’t it ironic that the Government talks about attendance and, in this bill, is taking away principals’ ability to exempt students for genuine reasons for not attending school at the same time we’re seeing enjoyment of mathematics and enjoyment of literacy has gone down, and we’re seeing more people are leaving the State sector?

Isn’t it ironic that the Government keeps on talking about how well they are achieving, and yet they will never disclose their figures? How often have we heard in this House when the Government talks about, “Well, we heard from one person. One principal has told me, in this one very selective email I’ve read.”? But yet, in all of the emails and correspondence to the Minister that we as education spokespeople in the Opposition have also been privy to and privileged to be CC’d into, we haven’t heard any mention of those correspondence.

Isn’t it ironic that this Government and the Minister talks about how much they are trusting the sector and how much they are doing, while, at the same time, micro-managing the sector through these sweeping system reforms that potentially contradict Cabinet Manual 3.26? Yes, I have done my research.

Isn’t it ironic that this Government talks about how well they are doing for Māori, yet they forget and neglect 97 percent of ākonga Māori that are in the English medium and made sure that they’d never succeed as Māori but only for Māori?

Isn’t it ironic that any country we are looking at that has a world-leading education, it is a country that ensures that education is non-partisan, is not politicised, is not within one particular Minister’s grasp to be able to micro-manage the entire sector. but, in fact, trusting the sector and trusting the unions to get on with what they are experts in?

Isn’t it ironic that when the Government talks about how much we’re failing in terms of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests and Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) and all of those system-monitoring tests, which are now mandated under this bill, at the same time forgetting that in TALIS reports, one of the things that Aotearoa New Zealand scored the lowest on is teacher’s autonomy and decision-making?

Isn’t it ironic that the fact they talk about PISA results but don’t take into account the broader social and economic factors and the fact that other countries don’t take PISA seriously? In fact, they game PISA results because those kids are selected to take PISA tests, because those kids are doing after-school classes to 11 p.m. six, seven days a week, but yet they are treated like they are doing the same kind of work as everyone else. That is not the kind of benchmark that we should base our decision making on. The people who invented PISA said so themselves.

Isn’t it ironic that the Government talks about knowledge-rich, but not analysis-rich, not critical thinking – rich? In fact, everything they are doing now, though it’s important for us to have that solid foundation, will be replaced by the very tools that this Government is promoting, when it comes to artificial intelligence and ChatGPT, which I know that Government members themselves are possibly using.

Isn’t it ironic that when we expect our students to answer questions, to do assessments, and to do tests in an external exam situation, yet I have never seen any Ministers take a Cabinet Manual exam or a Standing Orders exam in three hours in a closed-book environment? At the same time we’re telling our students to answer truthfully and correctly, yet this Government spins and will say, “Well, what I’m telling you is that one plus one”—you can ask them, “What’s one plus one?” They’ll be like, “What I’m telling you is two plus three equals five.” Is that where our education system too should be at?

Finally, it is ironic when we have experts and ministry giving advice to this Government, but then the Minister didn’t answer and didn’t take those answers. Who would have thought? It figures.

CAMERON LUXTON (ACT) (20:36): Thank you, Madam Speaker. One of the things about the song “Ironic” is that Alanis Morissette did do a great ear worm there, but so many of the examples were not irony. The fact that that member just gave a whole list of which more than half were not actual irony shows maybe our education system has been failing for a lot longer than was previously thought.

It is ironic that the member stands up and talks about how terrible a one-size-fits-all regime in education is, but doesn’t support charter schools—kura hourua—which find places for students and children in New Zealand who haven’t fitted into the mainstream system. Isn’t it ironic that the member, who talks about needing a solution to this one-size-fits-all mould, can’t bring himself to support a great idea like charter schools?

In this bill, we have the multi-school charter school contracts, which enable successful schools to roll out and provide their services to more students and help more Kiwi kids get an education, while providing another solution. The unions and their mouthpieces don’t like it, but it is working.

One other thing that I’ll just quickly draw the House’s attention to is setting up a school property agency. Schools are an important part of communities, and having it properly planned and managed enables the resources to build new schools to be opened up. In my neck of the woods, Ōmokoroa has required development, but it has been held up by the need for a school. When you have to have houses to supply students to a school and a school that needs to be existing before people want to buy those houses, you get in a catch-22. This Minister has done a great job of making sure that the buildings that are supplied are no longer these architectural masterpieces but are being done at an affordable rate that means we can build more schools, get more communities built, and have a place in New Zealand where students can get the education that they need. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First) (20:38): Thank you, Madam Speaker. New Zealand First has always believed that education is an investment; in fact, that concept is one of our 15 founding principles, so it’s been around for quite a while with New Zealand First. We believe that education is a lifetime investment. It’s an investment in the futures of the individual learners and it’s also an investment in the future of our country. We want to make sure that young New Zealanders are able to support their own future, but also able to contribute to a better and more productive society, because we’re all about productivity.

The data is very, very clear that educational outcomes have been going backwards, until this Government took office, for an extended period of time. Now, the Opposition on the other side thinks that everything was fantastic and they just want to keep on doing the same thing. In fact, time after time when we have debates on education, they keep on defending the status quo. But the reality is the status quo has been failing our young people, and so we have to make some changes.

Under this Government—and I have to give particular credit to Erica Stanford—the results are turning around. This bill is about continuing that process. We are lifting participation. It’s not easy, but we’re doing that bit by bit because we need our young people at school. You can’t learn if you’re not there to learn, and we are lifting achievement. Now, there’s some jostling going on amongst us as friends at the moment, but we stand firmly shoulder to shoulder in fixing these basics—focusing on the basics—and the core skills of reading, writing, arithmetic. [Interruption] Yeah, I know. See that got them fired up. But the core skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic, they are the basics in education. And of course, science is on the way, really keen to see that, and we will need the skilled teachers to deliver that.

We’re also making sure we’re investing in supporting those with learning challenges. That’s why $750 million has gone into learning support. We’ve already passed legislation to focus the education system on—first and foremost, God help us, on education. What a radical thought. But the Opposition, of course, opposed that as well. What is really important here is that the education system teaches vital skills and vital knowledge and we want education, not indoctrination; we want people to be able to be taught how to think, not what to think. Those things are very, very important, and to be able to intelligently question what is in front of you.

Some of the things specifically in the bill, the Minister has already mentioned this, the process for reviewing the curriculum, setting out a rolling five-year process. That makes a lot of sense—very sensible. Secondly, the requirement to inform parents about the contents of proposed health education curriculum and specifically for the parents to be able to withdraw their young people if they feel appropriate. That’s very important to New Zealand First, because obviously we’ve had some issues there about indoctrination as opposed to education, which concerns us.

The bill provides a place for micro-credentials. That’s something that many employers are keen to see and have talked to us about as well. We also note, the place of industry-developed courses in schools in the new certificate of education qualification system. That is very, very welcome as well.

Look, if I just want to make one observation about the system as a whole, what seems clear is that every section of the education system says the one before it has failed. So the employers say that the universities are failing to deliver what they need. The universities are saying that secondary schools are failing to deliver what they need. The secondary schools are saying the primary schools are failing to deliver what they need. The primary schools are saying the early childhood education system is failing to deliver what they need. So something needs to be done to join these up and to make sure that each sector has a clear set of outcomes that it is required to achieve to be able to deliver for the ongoing education of our young people.

The bill also clarifies the oversight process for schools having difficulties, clarifies and strengthens the charter school model, and make some changes to the Teaching Council. Look, I do want to just touch on this because it’s really, really important. You can’t have an education system that works properly if the teachers are not equipped to do the teaching in the first place. It was interesting, if I look at the skill requirements of the council, one of the things I don’t see in there is any requirement for knowledge about skills and teaching. I do wonder if that’s a gap in the system. I do like, though, the new section 478(c) which says, to “provide assurance about the quality of the initial teacher education programmes and their providers in order to ensure that graduates are prepared for the workforce.” Now, that really is a reflection that that is not always happening at the moment. That is critical. We must get that right because if we don’t teach the teachers properly, how can those teachers then teach the young people.

Two other things to finish off with. First of all, the bill provides for the establishment of the New Zealand School Property Agency. Look, it makes complete sense to have a specialist agency to do this. It’s not an area of skill for the ministry nor for school boards and principals. We’ve seen that for many, many years. It’s interesting, as I chair the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, the Minister for Infrastructure stands in front of us and the Infrastructure Commission itself, they come in front of us and they say, “Well, look, a lot of these agencies don’t actually have the skill to deliver.” The Ministry of Education is one of those. And so it is good that we set up a specialist agency with the skills to be able to deliver those really, really expensive and important property outcomes. Because it’s really important we get here. The value for money is absolutely critical.

We’ve got the Crown Infrastructure Delivery agency, which is now able to help agencies like health and education and so on. I do note that the cost of delivering a class from under this Government is now half what it was under the last Government, which means that we can deliver twice as many classrooms as they could for the same money. That is good. That is good value for taxpayer money, and has to be celebrated. I’m not sure that the Opposition’s ever given any credit whatsoever to the Government for doing it.

If I can just finish off with one particular area, because it’s an area which is not in the bill—it’s an area which is not in the bill anymore. And that, of course, is that after the bill was reported back from select committee, the Minister, I understand, on the advice of the Ministry of Education, introduced Amendment Paper 583, and that included the powers to promulgate regulations to govern home-schooling. Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but we got really, really strong feedback. I had over 2,000 emails, which is quite a lot. It’s almost as many as the Palestinian issues. That’s a lot of emails, saying that people were concerned about this. And they were not angry, they were articulate, they were constructive. They gave us feedback. They told us their stories. They told us why they did home-schooling, why it worked for them. I really thank all these people who’ve sent these emails, but they were really concerned about, however inadvertently, the bypassing of the democratic process, the bypassing of their ability to make submissions to a select committee, to be heard, to be considered, even though the intention was that subsequent regulations were to be promulgated and consulted on. They said, “No, no, no, we need to be heard in the primary legislative process.” We thought that’s fair enough. They had real concerns that regulations, whether it was under this Government or any future Government, what those might do, what impact they might have on them, and on their children.

Of course, what that, in a sense, says is that there’s a the level of trust in Governments, doesn’t matter it’s blue-led or red-led, but people are not always fully trusting. There was real desire for those people to be properly consulted with. So New Zealand First engaged with the home-school community, we agreed with them, we pushed back on the Minister, and I want to say thank you very much to Erica Stanford for pulling the plug on that particular element of this bill and for going back and thinking about that again.

Democracy is not always quick. But there is an African saying, “If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.” I commend this bill to the House.

HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE (Te Pāti Māori—Hauraki-Waikato) (20:46): [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

[Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

Speaking on the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill, I often talk about how the fact that Māori education has only ever received 1 percent of the Budget consistently, no matter who is in Government, and yet we’ve achieved 100 percent pass rates, like kura at Ngā Taiatea and Ngā Tapuwae within the electorate of Hauraki-Waikato and throughout the motu. We have been consistently underfunded and under-resourced, yet we are over-excelling in the results that we have, and they relate directly to this education and amendment bill that I’ll be touching on in the debate tonight.

There’s a huge demand for tamariki and rangatahi attending kura kaupapa, yet there’s a lack of supply and support from the Government or the system as a whole. Last week, I was asking—so if we’re talking on some of the points within this bill is talking on property and infrastructure. Last week, when we had scrutiny week, I asked the Ministers, Minister Erica Stanford and Minister David Seymour around following up on questions from this term around that there was a $30 million gap of underspend that could have gone towards catering to the 45 kōhanga reo classrooms that have not been yet developed.

The reason why that’s so important is because kōhanga reo classrooms are often underfunded. They lack installation, they lack heating, they lack Māori classrooms. It’s hard for our tamariki to actually get into kōhanga reo purely because there’s 2,000 tamariki on the waiting list throughout the whole country. That’s often due to property infrastructure needs. If we are setting up a property infrastructure committee and ohu and rōpū, often tamariki in kura kaupapa Māori are put at the bottom of the list. For example, in this term, we saw $1 million go to one school, yet that was the overall budget for all kura kaupapa. So the inequities do show in this.

We also asked around the curriculum. I followed up with the Minister of Education around $74 million put into the curriculum. Yet, what was that actually going to in terms of Māori knowledge and developing Māori curriculum? Not so much the translation of curriculum. That already exists, like in mathematics. Those are things that should be happening anyways—regardless; it’s not a tick-box for tamariki Māori to have. We want our own knowledge. We want to be in charge of how we deliver those and where we can deliver those curriculum, like taio, civics education, localised education, also iwi-led. We’ve just talked today with some of the Mātauranga Iwi Leaders Group and their manifesto and how they want to carry that out.

We’re also looking at how a one-size-fits-all model does not support kura kaupapa Māori. This has never worked for us. We know that small changes have been made across this term, such as, for context, the removal of Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, changes to the history curriculum in schools, less professional learning and development for teachers in bilingual and mainstream education, the environments and barnyard-style classrooms, the removing of NCEA assessment, with 2023 data showing that we have excelled in that with 100 percent pass rates, yet the lack of consultation with iwi leaders and Māori education leaders in partnership, and the removal of Te Tiriti o Waitangi at a board level and also Te Tiriti in the Education and Training Act 2020, taken altogether, is a one-size-fits-all model. On top of that, it is taking away the ability of what kura kaupapa Māori was established to do, and that was our ability to wānanga through our reo, our knowledge, and our education systems. Slowly, one by one, all of these legislations have been taken out from places like the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill that we have here today. Nō reira, tēnā koe, Madam Speaker.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ (Green) (20:51): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am thrilled, happy, and enthusiastic to be speaking against this bill, and I’m thrilled, enthusiastic, and happy, despite what my tone of voice and demeanour might suggest, for two reasons. The first is because this is not a great bill. It’s number one. It’s the main reason that I’m thrilled, happy, and ecstatic. The second reason is that we are polling at a record high right now, at 13 percent—17 MPs, the most MPs we’ve ever had. It shows that the Government did not get a Budget bounce from their Budget. This bill is emblematic of why this Government is losing support because of the way that they’ve introduced such undemocratic measures and sought to bypass the democratic will of the people through Amendment Paper 583, which is something that happened during the polling period when the polls were taking place. That’s the connection to this.

Look, I want to acknowledge the home-schooling community for the massive effort that they made against the unilateral effort that Amendment Paper 583 would have made to set regulations in a unilateral way without going through any select committee process and without asking the people affected—the people, the parents, the teachers; well, the parents are the teachers in the home-schooling case; but the parents, the community, and the students who were most affected by this change.

We have some further concerns that around this bill that have been echoed by various submissions around what this bill potentially enables. I’ll pull up the feedback from one of the select committee submissions around this. One of the things we’re most concerned about is the changes to the Teaching Council. Now, when it first went to select committee, we were already opposed to the proposals, and some of the submissions referred to the fact that the changes at that stage would reduce the number of elected representatives on the Teaching Council, but it’s gotten worse as it’s progressed. We’ve gone from reducing the number of elected members on the Teaching Council to having none at all. From our perspective, that is very concerning, and it’s very concerning within the context of the potential for politicising the sector through appointments to the Teaching Council and also through the changes in the bill which would give the Minister greater power to set the direction of the school curriculum. This was in amendments to section 90 and the insertions of new sections 90A and 90B when it was still going through the select committee stage at that stage.

We’re concerned about the politicisation of what should be something that is set through expert independent advice, because we know that the politicisation of the education system and politicisation of the science system can lead societies down very dark paths of potential indoctrination and potential controlling of the curriculum to suit people’s political agenda. We have opposed that, and we’ve been consistent in opposing that.

One of the other concerns that we also share with the people who have submitted is the changes to the School Property Agency. Now, it’s not like we’re inherently opposed to the changes per se. To continue the theme of my colleague Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, we just think it’s a little bit ironic that this Government, which has prided itself on public sector consolidation, has actually, at the same time as they’ve been consolidating so many ministries into the mega-ministry of the Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport, created all these random agencies like the School Property Agency, like the Ministry for Regulation, and like the—what’s the other one?—the Charter School Agency. It’s kind of an ironic inversion of it. At the same time as well, when they’re complaining about public sector reform and public sector overreach, they’ve gone and created this new ministry, so we’re opposing this.

KATIE NIMON (National—Napier) (20:56): Look, Madam Speaker, this bill is building on the work that we have already done to lift achievement—that’s right—provide a knowledge-rich curriculum, and provide warm and safe classes. It’s all part of our plan to fix the basics and build the future. There we go. I commend the bill.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour) (20:56): Thank you, Madam Speaker. There we have it: 15 seconds from the National Party chair of the Education and Workforce Committee—15 seconds. Incredible! Tonight, Labour opposes this—[Interruption]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m trying to hear the person who’s making the speech, please.

SHANAN HALBERT: Thank you. I’ll start again, Madam Speaker.

Hon Simeon Brown: I’m trying to hear some common sense.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I don’t know how you would hear, Minister. There’s so much noise behind you.

SHANAN HALBERT: Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is the third reading, and there’s a lot of heckling coming from the other side, including from the Minister of Health and the 15-second contribution that was made by the chair of our Education and Workforce Committee, Katie Nimon. It’s incredible that, at this point of the Government’s cycle, they’re putting forward a bill that really doesn’t speak to the average New Zealander. It does nothing to make things better for children in our schools and kura. It takes our education system backwards. We talked about things that are ironic, but this Minister is one of the most controlling, power-grabbing Ministers that we see in one of the most controlling, power-grabbing Governments that this country has ever seen. For the next few minutes, let’s “Grip it up, everyone”, in the words of the Minister, and hear me out.

The thing that’s important, after all of the debate in this House and in select committee, after mixed and a lack of consultation, and after all the speeches, the fundamental questions still remain: how will this legislation improve the experience of our children sitting in the classroom tomorrow? How will it improve the lives of our teachers that are struggling with their workloads? How will it help a principal trying to meet the needs of every learner in their school’s community? The Government, across this process, has never ever convincingly told us the answers to those fundamental questions.

When I go out to my schools in my community in Northcote, nobody’s asking me for a restructure, and nobody’s asking me for education to be controlled by a Government or by Wellington. Parents are asking whether their child can access the learning support that they need and whether they can access it quickly enough. The teachers are asking how they can spend more time teaching and less time dealing with the administration and the bureaucracy that this Government is putting on top of them. Principals are asking how they can attract and retain the great staff that are in our system now. Families are asking how we make sure every child gets the best opportunities so that they can succeed. And so, when we talk about a “knowledge-rich curriculum”, we’re actually talking about a narrow curriculum that does not meet the needs of every learner that that principal, or that family, or that kura or school are trying to achieve the outcomes for.

I visited Kauri Park School last week. They support children with additional learning needs, whether it be behavioural, whether it be literacy, whether it be other issues—pastoral care—that they are needing. They support students arriving with diverse language backgrounds. They support families dealing with the cost of living pressures that this Government promised to fix, but they haven’t fixed them. What they actually need is a whole lot of support. They need to know that this Minister, that this Government, is listening to the things that they are wanting them to achieve.

Instead, Minister Stanford today is offering and responding to them with system reform, a restructure, and centralisation back to Wellington. This bill does say a lot about this Government’s priorities: more power concentrated at the centre; more ministerial control; less trust in professionals—less trust in our teachers, who deliver education every day. Minister Stanford likes to talk about accountability, but accountability should start with outcomes. Are more children getting the support that they need here and now? Are teacher shortages improving? Are schools better resourced than ever before? Are educational inequities reducing?

I come back to the point, and my focus—the Labour Party’s focus—in education is about ensuring that all tamariki, every single child, is able to be at their best and to do well in a world-class education system.

When I heard the discussion tonight about the school property management component, this is the part of this legislation that I’m semi-warm to. Do I think that it’s top of mind for schools? No, I don’t. Do I think that we need to invest in infrastructure better—

Rima Nakhle: Clearly, you’re not speaking to enough schools.

SHANAN HALBERT: What was that?

Rima Nakhle: Clearly, you’re not speaking to enough schools.

SHANAN HALBERT: Well, more than your MP, I am.

Andy Foster: Well, you might have heard that property’s quite important to them. It swallows up most of their money.

SHANAN HALBERT: When we look at the ways that we build schools—I heard from a New Zealand First MP that modular buildings are just something that came in under this Government. Where have you been—where have you been, New Zealand First?

Andy Foster: I didn’t say anything about that; I said half the price—half the price you lot managed.

SHANAN HALBERT: You did so, because the reality is, who’s the client here and who’s best to inform about the best learning environment be created in their school community? It’s the school—it’s the schools that have designed these environments with the Ministry of Education. That’s really, really important to retain. Where we can do it cheaper, we should do that, and there’s ways that have been explored over consecutive Governments in order to achieve that.

This Government’s fascinated with charter schools, and, yes, we applaud every single school that is about raising achievement for our kids. Those are the things that we want to achieve. But do I believe that this child in our education system should receive more funding than this child in a public school? No, I do not. I stand against that, because—

Carl Bates: Were you even at scrutiny week last week?

SHANAN HALBERT: Carl Bates, if you add up the money, mate, if you add up the money of charter schools going into your public Whanganui schools—do the calculation for yourself. It’s unfair, it’s unjust, and it doesn’t enable opportunity for every child in our system.

The “schools of serious concern”: the Education Review Office (ERO) has done this for a long time. That’s fine. When a school has been identified as having areas of concerns—issues, things that need to be changed—then they need the support to enable them to make those changes. What this does is it’s a punitive measure to publicly name and shame those schools so that—what happens? The roll goes down, the resourcing reduces, and, eventually, that school is no longer in a position to improve itself. That’s the reality of a punitive measure like the schools of serious concern.

Then we get to the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand reforms. It’s important to see, or track, the leadership of the Teaching Council into ERO, and I will be watching—I will be watching—how a principal from the North Shore goes on to lead the Teaching Council and then goes on to lead ERO, because somewhere in there, that person and this Minister have to be accountable for their decisions. The changes that are enacted in this bill to the Teaching Council take away representation. It takes away important voices from the sector, and it reduces membership and representation from 13 to about 7-9. It increases the Minister’s influence, the overreach—whoever the future Minister, she appoints more members to that council, and that doesn’t enable good representation from the sector or at grassroots.

So, the question that remains tonight is: are these changes creating better outcomes for every single child in our system?

CARL BATES (National—Whanganui) (21:07): What New Zealanders want is not an Opposition and a Green Party Opposition education spokesperson pontificating about educational outcomes; they want a Government that is delivering them. That is what this Government is doing. We are fixing the basics and building the future. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) (21:07): [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

[Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini) (21:12): When the Labour spokesperson for education got up and spoke a little while ago, the really disappointing thing for me, as a listener and an observer, is that it was clear that she had not even read the bill and didn’t even know what the bill contained. She referred to the bill only twice in her whole speech, and that’s a shame and that’s actually scary, going forward, that that’s the calibre of their education spokespeople. On this side of the House, we’re fixing the basics of the mess they left us with, for our children and building the future. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon JAN TINETTI (Labour) (21:13): Well, the calibre of that last speech was quite questionable as well. I would have to say that, for someone that criticised the spokesperson for not mentioning the bill, I have no understanding of the bill from that particular speech.

At this point in time, education is in turmoil in this country. We’ve got morale that’s really low, from our educationalists. We’ve got change after change after change that is hitting the sector in a major way. We’ve got a narrative that’s coming from the other side of the House that says these changes are necessary because we’re making changes that are increasing student achievement. Now, on this side of the House, if we could see that and if we could see that change was leading to a really good student achievement uplift, then maybe we would be in favour of that, but, unfortunately, we are not. We’re actually seeing a decline, and that is of a huge concern to the children and the future of this country. What does this Government do and what does this Minister do? They bring in a so-called systems reform bill, which is going to take things even more backwards than what we are currently seeing.

