Tuesday, 21 July 2026
Sitting date: 21 July 2026
Tuesday, 21 July 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.
Obituaries
Rt Hon Sir William “Bill” Francis Birch GNZM, PC
SPEAKER: Members, I regret to inform the House of the death on 17 July 2026 of the Rt Hon Sir William (Bill) Francis Birch GNZM, PC, who was a member of Parliament between 1972 and 1999. Over this period, he represented the electorates of Franklin, Rangiriri, Maramarua, and Port Waikato. During his membership of the House, he held several ministerial portfolios, including Minister of Finance, Minister of Health, Minister of Labour, Minister of Energy, and Minister of National Development. I desire, on behalf of this House, to express our sense of loss and sympathy with the relatives of the late former member. I now ask members to stand with me and observe a period of silence as a mark of respect to his memory.
Members stood as a mark of respect.
Sir Nigel John Dermot “Sam” Neill
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage) (14:02): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to move a motion without notice or debate on the passing of Sir Nigel John Dermot “Sam” Neill.
SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I move, That this House express its sorrow on the passing of Sir Nigel John Dermot “Sam” Neill KNZM, OBE on 13 July 2026, recognising his globally significant career in film and television over five decades, as well as his passionate advocacy; he has entertained and challenged many of us and will be sorely missed.
Motion agreed to.
Motions
Ryan Fox—British Gold Open Championship
Hon MARK MITCHELL (Minister for Sport and Recreation) (14:03): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to move a motion without notice or debate to congratulate Ryan Fox on winning the British Gold Open Championship.
SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none.
Hon MARK MITCHELL: I move, That this House congratulate Ryan Fox on his outstanding achievement in winning the British Gold Open Championship, the first time a Kiwi has won this prestigious event since the great Sir Bob Charles in 1963, joining Dame Lydia Ko and Michael Campbell as New Zealanders who have won golf majors.
Motion agreed to.
Bills
Crimes (Consent Reform) Amendment Bill
Introduction—Leave Declined
CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) (14:04): Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave for the Crimes (Consent Reform) Amendment Bill, a member’s bill in my name that establishes affirmative consent as New Zealand’s approach to consent to sexual activity, to be introduced and set down as members’ order of the day No. 1 on member’s day tomorrow.
SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is. [Interruption] We all know that those types of leave motions are generally discussed across the House beforehand. I’m not sure what happened here, but there was no need for any further comment.
Presentation
Petitions
SPEAKER: Thirteen petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.
CLERK (14:05):
Petition of Beatrice Salami requesting that the House urge the Government to ban poisoning and any other method of reducing feral cat numbers that inflicts pain on feral cats, from the Predator Free 2050 programme
Petition of Viola Di Grado requesting that the House urge the Government to halt lethal feral cat eradication
Petition of Gabrielle Thompson requesting that the House halt the rollout of any electronic road user charges system involving vehicle tracking unless an independent privacy assessment has been completed, legal safeguards are in place, and clear public approval has been given
Petition of Louise James requesting that the House urge the Government to reinstate regular passenger rail services between New Plymouth and other North Island communities
Petition of Paul Huggins requesting that the House raise the profile and awareness of para sport events by amending the Broadcasting Act to require the broadcasting of para sport events, and amending the Major Event Management Act 2007 to protect emblems and words connected with Paralympics and similar events
Petition of Ricky Andrews requesting that the House urge the Government to ensure eligibility for the Community Services Card, Disability Allowance, and Supported Living Payment is assessed individually, for New Zealanders living with permanent disabilities and chronic illnesses
Petition of Victoria Coleman requesting that the House not pass the Disability Support Services Bill
Petition of Yan Wang requesting that the House prevent employers from discriminating against applicants on the basis of how they travel to work or whether they have a driver’s licence, except where that is an essential requirement of the work
Petition of Graeme Spence requesting that the House publish all MPs’ expenses and all MPs’ sitting day attendance
Petition of Caroline McNicol requesting that the House quash the 2nd Toll at Pāpāmoa East Interchange on the Tauranga East Link toll road and amend the Land Transport legislation to limit additional tolls on existing roads and new projects in the same corridor
Petition of Loretta Johnstone requesting that the House stop new toll charges at Pāpāmoa East Interchange
Petition of Erin Murphy requesting that the House urge the Government to make epilepsy education, training, and awareness mandatory in schools
Petition of Sir Robert Anster Harvey requesting that the House amend the Natural Environment Bill and the Planning Bill to safeguard the protections in the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Act 2008.
SPEAKER: Those petitions stand referred to the Petitions Committee.
Papers
SPEAKER: Members, Ministers have delivered 64 papers, which the Clerk must present to the House; just some courtesy while he does so would be much appreciated.
CLERK (14:07):
Government response to the petition of Daniel Walker
Report of the Attorney-General under section 7 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act on the Concealment of Location of Victim Remains Bill
Report of the Intelligence and Security Committee on the activities of the committee in 2025/26.
Statements of intent for:
Airways New Zealand
Animal Control Products
AssureQuality
Climate Change Commission
Civil Aviation Authority
Commerce Commission
Electricity Corporation of New Zealand
Government Superannuation Fund Authority and Government Superannuation Fund
Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation
Kiwi Group Capital
KiwiRail Holdings
Kordia Group
Landcorp Farming
MetService
New Zealand Growth Capital Partners
New Zealand Institute for Bioeconomy Science
New Zealand Institute for Earth Science
New Zealand Institute for Public Health and Forensic Science
NZ Post
New Zealand Railways Corporation
New Zealand Trade and Enterprise
Pharmac
Public Trust
Quotable Value
Research Education Advanced Network New Zealand
Retirement Commission
Tertiary Education Commission, and
Transpower New Zealand
2026/27 Statement of Performance Expectations for:
Callaghan Innovation
Climate Change Commission
City Rail Link
Civil Aviation Authority and the Aviation Security Service
Commerce Commission
Education New Zealand
Education Payroll
Electricity Authority
Environmental Protection Authority
Financial Markets Authority
Government Superannuation Fund Authority and Government Superannuation Fund
Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation
Kiwi Group Capital
Maritime New Zealand
Network for Learning
New Zealand Green Investment Finance
New Zealand Growth Capital Partners
New Zealand Institute for Advanced Technology
New Zealand Lotteries Commission
New Zealand Qualifications Authority
New Zealand Trade and Enterprise
Public Trust
Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand
Southern Response Earthquake Services
Retirement Commission
Te Taura Whiri
Tertiary Education Commission
Tourism New Zealand
Transport Accident Investigation Commission
Water Services Authority, and
WorkSafe New Zealand
Strategic Intentions for:
Education Review Office, and
Social Investment Agency.
SPEAKER: Those papers are published under the authority of the House.
Select Committee Reports
SPEAKER: Fifteen select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.
CLERK (14:09):
Report of the Education and Workforce Committee on the Employment Leave Bill
Reports of the Environment Committee on the:
Natural Environment Bill
Planning Bill
Reports of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the Controller and Auditor-General, Auditor-General’s auditing standards 2026
Report of the Audit Office, Our Controller function work for 2024/25
Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Financial Stability Report, May 2026
Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Monetary Policy Statement, May 2026
Report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on the international treaty examination of the protocol to amend the agreement between New Zealand and Singapore on a closer economic partnership
Report of the Intelligence and Security Committee on 2026/27 Estimates for Vote Communications, Security and Intelligence, and Vote Security Intelligence
Report of the Justice Committee on the Policing Amendment Bill
Reports of the Petitions Committee on the:
Petition of Hone Pani Tamati Waka Nene Harawira
Petition of Tory Whānau, and
three petitions on dog control
Report of the Regulations Review Committee on the briefing on powers to make secondary legislation and Treaty settlement legislation, and
Report of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee on the Life Jackets for Children and Young Persons Bill.
SPEAKER: The bills are set down for second reading. The reports from the Finance and Expenditure Committee, the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, and the Regulation Review Committee are set down for consideration.
Bills
Secondary Legislation Confirmation Bill (No 4)
Climate Change Response Amendment Bill
Introduction
SPEAKER: The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of two bills.
CLERK (14:11):
Secondary Legislation Confirmation Bill (No 4), introduction.
Climate Change Response Amendment Bill, introduction.
SPEAKER: Those bills are set down for first reading.
Debates
Golden Bay Cement—Government Decision to Provide Grant
Urgent Debate
SPEAKER: Members, I have received a letter from the Hon Deborah Russell seeking to debate, under Standing Order 399, the Government decision to provide a $60 million grant to Golden Bay Cement. This is a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility, and given the time that would pass before this matter might be discussed further in the House, following oral questions today, I will call on the Hon Deborah Russell to move that the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.
Oral Questions to Ministers
Prime Minister
Question No. 1
SPEAKER: We come now to oral questions, the first in the name of the Hon Marama Davidson. But before I do that, can I just suggest that members take a look at today’s questions and consider whether or not the current restrictions of Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings are allowing the House to have the sort of discussions, or the sort of information gathering, that question time should allow. It is a matter that I’m going to bring up with the Standing Orders Committee in the next couple of weeks.
Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) (14:12) 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) (14:12): Yes.
Hon Marama Davidson: Is the Prime Minister aware that 200,000 households could not afford to adequately heat their homes in 2025, double what it was in 2021, and does he consider that to be acceptable?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: That’s exactly why this Government has instituted a brand new energy policy, which is actually about doubling the amount of renewables. We’ve built more in the last two years than the previous eight years. We’ve actually increased our thermal support in firming energy as well. It’s been very good to see forward electricity prices come down from the highs and peaks of 2024—from $200 per megawatt hour down to $120. Of course, that’s actually, as you saw from the CEO of Meridian, going to lead to lower commercial prices for the businesses that the previous Government’s energy policy killed in 2024.
Hon Marama Davidson: Does the Prime Minister agree that helping more households install rooftop solar is one of the fastest ways to bring down power bills?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Unlike the previous Government, we have a strategy of “and, and, and” when it comes to energy. That is why we do support rooftop solar. You’ve seen a National Party policy, which we’ll take to the election. If other parties want to come on board and support that, that’d be fantastic.
Hon Marama Davidson: Does the Prime Minister then agree that there is no reason to delay implementing the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme, which would support more installation of solar on homes, considering he has support from a majority of the House to progress the scheme right now?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We appreciate the support from other parties in the House to pass that legislation in due course, but right now we are a busy Government with nine weeks to go before the election and a lot of legislation to get through this House, and we will work with our legislative agenda.
Hon David Seymour: Is the Prime Minister looking forward to the recommendations from the Ministry for Regulation to cut red tape on solar installation as part of this Government’s solution of actually making it easier to do?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Absolutely, and it’s a wonder it wasn’t done in the six years of the previous Government.
Hon Marama Davidson: How many more households will have unaffordable bills and inadequate heating this winter while the Prime Minister waits to act on a scheme he apparently already supports?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, again, as I’ve just explained to the member, it’s about a legislative programming and scheduling challenge, as to why it is not being done before the election, but it is fantastic to know we have that party’s support for an idea championed by our party, and we look forward to getting their support in due course.
Hon Marama Davidson: Will he consider other measures to make household power bills more affordable, like more support for communities to have their own locally owned and generated energy, solar for tens of thousands of State housing tenants, or actually funding Warmer Kiwi Homes beyond 2027, when it is set to run out?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: That’s exactly why this Government has got a renewables boom under way in this great country of ours. Things like fast track have helped—I’d encourage the member to get on board and support that—and also repealing the oil and gas ban, our strategic coal reserve, making sure we can actually support gas exploration, and rooftop solar. It’s an “and, and, and”.
Prime Minister
Question No. 2
Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition) (14:16) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all of his Government’s statements and actions?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister) (14:16): Yes.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Is food cheaper or more expensive today than it was three years ago, when he declared that bringing down the cost of living was his Government’s number one priority?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Look, I want to thank the member for his question, because I am proud to report that food inflation in today’s numbers is running at 2.5 percent, and under his Government in June 2023, it hit a high of 12.5 percent.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Supplementary question. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: One person—one person—has the floor at the moment.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: When he promised to bring down the cost of living, did he expect bread, butter, mince, potatoes, milk, and kiwifruit all to rise by double digits under his leadership?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, as I’ve said in my answer to his previous question, food inflation under this Government is running at 2.5 percent versus 12.5 percent under his Government. But I also am curious, because the member keeps raising this in questions and it just speaks to the economic illiteracy from the other side, because he is arguing for something called deflation, and I haven’t heard a single economist actually recommend that as a course of economic activity because falling prices leads to less spending. That leads to businesses not investing, and, as a result, the economy shrinks. That’s why we want inflation inside the band—
SPEAKER: That’s enough.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: So why did he promise New Zealanders lower grocery prices if he’s philosophically opposed to lower grocery prices?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, as I’ve said to the member, if you strip out the effects of what has happened with Trump’s war spike, we see that inflation is actually within the band, at 2.9 percent. I’d just point out that that member ran inflation in this country to a 32-year high of 7.3 percent, and then he kept it there for 11 quarters, completely outside the inflation band.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Supplementary question, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: Just a moment. Please proceed.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: So, when he said three years ago that a spike in international fuel prices was no excuse for inflation in New Zealand, why does he think that his Government should be subject to a different standard?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I want to thank the member for his question because this Government has actually managed through this crisis, I think, incredibly well to minimise the impact on inflation and to minimise the impact on economic growth. I’d just say that under the previous Government, for it to have inflation outside the band for 11 quarters straight at a 32-year high was not acceptable.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does he think he’d have little more moral authority to talk about inflation being outside the target band if it was inside the target band today?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, as the member may have read some of the reporting, I’m pleased, actually, to report that inflation excluding the shocks around the Middle East crisis would be running at 2.9 percent, which is back in the band. But I’d just say that we have expertly managed through a crisis, unlike what we saw from a previous administration, because we’ve had temporary, timely, targeted support, not untargeted cost of living payments to dead people; we had $50 billion worth of savings, not $60 billion worth of COVID spending going nowhere, disappearing into the ether; and we’ve offered personal income tax relief while, at the same time, the other side increased the ute tax, the Auckland regional tax, and tenant taxes that increased rents. I’m very pleased to say that, actually, rents are at a 25-year low.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: So, if all of that’s the case, why is administered inflation at the highest it’s been since the 1990s?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, again, that’s why I’d encourage the member to get on board and support the rates cap, because that is without doubt the single biggest driver of inflation in our country, and I’d just encourage the member that that’s a common-sense idea. It’s not ideological—you can do that one.
Hon David Seymour: Was the Prime Minister pleased to read that non-tradable inflation—the type that the Government can best control—is at a five-year low, which is lower than it’s been in any quarter since June 2021?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Absolutely, and that speaks to excellent expert financial management in difficult times versus an alternative policy of “spend more, tax more, borrow more”.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: When he said yesterday that New Zealand’s economy was on the rise, was he referring to rising food prices, rising unemployment, or the rising number of businesses going broke?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No. What I was referring to was the expansion of manufacturing, which you’ve seen has been on a real tear; the expansion of our services sector, and, actually, our business, our farmer, and investor confidence is all up; strong exports; manufacturing at a five-year high—actually, exports for June are up 25 percent—wholesale electricity prices are down 35 percent, thanks to a very good energy policy; building consents are up 19 percent; tourism numbers are up 8 percent; and debt is tracking is $3 billion below our Budget forecast. I’m happy to go on, but, actually, we’re on an upswing; others are on a downswing—good times ahead.
Finance
Question No. 3
NANCY LU (National) (14:21) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has she seen on the economy?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance) (14:21): Today, Statistics New Zealand released the latest figures for the Consumers Price Index (CPI), which showed annual inflation of 4.1 percent for the June quarter. This was very much a story about fuel, with conflict in the Middle East pushing up petrol prices by 27.5 percent over the year and diesel prices by 71 percent. Anyone who has filled up their car in the past four months has felt those increases very keenly, and I know that has been tough for Kiwi households. However, Stats New Zealand notes that without these fuel increases, annual CPI inflation would have been down to 2.9 percent, which is within the Reserve Bank’s target range.
Nancy Lu: What were some of the other price movements in today’s release?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Today’s release showed that housing rentals went up by only 0.5 percent in the past year. This is, in fact, members, the lowest annual increase in rents in almost 25 years. I look forward to members opposite who claim to speak for tenants putting out a press release celebrating that fact. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: That’ll do. A Government asking itself a question is not an opportunity to attack other parties in the House.
Nancy Lu: What was the split between tradable and non-tradable inflation?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, this is a very important point, because tradable inflation is largely driven by supply and demand for global goods and services, together with movements in the exchange rate. Obviously, petrol and diesel are examples of tradable goods, so it’s not surprising that in the previous quarter, annual tradable inflation rose from 2.5 to 4.9 percent. What is more encouraging is that non-tradable inflation, which is driven by domestic factors and makes up around two-thirds of the CPI basket, actually fell to 3.4 percent. That, members, is the lowest rate of domestic or non-tradable inflation in five years. There are still, of course, some sticky elements within that. Local authority rates, for example, rose 8.8 percent over the year. The Government will shortly be introducing legislation to cap rates increases. The Opposition should support it, but, sadly, they don’t even know what their position is.
Nancy Lu: Supplementary question.
SPEAKER: No, that’s it; we’re over. We’ll go on to question No. 4.
Finance
Question No. 4
Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) (14:24) to the Minister of Finance: Malo le soifua, Mr Speaker. Does she stand by all her statements and actions?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance) (14:24): In context, yes.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: Does she take responsibility for central government charges being up 21 percent since she took office?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, I’d note that one of the examples of a central government charge that the member is referring to in the statistics—I presume she is referencing—are local rates. No, I don’t take responsibility for the decisions of individual councils to increase rates at, often, eye-watering levels, which is why this Government is acting by introducing legislation to cap future rates increases.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: Does she take responsibility for the 26 percent increase in the cost of household energy prices since she took office?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, no, because that reflects poor electricity policy settings by the previous Government. Since coming to Government, we have been on a mission to increase the amount of generation of electricity in this country, and we have achieved significant increases in consented wind and solar projects. In fact, we have consented double as much new generation as the previous Government achieved in six years—double what they achieved in six years. It is a fact that if we increase the supply of electricity generation, that will put downward pressure on wholesale prices. We are seeing that starting to be reflected in futures markets. I look forward to it being passed on to households, and I regret deeply the decision of the previous Government to ban oil and gas exploration, which has undoubtedly made electricity prices higher than they would otherwise be.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: How are struggling Kiwis meant to cope when milk prices are up 26 percent, mince up 28 percent, and white bread is up 67 percent in the last two years?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, of course, this is why we are concerned to instigate policies that support inflation to be lower than it would otherwise be. I note that the member has not referred to what’s happened with food price inflation in the quarter just released, which has seen it drop to 2.8 percent. That is welcome easing in food price growth. Let’s not forget that three years ago, annual food price inflation hit a whopping 12.3 percent under the previous Government. I note also that statistics released today showed that the price of some foods, including fruit for example, has come down in the previous quarter.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: How does her decision to cut excise tax on heated tobacco products help everyday New Zealanders with the cost of living?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: We want to see fewer people smoking and therefore have supported alternatives to smoking. If the member wants more people on the ciggies, that’s for her.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: Who else is to blame for her economic mismanagement, increasing inflation, higher unemployment, when she has blamed the conflict in Iran, overseas factors, the previous Government, power companies, supermarkets, local councils, Fonterra, insurance companies, merchants of misery, teenagers, John Key, teachers, firefighters, doctors, nurses, and unions?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: I take responsibility for the policies of this Government, which have been focused on ensuring that we do not add pressure to inflation through irresponsible spending decisions and that we take action on the underlying causes of price challenges in this economy, including electricity, including rates. I would quite happily compare our record with that of the previous Government, which did immeasurable harm to the New Zealand economy, which has taken a lot of time to unwind. If the member wants to take responsibility for the decisions of Donald Trump, again, that’s for her. I won’t be doing that.
Prime Minister
Question No. 5
RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori) (14:28) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government’s statements and actions?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister) (14:28): Yes.
Rawiri Waititi: Does he stand by his own admission that the relation the between Māori and the Crown is, I quote, “probably worse” since his Government came to power, and what is he doing, if anything, to improve this relationship?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, what we’re focused on is improving outcomes for Māori and non-Māori.
Rawiri Waititi: Will his decision to scrap pre-existing Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements between iwi and councils strengthen or damage the Māori-Crown relationship?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I think what’s important is any agreements are in the context of new Resource Management Act (RMA) legislation that’s coming through the House right now. I think the second thing is it’s important that it stays at a high level so we can discuss spatial planning. Clearly, every Kiwi, I think, would say that it’s entirely appropriate that we have support and clarity around sites of cultural significance. But it’s also important at the individual project level that people can crack on and get things done and built.
Rawiri Waititi: How can we trust that Te Tiriti o Waitangi settlements will not be breached by his Government’s RMA reforms where they have been so willing to scrap pre-existing agreements between iwi and councils without Māori consultation?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Because we will uphold our obligations under the law.
Rawiri Waititi: Does his Government fear Māori representation, and if not, then why has he removed Māori wards, erased iwi representation in local government, overwritten pre-existing agreements between iwi and councils, and disenfranchised over 100,000 people through his electoral reforms?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Again, this is a Government that is focused on improving outcomes for Māori and non-Māori. Education—look at some of the education outcomes: there’s some very good improvement, good results.
Resources
Question No. 6
Dr DAVID WILSON (NZ First) (14:30) to the Minister for Resources: What reports, if any, has he received on the Government’s minerals strategy?
Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Resources) (14:30:45): Over a year ago, I announced the New Zealand minerals strategy. I’m happy to report that mineral exports have increased, as was contemplated by the Cabinet I belong to, from 50 percent to $2.5 billion, up from $1.6 billion, which means that within one year, we will be reaching our $3 billion target—which is well before 2035—if we keep this growth up.
Dr David Wilson: What other indicators are there of growth in the sector?
Hon SHANE JONES: Like other sectors, confidence and optimism is essential. When we attract interest from both domestic investors and overseas investors—and I have learnt a valuable and hurtful lesson from 2018, when, sadly, a decision was made about the oil and gas industry without any consultation with my leader Winston Peters. However, we’ve moved on from that—we’ve moved on from that. I have to report to New Zealanders that the minerals and petroleum permits are up dramatically from 450. They’re up to 521 and they are growing as we speak.
Dr David Wilson: How does the minerals sector support our economy?
Hon SHANE JONES: I’m proud to say that in this small part of my responsibilities, I’m regarded as the delivery man. For every export dollar, every new permit, every ounce, there is a worker, a contractor, a regional business, a community benefiting from the jobs. In fact, recently I was in the West Coast, and it’s reflective of their enthusiasm for the policy and the fact there’s $30 million being generated in royalties—and, in good time, they may very well be shared with the regions—that they are contemplating making a bust of my good self.
Dr David Wilson: What are the next steps for continuing the growth of the minerals sector?
Hon SHANE JONES: Over the next year, the Government will focus on growing international partnerships; attracting investment—that level of attractiveness grows by the week; progressing work associated with royalty settings; and implementing major reforms, mostly being driven by my colleague Mr Bishop. However, there is always scope for ensuring that the wording of legislation is not misconstrued or catastrophised and used as a weapon to undermine economic development, growth, and the restoration of our minerals sector to a place of pride in the broader New Zealand economy.
Health
Question No. 7
Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour) (14:33) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by his statement that this Government is “Keeping GP visit costs the same for patients as last year”; if so, is it correct that current fees are the highest they’ve been in 20 years?
Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health) (14:34): In the context in which it was made, yes. The Government has delivered stable GP fees for 2026/27 as part of a record funding uplift for GP clinics across New Zealand. The stable fees policy comes as the share of New Zealanders who can see a GP or nurse when they need care has risen to 79.2 percent in 2026, recovering ground after it fell to 74.9 percent in 2023. We know the number one challenge patients face is simply being able to get a timely appointment. That is exactly why this Government is delivering record funding and growing the primary care workforce, so that there are more doctors and nurses on the front line when patients need care. The second part of the member’s question is correct: the level of fees patients face today is a direct result of the 30 percent increase in GP fees that occurred between 2017 and 2023. It is precisely because patients were left carrying these increases that this Government has acted to hold fees stable for 2026/27.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Is it correct, according to data released today, that GP fees have increased 21 percent over the last two years?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, the advice that I have from Health New Zealand is that there was a 30 percent increase in GP fees. The average GP fee for an enrolled adult without a community services card rose from $42.89 to $55.90 between 2017 and 2023; it has then increased to $62.35 today. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: Wait a minute—wait a minute. Only one person speaks when the question is being asked.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: When more than a third of New Zealanders told Stuff’s health survey that they are putting off seeing a doctor because of the cost, why won’t he act to bring fees down?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, we inherited a health system which was under significant pressure, from the previous Government, where the number of people recording whether they could see a GP or nurse when they needed care had fallen to 74.9 percent. The number of GP clinics who had closed books was 32.9 percent. We have been turning that around with record funding and a focus on front-line care. The number of people who now report they can see a GP or nurse when they need care has risen to 79.2 percent. The number of clinics with closed books has fallen to 24.9 percent. We’re seeing more open books; more people going to see the GP when they need one. We’re investing in front-line care. We are fixing the basics and building the future so people can get the care they need, when they need it.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: I’m so glad he’s their campaign manager!
SPEAKER: Wait—wait. When one of your own members stands up, please show at least your own side the courtesy of listening.
Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: Is the Minister willing to clearly state before the House that GP fee increases are lower under his Government than ours?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: There has been an increase in GP fees, which followed a 30 percent increase under the previous Government—which that member fails to take responsibility for.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Why should a woman—
Hon Kieran McAnulty: Just tell the truth for once.