It is of huge concern that we are seeing these changes being put through the House that are going to minimalise our educators’ voice in the system; that is going to question and put pressure on the public education system, rather than supporting it; that is going to put pressure on our early childhood education system; and that is putting ideological changes at the heart of what should be evidence-based decisions being made in the education sector.

It is of huge concern to not only this side of the House but people that we are seeing on a daily basis that the education system is going backwards. [Interruption] I knew that we might get that response, so let’s have a look and see what the latest results are actually showing. Less than half of five-year-olds passed phonics tests after their first full year of schooling. The other side of the House has said that this is all about bringing equity into play. When we see that less than half are failing those tests, children in schools facing the most socio-economic barriers had a pass rate of just 25 percent—huge disparities that are happening and actually getting wider under this Government’s reforms.

Ryan Hamilton: So just don’t measure it? Is that your solution?

Hon JAN TINETTI: And then, when we hear them say over there that this side never measured it—who was the Government that introduced structured literacy and testing? They conveniently forget that it actually started with us.

Carl Bates: So you like testing, or you don’t like testing?

Hon JAN TINETTI: Mr Bates—through you, Madam Speaker, I would like to answer that side of the House, who said, “So you like testing?” We like the right assessments for the right children that will mean that they will actually learn more and that the teachers will know what they have to teach their children through the formative assessment approaches, rather than solely summative assessment approaches, which is what this bill is actually enforcing. This bill is a backward step in education.

One of the biggest concerns that I have seen from this bill is the changes that are being made to the Teaching Council. This is actually, really, hugely concerning, in that we hear the Government talking about how they value teachers, but what they are, effectively, showing in this bill is that they do not value the professionalism of teachers at all. They are taking away teachers’ say in their own profession.

One of the issues that we have in this country is that we have been through this many, many times: the place of the Teaching Council. The Teaching Council was set up to be the professional body of teachers, but the other side of the House, when they are in Government, consistently minimises that and undermines it by taking away teachers’ rights to vote for the people who are going to represent them. It’s this pendulum that we have: it goes from here, and it swings around to there. That is a huge concern that they do not see teachers as professionals—

Hon Nicola Willis: National, forwards; Labour, backwards.

Hon JAN TINETTI: The Minister of Finance is just confirming that, with what she has just said. They do not see teachers as professional and being able to be in charge of their own profession. What an absolute shocker coming from that side of the House. That’s exactly what this bill is doing: it is taking away that professional knowledge, that professional ability for teachers to see themselves as professional and be in charge of their own profession. They have no understanding of how to build that education sector and system, rather than what they’re doing, which is just using an ideological approach that is not based on evidence whatsoever. There is not one piece of evidence that backs up their approach—not one. That is the biggest concern that we have in this bill.

There are so many other things in here, but I do want to talk about what’s happening in the early childhood sector and the regulatory functions that this bill takes away from the Ministry of Education and places in the Education Review Office. Now, not only is this a conflict within the system—it’s an absolute conflict to see that position come away from the Ministry of Education—but the whole way that this was done in this bill was really dodgy. When people were asked to look into this and to submit on this, they had no understanding what this looked like, because it wasn’t included in the bill at that stage. It was a really odd way of doing it. The whole legislative process was wrong, and the scrutiny that couldn’t happen because of that legislative process being wrong just upset the sector in a major way. It meant that we didn’t get the really broad viewpoints from different groups of people who would have otherwise given this a lot more scrutiny than what it got.

We on this side of the House see potential and merit—maybe—in better aligning review and regulatory functions if it was done transparently with full sector consultation. Unfortunately, we didn’t get that full sector consultation, so we can’t say that this is something that’s going to make a positive difference, because it seemed to come from nowhere and we didn’t get that full oversight of what could happen. We didn’t get the academic input, we didn’t get the sector input at a great detail, because we just didn’t know what we were looking at and we didn’t have that transparency.

What is happening with the regulations in early childhood is of concern. It is of huge concern that regulations full stop are being minimised, and this is adding to that concern that the sector has and the safety of children. This is a terrible bill, and we do not support it.

Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula) (21:23): It’s a pleasure to be the final speaker in this Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill. This is aiming to strengthen the performance and coherence of the education system, and by performance we mean strengthening educational outcomes. National is fixing the basics and building the future. I commend the bill.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Education and Training (System Reform) 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.

Appointments

Intelligence and Security Committee

Membership

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Leader of the House) (21:25): on behalf of the Prime Minister: I move, That, under section 196 of the Intelligence and Security Act 2017, this House endorse the following as members of the Intelligence and Security Committee: Vanushi Walters, nominated by the Leader of the Opposition under section 195(1) of the Act and in accordance with section 194(2)(c) of the Act, replacing Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan; and Hon Chris Penk, nominated by the Prime Minister under section 195(2)(b) of the Act and in accordance with section 194(2)(d) of the Act.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill

Introduction

DEPUTY SPEAKER (21:25): I understand it is the Government’s intention to introduce an imprest supply bill.

CLERK (21:25): Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill, introduction.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The bill is set down for first reading immediately.

First Reading

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance) (21:25): I move, That the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill be now read a first time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye.

Hon Members: Aye.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: To the contrary No. The Ayes have it.

Dr Tracey McLellan: No. The Noes have it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m sorry, but nobody called No, and I had declared the Ayes had it.

Dr Tracey McLellan: I called No.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, after I declared the Ayes have it. You can seek leave to amend your vote, but nobody called No.

Dr Tracey McLellan: Point of order. I appreciate what you’re saying, Madam Speaker, but I repeated myself and it was then that you heard me say No, but I had already said No.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would the member like to record a vote?

Dr Tracey McLellan: Yes, please.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK. Is that the point of order—that you would like to record a vote?

Dr Tracey McLellan: Yes, thank you.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK, I’m going to allow the member to record a vote, but I will ask you to be much more quickly on your feet next time. So you’re calling a No vote?

Dr Tracey McLellan: Yes.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK, and you’ve called party vote?

Dr Tracey McLellan: Yes.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Right, I did hear that bit after the event, but next time please call the vote louder, because I did not hear a vote come from you. Thank you. OK, so a party vote will take place, please, Clerk.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) 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.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This bill is set down for second reading immediately.

Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill

Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill

Second Reading

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance) (21:28): I move, That the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill be now read a second time.

It was only a few weeks ago that I stood here to deliver Budget 2026, and now the House turns once again to dealing with the approval of Government expenditure. The imprest supply bill provides for the first three months of the 2026-27 financial year, providing authority for Government spending until the appropriation Estimates bill is passed. As its name reveals, this is the first imprest supply bill for the year. There are, of course, two bills we are debating here today. The second bill is the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, which looks backwards at Supplementary Estimates for the year that’s been. Can I thank the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee for their prompt scrutiny of and report back to the House on the Supplementary Estimates—great committee; excellent chair of that committee.

There is not much to say about these two bills other than, once again, an opportunity to remind members of this House from whence the funding for the decisions that we make comes. There does seem to have been quite a break-out in recent times of a belief that when Parliament appropriates money, it can appropriate it from the ether. In fact, when we, in these bills, appropriate money, we take it from one place, and that place is the back pockets of hard-working New Zealanders.

When we make decisions to spend money, we have a solemn duty to those New Zealanders to ensure that the way we are spending it is not only maximising outcomes today but is also proportionate to what may be required tomorrow, and that is to remind everyone that the country is in deficit. To get out of deficit and to climb over the debt mountain that we are in, it is essential that we spend very carefully indeed, but it’s also essential that we grow the economy. Growing the economy requires us to make this an easier place to do business and for work and effort to be rewarded—and that is a particular message for Julie Anne Genter, whose party seems to think that the way we will make ourselves wealthier is by saying goodbye to all those who have created jobs, incomes, and opportunities for the rest of us.

The two bills stand as they are. They reflect this Government’s ongoing approach to fiscal discipline, to managing taxpayers’ money wisely, to growing our economy, and to ensuring that New Zealand can be a more affordable country and a place where people can get ahead with rising incomes, with wages that rise faster than prices and in a sustainable way, with public services that they can rely on, and with a Government that takes very careful care of their precious dollars.

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

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (21:31): Madam Speaker, thank you for this opportunity to speak on this legislation, which is the two bills that we are discussing tonight.

They’re actually, in many ways, highly technical bills. Of course, imprest supply, as the Minister of Finance has just told us, enables the Government to actually pay its bills for the next few months, until the official Budget bill is passed, and so that’s a very technical thing to do.

The Supplementary Estimates are a little different. The Supplementary Estimates come from last year’s Budget. Last year, the Minister of Finance set the Budget, the House debated it and passed her Budget—albeit with some of the House voting against it, as is usually the case—and that Budget was what gave the Government the authority to spend money and it was then what gave, from Ministers through to departments, the capacity for the departments, ministries, and Government agencies to engage in the work that they’re supposed to engage in.

But as it turns out, in setting a Budget in May 2025 for the year ending 30 June 2026, things come up and things happen. Stuff changes and the Government does need to respond to events, and also people make mistakes and sometimes those need to be corrected. At other times, it just simply can’t be forecast exactly what money might be spent and how it might need to be spent, and some of that money is not actually the sort of money where there can just be put a cap on it. This bill, in a sense, is the House authorising that expenditure in arrears, instead of doing it in advance.

Now, again, there’s no problem with doing that. This House is entirely capable of doing that, and this is a regular process that happens every year. But for those at home to get a real sense of what might be going on, what we’re doing in this bill is thinking of a circumstance. Say, for example, there might be a budget for an overseas trip of $33,000 and the Minister might in the event spend $63,000, and this would be a way of authorising that expenditure and ensuring that it was actually authorised by the House.

There are other sorts of bits of information that we need to go through that I will go through at present. The Minister made a very interesting point, and I do want to address it before going into some of the detail in the imprest supply bill. She said that Governments take money out of the back pockets of hard-working New Zealanders, and so it is the “solemn duty” of the Government to spend that money carefully and seriously and to take very due regard for it. Well, yes, I do agree with that sentiment, but I think it is a very thin sentiment as to what Governments do. It is a very narrow construction of what Governments are doing when they ask New Zealanders to contribute to the common pot and when they spend that money for the common good.

Another way of thinking about what goes on with the imprest supply bill and with the Budget bill is that it is about us, as representatives of New Zealand and as representatives of New Zealanders, trying to work out how best to work together as a country to achieve the goals we want to achieve as a country and how best to raise the money and engage in the activities that further those goals. There’s a real sense—I guess that I’m going to characterise the two positions. There is the position—the rather thin position set out by the Minister of Finance—that New Zealanders pay for services from their Government. I think the rather better way to think of the Budget, and the rather better way to think of what it is we do as a Parliament, is to think in terms of us as all being in this together and to think that New Zealand does better when we look after all of us, and not just the payment for services. What we are doing here is looking after all the citizens of New Zealand.

There are two quite different conceptions as to how we’re going about this budgeting process, and I guess the reason that this side of the House prefers the conception that we’re all in this together, that we’re all trying to look after all New Zealanders, and that we’re working out the best ways to do that is because New Zealanders can’t be fired. Every single New Zealander is the object of our concern. From the smallest child to the eldest great-grandfather, these people are all the objects of our concern. Whether they pay tax or not, they all matter to us, and so we do our best for all New Zealanders. It’s a rather richer concept of what we’re doing in this House.

I want to turn to the imprest supply bill and some of the actual numbers sort of sitting in here, because the Supplementary Estimates of Appropriation is some 900 pages. It’s quite a lot of detail.

We spent some time at Finance and Expenditure Committee having a look at some of that detail and going through some of the issues and asking for explanations. Now, the way that that is achieved, as is usual with the examination in the annual review process for each Government agency, is that some very senior people from various agencies came through to discuss what was sitting in this with us. It was a disappointing process. On the Opposition side, we had some pretty serious questions to ask about some of the items that are included in this imprest supply bill, and, unfortunately, the people who were there, even though they were quite senior people from the various ministries, weren’t really able to give us explanations. So it does suggest that, as a committee—and you’ll see this in our report—we do need to think about how we can do this better in order to give a bit more time for officials to actually come up with some answers to questions, instead of saying, “Ah, we’ll get back to you.” So we’ll see how that goes.

I want to talk to the particular issue that we really felt was not addressed, and that is that some of the extra money that has been spent in a particular area, and extra money which was not really all that discretionary for the Government—because it’s money that’s legislated, and it has to be paid. I’m talking about the extra $72 million that was spent on accommodation assistance, the extra $85 million that was spent on New Zealand superannuation, the extra $86 million spent on sole parent support, the extra $41 million spent on student allowances, the extra $69 million spent on the supported living payment, the extra $24 million spent on the winter energy payment, the extra—if I can find it; it’s a little hard to find it in these reports—quite a substantial amount more spent on jobseeker, and so on. We asked the obvious question: why? Why was this extra money being spent?

Now, the explanation we were given—actually, it was from the Ministry of Social Development—was that they rely on Treasury estimates and forecasts; once Treasury gives a forecast of job numbers and so on, then they can work out the amount of money that needs to be spent in each area; Treasury did not necessarily forecast the state of the economy and the state of the jobs market and the state of people needing assistance as well as they might have; and once they’d got an updated forecast, they just pumped the numbers through their model and out came the extra spending. Well, that was a very technical answer, but it didn’t get to the “why”, as to why there was extra money being spent on assistance for our fellow New Zealanders—for the people who are in this, together with us.

The “why” is actually quite damning of this Government. The “why” is because the economy is not doing well. The “why” is because 20,000 jobs have been lost in construction. If it were only the 20,000 jobs in construction, perhaps we might have managed, but the trouble is that those jobs in construction supported the small businesses in their communities, and so jobs were lost in the small businesses as well. At this stage, we have the highest rate of business insolvencies there has been in 15 years. Why? Because that side of the House undercut the economy. Because they took away some of the mechanisms that were supporting our economy.

Now—sure, some changes could have been made. They nevertheless have done it too hard, too fast. They’ve cut too deep. They say that we’ve got to get Government expenditure under control. The trouble with cutting and cutting and cutting is that, sooner or later, cutting and cutting and cutting cuts to the bone, and that Government has cut to the bone.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai) (21:41): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I am really glad that the Minister of Finance specifically shouted out me and the Green Party’s recently released tax proposals, because I think it gets to the heart of what’s going on with this Government, which is that fundamentally they don’t understand that what we invest in together is actually what enriches us. They’re totally ideologically committed to a system that enriches a few and that is coming at the expense of the rest of the country. We don’t have to have this trade-off. I don’t know if they genuinely believe what they’re saying, if Nicola Willis genuinely believes she’s doing the responsible thing or whether she’s just so practised at the lines, but I think she fundamentally misunderstands what is going on.

Public services, public infrastructure—all of that is fundamental to what we are able to develop as a country economically. She’s saying we can’t afford to invest in these things because we have to rely on some billionaires and the jobs they create. That’s not how this works. Billionaires don’t create jobs. They’re siphoning off the surplus that is generated by all of the workers and the resources of this planet, which, frankly, everybody should have some right to.

Simon Court: Who pays the workers’ wages?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I think it’s just a paradigm shift. You just have to back up and understand that this current economic system doesn’t need to be like this. It’s not the billionaires that are gifting us jobs. The billionaires are siphoning off a surplus that has been created by all of the people doing the various work they do, some of which is paid and some of which is unpaid.

If we go back to former National MP Marilyn Waring, who wrote a really important book—and I still don’t think most of the people on that side of the House have read it or understood it—our GDP, our Government accounts, the whole lot of it, isn’t counting a whole bunch of important work that actually supports the wealth and wellbeing of the country, that supports the commercial economy. It’s the unpaid work, which has predominantly been done by women, and a lot of the caring work that is through the funded sector, which deserves to be paid more, has been underpaid. That was about to be rectified through the pay equity process that the last Government put in place, which National MPs like Nicola Willis and Erica Stanford voted for but then ripped out because they said we couldn’t afford it.

They’ve just got it backwards. Government is just what we’re doing together because it’s in our common interests and good. If we want to be better off as a country, we have to invest in our people. We have to invest in our infrastructure. This whole line about how in debt we are is ridiculous because most of the countries we would aspire to be like have more debt relative to their GDP than New Zealand. They’re using some of that to wisely, hopefully, invest in infrastructure that then supports the ongoing activities and livelihoods of the people in those countries. Just look at Japan, for example.

The other thing in the Minister of Finance’s speech that I have to point out here is that she claimed we have to be fiscally responsible, that the Government’s being fiscally responsible. It’s just not true. That is factually inaccurate. The Government is proposing to take on even more debt for projects that will not generate growth, that will not do anything to improve the productivity of our country. The Warkworth to Te Hana four-lane expressway, which they’re going to sign us up for in a public-private partnership, which is just a more expensive version of borrowing to deliver a project that will cost—I mean, we already have roads up there, and we need to improve them. We need to make sure the Brynderwyns stop getting closed. Warkworth to Te Hana won’t do that. It’s not going to do anything about that.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can we bring it back from—you’ve outlined your general theory around policy. Can we actually bring it back to the bill. Thank you.

Hon Simeon Brown: She just hates roads.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I will respond to the little person over there who’s interjecting, because that’s the best this Government can do: make these weird accusations about hating something, when all I am saying is it’s not worth the money that you’re going to borrow to pay for it. There are better uses of that money to get the outcomes we want for people driving on roads, the outcomes we want for moving people and goods, and the outcomes we want for the people of Northland. If we took the entire four-lane roading project to Northland, it’s the equivalent of $250,000 per household in Northland. We would get much better economic returns from just giving people $250,000, which they could use to pay down their household debt or invest in education and other things that are going to benefit them. The lines that are coming from the Government cannot be taken seriously.

I will refer specifically, in the Supplementary Estimates, to the fact that it is evident their “economic plan” is not working, because they’ve had to adjust the funding levels to pay more for jobseeker support because they made decisions. They cancelled a bunch of high-value projects, which meant that public home builds weren’t going to be built. That affected the construction sector. They cancelled a lot of really high-value, low-cost transport projects that would have improved walking and cycling and public transport. All of those things in our towns and cities are actually fundamental to productivity, because the more we can move around without having to pay for cars, and the oil and diesel to run them, that’s a direct productivity gain to New Zealand, not to mention the cleaner air, not to mention the benefits in terms of reduced crashes and fewer emergency department admissions. I think it’s up to 50 percent of emergency department admissions that are related to motor vehicle crashes.

Here in the Government’s books, it is obvious that their plan isn’t working, that their ideology has failed, that they are more in touch with extremist, right-wing politicians overseas than they are with ordinary New Zealanders who are trying to make ends meet. When I go out and talk to businesses, they are struggling, and it’s because of decisions made by this Government. In Wellington, business owners certainly know that. They know—they can see the difference since the Government came in—what impact it has had on local business here in Wellington. As much as the Government might mean well, and some of them probably do, and some of them don’t, they’re fundamentally mistaken about what it will take to ensure that every New Zealander has what they need to thrive.

Most people know that our tax system is at the heart of that. Our tax system isn’t distributing the benefits of economic growth—when we have it—to enough of the people. The more we distribute it to everyone, the more everyone has a chance, everyone has an opportunity, the better off we’re going to be as a country. We can’t do that if our tax system is funnelling and concentrating wealth in the hands of a smaller and smaller group of people. Those people are not creating jobs; they’re taking the wealth out of the country.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member has drifted away from the bill again.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Madam Speaker, I think what I’m saying is far more relevant to the ordinary people—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, but it’s not a general debate.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Well, it was for the Minister. The Minister did not speak to the specifics of this bill. The Minister attacked me, attacked our tax policy, gave her theory of economic growth—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, and the member has done that, and, now, I’m asking the member to finish with some details around the actual piece of legislation that she’s got in front of her.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: This legislation is about the changes in funding relative to what was budgeted, and it’s also enabling temporary authorisation of spending until the Estimates bill is passed. What it will do is nothing for the country, because this Government’s economic ideology is failed, and that’s reflected in the polls. Every time I go out and talk to ordinary New Zealanders out there, they can see more and more that the National Party, the ACT Party, and the New Zealand First Party are speaking for corporate interests, for the very wealthiest people, and they have a blind ideology which is taking us in the wrong direction in almost every area. I am really, really looking forward to seeing the end of this Government.

SIMON COURT (ACT) (21:51): The ACT Party supports these bills, the appropriation and the imprest supply bills. These bills finalise spending for the year, and they provide authority for Government to continue operating into the next financial year. You don’t want to be spending money that you don’t have or that you’re not authorised to spend, do you?

Now, for ACT, what matters even more is what that money is being used for because for too often in New Zealand, it takes longer to get permission to build something than it takes to build it—whether that’s a house, a road, a power project, or other essential infrastructure. Delays and compliance costs end up being paid for by households and businesses. That’s why I’m proud—as well as being an ACT MP—as the Under-Secretary to the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, the Minister and I have secured almost $300 million to deliver the implementation of the resource management reform.

It’s one thing to stand up in this House and announce policies and say you’re going to tax and say you’re going to spend and signal intent. Well, that’s not what this Government is about; we’re not signalling intent simply by saying we’re going to replace the Resource Management Act with a system based on property rights. We’re putting money down to make sure that the national direction that will tell councils how to plan and how to resolve conflicts between the environment and people who want to build things is funded and in place so the system can begin operating immediately in 2027, and be completed in the next couple of years.

It’s also really important that these appropriations support housing infrastructure and energy security. There is significant allocation of capital and other allowances in these bills to major projects. What we’ve seen, over the past decade or so, is that significant infrastructure deficit continued to grow across New Zealand’s public sector infrastructure. If you think about Defence housing, I remember going to visit a friend on the Waiōuru army base in the 1990s, living in what looked like a fairly reasonable, three-bedroom timber house, not too different from any State house you’d see anywhere around New Zealand. But it turns out that Defence personnel and their families are still living in those homes that have been patched up time and again, and it’s no place to bring up a family, particularly in a cold place like Waiōuru, also known as Waiberia, I understand, to people who’ve served there. It’s not really sending a good signal for New Zealand that when we invite the Singapore armed forces, the Australian or the US armed forces, or from Britain or from Fiji—God bless them—to come and live in some draughty barracks with rusty water flying out of the shower head. That’s why I’m proud we’re part of a Government that’s putting significant capital investment into our Defence assets.

Now I just want to refer back to the previous member’s speech. Julie Anne Genter, Green MP, said that billionaires are syphoning off a surplus. That member is engaging in the diabolical populist politics of envy. The messages coming from that member—I wouldn’t say that’s unparliamentary language but sadly it’s to be expected from a party which has lost its way and is no longer the primary advocator of environmental values in this country. In fact, that is the coalition Government—

Francisco Hernandez: Ha, ha!

SIMON COURT: —that is advocating; to reinvest in the conservation estate while that Green member cackles maniacally. We’re going to be reinvesting in the conservation estate, we’re going to be allocating capital—I’ve got it here, I’ve got it here—to the Hump Ridge Great Walk, because one thing that this Government, and particularly the ACT Party supports, is access to our conservation places, and in building infrastructure that makes New Zealand an attractive place for tourists to come and spend money, and for Kiwis thinking, “Should I go overseas on my next trip or should I go to the Hump Ridge Great Walk?” They can hump a backpack on a new track and good on them.