SPEAKER: When are you going to stop? She’d started asking the question.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Why should a woman have to pay $90 for a maternity ultrasound, at a time when families are facing so many cost pressures?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: The member’s question is regarding GP visits and GP fees, and we have been very clear that we inherited significant challenges from the previous Government. We’ve invested in workforce. We’re growing the number of doctors and nurses. We’ve backed a third medical school, which Labour opposed. We’re seeing more clinics that have open books, and more Kiwis reporting that they can see a GP or nurse when they need it. The number one challenge, as I said, facing patients, is simply being able to get a timely appointment, and we are focused on fixing it, and the results and the evidence that I’ve presented to the House show that is getting better.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Why should women pay for their cervical screening when every other national screening programme is free, and two parliamentary review committees have recommended making it free for all women?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, as I said, we are fixing the basics and building the future of our healthcare system. We’re focused on growing the workforce and ensuring people can get timely access to quality healthcare. As I said, we are seeing more doctors being trained in our medical schools; we have a third medical school which has been approved; we are training more nurse practitioners; the number of GP clinics which have open books has increased; the number of New Zealanders reporting they can see a GP, nurse, or a doctor when they need has increased. We are seeing improvements. There is much more work to do, and we’ll continue to do so.
RMA Reform
Question No. 8
CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki) (14:39) to the Minister responsible for RMA Reform: What recent reports has he seen on the Government’s reform of the New Zealand planning system?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister responsible for RMA Reform) (14:39): Yesterday, the hardworking Environment Committee reported back on the Planning and the Natural Environment Bills. I want to thank the committee, chaired by that member, and the many organisations and businesses who made submissions. The Government welcomes the recommendations made by the committee that will strengthen the legislation and retain the core architecture of a new planning system. There’s a range of practical improvements to improve certainty, reduce unnecessary compliance costs, and make the legislation more practical to implement. The Government will be supporting the recommendations.
Catherine Wedd: What has stayed the same in the bills, and what benefits can New Zealanders expect them to deliver?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: The core architecture remains unchanged. It’s a two-bill system with goals and national instruments setting direction from the top, a narrowing of matters that can be revisited at each successive level of decision making, more consistent planning rules, fewer consenting requirements, higher thresholds for public participation in consents, and a clearer focus on only managing the effects that matter. For the everyday New Zealander, it means they’ll be able to get on and build the deck or the fence, add another storey on to their house, or run their farm with less cost and less red tape. The independent analysis shows the new system is projected to increase GDP by an additional 0.56 percent every year by 2050—worth over $3 billion annually. There are billions of dollars in savings over 30 years through lower admin and compliance costs. The reforms are central to the Government’s plan to grow the economy and back our farmers, and I welcome the select committee’s report back.
Catherine Wedd: What other amendments are being made to the bills?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: One amendment I would highlight for the House is an improvement to one of the goals of the legislation around competitive urban land markets, and creating an abundant—an abundant—number of development opportunities, because we know that it is development opportunities are what New Zealanders need and have been a problem in the system so far. Ultimately, tackling our housing crisis means we need a liberal planning system with liberal rules so that people who want to get on and build can go and do so.
Catherine Wedd: What feedback has he seen on the select committee’s report?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: It’s good to see Dairy New Zealand and Federated Farmers welcome to report back yesterday. The Dairy New Zealand chair said, “the reported-back Bills showed the Government and select committee had listened to concerns—
Chlöe Swarbrick: I wonder who wrote this legislation.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: —raised by farmers and the wider agriculture sector.” Well, the Greens are showing their contempt for the dairy sector by those interjections.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Aw, don’t do that, Bish—you’re better than that.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, you’re the one yelling at me about it. Mark Hooper from Federated Farmers said, “it’s extremely encouraging to see the Government has agreed to scrap the transfer of … Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements and replace them with more narrowly focused arrangements”. Federated Farmers, sir, also welcomed the Government considering changes to address Waikato Regional Council’s plan change 1. The Government is taking further advice on that tricky issue, and we’ll have more to say in due course.
Prime Minister
Question No. 9
CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green) (14:42) 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: Can the Prime Minister tell the House what the major driver was of inflation figures released today?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: A major driver would be council rates, and that is a real challenge, running at about 8.8 percent. Obviously, in the last quarter, we have seen the Trump spike associated with the conflict in the Middle East, but, what has been very good to say is that if you strip that out, we’d be within the band at 2.9 percent, and that’s very positive.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Does the Prime Minister agree that decarbonising our economy is the only way to reduce our exposure to fossil fuel inflation?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, what I really hope is that we are taking a national security approach in a world that’s increasingly volatile and uncertain. It’s important that we just don’t rely on global supply chains that can’t be relied upon—the pandemic showed us that. This current conflict has shown us that, and we’re going to do an and and and so we actually put downward pressure on electricity prices, which is exactly what we’re doing.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Does the Prime Minister stand by his statement, in his answer just then, that his Government will not rely on global supply chains in the context of his Government’s proposed billion dollar liquefied natural gas (LNG) import facility, which will increase our exposure to imported fossil fuel inflation?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What I’m pleased to see is that since we announced the LNG import facility as one of the things we are doing to drive a comprehensive energy strategy, we’ve seen wholesale electricity prices go from $200 down to $120 in a forward market. That’s really important because the policies of the previous administration killed a lot of businesses in 2024.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Does the Prime Minister stand by the statement of his Minister of Finance, just a few moments ago in this question time, that his Government will not “add pressure to inflation through irresponsible spending decisions”, and does that mean that his Government will drop its plan to spend $1 billion on a new LNG import facility, which will increase our exposure to fossil fuel inflation?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, in answer to the first leg of the question, we actually have been managing, through this crisis, to minimise the impact on inflation and to minimise the impact on growth. We very clearly articulated that from day one of when the crisis emerged in late February. As I said, we’ve had temporary, targeted support for families, we’ve continued to generate $50 billion worth of savings over the last three Budgets, and we’ve provided personal income tax relief. Those are good things because, as you’re seeing with a lot of the forecasters, our economy is on an upswing, whereas many economies around the world are on a downswing.
Hon David Seymour: Is the Prime Minister aware that the only way to completely avoid inflation is to buy and consume nothing at all, and is he aware of any political parties that might have a policy just like that?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I just would thank the member for his question, but, most importantly, I know for sure that a lot of taxes being added into our economy right here, right now would be very unhelpful as we continue to grow and get this economy moving.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Does the Prime Minister stand by his answer to me in question time in April this year: “I understand inflation, rest assured.”? Should we have taken that to mean that he understood that this fossil fuel inflation was coming and just decided to sit on his hands and do nothing about it?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: In answer to the first leg of your question, absolutely.
Trade and Investment
Question No. 10
MILES ANDERSON (National—Waitaki) (14:46) to the Minister for Trade and Investment: What recent reports has he seen on enhancing New Zealand’s international trade?
Hon TODD McCLAY (Minister for Trade and Investment) (14:47): I have seen many pleasing reports, including one that New Zealand exporters are already seeing major gains in India as demand grows for high-quality New Zealand products. The New Zealand - India free-trade agreement (FTA) is yet to enter force, but already we’re seeing a strong halo effect for our exporters who are increasing their sales in India. Exports started growing as soon as people started to see opportunities, and the India FTA is no different. The benefits will only grow once the agreement is fully up and running. An example is apples. Since negotiations with India began, volumes have jumped 63 percent since the 2024 season, and we’ve hit 45,000 tonnes in this season so far. Forestry, wool, and tourism have also increased, and, of course, kiwifruit and wine will be big winners once the tariff rates fall.
Miles Anderson: What other reports has he seen on enhancing New Zealand’s international trade?
Hon TODD McCLAY: Reports on the Future of Investment and Trade Partnership (FITP) ministerial meeting, which we hosted in Auckland last week—FITP is for small-and medium-sized economies who want to work together to find practical ways to improve opportunities for their exporters. The size of this grouping, led by New Zealand, has grown to 19 members in less than a year from its launch. In fact, last week’s meeting in Auckland was one of the most successful and largest trade gatherings New Zealand has held in 20 years. Practical outcomes from the FITP meeting in Auckland include 13 Ministers issued a ministerial declaration on economic security, focused on ensuring for New Zealand that we have fuel; 14 Ministers issued a ministerial declaration on supporting digital trade facilitation; a plurilateral arrangement on non-tariff barriers to bring costs down for exporters was supported by eight countries; a new workstream on subsidies was launched by New Zealand to focus on the harm on industry and agriculture through unfair subsidies; and, also, a workstream on strengthening the rules-based trading system, which reinforces the importance of rules for New Zealanders.
Miles Anderson: What other progress is the Government making on enhancing New Zealand’s international trade?
Hon TODD McCLAY: Well, important progress. Last week, I was able to announce, with the Deputy Prime Ministers of Singapore and New Zealand, that the landmark agreement between New Zealand and Singapore on essential supplies has now entered into force, after the agreement was signed in front of Prime Minister Luxon and Singapore in May. The Agreement on Trade in Essential Supplies is a treaty-level binding agreement to maintain the flow of essential supplies between Singapore and New Zealand during supply-chain disruptions. With a third of New Zealand fuel refined in Singapore, this agreement gives certainty to New Zealanders that fuel will remain available to them. I’m also pleased to report that, last week, I was able to announce that New Zealand and Switzerland have agreed to establish a trade and investment dialogue to explore an agreement on trade, economic security, ecommerce, investment, and sustainability. Officials between the two countries will first meet in September of this year.
Miles Anderson: What other reports has he seen on efforts to enhance New Zealand’s international trade?
Hon TODD McCLAY: Well, I’ve seen a very pleasing report that Associate Minister of Agriculture Mark Patterson has recently visited India to champion the New Zealand wool industry. I strongly endorse Minister Patterson’s statement that India is a key market for Kiwi wool growers and exporters and that there is strong potential for further growth. The New Zealand - India free-trade agreement will unlock further value for our wool sector by immediately eliminating tariffs, as well as supporting deeper trade connections, and, as Mr Patterson says, there is strong potential for further growth. The Indian textile apparel sector is the world’s third-largest, and a New Zealand - India FTA means that New Zealand wool growers will benefit from preferential access from day one.
Hon David Seymour: Has the Minister heard any reports that promoting the India free-trade agreement has made Mark Patterson a bit of a black sheep in the New Zealand First caucus?
Hon TODD McCLAY: Well, I have respect for all of my—
SPEAKER: No, that’s not a question you can reflect on.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Previous Speakers’ rulings have been very clear that the Government can’t use patsy questions to attack the Opposition, but there’s nothing to say the Government can’t use patsy questions to attack its own Ministers.
SPEAKER: Yeah, well, a new day; a new decision.
Hon David Seymour: Speaking to the point of order, I wasn’t attacking him.
SPEAKER: Well, OK, that’s interesting.
Commerce and Consumer Affairs
Question No. 11
ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa) (14:52) to the Minister for Commerce and Consumer Affairs: Does he stand by the Government’s decision to abolish the role of the Grocery Commissioner?
Hon CAMERON BREWER (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs) (14:52): Yes. While the Commerce Commission’s reform bill, which is currently before the Finance and Expenditure Committee, removes the statutory position of the Grocery Commissioner, it does not remove the powers or functions of that role. Under this Government, those powers will continue to be exercised by the Commerce Commission as a whole. The Commerce Commission will continue to enforce the Grocery Industry Competition Act and the Grocery Supply Code. This reform is about improving the commission’s governance and decision making, not weakening grocery regulations. [Interruption]
Arena Williams: Supplementary?
SPEAKER: Supplementary, Arena Williams—and while that’s being asked, no one else is speaking.
Arena Williams: Why is the Government getting rid of the one independent office dedicated to holding supermarkets to account when there is still a lack of competition in the grocery sector?
Hon CAMERON BREWER: As indicated in my primary answer, the Government is strengthening competition oversight. The Grocery Commissioner roles and functions continue. In fact, as submissions to the Finance and Expenditure Committee showed, the majority of those that submitted on the Grocery Commissioner supported our moves, broadly. There are no contradictory comments that they’re trying to suggest. The Grocery Commissioner roles, statutory responsibilities, and functions will remain, but in the commission as a whole.
Arena Williams: Will his reorganisations of the Commerce Commission’s deck chairs put more scrutiny on supermarkets and help families like Delwyn’s, who told the Grocery Commissioner that she is now spending $500 a week on groceries and that is “depressing and disheartening”?
Hon CAMERON BREWER: I suspect these supplementary questions were written before Statistics New Zealand came out today with its latest food inflation numbers. Those food inflation numbers showed that food inflation was running at 2.8 percent, well down by the 12.5 percent under her administration.
Arena Williams: Why is his answer to go back in time to deregulated supermarkets when over the last two years, the price of cheese is up 30 percent, potatoes are up 31 percent, and prices continue to rise?
Hon CAMERON BREWER: I think she is pre-empting what the Finance and Expenditure Committee and the Commerce Commission (ComCom) reform bill is going to set out. That is yet to be reported back. I know the member sits on that committee, and I look forward to it reporting back as to the exact specifics of the ComCom reforms and the structure of the ComCom, and how that will be rolled out.
Arena Williams: Does the Minister think the grocery market is working when growers in New Zealand receive 60c a kilogram for peas and yet supermarkets sell them for $5 to $6 a kilogram?
Hon CAMERON BREWER: In relation to the member’s comments, I point to the latest annual grocery report by the ComCom, which shows some really encouraging signs. It shows that the measures this Government has collectively taken are making a difference. It shows that there is a number of middle-size supermarkets, in particular—Kai Co in Christchurch, to my Canterbury friends, for example—which is making a real difference to competition. This is what the ComCom conclude in their latest annual report on groceries. Yes, we’ve got a lot of work to do, but it’s heading in the right direction.
Arena Williams: Is the Government’s laser focus still on the cost of living if milk is up 26 percent, beef is up 36 percent, and lamb chops are up 31 percent in the last two years?
Hon CAMERON BREWER: Our focus is laser-focused on the cost of living. That is what we are campaigning on. That is why you have seen food inflation drop to 2.8 percent, when it was 12.5 percent under the previous administration. We are very proud of our track record, as we get inflation within the band, and that’s what we are predicting in the next two to three quarters.
Commerce and Consumer Affairs
Question No. 12
TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) (14:57): My question is to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. What actions—[Interruption]
SPEAKER: Sorry; when you’re ready, we’ll have question No. 12 heard with the rest of the House silent.
TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) (14:57) to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: What actions is he taking to strengthen New Zealand’s capital markets and support economic growth?
Hon CAMERON BREWER (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs) (14:57): Economic growth is this Government’s central priority, and strong capital markets play a critical role in delivering it. Last week, I released a discussion document with considerable public and media fanfare, seeking feedback on the next phase of our capital markets reforms aimed at lowering the cost of capital and delivering stronger returns for investors. These reforms are about reducing unnecessary barriers, modernising the rules, and ensuring New Zealand remains globally competitive while maintaining the investor protections that give people confidence to invest—just another example of this Government fixing the basics and, dare I say, building the future.
Tom Rutherford: What steps has the Government already taken to strengthen New Zealand’s capital markets?
Hon CAMERON BREWER: Last year, we made a series of common-sense reforms to cut compliance costs, reduce red tape, and remove barriers to listing on the NZX. We made forward-looking financial information optional for NZX listings and agreed to lift the mandatory climate reporting threshold to $1 billion in market capitalisation. These changes help to lower the cost of capital, so Kiwi businesses can raise funds more easily and investors can benefit from stronger and more competitive markets.
Tom Rutherford: How can New Zealanders have their say on these proposed reforms?
Hon CAMERON BREWER: As I have said, we’ve released a discussion document and opened a six-week public consultation process through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). I encourage businesses, investors, financial advisers, fund managers, mum and dad investors, and anyone with an interest in our capital markets to make a submission through MBIE’s website. We want practical feedback from people who use these markets every day, so that we can make sure the settings support growth, investment, and opportunity.
Tom Rutherford: What feedback has the Minister received on the discussion paper so far?
Hon CAMERON BREWER: The early feedback has been very positive, and as I said, a lot of public acclaim and media excitement. The Institute of Directors say the proposals are a step in the right direction and that reforms to increase liquidity and encourage NZ listings will benefit the economy. That’s the Institute of Directors. Chartered accountants have also welcomed the opportunity to modernise our capital market settings while maintaining investor confidence and protections. The clear message is that these reforms can make it easier for Kiwi businesses to raise capital, grow, and attract investment. I look forward to seeing further feedback through the consultation process. We’re, once again, fixing the basics and building the future.
SPEAKER: That concludes oral questions. We’ll take a short period of time for people to leave the House before I call on the Hon Dr Deborah Russell.
Debates
Golden Bay Cement—Government Decision to Provide Grant
Urgent Debate
Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (15:01): I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.
Just yesterday, the Government announced that it was going to fund Fletcher Concrete, or Fletcher’s, to the tune of $60 million. It was doing this as a matter of helping to keep Golden Bay Cement going in this country. Now, the particular amount of $60 million is to be funded from the 2026 Budget from a tagged contingency. However, it wasn’t particularly debated in the Budget. Mr Speaker, as you’ve pointed out earlier, we won’t have another chance to debate it, and so I do want to go through some of the sorts of questions we would ask about spending of this magnitude being directed towards one company in New Zealand and to examine that in the context of this House. This is not here to do a gotcha. It’s not here to do a gotcha; it’s here to ask the sorts of questions we would have wanted to ask during the Budget process and to take this quite seriously.
Some of the facts of the matter: Golden Bay Cement is the only concrete producer in New Zealand; all of the other concrete in this country is imported. That’s important because importers don’t face the same carbon costs as Golden Bay Cement faces, and so that’s an issue for Golden Bay Cement. Now, that is recognised through the New Zealand emissions trading scheme, and they’re given an industrial allocation to deal with it. That industrial allocation is quite significant. In 2024, it was around about 489,000 New Zealand Units (NZUs); in 2023, about 593 NZUs; and in 2022, it was about 663 NZUs—those are units in the emissions trading scheme.
In terms of industrial allocations, if we look at it proportionally, it’s one of the biggest sets of industrial allocations in the emissions trading scheme, and it’s about 9 to 10 percent of all the industrial allocations. Fletcher Concrete already gets a significant boost through getting a free allocation of units in the New Zealand emissions trading scheme.
I just want to, in passing, commend Concrete New Zealand for the work they are already doing to reduce emissions. This is an industry which is taking its emissions seriously. In terms of debating then why we should be funding Fletcher Concrete, there were—
Hon Nicola Willis: Are you for it or against it?
Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: I’m taking this seriously. I’m not out to do a gotcha; I’m taking this seriously.
I do want to talk about three issues that I think are critical in this debate. One is the matter of jobs, one is the matter of whether or not it’s a critical resource, and one is a matter around a comparison to what Labour did when we were in Government.
One of the things that this $60 million is going to do is it’s going to save 150 jobs directly at Golden Bay Cement, and through standard multiplicative factors, it will save further jobs in the Whangārei economy. Now, that is a good thing, which, as a Labour Party, we do support. But it begs the question, it absolutely begs the question, what about the jobs at Winstone Pulp International, at the Karioi Pulp Mill, and Tangiwai Sawmill, up in the Ruapehu District? That was about 200 jobs lost directly, and in that particular area of the country, those jobs are important. They support a whole lot of other jobs in the surrounding economy. So why were the jobs at Fletcher Concrete important, but not the jobs at the Karioi Pulp Mill and Tangiwai Sawmill?
What about the jobs at Carter Holt Harvey? The Eves Valley Sawmill in Nelson Tasman; there were 142 jobs lost there. Why weren’t those jobs important as well? And I think of Juken New Zealand and Northland Mill in Kaitaia. There were jobs lost up there too.
So that’s jobs lost in the timber industry. Now, there were also jobs lost in the Alliance Group at the Smithfield meatworks in Timaru: 600 jobs lost. Why were those jobs not important? And this is the problem that we have here, is that some jobs seem to be important and others not. We could carry on. Heinz Wattie’s has lost jobs in Auckland, Christchurch, and Dunedin: 350 jobs lost.
So, a set of jobs at Golden Bay Cement, kept, but jobs elsewhere, gone. Why this intervention at this time? Now, the Government has said in its press release it was because cement is a critical industry in New Zealand. Now, that’s an interesting point. It says that we need cement for construction purposes, but actually we also need food. Yet, there have been pressures on our food industry, and jobs gone there. We also need timber for construction, and yet those jobs have gone. So when the Government talks about cement being a critical resource, it is not the only critical resource. Why this particular critical resource? We need that question to be answered as well.
Then there is the question of what we are doing in terms of subsidising a particular industry. And this is the one that I am really puzzled by, and I think that the Government does need to answer it. Just a month ago, in scrutiny week, as the Minister for Economic Growth said, “I would never go near GIDI with a barge pole, and please never compare anything I have done with it. No, I would never. I would never take the GIDI approach of massive multimillion-dollar free cheques of corporate welfare to big businesses to pad their pockets.”
Now, that’s what the Minister for Economic Growth said just a month ago, and yet yesterday she was writing out a cheque for $60 million to go to Fletcher Concrete. That’s a real problem. In fact, in her previous role as Opposition spokesperson for finance and her current role as Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis has spent two years attacking GIDI as corporate welfare. But now she is writing out a $60 million cheque to a single company. When we, in Government, used the funds from GIDI in order to reduce the emissions coming from New Zealand Steel in order to reduce emissions by the equivalent amount of taking all the cars in Christchurch off the road—that’s how much our emissions reduced by it—that side of the House, then in Opposition, attacked it as corporate welfare. How is that different from the $60 million cheque that has just been written out to Golden Bay Cement?
That’s the real problem here, is that on the one hand the Government is saying this is a critical industry; we need to support those jobs; we need to make sure we keep construction going in this country. But on the other—and I say it’s a good thing to do—but on the other, when we did exactly the same with New Zealand Steel, they accused us of engaging in corporate welfare. I’d like them to clear that mismatch up. It is quite a significant mismatch.
That is one of the reasons why we are not necessarily opposed to this payment, because we can see the value of the jobs, but we want the Government to be consistent. You see, the Government said that if they went around and, perhaps, adjusted the ETS, the emissions trading scheme, to help out Golden Bay Cement, then I think the line was that there would be a conga line of other businesses queuing up for the same concession. But now that they’ve written out a $60 million cheque for Golden Bay Cement, surely there will be a conga line of other businesses lining up for the same sorts of concessions. That is the position that this Government needs to answer.
Finally, I get, you know, that businesses come and go; I get that it’s always hard for the people who poured their dreams into running a business. It’s always hard and difficult for workers when they lose their job. It’s always hard for people to let go of that, to see a livelihood disappear. We know that jobs are important. We know that when businesses are finding times tough, Governments have to make tough decisions—and Governments make tough decisions all the time. I don’t, for a moment, doubt that this is a very hard decision for the Government to have to make, to weigh it up, back and forth. But why exercise it only on behalf of this one company? Why not all the other businesses in this country that have been doing it tough over the last few years? Why not other businesses that are trade-exposed? Why this extra money going to a company that already gets a large subsidy through the emissions trading scheme? The Government has some questions to answer.
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance) (15:11): Having called for this debate, Deborah Russell appears not to have a position in this debate. What we just heard was 10 minutes of her wandering around the mulberry bush trying to decide whether, on the one hand, she supports the decision, or whether, on the other hand, she opposes the decision. So it is very unclear to me whether in fact we are having a debate or whether the member was in fact standing up and saying what is true, which is that the Government has been faced with a very difficult situation as it relates to Golden Bay Cement and has to take a very careful and balanced decision on that issue.
To recap: yesterday, the Government announced that it will provide up to $60 million, agreed through Budget 2026, to secure the continued operation of the Golden Bay Cement factory in Whangārei. This will preserve what is New Zealand’s only cement manufacturing capability, and therefore, in doing that, it will strengthen our resilience against future supply shocks. As a Government, we believe that markets should generally determine commercial outcomes, and so it is true to say that we have come to this intervention reluctantly and carefully. We believe that intervention of this sort should only happen in the most exceptional circumstances, and this is one of those circumstances.
I’d remind the member that the world has changed. COVID exposed global supply chains. Conflict in the Middle East has disrupted international shipping. Recent fuel price spikes have shown just how quickly events offshore can affect New Zealand. There are many members of the public who have reflected that the closure of the Marsden Point refinery, in retrospect, looks short-sighted. I did not want to be the Minister—and nor did the Ministers in my Cabinet—defending New Zealand’s inability to produce cement in a global supply shock, because we knew that that would be devastating for our economy.
Because here’s the thing: you can’t build a house, a hospital, a road, or an infrastructure project without cement. It is not readily substitutable. In a circumstance in which we were completely reliant on importing cement, and then we had a disruption to that, we would potentially be in a position where construction activity across the New Zealand economy would come to a standstill, and with that the jobs, incomes, and activities that that construction and infrastructure sector supports. Our Government was not prepared to take that risk.
The lesson that our Government has reflected on is that while New Zealand will always rely on international trade, we must also preserve some critical domestic capability. To quote the commentator who put it, I thought, very well today, “This reflects a deeper recognition that New Zealand must now be smarter about its self-reliance in a world of oil shocks and Trump tariffs.”
The real challenge for this House—that that member failed to grapple with despite asking for the debate, and presumably having all morning to prepare for it—is assuring that when the Government does intervene, it does so not simply to hand out money to companies who should be lifting their own productivity and competing internationally, that it applies very careful tests to that intervention, that conditions are applied very carefully, in terms of what that money is granted for and what it must achieve, and that, at the same time, companies in receipt of it are having to continue to modernise and compete.
This is where there is a very relevant set of questions that the member has asked about in what were the tests that we applied. For us, the first issue was: “Is this actually a critical piece of economic activity?”, because there are many things that could make that claim, but we applied a high bar. Those tests were: one, “Is cement essential to economic resilience?”, and our judgment is “yes”; second, “Is it a substitutable good?”, and the answer to that is “no”—so it meets that test; the third test was, “Are there abatement constraints in the ability of that industry to reduce its carbon use?”, and the answer is “yes”; “Are there leakage risks?”—i.e., if we close that industry, would we, in fact, be importing higher carbon goods from elsewhere—the answer was “yes”; “Was there a genuine closure risk?”—and I have to say, that I am a sceptic when commercial companies come telling me that they’re poor, and so we first tested that commercial reality by having an open-book exercise conducted by Deloitte, who went and scoured through the books of Golden Bay Cement to check whether the claims being made about its lack of commercial viability in the future were, in fact, correct.
What that exercise showed, was that, aside from the costs of having to meet its emissions trading obligations, it is, in fact, a viable business; but with those carbon costs attached, it would be nigh impossible for domestic cement production to compete with the internationally imported product. So that is what brings us into a situation where we then looked at, “Is this a firm that has had high levels of previous Government support that would mean that we shouldn’t be going back to the well?”; and no, it hadn’t had that. So we applied very real tests.
In answer to the member’s question about whether there are other firms who could make similar claims, I would say that the Golden Bay Cement case has been distinguished for the following reasons: number one, it is New Zealand’s only domestic cement producer—not many firms can make that claim; number two, cement is a foundational input to the construction and infrastructure industries; number three, short-term substitution through imports is at risk of constraint in any kind of supply or trade disruption; and, finally, intervention here is aimed at preserving a specific national resilience capability rather than offsetting a generalised commercial position.
The member then went on to ask, “Well, how is this different from the Labour Government’s beloved GIDI Fund?”—let me tell you the ways. The GIDI Fund—Megan Woods’ claim to fame—was an untargeted, contestable fund open to process heat users on the basis—New Zealand steel was one of the biggest benefactors from that fund. It was not going to go out of business. It was not going to stop producing steel if it didn’t receive GIDI funding. Those were not risks that it was facing. Instead, what we have done, is a time-limited, targeted intervention to prevent a nationally significant—
Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Free money! Money tree!
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: —sole domestic supplier of cement from closing.
The member opposite says it’s “free money”, well, let me tell you: on this finance Minster’s watch, there is no such thing as free money.
We have put in place very stringent requirements in exchange for these funds. They are: number one, this firm must remain open until at least 2049; number two, it must sustain the levels of employment in that plant—I want to be clear to the members opposite about what’s at stake here. It’s not just the 100-plus people employed by the factory, it’s also the 100-plus contractors that it employs; and then it’s the wider impact, assumed to be around 600 roles, within the Whangārei economy. The third factor that we attached was that we wanted to see the firm continuing a programme of investment to lift its own carbon efficiency and its own productivity. They have committed to invest at least $150 million of their own money in this domestic factory. The fifth condition that we imposed was that we’re not just going to take their word for it; we will have an ongoing ability to look at their books, to audit it, and we have an ongoing expectation of reporting against the commitments that have been made. Finally, because there is never any free money, we have also said that if those conditions that we have set are not met, we will claw back the funds.
Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Right, so it’s a gift.
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Now, that, Mr Webb, is what you do when you are a Government that cares about taxpayers’ money as dearly as we do.
If I can, Mr Speaker, I would offer a reflection: when I came to Government as the Minister of Finance, it was never my desire to be in a position where we would ever be providing taxpayer money to a private company in a situation like this. However, the business of Government also requires us to look practically and pragmatically at issues that arise. In this instance, we have chosen the least worst option, because the alternative was to allow this production facility to close down and threaten New Zealand’s future economic resilience significantly and put our economy at risk. Or the alternative was to completely gut the emissions trading scheme, which is allowing New Zealand to meet its domestic emissions reduction goals. Faced with terrible choices, we made the least worst option. I do not wish it to be so, but I stand very firmly by this Government’s decision to preserve what is an important feature of our national economic resilience.
CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green) (15:21): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. We, like many New Zealanders, were blindsided by this news. It seems to have come out of nowhere over the last few days.
These are the facts that we know that are currently publicly available: there is $60 million of taxpayer money that has now been allocated to be spent on bailing out Golden Bay Cement; we know that there is no equity stake that the Government has received as a result, and we are told that the reason this is needed is because of the way that the emissions trading scheme operates and that cheaper cement is available from offshore; and, as the Minister of Finance herself has just outlined, cement is critical for our economy and for our country. Now, something which may come as a surprise to the members of the Government who are currently laughing at my contribution is the fact that the Green Party actually agrees with those two key fundamental premises: firstly, that the emissions trading scheme is not fit for purpose and is not working adequately, and secondly, that indeed cement is currently critical in our economy.
I really want to unpack these things, because I actually do think that this should be one of those moments when we have an opportunity for cross-partisan consensus with regard to clear problem definition and, hopefully, forming some basic principles that we can all move forward and agree on. But I guess, just to round out that baseline point of what we do and do not know, there’s still a lot that we don’t know, despite the contribution from the Minister just then and one Beehive press release. We know that Cabinet signed this off around May and there were apparently some stringent requirements that were applied to Golden Bay Cement, but we need more publicly available information. New Zealanders deserve that transparency when tens of millions of dollars of their money is being spent, and I implore members of the Government to recognise that this is exactly the same standard they would hold the Opposition to if we were in their position. We need that information so that we can adequately weigh up the claims that have been made and weigh them against the reality, the facts, and the evidence.
Here are some baseline offerings from the Green Party on this debate today. We support sensible investment that, firstly, keeps and grows our local job opportunity and, secondly, builds our local resilience, but ideally, we would like to add two other principles to that: we’d like investment that decarbonises our economy and reduces our exposure to fossil fuels. As we have seen in the inflation figures released today—what the Greens were worried about and saw on the horizon and were questioning the Government about months ago when the fossil fuel crisis first hit—our country is massively exposed to volatile fossil fuel shocks and imported inflation as a result. The best way that we can build the sustainability that the Minister of Finance was just talking about is through rapid decarbonisation. Fourthly, a principle that we’d love to have consensus in this House upon is that that investment actually actively benefits as many New Zealanders as is possible, not just those shareholding. We don’t have the information necessary to weigh up the Government’s expenditure of $60 million of taxpayer funds on this investment, because this information is just not out there in the public at the moment.
There are also, I think, really legitimate questions to be asked. Many New Zealanders will be asking themselves why the Government can find $60 million down the back of the couch for a deal like this, to save 150 jobs, when they refused to engage to do the same for 200 jobs in Tokoroa and 350 jobs around the rest of the country for Heinz and Wattie’s, which now means that no peas are going into the ground in this country on industrial scale any more. We’ve lost that food-growing capacity because the Government passed up a seemingly very similar, on the face of it, situation as this to invest in securing local jobs and in securing local production.
So, in lieu of answers to those questions, I think we can reflect on some broader economic principles. Firstly, we agree with the Minister of Finance in what she quoted before—and I wrote it down. I believe it was something along the lines of the need for becoming smarter about self-reliance in a world of fuel shocks and Donald Trump. That’s exactly what the Greens have been asking for. We’ve been offering the governing parties our 15 Green votes to get on with decarbonisation and suping up our renewable energy transition. That means reducing fossil fuel exposure, and it means fixing climate policy through a carbon border adjustment, which the Greens have been talking about since at least 2024. It means investment in ourselves, something the Greens have always proudly supported, going back to our “Buy New Zealand Made” campaign.
SIMON COURT (ACT) (15:27): ACT supports this package because of course New Zealand should keep making cement here. It’s not just another product sitting on a building supply shelf. It’s in our roads, it’s in our bridges, it’s in our hospital foundations, it’s in our schools—
Hon Dr Duncan Webb: I didn’t think ACT would give money to businesses.
SIMON COURT: —and, Dr Duncan Webb, it’s in our homes.
Hon Ginny Andersen: You hippie!
SIMON COURT: A country that cannot make the materials it needs to build itself is a country that becomes more dependent on overseas supply chains. While one member of the Opposition has called me a hippie, as a civil engineer who worked at a rubbish tip for six years, I tell you, I know a thing or two about how to fix the environment and why the kinds of policies we hear coming from the Opposition will never fix the environment. They’ll only make New Zealand poorer.
The last few years have reminded us about how fragile our supply chains are, though. COVID exposed that, and the geopolitical tensions that we’re seeing now have just reinforced how vulnerable we are. For an island nation at the bottom of the world, some productive capability is absolutely vital. Domestic cement manufacturing is just one of those capabilities we need, and that is why ACT supports this package, but that does not mean we should ignore the question that the need for this package raises. If Parliament agrees that domestic cement production is strategically important enough to justify a $60 million investment, we should also ask why one of New Zealand’s most important and successful manufacturers cannot survive without that support? This package addresses today’s challenge; it does not answer tomorrow’s.
ACT would ask: is the design of the emissions trading scheme—which puts a price on carbon, which has led to the need to bail out or shore up this company—still fit for purpose? If the scheme was working properly, we wouldn’t need to ride to the rescue of otherwise successful companies. Does the scheme actually deliver on Parliament’s intent when it was established, because an emissions trading scheme should encourage innovation? I’ve been to Golden Bay Cement. I’ve seen what they do there. They take hundreds of thousands of tonnes of demolition timber and shredded waste tyres, and they use that instead of burning coal in their process. That’s innovation, and it is managing down their climate emissions.
The scheme, as it currently stands, makes it easier to import high-emissions cement from overseas than to manufacture it here in New Zealand, even with all the investments in innovation and process improvement. What does that mean? Well, if production was to move offshore, we’d lose the investment, we’d lose hundreds of skilled jobs in the Northland economy, and we would weaken New Zealand’s productive capability, and, of course, global emissions would not go down; they would only go up.
ACT supports this package because keeping productive industry in New Zealand is better than losing it, but our ambition should be much higher than repeatedly stepping in after existing policy has created a problem. ACT is not afraid of standing here in the House and going out there and telling New Zealanders that if a policy doesn’t work, it can be changed; it can be fixed. Now, when a Government keeps saying that an industry’s strategically important while making it harder for that industry to compete, it’s time for the Government to get out of the way. That is why ACT is asking: is the design of the emissions trading scheme still achieving what Parliament intended? The real test of a good policy is not how often the Government has to step in to save it; it’s whether New Zealand manufacturers can continue to stand on their own two feet. That’s the challenge this package should present to Parliament today, and that is the challenge ACT will take up.
Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Regional Development) (15:31:45): Jobs have now been saved in Tai Tokerau Whangārei. There were two ways to approach this unwanted development. Number one was to have followed my instincts as a New Zealand First MP and have a wholesale exemption of all firms in New Zealand that are exposed to this dead-weight cost of climate alarmism, whilst the originators, the architects, represented by the two earlier speakers, the member from the Labour Party delivering a speech akin to a sleeping pill, the Green member, some sort of display of pheromone and toxification for lemmings—something I’ll never follow. We have to turn around manufacturing industry. We need to keep intact in New Zealand those institutions that give us our resilience, so full marks to our finance Minister for making the allocation of this capital, of this pūtea, to this sharemarket company.
But there’s a deeper issue: how long is it going to take before the elements on the left side of politics accept that this devotion, this continual kneeling at the feet of climate idols, is making this country broke? No, what we find is the slavishness from the Labour Party. What we find is this juvenile devotion from the Greens that, somehow, New Zealand is single-handedly going to save the planet while China, India, United States of America are emitting more in two or three minutes than our entire yearly contribution. That’s what the next election is going to be about. That’s the perfidy, and that’s the hypocrisy that lies at the pith of the problem that we’ve solved by saving those jobs up in Whangārei.
Now, it could be said: is this a sensible use of taxpayers’ money? It will have to continue if we are going to save those key sectors that give us resilience. But it was the Labour Party and Megan Woods, who insisted that the refinery be drowned, insisted that the refinery be burdened, with the full impost of climate levy slush, driving towards her secret agenda which was to close down the refinery. Well, fortunately, this particular organisation is within visibility of the refinery. That Labour Party condemned the refinery to termination. This side of the Government—i.e., us, the Government, the coalition Government—have resuscitated, have salvaged, have saved the jobs associated with the cement factory.
Of course, I’ve been working for many years, back to the days of Nick Smith, back to the time when there was a sum of $11 million made available—it could be back in 2015, 2016, 2017—to enable them to move towards burning tyres and other types of waste material, but our industries cannot afford the fantasy land ideology of Labour and Greens that somehow we will save the planet by terminating mining, terminating manufacturing, and getting rid of industry, and what are we going to have? Oh, we’re going to have the Labour Party view of our economy—doing each other’s dirty washing. That’s why we need to do more of this, not less of it. There’s no need for parade out a whole bunch of arguments justifying what we’ve done. We will get our justification when we go to the election. This is what Kiwis want. They don’t want zombie towns, they don’t want hollowed out locations, and they don’t want people denuded of industry, of jobs, and of opportunity. The Greens and Labour want to export all our young people to Australia and then encourage wholesale immigration from the third world to replace our own people. Why? To suit the needs of their climate gods that are false idols.
New Zealand First will never, never accept that type of perfidy, those falsehoods. Whangārei, be happy today. A key institution with lots of jobs, a key contributor to New Zealand’s economic independence and resilience, has been saved and delivered through this coalition Government.
Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) (15:36): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. It’s really interesting to hear from—what is it?—the “Prince of the Provinces” or something like that, as “Matua” Shane Jones often refers to himself as, saying that we don’t want zombie towns or to be exporting New Zealanders to Australia. What I would like to point out for the Minister is that, in fact, under the National Government, we have been exporting New Zealanders to Australia in record numbers. Record numbers of New Zealanders are being forced to leave Aotearoa because we have not got the jobs to keep our people here.
Dan Bidois: That’s incorrect. The numbers are really low.
Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: For the benefit of the member on the opposite side of the House, I’ll just point out what those job losses in our regions are. We’ve got Winstone Pulp International; the Karioi Pulp Mill and Tangiwai sawmill in Ruapehu, which had around 200 job losses; Carter Holt Harvey and Eves Valley Sawmill in Nelson-Tasman, with 142 jobs affected; we’ve got the Alliance Smithfield meatworks in Timaru, with approximately 600 jobs lost; we have the Heinz Wattie’s Auckland, Christchurch, and Dunedin factories, with 350 jobs lost; and in Kaitāia, in recent weeks, we have had the announcement that we will have the closure of the Juken Northland Mill with a loss of 60 jobs.
The important debate that we are having here today is we just want some openness, some transparency, and some fairness. While the Government has come to the rescue of this one business, what about all of the other businesses that are struggling in regional New Zealand? What about the other businesses that are struggling in Northland? What assistance, what help, did the Government offer them? What contestable fund and what door was opened for them to be able to put forward their case about what the impact would be of the closure of their businesses—be they on job losses in the regions and be they on the important sectors that they represent?
When I look at the recent announcement about the closure of the Kaitāia mill, they approached the Government—they begged the Government—for support, and they have criticised the Government for not intervening, saying it had “every opportunity … to step in and facilitate the sale, run the mill as a temporary measure, or just guarantee the operations until a buyer was found.”, but it chose to do none of those. We had the Northland councils, we had the Regional Economic Development Agency of Northland, New Zealand, urging the Government to intervene, saying, “Government investment could help attract private capital to redevelop the Northland mill and protect jobs.”
They also said that Minister Shane Jones and the coalition Government have turned their backs on these workers and have offered excuses not to intervene, and that the Northland region will pay for it. They pointed out that the Northland region can’t afford to lose any more jobs or industry. Kaitāia is already struggling. Our manufacturing sector is struggling. As I said, over 800 jobs have now been lost in the industry since this Government came into power.
The reason we called for this debate is not because we are necessarily opposed to the support that they have given to Golden Bay Cement; it is to ask questions about the openness, transparency, and fairness. What about all the other businesses that are struggling in regional New Zealand? Why has the Government refused to intervene in those cases? I jotted down a few notes here about the Hon Shane Jones saying that this will have to continue and we’ll do more of this, not less of it, and we’ll give more details about that at the election. Well, this is a $60 million promise with taxpayer funding for one business that is struggling. What about all of the other businesses that I have listed across regional New Zealand who are desperately seeking Government support?
They cancelled the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry (GIDI) Fund. They cancelled the GIDI Fund that could have benefited some of these businesses which have already had to close. You’ve heard the Minister have her own words thrown back to her because she was opposed—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The member’s time has expired.
RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (15:41): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m tempted to make a joke about concrete, but it would take too long to set, unfortunately. But the reality of this is this isn’t actually a joke; this is actually a key point in our nation’s economy. It’s a turning point, if you will. We often look back to 2018 when the last administration banned oil and gas, and now we suffer the consequences of that when we hear about high energy and high electricity. We get lambasted by the Opposition about it, but there’s no recollection, no ownership, of the mistake that they made.
This is a key moment where—I didn’t actually realise, like many others, probably—
Scott Willis: The de-industrialisation is under way, Ryan, and it’s on your watch.
RYAN HAMILTON: —around New Zealand, that Golden Bay Cement in Whangārei—sorry, can I debate? You can take a call. I didn’t realise that Golden Bay Cement in Whangārei was New Zealand’s only remaining domestic cement-producing business. I had no idea. It’s huge—absolutely huge. I also didn’t realise that over 3 million tyres are burnt in its capacity every year to save burning coal to fuel the production of that said cement.
This is such a key co-investment to make sure that we retain that infrastructure-building capacity within New Zealand so we can build roads, continue to build housing, save 600 jobs, and keep it going to at least 2040. It’s a no-brainer.
We’re also putting the pressure on Golden Bay to co-invest $150 million. This is a real key balance between economic resilience, infrastructure security, regional employment, and emissions reduction while requiring co-investment. It’s a no-brainer.
REUBEN DAVIDSON (Labour—Christchurch East) (15:43): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to return to the House after a two-week recess, during which I had the opportunity to get out of this building and go and visit some amazing innovative entrepreneurs and businesses across and around New Zealand. Now, these are businesses that are full of positivity, they’re full of optimism, and they’re full of ambition—
Grant McCallum: They’re pleased with the Government, clearly.
REUBEN DAVIDSON: The thing is—and you’ll be disappointed with this part of the speech, then, sir, because the thing is that I come back into the House today and I sit in my chair and I look across the House and I see such a contrast. What we don’t see on the other side of the House is that optimism, that hope, that ambition, that positivity. What we hear instead from the Minister of Finance—and I go back to a quote that other members have read in the House today. I’m conscious that she likes these things to be in context, so I will read it word for word: “I would never go near GIDI with a barge pole, and please never compare anything I have done with it. No, I would never. I would never take the GIDI approach of massive, multi-million free cheques of corporate welfare to big businesses to pad their pockets.” That’s the quote from the current Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, who has written out a cheque for $60 million to a single company.
What we don’t hear about is what GIDI did. GIDI was the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry fund. Not only did it keep these businesses going and not only did it ensure that they could continue to provide jobs, but it also made sure they started or continued or finished their decarbonisation journey. There was no such guarantee from the cheque written from the Minister of Finance today.
Now, on top of that, to make things worse, it seems that the Minister is a little late to the party, because we have seen in this term of Government hundreds and hundreds of job losses in the regions across New Zealand and people coming to Parliament asking for help, for assistance, for support for their businesses, for their industry in their regions, to be able to continue to provide the jobs that are needed for the people in those places. Time after time, those requests have fallen on deaf ears. This Government has failed to act. Those businesses have shuttered up. Those jobs have gone.
Ryan Hamilton: “Shutted” up—is that a word?
REUBEN DAVIDSON: Those regions—it depends how you spell it, sir. I’m not sure that you would know this version of it. Those regions are now left with people in high levels of unemployment. These are the places we’ve heard about: Winstone Pulp International; the Karioi and Tangiwai sawmills; Carter Holt Harvey; the Eaves Valley Sawmill, with 142 jobs affected; Juken New Zealand; the Northland mill in Kaitāia; the Alliance Group with the Smithfield meatworks in Timaru losing 600 jobs; and Heinz Wattie’s in Auckland, Christchurch, and Dunedin losing 350 jobs in those factories.
Every time when those companies, when those places were having to lose these people out of those jobs, this Government did nothing—absolutely nothing—at the same time as we are seeing liquidations nationwide at a 15-year high, businesses falling over, businesses not getting the support that they need to be able to continue and this Government and that Minister of Finance turning a blind eye to their need. And now, today, the announcement that the Government will step in and write a cheque. The question and the point that the Minister wouldn’t answer, despite providing some information, was whether they will ever see that money back from that company. That question simply wasn’t answered.
Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Answered by silence.
REUBEN DAVIDSON: It wasn’t answered, or, as my colleague has suggested, perhaps it was answered by the silence. Perhaps the fact that there wasn’t an answer to that question in this House suggests that the same Minister of Finance who said she would never write a cheque has just written a $60 million cheque that she never expects to get back.
DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (15:48): It is a pleasure to round off this debate, being the last speaker. What have we heard from this series of speeches today? Firstly, that this is about targeted and timely relief for a strategic asset. I say that because we, on this side of the House, broadly believe in a vibrant private sector that needs to stand on its own two feet. But as Nicola Willis, our finance Minister, explained, Cabinet looked at and assessed this situation specifically and determined that without this investment, this business would pull out and that would actually put 150 jobs at risk.
What else have we heard today? We have heard that this is not about a blank open check. There’s going to be stringent conditions on that fund to make sure—
Hon Dr Duncan Webb: What are they? Transparency.
DAN BIDOIS: I’ll tell the member opposite over there, Duncan Webb, about these conditions. Firstly, conditions on employment. Secondly, conditions to make sure that there is investment of up to $150 million by 2040. There’s going to be reporting and audit requirements, and we’re going to be able to claw back any funds if we are not satisfied with those conditions. This is all about security of cement supply; it’s all about jobs and livelihoods in the regions; and it’s all about economic security. With that, I thoroughly commend this decision to the House.
GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland) (15:51): Thank you, Madam Speaker. As a member who resides in the North in the mighty electorate of Northland, which surrounds the Whangārei electorate, it’s interesting—I’ve been listening to some of the speeches from the other side and people are saying, “Why aren’t the Government doing more?” I find it rather hypocritical that, where Golden Bay Cement is, you look and you can see the refinery. Well, what happened to the refinery under the last Government? They shut it. They could have done something about it, but no, they chose not to.
What are we doing? We are being sensible and pragmatic here. This Golden Bay Cement plant, which I visited on several occasions, produces 60 percent of New Zealand’s cement. It is the only producer of cement in the country, and it is vital for all the infrastructure work we need doing. Whatever we’re building, whether it be roads, whether it be more buildings, houses, whatever it is, we need that cement. This is about security of supply, and it’s also about security of the jobs for the people who work at Golden Bay Cement, and the downstream people who all service the plant—somewhere in the region of 600 jobs. It’s a fantastic decision by this Government and I’m really pleased to support that.
Something that a lot of people aren’t always aware of: people have talked about the tyres that are used in the furnaces. Effectively, there’s about 100,000 tonnes of waste from Auckland that winds up going and fuelling those furnaces, which is all stuff that’s not just going to landfill. This is a great decision for Northland, it is a great decision for this country, and it is a great decision for all the people who work at Golden Bay Cement. I commend it to the House.
The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.
Bills
Arms Bill
Legislative Statement
Hon NICOLE McKEE (Associate Minister of Justice) (15:52): I present a legislative statement on the Arms Bill.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.
Second Reading
Hon NICOLE McKEE (Associate Minister of Justice) (15:53): I move, That the Arms Bill be now read a second time.
At the first reading, I said that public safety and respect for licensed firearm owners is not in conflict, that they actually depend on each other, and the select committee process has reinforced that point. More than 8,000 submissions were made on this bill, and that followed almost 8,500 submissions received during the Ministry of Justice’s public consultation in 2025. Thousands of licensed firearm owners, firearms businesses, clubs, rangers, hunters, pest controllers, collectors, museums, gunsmiths, and other New Zealanders took the time to engage with this legislation. They read the bill. They considered how it would operate in practice. They identified problems, suggested improvements, and shared decades of collective experience. They were heard. Many of their suggestions are now reflected in the bill reported back to this House. That is how law should be made—with clear heads, proper consultation, and respect for the people who will have to live and work under it.
It is a stark contrast to the approach taken after 2019, when Labour rushed through sweeping changes with next to no meaningful consultation, treated licensed firearm owners as though they were the problem, and imposed layer upon layer of regulation that did little to address the real risks. The result is the fragmented, confusing, and often unworkable Arms Act which we have today. This bill replaces that mess with a modern, coherent, and enduring regulatory framework.
I’d like to acknowledge the Justice Committee. The committee worked through a large and technically complex bill. They considered thousands of submissions and approached the issues constructively across party lines. I want to acknowledge that every change that has been recommended by the committee was agreed unanimously. I’d like to thank the members of the committee, the officials who supported them, and every person who submitted. I want to especially acknowledge the chair, the Hon Andrew Bayly, who I believe has done an exceptional job. His fair-minded chairing and willingness to ensure that every member and submitter was properly heard helped the committee consider the legislation constructively, and we will have a much better law as a result of that, so I thank him for the considerable time and effort that he has put into this bill. I’d also like to acknowledge the Ministry of Justice officials and, also, the Parliamentary Counsel Office, because, as I just mentioned, this is a technically complicated bill that they’ve all had to get their heads around.
I will now detail some key changes in the bill. The bill as introduced provided an exemption from the requirement to obtain a permit to possess or immediately record a transfer in the firearms registry when a restricted firearm was left with a licensed business, such as a gunsmith, for repair or for modification. That exemption originally applied for seven days, but submitters told the committee that seven days was often insufficient where parts needed to be ordered, or specialist gun work was required, or businesses had existing workloads. The reality is we do not have gunsmiths in every town. In fact, we have very few of them, so their work programme is absolutely huge and often not able to be completed within seven days. The committee listened and they recommended extending the period from seven days to 21 days, and that is a practical change that reduces unnecessary paperwork without weakening public safety.