Now, billionaires syphoning off surplus. Who are these people, these billionaires that member accused of essentially stealing from New Zealanders? Well, I tell you who they are: they’re people who create jobs. Graeme Hart is one of those billionaires; started work as a tow truck driver, a good sound blue collar job—not that any Green member would have ever had one of those. Having left school at 15, completed an MBA at the University of Otago. His approach was to buy poorly performing businesses; strip out waste and inefficiency. You know, this coalition Government is doing that every day in the public sector, but of course the private sector has to do this to survive. They can’t just rely on taxing people more as the Green Party’s advocated this week. Stripping out waste and efficiency, consolidating the assets that had value and refinancing the business and either selling it or actually scaling up that business to produce more and hire more people.

I tell you the businesses that Graeme Hart has not stripped or syphoned a surplus from: Whitcoulls, a business that he saved and has reinvigorated and you’ll still find in every shopping mall. In fact there’s one down here on Lambton Quay I’ve been into recently. Carter Holt Harvey: it was a forestry company with some packaging assets that wasn’t doing that well and he purchased it, reinvigorated that business, closed a whole lot of old sawmills that were a liability. I know this because, in my time when I worked as a remediation engineer cleaning up some of New Zealand’s most hazardous sites, we worked to remove the timber treatment equipment, removed the contaminated soil, and cleaned up those sites so they could be repurposed as industrial and commercial facilities. In fact, there’s one of those facilities in Mount Eden which now has a residential building honour.

What about the Mowbrays?; built up a toy business from scratch. What about Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, those darlings of the left who built an intellectual property and film infrastructure business? In response to Julie Anne Genter’s comments: those billionaires are not syphoning off surplus; they’re building businesses that hire people that pay wages, they pay taxes to the Government so that a responsible Government like this coalition Government can reallocate those taxes collected from successful businesses into really important infrastructure and social services.

Now, that I’ve disabused members and those listening at home of any notion that billionaires syphon off surplus, I just want to return to my conclusion. What this Government is funding through these two bills are practical measures that deliver economic growth, reliable energy, housing infrastructure, and a planning system that will say yes, far more than it says no. New Zealanders currently need more than 40,000 consents a year. Where I live in West Auckland, the council will demand a consent for a retaining wall more than a metre high. That’s lower than the bench that I’m speaking from. Can you imagine that: you just want to do up your back garden, you might want to fix up the front of your property, and council says we need to consent for that retaining wall, there’s some environmental risk; absolute rubbish. In the new system, those types of demands will be gone.

Minister Bishop and I intend the number of consents that are required every year will be not much more than 20,000, initially, and I can envisage with the use of digital planning tools and AI that tells us how we’re really managing risks—that’s part of what we’re investing in—that over time, the number of consents that actually should be needed by Kiwis might get back to what they were in the 1990s, maybe 5,000 a year. Now, New Zealanders expect their Government to focus on the basics and spend money carefully. That means prioritising projects that make the country grow, rather than just expanding the bureaucracy like the previous Government did. These bills continue that work. They support the infrastructure, and energy and planning reforms needed to make New Zealand a place where people want to build, want to invest, and want to raise a family. That is why I commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This debate is interrupted. The House is suspended, and I will resume the chair at 9 a.m. tomorrow for the extended sitting.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 10.01 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday)

Extended Sitting

Wednesday, 24 June 2026

Bills

Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill

Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Members, the House is resumed. We are on the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, second reading. Call number five, which I believe is a New Zealand First call.

Dr DAVID WILSON (NZ First) (09:00): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise today on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill. I might start by saying that a previous speaker has opened up the whole debate around our political economic approach to this kind of management of the economy, and since that has been brought up, I felt like we needed to defend ourselves somewhat in this debate, and then we’ll get back to the bill like others did. Aside from the personal attack on one of the members in the National Party, we’ll look straight through that and straight past that because it’s not really relevant. But we’ll try and get some of the Greens out of their locked-in little echo chamber. I’ll start with a saying—a famous saying—“Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.”

So let’s just have a little look at the Green Party’s approach to this debate yesterday. Let’s talk about tax—wealth tax, trust tax, what you commonly know as inheritance tax, otherwise known as death tax—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Just for the members to note, because I was in the Chamber last night where the Speaker did want members to focus on the bill, you can reference things that were said by others in the debate, but I would then ask the member to quickly go back to the bill itself. Thank you.

Dr DAVID WILSON: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I feel the right of reply is needed considering we were actually criticised last night.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Yes, a nice quick one though.

Dr DAVID WILSON: If we’re looking at a range of tax, well, we know that certain members of the Parliament don’t like boomers very much, but you have worked all of your life to get to a tax-free position in owning your house and someone wants to tax you for that. It’s called a wealth tax. It’s not only wealth tax when you think about it for farmers. Think about that in terms of how hard they have worked all of their lives with their hands—not much with their mouths, right?—getting to a position where they actually have made a success of their life. So that’s just fantastic, isn’t it, when they work so hard to get to that position and, “Oh, hello, let’s have a crack at their wealth tax; let’s have a crack at their inheritance tax; let’s have a crack at the trust they’ve set up for their families for the future.” Actually, tax, tax, tax, tax.

Small business, you’re not exempt. I’m sorry, small business, you’re in trouble too, because you’ve worked hard on your small business and got it to a position where you’re actually not owing that much money; “Oh, wealth tax.” Savers, you’re not exempt either. You’ve been saving diligently all of your life, putting your money away; you’re actually going to be subject to a double tax. Not only have you had your income taxed and you have saved, they want to tax your wealth at the end of that as well. So they’ll tax you when you save, they’ll tax you when you succeed, they’ll tax you when you work hard, they’ll tax you when you’re alive, and then they’ll tax you when you’re dead. Right, this is not a good story. This really sums up the communist Green manifesto, and the outcome that they want to achieve is that we will all be equal—we’ll all be equally poor. That’s the end of that kind of approach.

Now, listen, I can equally take on the Labour Party with their political economy, even have a debate with my friends from the ACT Party about their political economy. We’re not going do that because the Speaker has told me to get to the point—thank you, Mr Speaker. But the one final thing I will say is what you have here—the sum of that—is what the economists call a dead weight on the economy. It’s a dead weight on initiative; it’s a dead weight on work; it’s a dead weight on innovation, and, actually, you need to go and see what some of those people who have succeeded actually provide in benefits towards the economy through jobs, through growth, through opportunity. We’re about growing the economy. That’s what we want, and you can watch this space because we’ll show you how to do it.

This bill, really, is about things like ensuring that everybody gets their winter payments and superannuation keeps going. It’s a tidy-up for the Budget, business of Government, practical, demonstrated, prudent. Thank you, Mr Speaker. We commend the bill to the House.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ (Green) (09:05): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will do something radical in this debate and actually talk about the bill. I want to turn in particular to pages 22 and 23 of the appropriations where I’ll be concentrating the bulk of the remarks on my speech.

The first thing that I wanted to concentrate on is the departmental output expenses on the Government Digital Delivery Agency—the appropriations that have been selected for that. I think that budget line enables me to talk about what the Government Digital Delivery Agency is being set up to do, which is to facilitate the rollout of digital technology in the Public Service, including the use of artificial intelligence.

It’s a really hot topic at the moment, artificial intelligence, and rightfully so. There’s contested debate around artificial intelligence, including the role of data centres and the potential negative environmental impacts of AI use, including water consumption, energy consumption, and things of that nature. I think those are all valid critiques that people have. Another aspect of the critique around the use of AI has also been the potential for automated systems and artificial decision-making to override human decision-making, which would be a dangerous precedent. I think one of the things that people do rightfully have concerns about is the role of accountability when an AI makes a decision. I mean, we’ve seen, at least with human decision-making, when someone makes a mistake, there is usually a chain of custody. There’s usually a chain of responsibility for people that are then able to be held to account. We saw a classic example of that yesterday when everyone in the House—all the parties—united to condemn how the House had been misled, effectively, by Immigration New Zealand around the issue of the biometrics processing. I do think that people were able to be held responsible on that because it was made by humans, fundamentally.

When we do shift to a system that is run by, or that AI have a better hand in, the chain of responsibility gets more complicated. If an artificial system makes a mistake, if automated decision-making makes a mistake, do you hold to account the Minister who transitioned the Public Service to artificial intelligence? Do you hold to account the chief executive who let that happen? Do you hold to account the staffers that generated the prompt? Or do you hold to account the company that uses these large language models to make these decisions? It’s a really contested field, and I do think, while we don’t necessarily support the replacement of public servants with AI, the Government Digital Delivery Agency, we acknowledge, has a role to answer some of these tricky questions and develop guidelines for artificial intelligence use within the Public Service because it is something that we can’t bury our head in the sand. It is increasingly going to become rolled out right across the country, and it will increasingly become one of the most contested terrains of the future. We already saw the Trump administration block the export use of Fable, one of the most powerful models that were developed by Anthropic.

Now, what that does raise is raise questions around the issue of data sovereignty as well. If, through the use of AI in the Public Service, we are outsourcing our AI capacity to private companies that can then withdraw from the Government this capacity that we have paid for, because of pressures from foreign administrations, for example, then that could potentially grind our entire Public Service to a halt, just from a single action. When we are considering the use of AI in the Public Service, when we are considering AI technology as it gets deployed across the board, we need to keep these questions in mind.

The Government’s digital delivery agency is rightfully the place where that will get rolled out and thought about across the Public Service. I also encourage colleagues across the House to engage with the issue of artificial intelligence, because this is an issue that is not going to go away, and this is an issue that increasingly we, as legislators, will have to grapple with. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (09:10): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak on this imprest supply debate. I know a lot of people at home will be wondering—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): It’s the appropriation supplementary debate.

RYAN HAMILTON: Sorry. That one, Mr Speaker. I know a lot of people will be wondering—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): It’s just as exciting.

RYAN HAMILTON: Ha, ha! Yeah. There has been a lot of Budget talk and it’s got me a bit excited. But what people at home might be wondering is what this bill does. It’s all about unlocking the proposed Budget, the execution of that spending. Of course, it’s very important because the authorisation of that money needs to be spent and allocated through budgetary purposes.

I guess, firstly, one thing this Budget does is really focus on financial sustainability, closing the fiscal gap, and the fact that we’re now able to achieve a surplus a year earlier than forecast. It’s great news and great financial leadership from the Minister of Finance, this being her third Budget. It’s certainly one where we’ve been clear that it’s not about sugar hits; it’s about robust planning frameworks. It’s about restrained spending; it’s about closing and getting that debt curve down.

We also know it’s not about taxing more and spending more. We’ve always said that New Zealand doesn’t have a tax problem; it has a spending problem. Yesterday evening, Julie Anne Genter talked about our debt. Our debt to GDP is—I think we’re trying to get it down to about 40 percent debt to GDP. Last night, Julie Anne Genter said, “Why don’t we just spend more and invest more in infrastructure?” In fact, she used Japan as an example, which has debt to GDP of 250 percent.

Now, Japan might have a lot more privately owned domestic funding, but the more you borrow, the bigger the interest bill. Our current interest bill is around $9.5 billion. Why getting back to—

Stuart Smith: How much principal does that pay off?

RYAN HAMILTON: —a surplus—not much. We’re not paying any off at the moment; that’s the problem. Because we haven’t got to a surplus, we’re not even paying any of our principal back wholly. The purpose of getting to a surplus is so we can pay down that debt, and $9.5 billion is enough, as we know, for the whole New Zealand Defence Force, Corrections, Police, Customs. It’s an incredible amount of money and it just goes on treading water. That’s why we’re really, really focused on making some savings.

I thought it would be good to provide some examples of savings to show that we can make cutbacks in appropriate ways and still deliver better services. In fact, the Minister of Finance has said, “Let’s make 2 percent additional baseline savings this year and an additional 5 percent and 5 percent the following years.”

A couple of examples: in the Department of Conservation, over the next three years we can save $118 million. The Department of Internal Affairs is saving $80 million. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet is saving $10 million. Inland Revenue is saving $197 million. Land Information New Zealand is saving $26.4 million. The Ministry for Primary Industries is saving $164 million. The Ministry for Regulation: $5.3 million. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: $170 million. The Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport is saving $125 million. The total for 12 percent baseline reduction over the next three years: $2.388 billion.

You can see it’s not just about spending but saving. It’s about good fiscal management. It’s about stewardship. Some might say kaia-titanga—

Cameron Luxton: Kaitiaki.

RYAN HAMILTON: Kaitiakitanga—stewardship of what we’ve got. Stewardship of our resources is very important.

It was Marama Davidson yesterday who also talked about—we talked about the investment in the defence force. I said that it’s not just about spending on weapons; it’s about investment in our workforce, and she denied it. I wanted to show to the viewers that the defence force remuneration is $120 million over four years. In our summary of Estimates, it reads, “This initiative provides funding to enable the New Zealand Defence Force to provide remuneration uplifts for its workers and to meet additional non-discretionary remuneration increases.”

Of course, for housing, in the Defence Capability Plan, we’ve got $3.4 million. The initiative provides funding to enable planning, detailed design, and delivery of modern residential dwellings for military personnel and their families at Trentham, Ōhākea, Linton, Woodbourne, Waiōuru, and Burnham. Our investment in defence isn’t just in terms of improving our fleet and all that very important stuff which is part of our national security; defence force is about the people, because they have a very important role on the front line. It’s important that they are looked after as well.

The great thing within the Budget—we know that our parties spoke a big game around health, infrastructure, law and order, fuel response, and education. These things are all critical and we’re delivering for all of them—$7 billion in capital investment over the next 12 months, and an estimated 4,500 jobs for every billion dollars of infrastructure investment. Over the forecast period, we’re looking at 220,000 new jobs across the economy. It’s significant.

Of course, Cambridge to Piarere, the road of national significance, one of the most dangerous spots in New Zealand—we’re investing in that. That will improve about 16 kilometres of roading infrastructure. It’s very important—very important for productivity, for connectivity. An extra special bonus if it gets to 110, because that’s my favourite speed of all, especially on cruise control, listening to AC/DC.

Education is very important as well. Obviously, we talked about some of the investment and the hard infrastructure. We’ve done a lot of investment in the curriculum and the syllabus restructure supporting our front-line teachers. I was privileged in Hamilton East to have Hillcrest High School get an additional eight new learning classrooms and two new learning support classrooms, as well as four new classrooms at Knighton Normal School. Of course, the infrastructure we’re now able to deliver at half the cost that was previously being delivered under the last Government—half the cost. You get two for one. Isn’t that amazing? Just with good, practical financial stewardship, discipline, and going to the market with competitive tenders. Obviously, the prefab-type modular building is really key to all of that as well.

The other thing, of course, is the Resource Management Act reform which was given a boost of money to help that transition. I stood on the Environment Committee with Catherine Wedd here and Cameron Luxton here in the House. It’s quite a robust process. We’ve gone through changing something first introduced in 1991 to two new planning bills, and that’s going through the process. Of course, it needs finance and it needs time to embed, but that’s really about unlocking productivity in this country. We’re working with councils, working with the water entities to enable us to cut through red tape and green tape just to get stuff done. We want more renewables in this country, but it’s just been too hard. The process that we’re working through will help to unlock and enable that.

The Budget is also predicated on what our Prime Minister gave in what was probably a speech of the nation, really. One of the journalists who would probably normally be quite critical of him said it’s probably the best prime ministerial address in the last 20 years—

Shanan Halbert: Ha, ha!

Hon Phil Twyford: Best in the last two years.

RYAN HAMILTON: —and he talked about national security being economic security—the last 20 years. That’s right. That’s a long time. I’ll send you a copy of it, Shanan Halbert.

The Government understands that in an increasingly uncertain world, security is more than just a fence alone. It is not just about national security; it’s also about economic security and the two go hand in hand. Energy security and social cohesion: every major decision we make should be tested against whether it strengthens New Zealand in one of those areas. National security, increased defence investment, tougher law and order measures, and protecting critical infrastructure and resilience, and, of course, our relationship with other countries—we’ve done a fuel agreement with Singapore. We’ve worked in collaboration with Australia. We’re really strengthening our place in the bottom of the Pacific, which is critical. Economic security: Investment Boost came through in the last Budget, and, of course, we’re continuing that through. Trade agreements and export growth; support for business investment and productivity. Energy security: the need for reliable and affordable electricity; supporting renewable generation and grid resilience—the importance of avoiding energy shortages that undermine growth.

Of course, then you bring in infrastructure. Underpinning all of that security—national security, energy security—is infrastructure, and our $7 billion capital programme goes a long way to help New Zealand to prosper. Roads, schools, hospitals, water infrastructure, and energy networks are all foundations of economic growth and national resilience. Every billion dollars in investment by Treasury is, as I said, estimating an extra 4,500 jobs. At a time when many countries are being forced to choose between growth and fiscal discipline, this Government is demonstrating that both matter. We’re investing where it counts, maintaining a path back to surplus, and strengthening the foundations of New Zealand’s future, fixing the basics, building the future.

REUBEN DAVIDSON (Labour—Christchurch East) (09:21): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s great to be able to stand and take a call on the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill.

Before I get started, I just wanted to acknowledge a couple of the funny wisecracks that the previous member, Ryan Hamilton, got into his contribution this morning, the first being a claim about a commitment to renewable energy, which is great, especially coming from a party who want to spend a billion dollars on a liquefied natural gas terminal! I really enjoyed that one. I also enjoyed hearing the claim that the Prime Minister had recently delivered the best speech any New Zealand Prime Minister has delivered in the last 20 years. What I want to say to that is it’s fantastic to hear that Christopher Luxon has finally found a speechwriter! I do look forward to the opportunity to review that speech and make my own assessment of whether it is, in fact, the best speech delivered by a Prime Minister in New Zealand in the last 20 years. I would say that that would be a minority opinion. I wouldn’t want to poll it.

It’s not all fun and games in this debate. This is, in fact, a serious debate about what is in the Budget that was delivered in the House at the end of last month, and I think it’s important to look at that in the context of where we’re at economically in New Zealand at the moment and where we were forecast to be at. What we have seen is the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update in 2023, which was the first from this Government, and now what we’re looking at is the forecast for 2026. This is the context in which we need to look at this bill and at this Budget. GDP growth was forecast at 2.8 percent; it’s now 1.2 percent. Unemployment of 4.8 percent is now forecast to be 5.5 percent. Inflation was meant to be 2.2 percent.

Ryan Hamilton: It was 7.3 under you.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: It’s now forecast to be 4 percent, Mr Hamilton. Government debt is now $4 billion higher than forecast. Those are the numbers. That’s the context that we need to look at this Budget in. What’s really interesting, as we look through those appropriations in the Budget, is what has then happened in some of the areas and across some of the portfolios that are explicitly covered in this bill. Particularly, I’m really interested in the ones that are—and I’ve folded down the page so that I can find it easily—across pages 8 and 9 of the bill, when we’re looking at the investment into business, science, and innovation. That’s some of what I wanted to explore in my contribution to this debate.

When the Minister of Finance came to the House and delivered her opening speech on this, she talked about the difference between money coming from the ether and money coming from the back pockets of New Zealanders. I think it’s also very important that we remember that; this Budget is the money from the back pockets of New Zealanders. It is not money that has come from the ether. On that, I agree with the Minister of Finance. If we look across the portfolios that I was able to examine in scrutiny week, last week, the broadcasting and media portfolio Minister, Minister Goldsmith, came and spoke to us about what’s happening there, but really that was a conversation about what’s not happening there. It was a conversation with a Minister who promised to take immediate action in the broadcasting and media space and has since presided over a series of cuts, quite deep ones, in the appropriations in this Budget across the broadcasting and media sector, which will have a direct impact on the media in New Zealand being able to be independent and being able to carry out the important role that they have.

I did wonder, during those hearings, when we asked the Minister questions, whether it wouldn’t have been better for us to have Minister Seymour in the seat, because, in the offer of immediate action, if you look at specific journalists disappearing, if you look at CEOs being told their time is up, if you look at the Broadcasting Standards Authority being wound up, those have all been calls that have been made by other Ministers, Ministers other than the Minister for Media and Communications. Of all the things that have become reality in his time as the Minister, the most frustrating is when we’re talking about what supports the Minister is working on, what legislation the Minister is bringing to the House, so that we can ensure the financial viability of our independent news and current affairs media sector in New Zealand. The Minister could only say that he’s continuing to watch closely what’s happening in Australia, which he has been watching closely for close to two years now and taking absolutely no action on here. I want to convey my frustration at that and how that’s reflected in the appropriations, but also the frustration that is relayed to me, from across the media sector, at the lack of action taken in this space.

The other area that’s covered really comprehensively in these appropriations, and that I wanted to look at where we got to with asking probing questions about priorities, both for the restructuring within the sector, which is our science, innovation, and tech sector, and also at the disruption caused to funding—and, therefore, to the pipeline of projects that should be coming through in our science, innovation, and technology sector. Let’s not forget, we are the best in the world at this, absolutely the best at innovating, inventing, and exploring new ideas and new thinking, but what we have at the moment is a hugely disruptive set of restructures and a freezing of funds that is seeing some of our best and brightest not being able to invest in our future and instead having to invest in tickets to take flight and leave New Zealand. This science sector, this innovation sector, tells us that it’s not just a holiday they’re taking; it’s potentially departure for the rest of their careers, the rest of their lives. That leaves a massive, massive gap in our science, innovation, and tech sector future and in the pipeline and ecosystem we need to see being created in that space.

My first question to the Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology was whether she believed in science, and it might sound like a funny question, but it is actually a relevant question when she is presiding over so much disruption in that space, which we are seeing through the appropriations in this Budget—further disruption, further confusion, further lack of certainty. What might surprise you even more is that the answer wasn’t “Yes, absolutely, 100 percent”, which is what you would expect from the Minister; instead, it was “I hope so”. As we know, hope is not a strategy, and an answer as disconcerting as “I hope so” is both disturbing and frightening for a sector that is calling out for certainty. We see that across some of the amazing blue-skies research that is really not a priority for this Government. If we’re looking at an ecosystem which we need in our science, innovation, and tech sector, you are, essentially, cutting off the very beginning of where our best ideas come from. Very little funding, if any, is available in that space; “Let’s only focus on commercialisation.” There’s nothing wrong with that, but, in isolation, that is the most short-term strategy you could possibly bring.

I don’t have time to go into some of the other concerns that I have: the lack of understanding around the gaming development sector rebate, which has seen an 86 percent revenue growth across the gaming sector in New Zealand—an industry that we lead the world in and where we are fantastically empowered by our geographic isolation, because we’re not talking about putting products on ships; we are simply talking about people around the world downloading the brilliant games and entertainment offerings that we create in New Zealand. This year, this sector has gone over a billion dollars in revenue, and yet the Minister is not prepared to take the baseline funding that sits there and make the rebate ceiling slightly higher to ensure that we keep some of our biggest companies here in New Zealand—really disappointing to see some of those future-focused opportunities missed.

I haven’t even had a chance to get into some of the deeply concerning gaps in understanding strategy and budgeting for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) across the public sector. AI is not free. It is an amazing, powerful tool that has huge productivity potential, but only if governance is good and only if investment is made to ensure that we have the best possible products here to serve New Zealanders. That’s not what the appropriations in this Budget do. It’s not what I’m hearing in the speeches from the Government MPs in the House.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (09:31): Listeners at home wouldn’t have really noticed that we’re actually here discussing two bills today. The first is the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the second is the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill. Both deserve scrutiny, and we’ll, on this side of the House, do that job. The others will just go to their talking points. But first to the imprest supply bill.

Just to explain for the House and for listeners at home—all two of them—what the Supplementary Estimates bill is about. This bill is about ensuring that any changes through last year’s Budget in the appropriations are authorised by the House, and it’s Parliament’s job to scrutinise those changes for New Zealanders.

Why on earth do we have this bill before the House? Well, simply put, the Budget is dependent on a range of forecasts and assumptions, and those forecasts and assumptions are outlined in the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update. You wouldn’t want to be a forecaster in this time of day. With all the external and internal uncertainty, those forecasts have a huge amount of uncertainty. Last year’s Budget actually indicated that those uncertainties were real, in the wake of external events like Trump’s tariffs and the impact of those tariffs and also to this year and the impact of one certain war in the Middle East, the war in Iran.

Then there are a range of internal events that make a difference to the economic assumptions—things like natural weather events, the recession that New Zealand has been in, caused by a Reserve Bank - induced hike in interest rates from the inflation that we had under the previous Government.

There’s a range of uncertainty out there when those projections are put forward in the Budget. Those projections, there’s unders and overs, but they ultimately have material impacts in terms of Government services and in terms of revenue.

Essentially, the Supplementary Estimates bill reflects the changes in the 2025-26 Budget that have been spent or reductions in revenue, and that is why we are here today discussing that. It really demonstrates the responsiveness of our Government that we bring this bill back to the House to retrospectively give authority to those changes in expenditures. That is important in terms of accountability. It’s important in terms of oversight and in terms of fiscal management.

Where does this all sit? Well, it all goes back to the Public Finance Act. On the Finance and Expenditure Committee, we’ve had a really good review on public performance and accountability reporting, and that will be actually coming to the House for discussion very soon, I understand, making some suggestions around how we improve accountability and financial reporting for Parliament and for the public. That is my remarks on the first bill, the Supplementary Estimates bill.

The second bill that we’ve got before us today is the imprest supply bill. As was indicated in the speeches yesterday on the Budget, this Budget is really all about securing New Zealand’s economic future, making sure that we boost economic growth, boost real wage growth, reduce the role of the State on the economy, and pay down the debt burden that the previous Government left us with.

Let’s just remind members on the opposite side the level of debt that we inherited from the previous Government. We not only inherited debt; we also inherited one of the largest fiscal deficits in the OECD. We’ve actually got, this year alone, this forecast year, $216 billion of nominal Government debt as a result of the poor decisions of the previous Government. Why does it matter for the New Zealanders at home? It matters because we have a mounting interest bill on that debt forecast to be, in this Budget alone, $9.7 billion—$9.7 billion. That is astronomical. We know from the Treasury forecasts for the next 20 to 30 years that debt and the interest bill on that debt is only going to grow higher because of superannuation and because of healthcare.

We’ve got some parties in Parliament today that wish to put their heads in the sand and say, “No, we won’t make any changes to superannuation.” We’ve got realistic, pragmatic parties like National, who have always advocated for pragmatic, sustainable fiscal changes to our pension system to make sure that it’s sustainable in the future.

I wish to turn the attention to some of the really important things that were announced in the Budget which the imprest supply bill, essentially, gives effect to. We’ve got targeted support for health, things like $35 million extra for our ambulance services—great news for Northcote and communities right up and down New Zealand. We’ve got $34 million funded for our three-day post-natal stays, allowing newborns and new mothers to remain in hospital for up to three days. It’s great news. We’ve got a lowering of the age of free bowel care screening from 68 to 66. That’s going to make a material difference for well over 200,000 New Zealanders per annum.

Education—let’s go now to education. If there’s one really wasteful spending that we cut and that the previous Government had, it was the fees-free, which had no material impact on outcomes at all in terms of enrolment and in terms of education achievement. What have we been able to do with that? We’ve cut that funding and we’ve reallocated it for what is a great programme, the Trades Academy programme, and we’ve got an extra 20,000 places so that we can get people into trades, earning while they’re learning—earning while they’re learning. It was—

Hon Member: And it was a billion dollars over four years.

DAN BIDOIS: It was a billion dollars over the forecast period. It was a huge amount of wasteful money, and thank goodness we in the National Party and our finance Minister made some changes in that area.

We’ve got more money to strengthen reading, writing, and maths achievement in our schools, and we’ve got continued roll-out of the structured literacy and mathematics, which is going really well, just according to all of my schools in Northcote. They’re doing really well, and I wish to thank teachers right across the country for really picking up and running with structured literacy and structured maths. The feedback I get right across the sector is positive, and the evidence, we know, is clear that it makes a difference. Those of you who are parents know how important it is to get your kids a better chance in life through education. With that, I think there’s some really good things in the Budget around education and healthcare.

Law and order: remember three years ago, members, how common it was to have a ram raid, two ram raids a day—two ram raids a day—that’s down 85 percent under this Government. This Budget puts $500 million extra into correction facilities, so making sure that our communities are safe. We’ve got new police stations in places like Wanganui—

Hon Member: That’s right—fantastic new police station.

DAN BIDOIS: Fantastic new places. Actually, the Police Commissioner himself said that in the history of New Zealand, we’ve never had as many front-line police officers as we do now. Isn’t that great news?

It’s all part of our plan to fix the basics and build the future. Fix the basics in healthcare, in education, in law and order, in infrastructure, in transport; fixing the basics in our Government finances; and building the future, so that my son, your kids, all of our future kids and grandkids can stay here in New Zealand, they don’t have to up shoots and leave like they have done for decades. So with that, I commend both of these bills to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The next call is a split call.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) (09:41): This Budget, after 2½ years, was essentially the National Government’s last chance to show New Zealanders that they were willing to do something about the cost of living crisis, that they understood the pain that people are feeling. But that moment has passed, and people have given up on this Government—you hear that everywhere you go in New Zealand; that’s what people say.

You can see the cost of living crisis on the faces of the people that I represent in West Auckland. The effect of the National Government’s austerity policies, you can see it on the streets of Henderson, in Massey, in Rānui. People aren’t eating so well—they can’t afford to. The stress of trying to get to the end of the week to pay the bills is taking its toll—that feeling of working harder and harder and going backwards.

For the most vulnerable in our communities, the most basic of safety nets has been ripped away by this Government. People turn up at my office on a Friday afternoon with the kids in the back of a car and they say, “We don’t have anywhere to sleep tonight.” It’s not very long ago that you could send them to Work and Income down the road and they would be guaranteed a roof over their heads. Under this Government’s policies, they’re basically given a lecture about personal responsibility and told to get out. That is what happens. It happens every day, every week in the community that I represent. That’s why there is record homelessness and people sleeping in their cars. It is directly attributable to this Government’s policies.

The effect of this Government’s austerity policies is taking its toll in the health of the people. The emergency department at Waitākere Hospital is absolutely clogged. Why? Because people can’t afford to go to the GP, so they go along to the hospital emergency department, and that’s why the delays are so long; also because this Government refuses to employ our nursing grads, and there simply aren’t enough nurses in the hospital.

For the most vulnerable people, they are feeling this in their health. A public nurse told me the other day that there is an outbreak of scabies. Skin disease is the canary in the coalmine for poverty: people who are not properly fed, who cannot live decent lives because of poverty and poor living conditions—skin disease is where it shows. What an absolute indictment of this Government’s austerity policies.

What is this Government’s answer? What does this Budget say to those people? It gives them a lecture on fiscal policy—by a Government that gave huge tax breaks to landlords and tobacco companies and to the well-off, and has increased borrowing. It’s increased borrowing, not actually reduced it. They’ve slashed the Public Service, close to 10,000 jobs, which will inevitably affect front-line services. And what does that mean? It means longer queues, fewer border security checks, clogged courtrooms.

This Government promised to fix things because Christopher Luxon was the business guy. He was going to run New Zealand like Air New Zealand, as if the country was a business—that was the promise: we’re going to fix the cost of living.

Steve Abel: They’ve just run it down.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yep, the self-proclaimed economic geniuses on that side of the House have presided over record business-closures, higher unemployment, a collapse in business confidence, and a downgrade from the ratings agencies. That’s their record. Blissfully ignorant of decades and decades of economic history. What happens when you get rid of thousands of people out of paid employment? What happens when you cancel and delay hundreds of construction projects in transport and housing, and you have this magical thinking that somehow the private sector is going to step into the breach and make all of the investments and make the economy grow? Well, what happened? Investors and consumers stopped spending. This Government’s economic policies that are embedded in this Budget have caused a crisis.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) (09:46): It gives me no great pleasure, on a Wednesday morning, to stand here and take a lecture from Phil Twyford, the man who couldn’t count to 100,000. He couldn’t get past a couple of thousand, and yet he wants to stand here with the short-term thinking and going, “Forget about that—forget about that—it’s the other guy’s fault. It’s their fault. Don’t worry about what I did or didn’t do, it’s the other guy’s fault.” Kiwis have not forgotten—Kiwis have not forgotten. Who remembers the Chinese-sounding surnames? Remember that? No contribution or mention of that in his speech, and yet here we are on a Wednesday morning.

We’re actually here to talk about two things: one, it’s the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, and also the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill. Now, these bills are standard, but they are an important part of the parliamentary process. If we start with the appropriation bill, which is the Supplementary Estimates, it seeks Parliament’s approval for changes to the current year’s appropriation. My colleague Dan Bidois, our resident economist on this side of the House, actually highlighted really clearly why that was so important. Then he went on and talked about the imprest supply bill, which provides the necessary interim authority for the Government to continue delivering services until the main appropriation bill—

Shanan Halbert: He can’t even count.

TOM RUTHERFORD: —for 2026-27 is passed. And the irony, here, is I get heckled from the other side.

Hon James Meager: Aw, they don’t understand.

TOM RUTHERFORD: They don’t understand the financial literacy—or illiteracy on that side—that actually these bills play and the important role.

The Supplementary Estimates reflect a Government that is focused on responsible fiscal management while continuing to deliver for New Zealanders. They show where additional investment has been required and where we’ve also needed to reprioritise spending, as my colleague Ryan Hamilton outlined in his earlier contribution. As a Government, we were elected to get the basics right, to restore the discipline to public finances. We have to remember the Government doesn’t have any of its own money; it has New Zealanders’ money. If we are to increase taxes or borrowing or anything of the sort, it is everyday New Zealanders that will pay the price for that, and we must justify to them why that is the case, and at the moment there is a clear void, particularly from the other side, as to the justification for the need to do so.

We, as a Government, just like New Zealand households across this country, must live within our means. There is no magic money tree. Remember when the other side said—and they were asked, “Oh, where would you get the money from?” “Oh, we’ll just appropriate it—we’ll just appropriate it.” Do you know what that means? It means future generations will have to pick up the tab of the credit card. It’s future generations that will pay the increased interest and tax bill that that side of the House wants to put on everyday New Zealanders.

We, as a Government, in this year’s Budget, have said, “No, we’re not going to take that path. We’ll make the tough and difficult decisions that everyday New Zealanders voted for us to do.”

However, we can still do that and invest in critical services. Health: where we’re reducing wait times. The Minister for Mental Health has just released figures today, which show the incredible progress we are making in that space. There is still work to do—there is still work to do—but our investment in health and in mental health is having a positive impact to New Zealanders.

We’re supporting infrastructure that will help grow our economy and create jobs—220,000 new jobs—but we’re also providing targeted cost of living relief where it’s needed most. Remember, when the fuel crisis started a few months ago, how easy it would have been to just open up the hose and spend taxpayers’ money left, right, and centre and spray it around. That was the easy thing to do, but it wouldn’t have been the right thing to do. Now, looking back, we made the right decisions.

New Zealanders expect the Government to manage the public finances prudently, while still delivering on the services that they rely on. That’s exactly what these bills do. Both the appropriations and the imprest supply are part of our plan to fix the basics and build the future. Thank you.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti) (09:51): [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

[Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

I want to acknowledge the very lengthy explanation one of the members opposite gave about this bill. While I suspect he was doing that to take up some time, what I can guarantee you is while he was delivering that explanation, Aotearoa heard nothing. That meant nothing to the people who we serve. What Aotearoa wanted from this Government—that they promised—is that they would fix the cost of living, and they have not.

The latest appropriations represent the culmination of a billion dollars slashed from targeted Māori investment—investments like Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga. We’ve heard from across the House that they acknowledge all housing is important, etc. A whare, a kāinga, doesn’t just represent four walls. If you want your kids to do well in school, they’re going to do much better if they’ve got somewhere warm, safe, and dry to live. We want them to be healthy; that also comes from having a warm, safe, dry home. Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga went beyond that. It actually supported development of whenua, giving whānau who live in those houses not just the shelter—the physical shelter of four walls and a roof. It gave them the connection to their whenua, it built up communities by ensuring tamariki got to go to these amazing new educational institutions the Government is purporting to provide, and it gave them meaningful contribution and connection to their whakapapa and their communities. That investment, in these appropriations, is gone.

What you won’t see in these appropriations are Māori development programmes, development investment that supported programmes like the business hub in Wairoa. We’ve talked about regional investment and regional jobs—where are these 220,000 new jobs, by the way? That’s a great number. We should be excited by it, but as I traverse Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, I’m seeing people losing jobs and seriously considering—those who haven’t already—leaving Aotearoa. Now, leaving Aotearoa doesn’t just mean leaving your whānau. Again, it’s the connection to whenua I talked about; that’s what we’re risking here. We are risking isolating people from their whakapapa, their whenua, their communities, and, ultimately, investing in our country’s economy, which is what I understood this Government wanted.

Back to talking about Wairoa. In spite of the cuts, thank God there are organisations like the Wairoa Business Hub, who are supporting people not only to get into business, to thrive, but supporting them in staying where they live, where they come from, where they want to be. Now, we heard that that’s what this Government wanted: to drive the economy, get people—we’ve heard it—off the couch and thriving into mahi. What a great idea. Imagine if we had something like the progressive procurement fund to support that. Wait a minute! We did, and this Government cut it. That contract represented a reinvestment of over $900 million from Māori business into this economy, into our communities, into regions, and this Government cut it. We heard the Minister say, yesterday, that this is all about making it easier to do business here in New Zealand. Easier for who? Why are we providing better opportunities for people offshore? Of course, there’s a place for that, but why would we take away a programme that was working and helping build business in our communities and contribute to the $126 billion Māori economy? That’s what’s missing from these appropriations.

Another member opposite talked about the fees-free being wasteful spending. I took a phone call this very morning from someone who works in a tertiary education institution. It’s interesting: when the economy is struggling, that’s often when people will decide to retrain and reinvent themselves to get themselves back in the workforce. That’s what this supported. We know that there have been jobs slashed across Aotearoa, and so some people are looking to retrain. This fees-free would have supported them. The feedback from actual students impacted by this—the feedback from people actually impacted by this—who the Government members clearly don’t care about and don’t want to hear is that this is taking away their choices. This is taking away their choices. They already know you don’t care. They are taking away the choices and taking away another tool that would have gone to supporting the rebuilding not only of the economy of New Zealand, but also the impact on the back pockets of New Zealanders who regret voting this National-led Government in and will have great joy at bidding it farewell.

Tom Rutherford: Campaign on it. If it’s so good, campaign on it.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL: Here’s the irony: the member who is now interjecting was complaining about interjecting.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Yeah, can I ask members not to have these rowdy conversations across the Chamber? Let’s go, Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. You may continue.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL: Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Let’s move, now, to another area that’s having a direct impact on the economy of people’s households, and that’s public service cuts. Like I said, nobody heard the explanation of the member opposite, because all they know is that this Government promised to cut the cost of living and they have not. Now, we’ve got cuts to public services. Already, whānau often have to travel, sometimes over 100 kilometres one way, to see public servants. Now, with the increase of petrol costs and further cuts of public services, this is just overwhelming for a lot of whānau. A lot of them will not be able to access the services. Once again, people are feeling the pinch, feeling the crunch, much, much more from the cuts of this National-led coalition Government.

That said, I come from Ikaroa-Rāwhiti where we bring the light every day. I want to acknowledge the innovation of our communities who, in spite of many, many cuts, continue to care for the vulnerable in their communities. I’ve heard some examples, again, just this very morning, of disability services in Tūranga-nui-a-Kiwa Gisborne, who are struggling because of the cuts they’ve had to make. That said, they are working hard to maintain some form of service for the vulnerable whānau that they support.

I want to acknowledge people throughout Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and Aotearoa who continue to serve the communities in spite of, as I’ve said, the $1 billion of targeted funding—that’s just to Māori—that has been taken away from our communities. I also want to commend the innovation that I get to see as I traverse Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, from Wairarapa to Wainuiōmata, Kahungunu whānui, tae noa atu ki Te Tai Rāwhiti.

[Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

Speaking of which, another thing we won’t see in these appropriations is any targeted response for the Tairāwhiti. We hear a lot of kōrero about farmers—excellent; we want farmers to do well. However, there is still a portion of very vulnerable farmers in Wharekahika who had a visit from Government Ministers and are still waiting for any response, and, sadly, they are not seeing it in these appropriations.

As I’ve said, all Aotearoa knows right now is that while the Government can budget—again, a third underwhelming Budget; probably the most underwhelming—they are still living with the broken promise that the National-led coalition made to ease the cost of living. Whānau out there are not feeling it.

I just want to mihi to you all out there,e hoa mā, e hika mā, kia kaha tonu koutou.

[Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

You don’t have to endure this for much longer, e hoa mā. Haere, enrol, me pōti. Use your ultimate mana motuhake to change this Government and have a Government that is inclined to listen to you.

NANCY LU (National) (10:01): Madam Speaker, it’s great to see you. I rise in support, to support two bills, and, for some of our New Zealanders who have turned on TV just now, let me be very clear: there are two bills. Particularly, we are on the second and the third reading of the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, and also the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill.

These are very technical bills, but I think it’s very important to lay out the foundation which is to underpin the fundamental principle of our democracy, and that is that the Government cannot spend a single cent in our Government Budget without the authority of this Parliament. This is particularly important because every single dollar that this Government spends is a dollar that is earned by New Zealanders through their hard work. It comes from the workers that are doing the early shifts in the morning, like tradies and farmers. It comes from nurses and doctors who are doing their night shifts, taking care of New Zealanders. It comes from the small businesses that take on risks to invest, to open up, and to serve our community. It comes from the tradies, the retirees, and it also comes from families who are managing a very tight family budget, as well as large companies who are employing tens, hundreds, and thousands of New Zealanders around the country, who ultimately pay their tax dollars into Inland Revenue. Therefore, it is for our Government to be responsible and to fix the basics on many fronts in New Zealand but also to build the future for our New Zealanders around the country.

Now, these bills are part of that responsibility that our Government—the National-led Government—is very serious about. We know that with this hard-earned taxpayer money paid by New Zealanders, they are expecting that this Government will be the mature parties in this House that will spend wisely and invest wisely and that will fix the basics in our core public services, including education, health, transport and infrastructure, and in restoring law and order, to provide better, more efficient, and more productive public services.

New Zealanders also expect a Government that is mature, disciplined, careful, and relentless in delivering the outcomes from their hard-earned taxpayers’ money. New Zealanders are also expecting that the National-led Government is a Government that will deliver for the future of New Zealand, for many sectors and many of the hard-working New Zealanders who I’ve mentioned already but also for our younger generation and the future generations, including our children and our grandchildren.

This is why it’s particularly important for me, I think, to talk not just about the Budget of 2025-26 but also the current Budget that we have in front of the House and in the public domain, which was released at the end of last month. We need to also remind New Zealanders who have tuned in about what we’ve done as a Government for the last three Budgets.

Remember, we are a Government that has inherited messy, messy Government books. Before coming into politics, I was working as a professional chartered accountant, and I’ve never seen a reckless Government performance like what we’ve had and what we inherited, because in six years of the last Government, the debt for New Zealand had risen 20 times—20 times. I don’t believe that New Zealanders would be OK to think that their mortgages have risen 20 times in six years, and that comes with the consequence of paying now the interest bill. Just servicing the loan—not even paying down the loan, but just servicing the loan—is more than the combined budget that we give to five core public sectors, including justice, police, customs, and defence.

It was actually quite astonishing for me when I came in as a member of Parliament, and now, while serving New Zealand, to see how reckless the last Government was. But in the last three Budgets, what we have delivered as the National Government is that we have found savings across many Government departments, including up to about $50 billion in savings across our last three Budgets. That is savings that were found, line by line, by our Ministers and their ministries by cutting down administrative costs, or costs that are deemed to be unproductive or not servicing New Zealanders well, and by still reprioritising some of the Budget amounts to the front line. For example, we are providing more policing funding, providing more funding to nurses and doctors, and making sure that we are providing the healthcare that New Zealanders need. This is what I call a Government that is disciplined, that is mature, and that is servicing New Zealand.

Across the Budgets, we talked a lot about reprioritising and being disciplined in how we spend, but this Government, through the last three Budgets, has also put in a lot of emphasis on capital investment—particularly into building the future—because, ultimately, as a nation that has over $100 billion in debt, we are not going to grow out of that debt or return to a Government surplus by taxing everybody. That would drive down productivity and that would force capital to leave New Zealand. We are now having to find the extra money or reprioritise the extra money to pay and service our debt, but what is our plan to our plans reduce the debt and return the Government books to surplus?

This is why we say building the future is particularly important for New Zealand and all New Zealanders. That’s why our Government has a plan and it is on track to deliver that plan early, in my opinion, to double the export value of all New Zealand exports in the next 10 years. We have already seen that there is a record in our primary and red meat products’ export value. We have now seen a record in the fibre and food export products, and this is how we are going to build a future for New Zealand, grow the Government books, return to surplus, and actually have money and have capital. This is a Government Budget where we can provide and prioritise servicing New Zealanders in education, in health, in justice, and in building the infrastructure that we need in New Zealand so that people can drive safer and better and be more connected between cities and rural towns, and that we actually have the infrastructure to accommodate the future growth of this country.

If you look around the world in all this global uncertainty, New Zealand is often the most researched country by any other international countries because we are considered as safe. We are a very safe country. In fact, just a few weeks ago, New Zealand was ranked the second-safest country on earth, and that was a comeback for New Zealand, because that wasn’t the case six years ago. I remember opening my phone every day and reading that it will be ram raids here, someone losing a finger here, and cars ram-raiding into your shop.

I visited, actually, a liquor store in the area that I live in, in Pakuranga, just a couple of streets away from my house, and they were ram-raided four times in six months—four times in six months. When I visited them, they were in tears, because they had no hope for the future. They just wanted some peace and certainty that they would be able to run a business, provide a living for the family and actually not be hurt or killed in those ram raids.

It took us some years—it took the National Government some years—to restore that law and order. We reduced 46,000 victims—much earlier than even our original target, our original plan. That is, we reduced 46,000 victims and protected them from any harm, protected their family and their local communities. This is what we call fixing the basics, and one when we have a safe and certain environment where families feel happy and safe to go to work and come back to work, and for businesses to have the interest and also the courage and confidence in investing.

That’s why we see so many, now, New Zealand businesses taking on the core concept of Budget 2025-26, which is Investment Boost. It’s that tax incentive that this Government, the National Government, have provided to New Zealand businesses to get the 20 percent tax deduction from investing into machineries or tools and equipment that will unlock productivity, that will help the businesses to grow and to regain business confidence. This is why, even in the global uncertainties, even when in our neighbouring countries are not doing so well politically or economically, we are seeing business confidence coming back. We are seeing that New Zealanders and, actually, people are interested to move to New Zealand, because they can see a brighter, better future with the National Government.

Hon Members: Madam Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Shanan Halbert was the first person to call.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour) (10:12): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, today here we are discussing the Budget and appropriations. The reality is that the National Party and Christopher Luxon, they promised to fix the economy and provide cost of living relief. I ask every New Zealander in this country: have they done that—have they done that?

This Budget was the last chance for the National Party to demonstrate that they are actually listening to New Zealanders, that they could provide solutions that ease the pressure to the cost of living challenges and the increased costs that Kiwis are experiencing on a day-to-day basis. New Zealanders had a little bit of hope in this Budget that come election year, this Government would stand up, put some good solutions on the table to tell them how things would get better, how things would get easier, and that the outcomes of difficult day-to-day lives would be changed.