The committee also recommended extending multi-entry visitor licences from 12 to up to 18 months. This will provide greater flexibility for people who return to New Zealand for annual events such as duck shooting, the roar, or even sporting competitions, particularly when the dates of those events do not fall neatly within the same 12-month period.
The committee has made important improvements for museums and their employees. As an example, museum worker licences will now align with the duration of a standard firearms licence. Museums preserve an important part of New Zealand’s military, sporting, technological, and social history. Their staff should be subject to sensible safeguards, but they should not face rules designed for entirely different circumstances.
The committee also recommended removing the mid-term check-in requirements for pest controllers who hold restricted firearm endorsements. Instead, those licence holders will be required to notify the regulator when there is a relevant change in their circumstances. Other changes will now allow firearms licences to be temporarily suspended outside of normal business hours when urgent action is necessary, such as situations involving family violence or a risk that someone may harm themselves or another person.
The committee has also recommended a clear commencement timetable, with most provisions of the bill, along with the regulations, coming into force on 23 September 2026. Other provisions commence progressively as the new regulator and supporting systems are established. The bill will be fully enforced by 23 February 2028.
Despite the constructiveness on the Justice Committee, it is disappointing that I hear that Labour has chosen to hang its opposition on the bill partly on the creation of an independent firearms regulator: Firearms Safety and Education New Zealand. The regulator will be independent of police and focused on clear, consistent, efficient, and transparent administration of the licensing system.
That separation allows the regulator to focus on licensing, education, on compliance and service, while police focus on gangs, criminals, and illegally held firearms. The Police are an enforcement agency. They investigate crime, they arrest offenders, and respond to immediate threats. Those are vital responsibilities. This change creates clearer responsibilities, stronger accountability, and greater trust among the people being regulated.
It is also disappointing that Labour has attempted to build opposition to the bill around push-button firearms. These firearms are not new; they’ve been lawfully used in New Zealand for a long time and are completely different from restricted, semi-automatic firearms, which automatically load the next round after a shot has been fired. Conflating the two may be politically convenient, but it is technically wrong. I hope that after hearing thousands of submissions—and, after all, members of the select committee did agree unanimously on the recommended improvements—that the bill would continue to receive unanimous support. It is regrettable that this may no longer be the case, but the Government will continue with the work.
For too long, licensed firearm owners have felt that Governments were prepared to talk about them, but not actually listen to them. This Government has listened. We consulted before the bill was introduced. We invited submissions where a full six-month process was undertaken, and their submissions were carefully considered, and changes were made as a result. Farmers, hunters, competitive shooters—and I’ll do a shout-out here for the New Zealand F-class rifle team, who are about to go to Bisley to shoot in the world championships—pest controllers, firearms businesses, gunsmiths, clubs, ranges, collectors, museums, and hundreds of thousands of licensed firearm owners contribute to New Zealand’s economy, our environment, our communities, and our heritage.
I again thank every submitter who took the time to share their views and their expertise, and I commend this bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the motion be agreed to.
Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) (16:02): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. What a long and winding road it has been along the journey of the Arms Bill. If we cast our memories back to the beginning of this parliamentary term, we can remember what was promised by Nicole McKee and the ACT Party with these reforms. What was promised was the deregulation of military-style semi-automatic weapons—those that were prohibited after March 15th and Christchurch—for them to be potentially used in competitions on firing ranges. So that was one of the promises of what this legislation would do.
The second promise that was made was to remove or disestablish the Firearms Registry—to take out A-category weapons and to, effectively, weaken what has been quite an effective tool in registering New Zealand’s firearms. The third one was to remove the Firearms Safety Authority—or, as it was known, Te Tari Pūreke—from within Police. Those were the main promises.
So in terms of delivery on those promises, we see that military-style semi-automatics (MSSAs)—those prohibited weapons—continue to be prohibited in New Zealand. Here in Labour, we commend the National Party on holding your coalition partner to account on keeping those dangerous weapons off New Zealand’s streets.
Secondly, the Firearms Registry—even though the Minister herself has said that she doesn’t trust the Firearms Registry and she won’t be registering her own firearms with them—it still continues to be going well. The review undertaken by the Minister has shown that the Firearms Registry is working effectively and is an excellent tool for tracking weapons and making sure that we can keep on top of straw purchasing—it’s working very well. So that’s a second one that hasn’t been completed from the promises.
The third promise was that the Firearms Safety Authority would be removed from Police, such as in Canada, where it didn’t function so well after taking out. That is where we’ve seen a Clayton’s result—a half-tick on that one—because while it’s hosted by Police, it’s not being removed from Police; we’re having these sort of pseudo-efforts at giving the effects of removing “blue shirts”, as the Minister refers to them as, or “authorised police constables” from having decision-making abilities within this new entity that’s been created by this.
So there are three main promises: MSSAs, firearms registry, and the FSA being removed from Police. None of those have really been delivered upon. So, largely, a lot of the talk and the posturing around encouraging submissions and engaging with the firearms community has been to try and sell what is largely not delivering upon the promises that were outlaid at the very outset of this parliamentary term.
But it’s important to note that while there haven’t been all of those changes that we were fearful of happening, some of the changes that are contained within this legislation are really concerning for public safety. So while the Minister at the beginning of her speech framed this up as saying that public safety and the interests of licensed firearm holders can go hand in hand, the telltale feature of where there’s some conflict there is the role of New Zealand Police.
Because us in Labour, we believe that the New Zealand Police have a fundamental role in making sure that firearms are managed safely. We believe that Police have a key role in decision making and understanding how safety and public safety around firearms can be managed in New Zealand; primarily because they are on the front line. They are the people that will be the first in many instances to be dealing with firearms in the community, whether they be legal or illegal. So it’s very important that not only the Police Association but the Police Service themselves feel comfortable with the changes that are being made. When they are not comfortable, that is a strong indication that public safety is not at the heart of this bill, and that is what I believe.
To be honest, also, I really did think that the police Minister would have stepped in and had more of a say around the fact that police officers who have office of the constable are being prohibited from having decision-making ability within the newly established Firearms Safety Authority, which now has a different name. So even though there’s been a large fail on those three promises, we still have those concerns. I’m going to spend the rest of my speech outlying what those concerns are.
The first one is implementation: that this bill still has a commencement date of September. We believe that that’s an unrealistic date—that there is a significant new legislative regime. When we look at the size of this bill, it’s a big bill. That’s happening at the same time as a significant organisational restructure. There are key operational risks. We still don’t know some of those details. We’ve been asking those questions in select committee, and some of those details have not yet been spelled out in detail.
So what are those processes that are in place to ensure public safety and to make sure that police get real-time intelligence? We’ve not been able to have a really clear understanding. We know that the interface with having these paper walls around the new entity, even though it’s hosted in Police, that police can’t kind of get in there. How is that going to operate if front-line police officers are attending a call-out where someone has been flagged with a risk of having firearms or being at risk of being potentially dangerous, not only to police officers but to the general public? Can we get a guarantee that that intelligence will be available in real time to police officers when attending those jobs? Because that’s not clear from the questions that we’ve asked at select committee.
Even the police themselves have raised this question about how it will work in practice. It says here under their submission—the New Zealand Police Association submission—“While independence in licensing decisions is commendable, the association is concerned that this legislation will create a regulator that is operationally detached from frontline realities. The ‘no blue shirts’ dictate for the regulator risks a weakening of the direct link between intelligence, enforcement, and licensing, and a slowing down or complication of information-sharing.” This is a key risk. So while the Minister is stating that this bill is improving public safety around firearms, the police officers are saying, “No it’s not.” That is a cause of concern. They go on to state that “Any artificial separation of these safety imperatives has the potential to impede public safety rather than enhance it.” So where is the police Minister on this when police officers themselves are concerned that these changes will reduce public safety around firearms?
I will just go on to quote one more section, because it’s important. It states, “The proposed structure of the Firearms Safety Authority (FSA) and the firearms regulator will create a triangular reporting command structure between Police, the FSA, and the regulator’s management and employees, and it is unclear how this will work in practice.” All this is going to be implemented on 23 September. It’s a real concern that those details are still not clear and Police themselves are also not clear. There’s another question in terms of implementation, and that is: what training will need to be undertaken? Police will need training before the regime comes into force. Also, what about licence holders? What information will be made available, as well, to make sure those people are informed if this is coming into force?
Overall, the process around this has been really concerning. We know there’s been quite a bit of public commentary around the Minister’s appointment process to key advisory groups where we’ve had members of the Council of Licensed Firearms Owners (COLFO) appointed in there not following due process. We know that the Minister has gone on to Facebook and given information that was specific to the Justice Committee first to the COLFO website on Facebook before members of the public had access to that information, so there was preferential treatment of information being given to closed forums before that was made available.
Hon Nicole McKee: Point of order. There’s an accusation that’s just been made that I supplied confidential information to the Council of Licensed Firearms Owners. I did not. I would like that retracted, thank you. If you have some proof of that, please table it.
Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: Speaking to the point of order. I’m happy to provide to the House an example of where there was information giving detail around the changes to this bill before the select committee had reported back to this House, and that information was given by the Minister on her Facebook page to COLFO, and I’m happy to provide that to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Just a second. I’ll just take some advice. I’ll invite the member to complete her speech, but we’ll have some information at the end of your speech—just to give the Clerks some time. Thank you.
Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: Thank you very much. I’d like to conclude by saying that if this really is about public safety, then all New Zealanders deserve to have that information—all New Zealanders—at the same time. It’s important that we all have trust and confidence that these changes will in fact make New Zealand safer, and so while I am relieved, personally, that we do not have MSSAs being made more readily available, that we still have a strong and functioning firearms registry, and that Police have still housed the Firearms Safety Authority, we are concerned that it will significantly weaken what has been a really strong public safety approach from the changes that were put into place post - 17 March in New Zealand.
We are really concerned, in terms of police officers having real-time intel to be able to respond to firearm safety concerns in New Zealand, that this legislation weakens that. We use, as a clear example of that, the words of the New Zealand Police Association themselves who are concerned about this. This has been, largely, a PR exercise—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The member’s time has expired. Just before I take the next call, I’m going to take some advice from the Clerks, who are writing frantically to get it to me. The member has raised a matter of disclosing confidential committee proceedings. It is a matter of privilege, and there are other channels for raising matters of privilege, so I invite the member to raise it not in a debate but through the appropriate process.
Hon Ginny Andersen: Sure.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): OK.
SCOTT WILLIS (Green) (16:14): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would like to speak to this bill and also mention the good work, as the Minister has, of the Justice Committee. I thank the 8,000-plus submitters who really did participate thoroughly in this bill and expressed a great diversity of opinion but were very, very helpful in helping us work through how this bill should shape up. I’m very pleased, as my colleague has just mentioned, to see that the arms registry is retained.
Of course, after 40 years, with lots of amendments, the Arms Act did need updating, but we also have to consider what we would do if we had the majority and if we were able to make the changes that we want. For that reason, we have expressed our opposition to this bill because of the establishment of a statutory regulator separate from the Police—no sworn police officers. That’s, essentially, the problem we see with this bill. I think it expresses the danger of the Minister listening to small lobby groups, essentially, because unless the Minister in question is a member of such lobby groups, like the Council of Licensed Firearms Owners, which represents less than 5 percent of the 2,200 licensed firearm owners, or other groups like Kiwi Gun Blog—lovely people!—who have referred to me as a “small dick tree-hugger”—this is something that I think we really don’t need. We don’t need that type of discussion for such serious legislation.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Can I also suggest that you keep the language parliamentary.
SCOTT WILLIS: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m simply quoting, but—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): You didn’t say it was a quote.
SCOTT WILLIS: My apologies; it was a quote. I’ve been a licensed gun owner for about 40 years—I’m trying to remember whether it’s more or slightly less; I think it’s a little bit more. I remember buying a rifle on Trade Me quite some years ago, and it got delivered to my property, to my home. No one was home at the time, and it was dropped at the back door. I was quite surprised—I was obviously pleased that the rifle that I had purchased had been delivered—but it had been left at my back door where anyone walking past could have picked it up and walked off with it. I reflected, at that point, that nobody knew what firearms I had. I reflected that if it’s that easy for firearms to be delivered, how on earth do we know what’s happening in our community? Personally, I was very pleased when the gun registry was developed. How crazy has it been that, for so long, we have not known what firearms are out there in the community. That gives me great comfort for the firearms registry to know what firearms I have but for most firearms to be known and to be documented.
And yet we have had the success of the firearms registry. We’ve had Hugh Devereux-Mack from the Council of Licensed Firearms Owners (COLFO) saying that COLFO members do not trust the Police, and that’s why an independent statutory regulator is needed that excludes the Police. I’m a licensed firearm owner. I trust the Police, and I am disturbed to see organisations that represent such a small proportion of licensed firearm owners having such a big impact on our legislation. Clearly, there are small groups of licensed firearm owners who distrust the Police. The Council of Licensed Firearms Owners are that small group. Perhaps the people who belong to the Kiwi Gun Blog are that group. We know that social media can amplify niche perspectives or that groups can be mouthpieces for niche concerns. They might not represent a large perspective of views, but they certainly seem to have driven policy.
The thing is, we know that the National Rifle Association in the US uses very similar tactics—very similar tactics—to boost gun sales, but also to fight any restrictions on gun ownership.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Can you come back to this bill, Mr Willis, please, and this country.
SCOTT WILLIS: Yes, certainly, Madam Speaker. What I would like to talk about is the situation we find ourselves in. Let’s see; we’ve had the Council of Licensed Firearms Owners talking about the declining trust and confidence within the community: “Police are very rapidly declining trust and confidence within the community they’re supposed to be regulating since 2019, when they stopped looking at licensed firearms owners as law-abiding people and started viewing us as potential criminals.” They’ve accused the police as having standover and bullying tactics.
The New Zealand Police Association were opposed to the creation of a regulator that is operationally detached from front-line realities. If I could quote from their submission, they said, “This legislation will create a regulator that’s operationally detached from front-line realities. The ‘no blue shirts’ dictate for the regulator risks weakening the direct link between intelligence, enforcement, and licensing, and a slowing down or complication of information sharing.”
I think that point’s really, really important if we are thinking about safety, if we’re thinking about how we keep our communities safe. That’s what is at the heart of our opposition to this bill. It is clear that if we are taking the responsibility outside of the police, we’re taking away that relationship, we are ensuring there are no blue shirts, there are no sworn police officers who are a part of it, we’re breaking that link that allowed the information sharing and allowed the clear intelligence to flow, and I am particularly concerned with that. Our opposition is largely in respect to that component.
We are also concerned with the additional cost that this is imposing for the set-up of a new regulator outside of the Police. It’s something like $45 million with additional contingency—we don’t know how much—for some information technology changes that is part of doing something that we see is completely unnecessary, and will not increase safety and may well decrease community safety.
We’ve had—let’s see—a concern expressed during the submissions that intelligence sharing is relying on those informal relationships; they’ll be weakened through the set-up of a new organisation. We’ve also heard that this is all going to be done by 23 September this year; it looks as though it’s completely unrealistic. Our concern is really about the way in which this legislation—although we’re quite happy with many of the changes that have happened and we’re certainly pleased to see some of the more extreme elements have been taken out, as my colleague referred to, we are concerned that a small group of people have been able to drive legislation and drive one particular part of legislation which will not increase safety in our community and will lead to an increase in insecurity.
That is why we are opposed to this bill as it sits now, but we do think, despite 40 years of the original bill and many amendments, when this bill passes, there will be amendments and we will see further change, and we will see a return to the Police of a regulator to make sure that our communities can be kept safe.
So, Madam Speaker, thank you for managing our way through this bill, and I just simply want to finish with—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The member’s time has expired.
CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki) (16:24): Look, I rise to support this bill because this bill is about ensuring responsible ownership of firearms while strengthening public safety. This bill will keep firearms out of criminals’ hands, which is a very positive thing. I was really interested in the gang membership clauses that ensure that gang membership is an automatic disqualifying factor for holding a firearms licence, which will keep our communities safer, but it is also making compliance easier for licensed, responsible firearms owners. As we’ve heard already, we have a lot of responsible firearms licence holders from our hunters, from our pest controllers, to our professional shooters. This is about modernising the regulatory system, so I commend this bill to the House.
Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Police) (16:25): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Arms Bill. If you can indulge me for one moment, I would like to absolutely applaud that the Green Party is advocating for the rights of the police and their trust in them, which is incredible, given that one of their members believes it’s more like walking down the street with a gang member than a police officer. It’s encouraging that they now have great faith in the police, and maybe they won’t keep advocating for defunding them.
Back to the bill, Madam Speaker—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Good idea.
Hon CASEY COSTELLO: —firstly, I applaud the Minister for the hard work in advocating “broadly with New Zealanders”. Conversely to what the other side of the House has said, she has had a very open-door policy, a very robust select committee process, and has engaged broadly with all of those that are impacted by this legislation.
This is a complex bill; there is no doubt about it. It is complex because it deals with a range of things, including the use, carriage, and licensing of firearms, shifting firearms into an authority in a managed process, unlike what has been alluded to in the House, that this is going to occur in September this year. It is a managed process and it is complex. The investment that needs to be made into this programme of work would have needed to be made whether it was continuing within the police environment or under a new authority. This is practical legislation that is managing public safety at its core and ensuring that all of those who use firearms for a range of reasons have the legal protections to do so within the realms of the law, and those who do not comply with the law or have any illegal intentions will be better managed through proper legislation that has clarified the clauses, that has made it easier to manage and navigate, easier to prosecute criminals, and absolutely greater visibility over who owns firearms.
It is a positive step forward around a piece of legislation that has long been overdue for reform. It is an effective piece of legislation that will continue to ensure public safety is at its core, while respecting those lawful gun owners and enabling them to have possession of firearms, to do the recreational and sport activity that comes with that, and work that relates to that firearms activity. It is a positive step forward for this Government. It has been a massive piece of work. I applaud the Justice Committee on the effort that they did to ensure that the amendments were put forward, and I commend the bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): This is a split call. I call Lawrence Xu-Nan.
Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (16:28): Thank you, Madam Speaker. As we heard from my colleague Scott Willis, the Green Party does not support this bill, but I do want to acknowledge the work that the Justice Committee did on this particular bill. As I was working through, as members have seen from the commentary of this bill, while the Greens oppose this bill, we do support some of the amendments that have been adopted by the select committee that overall improve the bill.
I also want to acknowledge my colleague Scott Willis for shepherding this bill through the select committee process on behalf of the Green Party, as probably one of our only members who himself has experience with firearms as a firearm licence holder. Now, as members of this House would know, I am more old school. Firearms are not for me. I prefer a bow and arrow—recurve, not compound; thank you. But there are a couple of things that I want to address in terms of this bill.
The first one, as my colleague Scott Willis mentioned, is around the concerns of the role of the police within this particular organisation. I heard the previous speaker, the Hon Casey Costello, in terms of the fact that the Greens seem to be loving and hating the police at the same time, but, at the same time, I would say to that political party that they seem to be loving India and hating India at the same time. Politics is complex, and how we feel about a particular agency and the work that an agency does is also complex.
In terms of this bill and the role of the police, it is concerning that they are under this new, independent regulator and there will be no sworn police officers from here. I do want to reiterate the Police Association’s concern around the fact that this legislation creates the potential for a weakening of connections between intelligence, enforcement, and licensing by excluding sworn police officers from the regulatory agency. This will be quite important later on, and I want to mention why that potentially can be quite crucial when we are looking at checks and balances.
However, I am pleased to see that through the select committee stage, additional clauses have been added in that allow for some of those checks and balances, particularly around the role of the Independent Police Conduct Authority and the Ministry of Justice, when it comes to this idea of scrutiny of the regulator, in this case. I think that is an important move in terms of the application of the Independent Police Conduct Authority when it comes to the chief executive. While noting that the employees are employees of the New Zealand Police, the chief executive isn’t part of the scrutiny process, and I think that does help in providing some consistency to the overall purpose and principles of this bill, which is important to see.
I did mention that it does create an interesting sort of bureaucratic conundrum where, on the one hand, we have an independent regulator, but on the other hand, we still have Te Tari Pūreke—the Firearms Safety Authority— and also, I believe, the registry sitting under the police. So whether this is actually going to have the intended effect of allowing for that communication across various groups is something that we will just have to see once this is implemented. Like we say, we do have some concerns at this stage with the bill as drafted, and so we will have further questions for the Minister during the committee stage, I’m sure.
The other concern that we have is around some of the definitions. Again, this is something that was addressed through the select committee, and this is something that, as part of the Regulations Review Committee, we have concerns about in terms of the way that the definition of “restricted firearm” could be set under regulations, particularly when we were looking at things like semi-automatic rifles. A new clause has been added, clause 364A, which is also just wanting to close that loop of consultation, etc., with the police and with the relevant organisations.
I want to mention that the reason we did see quite sudden changes is because with the way that we were looking at an ever-fractured society and the way that we look at the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre, it is important for us to remember that there are actual families who are affected by all of this—particularly I’m looking at the ethnic communities and the Muslim communities, who have been affected by some of these changes. So I think it’s important that for any changes we do see—and I’m hoping that new clause 364A will cover that—there will be consultation with ethnic communities, as those communities have previously been affected.
So we don’t support this, but we are interested in engaging further during the committee stage. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
KATIE NIMON (National—Napier) (16:33): I’m really pleased to see some of these really pragmatic changes, and it’s something that we’ve been talking about for quite a few years now. There are some amazing local clubs that really have the best interests of everyone in their community in mind. They’re not criminals, and so to have this moved away from the police—which we’ve talked about for a really long time—makes that step to identify that they are doing the right thing, and those that aren’t can then be policed accordingly. Not treating all people that have firearms as criminals is really important, and so, with that, I commend the bill to the House.
Hon NICOLE McKEE (Minister for Courts) (16:34): Point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you, Mr Speaker. The member Ginny Andersen has made false claims about me in this House that she has been unable to substantiate. The previous Speaker in the Chair rightly suggested that if she has concerns relating to a matter of privilege, there is a process for raising those, but, as it stands, those remarks have not been withdrawn in this House. My question is—and I’m just seeking your guidance—what is my recourse if she does not take up the process that has been suggested, where do I actually get the chance to be able to defend myself, and are we able to get an undertaking from that member that she will either commit to making a formal complaint or withdraw the comments that she’s made? My concern is that there is no evidence for what she is suggesting, and I suspect she’s not going to make a complaint because she can’t back it up.
Hon Ginny Andersen: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): I’ll just take some advice. The previous Speaker has already made a ruling about where this should be dealt with, and I’m aware of that. What I don’t intend to do is allow this to be a debate to take place here, and the remedy suggested by the previous Speaker in the Chair will stand. In answer to the point of order, I’ve made the ruling, and I will allow a point of order as long as it’s not contradicting anything that I’m saying and as long as it’s not a continuation of the—
Hon Ginny Andersen: No, I won’t make it. I’m happy with the previous ruling.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): OK. So you’ve heard the previous Speaker in the Chair, who has invited the remedy, and, other than that, it is a debating point, as it stands.
DAN ROSEWARNE (Labour) (16:37): I rise to speak on the second reading of the Arms Bill. Labour supports responsible firearms ownership. We know that many New Zealanders use firearms lawfully and responsibly for hunting, pest control, sports shooting, collecting, and recreation. Most licence holders do the right thing. They take their responsibilities seriously and understand that firearms must be treated with care and respect, but public safety must always come first, and that has been the New Zealand approach for a long time.
Firearms ownership in this country is a privilege; not a right. It comes with responsibilities, it comes with obligations, and it comes with the expectation that Parliament will keep the law up to date when risks change or new technologies emerge. Labour’s differing view makes that point clearly: firearms regulation must prioritise public safety, and the licensing system has to reflect that principle.
One of the things that concerns me about this bill is that there is a bit of Second Amendment - style nonsense creeping into the debate. That is not the New Zealand way, and there is not a constitutional right to possess firearms. We do not start from the position that every safeguard is an attack on liberty.
We start from a much more practical Kiwi position: if you want to own firearms, you need to show that you are a fit and proper person, you need to follow the rules, and the public has the right to expect that the system is safe. That does not mean treating lawful firearm owners as the enemy and it does not mean ignoring the needs of farmers, hunters, pest controllers, clubs, collectors, and sporting shooters, but it does mean being honest about the risk. Firearms are not ordinary consumer goods; they are lethal weapons. In the right hands and used properly, they can be managed safely, but in the wrong hands, or under weak rules, the consequences can be devastating.
I say that as someone who has spent a fair bit of my life around firearms. I’ve used them professionally, I’ve trained with them, and I’ve carried them in environments where safety, discipline, and judgment matter. That experience has left me with a pretty simple view: good firearms regulation is not about punishing responsible people; it is about making sure we identify the risks early and deal with them before they become bigger problems—and that is why I’ve taken a close interest in this bill.
I’ve not come to this debate with slogans. I’ve done the work, I’ve looked into other jurisdictions, and I’ve launched a long list of written parliamentary questions because I wanted to know what is actually happening in the New Zealand firearms market, particularly around the changing style of firearms entering New Zealand. One area that I’ve been looking at closely is the push-button centrefire rifles. These are firearms that appear to sit in a regulatory gap. They are not traditional bolt-action rifles; they can automatically eject a spent cartridge, using gas operation or a similar self-ejecting mechanism, and then require the user to only activate a button lever release, or similar control, to chamber the next round.
Labour’s differing view notes that while they may not be captured by the bill’s definition of a “semi-automatic firearm”, their practical capability and rate of fire can be comparable. That matters because the law should look at the practical risk; not just technical labels. If a firearm functions in a way that gets very close to the practical capability of a restricted semi-automatic centrefire rifle, then we should be prepared to ask whether it should be subject to similar controls. That is not anti-firearms; that is basic public safety.