But instead, the National Party and this Government have decided to cut deeper, to build an economy that is about cuts, cutting it back to the bone. That’s not good economics, because when people are unemployed, they spend less money in our economy; they spend less money in local businesses; they tend to stay home, and therefore less money is spent out in our communities.

We heard from National Party MPs. One says that she’s a chartered accountant. The other one says that he’s an economist. Well, let’s talk to the numbers today, because under the National Party’s watch, in the half year economic update, GDP growth of 2.8 percent is now 1.2 percent. Unemployment of 4.8 percent is now forecast to be 5.5 percent. Inflation was meant to be 2.2 percent; it’s now forecast to be 4 percent. This is an interesting one, because they went on and on about the expenditure of the last Government and that the last Government, under Labour, borrowed money. They easily forget that under their watch and Nicola Willis, they have borrowed more money. The question for the chartered accountant and the economist is: does that make sense—does that make sense to you? Is that the advice that you would ask?

Tom Rutherford was blowing smoke on his colleague Dan Bidois, MP for Northcote, and his speech and comments that he was making. We know in our Northcote community that people are doing it tough, that they have found things more expensive as a result of this Government’s choices. Dan Bidois talked up the police count in Whanganui, but he failed to say that there’s actually less police on the North Shore under his watch. He talked about the introduction of structured literacy in schools, but he failed to acknowledge that it was under Jan Tinetti’s watch that those, in fact, schools in our community started teaching structured literacy. He failed to mention that under his watch, the attendant service for young people in our community has been scrapped. He’s lost it. Under his watch, the women’s centre has closed and Poutama Rangatahi has lost money by the hundreds of thousands.

How is that for leadership of any community and how is that fiscally responsible? We come into this House to make the lives of our people and our communities better, but under this Government, under National, Christopher Luxon, it has got worse. It has absolutely got worse.

Now, hear me out on fees-free, because this is a numbers game again. The chartered accountant and the economist, here’s the numbers for you. Labour’s investment was $1.1 billion in reducing debt for young people and next generations, investing in the skills that young people need for our future workforce. The promise by New Zealand First was to reinvest that money into a more targeted approach. What did they do in this Budget? They committed to Trades Academies.

Tom Rutherford: Very good.

SHANAN HALBERT: It is good, but it’s a loss to tertiary education, and that’s a reinvestment of that money going into compulsory education—a net loss.

The other point there is that when we talk about the second initiative and youth guarantees—1,000 Youth Guarantee places—well, that’s good. But when we look at the numbers, we have 100,000 young people not engaged in education, training, or employment. Remove the additional 1,000 places, and the number left for this Government to answer is: how are you responding to the needs of 99,000 young people that still remain and you haven’t provided a solution for?

If we add the Trades Academy numbers and we add the Youth Guarantee numbers, that’s 11,000 people that are impacted positively by this Government. But you look at what fees-free achieved: that impacted the lives positively of 40,000 young people. Let’s do the maths. That’s 29,000 young people that lose opportunity under the National Party’s watch. The chartered accountant and the economist, please do the numbers for me. How does that improve the lives of young New Zealanders in this country, and how does it improve upskilling our future workforce?

I’m still waiting for an answer, because when tertiary education loses $1 billion of funding, where has that been redistributed to—where has that been redistributed to? The reality is a net loss is a net loss—less young New Zealanders being impacted positively by your decisions and less money going into the real things that matter. That’s on top of the thousands of apprentices that this Government has lost. That is on top of the 30,000 less apprentices, should I say, and 10,000 less young people that have access to the Apprenticeship Boost scheme. In fact, in this appropriation and this Budget, they don’t even spend the Apprenticeship Boost money, and they blame the downturn of the construction sector, which was their choice in the first place. The reality there is that, whether you’re the chartered accountant or whether you're the economist, do your maths. Do your maths, because the reality is that your numbers don't stack up, and I will challenge that every day.

My last point here was around the exchange with Minister Potaka in the Whānau Ora space. For a length of time, we talked about a new data-capturing system. We know data is important. I celebrate that and acknowledge that, but the reality is that this Minister didn’t use that data to inform the Budget when I asked him. There’s a net drop, a net loss in the amount of funding, a small amount sliced off the bottom—which is not much anyway—but the question I asked him is, “What data are you actually using to inform this Budget?” No response. My second question was, “But surely providers tell you what their wait-list numbers are for the number of whānau waiting to access Whānau Ora services?” Doesn’t know. That really speaks to the reality of this Government, how out of touch they are, how they say, “Look over here.”, when, actually, the reality is over here.

Because no matter where you live in New Zealand, no matter where you are in Aotearoa, you know that the political choices of Christopher Luxon and this Government have created worse outcomes no matter what community that you live in, unless you’re a landlord, unless you’re part of tobacco companies, because the reality is that’s who this Government backs. They don’t back young people, they don’t back learners, and they certainly don’t back the average New Zealanders out there.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Carl Bates was first on his feet, and I just need to inform the member that this is not a full call, because this debate will expire in around five minutes and four seconds.

CARL BATES (National—Whanganui) (10:22): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take the call in this important debate. I think Shanan Halbert’s accounting and approach to numbers would be described as more creative than Immigration New Zealand’s approach to managing an IT project.

He doesn’t understand that, actually, removing fees-free doesn’t change the spend that this Government is making in tertiary education. He doesn’t understand that, actually, the spend in tertiary education doesn’t change. It just changes the portion that already the number of students in New Zealand—the most supported students from a government perspective in the Western world—get from Government. It doesn’t change the amount of money that actually gets spent within the tertiary system. That’s because the Opposition basically doesn’t understand accounting. They don’t understand numbers. They don’t understand that their $100 billion of increased debt is being paid for every day in this country by New Zealanders today. It means we can’t spend money on social services, on education, on healthcare, on things that New Zealanders need today because we’re paying for their economic mismanagement. One million dollars every hour of every day, every year is being spent on the interest bill that that Government—that Opposition Government—created. Nine billion dollars in interest—$9 billion in interest. That is $1 for every $2 we spend on secondary school education. Just think about how much more this Government would be able to spend today if it wasn’t servicing their debt.

The Opposition and the Opposition finance spokesperson from the Green Party like to make announcements, but they don’t understand that, actually, you’ve got to follow that announcement up with money, and then you’ve got to use the money to deliver the outcome. Let’s take mental health. The last Government committed $1.9 billion to mental health, and what did they do with it? Nothing. They couldn’t even find where to spend it, let alone achieve outcomes. On this side of the House, we not only understand how to invest Government money effectively, we understand that you have to connect that to an outcome. Today, we released the mental health targets for the last quarter and they are fantastic. We have a Minister for Mental Health who is actually achieving outcome by spending Government money, investing it, focusing on achieving that target, and this is what this Budget’s about. Across my region, Taranaki and Whanganui, I think there was only one target that was marginally below the target for those mental health outcomes. That was outstanding.

Talking about the wonderful Whanganui electorate and this Budget, the last Government said, “Hey, let's build a new police station.” Did they fund it? No. Did they build it? No. Did they try and claim online that the fact that we’ve announced and we’re going to build it under this Budget is a result of the last Government? Yes. But if they committed to it and if they put the money behind it, where is it? I tell you what, it is not there. It didn’t get built because the Opposition know how to make announcements, but they don’t know how to follow through. So under this Budget, the Whanganui police station, along with the Greymouth one, will be built.

I’ll give you another example. Chris Hipkins, as Minister of Education, said, “Hey, let’s change the high schools in Hāwera. Let’s build a new high school.” Did he fund it? No. Did he deliver it? No. But under this Budget, as announced last week by Minister Stanford, Te Paepae o Aotea in Hāwera gets the funding it needs to have the condition upgrade of that school that has been desperately required by that community, and as the local MP for Whanganui, I am very proud that it is this Government that not only says we will do things but we actually do them, commit the money, and ensure that the outcome gets delivered. This is a Budget that is fixing the basics and building the future.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The time for this debate has expired.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) 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.

Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill read a second time.

Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill read a second time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Those bills are set down for third reading immediately.

Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill

Third Reading

Hon MATT DOOCEY (Minister for Mental Health) (10:28): on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill be now read a third time.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) 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.

Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill

Third Reading

Hon MATT DOOCEY (Minister for Mental Health) (10:29): on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill be now read a third time.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the motion 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.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Bill.

Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Bill

Committee of the whole House

Part 1 Amendment to principal Act

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Members, the House is in committee on the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Bill. We come first to Part 1, “Amendment to principal Act”, the debate on clause 4. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (10:31): Thank you, Mr Chair. Just to kick off proceedings this morning, I’ll take the committee back a few months to when we were at the second reading and we traversed the purpose of this legislation and the outcome of the select committee.

During that time, we talked a little bit about how many members in this House have been engaging with stakeholders, the likes of which include the Game Animal Council, New Zealand Deerstalkers Association, and other various hunting groups and foundations. The consistent response from those groups has been twofold. One is that hunting is an important part of the recreational and social lifeblood of our country, that our valued introduced species have real meaning and a really special place in the hearts of many New Zealanders who hunt those animals for food to put on the table and also for their recreational and social value. The second part of that is also that there are certain herds around the country that are worth managing for their hunting value and not just managing for the impact that they have on the wider environment. Of course, if you manage animals for their hunting value, you will inevitably end up with fewer, healthier herds. That is not only good for the environment but also good for our hunting community. Part of that is the idea of herds of special interest, which was introduced in the Game Animal Council Act in 2013.

Now, since that Act was introduced over a decade ago, no herds of special interest have been designated. The Government has indicated that it is going through the process of designating herds of special interest, but the hunting sector has raised consistently what could be an apparent contradiction in the existing National Parks Act with the herds of special interest process. That is the part of the National Parks Act, which is section 4(2)(b), which requires introduced species in national parks to be exterminated as far as possible. I think it actually can be consistent, but on its face, it contradicts the Game Animal Council Act, which allows a herd of special interest to be designated in a national park. Of course, when you do that, you would then be managing that herd for its recreational hunting value, managing its numbers down so that you have healthier, stronger, better value animals, rather than exterminating them completely. There is an argument out there in the community that, if you didn’t make a change to the Game Animal Council Act to take out the requirement to fully exterminate those animals, any sort of management process undertaken in a national park could only be done if you were doing it with the determination to exterminate animals—unless the conservation authority says otherwise.

This bill is a very, very simple, short, straightforward bill that outlines that, if a herd of special interest is designated in a national park, the requirement to exterminate as far as possible animals in that herd does not apply, and instead those animals will be managed in line with a herd management plan, which takes into account the ecological value, the social value, the recreational value, and input from stakeholders such as Forest and Bird, local iwi, local rūnaka, local hunting communities, and the hunting foundations, in order to better manage those herds. Ultimately, what we want with these herds and in those areas are animals that are healthier, that have better trophies, that produce more meat, but that are fewer in number and so put much less pressure on the environment.

That is the purpose of this bill in totality. Clause 4, in this part, is the operative part of the bill; it does all of the heavy lifting. It is the part that says that, when designating a herd of special interest, section 4(2)(b) of the National Parks Act will not apply to that herd. It may well still apply to animals outside of that herd. There may well still be management processes in place for other animals and other introduced species that will be managed down and potentially eliminated—for example, goats. However, this part, clause 4, is the bit that does the heavy lifting. I think I’ve outlined in as much detail as possible what it does, because it is quite straight forward and simple. It will bring a lot of relief to the likes of the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation, who have been successfully managing animals in the Fiordland National Park for over 20 years now, to the point where the environmental outcomes in the areas they manage in the Wapiti block are actually better than in areas that are not managed by the foundation.

I think this is a good, sensible compromise in terms of the management of our game animal species in New Zealand. It celebrates the fact that hunter-led conservation makes a huge contribution to our conservation estate, and I look forward to its passage through the committee today.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (10:36): Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Minister for Hunting and Fishing for laying out quite clearly what this bill does and what the genesis of this legislation is. I will make just a couple of points in response to the Minister’s overview, and then I will get into some very specific questions.

While the Minister makes the point that this is a short bill—and I agree with that—it is quite an important change. It signals a significant shift in the way that national parks will be managed when it comes to protecting introduced browser populations, and I do want to tease that out, to ensure that there is some comfort that various implications have been thought through, because this was quite a rushed process to date, and there were a number of people who submitted on this at the select committee stage, as well.

I want to start, I guess, by pointing to a really good piece that the Department of Conservation (DOC) produced in March this year, which lays out what the Minister ended his contribution with: that this is about hunting and conservation. I also want to make it very clear that the Labour Party’s opposition to this bill is not opposition to hunting per se. I went on the parliamentary hunt, as many other colleagues have done over the years, to learn a little bit more from the Game Animal Council, and I know, from listening to hunters, that many tell us this is how many of them were first introduced to the bush. They laid out that this a way to spend time with family and friends, that often it is how New Zealanders learn to connect with the bush, and I accept all of those arguments. Many talk about the mental health benefits of being out in the bush and the fact that hunting takes them there as well. The Minister made the point that it is to hunters’ benefit when animal numbers are low, because they are then in better condition. To an extent, I accept that as well.

This piece goes on to lay out, though, that while hunters do value healthy ecosystems, and that many see their role as recreation and stewardship, there is undoubtedly an increase in the number of introduced browser species in New Zealand. Deer, pigs, tahr, and goats are all becoming more widespread and abundant. DOC’s own piece talks about the fact that they browse heavily on seedlings and understory plants, and this over time changes the forest structure. That is, essentially, why we’re here today debating this bill. Currently, more than 7 million hectares of public conservation land is already available for hunting. What this bill does is make a change to the National Parks Act to allow browser species, browser populations like deer, to be able to be protected within our national parks. That is the reason why this bill, while small, is incredibly problematic, and I’ll lay that out in a minute.

Many submitters said to us, and I agree, that this bill undermines the national park status. National park status is the highest protection that is accorded to areas across Aotearoa New Zealand that have specific biodiversity values, scientific values, scenic beauty, ecological systems that shouldn’t be destroyed. The inherent tension in this bill is between hunters wanting to protect deer populations in a protected area and the bill that removes the protection.

I will just point to the specific parts of this. The change that it makes is, ultimately, to—so section 16(3) of the principal Act is where Ministers may designate herds of special interest. It lays out where and what considerations the Minister needs to take into account. The introduced areas specifically say, “If a herd of special interest is designated in a national park, section 4(2)(b) of the National Parks Act 1980 does not apply”. That is the issue that everybody has.

It says, “To avoid doubt, section 4(2)(b) of the National Parks Act 1980 does not limit the Minister’s power to make a designation under subsection (1).” What it does, though, is to say that section 4(2)(b)—this is what 4(2)(b) says, Madam Chair—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Yes, I’m going to take another call from the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan, but before I do, to those speakers on my right who are asking for a question, it’s fully proper for an Opposition spokesperson to be able to outline what they’re thinking about the bill before they actually go into questions. I know that the member has indicated she’s going to do that soon, but she’s been outlining her reasoning.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Thank you, Madam Chair. Section 4(2)(b) talks about how national parks need to be preserved. Section 4(2)(b) says, “except where the Authority otherwise determines, the native plants and animals of the parks shall as far as possible be preserved and the introduced plants and animals shall as far as possible be exterminated:” That is the crux of this bill. This bill allows herds of special interest to be developed, cultivated, or protected in national parks. For removal of doubt, it says that they do not need to be exterminated, whereas all other predators, as the Minister has said, will continue to need to be exterminated from national parks.

The issue here and the question that I want to ask the Minister is: does the Minister accept that this is a fundamental shift in terms of the protections accorded to our national parks? I think it’s about four national parks, including Fiordland, that are within Te Wāhipounamu World Heritage Area. When UNESCO nominations were made back in 1989 by the Government of the day, part of the rationale for protecting that was to exterminate predators as far as possible. Now, this bill changes that and puts our international reputation in jeopardy.

Firstly, does the Minister accept that while this is a short bill, it is a fundamental shift in the way that we protect the highest of our public conservation lands, which are national parks? Secondly, it does say in that particular section 4(2)(b) that the New Zealand Conservation Authority has a role to play in this. This bill undermines their authority when it comes to them having a say in what should be protected and what should not be protected within the national park. The New Zealand Conservation Authority themselves have come out and said that this legislation undermines their statutory role. What considerations did the Minister give when making a decision to remove or undermine the Conservation Authority’s role in this?

I know that other colleagues may want to touch on this as well, but iwi and hapū have also submitted to say that there is no requirement in this legislation for their views to be taken into account. Much of this is within Ngāi Tahu’s takiwā, and they have opposed the ability to designate the herds of special interest and particularly also to undermine the status of national parks. When currently hunters can continue to hunt in 7 million hectares of public conservation land, why, Minister, do we need to reduce the protections for national parks?

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (10:45): Thank you, Madam Chair. There’s quite a bit in that, but first of all, I’ll push back against this idea that herds of special interest are designed to protect animals. It’d be an interesting definition of “protect” if a mechanism was put in place to reduce the number of animals in an area. I don’t know how that’s protecting a herd when you’re actually reducing and limiting the number of animals in the area. It’s a strange concept of protection, but I know that’s their talking point and that’s what they’ll push to try and justify their opposition to it all the way throughout.

This change doesn’t signal a shift in the way that national parks are managed; it clarifies the status quo. The status quo is that under section 16(1)(b)(ii) of the Game Animal Council Act, you can designate a herd of special interest in a national park. That is the status quo.

Secondly, section 4(2)(b) currently provides the authority an exemption against the complete possible extermination of animals—any animal in a national park. The Conservation Authority already has an exemption itself to pull back from the so-called protections that are in place for the national park. All this does is clarify that possible tension between designating a herd of interest—which you can already do under the existing legislation which was passed back in 2013 and not amended by any Government since—and the requirement to exterminate as far as possible.

Now, if you took the wording in that part of the National Parks Act to its extreme, you would not be able to do basically anything in a national park that fell short of exterminating every introduced animal you saw. Everybody in this House knows that that is an impractical and impossible obligation to put on any department. What it would do is that it would basically eliminate the resource required to manage species down in a managed, practical way, an adaptable way. Essentially, the country would give up because it would be such an impossible task. Then you would have much, much, much worse outcomes in national parks if you were to take the statute to its extreme.

All this does is it clarifies the existing regime. You can already designate a herd of special interest in a national park. It’s in there in the statute: section 16(1)(b)(ii). The Conservation Authority can already provide an exemption to the elimination or eradication or extermination—whichever word you want to use—as far as possible.

Now, in terms of the claim that it undermines the Conservation Authority, they may well say—and, of course, any organisation that sees its ability to make decisions or have influence shifted will obviously say that. But the problem is that if you then go and look at section 16(2) of the Game Animal Council Act, the Conservation Authority is expressly named as a group that has to be consulted on when a herd of special interest is developed, which is why they’ve made these comments in the first place.

Then the Game Animal Council Act is listed in Schedule 1 of the Conservation Act. The Conservation Act is subject to Treaty obligations under section 4, and so rūnaka and iwi are also consulted throughout the herd of special interest process, which they have been in this instance, and which is why the member knows about Ngāi Tahu’s opposition and the views of Tūwharetoa and iwi up in the central plateau.

I would note, for the record, that just because one part of Ngāi Tahu says that they believe something doesn’t mean that every part of Ngāi Tahu believes that. It doesn’t mean that every Ngāi Tahu member believes that. If you’re going to go out there and say that, “Well, we’re going to take the view of some members of Ngāi Tahu or some rūnaka as gospel, representing the views of every single tribal member.”, including those who actually value hunting and actually go out there and use it to gather meat off the land, then you’ve got to take that with a bit of a grain of salt. Looking around the room, I won’t speak for everyone in the room, but I can count at least one Ngāi Tahu member here who supports this legislation. If we’re talking about those views that the member raised, I think we can tick those off.

There were a couple of final ones in there. The last one was the one raised right at the start where the member said that this has been a rushed process. The bill was introduced in May last year. It had a full select committee process. It’s been awaiting its committee stage since November of last year. There’s been over a year—12 to 14 months, I think—of consultation on the herd of special interest designation process. If anything, I think probably Mr Luxton would agree with me that there are members out there in the hunting sector who have said that this process has gone on too long and we need to get on with actually helping hunters lead the conservation effort in those parts of the country where they actually not only go out and take animals off the land but they set traps, they clear tracks, they restore huts for every New Zealander to use. I think that addresses those questions for now.

SCOTT WILLIS (Green) (10:50): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I appreciate the opportunity to take this call as a hunter and as a conservationist. But I also would like to make the point to the Minister for Hunting and Fishing’s point that hunters are conservationists—some are, but some aren’t. The reason we see fallow deer in the St Marys Range in Otago is because they’ve been introduced—because they’ve been introduced for hunting. The reason we see wallabies south of the Waitaki River is not just that they hop across the bridge; it’s because some people have introduced them. Hunters have introduced wallabies south of the Waitaki River. The myth, Minister, that we are going to see a fantastic conservation result from the herds of special interest (HOSI), I think, is something that we need to—

Grant McCallum: We’re already seeing it.

SCOTT WILLIS: —challenge, because we are not already seeing it. We are seeing spot examples of good practice in a wider space where things are totally out of control. That’s what this bill is about. It is a small bill, but it is significant, and that’s why we oppose it.

Green Party policy and our position is that we must remove or eradicate, where possible, large, non-predator invasive species in areas where they threaten important ecological values. It’s pretty straight forward. This supports our national parks. It supports the work to retain what is so precious to our community.

We have seen the response from Ngāi Tahu and from other iwi in relation to this legislation, so I just want to ask the Minister in particular about the stakeholders that have been engaged with. We’ve heard the Game Animal Council’s considered a stakeholder.

Shanan Halbert: He speaks for Ngāi Tahu.

SCOTT WILLIS: I’m interested whether iwi are simply considered a stakeholder—

Hon James Meager: I heard that, and I don’t.

SCOTT WILLIS: —or whether they’re considered a Treaty partner. Then I’m particularly interested in what might happen when we move to a space where the Game Animal Council is designating the management of these herds of special interests in different areas. If the Game Animal Council can overlay existing rights, existing Treaty obligations, how is it that that’s going to happen? What Government responsibility is there to make sure that Treaty agreements and partnerships have been upheld, if the Game Animal Council is going to come in here and decide what exactly is going to happen in a particular area?

I’m thinking, in particular, there’s a very good submission from Ngāti Rongomai from Ngāti Tūwharetoa, who talk about the challenge that they see where they are a Treaty partner with specific legally binding rights and responsibilities over the management of land in their rohe. What this bill will do is take that away. That’ll take that away. It’ll give it to the Game Animal Council to manage the land and manage what happens to the herds of special interests that have been designated in that area—to manage that, over the rights of Ngāti Rongomai. How does the Government manage when it has overridden its Treaty partnership and Treaty agreements? How does the Minister see this will work? Does the Minister think that this is going to be a smooth ride all the way through when we are putting the Game Animal Council over the Treaty partnerships, giving them a right to designate HOSI and how HOSI is managed in that area?

That’s an opening question. Minister, we have quite a number of questions because we’ve got the myth, here, that we have hunters who will deliver conservation benefits. We heard through the Environment Committee from so many hunters who said that this is the wrong way to go. As a hunter myself, I’m very aware of how hunters are incapable of delivering better conservation benefits, because it doesn’t happen.

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (10:55): I mean, well, this ridiculous assertion about this myth that hunters do nothing for conservation—well, I’d talk to Scott Willis and just say, “What would the state of the Fiordland National Park be if the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation hadn’t spent the last 20 years managing animals in that area. It’s an absolutely disgraceful contribution to say that hunters make no contribution and there’s a myth that hunters are doing nothing out there to help the conservation estate. They’re the ones that are going out there and laying the traps to help protect the blue duck; they’re other ones going out there maintaining and fixing the tracks. When was the last time anyone on this side of the House actually got out in the Fiordland National Park and actually went down and checked some traps and maintained some traps? There you go: one hand; silence from the rest of them. It’s absolutely disgraceful that you’d say that, and, in fact, it shows that you know nothing about the bill.

It’s not the Game Animal Council that designates the herd of special interest; it’s the Minister. It’s the Minister for Hunting and Fishing that designates a herd of special interest. It’s not the Game Animal Council that necessarily manages a herd of special interest; it’s the Minister who decides who manages the herds of special interest. I think the member needs to stop getting too far ahead of where he is and focus on the bill at hand.

I heard the snide remark from Shanan Halbert who sat there before and said, “Oh, the Minister purports to speak on behalf of Ngāi Tahu.” Well, no, I’m not so arrogant—like you are—to think that one individual speaks on behalf of an entire set of people. I would never be so arrogant to presuppose that my individual view on this actually speaks for an entire group or an entire people. To sit there and to snipe away and to sit and assume—like the way, like that is your ideology, where you say that we all think the same—all Māori think the same—and we’re one homogenous group and we’ve all just got one attitude towards this, and if only we all fell in line, we’d be good little boys and girls. Well, that’s a horrible attitude, Mr Halbert, to have, and when he goes back up North later on today, he can go and talk to his people about the arrogance that he’s shown here today.

Now, back to the bill at hand—back to the bill at hand. The bill does one thing: it says that when you designate a herd of special interest, section 4(2)(b) of the National Parks Act, which requires the extermination, as far as possible, of all introduced animals, including those in herds of special interest, must be undertaken—all this does is it says that when a herd of special interest is designated in an area, the animals in that area will not be subject to the extermination requirement; they’ll be subject to the management requirement of a herd management plan, which is developed in consultation with a number of individuals and groups, and which for the record of the House I will read out right now. It includes the Minister of primary industries, the Department of Conservation, any relevant regional council or local councils, the New Zealand Conservation Authority, relevant conservation boards, and relevant organisations that the Minister considers appropriate.

I think the members in the Chamber also need to be careful about the terms they throw around, because when you’re talking about the iwi that are involved in here for the Fiordland area, you’re talking about the rūnaka. With the way that the tribal structure works in Ngāi Tahu, it’s not Ngāi Tahu that makes these decisions. It’s not a top-down approach from Ngāi Tahu; it’s the rūnaka that have the say, it’s their area, it’s their takiwā, and they’re the ones that have the say. Te Rūnanga o Awarua, Waihōpai Rūnaka, Te Rūnaka Ōraka-Aparaima, and Hokonui Rūnanga—they are the ones that make the decisions on behalf of their groups and their people.

I had a meeting with them in Invercargill, and I reflected, then, this very fact too: that although they hold their view as a group and they hold their view as a people, they do not represent the view of every single hunter and every single member of their tribe and every single member of their hapū. What I do is I go there and I represent the views of every New Zealander and I try and make changes that will improve the conservation estate—changes like this that allow hunters to take a lead in the conservation area and bring the results that the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation have brought over the past 20 years, that the Central North Island Sika Foundation are undertaking, that the Rakiura Whitetail Trust down in the Deep South are undertaking. They are the ones that are out there on the land doing the management, doing the trapping, doing the hut restoration, doing the track maintenance—not the people in this Chamber; the people who get up at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning to go out and shoot some venison and then spend the rest of the day clearing the traps. The ones that get out and take their kids out when they’re 8 or 9 to show them what the bush is like and to actually get them out in the outdoors, not sitting at home in town on an iPad, getting them out in the outdoors, going fishing, going hunting. They’re other ones that are actually out there doing the work, and all we’re doing is providing a little bit of support, a little bit of encouragement. They’re not the villains, and they’re not the myth, here, that Scott Willis talks about.

That’s what we’re doing here on the side of the Chamber, and we’re proud to do that, and we’ll continue to be proud to do that for the rest of the morning, as long as it takes to get this bill through.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I’m going to take the next call from Cameron Luxton, but before I do, I just want to make a comment that this process is about asking questions to the Minister, not making comments from the sidelines about the Minister. The Minister was provoked and had a full opportunity to respond to those comments, so I’d like the members to focus on the legislation, please.

Shanan Halbert: Point of order. Thank you, Madam Chair. I attempted to take the call to have the right of reply to the Minister in his commentary regarding myself. He made the suggestion, assertion, that I was arrogant in the commentary that I made—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Well, look, I’m not taking that as a point of order, because the Minister was provoked by a comment that you made as a member from the side seat. I think we’ll just sit down and we’ll tidy up from here on in, and I’m taking a call from—

Shanan Halbert: Thank you, but was actually in response to his comment in the first place.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Yeah, but you actually attacked directly towards the Minister, so I’d ask the member to sit down at this point.

CAMERON LUXTON (ACT) (11:00): Madam Chair, thank you very much. Minister, you’ve talked about a fulsome process, and I must say, as a member of the select committee, it was a fulsome process, when you have one operative page changing one part of the bill. It is an important part of the bill, as members of the Opposition have said. But to say that this has been a truncated process where views were not heard just shows the attack lines that were dreamt up from the very first day that this was introduced. I have to say to members of the Green Party who are asking questions that are completely off the mark, we just went through a whole select committee process where we heard these, we debated about it. I can’t believe the myth-making that is happening right now.

Minister, you’re right. It is a small bill addressing one part of the statute, section 4(2)(b) in the National Parks Act, the 4(2)(b) provision, which means that it’s been incredibly difficult to get herds of special interest over the line. During the select committee process, we understood about why this was needed, why Parliament’s come in. We don’t need to go through the history of what’s been going in the courts previously to try to get us to this position.

But I did actually put an alternate view on behalf of the ACT Party into the report back on this bill, in which I raised some concerns that I have about the term “overriding considerations” and its use in section 16 and section 19 of the Game Animal Council Act. The concern that I have here, Minister, is we went through this full process to try and make it possible to be able to designate herds of special interest and have the management that hunters have proven that they care about and that they’re able to provide at an extreme financial benefit to the Crown. To be able to do that, they’ll need to be able to actually establish these and maintain them at a level where the overriding considerations don’t mean that the hurdles that have to be jumped through are so high it makes a herd of special interest too difficult to either establish or maintain.

Minister, I’m asking this question of you because I hope to hear you speak about what you see, for the record, “overriding considerations” mean so that when herds of special interest are designated, if there was to be some kind of court process, it would be on record to make sure that it has been read into the Hansard of this House, that people can look back on and say “This is what Parliament intended. Parliament intends to create herds of special interest.” so that hunters leading management can get on with the job they have proven they can do and not to be held up in vexatious or judicial processes to try and kibosh that noble aim. I hope you can speak to that, Minister.

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (11:03): I think the core point that Mr Luxton makes is a good one. There were, throughout the select committee process, I think very valid concerns raised about to what extent would the requirement to be consistent with overriding considerations essentially render any herd of special interest null and void because of the high bar that would set. I’m confident, and the advice I’ve received consistently from officials has been that going through the process separate to this of designating a herd of special interest outside of this particular bill, there are multitudes of national parks plans and area plans and things you have to get through, but draft herd management plans that have been developed so far—every step of the way, the advice that I’ve had is that they have been consistent with the overriding considerations of the Conservation Act and various plans.

Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t people out there who take a different view. I think towards the end of last year, when the bill came out of select committee, we looked very closely at the potential for making further changes to help address some of the select committee’s concerns. I think we all probably know that the narrowness of this bill has meant that being able to make slightly larger changes to areas around overriding considerations—whether or not you’re consistent with or have regard to—was outside the scope of this bill. But it’s certainly something I think that is worth looking at, because ultimately you want to have a process where the end goal is better conservation and better hunting outcomes. You don’t want to have a process which has been built into statute—and has been built into statute for over a decade now—be rendered void by a strong or an extreme interpretation of what overriding considerations might be.

We can’t make those changes today, and it wouldn’t be appropriate to make those changes in this bill, but it’s certainly something worth looking at. If the legislative timetable allowed, we could do some more work on that. But perhaps it’s something that like-minded people could go out there in the next couple of months and advocate strongly for—that clarity in the law around that.

I’ll close on the final point in that I understand you’d like this for the record so that future litigants might be able to reflect back on it. My warning to future litigants would be—I’ve always held this view—don’t take what parliamentarians say in the House as gospel. Read what it says on the paper as to what the intent of the words may be.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (11:06): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to take my first call on this and really just to set the scene on what we’ve been told is going on here versus what Labour sees is going on here, which is we’re being told that clause 4 is a technical clarification. I think the Hon Dr Duncan Webb summed it up in the first reading speeches when he said what this is really about is trophy hunting. I’m glad that the Minister has just, in his recent contribution, clarified that it is not the Game Animal Council that makes these determinations but the Minister for Hunting and Fishing, noting—not casting any aspersions, but just noting—many members of this House have gone on those parliamentary hunts, and noting that the Minister himself was promoting the Game Animal Council hunt on 31 October 2025 on his Facebook page and also 20 August 2025 in the Otago Daily Times, particularly hunting herds which now Forest and Bird are saying are potentially subject to this change in legislation, so that’s an interesting connection.

Where I would like to interrogate the Minister is really about the process, saying it’s clarification versus a fundamental change in the law, because the Government’s own process shows that the change was introduced without the evidence base, consultation, or testing that Parliament should expect, and that is to do with some of the documentation that is missing. For example, there’s been no inquiry, no review, no evaluation, no regulatory impact statement, no further impact analysis, no cost-benefit analysis, very little external consultation—it’s really only been through the select committee consultation—and no testing of the proposal.

For us, as has been said by my colleague the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan, the problem is not hunting. I agree with the Minister’s sentiment that it would be great to find a balance. But the question is: where does that balance lie if this is to be enacted, and also what doors does that open for future Ministers to be able to change thresholds or allow other species which could do further damage? What we’re really seeing is clause 4 asking Parliament to legislate first and then make assessments later, due to that lack of scrutiny.

My question to the Minister is: why is he justifying clause 4 when his own disclosure statement says that there was no publicly available inquiry, no review or evaluation that informed the policy, no regulatory impact statement, and no further analysis. That’s said in Part Two of the disclosure statement, at section 1 on page 4. Given that happened, what inquiry, review, or evaluation does he have to support this change? Given that there was no regulatory impact statement, how can he conclude that clause 4 is a clarification rather than a fundamental change in the law, which we have heard from submitters, they are saying is what’s happening, and which appears to be what’s happening on the face of the words? How can he make that conclusion without a regulatory impact statement to evidence his contention?

We also see in the disclosure statement, in Part Two, section 4, page 4, that there hasn’t been an environmental impact analysis. Where is his environmental impact analysis, or what documentation is he relying on, and has that come only from the Game Animal Council or can he point to other sources of evidence; if so, could he please table those in the House?

There’s no cost-benefit analysis. How do we know that the benefits of clause 4 to hunting either strike a balance, as he has contended, or outweigh the risks to the conservation estate? These are statements that he’s making quite boldly in this committee without the evidence to back that up, and so if he could please present that to the committee, that would be really useful. The other thing is: why have herds of special interest outside national parks not been tested, as the New Zealand Conservation Authority has suggested?

I’m going to leave my initial questions there. I do have some Supplementary Order Papers, which are around providing some safeguarding and scrutiny within the legislation itself, which is abundantly missing. But it would be really good to understand the evidence base for the Minister’s contention that this is a minor alteration rather than a fundamental change to the law, as we have heard from submitters.

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (11:11): Well, I can come to those conclusions for a couple of reasons. The first is that the Ministry for Regulation determined no regulatory impact statement was needed because there are no or limited economic consequences, and the second is that I can read legislation.

If the members actually take the time to either rewind the clock about 15 minutes to what I’d said at the start of my contribution and actually read the legislation—I can point them to it again, as I said at the outset. If they go to section 16(1) of the principle Act: “The Minister may, by notice, designate any species of game animal in a specified area on public conservation land to be a herd of special interest if … (b) The Minister has regard to— … (ii) the status of the land, particularly the designation of the land as a conservation area, national park, or reserve;”.

So it’s quite clear in the Game Animal Council Act that, first of all, you can designate a herd of special interest in a national park, and so that is the existing law and that’s status quo. If the members want to argue against that, if they are privy to some special argument which would enlighten me as to the fact that, you know, the statute doesn’t allow a herd of special interest to be designated on a national park, then do tell me because that’s not what the statute says.

Then, secondly, section 4(2)(b) of the National Parks Act says that in so far as possible, any introduced animal, which would be an animal, which would be a herd of special interest, must be exterminated as far as possible. Now, the argument is that there’s a clear contradiction there, because to designate a herd of special interest, you must have a herd management plan. A herd management plan could not be “exterminate all animals in that herd”, because that would not be the point of a herd management plan for a herd of special interest. Therefore, to clear up that possible contradiction, you could have an interpretation of that which would say, well, obviously, the requirement in section 4(2)(b) to exterminate introduced animals as far as possible would be interpreted in light of a herd management plan to not mean eliminate or exterminate every single animal, because otherwise you’d have in one statute saying one thing and one statute saying another thing. So that is the existing law.

To clarify beyond all doubt—and to actually take care of some ongoing litigation which is happening in the deep South—we have decided to make it very, very clear to everyone in the country that when you designate a herd of special interest, you can do so in a national park, and the requirement to exterminate, as required in section 4(2)(b), will no longer apply to an animal in a herd of special interest because it would contradict the purpose and the nature of a herd management plan. I think that is the clear reason for having this change in here. It is a simple clarification of the existing law.

It’s a shame that we have to have this clarification because, you know, it is subject to challenge in some parts of the country. So, for all avoidance of the doubt, if a herd of special interest is designated in the future, it is clear in the statute that it can be designated in a national park, and the requirement to exterminate, as far as possible, will not apply.

CELIA WADE-BROWN (Green) (11:14): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ve got a number of questions for the Minister. I rise to speak as the associate conservation portfolio person in the Green Party, but I also rise to speak as a mother of hunters. It’s not quite as good as “Mother of Dragons”, but “Mother of Hunters” will do me.

I think we need to reflect on the history of conservation in this country before we come to the detail of what the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Bill actually does. There’s a proud history. There are National Ministers like Denis Marshall, who really set up the conservation estate, and, more recently, the Rt Hon John Key led off with the predator-free strategy. But despite the protestations of Ministers—most recently, I believe, Minister Bishop, at the Environmental Defence Society, said, “Environmental protection is at the core of the National Party.” Well, I can tell you that the audience erupted in laughter at that point. This very short bill cannot be seen in isolation from the other parts of the war on nature.

I would like to now move to some questions, before the Chair frowns at me, and—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Well read, Ms Wade-Brown.

CELIA WADE-BROWN: First of all, I’ve got some examples of what’s going on outside our national parks, and I just wondered if the Minister might reflect on some of this in his response. For example, we’ve got Wild Deer Free Northland. [Scott Willis helps hold up a flyer] Thank you, my beautiful assistant. Wild Deer Free Northland actually promotes this, even to real estate agents, that the values of Northland are better protected without wild deer.

Grant McCallum: Very few deer in Northland—that’s why.

CELIA WADE-BROWN: And isn’t that great? Next, once upon a time, there weren’t any wild deer anywhere, and I would like to show the Minister and other members and anyone watching a couple of examples. This comparison: this is Te Wharawhara/Ulva Island taken in January 2026. Beautiful dense undergrowth; wonderful place. Same latitude, same month, same weather, same ecosystem—Rakiura/Stewart Island. Too many deer. Now, you can’t blame the pigs here because there aren’t any wild pigs on Rakiura, but I think the contrast between those pictures shows exactly what happens when we have too many deer.

I would also like to ask the Minister to reflect on the outcomes of the Ruahine deer pilots. They compared recreational hunting in the Ruahine Ranges with the Department of Conservation’s helicopter culling. They found that the recreational hunters did not reduce the herd sufficiently. It kept growing, and the only way to get the numbers down—not necessarily to zero, but to get the numbers down—was helicopter culling. I will seek leave shortly to be able to table these photographs.

I also would like to ask the Minister if picking the national parks, rather than the forest parks, or, of course, if hunting’s available on private land—we welcome not only my two sons but other people from the Wairarapa come and hunt on our place, and I am delighted when they get rid of deer and pigs. But does promoting the national parks as the best place to have herds of special interest mean that we are trying to attract just the richest overseas tourist trophy hunters and that, potentially, we are going to exclude the average Kiwi hunter? Some of them work on the conservation estate as well and some do not.

I have more questions. [Bell rung] Point of order, Mr Chairperson. May I—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Leave is sought—are you seeking leave to table those?

CELIA WADE-BROWN: I’m seeking leave.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There’s no objection.

Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

CELIA WADE-BROWN: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): I will just say that you have indicated more questions. You’ve done some very good contextual work, and I’d expect much more nuanced contributions in the future.

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (11:19): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m not sure there were too many questions about the actual clause, but to address the contextual stuff—I mean, the member makes pretty good points. If you want to talk about the Ruahine programme, it seems like a great justification to have better, more structured management of deer control, such as identifying a herd in an area which we might want to take an adaptive management approach to. We could almost call that a herd that has particular value to the people in that area, almost special value, and we could come together with a local operator—the Department of Conservation, the Game Animal Council, iwi—and put a management approach in place to manage those animals.

Well, you just described a herd of special interest. That’s what the idea around the herd of special interest proposal is—in the central North Island, the Sika Foundation, in and around the Kawekas and the Kaimanawa Forest Park areas. The reason for the focus in this bill on the national parks is that there are national parks in our country where there are active balloted blocks and active areas where hunters go and hunt. Take the Wapiti block area in Fiordland National Park; you’ve got **tahr all through Tai Poutini National Park; up my way in the back of South Canterbury and mid-Canterbury, you’ve got tahr through there; you’ve got white-tails and reds down in Stewart Island / Rakiura. I mean, I’ve been on Ulva and I’ve been on Stewart Island, as well, and so, I think, again, this is another example of why you might want a strategic adaptive management approach to managing the numbers down on those islands.

Because I’ll tell you what, if you go to Stewart Island and you go to the locals and you tell them, “Sorry, but as of next week, we’re going to be nailing every single part of this island with whatever control measure we are to remove all the deer.”, you’re not going to be welcomed back on Stewart Island. You’re not going to be welcomed back with much fanfare. Try telling the people that live in those areas and that rely on those resources that you’re going to go and eliminate every single animal in that area. It’s not practical. It doesn’t actually engage with what the community wants down there.

Now, the member raised a whole bunch of other issues, too. I’ll just touch on a couple of them. Should we do more about encouraging hunters to get access to private land in order to help them with their animal problems? Absolutely. New Zealand Deerstalkers Association (NZDA) have a landowner access programme where they can partner experienced hunting groups with landowners to go do management on their property. The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) are working with Department of Conversation (DOC), Game Annual Council, NZDA, and landowners in the Hurunui, Wairarapa, and the Rangitīkei on feral deer control programmes at the moment. The Fiordland Wapiti Foundation, of course, as part of their management programme, remove animals by what’s called wild animal recovery operations—WARO—which are helicopter operations; they fly in, take out animals, fly them out, and do venison meat recovery.

All of these things that, I think, members are thinking are novel approaches to game animal management are in place. The purpose of a herd of special interest is to recognise that a piece-by-piece approach that we’ve taken for the last 10, 20, 30, 40 years doesn’t work. When you look at what does work—when you look at what the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation have done down in Fiordland, and you look at the data that was presented to the Environment Committee, which showed that the browse levels in areas controlled by the Wapiti Foundation is far, far lower than areas outside of that, that shows that when you take a managed-control approach to this, it leads to good hunter and good conservation outcomes.

Now, I’ll touch on the final point, because I can’t let this go on the record. Hunting in these areas is not about, “It’s all for the wealthy.” In fact, it’s very difficult, if you had unlimited amounts of money, to do any kind of hunting in that area, because you can’t land helicopters. You’ve got to get concessions for this kind of stuff. If you enter the Wapiti ballot, it’s $100 to enter the ballot and $200 if you’re successful. I’ve been to the ballot down in Fiordland in Te Anau, and I’ve seen the immense excitement on the faces of people who win a ballot spot because they’re so precious to come by, and they get 10 days to hunt in the wilderness by themselves. If they’re lucky—if they’re very, very lucky—they’ll come across a trophy at some point. If they’re not so lucky, they’ll come across a hind or a doe and they’ll take some venison off the land to take home. But you’re not talking about people paying millions and millions of dollars—although that’s a great idea, and I think if we extracted more economic value out of our hunting sector, we could pour more back into the trapping programmes and the track management programmes and the hut restoration programmes.

I’ll just leave it on this: I mean, we talked about these animals being introduced, we talked about deer-free Northland—I think everyone in Northland, and everyone in the game animal sector, agree that deer-free Northland is a good thing. You actually need different management approaches to different parts of the country, because in Northland, they don’t want deer; that’s fine. They’ve got other animals to hunt down there. But in my part of the world, in mid-Canterbury and South Canterbury, we want red deer, we want fallow; in Central Otago, they want white-tails; in Fiordland, they want wapiti. They want these animals, they want these resources, because it is a part of their culture and it is a part of what it is growing up in New Zealand.

I’m sorry to break this to people, but most of us in in this room—looking around, I’d hazard to say half of us and our families and our ancestors in this room—came to New Zealand after the first herds came to New Zealand. Basically, Governments introduced deer herds into New Zealand as far back as 1851. I mean, good on you if you’ve got ancestors, like I do, who came to New Zealand before 1851, but some of us have not been here as long as some of those deer have, right. And so, it’s all well and good to say, “Well, we draw a line in the sand. They weren’t here in 1850, so, therefore, everything after 1850 should go.” Well, that’s not a very palatable policy pitch, I think, to any New Zealander who likes to hunt, who likes to fish, and who actually thinks we can do this in a pretty well-intended and managed way.

I think we’ve got to draw back from the rhetoric on this a little bit and actually look at what the change does. The change just clarifies and confirms in the law that a herd of special interest can be designated in a national park. That’s all this bill does. It doesn’t guarantee a herd of special interest is designated; it doesn’t guarantee that the management plans will be perfect or will work; it doesn’t guarantee that hunting outcomes will be beneficial for everyone across the country. I happen to think they will, but that’s not what the statute does. The bill makes it clear in the law that designating a herd of special interest in a national park can be done. That’s all it does. That’s it.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): I will note that, by ranging even wider than Ms Wade-Brown did, the Minister has opened up several new topics.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (11:26): Thank you, Mr Chair. You’re absolutely right: the Minister for Hunting and Fishing has opened up a fair few points that we would like to debate today. But I want to, firstly, seek some clarity around the role of the New Zealand Conservation Authority (NZCA), and then I will move on to new areas.

In his previous contribution, the Minister laid out very clearly—and I thank him for that—the inherent contradictions between the Game Animal Council Act and the National Parks Act. The Minister pointed out, also, quite rightly, that the Minister, through legislation, has the right to designate a herd of special interest. We’re not actually here to debate whether that’s right or that’s wrong. That is already there in legislation. Whether that’s right or wrong is a debate for another day and we will defer, in terms of our views there.

To my previous question around the role of the Conservation Authority, the Minister made the point that the Game Animal Council Act requires herd-management plans, and through those plans, the NZCA is consulted. The point that I’m trying to make, and the clarification that I’d like from the Minister, is this: this legislation expressly allows for section 16 to override section 4(2)(b) of the National Parks Act. That’s why we’re all here today. Now, section 4 of the National Parks Act lays out across its various subclauses how national parks will be maintained for the purpose of preserving their perpetuity as national parks, and goes on to all the distinctive features of national parks and so on and so forth.