After the Bondi shooting, the New South Wales Government passed the Terrorism and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. It removed push-button rifles from the standard category A licence and moved them into the category C, which is described in the legislation as being prohibited, except for limited purposes. Now, I want to be clear that the Bondi gunman did not use a Ranger or a Alcor Push Button .223, but the reforms show that policy makers across the Tasman were prepared to take a closer look at this emerging class of firearm. In my view, there is value in learning from that experience while we are shaping this Arms Bill.
The answers I received to my written parliamentary questions do concern me. Import permits have been issued for push-button rifles capable of accepting the STANAG 4179 or AR-15 pattern detachable magazines, including the Alcor .223 Push Button and the Ranger Push-Button Rifle. For example, the Government has confirmed that eighty-one .223 calibre Ranger Push-Button Rifles were imported into New Zealand between 1 January 2023 and 14 June 2026. Those imports were associated with two used import permits, with one firearm imported in 2025, and 80 imported this year, as at 14 June.
Now, 81 firearms is not a large number, compared with the overall firearms market, and I’m not suggesting that people who lawfully own these firearms are doing anything wrong, but what it does show is that this type of firearm is beginning to establish a presence in New Zealand. These firearms automatically eject the spent cartridge after firing, and require only the activation of a button or release mechanism to chamber the next round. While they sit out of the current definition of a “semi-automatic firearm”, they have operating characteristics that should make the Government stop and take a closer look.
When Parliament restricted military-style semi-automatic firearms, it should not have surprised anyone that manufacturers looked for alternatives. That is what happens when regulations change: one pathway closes, and another one opens. My concern is that push-button centrefire rifles may become that alternative pathway. We already have evidence that these firearms are entering New Zealand. We have legitimate questions about how they operate. We have legislation before Parliament right now. This is the moment to deal with the issue, not kick it down the road. If we can see that gap today, why would we wait for a future Order in Council, a future Government, or a future buy-back programme funded by taxpayers when we could deal with it now?
That is why I’ve proposed an amendment to clause 9. My amendment would classify push-button - style centrefire firearms as restricted firearms where they use gas operation or another self-ejecting mechanism to automatically object a fired cartridge case and require only the activation of a button, lever release, or similar controlled chamber the next round from a magazine. The purpose of that amendment is straightforward: it would ensure that firearms or substantially similar practical rate of fire and operating characteristics to restricted semi-automatic centrefire rifles are subject to the same kind of regulatory controls. This is not radical; it’s practical. It says that if the risk profile is similar, the controls should be similar. It says Parliament should not always be one step behind emerging firearm technology. It says that we should not be reactive when we have the chance to be proactive. Emerging firearm platforms is one side of the public safety equation; the other is making sure that people who hold firearm licences remain suitable to do so.
Now, quickly, the second area where I think the bill falls short is the fit and proper person test. For me, this is central to the whole firearms system. A firearms licence is not just a piece of paper; it’s the State saying the person could be trusted to possess firearms safely. That is a serious judgment, and it should be made carefully and it should be clearly grounded in public safety. Again, this comes back to the principle that firearm ownership is a privilege, and not a right. If someone wants to hold a firearms licence, the burden should be on them to meet the standard. That is not unfair; that is a basic requirement that should sit underneath a responsible firearms licensing system.
I’m also concerned that the law needs to do better to reflect the world that we live in now. Radicalisation and extremist behaviour do not always happen in obvious places. They do not always happen in public meetings or in formal organisations; increasingly, they happen online.
A few months ago, I posted on social media about my concerns regarding push-button rifles, and the response included vitriol, abuse, and extremist commentary to such an extent that I removed the post and sought advice from parliamentary security. I took the post down because I did not want it becoming a platform for online hate—and if any of the individuals posting that material happened to be firearms licence holders, then, in my view, that should raise serious questions about whether they remain a fit and proper person to possess firearms.
That online activity and that participation in the online activity is cause for concern that we need to address in this bill. Therefore, I have huge concerns, and this is an opportunity to put it right. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula) (16:47): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is an honour to speak in the second reading of the Arms Bill. As a doctor at the time of the Christchurch shootings, I did have patients from our practice who were killed, and their families affected. However, my family are also owners of firearms.
I understand the perspective of people who are very law-abiding citizens who have felt targeted because of their ownership of firearms. Therefore, I think this bill has created a strong and balanced compromise. I commend the bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): This is a five-minute, split call.
Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central) (16:48): Thank you, Mr Chair. This is a bill of two halves, in some ways, because, as the Associate Minister of Justice observed in her speech, the Justice Committee worked pretty cooperatively to just make the rules around arms workable for things like museum curators and overseas visitors, and things like that, including rules around when a licence is suspended or when a firearm is uplifted from a premise. There were some really useful discussions both around balancing, for example, the risk of a firearm and, essentially, the inconvenience of the rule.
A good example that the Minister referred to was the length of time that a firearm can be left at a gunsmith without having to identify its precise location on the register. Obviously, there are situations where it takes a fair length of time to get parts for a rifle or to just do the necessary work. The seven-day period was thought to be a little unrealistic, and that is also recognising that a gunsmith is a trusted person—a person who’s kind of had a higher level of scrutiny than just an ordinary firearms licence holder—and so that length of time was pushed out to 38 days, I think it was, from memory.
The other half of the bill, though, is this idea that we need to sever the relationship of firearms regulation from the role of policing. Our concern around this bill is that firearms are used throughout criminal networks and there is a grey area. It’s just not the case that every person who is a licensed firearms owner is good, and every person who has a firearm and doesn’t have a licence is problematic. The second half is true, but in the first half, there is clearly a class of people—and the police are on to it—that are assisting criminal elements to obtain firearms. Even apart from that, it’s critical that the police can have ready access to information when they’re attending a premises or an incident to know the likelihood that firearms will be present. That’s a critical part of it, and it’s not clear to us, and we could not be assured, that under the proposed system this would be the case.
We consider that the move to create an agency, albeit within police but without commissioned sworn police having a functional role within the organisation—we don’t think it’s a good move. We also don’t think it’s good value either, because it’s going to cost many tens of millions of dollars—I think the estimates are over $50 million over four years—to transfer this function into this new organisation, which seems to be mainly a doctrinaire approach rather than one of pragmatics. We do have concerns.
I must say, without being too flattering, it was very good to have Dan Rosewarne on the Justice Committee, because he does have a comprehensive knowledge of firearms and he was able to inform the committee and his colleagues very well on these matters, and his concerns around push-button firearms are real. These are firearms which discharge the cartridge automatically and use the gas generated by the discharge to kind of pre-load the next cartridge, and you simply press a button, which on some versions of this is on the stock. It’s pull the trigger; press the button; shoot. So you can imagine—and you only have to go to YouTube to have a look and see—how rapidly these rifles can fire. In fact, there was a YouTube clip I looked at where they were glowingly saying how they had shot off 2,000 rounds in a couple of hours. Now, that’s not something I’d be particularly proud of. It suggests that the speed of fire is the main thing there and we know that this House, barring one vote, banned semi-automatic weapons, so I think we do need to keep a close eye on push-button firearms. That’s why we’re not supporting this bill.
MILES ANDERSON (National—Waitaki) (16:53): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the Arms Bill in the second reading. Amongst many provisions in this bill, I’m really pleased to see that there are improvements for specialist users, including dealers, pest controllers, gunsmiths, collectors, museums, and other businesses. There has been a lot of commentary around that in this community when the changes came through in 2019, so I’m pleased to see those changes are being made and I commend this bill to the House.
GEORGIE DANSEY (Labour) (16:53): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Arms Bill. I wanted to start my contribution just to speak to the Associate Minister of Justice’s comments at the beginning of her statement around the banning of military style semi-automatic weapons, and the Minister talked about that legislation being rushed through Parliament and there being messy changes. I want to speak to that because I wasn’t in Parliament at the time, but I watched, like most of the New Zealand public, to see how this Parliament would respond to the devastating attack in Christchurch. What I saw was a Government acting decisively to ban an incredibly dangerous weapon after that terrorist attacked. I’ll also note that every single member of that Parliament voted in favour of the changes to protect our communities—
Hon Nicole McKee: No, they didn’t.
GEORGIE DANSEY: —apart from one. Thank you, Minister. Yes, I was getting there. One person. I think this speaks to the real concern that Labour has with this bill, which is that the changes were made to protect all New Zealanders, and the protection of New Zealanders and the safety of New Zealanders should be at the forefront of everything we do in Parliament. Other speakers have spoken to the concerns that we have around this bill. I’m really, really pleased to see that although the ACT Party campaigned on deregulating military style semi-automatic weapons, they were not successful in that. I’m very pleased that National was able to put their foot down about something in the coalition and not agree to progress that part of this bill, because we know how dangerous those weapons are. It’s very pleasing to see that ACT has failed to deliver on that promise they made to gun lobby groups in that space.
Today, I wanted to talk about three aspects of the Arms Bill and why Labour is opposing this bill. Other speakers have spoken to the real concerns raised by front-line police. I think, for a bill like this, when we have our police officers on the front line every single day dealing with firearms in our communities, whether they are licensed or unlicensed firearms, we need to take their opinion and their expertise very, very seriously. It’s unfortunate that, despite the view of front-line police during the select committee process, the Government has chosen to ignore them. It’s interesting because we hear the Minister of Police, Mark Mitchell, constantly talk about how much he appreciates the police, and yet, in this bill, the expertise of the police has not been prioritised.
The three things that I wanted to discuss today were the firearms authority—other speakers have spoken to that, and I wanted to elaborate a little bit on that—the push-button centre-fire rifles, and the “fit and proper person” provisions.
I’ll start with the firearms authority. Labour’s position is that this authority should stay with the police. As mentioned, and as we all know, our police do an incredible job for public safety in our communities every single day, and their expertise in this matter should be put at the forefront of decision making. I wanted to speak specifically to the “no blue shirts” rule. This rule, for the listeners at home, means that sworn police officers are prohibited from being employed by or involved in the new firearms regulatory agency. The issue we have there is that if we’re not involving our police officers in these processes and in the regulatory agency, this will weaken the intelligence gathering, the enforcement, and the licensing of this agency, and it removes decision-making authorities and removes that influence in decision making from the police.
Under the Arms Bill, licensing is handled by civilian staff led by an independent chief executive who reports directly to the firearms Minister. As I mentioned, if the Minister of Police cares so deeply about police and their expertise and the value that they bring to our country, then my question is: why are they being left out of the regulatory agency? Because leaving police out of this agency brings a major weakness to this bill. It means that our communities won’t be as safe. We know that police have the insight from working on the front line every single day, and that insight is so valuable to us as a country. Having them as part of the regulatory agency is an important part of that. So while the regulator is intended to operate independently and will not employ sworn officers, it will continue to rely on police for certain corporate services. We are not convinced that this hybrid arrangement will work, and we’re not convinced that it serves the best interests of public safety or the public.
Look, other speakers have spoken to this bill coming into effect on 23 September, which is—I’m not wearing a watch, but if I was, it’s about a month away, I think—two months. But the point I’m making is not that I’m not wearing a watch, but that it’s not a lot of time [Members point to the clock]—thank you. That doesn’t tell the time! The point that I’m making is that—what point am I making? The point I’m making is that there isn’t a lot of time in order to get this up and running and ready for 23 September. That’s where our concerns are that if there’s this hybrid relationship arrangement where the police aren’t sitting on the regulatory agency but have other requirements of them, are the police going to be up and ready to go with the new agency on 23 September? Will they have the training required to implement new processes? The lack of detail around that specific issue is where I have a number of questions, just to ensure that everyone is prepared for this process. I am concerned that the bureaucracy of this will balloon out of hand, so I have further questions around how the bureaucracy will be reduced and managed during this process with the new regulator.
The second point that I wanted to mention—and my colleague Dan Rosewarne has spoken to this—is the push-button centre-fire rifles. Labour remains concerned about a regulatory gap relating to push-button centre-fire rifles. These are self-ejecting, gas-operated firearms, and require only a manual bolt release between shots. We acknowledge that they are not captured by the bill’s definition of a semi-automatic firearm, but they deliver a rate of fire and functionality that is, in practical terms, comparable to semi-automatic weapons. Given the purpose of the bill is to promote safe possession and prevent misuse of firearms, I think there’s really a big gap here in what could have been and should have been considered in the changes made as part of this legislation.
To summarise, overall, the voice of front-line police was very clear in saying that there are major weaknesses in the bill. Police are sitting at the front line, yet their voice is being taken away, their expertise is being taken away in the processing of the regulatory agency. Labour opposes the bill.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the Arms Bill be now read a second time.
Ayes 67
New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Noes 55
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Employment Leave Bill
Legislative Statement
Hon NICOLE McKEE (Minister for Courts) (17:05): on behalf of the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: I present a legislative statement on the Employment Leave Bill.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.
Second Reading
Hon NICOLE McKEE (Minister for Courts) (17:05): on behalf of the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: I move, That the Employment Leave Bill be now read a second time.
I want to begin by thanking everyone who made a submission to the Education and Workforce Committee on this bill. The committee received a high volume of submissions from workers, employers, payroll specialists, and representative groups. That feedback has been critical in improving the workability of the legislation. I also want to acknowledge the members of the committee for their careful consideration of the bill. They have tested the detail thoroughly and recommended targeted improvements, while retaining the bill’s core objectives.
As reported back, the bill maintains its central purpose: to replace the Holidays Act 2003 with a simpler, clearer, and more transparent framework for employment leave. It introduces an hours-based system for accruing and taking leave. It improves clarity for both employers and employees and reduces the risk of errors that have led to widespread noncompliance and costly remediation. Put simply: this bill is about making the system easier to understand and easier to apply so that people can have confidence that leave is being calculated and paid correctly.
Today, I want to focus on four key changes made through the select committee process. These changes respond directly to submitter feedback and improve how the bill will operate in practice. The first key change is to notional rosters, which are used to determine when leave can be accrued and taken when not all the information needed about an employee’s hours is set out in the employment agreement and work rosters have not yet been set. Submitters raised concerns about the administrative burden of agreeing and maintaining notional rosters, particularly for employees with highly variable work patterns. In response, the committee has recommended an important change. While the existing approach remains the default, the bill will now allow employers and employees to agree in writing to a methodology for determining a notional roster, rather than having to rely on a fixed, static arrangement. For example, parties could agree to use a rolling 13-week average of days and hours worked. This is a practical refinement. It maintains clarity and structure, while providing flexibility for more complex or variable working arrangements.
The second key change relates to employees who hold multiple roles with the same employer. Submitters raised concerns about how leave should be managed in these situations, particularly where roles may have different hours, rates of pay, or patterns of work. They worried that a requirement to treat each role separately could make it more difficult for employees to apply their leave entitlements cohesively across their roles. The committee has recommended that employers and employees must agree on how roles will be treated for the purposes of leave entitlements and payments. The approach originally proposed where roles are treated separately will remain as a backstop if no agreement can be reached. This strikes a sensible balance. It provides flexibility for tailored arrangements, while ensuring there is always a clear default position.
The third key change relates to the method for determining whether a day is an “otherwise working day”, which determines eligibility for public holidays and related entitlements. Submitters identified a gap in the bill. Employees who have agreed working patterns but regularly work additional days could be disadvantaged under the original framework, because their “otherwise working days” would be determined based on their agreed working pattern, rather than by applying the new “otherwise working day” test, which would also take their additional days of work into account. The committee has addressed this by extending the bill’s new “otherwise working day” test to also apply to these employees. This ensures that employees who consistently work beyond their contracted days are treated fairly and that public holiday entitlements better reflect actual working patterns.
The fourth key change deals with situations where leave has been incorrectly accrued and where leave compensation payments should have been provided instead. Submitters raised concerns that the original approach to allowing employees to cash out incorrectly accrued annual leave would not result in the same outcome for the employee as if they had received leave compensation payments—employees would not receive the additional value of the leave compensation payment. The committee has recommended a clear solution: where this occurs, the employee will be entitled to the standard cash-out payment for annual leave and a payment reflecting the additional value of the leave compensation component, adjusted to account for employees retaining any incorrectly accrued sick leave. This ensures that employees receive an amount that more closely reflects what they would have received had leave compensation payments been provided correctly.
In closing, I again thank all of those who contributed to the select committee process. The changes made have strengthened the bill. They improve clarity, respond to real operational concerns raised by both employers and employees, and ensure the framework will work in practice for a wide range of working arrangements. This bill remains focused on its core objective: a leave system that is simpler, clearer, and easier to get right for both employers and employees. It enhances certainty and practicality, restoring confidence in how leave is calculated and how it’s paid. I commend this bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): The question is that the motion be agreed to.
Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) (17:12): At a time in New Zealand where families are struggling to be able to put food on the table each week, to be able to pay for petrol, and to be able to afford their weekly rent or mortgage bills, this Government makes life even harder for those New Zealanders right across the country. I speak in opposition to this Employment Leave Bill, and while I do acknowledge the work that the select committee has done and the amendments that have been made throughout the process, Labour remains unable to support this bill.
The changes recommended by the Education and Workforce Committee address some of the technical concerns, but they in no way resolve the fundamental flaw at the heart of this legislation, which is to undermine the rights of workers in New Zealand. It is yet one more piece of legislation delivered by this Government that makes life harder and makes life worse for workers in New Zealand.
At its core, this bill creates a system where workers can do the same work for the same employer, and yet receive different leave entitlements, depending on how their hours are classified. That is not fair, that is not simple, and that is certainly not a principle that Labour will stand by in any form. This bill ties annual leave and sick leave primarily to standard hours, rather than to all hours worked. Quite simply, that is not a fair go for workers in New Zealand, and it should be called out.
On paper, for employers—or for those opposite—it might be administratively tidy, but, in reality, it absolutely ignores the complexity of modern work in New Zealand. Thousands of Kiwi workers work variable hours, they have to work additional shifts in order to make ends meet, they have to do seasonal work, they have to do casual work, and they have to do rostered employment and multiple roles. Their working lives do not neatly fit into the standard of set hours, and yet this bill, effectively, tells those workers that some of those hours that they work matter less than other hours when it comes to leave entitlements, and that is not fair. The result is that many workers, particularly those with the least bargaining power—with the least ability to fight back—will stand to lose even more, and that’s where this is just mean.
The workers most affected by this legislation are already facing job insecurity: part-time workers, casual employees, hospitality workers, retail workers, caregivers, and those balancing multiple jobs and family responsibilities at the same time. Rather than strengthening their rights and rather than enabling those people and those families to cope better with the cost of living crisis that they are presently feeling, this bill weakens those rights.
The Government argues that leave compensation payments will address concerns about reduced leave accrual, but, quite clearly, we disagree with that. Leave is not simply about money; leave exists because workers need rest. Workers need time to recover from illness, families need time together, parents need time with their children, and communities function better when people can step away from work and recharge. By treating leave like a financial liability that can be partially compensated for, this bill fundamentally misunderstands its purpose. Leave is not a cost to be minimised; it is a fundamental right of workers to make sure that they can keep turning up and do a good job every single day and feel good about that and feel good about their work. That is what the employment relationship should be about—employee and employer working together for the best outcomes—and this legislation undermines that fundamental agreement.
New Zealanders are already working among the longest hours in the developed world. At a time when so many families are under pressure, you would think that we would have a Government that strengthened that access to leave; not creating mechanisms that undermine and reduce it.
We are deeply concerned that the bill retains the prorating of sick leave. From the beginning, we have opposed this approach, and this, in the select committee submissions, was one of the main things we heard. Out of the 661 submissions, 569 opposed it, and sick leave was a key factor that was raised time and time again.
The submissions that we heard in select committee laid it out plain and clear that sick leave is a health entitlement; not a reward for having a predictable roster, as this bill would have you believe. People do not get sick according to their scheduled hours. A worker with irregular shifts can become just as ill as a worker with fixed hours. A parent who is caring for a sick child at home needs the ability to take leave, regardless of how variable their working pattern might be. The retention of prorated sick leave means that many workers will continue to receive reduced entitlements simply because of the way their employment is structured, and that is not fair. That is inequitable and it disproportionately affects vulnerable workers in New Zealand.
I want to acknowledge several of the select committee amendments because they do go some way to improving parts of this bill. The committee strengthened clause 9 by requiring notional rosters to accurately reflect actual work patterns, to be agreed in writing, and to be kept up to date. It also broadened the definition of a “work roster”, and expanded the ordinary working day to better reflect real-world employment arrangements.
Employees who are working in multiple roles can now agree with employers how leave balances are treated. The committee confirmed that employees cannot be required to work additional hours while they are on leave.
The purpose provision for annual leave has been strengthened to place greater emphasis on rest and recreation, even though the bill makes that hard to actually achieve. There are clearer rules around when leave can be taken, stronger protections around parental leave interactions, and important clarifications for family violence, bereavement leave, and also for sick leave.
The committee introduced stronger remediation processes, clearer record-keeping requirements, and also improved the penalties for breaches and obligations on employers to update employment agreements during a transition period.
These amendments are welcome. They improve drafting, they improve administration, they close loopholes, and they reduce some unintended consequences, but they do not solve the fundamental issue at the heart of this bill. The architecture remains unchanged. The central premise of this bill is that leave should largely be connected to standard hours, rather than to all the hours a worker has actually worked. That’s not right, and there’s nothing that someone can say that undoes that fundamental flaw.
The central premise remains that leave entitlements can be reduced and save the employer money—that’s great; I can see why they have done it—and then have that be partially compensated through payments. But the basic idea in this bill remains that workers with irregular and unpredictable employment patterns will receive less certainty and, in many cases, less leave. Those underlying problems remain, despite the amendments.
The risk here is that this legislation entrenches a two-tier system in New Zealand. We already see that playing out in our economy, and this legislation makes that even more the case with employment law—one system for workers with predictable hours and established bargaining power, and another system for those workers with variable schedules and less control over their employment and, in many instances, those who are often paid a lower hourly rate. That is not the direction New Zealand employment law should be heading. Good employment law should create certainty, fairness, and dignity. It should recognise the realities of modern work without creating disadvantage or increasing existing disadvantage. It should ensure that every hour worked contribute fairly to a worker’s leave entitlement, and, most importantly, it should ensure that workers are not made worse off than they are already, and this bill fails on that standard.
The select committee has worked hard. Officials have put a lot of effort into this, but the reality is that this bill leaves New Zealand workers already in precarious situations working and already vulnerable workers worse off than they were before. We believe that New Zealanders deserve a leave system that reflects the true value of work, that recognises all hours worked, that protects access to sick leave, and that protects access to annual leave. It upholds the fundamental component of wellbeing rather than just another box to be ticked off as a saving for an employer. For those reasons, we believe this bill is yet another kick in the guts for working Kiwis who already can’t afford to pay for power, pay for food, and pay for fuel. This National Government has just taken one more hit to the Kiwi worker struggling to keep their head above water.
TEANAU TUIONO (Green) (17:22): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Greens to talk in opposition to the Employment Leave Bill. It’s groundhog day. Here we are, back again in the House with another anti-worker piece of legislation. It’s a pattern of behaviour that we have seen from that side of the House. The ACT Party Minister has a terrible idea for the workers; rushes it through the select committee process; select committee members, to their credit, try to knock off some of the sharp edges of it; but, at the core of it, it is fundamentally flawed.
I bring that up as an example because, as I was going back through some of the submissions, a number of the submitters noted that, actually, they were spelling mistakes and drafting errors within the legislation. That points to the type of care that this Minister has in terms of the pieces of legislation that she has brought to the House. It seems to me that she has focused on just achieving KPIs, as opposed to making sure that we do everything that we can do as a House to look after workers, to take care of workers, and, ultimately, to look after our families. We are opposed to this bill.
This bill will leave many workers worse off—particularly those on lower incomes—and will disproportionately affect workers who are employed part-time, have variable hours, work multiple jobs, or face insecure employment conditions. Women, young people, Māori, Pacific, and migrant workers are all more likely to be in these kinds of non-standard employment arrangements and will, therefore, be disproportionately negatively impacted by the bill. Those who have less to spare are the ones who are going to have to take a pay cut under this bill. The changes to sick leave, including sick leave for part-time workers, will disproportionately impact women, who tend to work part-time more than men due to an unequal share of caring responsibilities and related factors. This will result in more women having to take unpaid leave if they or their dependents are unwell.
If you’re sick, you’re sick. You shouldn’t be coming to work. The point of annual leave is to make sure that we get a better work-life balance, which is incredibly important and which is something that we should all be mindful of. The reason why we have public holidays is because those are days of national significance. Those are days that we should all try to take off because of the importance of those days. Being in a position where you are trying to cash those out is contrary to, actually, the importance of all of those different reasons why we have those types of leave.
The committee received written submissions from 661 individuals. Around about 557 were individual submitters, and about 103 were from organisations and businesses. There was a wide range of submitters, including workers, unions, employers, and business sector and professional bodies. Of all of those submissions, 86 percent opposed the bill—86 percent oppose the bill. As I was saying, to the credit of the select committee, we did try to knock off some of the sharp edges around the idea of fixing up notional rosters so there is more clarity there in terms of the hours worked. But the issue there is that it doesn’t deal with the power imbalance—the power imbalance between employers and employees. The power imbalance is actually still weighted in favour of the employer.
One of the submitters that actually came to the select committee highlighted the issue around that power imbalance. I have an example here. This is from the Young Workers Resource Centre, and this is from their submission: “Young workers are also vulnerable to contracting illness due to environmental factors, such as damp, overcrowded housing, compounding the impact of this reduction in sick leave. Meaning, young workers are more likely to become sick but will be less likely to have the sick leave they require.” It puts them in a particular position where, actually, they might be sick but they might not take it because there is an expectation from their bosses that they show up for work. If they don’t have that right per se, as they do and under the current regime, that puts pressure on them, because if you don’t start showing up for work because you’re sick or for other types of reasons, they can cut your shifts back, and, as we know, within this economic environment, there’s a long line of people lining up to actually get those jobs, as well.
The impact on sick leave was something that was canvassed very strongly by submitters. In the case of the Young Workers Resource Centre, they talked about how, every time that they had a workshop, when they went to explain the difference between part-time and casual work, they would always have a student who would pipe up and say that they’re on a casual contract and have the working pattern of a part-timer. What they said was that they couldn’t stress how common it is that these workers who have set regular hours—so, for example, you could have set hours at around about, say, 10 hours a week, but, actually, the pattern of behaviour is that you could be ending up working 30 hours a week, and there is no give and take in there, as well, because all of the power is actually with the bosses. What they said is one of the tell-tale signs that a young worker has been misclassified as a casual worker is that they feel unable to turn down a shift for fear of losing out on future shifts or being taken off the roster completely. So this idea of a notional roster is a good idea, but that power imbalance is still there. The power is still with the bosses. That’s something that the House needs to pay attention to, as well.
Annual leave, as well—and I take this example from the Workers First Union, who said that “The Bill’s proposed changes will mean employees with a low number of guaranteed hours and who regularly take on additional shifts will have significantly less annual leave.” The example they brought up was—I think it was a real example from probably one of their members—was from Cotton On retail members who are only guaranteed three hours per week. They only have three hours per week, but, actually, they work significantly more than that. That’s the agreed hours that they have. What that will mean is that they will get a considerably reduced amount of annual leave because of the agreed standard hours that they have, as well. This points to the number of issues that were brought up at the select committee, which we have not addressed through the select committee process. There was such a large, large number of them, as well.
I have another example here, as well, from another person that came to the select committee and their representatives who were there. Mark works full-time in a factory on a four-on, three-off roster, doing 10-hour shifts. Under the current Act, he receives 10 days’ sick leave per year; under the proposed bill, he will accrue 80 hours of sick leave—only enough for eight days off—and will lose two days’ sick leave per year after this bill is passed.
This bill has been rushed through. I think it needed to have more time. The range of different work settings and employment settings required us to take this a lot more slowly. The other thing that we didn’t really get into was the overall range of legislation that has gone through the House. We had the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill come through the House. What are the impacts of that bill to this bill? We did not even touch on that. What is the impact of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill on this bill? We also didn’t touch on that, either. What we are seeing is a deluge of legislation being pushed through by the ACT Party, complicit with the other coalition partners, and without much thought as to, actually, what is the real overall impact on workers.
This bill is bad for workers, it is bad for our communities, and it will reduce leave and rest for workers right across the country. It is important that this House does everything that it can do to make sure that it can take care of workers, to look after workers. If you’re sick, you need to be staying home. We need to make sure that people are able to take annual leave so that they can get that work-life balance done well. When there are significant holidays, people should be able to take those, and that should not be accrued just purely for the different hours that they might take which might be happening on those public holidays.
The Greens are opposed to this bill. This is another example of bad legislation from that side of the House. It is another example of legislation which will disenfranchise workers—workers that need to be made sure that, actually, this House has got their back; it hasn’t. I hope that as we move through to the election period, they remember all of the pieces of legislation that have gone through this House which have disenfranchised workers from their rights in terms of not only just the leave rights that they have but everything else.
KATIE NIMON (National—Napier) (17:32): The first thing I would say is to direct members of the public to read the select committee’s report, because, in fact, it addresses all of the things that have been mentioned by members opposite. Ultimately, if a member of the public is a casual worker or a worker that works overtime, there is now proposed by this 12.5 percent on the dollar earned which you would get in an hourly payout. I’ve got to say, this is different—fundamentally, what is proposed is different; no one is hiding from that. We have two years to implement this change. There are going to be changes in the way that terms are negotiated to make account of that. There is nothing ambiguous about this piece of legislation—that is the whole point.
Anyone that used any element of employment leave had to get, basically, a PhD in knowing how to operate under this law. This has changed. There is clarity in this piece of legislation. I look forward to seeing this roll out for workers and for employers to relieve the ambiguity that has existed in this legislation in the past. I do implore members of the public to read the committee report to understand the changes, because it’s pragmatic and it will help it be relative to the hours worked and the days worked by any employee around the country. I commend the bill.
Hon MARK PATTERSON (Minister for Rural Communities) (17:33): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support this Employment Leave Bill, which replaces the Holidays Act 2003. The existing Holidays Act is a dog’s breakfast. Even the Government has had trouble within its own departments calculating how it should be properly attributed. In New Zealand First, we have had a few issues, famously, with some of the Minister’s previous bills that she’s brought forward, but we do absolutely support this one. It more clearly and fairly attributes leave, particularly to take into account part-time, casual, and the way it’s accrued and calculated. A single hourly leave rate of 12.5 percent with a leave compensation payment really does simplify things.
The bill introduces a clear distinction between required work, additional hours, and casual work. I will commend the select committee. They have made some sensible changes: clause 9—more flexibility for parties to agree; methodology or the notional roster provisions in clause 3, which puts back into the purpose rest and recreation, which I think we would all support across this Parliament. The committee’s done a good job here. New Zealand First continues to support this bill. Thank you.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: This call is a split call—Rawiri Waititi.
RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori) (17:35): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of Te Pāti Māori to oppose the Employment Leave Bill, because it will reduce leave entitlements for people in insecure work, part-time workers, and workers receiving ACC. This another attack in a long line of attacks on workers in Aotearoa. This Government has already cut 10,000 Public Service jobs and they’re planning to cut another 10,000 more. They cut pay equity to pay for tax cuts for landlords, tobacco companies, and multimillion-dollar corporations. They let Uber rewrite our employment laws so they can continue to exploit their workers.
While we do support increasing holiday allowance, immediate tangihanga leave, and pay arrangements for casual employees and parents, we cannot support a bill that will take away hard-fought leave entitlements and that will disproportionately impact Māori, Pasifika, wāhine, and other vulnerable workers.
We need to be clear: this bill was not developed alongside tangata whenua, trade unions, or workers. Developing policy without consulting with the people that will be most impacted is not only bad practice; it is a violation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. This decision violated the principles of partnership, active protective, and good faith by refusing tangata whenua a seat at the table, by failing to consider the impacts that this bill would have on Māori, and by failing to make informed decisions as a result of this neglect. They may have consulted with Te Puni Kōkiri, but consulting with another Crown agency is no replacement for consulting with iwi, hapū, and whānau Māori.
This bill will disproportionately impact Māori, marginalised communities, and our mokopuna. The underutilisation rate for Māori is 20.6 percent, up 1.8 percent from last year, meaning that over one in five Māori workers are not getting the pay or the hours that they deserve. This is much higher than the national underutilisation rate of only 13 percent. Many Māori workers are being forced into part-time work because there are no full-time jobs. This bill will cut their sick leave. The bill will also disproportionately impact our Pasifika whanaunga, wāhine, and other vulnerable workers who are more likely to be in part-time and insecure work.
It is unacceptable that so many groups will be worse off as a result of this bill; especially our wāhine workers, who have already had their pay equity claims thrown out by this Government. This Government will harm our people today, and this will have an intergenerational impact on our mokopuna. This bill is also another attack on ACC recipients. Just another week before this bill was debated for the first time, the Government passed the Social Security (Accident Compensation and Calculation of Weekly Income) Amendment Bill, which unjustifiably clawed back millions of dollars from ACC recipients.
Now this bill will punish these same workers. If a forestry worker is injured on the job, if a construction labourer falls from scaffolding, if a freezing worker damages their back, while they’re recovering from these injuries sustained while contributing to our economy, their leave entitlements will stop accruing. This bill sends a very clear message: if your body breaks while working for this country, you carry the cost—not you, Madam Speaker, the worker.
This bill will treat people like resources. The decision to tie sick leave entitlements to hours worked is both dehumanising and shameful. When a person is denied sick leave because they did not work as many hours as someone else, they are being viewed as an input instead of a person. The aim of this bill was efficiency, but efficiency without justice can lead to exploitation. Workers are not just entries into a payroll system; they are parents, they are aunties, they are uncles, caregivers, nieces, nephews, and community leaders. They are the foundation of our economy. When you weaken their ability to rest, to recover, and to care for their whānau, you weaken the entire social fabric of Aotearoa.
This bill should be thrown out and rewritten in partnership with iwi, hapū, whānau Māori, as well as the unions and representation of the workers for Aotearoa. Any rewrite must ensure that no worker is left worse off than the status quo, and it must uphold the dignity of all workers in Aotearoa. Kia ora tātou.
Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (17:40): Thank you, Madam Speaker. As we’ve heard from my colleague Teanau Tuiono, the Green Party opposes this bill, because, once again, what we’re seeing with this Government is an attack on workers. This Government is here to fundamentally undermine the rights of workers, and we have seen that most recently with the changes to the Health and Safety at Work Act.
What we’re seeing is that this bill will mean further discrimination to our workers and to our part-time workers, and also it will ensure that workers who actually need the time to take leave—whether it is annual leave, sick leave, bereavement leave, family violence leave—will be paid less by taking that leave. Despite what we hear about the 12.5 percent, they will be paid less for taking that leave because of the fact that they will not accrue their leave in the same way. We’re seeing that employers are now able to hound employees when they are trying to take family violence leave by requiring further proof, and they will not be paid the family violence leave if they do not have proof of such family violence, which will cause retraumatisation of any of these workers.
We’re seeing, once again, a Government that panders to large corporations’ abuse of our workers. This is akin to modern slavery. Do we want to move to a situation like they did in the UK with zero-hour contracts as a way for large corporations to get around the entitlements that any worker rightly deserves? We’re already seeing that here in Aotearoa New Zealand. In our tertiary education system, universities are already moving dangerously close to those zero-hour contracts for our tutors, our lecturers, and our student support staff at tertiary institutes.
Like I’ve mentioned, we’re seeing a further entrenchment of discrimination. We have already seen this Government remove active pay equity claims: 33 of them. They have taken away billions of dollars from the working women of Aotearoa New Zealand in order to fund their US-driven military and defence spending. We are seeing that with that, it’s going to put women in worse situations, and also, if you’re looking at the intersectional aspects of what we’re seeing in the already existing pay gaps—whether it is the gender pay gap or the ethnic pay gap—we are seeing that women of Māori, Pasifika, and migrant backgrounds will be further punished by this bill because they are those who are most likely going to be on part-time work, temporary work, or work where the standard hours in their contract are not reflected in their actual working hours per week. We see that in retail and hospitality all the time, and those people will be punished by the changes in this legislation.
I want to speak particularly to the example of migrant workers like myself and those millennials who are here with their families in various other parts of the world while they have small and young families over here because they cannot reunify with their parents and they cannot bring their parents over. They are going to be further punished by this bill when they have to go back and look after their parents because they simply could not accrue as much leave.
What we are seeing here is the fundamental issue that the changes are being made because some companies—particularly the large corporations—fundamentally do not want to comply with the existing legislation and do not want to give the rights to workers that they rightly deserve. At the same time, it must be addressed that while Aotearoa New Zealand is one of the easiest countries in the world to start a business, we, as a Government, have not been giving the support that small to medium sized enterprises rightfully deserve when understanding their role as an employer and their role as a person conducting a business or undertaking under various pieces of legislation. That should be what we are targeting in terms of the support that we’re giving; not further lowering our standards when it comes to health and safety, or when it comes to the leave that employees are entitled to have.
Finally, I want to thank all of the workers and also of all of the unions for submitting on this bill. The Green Party will continue to fight for you, and we look forward to further discussion on this during the committee stage.
Dr HAMISH CAMPBELL (National—Ilam) (17:45): It’s my pleasure to rise in support of the Employment Leave Bill. I think we probably need to bring this debate back to reality, rather than some of the extravagant claims that have been made. The problem with the Holidays Act has been well canvassed over many years. Employers struggle to understand and apply the Act correctly and employees struggle to understand their entitlements. All workers, businesses, and their families will benefit from a leave payment system being simpler, more predictable, more transparent, and with greater certainty. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.
INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (17:46): Well, that’s an interesting rewrite of history. Let’s be really clear what happened with the Holidays Act. In 2003, the fifth Labour Government modernised the Holidays Act to make sure that workers were getting fair entitlements. The three weeks that were originally put into that became four weeks from April 2007, and then people got 11 public holidays, they got sick leave, they got bereavement leave, and they also got calculations for holiday pay, which were done in that Act.
What happened in history is that people went from a manual holiday pay system to a technological one, and the technology could not deal with things like casual work, variable hours, overtime, and so on. Then we had the Novopay debacle and we had the Holidays Act remediation debacle, both of which caused real problems, and I know people who have worked in the health system and in the education system who have struggled for many years to get paid their entitlements.
But what this ridiculous Government is telling us is that instead of getting our systems up to speed to be able to deal with a modernised system, to be able to deal with variable hours, and to be able to deal with the types of family situations that we’re in, let’s just wind the clock back and go back to the dark ages and make Novopay and the Holidays Act debacle the excuse for making things work for workers. This is a stupid, dangerous law, it’s a shocker of a law, it is unfair to workers, and it is punching down on them.
That is what is happening here—make no mistake—and I would like to speak particularly to people who might be flirting with the idea of supporting New Zealand First. New Zealand First tries to say that it is the party for workers, but New Zealand First is part of this Government, which is taking these entitlements away from workers, and let’s look at what the Minister said when she introduced the bill.
She talked about it being simpler. Well, what is simple about this bill is that it removes paid holiday entitlements—that is what is simple. She said that it’s clearer. Well, what is clear is that there are fewer real holidays for workers—that is what’s clear under this bill. She said that it’s fairer. Well, that is just rubbish because, as we’ve heard, the process was rushed, it was poorly consulted on, and the vast majority of submitters said that they did not agree with the bill. It was arbitrary and it was supported by a small group of—guess what!—employers. Of course employers were going to support it, because if, as has been said by other speakers, they see leave as a cost and if they see workers as an input, then of course they’re going to support it.
But let’s be really clear: work is about a relationship; it is not about an autocracy. We have moved on from the dark ages, despite what New Zealand First and ACT would like to think—and the National Government, for supporting this. Work is about a relationship, and any changes to those laws, including this legislation, should have been done with adequate consultation.
To people listening who support New Zealand First, let’s also remember that when we talk about unions—unions, who get so vilified by the other side—“unions” is another word for workers. In this world, people cannot get change if they’re operating by themselves. There is strength in numbers, and that is the whole point of unions.
What else has this Government done? If we look at the suite of bills that have come through, it has been the Holidays Act, which is this one, and the fair pay agreements, which was one of the first cynical moves that they did to wipe out the minimum standards and conditions for some of our most vulnerable workers. Isn’t that a common theme? Cleaners, bus drivers, security guards—I remember everyone coming together during COVID and applauding those people and saying how much we respected and loved our critical workers, like our supermarket workers. Now, they’re just inputs. Now, they’re just costs to be calculated in a holiday pay calculation to give employers what they want because it’s going to reduce their costs.
When we look at the Equal Pay Amendment Act 2025—33 claims wiped off the table, back to square one, raising thresholds. Guess who gets impacted again? Women. Casual workers, as well. Every time we talk about the workers that get impacted by the suite of bills that are coming through, it is our women, it is our Māori, it is our Pacific, it is those disabled who are lucky enough to get work, and it is our migrant workers. Then we have the kind of compensation remark that says, “Oh, but we made some changes so that there could be some kind of negotiation about what kind of methodology would be used.” Can we really imagine that those groups are going to sit down in a power-imbalance situation—maybe with English as a second language, maybe with a gender difference, with someone in a suit behind a big fat desk—and say, “Can we please talk about the calculation for our holiday pay so that we can use one of the variations in the amendment in the bill?” I don’t think so.
What about the employment relations pay deductions for partial strikes? What a cynical piece of law—to basically say to employers, “Yeah, you can deduct the pay from your workers so that they think twice about asserting their right to go on strike.” Let me tell you, workers don’t go on strike lightly. They go on strike and they do it collectively when things are going horribly wrong. We’ve seen that a lot under this Government. We see that with the fire fighters every week dealing with their pay conditions, dealing with broken fire trucks, and good on them; they’ve got our support.
Here are all these bills, as has been said, put through the House one by one, so we don’t see the total impact of what’s happening, but the total impact is really, really clear. It is that workers are getting undermined, workers are getting punched down on, and the most vulnerable workers—once again—are paying the cost. And why are they doing it? Because that side of the House sees workers as inputs. That side of the House sees holiday leave as a cost. They do not see it as something that contributes to the wellbeing of their workers. They do not see it as something that is going to mean that their workers will feel encouraged to be more productive, that they will come to work feeling better, that they will want to do their best. No, they are merely an input, and if they’re sick and they haven’t accrued the right number of days but they’re still sick, stuff it, make them come to work, because we’re not going to pay them. We’ll just drag them back in while they’re still sick, because they’re not going get the leave, because they haven’t accrued it. How cynical is that?
I find it hard to believe that this is Aotearoa New Zealand today, because it feels like the Dark Ages. For anybody that thinks that ACT or New Zealand First, in particular, are wanting to take New Zealand forwards, have a think about that, because ACT are saying, “Let’s take New Zealand forward,” and yet they’re introducing this kind of Dark-Ages legislation. Then we have New Zealand First saying, “Yeah, yeah, we’re the party for workers.” Well, come on, New Zealand First: cross the floor on this one, then. Put your money where your mouth is: show where you really do sit with workers, because it’s all very well to say that in the media, and it’s all very well to have big headlines and comments that are very inappropriate by senior Ministers to try and say that you’re the working party, but for people listening at home, the devil is in the detail and the detail is in the legislation. What we’re seeing in the legislation in this House today is another punch-down on workers’ rights. Those groups—the part-timers, the casual workers, the vulnerable, women—are all being punched down on as a result of this bill.
The key rules are that overtime hours are not recognised. We’ve heard that before. There are no entitlements to take leave in advance. One that really sticks out for me is that there is no guarantee of taking two consecutive weeks. So while we all swan off and have a beautiful summer holiday after working hard all year, those people who’ve been working one or maybe two or even three jobs and want to be able to get two weeks back-to-back over summer are not entitled to do so under this bill, because it has been taken away from them. That is what this National Government is doing, and that is what they are doing with their National Government coalition partners, ACT and New Zealand First.
Let’s be really clear about which side of the House is here for workers, and let’s be really clear, when we spend so much time of our lives at work, juggling family, dealing with the cost of living, trying to make ends meet, trying to fill the supermarket trolley to pay to feed our children, that this bill that erodes entitlements and erodes, ultimately, finances even further is just another way of punching down on workers. It is a shameful day, and I do not know how these members of this Government can sleep at night doing that to fellow New Zealanders.
Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula) (17:56): Thank you, Madam Speaker. In this second reading of the Employment Leave Bill, I’d just like to take some time to quickly thank all of those people who submitted and who have also written to many of us and told us their stories about what it will mean for them. I just acknowledge that, for a lot of people, there’s been a huge amount of frustration that’s been accumulated over the years by the problems with holidays—accruals and things like that. I know my own mother, who was a nurse for many years, had this problem that wasn’t even resolved by the time she had passed away, and so this is something that I’m glad to see we are working through. There will be time for working through the nuts and bolts to implement this, and in a fashion that means that everybody gets clarity. I commend the bill to the House.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: This debate is interrupted, and the House will resume at 7.30 p.m.
Sitting suspended from 5.57 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members, the House has resumed. When we left for the dinner break, we were on the Employment Leave Bill. We’re on the second reading, and we’re up to the split call for Labour, and I believe Shanan Halbert was on his feet before the dinner break, so we’ll let you go now.
SHANAN HALBERT (Labour) (19:30): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I gave it a good go to just slip in before dinner and get this speech out of the way, not because I wanted to get it out of the way quickly. If you heard from the National Party speakers tonight, they will say, “There’s nothing to see here in this bill—there’s absolutely nothing to see in this very important Employment Leave Bill this evening.” Under Labour, of course, we stand for a fair work environment. It’s important not only that people are paid what they’re worth but also that they have decent jobs to go to, that they have good reliable employment, and, of course, that they have proper rest time in the work that they do.
This bill removes paid holiday entitlements for so-called casual workers, replacing them with a simple allowance. On that very basis, we have pushed back on this particular bill from the outset. Labour does not support the Employment Leave Bill. While the bill has been improved through our select committee, and of the many submissions that we heard, anyone that was in that room will know that most of those submissions did not support this bill. They didn’t agree with the changes that Minister Brooke van Velden has put forward through this legislation. They don’t think it makes a difference to workers in New Zealand in ensuring that they have good opportunity, good wages, and a good work environment.
The key problem with this piece of legislation comes back to one thing. I think about workers that might hold one, two, or sometimes three part-time jobs that make up equivalent full-time work. They will be negatively affected by the changes within this legislation, in the Employment Leave Bill. They will not be treated the same as somebody who is in permanent full-time work, collecting their sick days, 10 sick days, and they won’t be able to increase those numbers. No matter who they are, people get sick. When people are unwell, we don’t want them to come into the work environment. We want them to stay home, recover, and get well when they need to. Quite often, if you come back into the work environment too early—and I know many parliamentarians might do that from time to time—actually, you fall over and you get sick again. As a result, these people will be impacted by not getting paid at all.
That is not a fair work environment that Labour stands for, and that doesn’t create better work conditions, that we want, but, most of all, it really is an—and I say another—unnecessary piece of legislation that has gone through this House with limited consultation, going the alternative route to what submissions have told us in the select committee process. It’s important that we listen to workers. It’s important that we listen to our employers that are out there. There are some very good examples that our select committee went through. One example was the notional rosters, where they must accurately reflect actual work patterns. Through that, clause 9 was strengthened to require rosters to be agreed to in writing between all parties and kept up to date.
I just don’t understand members across this House agreeing to something that negatively disadvantages thousands of workers across Aotearoa New Zealand. I look at New Zealand First and the criticism and narrative that comes from them, and, today, they don’t stand up for workers. Where are you on this bill? Why are you not supporting workers that are carrying two or three jobs? That is the question for New Zealand First in this House today. I expect it from the ACT Party because they don’t stand for workers; they stand for undermining good work conditions. But the National Party, somewhere in between, can’t actually stand for something that is right, in this three-year term of Government. This is just another example of punching down on groups and, this time, workers—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.
NANCY LU (National) (19:35): This is the second reading of the Employment Leave Bill, and, as the legislative statement has made really clear, it is to introduce a new framework for leave that is intended to be—this is the important part—simple and clear, to give employees and employers greater certainty about their entitlements and obligations. It’s to make it clear for both the employees and the employers. As you have heard, the select committee considered 661 submissions and heard oral evidence from 45 submitters. They said submitters expressed a range of views for the bill, including general support for the broad objectives. Therefore, I commend the bill to the House.
Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) (19:36): This is just another bit of law that the Government has brought to this Parliament that takes rights away from workers. It’s one of a very long list, going back to the abolition of fair-pay agreements, the restoration of fire-at-will provisions, the gutting of personal grievance rights, and the weakening of health and safety protections for more than half a million New Zealand workers, and now this. Even for the National Party, by their standards, this is good. In the middle of a cost of living crisis, they are brazenly taking money and free time away from some of our hardest-working New Zealanders, particularly people who work in casualised jobs and do part-time hours.
The bill blatantly prioritises the economic interests of employers over workers. It looks for administrative efficiency, and it looks to reduce the costs for employers—and not only the costs of admin but actually the costs in terms of what they have to pay out to their employees. But that’s the National Party and their coalition partners. Has it ever been any other way? Sadly not.
The Education and Workforce Committee did a lot of work on this bill, and we’ve made a number of technical changes, which we’ll go through in detail in the committee of the whole House stage. For now, as we report this bill back to the House, the key thing for people to know is that the fundamental design of this bill hasn’t changed. It systematically disadvantages casual and part-time workers. That’s what this bill does. On something as fundamental as the rights of workers to time off work, to be compensated for working on public holidays, and to be paid so they can actually live when they’re having days off, this Government has chosen to listen to the interests of employers, whose interest is to reduce costs, and those who administer payroll, whose interest lies in administrative efficiency, and ignore all of the voices of workers.
New Zealanders who work for a living came along to the select committee, and their representatives told us what they thought of this bill, and it wasn’t pretty. Because this is the second reading, I want to share some of the things that New Zealand workers told us at the committee. The Public Service Association (PSA) said that the leave system that the bill introduces would reduce leave for tens of thousands of their members, including care and support workers, librarians, community centre workers, animal control, noise control, mental health workers, health protection officers, emergency department receptionists, IT support workers, call-centre workers, customs officers, meat inspectors, firefighters, and meteorologists. I hope that the members opposite feel good about that, and when they get home at the end of this week in Parliament, and their children or grandchildren say to them, “What did you do at Parliament this week?”, you can say, “Well, sweetheart, we took away the pay and time off for firefighters and emergency department receptionists and call centre workers.”
I hope that they feel really good about that. I hope that they sleep really well at night, having done that.
This bill will reduce, as the PSA said, the total annual pay of hundreds of thousands of workers. Any worker who receives part of their pay as penal rates for antisocial hours, additional payments for overtime, and allowances that vary from week to week, bonuses, or commissions will have their pay and leave cut under this bill.
The New Zealand Nurses Organisation said that under the current law, a neonatal nurse who works four 10-hour days per week gets 10 days sick leave per year. In this example, for 10 days out of the year, if that nurse is sick, she can be away from work on full pay to recover, but under this bill, that same neonatal nurse will receive only 80 hours of sick leave per year. She will have two fewer days of sick leave each year. It should go without saying that people who work in the health sector are at much greater risk of getting sick or injured at work, and this includes catching viruses and diseases from patients or being assaulted in the workplace.
Workers First Union gave the example of ambulance officers who, typically, work a four-by-four shift structure, where they work 12-hour shifts, four days on; four days off. Applying the changes in this bill, an ambulance officer would accrue only 84 hours’ worth of sick leave a year. As ambulance officers would use 12 hours per sick day, this means that their sick leave entitlement is reduced from 10 days to seven days—that’s a loss of three days per year.