Section 4(2)(b) basically says that the parks need to be maintained such that indigenous plant life and animals are protected, “except where the Authority otherwise determines.” The Minister has responded to the second part of that clause, which is the part about animals and plants being exterminated as far as possible, and has clarified that that cannot be possible because of the objectives of the Game Animal Council Act. I accept that. That’s not the bit that I am relitigating, Minister. It is the first part of that subclause that I’m asking the Minister a question about. The New Zealand Conservation Authority themselves have said that, previously, they had a decision-making role there, that the protection supported by the National Parks Act had to be followed unless the Conservation Authority determined otherwise. That is what’s being overridden through this legislation that we’re debating in the House today, and I would like the Minister to confirm whether that is his view. Is what he was saying previously, that that is replaced by the consultation that is required through the Game Animal Council Act through herd-management plans—is that what the Minister is saying? Can he confirm that, previously, there was a decision-making role for the NZCA that is now being replaced with consultation through herd-management plans? That’s my first question.

The second bit that I would like a response to—and if there is no response after this, I will leave it and move on—but Te Wāhipounamu is a Unesco World Heritage area. Does this change in the bill, which now reduces protections for national parks, affect that particular designation of Te Wāhipounamu, which is also home to the Fiordland National Park? My third question is, the Minister has made the point quite clearly—and I also want to put on the record, the Minister has implied that members on this side of the House consider hunters the villain. We do not. We have been at pains to say, through various contributions, that we do not consider hunters to be villains. That is not what we are arguing. What we’re arguing is what DOC themselves have argued previously: that we need a toolkit of responses, of which hunting is just one part.

Relying on hunters to provide conservation value is flawed, because the primary motivation of the Game Animal Council Act and hunting in this context is to maintain a herd for hunting purposes. The primary motivation is not to increase conservation value. That may be a byproduct of what hunters do, and I don’t disagree that it often is. However, what herd number is low enough, Minister? That is the question that I would like to ask the Minister. Given that he wants to protect introduced species to a certain population level within national parks and is reducing protections supported through the National Parks Act, what number is low enough such that the conservation value of national parks will also be protected and not just the interests of hunters?

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (11:31): Section 4(2)(b) will not apply to a herd of special interest. The requirement to exterminate as far as possible is something that the authority can give an exemption to. In theory, if a herd of special interest was designated and there was an argument that the herd management plan would then require extermination as far as possible, the authority could then provide an exemption to that. What this does is say that the exemption to that requirement to exterminate will be provided by the designation of the herd of special interest rather than the Conservation Authority. Of course, the Conservation Authority still maintains the ability to provide exemptions for every other animal that may exist in an area.

The second question was around reducing protection to national parks. It does not reduce protection to national parks. This clause simply clarifies that a herd of special interest can be designated in a national park, as has been the law since 2013.

The third question was around what herd numbers would be. The determination of something like herd numbers or browser levels are outlined in the herd management plans, a draft of which is available and has been consulted on since about October or November last year.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (11:32): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m really appreciating the fulsome answers from the Minister for Hunting and Fishing, who has indeed opened up a number of questions. Sitting here listening, my impression is that the Minister certainly does know a lot about hunting.

My questions have been around the process, the official parliamentary and executive process, and evidence base for the decision making, and I haven’t heard many answers to that. In fact, what I’ve heard is that having a more piecemeal approach that has more flex might be better, but I haven’t heard what the safeguarding is around that, so my questions will interrogate that.

I also want to ask the Minister if he stands by what he said in the first reading: “this bill further supports our Government’s view that the hunter-led and community-led conservation effort is the key to improving and protecting our nation’s biodiversity.” That seems to contradict what he’s saying today, which is that hunting plays a part in it, and I’m wanting to understand from the Minister what his final position is on the role of hunting in the conservation space.

I’d also like to just draw your attention, Mr Speaker, to the fact that we have more questions on clause 6, which we haven’t embarked on, and my five tabled amendments, but my short, specific questions, to tidy up this last part, which are different from the previous speaker’s, around the New Zealand Conservation Authority, are really about the submission they made, where they say it contradicts “long-standing legislation and statutory provisions designed to protect New Zealand’s most treasured conservation lands and waters, namely National Parks.” They also say they’re “concerned that this proposed amendment erodes its responsibilities without specific consultation with the Authority.”, and, critically, they say, “The Authority was never given the opportunity to make that decision.” That’s on pages 3 and 4, paragraphs 8 to 16, of their submission. My questions are: why are we legislating instead of asking the New Zealand Conservation Authority to exercise its existing statutory power? Indeed, the submission from the former member of this House, the Hon Eugenie Sage, says there are existing provisions that could have been used. Why are we legislating?

That opens up, also, the question that the Minister himself brought into this debate, which is that he referred to some litigation happening in the South Island and said this is around clarification. I’d like to understand from the Minister: is this bill in response to litigation? Is he comfortable with this House becoming involved in law-changing while litigation is under way? That does seem to be a philosophical difference between our side of the House and his. We have seen bills entered into the House with the deliberate intention of overriding the courts, and the Minister, as a lawyer, will appreciate the jurisprudential issues around that. Yes, there is parliamentary sovereignty, but I’m really wanting to understand the role that that litigation has played. If he can, please, advise who the parties in that litigation are and when that case was taken. Is that case still currently before the courts? I think that’s a really problematic situation that needs further discussion and debate, if that is indeed the purpose of this bill.

I’d also like to ask the Minister: if the existing pathway was available through the New Zealand Conservation Authority, why hasn’t he used it? How does he respond to concern from multiple submitters that clause 4 removes independent oversight? I will hopefully get a call on my tabled amendment to correct that if he is insistent on putting this bill through the House.

Finally, how does he respond to the fact that, although he’s saying this is a clarification, many submitters are saying that clause 4 is fundamentally inconsistent with the National Parks Act? We’re hearing from the Minister that there are good, practical, and common-sense reasons why there should be a patchwork of responses across the country. We have not heard from the Minister the legal and official and evidence-based procedural response to how he justifies this overriding of that Act by this bill. We need that to be satisfied this is not a Government that thinks it knows best, because it knows a lot about hunting, and that there is an evidence base for the bill that’s currently before the committee. We will have questions on clause 6, as indicated, Mr Chair.

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (11:37): Yes, I stand by my comments in the first reading. Hunting plays a part in the conservation estate—a very key part—because the hunters who go out there and take animals off the land also maintain tracks, traps, and huts that recreational users who enjoy our great outdoors use very often.

The member Ingrid Leary says that it contradicts legislation in the National Parks Act. Well, if that were the case, the ability for the Conservation Authority to provide an exemption to the extermination of all animals would itself be a contradiction. I assume the member is going to put up a member’s bill to fix that one as well. She said it removes independent oversight. It doesn’t remove independent oversight. All this bill does is clarify the existing law, which is that a herd of special interest can be designated in a national park.

In my reference to ongoing litigation—a publicly known challenge that Forest and Bird has brought to the management of wapiti down in Fiordland, around the community agreement—it’s nothing to do with herds of special interest, but that challenge over the years has raised a number of issues as to whether or not a herd of special interest could be designated in a national park given the arguments being made by some of those litigants. The hunting sector has raised those concerns often and frequently. They are fearful that well-financed, highly powerful, determined, motivated, politically well-supported litigants would challenge the good conservation work that they’ve been doing in and around Fiordland for two decades and that all of the hard work they have done to improve the conservation value of the outdoors they so dearly cherish would be undermined by court battles. It has informed what we would think about how a herd of special interest might apply in areas like Fiordland and areas like Stewart Island and areas like parts around my patch, but it is not to interfere with or to make any difference to whatever stage that litigation might be at down in Fiordland.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Ingrid Leary, you’ve indicated you’ve now got some specific questions. We’re at the stage now when we’ve had some pretty broad issues covered here, so we’re ready for some reasonably nuanced questions.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (11:39): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d just like to ask the Minister for Hunting and Fishing if he would consider, since he seems determined to progress with this bill, some safeguarding that would provide some more assurance around the conservation aspects that he is claiming it has.

I have proposed an amendment which would insert a subsection (4) after new section 16(2), that the Minister must not designate a herd of special interest unless satisfied that the proposed herd management plan contains measurable ecological objectives for the protection, preservation, and restoration of indigenous biodiversity within the relevant national park, and also, that the measurable ecological objectives must have indicators for monitoring progress towards them, and that there should be specified management actions to be taken if those objectives are not being achieved.

This is really to respond to the fact that the Government’s own disclosure statement shows that that there wasn’t the consultation. I’m not going to go back through that. I’m happy to take a seat and ask the Minister about my next amendment, unless he would like me to proceed.

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (11:40): Thank you. No, we won’t support that, because in section 16(1)(b), the Minister is already required to have regard to purposes of both the Wild Animal Control Act 1977 and, in subparagraph (iii), the overriding considerations. Then, down in section 16(3), the notice designating herds of special interest must also outline “the expected benefits to be gained by managing the animals for hunting purposes”. In section 16(1)(c), a herd management plan must also be made under section 19. It’s hard to get too specific about these things, but I’d be surprised if a herd management plan didn’t have some sort of guidance about what the outcomes of the herd management should be. In fact, if the member wants to go and look at the draft herd management plans for both the wapiti herds of special interest and also the sika of herds of special interest, it is full of all sorts of numbers around browse levels and around canopy levels that must be attained. I’m confident that there is sufficient in the statute as it is.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (11:41): Just in the interests of back and forth and given that this is not my area, as the Minister has pointed out, can I take it from the Minister that he would be comfortable to at least have on the Hansard his expectation that not only the anticipated benefits would be recorded but that there would be some kind of monitoring of those benefits?

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (11:41): I’m comfortable being on the Hansard, but the Hansard has no legal force, so I suggest that people who are developing herd management plans need to look at the statute and the laws that Parliament passes and regulations they pass and not the passing comments of politicians on the debating floor.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (11:42): Given that, could the Minister then please consider my alternative amendment, which is to replace section 16(3A) with “The Minister must not designate a herd of special interest in a national park unless the New Zealand Conservation Authority has first provided written advice to the Minister on the proposed designation and the Minister has had regard to that advice before making a decision”. That would mean it would include whether the proposed designation is consistent with the purpose and principles of the National Parks Act 1980, the likely effects of the proposed designation on indigenous biodiversity and ecosystem health, the likely interaction between the management of the herd of special interest and the pest animal controls undertaken by the Department of Conservation, and any conditions the authority considers necessary to avoid, remedy, or mitigate adverse ecological effects.

Given that the Minister himself has said the Hansard is not good enough, that, in my view, might answer some of the concerns we have. Would he entertain, please, amending the bill to include new section 16(3A)?

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (11:43): No, because section 16(2) of the Game Animal Council Act says, “In determining whether a species of game animal is of special interest to hunters and can be managed for hunting purposes, the Minister must have regard to the advice … of— … (e) the New Zealand Conservation Authority;”.

RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (11:43): I move, That debate on this question now close.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): I’ll give a challenge for some new material to come from speakers.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (11:43): Thank you, Mr Chair. I do have a new question that has not been traversed before to ask the Minister, but just before I do that, I want to ask a further question of the Minister on the previous point that he made, which I have then gone and looked up. I asked the Minister what is the optimal herd number. The Minister spoke a fair bit about the fact that the aim through the Game Animal Council Act is to lower the number of deer in a herd of special interest, for example, because that benefits hunters as well. I take your point. But if the Minister is also saying that conservation values will be protected, which is what the legislation also says, then what is the tipping point or what is the optimal number?

The Minister said that that’s in the herd management plans. I’ve gone and looked at the herd management plans. We’ve heard through various select committee submissions that—basically, all of the peer-reviewed evidence, the Department of Conservation’s own scientific documentation that exists, basically shows that there is no actual number. The herd management plan itself says, basically, that the herd needs to be of a sustainable number. It doesn’t talk about ecological thresholds in relation to a number that would both be suitable to hunters but also reduce the impact, ecological impact, on national parks. I’d just like the Minister to clarify that.

My new question to the Minister is, basically, that we’ve also heard from many that there are no international jurisdictions where such a change has been promoted. If you look at various countries that we generally compare ourselves to, including the likes of Canada, their general stance is not to allow any populations of pests or introduced browsers in areas with significant ecological value. We’ve heard from many around Australian national parks, for example, where the—Australia, the US, and Canada are the examples that we’ve heard as a select committee, where there doesn’t seem to be a narrative there that there is any herd size that would be small enough to not then lead to damage to ecological value. We don’t see this being promoted anywhere else in the world, as far as we’ve heard. But does the Minister have any evidence and has the Minister received any advice that will point to him that it is possible, I guess, to strike that balance that he’s talked about between a herd of an optimal size for hunters but also a herd at such a size that it doesn’t reduce the ecological value of national parks?

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (11:46): The herd management plan has browse levels. That’s the measure that much smarter people than I use to monitor whether or not the health of the ecosystem is in a good state, and browse levels correlate directly with the number of animals on site. In terms of what other countries do overseas, it’s all very interesting, but, of course, other countries have browsing animals as native animals, so there are multitudes of countries around the world which actually have very high protections in place for those animals, and I don’t think it’s a comparison for our ecological system to draw on the management practices of other countries as to what’s in and what’s out. We should do what’s right for us, and what’s right for us is to pass a bill which clarifies that you can designate a herd of special interest in a national park without any more confusion.

CELIA WADE-BROWN (Green) (11:47): Thank you. I wanted to follow up that particular answer. First of all, I agree with the Minister that our ecosystems are unique, and I hope he would agree with me that deer are not moa. I just wanted to follow up a little bit about his comments about browsing levels. If you are not a botanist, it’s very easy to see there is still some greenery there; the browsing levels are fine. The fact that it’s all crown ferns or all horopito or all some other unpalatable species is not necessarily plain to the average person out on the hills. I just wonder if the Minister feels confident that there will be enough resources for the Department of Conservation to do the more precise monitoring of and comparisons between exclusion areas, because that’s quite expensive.

The other question I have for the Minister relates to how the ecological impact would be measured, with his level of understanding and perhaps his expectations of the hunters’ understanding that there are a number of species, particularly of insects, that are completely dependent on one or two other species. The browsing levels if you take the number of plants might be fine, but if the ice cream species have been picked off by the deer, that doesn’t just affect that species; it affects all of the web of other species that are connected. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (11:49): Given that this bill doesn’t designate any herds of special interest, there’d be no advice or discussions about whether or not resourcing is available for a herd of special interest, because all this bill does is clarify that a herd of special interest could be designated in national parks as well as the existing law. It just provides that statutory clarification. But if a herd of special interest was to be designated, I’d be very confident that the Department of Conservation would have the resources to undertake the adequate ecological monitoring required.

SUZE REDMAYNE (Junior Whip—National) (11:49): 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 Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendments to clause 4, section 16, inserting new subsections (2A) and (3C) 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 Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendments to clause 4, section 16, replacing subsection (3A) and inserting new subsection (3C) 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.

Part 1 agreed to.

Committee of the whole House

Part 2 Consequential amendment to National Parks Act 1980

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Members, we now come to Part 2. This is the debate on clauses 5 and 6, “Consequential amendment to the National Parks Act 1980”. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (11:53): Thank you, Mr Chair. I cannot stress strongly enough what this part does. This part inserts a section into the National Parks Act which tells anyone reading that Act, if they’re interested, to go and look at the part or the clause or the section of the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Act that we just voted on. That’s all this part does—the entire part. It says, “If you’re reading the National Parks Act and you’re interested in this particular area, go and have a look at the Game Animal Council Act. You’ll notice that we’ve inserted a section providing that a herd of special interest can be designated a national park.” That’s all it does.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (11:54): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ve just got a question around clause 6 in Part 2, because although clause 6 could be seen to be technical, it is actually the mechanism by which the law gets to operate differently.

The main concern I have is whether the Minister is satisfied that this part of the bill has adequate safeguards to stop there being further exemptions and carve-outs under the bill. The question from the Hon Eugenie Sage in her submission was the slippery-slope argument. It’s easy to see that this bill does that, because there is a fundamental change in the decision-making hierarchy. I’m wanting to understand from the Minister, how can he be sure that this is not the beginning of a change to our national parks, where we’re going to see more and more of these exemptions apart from just trophy hunting?

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (11:55): Well, unless the slippery slope is a procession of sections which tell people to go and look at other statutes, the only thing this clause does—and I can read it out; new section (3), inserted by clause 6: “*See section 16(3A) of the Game Animal Council Act 2013, which provides that, if a herd of special interest is designated in a national park, subsection (2)(b) does not apply to that herd.”.

The only thing that this part does is it inserts a section in the National Parks Act that tells people, “If you’re interested in this area, go and look at the Game Animal Council Act.” It has no other operative provision, and it is inserted in there as a response to the select committee’s view that this might provide some helpful clarity or direction to people who are reading the National Parks Act. That’s all it does. It has no operative provision and doesn’t change the law in any way—it just tells Ms Stevens, when she’s reading the National Parks Act, “Go and look at the Game Animal Council Act if you’re interested in a good time.”

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (11:55): Thank you, Mr Chair. Yes, that’s correct: it makes a reference or strengthens, I guess, the link between the two pieces of legislation, the Game Animal Council Act and the National Parks Act. However, the Minister made the point earlier on that the whole reason for this change and the subsequent strengthening of this provision at select committee was the legal uncertainty around the status of the current community agreement for Wapiti between the Department of Conservation and the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation. This is something that was traversed, in a sense, at select committee. However, I do want to ask the Minister what advice he’s received on the—I guess—necessity of this part and of this legislation, because we had heard and again through Eugenie Sage’s contribution to select committee, which is very detailed.

What she says, and I want to test this with the Minister, is that there is already an alternative that is available that doesn’t require this legislative change under the status quo—she says, of the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation applying to the New Zealand Conservation Authority for an exemption. This bit refers to the Game Animal Council Act, which refers back to the exemption to section 4(2)(b) of the National Parks Act. But through that, there could have already been an exemption, which would then satisfy both camps: the hunters who want the exemption to maintain a herd of a certain size within a national park, and the conservation activists who want to protect, as far as possible, the ecological benefits and values of the national park.

Can the Minister share what advice he has received on the rationale for this whole bit, and why he thinks that the status quo exemption was not strong enough?

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (11:58): In relation to this part, I received some advice from the Environment Committee, who recommended that, to help make clear the effect of the bill’s proposed amendments—which we have voted on before—we should insert a cross-reference in the National Parks Act to direct humans reading that Act to the Game Animal Council Act.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (11:58): I’d just like to ask the Minister if he has given any consideration, or would, to my suggestions of a new clause 7 in this part. I’m not going to read them out—they’re quite detailed—but the first one essentially inserts a provision that would review the operation of herds of special interest. The second one would provide details of annual ecological monitoring and reporting. The third one would simply, basically, be a sunset clause on the bill at five years, so that the bill would be deemed to be out of time and probably needing reconsideration at the end of five years, unless there were good reasons to keep it in place.

These are all the safeguarding provisions that we don’t see currently. The Minister seems intent on progressing this bill; could he please adopt those amendments so that we have some safeguards in the bill?

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (11:59): No, I won’t be adopting those amendments, because there’s already a five-year review requirement in the Game Animal Council Act to review any designated herd of special interest. That’s section 19.

RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (11:59): I move, That debate on this question now close.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (11:59): A quick question to the Minister: has the Minister received any advice that would point to anywhere in Aotearoa New Zealand where recreational and trophy-hunting management has been successful in controlling animal numbers in such a way that it protects forests, shrub land, and alpine grassland, given that we’ve been talking about the differences in priorities and motivations between the two groups?

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (12:00): Well, it’s not directly related to the section of this part, which inserts a section to refer people to look at another Act. But I’ll refer the member to the select committee report, which I’m sure she’s very well aware of, which has some—or the departmental report has some very good information there about the effects of the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation’s work.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) (12:00): 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 (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 7, new section 4A “Independent review of operation of Herds of Special Interest provisions” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti 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 inserting new clause 7, new section 4A “Review of operation of Herds of Special Interest provisions” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti 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 inserting new clause 7, new section 4A relating to annual ecological monitoring and reporting be agreed to.

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

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti 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): Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 7 relating to the expiry of amendments is ruled out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

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

Committee of the whole House

Clauses 1 to 3

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, we now come to our final debate, clauses 1 to 3. This is the debate on clauses 1 to 3, “Title”, “Commencement”, and “Principal Act”.

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (12:06): Thank you, Mr Chair. This is the part of the bill which tells us what the title is, when it starts, and what Act it amends. First of all, the title of the bill—which will be the title of the Act—will be the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Bill. That’s because it amends the Game Animal Council Act and it’s because it’s to do with herds of special interest. The general view around titles is it should describe what the bill does, and that’s what it does—it means the primary Act in relation to herds of special interest.

It’s probably best to skip to clause 3, which actually outlines what the principal Act is. It says that this bill amends the Game Animal Council Act, and that’s what it does. Then back to clause 2. Clause 2 is the commencement clause and it says that the Act will come into force on the day after Royal assent. That will be the day following the date on which the Governor-General provides Royal assent to the bill, and then it will come into force.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (12:07): Thank you, Mr Chair. I feel that a more appropriate title for this piece of legislation would be the “Game Animal Council (Not Possible to Both Protect Herds of Special Interest and Ensure that National Parks are Protected to the Highest Possible Level) Bill”. Therein lies our opposition to this bill, because this amendment bill ultimately overrides the protections that are in the National Parks Act for a reason. They are there to provide for the control of introduced browsers while ensuring that we preserve national parks, which ultimately is a status that is accorded to some of our most stunning landscapes and significant ecosystems, which are also scientifically important for us.

This is the highest level of protection that we can accord an area, and this amendment bill, which we are here debating at committee stage, just does one short thing. It sounds really simple, but it changes the protections to our national parks, and that is why the Labour Party opposes this bill.

I will say this again, because there have been a number of implications from the Minister that we consider hunters to be the villain. So I will say this again: we do not consider hunters to be the villain.

We absolutely accept what the Minister has said, which is that in various parts of the country there is a culture of hunting and that communities in those areas choose to hunt—that is a fact. But what we do oppose is changing the law to reduce protections within the national parks, wherein the status quo would have required the New Zealand Conservation Authority to have a say in how much of indigenous plants and animal life is protected, and the fact is that introduced browsers must be exterminated. This bill changes that, and our interpretation of it, and the interpretation of many who have submitted to the Environment Committee, is that that change weakens the protections for our national parks and that there is no actual need for that. The Department of Conservation (DOC) themselves have said that there’s about 7 million hectares of public conservation land that hunters can hunt in. There is no need now to override protections to protect a specific herd of introduced browsers within national parks just so that they can be hunted there.

That’s why I believe that the title is not quite reflective of what this bill does. The Minister for Hunting and Fishing has been quite clear that this is not to introduce or to increase the population of introduced browsers massively. That’s not the point of this legislation. The Minister has said quite clearly that it is to control the population size to an optimal level such that it’s protected for hunters but will also improve conservation value, but he hasn’t been able to then articulate what that size is. He has said that it’s in herd management plans, but I don’t see it in there. There isn’t a focus on biodiversity measures within herd management plans, just the requirement to manage them to a sustainable level, but we were trying to tease out what that means.