If we look at public holidays, the Council of Trade Unions talked about one of their members, Shanna, who works in a busy cafe. She’s got guaranteed hours to work eight hours on a Saturday, and most of the time she picks up shifts on Friday, Sunday, and Monday for about 30 hours per week. In 2026, she’ll work seven public holidays and get seven alternative holidays, plus three paid unworked holidays: Anzac Day, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day. Under this bill, she will work nine public holidays and get three alternative holidays, plus one paid unworked public holiday—losing out on six paid days off per year for that worker.
As well as making life miserable and taking money and free time—time off—away from the people who can least afford it, this bill has two particularly pernicious effects. It incentivises employers even more than is currently the case to casualise their workforce. It makes it cheaper to employ part-time and casual workers. It will make the jobs of even more New Zealand workers more precarious, more unreliable, and, because of that, more stressful.
It will make the lives of so many New Zealand workers worse, and, what’s more, its harmful effects will be felt unevenly and unfairly, disproportionately affecting the workers with the least bargaining power in our economy: part-timers, casual workers, the low paid—and do you know who that means? That means young workers, women, Māori, Pasifika and others from migrant communities, and disabled workers. So I say to the members opposite to go home at the end of the week and tell your children and grandchildren that that’s what you did this week. You took rights away, you took money away, and you took free time—time off—away from hundreds of thousands of those New Zealand workers.”
This is the ugly face of privilege and power in New Zealand. It’s the National Party and its coalition partners, New Zealand First and ACT. The parties of “I’m all right, stuff you.” are once again giving the finger to hard-working New Zealanders.
Simon Court: You won’t repeal it.
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We certainly will.
I also want to say to New Zealand First—the party that is pimping itself around as the friends of New Zealand workers—that they voted for the abolition of fair pay agreements that would have allowed hundreds and thousands of New Zealand workers to negotiate a better deal, they voted for the restored fire-at-will bill for all New Zealand employers, they voted for the confiscation of the rights of workers to go to court on whether they are contractors or employees, they voted for weakened health and safety protections for more than half a million New Zealand workers, and they’ve voted for below-inflation minimum wage increases every year under this Government. It’s a disgrace, and now they’re voting for this—and now they’re voting for this.
GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland) (19:46): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, the question that got asked was: why are we here and why have we had to make the changes? Well, let’s cast our minds back. [Interruption] Oh, they’ve all woken up. Let’s cast our minds back to when we had the people who administer this Act and oversee it—the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment—couldn’t interpret it and get it right. They couldn’t even get it right, and when I asked them about that, they said “Yes, please reform it.”, and so guess what? That is what we have done. We have reformed this legislation.
Actually, interestingly, when we had the architects and the people who were in there doing their thing, coming and visiting the Education and Workforce Committee, I asked them, “Can you design a programme that interprets the old law properly and safely?” No, but they can with this one. That’s one of the reasons we’ve done it. I commend it to the House.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the Employment Leave Bill be now read a second time.
Ayes 67
New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Noes 55
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Amendment Bill.
Infrastructure Funding and Financing Amendment Bill
Committee of the whole House
Part 1 Amendments to Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act 2020, and Schedules 1 to 3
CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, the House is in committee on the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Amendment Bill. We come first to Part 1. Part 1 is the debate on clauses 3 to 65—“Amendments to Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act 2020”—and Schedules 1 to 3. The question is that Part 1 stand part.
Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour) (19:49): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. It’s important to state right from the get-go that the Labour Party supports this bill. It has done from the start, and has worked constructively throughout. I would like the Minister to walk us through this quite substantial Amendment Paper—not all of it, obviously; we’d be here all night, but it’s important that the sector continues to see that on something as important as this, both the local government sector and the infrastructure sector, but also both sides of Parliament, are working together.
Now, admittedly for various other conflicting responsibilities, I wasn’t able to participate in the select committee stage, but my colleagues that will be contributing to this did. But I have to say that we were expecting to be able to discuss with the Minister the merits of this bill rather than putting forward amendments to change it. We are faced with, at this stage, an Amendment Paper from the Minister that is just as large as the bill. I’d like some reassurance from him that there has been, first of all, opportunities to ensure that the Finance and Expenditure Committee has considered all aspects of this and that the inclusion of this amendment bill is not contrary to the guidance that the Speaker gave the House only last sitting week.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing) (19:51): As the member sort of noted in his remarks, the bill is complicated and technical. The Amendment Paper makes a series of really minor and technical changes that have been identified following the Finance and Expenditure Committee’s consideration.
There is one substantive change that is through the Amendment Paper, which is to include the ongoing operation and maintenance costs as an eligible cost that could be funded each year by the portion of annual levy revenue. The Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act at the moment allows for, essentially, cost recovery of the capital cost of a new project. It doesn’t include the ongoing operating costs. The feedback from National Infrastructure Funding and Financing Ltd, who are actually the Crown agency who essentially administer the Act, was that this change would allow a more complete funding and financing solution for infrastructure projects, because it allows both the capital and ongoing operating and maintenance costs to be recovered through the levy for the life of the levy. That is the major change that the Government has decided to make and is putting before the House as an Amendment Paper. The rest of the changes in the Amendment Paper are minor and technical.
CELIA WADE-BROWN (Green) (19:52): Thank you, Mr Chair. I have some questions. I’d like to first address that the Green Party is supportive of the general direction, but we are trying to digest the amendments. My colleagues Francisco Hernandez and Chlöe Swarbrick, of course, have participated in the select committee process, and the Hon Julie Anne Genter—this is one of her areas. I would like to understand from the Minister whether these changes, which seem to be for once supportive of local government being able to fund infrastructure from something other than rates, which may be very important soon—whether the amendment makes much difference to local government.
Also, we have an ongoing question about affordability and its consideration in a project. A project may be good or bad. It may be value uplift collected to fund light rail—in my view, in an ideal world; not necessarily the other side of the House. Will affordability for the people concerned still be able to be a consideration, or will ratepayers, taxpayers, businesses, and residents potentially end up funding projects that should not be funded because they are too expensive? Thank you.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing) (19:54): Oh, thank you. I thank the member her questions, plural. Does local government support it? I think broadly yes. Certainly, if you just take a step back, if you talk to local government land, they’ll say to you, “We need new tools that fund infrastructure.” I broadly agree with them, and this is one. When they talk about broadening the range of ways in which we can fund infrastructure, it’s often code for things like this.
If you, again, just go back a step, the original Act was passed in 2020. It actually originated with work done under the last National Government picked up by the Hon Phil Twyford in Government as a way of getting around—well, he’s smiling, but I’m being truthful. It was a way of allowing the funding of infrastructure off council balance sheets to get around the debt problems of local councils and to make sure that if there was a supply of land and someone wanted to develop the land and there was a supply of infrastructure that was able to be funded, then the planning system and the infrastructure funding system should not get in the way of that. That was the genesis of the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act in 2017, and it passed in 2020.
Now, since then, there have been three projects that have utilised it, which, to be honest, is lower than I think many people would like. Obviously, Milldale was the first one—a bit of a trial, I think it would be fair to say. But the other two projects since then have been basically city-wide projects—a Tauranga transport project and the sludge plant in Wellington. Actually, we’ve just had another one the other day which the Government has agreed to, which is Te Awa Lakes greenfields development in the mighty city of the future, which we turned the first sod on the other day.
But the uptake has been relatively restrained. One of the reasons why uptake has been restrained, the feedback from the market or the feedback from the local government and from developers is that the Act is quite difficult to use and cumbersome and so hence the Government campaigned—or the National Party certainly campaigned—on streamlining the Act, and hence the changes that are being proposed here.
But Parliament is also being asked to consider a range of other really useful enhancements to it. At the moment, it’s designed for new greenfields infrastructure. That’s useful and good. We should, in a world in which we will hopefully end up as a result of the planning reforms the Government is doing, end up with competitive urban land markets and abundant development opportunities. We will hopefully end up with people utilising this as an alternative funding mechanism to council rates and other agreements to fund infrastructure required for urban growth.
I would say this is part of the toolkit alongside traditional rates and development levies, which is a separate piece of legislation and a separate work stream that the Government is working on. We’ll have more to say about that in due course. That’s also extremely complicated, but very important for urban growth. This is part of the toolkit in order to facilitate housing growth. I’ve always put it in bucket two of the Government’s housing reforms. Pillar 1 is about land supply. Pillar 2 is about infrastructure funding and financing.
But if I just draw the committee’s attention to one other important point, which is that if Parliament agrees to these amendments, and, indeed, the bill, then it will allow the New Zealand Transport Agency to use Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act levies in order to fund new transport projects. Now, the member’s super keen on light rail and, I mean, I’m not opposed to light rail. Maybe I’m less keen on it than she is, but it could be used for light rail. It could also be used for State highways, for example. You take the simple point, if the Government’s going to build a road into a bunch of greenfields land, well, there will be a group of people who own the land by the State highway who immediately—or not immediately but over time—get quite a bit of uplift in the value of their land as a result of the public investment in the infrastructure.
Well, I just take a step back and say, “Well, simple proposition: you should help pay for it because you’re getting the benefit from it.” We’re at an early stage of doing that. I’m not proposing any particular road will be subject to an Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act levy. I’m not suggesting that. We just need the tools to be able to do that. So yep for light rail, maybe; yep for rapid transit, busways, etc.; maybe for roads and also KiwiRail as well. The Act specifically allows both those agencies in order to use the levies over time. It could become an alternative funding stream for infrastructure projects.
If I just finish the final point, in terms of affordability—and sorry to belabour the point, but it’s useful to give some of the background to the bill. The affordability issue is still a consideration but it’s not if everyone agrees that it’s not. So if everyone says, “Well, yeah, we’re up for it.”, you don’t have to consider affordability because almost by definition, if everybody’s keen on it, then it’s affordable. That’s the short point there.
TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) (20:00): Kia orana, Mr Chair. I thank the Minister for those contributions. I was able to sit in on a handful of the select committee hearings that considered this bill, and I certainly accept the Minister’s observation there that many of the aspects in the bill are technical. The most substantive change that he has referred to around the ongoing operating costs—the observation I’ve made there is that it’s pleasing that it’s come through in the feedback from the Infrastructure Commission. Minister, you did indicate that the majority, if not all, of the remaining changes in your Amendment Paper are technical. I certainly don’t intend to go through every single aspect, but I do want to just tease out maybe a couple of them to ensure the consistency in approach. The first is under proposed clause 5(1A). This is a new definition of “construction”. Now, the reason why I am asking the Minister to perhaps just justify its inclusion in the Amendment Paper is: is that an attempt to seek consistency elsewhere from a definition contained in another piece of legislation? If so, where does that come from? It is a new addition that he is seeking to insert.
The other one that I wanted to touch on was proposed new section 9A—the easiest descriptor is page 13 of the Minister’s Amendment Paper—where the definitions of an “agency” are defined through paragraphs (a) to (g) of subsection (2). The question I have for the Minister there is: is he satisfied that, given these new additions into the bill, all of what he identifies as agencies are all possible possibilities? Now, I know there is a potential reform package on the cards, so it might be that some of those “agency” definitions may or may not change. But is he satisfied that this, being a proposed change, covers all the possibilities that might exist for a current or emerging “agency” description?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing) (20:02): On the second issue—I’ll come back to the member on the first one—the short answer is yes. At this point, noting of course that it is Parliament’s prerogative to change in the future, I think we’ve captured the definition of “responsible infrastructure authority”, which is the point that the member’s referring to, which is proposed new section 9A, “Meaning of responsible infrastructure authority”. An “agency” means the territorial authority or water organisations—the point I didn’t make before, which I should have and I apologise, is it’s not just about the New Zealand Transport Agency or KiwiRail, but also about these new water authorities that Parliament has. We’ve picked a path through to some degree of equilibrium on water reform, and, maybe, let’s not get into that tonight, but the reality is—and as I think the member knows; all members know—we’ve got a big challenge coming on water infrastructure, a huge challenge, because, for a long time—some councils are worse than others—generally, local councils have deferred water maintenance and investment, and we’re now bearing the brunt of that and paying the price for it.
Shanan Halbert: Right!
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: What’s that?
Shanan Halbert: I’m just listening to what you’re saying.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, I’m telling the truth. So we’re bearing the brunt of that, and we’re going to have to find different ways to smooth out that increase in investment over time. The Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act is potentially one of those mechanisms, particularly—well, I’m going to say “particularly”, but it potentially can be used, and whether or not it is used will depend on a range of different factors, most notably market economics, which, ultimately, is what it’s all about. I think we’ve captured all of them. It’s actually quite a lot broader than what it is at the moment. But, of course, we can look at it again if we need to.
TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) (20:04): Thank you, Mr Chair. One of the other changes that the Minister’s Amendment Paper makes is in relation to section 18, and this is the “Content of levy proposal”. Now, the Minister is proposing to insert some descriptors around considering a range of expected benefits in proposed new section 18(1)(aaa). I’m interested to understand the scoping of those three defined aspects of the benefit.
But the more substantive question that I have is in relation to proposed new paragraph (ba). Now, this is about the “details of any consultation undertaken, including with affected landowners, iwi, or hapū:”. This was a particular focus, certainly, of the time that I spent in select committee, and my recollection is that permission was given to officials to undertake some work, in terms of consultation, at the same time that the select committee was considering this bill. My question for the Minister is: given that that was a particular focus of the select committee and it was referred to in the select committee’s report, what information would the Minister expect to see as a result of the consultation that’s undertaken? Certainly, the conversation in the select committee was not just a tick-the-box kind of approach, but the consultation needs to happen. As a result of that, the outcome of any consultation needs to be part of the information that informs decisions that have been taken in terms of a levy proposal. So I think it is important to just get an understanding from the Minister around, I guess, what sort of—not necessarily thresholds, but what would he expect to see in terms of information that would come out under section 18 as a result of their consultation process?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing) (20:06): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ve got an answer on the “construction” definition as well, which, I’m advised is, essentially, a consequential change in relation to not just the capital cost but to the ongoing operating being able to be recovered through the levy as well—so the operation of the infrastructure during construction and between the commissioning and vesting or transfer of the infrastructure is to be vested and transferred. I think it’s a technical change to account for that.
In relation to the Māori land issue the member raises—and I want to thank the member for his good-faith engagement on these issues, and I know the committee did spend quite a bit of time on it. The existing Infrastructure Funding and Financing (IFF) Act says that consent is required in all cases from owners of protected Māori land for the land to be included in any IFF levy area. They were designed for a greenfields housing scenario. But as I say that, the Act has now ended up being used for citywide infrastructure projects that benefit the wider community, and the levy area has ended up being tens of thousands of properties, so the bill proposes a change to set a threshold for consent requirements of 5,000 expected levy-able properties within the proposed levy area as a way of demarcating between greenfield and brownfield levy proposals. This change aims to alleviate concerns with differential treatment in application compared to rates, where the IFF Act is being used by councils, effectively, as an off - balance sheet targeted rate, and remove the difficulty associated with the identification of consent requirements for protected Māori land that National Infrastructure Funding and Financing and levy proposers are experiencing with brownfield and citywide levy proposals.
The bill includes protections so that neither the responsible levy authority nor the SPV, the special purpose vehicle, would be able to take recovery action for unpaid levies that would result in the sale or lease of protected Māori land. I think that’s an important provision. This ensures that Māori land cannot be alienated through the IFF Act. That’s an important protection. In response to feedback from iwi and Māori, the select committee has recommended, as the member will be aware, an amendment to require levy proposals to include details of any consultation undertaken, including with affected landowners, iwi, or hapū. We support that change recommended by the committee, which will enable the recommender, the person who assesses the levy proposals and writes the recommendation report, and the responsible Minister to consider any consultation that has occurred, including any impacts on Māori raised during consultation as part of the overall decision making on the levy proposal. So, yes, it is, as I say, complicated, but I think between the Government’s proposals and the select committee’s good-faith engagement on the issues and a bit of further work ordered by the Government and done with the committee, we’ve reached a happy place, I hope.
ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa) (20:09): Thank you, Mr Chair. Further to the Minister’s explanation of how the levy proposal will take into account feedback from those landowners in relation to Māori land, I just wanted to clarify whether the case law that’s set out in New Zealand’s cases on the way that Māori land is levied. The Mangatū case is the primary case on this that sets, for councils, not a formula but guidance that rates levied against Māori land should take into account the lower value of Māori land and the lower value at sale, either because of a smaller pool of owners or because of a smaller pool of potential development activities that can apply to Māori land.
The question is: should the levy proposer be responsible for taking into account the case law—which is the position in the law now—or should it be the Minister who does that check, or is there another part of the system where that case law which has been developed over time, there are other cases that relate to it that set more of a sort of a formula system? At what point should a decision maker in his new system be held responsible for taking into account that the levy should be set at a lower rate or set at a rate which reflects the lower value of the land that’s being levied?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing) (20:11): At a high level, the changes aim to more closely align the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act with the Rating Act, which means that protected Māori land can be levied if it can be rated. My expectation is that the case law that the member refers to, which I suspect she is more expert on than I am, will—
Hon Kieran McAnulty: I suspect you’re right.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: —yeah—flow through, and my expectation is that both the Minister and the recommender will have to take these sort of factors into account.
Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour) (20:11): Thank you, Mr Chair. Minister, I’m looking through Amendment Paper 655 here, and I’m specifically interested in new clause 12A, “New section 20A inserted”; this is around the endorsement of territorial authorities. It’s pretty clear under which circumstances this section would apply, but I am interested in what flows on into there: “The territorial authority or water organisation must endorse the technical specifications of the proposed eligible infrastructure if satisfied that those specifications are compatible with any wider infrastructure network of which it is to be part.”
There are a couple of questions, and perhaps we might go back and forth. The first thing is: as this reads, you could reasonably take from this that as long as the proposed infrastructure is compatible with the existing network, then the territorial authority must endorse it. I’d like clarity on that because that would ultimately determine the following questions. But it then flows naturally on to new section 22A, inserted by new clause 13A, and it talks about how it doesn’t require the territorial authority to agree or approve of the aspect of the levy. So, obviously, there’s a connection there, right? What I’m trying to determine is the move from “may” to “must” here around endorsement, is it, therefore, feasible that for valid reasons, a territorial authority does not approve a development, but under this proposed addition, as long as it’s compatible with the existing network, they’ll be forced to endorse it?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing) (20:13): The point is that—and we’ve thought about this a little bit—we didn’t want local authorities using—and there is some evidence that this happens now; how should we put this?—somewhat illusory reasons about network connections, on technical grounds, as a way of stymieing infrastructure that, for all intents and purposes, will be able to connect to the network.
There is a little bit of evidence of this where local authorities say “Aw, well, you can’t do that because it’s got a different standard and it doesn’t connect and we’ve got a different way of doing it and blah, blah, blah.” So we’ve just said, at new section 20A(2), inserted by new clause 12A, in Amendment Paper 655, “The territorial authority or water organisation must endorse the technical specifications … if satisfied that those specifications are compatible with any wider infrastructure network of which it is to be part.”
I mean, what we’re trying to do is: people and organisations that want to do their own thing and build more infrastructure that doesn’t affect the council, that other people wish to pay for, but who want to connect to the network, as long as it meets the technical specs, my view is that they should be able to—they definitely should be able to. Frankly, that’s part of the problem in New Zealand housing at the moment: there’s every barrier under the sun that is put in the way of people who just want to get on and do stuff. Yep, you’ve got to have some standards, but you shouldn’t put barriers in the way of people who want to do stuff on their own steam. Frankly, if we allowed a bit more of that, we probably would be in a better situation as a country. So this is one change that is useful on the way.
Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour) (20:15): I thank the Minister for Infrastructure for that, and we don’t necessarily disagree, but removing the possibility for a council to decline on technical grounds does potentially open up the possibility that they are forced to do something despite good reason not to. What reassurance can the Minister provide that councils won’t be forced to take on a development that will incur a requirement, be that a cost because they have to install or change some things that they currently have—because, let’s be honest, the smaller councils, in particular—it’s not limited to smaller councils, but smaller councils are more likely to be at their debt cap, and many councils actually can’t take on more development. I’m thinking of the likes of South Wairarapa, where in Martinborough and Greytown—
Simon Court: That’s why we’re freeing them, we’re liberating them, Mr McAnulty.
Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Honestly, we’re trying to be constructive, and Simon Court’s just bellowing out for no real reason. I’m giving you two examples here where they literally cannot have any additional housing developments in two towns not far from here, because they don’t have the resources to be able to put in the infrastructure. I accept that that is different to what we’re talking about, but the whole point of this question is to seek reassurance that councils won’t find themselves in a situation where they are incurring cost—this is an important point—in the current environment.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing) (20:17): Yeah, so just in relation to new section 22A, inserted by new clause 13A in Amendment Paper 655, which I went away and double-checked for the member, that is about just, essentially, reassurance that if you give an infrastructure endorsement under new section 20A, inserted by new clause 12A, that we’ve just been talking about, doesn’t mean that there may not be Resource Management Act or Building Act matters—that’s the “any other aspect of the levy proposal or the construction work”; there may be other legal issues and it’s just a catch-all to, essentially, capture all of that.
I mean, the member makes a really good point around South Wairarapa—isn’t it?—with the issues there.
Celia Wade-Brown: Martinborough.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: What’s that?
Celia Wade-Brown: Sorry, Martinborough.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Martinborough as well, yeah. I mean, over the hill’s a classic—and that is, potentially, without getting too far ahead of it all, an area where you could look at an infrastructure funding and financing (IFF) solution in order to fund some of the potential solutions that are required over there to allow for more housing. It is a bit crazy that you get to a situation where there is clearly latent demand to move to that part of the world, up to a point, but the supply of infrastructure is not there to facilitate that growth. That is actually a market failure when you think about it. You’ve got people who want to live somewhere, you’ve got developers who presumably want to develop, you’ve got plenty of land—I mean, we’re not a small country; I mean, goodness me!—but we don’t have the infrastructure system. The member is really neatly outlining the problem that we’re trying to solve. This is part of the solution. I don’t pretend for a moment that the IFF Act is the solution to everything; it’s going to be part of the solution in some circumstances. The economics of some of these developments mean that, almost by definition, you need a good, big levy area because you can spread the costs over more houses, but the development levy work that the Government is doing is probably part of the solution, as well, and we’ll be releasing that in due course. It’s complicated stuff. But, yeah, the member makes a good point, which is that you’ve got demand, you’ve got supply of land, you need an infrastructure solution, and we need to try and build a system where that is not a constraint. Economics might be a constraint. That’s a separate issue. Market viability might be a constraint. That’s, again, a separate issue. Resource consenting in relation to environmental effects on a particular area—that might be a factor. That’s, again, a separate issue. But if we could all just get to the agreement that we need to build a system where if you want to build and you can and it’s economically viable, the system should do all that it can to facilitate—
Grant McCallum: Enable.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: —enable—that kind of growth. I think the good news is that we basically all seem to agree, so happy days.
TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) (20:20): Thank you, Mr Chair. Minister, can I just point you to page 20 of your Amendment Paper 655; this is a change that you’re seeking to make in clause 17 in relation to subsection (3) of section 27. What came out of the select committee was this obligation for the Minister to only recommend the levy on the terms that are specified and set out in the levy proposal.
Now, what you’re seeking to change there is that, actually, the Minister could only or may only recommend the levy in two regards: the first is that, instead of the terms set out in the levy proposal being the only rider, the difference here is that there would be, effectively, the effects of the proposal being able to be implemented; and then the second part of that is that the terms won’t differ from the effect in any other way.
Are you able to give some reassurance this evening that that change is minor and that the consideration that a Minister would be required to turn their mind to in recommending the levy would still be within what could be seen as that existing envelope? It is potentially a significant change if that is not the case, because without this change that you’re proposing, it would largely be seen as a transactional type of move, whereas with this here, there are actually, potentially, a little bit broader considerations that might be available to the Minister.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing) (20:22): I’m advised that the change is technical to section 27(2) and (3). With old section 27(3) and new (3), it is a minor tweak and it is to, essentially, just allow a slight little bit of flex so that the Minister still “may only recommend the levy on terms that—(a) implement the effect of the levy proposal”, which is a slight weakening from the old (3), which is they “may only recommend the levy on the terms set out in the levy proposal”. Sometimes they’re—we’ve only done three of them, but there’s a gap between the actual levy being made or ordered and what’s consulted on, sometimes of some months, and the financing rate can change in that time; the interest rates are up and down, obviously. It’s the effect of the levy proposal. And then, obviously, there’s a qualifier there, new subsection (3)(b), which is “do not differ from the effect of the levy proposal in any material way”. I think this is a minor change.
CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 1, set out on Amendment Paper 655, be agreed to.
Amendments agreed to.
CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Part 1 as amended stand part.
Part 1 as amended agreed to.
Committee of the whole House
Part 2 Amendments to other legislation, and Schedule 5
CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, we have now come to Part 2. Part 2 is the debate on causes 66 to 73, “Amendments to other legislation”, and Schedule 5. The question is that Part 2 stand part.
The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 2, set out on Amendment Paper 655, be agreed to.
Amendments agreed to.
Part 2 as amended agreed to.
CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Schedule 1 stand part.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Schedule 2 set out on Amendment Paper 655 be agreed to.
Amendments agreed to.
Schedule 2 as amended agreed to.
Schedule 3 agreed to.
Schedule 5 agreed to.
Committee of the whole House
Clauses 1 and 2
CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, we now come to our final debate, clauses 1 and 2. This is the debate on clauses 1 and 2, “Title” and “Commencement”.
RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (20:25): Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, it’s great to speak on this bill, the Infrastructure Funding and Financing (IFF) Amendment Bill. The Finance and Expenditure Committee (FEC) had a great—
Tangi Utikere: It’s only the title.