That then again points to the point that I’ve made, which is that it’s not possible then to protect both—to protect a herd to a sustainable level and to increase conservation value in national parks. All of the evidence that we have seen and we have considered says there is no scientific evidence to say that you can do both and that the acceptable level of introduced browsers to improve conservation value and national parks is zero, which means exterminating as far as possible that particular population, or all introduced pests basically. I take the Minister’s point that all the others can still be exterminated, just not this one that the Minister designates for the purposes of hunting, but the acceptable level is zero. I will end where I began. This should be the “Game Animal Council (Not Possible to Protect Both Herds of Special Interests and Improve the Conservation Value of National Parks).”

SCOTT WILLIS (Green) (12:12): Thank you, Mr Chair. Following on from that excellent submission, I think that’s a worthy title. However, I think I have one better for the Minister for Hunting and Fishing. I do think it is worthy of the Minister’s consideration because we have heard of the tensions that exist in the conservation estate from managing a herd. We’ve heard from the Minister of the excellent work of the Wapiti Foundation, but we’ve also heard through submissions of the impact of invasive browsers, even within the Wapiti Foundation area, degrading our conservation estate, even within what is possibly going to be designated a herd of special interest area in a national park. The title that I’m proposing for the Minister is a very simple title, and it is the “Game Animal Council (Herds of Invasive Browsers in our Conservation Estate) Amendment Bill. Now, I think that is a very accurate designation of what this bill is about.

As my colleague has just mentioned, this is essentially, as the Minister has said, about controlling or maintaining or having a sustainable level of invasive browsers in our conservation estate. We don’t yet know what that means. We’ve heard that it can’t be done, but the Minister wants us to believe that it’s possible. Let’s make this really clear. This is what the Minister is asking us to support. This is what the Minister wants the public to understand. This is the “Game Animal Council (Herds of Invasive Browsers in our Conservation Estate) Amendment Bill”.

If I think about what’s happening here, we’ve seen today where known deposits of so-called critical minerals can be found on our public conservation land. It’s small surprise that this Government is seeking to sell conservation land to enable its exploitation. What we’re seeing is more exploitation of our conservation estate by this Government. It’s really good to see the New Zealand Deer Stalkers Association joining with Forest and Bird to protect public conservation land, and I’m pretty sure that there’s an understanding here that what we are also protecting are invasive browsers on our conservation land—invasive browsers that we know can’t be managed in a way that sustains our unique flora and fauna of this nation.

For the Minister, I’m proposing we can have a sensible title for this bill, a bill that does a lot to make sure we can have invasive browsers in our conservation estate and a bill that will enable hunting in our conservation estate and trophy hunting in our nation’s conservation estate rather than eradication and limiting the number of invasive browsers as far as we can possibly go. For the Minister, I’m aware that the Government is engaging in an attack on our conservation estate all over the space. It’s quite remarkable that Minister Christopher Bishop was laughed off the stage at the Environmental Defence Society (EDS) today for talking about National Party’s conservation values. Let’s come back to clear language; let’s come back to stating it how it is; let’s come back to some honesty in legislation; Minister, let’s call this the “Game Animal Council (Herds of Invasive Browsers in our Conservation Estate) Amendment Bill”. Let’s just make sure that that’s as clear as day from the Minister. Thank you.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (12:17): My question is around the commencement, and I’m really grateful that the Minister for Hunting and Fishing, in the chair, has alerted me to, indeed, the ongoing litigation that has caused this bill to come out of a Cabinet process. My question, really, is whether the Minister is comfortable with passing the bill after the Royal assent when that ongoing litigation is occurring, rather than changing that clause 2 to say, “once the High Court judgment has come through.”?

When I look at the legal principles involved, it feels to me that this Government doesn’t have much regard to the role of the courts and the separation of powers. As lawyers, I know the Minister and I both probably passionately defend the separation of powers to make sure that there isn’t too much power vested in one estate of the democracy. That is a fundamental element of our democracy. When I look at this legislation, which, indeed, is currently before the courts, what the bill will do is it will change the framework of the way that our conservation and our special interest herds are managed while the previous process is being tested. That’s a really serious thing to do. And yet, if we look at this Government’s track record, we’re seeing that with the Equal Pay Amendment Act—33 claims that were upended with one stroke of a pen, done in a very covert way by the executive in this House, by the National Government. This term, we’ve seen the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Customary Marine Title Act 2025. Again, when that was going through a court process at great expense of the claimants, this Government decided it knew better and it was going to change that and talk about the will of Parliament, even though the framework had not been tested adequately. We have the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Act, which has been favouring the big banks over small claimants in New Zealand.

Ryan Hamilton: Relevance!

INGRID LEARY: This is very relevant because, once again, we see this trajectory of bills brought to the House where the Royal assent is enough and the Government shows its arrogance, I think, in saying, “We know best. We know how to do this best.”

Throughout this committee stage, we have heard a great deal about what the Minister knows about hunting, and, indeed, he does know a lot about hunting. We heard very little, if anything, about the evidence base and the process—the correct process—and the correct governance for making a fundamental law change to how these two bills interact. Now, the courts are really well placed to do that, and that is, in fact, what is happening. I looked up the famous case of Forest & Bird and the Department of Conservation and the wapiti partnership. The place to do that is in the courts. That is exactly what is happening, and yet this Minister has insisted on bringing this bill before the House and saying that it will go through before too long and we will have the Royal assent on it, and then it doesn’t matter that the previous framework hasn’t been tested.

That also shows that the resourcing required to make quite a significant change has not been given due regard either, because when we’ve asked about resourcing and we’ve asked questions about what kind of changes would need to made or what kind of monitoring of the impacts would happen, there was a bit of a disregard. We were pointed to some of the management plans. There was no appetite from the Minister to require tracking and require reporting on that of what the real impacts were, rather than the expected impacts, and I’ve proposed a number of amendments that would have provided that safeguarding.

If the Minister was genuine about wanting to strike that balance, then he would have accepted some of those amendments, because currently there is no safeguarding. The real worry, I think, of this bill was articulated by the Hon Eugenie Sage, our previous colleague, who has said that it does open the door up to a whole lot of other changes that are going to erode the conservation status of our conservation land. So, Minister, please, can you consider doing the right thing: change clause 2, under the title and commencement, to make this bill pass once we have had a final determination from the rightful place to make these determinations, which is the courts.

Finally, I’d like to suggest a title myself. I think we should probably call it the “Game Animal Council (Overriding New Zealand Conservation Authority Powers) Amendment Bill”—you could add an “Explicitly” if you wanted there—or we could have the “Explicit Override of National Parks Act”.

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (12:22): Thank you, Mr Chair. We won’t be changing the commencement date, mainly for the reason that the litigation the member refers to has nothing to do with herds of special interest. It’s a challenge around community agreements. So you could make the commencement date 2056 and Tom Rutherford can sign it into law, but it wouldn’t make any difference to that litigation, because it’s to do with community agreements and not herds of special interest. So the commencement date—we don’t agree with changing that.

In terms of changes to the title, I think they are some interesting titles. I’m sure that the members think they’re serious attempts to rename the bill, but we think that the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Act is a good name for the Act.

SCOTT WILLIS (Green) (12:22): Thank you, Mr Chair. I reject the accusation that they are not serious attempts to improve the title. I think the previous offer was a very relevant option for the Minister, but I do have a second offer, given the Minister’s unwillingness to accept my first offer. I think this is really speaking to the point that we’ve heard repeatedly that this is about ensuring hunters have access to trophy animals in our conservation estate. One of the risks that we see in the Conversation Amendment Bill is its directive to the Department of Conservation to enable the use and development of public conservation land to the greatest extent practicable, which elevates commercial intent and activities above conservation values and habitat protection.

One of the things that I am concerned about, as a hunter, is that this bill is going to, essentially, be an enclosure of our commons. It’s a new colonial approach to enclose our commons and to deny access to hunters, to hapū, to people who want to enjoy our outdoors, and to people who want to go into our outdoors and do all kinds of leisure activities. So my proposal for the title—which I think is an accurate representation from what we’ve heard from the Minister—is the “Game Animal Council (Trophy Hunting in our Conservation Estate) Amendment Bill”, and that really reflects what this is about.

When we think that we’re going to have the herds of special interest, as the Minister calls them—when we’re going to have sika, when we’re going to have wapiti, when we’re going to have tahr, and when we’re going to have white-tail protected in our conservation estate for hunting purposes, protected and managed in a way that will enable the invasive browsers to reside in our conservation estate for the purpose of trophy hunting, that demonstrates where this Government’s direction lies. It is concerned with the economic return, and not the protection of our conservation estate, not the respect for our native flora and fauna, and not the respect for our taonga species. This is where the Government is heading.

So, for the Minister, I would like the Minister to give some serious consideration to entitling this bill and giving it a title that reflects what its intent is. The “Game Animal Council (Trophy Hunting in our Conservation Estate) Amendment Bill” is exactly what this bill is about, and that fits the purpose and it fits this Government’s direction. I think it will help the public understand what this Government’s intent is with this bill and with its new direction in the Conservation Amendment Bill, which is opening up the conversation estate to everything else that we might want to do to it, including mining in our conservation estate.

For the Minister, I would hope the Minister will give some serious consideration to my title, rather than simply writing it off as an attempt to distract. This is—

Hon Members: Frivolous.

SCOTT WILLIS: It’s certainly not frivolous—that is exactly what this Government is. This Government certainly is frivolous in dealing with the most serious of issues: trying to sell off our conservation estate. This is far from frivolous. It is something that I want the Minister to consider and respond to, please.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Before I take the next call—and it’s going to be a call with some content in it—just for members’ knowledge, the Minister has addressed the issues around title changes, and so I’ll just to note that for the committee, as well. He has also addressed the issue around the commencement date as well, and so I am looking for new material. Otherwise, the train is leaving the station.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (12:27): Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s really just to ask the Minister about his response when I talked about the Forest and Bird case, which he probably knows more about than I do, but it is clear that when that judicial review occurred, the herds that we’ve been discussing today with the designated herds were not anticipated. Then they were anticipated, and now they do actually fall directly into what would be impacted by that court case.

So I’m just wanting clarity from the Minister as to whether he is saying that that is only about a community claim and that that particular case has nothing to do with why this particular bill is in the House. If that’s the case, what is the legislation that he referred to in his earlier reply that has led to the Cabinet paper and then this bill coming before the House?

RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (12:28): I move, That debate on this question now close.

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

Ayes 67

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

Noes 55

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

Motion agreed to.

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

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.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 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.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 23 April.

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour—Māngere) (12:33): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill. Labour strongly opposes this bill. Christopher Luxon and his Government are out of touch: cutting women’s pay, and it’s harder to see a doctor or nurses, as prices have been pushed up. He promised to make the cost of living better; it is not. This specific bill, in this context, shrinks the role of local government—a very important role throughout Aotearoa. It shrinks it to such things as pipes, roads, and rubbish, ignoring the wider needs of communities.

The Minister’s made the decision to remove the four wellbeing provisions—very important provisions within local government—so that councils need to refocus, across the country, with regards to their core functions. The Minister advised that the changes would help restore discipline and transparency and would push councils to focus on things like roading, core infrastructure, water, and rubbish. By refocusing those, those cuts to council budgets still mean that Kiwis will go without important decision making for their local communities.

The four wellbeings—social, economic, environmental, and cultural—were reintroduced by Labour in 2019, after being removed by the previous National Government in 2012. Councils are now required to prioritise core services when managing finances and setting rates. Labour would argue that the removal of the four wellbeings undermines councils’ ability to act on climate, equity, and cultural priorities. We would argue that this bill sets up central government control over local priority through these new regulatory powers. This is not a devolution; it’s a centralised control from Wellington, and it’s a fundamental shift, this bill, deleting those references of wellbeing from the purpose and the functions of local government—i.e., localism.

The problem is that it changes the purpose of those protections that communities had, eroding the participation of those communities. It narrows the definitions of community outcomes, to infrastructure, to public services, and to regulatory functions only. The problem with that is that it does not prioritise for councils to take into account their community aspirations. What is important about community aspirations is that, in the structure, or under this amendment bill, it creates the reduction of community voices, diverse voices across the country for those specific councils, narrowing and focusing on the bricks and mortar stuff—which is important, we understand that, but community voice and participation is absolutely critical in the way that councils are run. It applies to the new amendment bill in terms of the refocus, as the Minister has stated in his contribution, but what it also does is that the frameworks—it dilutes the aspirations of communities across the board.

It is really important that communities across Aotearoa, through the council frameworks, have the opportunity to provide input. Whilst the councils will have the specific role of determining those things for their local councils, when you don’t have a community voice, you will not get the participation; you will only put out publications, you will only advise of the costs and the acquisitions and the importance of why the council has to focus according to legislation. However, the important principles and values and wellbeings that were described before in the legislation—it is important for residents to understand the why: why council officials make decisions, the importance of information that comes out to the community, it is required to have the continued value input in every community.

This Government promised to fix the cost of living. The Prime Minister promised to help Kiwis to get by, and we don’t see that in my local area. The Minister has advised that local government have drifted from their core responsibilities; they need to focus on the essentials and deliver to their community, and that, by refocusing councils, they will help deliver better value for money and help reduce the cost of living.

The bill has other reforms: new financial performance measures for council, with a requirement for regular public reporting; mandatory disclosure of contractive consultant spending; stronger transparency and accountability requirements; and regulatory relief to reduce unnecessary compliance burdens. Look, we agree with those things; however, I come back to the point I made earlier: the community aspirations, the community voices are really important in planning and in those regulatory focuses.

Another component that is important, I think, in councils is the removal of obligations for council to consider tikanga Māori when appointing CCO directors. This is a direct bad point that CCOs—council-controlled organisations—do not need to have the understanding of tikanga. There was a lot of opposition in that provision being removed, and the reason being is that, through the select committee process, the submissions that were pushing against it were from iwi groups and councils themselves, because, in this new process, there will no longer be the legal mandate to make things specific, which require the assessment during that recruitment process. What that means is you can get any individual who may not have a deeper understanding of why tikanga process is really important. Iwi and legal groups highlighted how these legislative changes will fundamentally reshape Māori representation in decision-making rights at that local level. The erosion of Te Tiriti is stripping tikanga provision, which fits into the wider legislation process. It reduces the statutory declaration of Māori rights, weakening Treaty-based protections in local governance.

It is really important that when councils are looking at members of the community—the business community and the wider community—to appoint them on council-controlled organisations as a member of that governance role, those individuals have an appreciation, have an understanding, as to why tikanga is really, really important. It is really important that they have an inclusion of the whenua but, also, the understanding of why iwi do the main things and do what they do. They specialise in the area.

Labour really pushes back on the weakening in this legislation. It is important that when we have individuals that are sitting on those governance boards, they are acting in the best interests for that community. It is important that when you are representing the people of your area in a council framework, that you have that understanding, because if it is not a requirement in the law then it opens the door to a number of things.

Through the select committee process, there was strong representation from iwi groups, from councils that that is an important requirement for the people of that council area. As a member in my local community who had the privilege of sitting on different groups within the council framework, I got up close and personal in that deciding body to have an appreciation of mana whenua importance, the tikanga, but also the history of that whenua—so that when we are making decisions in that framework and that body, you have an understanding of the aspirations of mana whenua, and not just from last year or 10 years ago, but that you actually have a critical understanding of five centuries ago of iwi who came on to that whenua.

Labour opposes this bill, because when you remove those important provisions from legislation, it places the burden on bricks and mortar for councils and does not look at its people and the rights that they have.

MIKE DAVIDSON (Green) (12:43): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand on behalf of the Green Party in opposition to this bill. I wasn’t part of the first reading or the select committee process and I’m obviously now the primary speaker for this bill in the Green Party. I do have some knowledge within local government, serving as an elected member in Christchurch City for nine years. I know there’s a number of MPs that have been city or district or regional councillors, or committee board members, including the two to the left of me that have together served, I think, around 50 years. That’s actually a massive effort—and both as mayors of Wellington City. You don’t do that for the pay check; you do it because you know the importance of local government and what local government can deliver for communities.

Centralism over localism doesn’t work. It’s a robbery of power and control from local communities, and central government shouldn’t be running roughshod over local communities. They are the words of Christopher Luxon before he was Prime Minister, and what we’ve seen since is pretty much the opposite. Very clearly, there are many attempts to remove the ability for local councils to democratically decide on local Māori wards. Local speed limits were removed; local signs that are in te reo, all gone. What we’re now seeing is the biggest reform in local government since 1989. The sector, actually, and many people around it, accept that reform is needed. Unfortunately, what we’re seeing once again is a Government that has taken a top-down approach and are doing it to the sector instead of with the sector.

With this bill, the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill, it’s pretty much saying that the four wellbeings are bad and, because of that, rates are going up. Yet, there’s absolutely no evidence at all that would ever say that having four wellbeings in the Local Government Act is putting pressure on rates and making them go up.

The primary policy objective of this is to reduce the pressure on rates, yet, really, the bill doesn’t address one of the biggest issues with councils, and that is funding. If this Government was serious about helping local government, they’d actually look at some of the funding mechanisms, including the potential of GST sharing. I look at a city like Christchurch that went through significant—

Cameron Luxton: Great policy.

MIKE DAVIDSON: GST sharing? Yes, excellent policy.

Cameron Luxton: Yeah, it was an ACT policy.

MIKE DAVIDSON: Thank you. It went through significant, significant damage from the earthquakes and had to rebuild. The ratepayers, the citizens of Christchurch, through their rates, have spent billions of dollars. The GST has all gone to central government. The revenue being gathered because of their rebuild is also significant, and the GST, once again, goes to Government. GST on rates—surely the GST from rates could be shared back with councils to help with infrastructure. But no, this Government knows best and, therefore, is just going to punish councils for trying to serve their community. The reality is that local government is the voice of community, and this Government is trying to silence that voice.

It’s really interesting, when you read through this bill and what they’ve done, that as well as removing the four wellbeings, they’re trying to prescribe to councils what their core functions are. The select committee has softened that, but through this process they’re still putting core services that miss so many things, including, actually, economic development. And, once again, when you look at a city like Christchurch with Te Kaha, the council’s book can no longer help fund that. Who is going to be the one with the responsibility of helping in some of these spaces: climate mitigation, heritage, art galleries, community funding? The list goes on and on and on. If this bill passes, it will leave gaps in our community at a time when Government is limiting social supports and cutting funding for community organisations.

What we’ve seen just recently, earlier this month, was the Minister’s announcement that they were putting an amendment to this bill to stop councils have a non-elected members appointed to committee with voting rights, something that has been happening for as long as I can remember. Audit and risk, health and safety—it has never been an issue until now; never. Democracy in local government is that, every three years, you elect your city councillors or your district councillors and those councillors can democratically create committees. Often, they’ll put specialised people with skills on to those committees that make recommendations to council to make the final decision. That is good governance—that is good governance. They have voting rights and they have the quorum.

One thing we know, from after the Minister announced it—Minister Matt Doocey came on declaring that National has changed the law so the unelected councillors of Environment Canterbury (ECan) can’t vote on the council’s committee. The unelected ECan councillors he’s referring to are the two mana whenua reps. Now, unfortunately for Matt Doocey, he did not know the amendment that well, because he’s completely wrong with that fact. They’re not on a committee; they’re on the actual council, but it clearly showed that Matt Doocey was very happy that they were going to remove Ngāi Tahu’s representation on ECan. We know that there have been members of ACT-aligned councils down South that have obviously been pushing to remove mana whenua representation.

Now, I’ve been trying to get answers from the Minister of Local Government, like: how many complaints are you getting from councillors? He’s been fobbing me off a bit, and he’s saying, “Oh, it’s not in the public’s interest to do this.” I managed to get a little bit of an answer from him, and, basically, he’s received one request to utilise these powers in relation to the Far North District Council—and we know that’s another ACT-aligned councillor not liking mana whenua representations on committees. It’s a very common theme that we’re seeing, that people are getting very upset that we have mana whenua representation sitting on council committees, which is really, really concerning. One could only describe this as political racism when we’re seeing a Government stopping councils having their rights to actually decide who sits on their committees to help make recommendations to the council, who have the final decisions.

I do wonder if some of the people on the other side of this House—and I know Andy Foster knows—what councils actually do and what councils actually spend their money on. I implore you just to have a look at what you do in your daily life. From the moment you get up to the moment you go to sleep, you are using resources and facilities that are provided by the rates that are paid to councils. To say that councillors and councils are just trying to lift up rates as much as they can, don’t care about rates, is absolute rubbish. The councillors across the country try as hard as they can to keep rates as low as possible, but we’ve had this culture where councils are continually criticised for increasing rates. So while they try to keep rates down, infrastructure in the ground continually gets worse until it bursts, and then proactive councils, councils that want to do the right thing and fix that damaged infrastructure, then get blamed for lifting rates to do that.

Then we have a Government that is completely failing in every space using council as their kicking bag to distract people from the real failure in New Zealand at the moment, which is this Government. This Government needs to actually accept the good things that councils do for their communities. They are the voice of their community. They are elected democratically every three years. This Government needs to have faith in local government and start working with it and stop dictating to it what it should and shouldn’t do. The Green Party opposes this shocking bill.

CAMERON LUXTON (ACT) (12:53): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s great to see a Government working with local councils on things like regional deals and on things like infrastructure funds where councils who consent more can get more, and that’s what this Government has provided.

On this specific bill, refocusing local government’s core purposes has been laid out in new section 10 in clause 6, which is going to be making councils focus on democratic, local decision-making, which the member Mike Davidson, who has just taken his seat, seems to have a big problem with—democratic accountability. It’s going to focus on infrastructure that’s cost-effective and delivers for the future needs of communities, public services that do the same, and providing regulatory functions, all at the same time supporting economic growth and development by performing those functions. That’s what the bill says. It doesn’t say all that lack of or the extra stuff that the last speaker, who seems to have so many problems that are so undefined, had to say for himself.

Tim Costley: They want lower rates.

CAMERON LUXTON: People in New Zealand want lower rates. They also want democratic accountability for the use of those rates.

I’d just like to point out in my contribution a version of—the last speaker from the Greens talked about political racism. What is that? He left it undefined. Perhaps it could be people being appointed for their ethnicity, with voting rights, alongside elected councillors to make decisions on behalf of local communities with their lives and with their ratepayer dollars. That might be what the member was referring to. He left it so undefined that it’s hard to tell.

But there is good news on horizon. The Minister of Local Government has made it clear in a press release that he’s putting forward an amendment to this bill—I think we should be able to see it at the committee of the whole House—which will remove unaccountable, unelected positions on council subcommittees from future councils being able to put that in. I think that he should be applauded for that. I’d like to point out that that’s what I’ve been lobbying him to do since September last year. I’ve got a member’s bill in the tin to make sure that exact thing happens, and I’ve also had Amendment Papers drafted up for the committee of the whole House, which I hope the Minister has had a good look at when he’s made his decision.

He’s also—and I’ll just make a comment, Mr Speaker. The Minister has also referenced removing the Independent Māori Statutory Board; that is something he’s interested in. I think if he was to accept my member’s bill and amendments, he’d find that the actual requirement for those seats on the Auckland Council would no longer be required and it would be superfluous to carry on, but hey, look, let’s see what the Minister comes back to us with after mentioning publicly that he’s interested in doing that.

Local council is the interface that most New Zealanders have in their daily lives with government and public services, being waste, roads, parks, libraries, community facilities. Those are all core functions that are considered in performing the role, and new section 11A in clause 7, maintains those, along with things like civil defence, public transport, and other things to do with network infrastructure.

The hyperbole we’ve heard from the other side of the House this afternoon has been quite farcical. New Zealanders want to have an accountable and efficient local government that provides for their needs and the future needs and desires for the community that’s been built with them and around them. That’s what this bill provides. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the lunch break. The House will resume at 2 p.m.

The House adjourned at 12.57 p.m.