RYAN HAMILTON: What’s that?
Tangi Utikere: It’s only the title and commencement.
CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Title and commencement, but we can take summations, so it’s fine.
RYAN HAMILTON: Yeah, thank you, Mr Chair—that’s what I was talking to. It was great to be able to have this bill come through the committee, in FEC. It’s a great bill, and we saw the benefits of the IFF in Hamilton with Te Awa Lakes, obviously, with the $50 million levy which will help unlock 2,500 houses north of Hamilton. In fact, through that infrastructure levy, we’re actually able to unlock another additional 5,000 houses north of that.
It’s great to see this bill come through the House in a relatively bipartisan way. We understand that this legislation has been in place for some time, actually, but it was unable or struggled to be deployed in a way which was efficient and in a way which was able to be taken up by developing communities and, in fact, for council communities to understand what was being involved, as well. I applaud the work of the House, in fact, that we can reach a relatively bipartisan agreement tonight on this bill, because this really is about unlocking all sorts of housing and development.
But I do wonder about the bill—in Hamilton, we had the housing infrastructure funding loan, which we called the HIF, and we were trying to “biff the HIF to get an IF”. It was a little bit problematic. The IFF is good, but we do wonder if it should be called just the “IF” bill rather than the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Amendment Bill, just for clarity. But I appreciate the Minister has a lot on his plate. I’d be interested in his thoughts on that.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing) (20:27): Let me take a brief call on this one. It’s interesting the member raises the point around the name. We did go through a bit of an exercise around this. I mean, the starting point is the Act that we already have, which is the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act, so that’s always a good start.
I wanted to include something around housing growth in the bill. I was very keen on housing growth, because ultimately—well, urban growth, housing growth. I don’t know, people get worked up when you say you’re an urbanist, but, you know, urban growth is good—
Simon Court: Nimby?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, yeah—let’s not go there. All housing growth is good growth. But I was defeated by my colleagues, and it looks like I’ll be defeated by the House, as well. Oh, well, these things happen.
Hon Phil Twyford: What about the “Urban Growth Agenda Bill”?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: The urban growth agenda: well, it’s good to see the urban growth agenda is continuing. We called it something else—it’s called “Going for Housing Growth”—but there’s a long lineage of urban growth. I’m pleased to say that some of the ideas developed by the Hon Phil Twyford and his erstwhile expert advisory group, some of whom continue to advise me to this day, have been picked up as we build a better New Zealand.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Bill to be reported with amendment.
House resumed.
CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Amendment Bill and reports it with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.
Motion agreed to.
Report adopted.
English Language Bill
Second Reading
Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Minister of Customs) (20:31): on behalf of the Minister of Justice: I move, That the English Language Bill be now read a second time.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Is there a legislative statement on that? No. Carry on.
Hon CASEY COSTELLO: This bill seeks to formally recognise in legislation that English is an official language of New Zealand. This ensures that all three of New Zealand’s official languages have their own legislation reflecting their status and specific circumstances. An official language is generally understood to be a language that is recognised by a State for use in Government functions such as legislation, courts, education, and public administration. The bill meets a National - New Zealand First commitment to legislate for the official status of the English language. The bill provides clarity and certainty in legislation on the official status of the English language in New Zealand.
I thank those who took the time to make submissions on the bill during select committee. I understand that those who supported the bill acknowledged its importance for clarifying the long-accepted official status of English in legislation, while those opposed were concerned about the necessity of the bill and its possible social or operational impacts. The bill is declaratory in nature. It simply puts the official status of the English language in legislation. It does not create any rights or obligations. The bill does not impact the protections and revitalisation efforts afforded to te reo Māori or New Zealand Sign Language and their relevant legislation. While I acknowledge the concerns of submitters, the bill has been succinctly drafted and will not have any impact beyond legislative recognition of the status of New Zealand’s predominant language.
I understand that submitters raised several other considerations regarding the bill, including an interest in its specifying New Zealand English as the dialect unique to our country, among the many hundreds of dialects of English. New Zealand English is a beautifully rich and distinctive dialect of English that has been shaped by its British origins, our local social history, and sustained contact with te reo Māori. Dialects like New Zealand English evolve naturally, and there is no common easily agreeable definition. Attempting to codify it in legislation risks creating ambiguity and unintended rigidity over time. While New Zealand English will continue to be spoken in our country, its insertion into the bill would create questions, particularly around legislative drafting, interpretation, and use in official context. Internationally, there are also no identified examples of countries that have specified a dialect when legislating for the official status of English.
Submitters also queried whether the bill should clarify the existing status of English and the relationship of the bill with the two other official language Acts. While I thank submitters for noting these points, I consider it not necessary for the bill to include this level of detail to meet its objective and note the higher chance of unintended consequences from the inclusion of additional information in the bill.
I acknowledge the work of the Justice Committee and their recommendation not to make any amendment to the bill. The bill is simple, short, straightforward legislation, a recognition of the official status of the English language in New Zealand. I commend the bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the motion be agreed to.
CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) (20:35): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, I think the Minister of Customs could have added “waste of time” to that list of things that this bill is, because it is clear to everyone who can understand this debate, who lives in this country, or who has ever visited that English is an official language of New Zealand. If there was any doubt in that, I quote from the departmental report which was prepared for the Justice Committee, and it states that New Zealand has three official languages—that’s present tense. We have two official languages which are already contained in statute—te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language—and we have English, which is an official language by its common usage and its dominance over all other languages in New Zealand.
I want to make an important point, which is that it was a huge amount of effort and work to recognise te reo Māori as an official language in 1987. I want to recognise the people who recognised and worked to have te reo Māori recognised as an official language all those years ago. I think that recognising a language like te reo Māori, which does not have the dominance that English has, which is only spoken predominantly in New Zealand, was a really important sign of its importance to New Zealand as a language—and the commitment of the Government of the day and all subsequent Governments towards the revitalisation and renaissance of te reo Māori that, to a certain extent, we’ve seen—but the work on making sure that te reo Māori is just as readily spoken as English in New Zealand is ongoing. We know that a significant amount of effort needs to go into that and a significant amount of resource. If the Government was interested in protecting languages that are precious to New Zealand, that resource should have gone into te reo Māori or into New Zealand Sign Language, which also, in 2006, became an official language of New Zealand. That would have been—if a focus on languages was important to this Government—the appropriate way to do it.
Unfortunately, this is not what this Government has chosen. In the Minister’s speech, she spoke eloquently about te reo Māori, but I think it’s important to understand that this bill in itself, in its existence, forms a challenge to a lot of those revitalisation works that were undertaken around te reo Māori. It is, in fact, offensive to those movements that brought protection to those languages which were under threat in New Zealand. I think it’s important to see it through that lens. I don’t think there’s any evidence at all that this is a necessary thing to have in statute or to clean up our law or is legislatively necessary at all. We heard absolutely nothing to do with that in select committee. Almost two-thirds of submitters actually opposed this bill.
When countries acknowledge an official language, it is often because that language is under threat or is underutilised or is threatened by a more dominant language. That is not the case in New Zealand, where New Zealand English is widely spoken. That brings me to another point. At the select committee, we had a number of submissions around the use of “New Zealand English” as a potential term that could be put into the bill, which we in the Labour Party side were supportive of, because that would have actually given some tiny bit of meaning and relevance to this bill. However, this was not agreed to by other members of the committee. It was also something that officials seemed to have absolutely no appetite to look at, presumably directed by their Minister, and, essentially, it would have taken a lot of work to get New Zealand English into this bill as a definition, which I think was—
Dr David Wilson: 58 countries that have English as their first or second language!
CAMILLA BELICH: I think I can understand what someone on the other side of the House is saying, and that’s because he is speaking English, I understand English, that is the main language of our House—in fact, proving the point of why it is so unnecessary to have this bill, because we all understand each other already.
What a waste of time—what a waste of Parliament’s time. Parliament could be spending time looking at things like the most important issues facing New Zealanders, like the cost of living, like the fact that we just had inflation go up today above the recommended level, like the fact that we have record high levels of unemployment while Australia is having record low levels of unemployment. These are the issues which are really important and facing New Zealand today, not the issue of whether there is statutory recognition of a fundamental truth. What is the Government going to legislate for next? That it should get dark at night, that the sun should rise in the morning, that’s the sky is blue, and that flowers should bloom. These are self-evident truisms of living in this country, just like the fact that English is an official language of this country. This is a total waste of time, and it’s so evident that I honestly don’t even want to use my full call, because it is such a waste of time and it’s offensive to this House.
I just want to mention two important submissions that we got at select committee. One was from Graeme Edgeler, who mentioned that he actually saw that there was some risk in moving English to an official language in statute and that that would potentially be an issue. I think we raised that with officials, and they said they weren’t concerned about that. However, I think it is relevant that legal academics do think that there is some risk in moving from what is a common law - based definition, which is self-evident that it is already an official language, to a statute-based definition. The reason he gave for that was that it may create some confusion.
The second submission I wanted to highlight was from Dr Dean Knight, and he stated that if there was to be statutory recognition of English, then that should be in the Constitution Act alongside the other two languages, thus giving them the same equal footing, essentially. Those were all rejected because they were too much work for, essentially, what was just a nod to people who were opposed to the revitalisation of the Māori language, which is, essentially, the purpose of this bill—to create division, to make people angry and upset, which it certainly achieves, and to not actually make any—
Dr David Wilson: No, it’s not.
Andy Foster: It’s just a common-sense bill.
CAMILLA BELICH: I challenge my colleagues from New Zealand First—we know that it’s come from them—to tell me one reason why you are bringing this bill to the House. One reason. There is no reason, because English is already an official language of New Zealand. The Ministry of Justice says that it is. It says that it already is. We’re legislating something that is already true. What a lost opportunity to use this precious time when you are in Government to actually make a change to impact the lives of New Zealanders. What a wasted opportunity. This is just a total waste of time. It’s a total shame, and I can’t imagine that anyone is going to be able to speak for 10 minutes on what is just absolutely a waste of legislative time, waste of this House’s time, and waste of a legislative mandate on something which is evidently true. Mr Speaker, thank you.
Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (20:42): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Green Party opposes the English Language Bill. Now, I do want to pick up on what some of the other side is actually referring to. I do agree with the previous speaker, Camilla Belich, that this is a bill that is a complete waste of this Parliament’s time. However, as MPs and also as members of this Parliament, it is also our duty to speak on bills. I think that if the other side doesn’t want us to take 10 minutes to speak on this bill and criticise it for the fact that it’s wasting this Parliament’s time, they also have the choice to take away the bill in the first place. They don’t have to introduce it at all. I think it’s very easy to blame it on people who are just simply doing their job, as opposed to not introduce such a frivolous, frivolous bill into Parliament in the first place.
In saying that, this is quite a short bill. I think, as we heard from Justice Committee, it’s also a bill that nobody is really sure what exactly it will do other than create division in our communities, race-baiting, and doing all of the things that that they are trying to do to distract from the fact that we’re seeing some of the worst unemployment rates, some of the worst rates of our young people going overseas, and some of the worst issues we’ve had with the cost of living. It is a distraction of a bill—it is a distraction of a bill. I love it when the Government side is actually spending more time and effort to heckling than they are going to possibly give to a semi-decent speech. The reason we say that is because there is nothing to latch on to.
Now, we have heard mention of some of our submitters—Dr Dean Knight being one of them—that suggest that this, potentially, should have gone into either the Legislation Act or potentially the Constitution Act. That would give it, I guess, a better rationale for why this is being produced, but there’s actually nothing in here that suggests that. It is important for us to look at things both from a linguistic perspective but also looking at it in terms of the broader context. Now, one of the things we have to look at is the fact that English in Aotearoa New Zealand is already a de facto language. A de facto language, particularly when you’re looking at lingua franca, does not actually require it to have an official status. You do not need to make it into a de jure language or have de jure status. There is no reason for that. As we see in the United Kingdom and also Australia—the United Kingdom as the progenitor, I guess, of the English language doesn’t even have English as an official language, because it is the lingua franca. It is so common. It’s a de facto language. It does not need to be an official language. There is no reason for that. In fact, in England, if you’re looking at the way that their legislation is drafted, they are still using Norman French in some instances, because of the French history, when you’re looking at England.
I also think that one of the things that we have mentioned is the fact that we’re specifically looking at New Zealand English. Again, this is something that, during the selection committee process, we heard, because it is important for us to know, with that being the case, what English we should use. If you’re looking at the official Oxford dictionary of New Zealand English, you will see that kupu Māori are peppered throughout that dictionary to recognise the specific and unique position of English here in Aotearoa New Zealand. That is important because I think all of the people who are being riled up by the former Deputy Prime Minister might be thinking that, with this bill, they’re able to do away with te reo Māori, but you know what? Te reo Māori—particularly as kupu Māori—is already within the English dictionary here in Aotearoa New Zealand. That is an important point to make. But also, at the same time, what is unclear is what English should then be used. You could use, then, American English, for example, which has completely different spellings, completely different terminology. You could technically use Middle English. Let’s bring back Shakespearean English. I think that is interesting to consider.
Those are the some of the considerations that we did have. Now, when you’re looking at submissions, there are submissions that were made on the issues that we have in a bill that provides no additional context and what it would mean in terms of previous uses of English where it did not have official language status and, particularly, how that would be challenged under a New Zealand court. I think that is also an important constitutional perspective to consider because, again, that will create issues with this particular legislation. Now, you would hear the Government side say, “You know what? This is not done in a way that is going to undermine our other two official languages, both in terms of te reo Māori but also New Zealand Sign language.” Now, it’s important to remind this House that an official language status, globally, is often used to protect languages under threat in order to protect the resource of their survival and revival. We see that with both New Zealand Sign Language and te reo Māori. We do not need that for English.
It’s also important to note that in the former Deputy Prime Minister’s own first reading speech, he specifically referenced that the issue that they are trying to address with this bill is the overuse of te reo Māori. But, at the same time, they are now backtracking and saying that, actually, that isn’t the reason. That is absolutely one of the reasons why a bill like this has been produced. It’s absolutely one of the reasons why you see that the Government has spent a lot of taxpayer money changing the order of our signage around so that English goes first, as opposed to te reo Māori. This is the level of pettiness and pettifogging we’re seeing from this particular Government.
It’s also important, I think, from an ethnic community and from a migrant perspective, that bills like this are going to be, once again, used to undermine our migrant communities here if they don’t speak English fluently. Growing up here, I can tell you the number of times that I got criticised—I probably still get criticised—if I used anything other than English. This will also put my communities at risk. I think that is also an important consideration—something that I think did come up in select committee from submitters as well.
When we are looking at the movement globally—and I want to draw on a few examples. Particularly, I want to draw on some of the examples globally of indigenous language revitalisation. An example I want to draw on is Wales and the Welsh language, because in part of their futures Act and futures plan, one of them is around language revitalisation. There’s a lot of synergy between what Wales is doing in terms of Welsh revitalisation and what we’re doing here in terms of the revitalisation of te reo Māori.
It is important to note that when we are looking at language revitalisation, as a linguist, I know painfully well that once a language is gone, it is very, very hard to bring it back. We see the extinction of indigenous languages globally all too often, in recent years as well. There should be a concerted effort for us to be able to preserve some of our indigenous languages, and this bill does not help with that.
With the Welsh language, we’re seeing greater resources from Government being put into the learning of Welsh. Welsh is featured more prominently in their signage, and in the first location, because it is something that they genuinely are proud of. I don’t think that this bill will move towards the—
Andy Foster: Can we be proud of English?
Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: Yeah, they still use English; they still have the signage in English.
Andy Foster: No, can we be proud of English?
Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: I mean, the point is—oh, this is an excellent question: are we proud of English? English is a utilitarian language. We are using it. There are different ways for you to be proud of English. But is it something that we should be, like, say, proud of hearing in Aotearoa New Zealand at the expense of other indigenous languages and other languages in general? Absolutely not. I don’t see the same people who are criticising whether we should be proud of the English language also come out strongly and say they are proud of te reo Māori, they’re proud of New Zealand Sign Language. If they are going to be doing that, then they can do that with all of the languages, as opposed to just singling out one language above others. The fact that they’re even asking that question is the epitome of hypocrisy.
I do want to reiterate, then, that this is a bill that the Green Party will not support, and this is something that is incredibly frivolous, done by a frivolous Government. We will not be here for that.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Just before I call the next speaker—Mr Foster, I do note that New Zealand First has a call. A continuous commentary from that side of the House probably would be better substituted standing on your feet.
SIMON COURT (ACT) (20:53): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today is a wonderful day, where this Parliament gets to debate the English Language Bill. English, the indigenous language of the Anglo-Saxon people, the indigenous language of the people who sailed to New Zealand and who pioneered New Zealand and developed New Zealand in partnership with the Māori people. We must accept that te reo Māori will always be and should be celebrated as a taonga and as an official language of New Zealand, as sign language also is. I’ve had a go at sign language. I have a son with Down’s syndrome, and I tell you what, when kids who can’t speak properly, who are still learning their fine motor skills, need to communicate, sign language is the best way for mum and dad and teachers to do that. But it’s wonderful that we’re celebrating the English language today.
I’m concerned about this tone of sanctimony coming from the Opposition, as if there’s a problem with this. How on earth can there be a problem with celebrating the language of one of our nation’s founders, those people who came from the British Empire, what we call the Anglosphere? We’re still part of that Anglosphere. New Zealand is one of the Five Eyes powers, along with Canada, the United States, Great Britain, and Australia. What we have in common is the English language.
What I’ve heard from the Opposition tonight is an unsubtle challenge to our history. They’ve tried to apply some kind of revisionist approach, almost rejecting the things that unify us, like the language that we share, and tried to tell us that if we support this legislation, we’re somehow—you know, without saying it—not good people. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The English-speaking people and all of those others—Dutch, Scottish—
Cameron Luxton: Dalmatian.
SIMON COURT: —Dalmatian—thank you, Mr Luxton—who came to New Zealand, when they got here, it turned out that the language that was best suited to communicate was English, and so that is why it is our common language.
If we think about all the wonderful English language writers who’ve contributed to this wonderful democracy and this freedom we have today—I think of John Locke, the father of liberalism, who wrote the Two Treatises of Government in English; Thomas Paine, who wrote—
Cameron Luxton: A Scot, by the way.
SIMON COURT: —a Scot—Rights of Man; and Mary Wollstonecraft, who wrote the rights of women, that treatise about why women should have equal rights and access to education and social services and opportunity as men. They were writers who wrote in English to reach the greatest number of people.
Let’s get real: why is the English language important today? Well, firstly, it unifies us. We share a cultural tradition. But it’s also important for conveying basic information. In road safety and engineering, road signs, safety signs, no matter what your mother tongue is, when you see a safety sign in English, you understand it. When I travel around the world, I see safety signs in English in countries where English is not the first language, because it turns out that’s the best way to communicate the safety message. When people go to a hospital, they expect to see directions to the ward in English. If your pilot is flying a plane, you want to know he’s communicating with air traffic control in English. That is the international language of air traffic control, as it is for maritime safety.
This is an entirely practical bill. It reinforces the fact that we have a shared heritage, a shared language, and a shared culture, and we should celebrate that tonight. I commend this bill to the House.
Hon MELISSA LEE (National) (20:58): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am a speaker of English as a second language. I am a migrant. I came to this country and didn’t speak English as well as I do now. When I learnt that New Zealand has three official languages—I found out that it was English, Māori, and sign language—I thought it was fantastic, only to find out that, in fact, there were only two official languages: te reo Māori and sign language. English was just one of those things that just came about because everybody spoke English. This bill actually makes it official that it is part of the official language of New Zealand, making it three official languages in New Zealand: English, te reo Māori, and sign language. The fact that English is added doesn’t affect any other aspect of the other two languages being official languages. I think people across over there should stop scaring people. I commend the bill.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): This is a five-minute split call.
HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE (Te Pāti Māori—Hauraki-Waikato) (20:59): [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]
[Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]
I just want to reiterate the echoes of the left from Camilla Belich and Lawrence Xu-Nan on what a waste of time, what a waste of a bill, to be bringing in a bill like this, where the Ministry of Justice has already recognised the English language as an official language of this country.
When we compare the te reo Māori to English, people from across the House are saying, “Well, what is the importance of making sure that the English language is an official language of this country?”. It is because there’s no threat to the English language. There’s no attacks on people who are speaking English in this country.
When we think of Ngā Tamatoa, who brought in the petihana in 1972, brought in by Hana Te Hemara with 30,000 signatures, it was because only 5 percent of tamariki Māori were able to speak te reo Māori at that time. There’s obviously more than 5 percent of people in this country who can speak English. When we think of te reo Māori, we think of—a lot of people are comparing between English and te reo Māori. What I’ll tell you is: go and tell that to the kohanga reo waiting list for the 2,000 tamariki who can’t access their language across the country. Go tell that to the tamariki or the students or the PhD students or the academics who have a student loan for relearning and revitalising their own language. Go tell that to the rūruhi and koroheke and the paepae across the motu who have taken three generations to revitalise their language. Those affect us over three different generations, three different generations and more: a whole stolen generation; not only here in Aotearoa but across the world, indigenously—when we think of Aboriginal, when we think of Amazonians, when we think of multiple different indigenous countries around the world who are trying to revitalise and protect their language.
Legal experts have stated that this is unusual in a predominantly English-speaking country because countries only tend to legislate when they’re worried about preserving language. They’re also worried that this bill could negatively impact the use of te reo Māori, and 61 percent of people opposed this in the submissions and in the Justice Committee. It was also stated that Hobson’s Pledge have been very outspoken advocates on making English an official language. They are currently hosting a petition which has over 33,000 signatures and being lobbied. I just want to ask Parliament or ask the Government: what are the actions in place to revitalise and to protect te reo Māori under the 2030 Whakatupuranga Rua Mano as well, because what we have seen is $30 million cut from Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, we have seen $36.1 million put towards a reprioritised Māori education package. Then we bring in bills to make English an official language.
What I will say is: what is the threat that is imposed on the English language and why is it that Parliament has to have protections over the English language when we should be putting funding, we should be putting resources, and we should be putting protection mechanisms in place over te reo Māori because, also, symbolism matters and we have seen the removal of te reo Māori signage throughout all Government agencies. So what does that say to us as a country when we’ve come so far from 1972—te reo Māori being an official language—to 2026? We now come to places where funding has been cut from our language. We have seen reprioritisation of signage and then we have bills of the English language being an official language, when it is already an official language from the Ministry of Justice.
HŪHANA LYNDON (Green) (21:04): [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]
[Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]
The English language dominates New Zealand. It dominates our airwaves, it dominates our workplaces, it dominates every part of our society. It’s spoken by over 96 percent of our population, here in Aotearoa. For what reason does it need statutory protection? It has been used as a language to colonise our ancestors and our people, and in the loss of our indigenous language through the harms and the acts and omissions of the Crown. The use of legislation to recognise the importance of te reo Māori as a taonga—which of course came through the WAI 11 claim and subsequently recognised in 1987—was something that had to be fought for. It was something that our ancestors and our grannies fought for, for legislative recognition, because through that legislative recognition comes resource, comes opportunity to grow and promote and provide visibility for our indigenous language of Aotearoa; the same with sign language.
English language is not at risk when we have a complete dominance of that language across our community and society. Why is it needed to be firmed up in legislation when already we see, just by the spike of a pen and a coalition agreement, that te reo Māori is denigrated and undermined, where we were moving hand in hand as English and Māori in our signage and the way that we’re articulating and representing ourselves in our local communities but also to the world. We’re now in an instance whereby English language is being given primacy in the way that our people, our children are now seeing themselves and what is uniquely Aotearoa.
It pains me to have to point out the fact that the English language has been used as a weapon, as a patu, on te iwi Māori through successive generations, because I thought we had passed that. I thought we had passed that and we had come to a point and a maturity in Aotearoa whereby we celebrated te reo Māori as a taonga, and it was given legislative recognition in order to ensure that we saw the embedding of language, culture, and heritage in the way that our Public Service moved, in our schools and education, in our broadcasting—which of course brought to life Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori, our Māori broadcasters, and the many resources and the use of te reo Māori in our communities.
I worry that this legislation could then be used as a patu against our migrant communities; that you don’t speak English good enough here in Aotearoa. When I consider Pacific, Asian communities who may not have sufficient English language—that it could be used now as a patu against those who are still on their language journey. These are some of the concerns that we heard in the Justice Committee. In practice, this bill is a waste of time, he moumou. It’s offensive to my whakapapa, for my future generations, and for the young people of New Zealand who love te reo Māori.
RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (21:09): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Look, I just want to bring a calming voice. You know, some of the Opposition said that this was a waste of time and yet they took their full calls; they took five minutes and 10 minutes to tell us this is a waste of time. They talked about how this bill is going to diminish te reo. Well, I can assure them it’s not. In fact, this bill is one page. It has five lines on it and it makes something which we all took for granted: an official language.
I am pleased to say that the English Language Bill is just a little bit of legislative hygiene. We can let our light shine, and it doesn’t diminish anyone else’s light. We can all share our three universal languages together. This just makes it official. Nothing to see here. Stay calm, carry on. Everything will be ka pai. Thank you.
Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central) (21:10): Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. Well, what strikes me is the fragility of the Government. They see a sign with a couple of kids on it and it says “Kura”, and they’re, like, “What does that mean? Why is there a pedestrian crossing here? Oh my God, I’m so unsettled. I need it to be officially in English.” They’re crossing their legs, going, “Oh, I need to go, but there’s a room called ‘Wharepaku’ and I don’t know what it is!” It just strikes me that there they are and all of a sudden they’re afraid. In their fragile lives, they want to make sure that the comfort, the blanket of the English language is thrown over them: “Don’t worry. You won’t have to see anything foreign.”
The terrible thing is this: here they are trying to protect the English language, and it really diminishes the struggle of Māori, who for decades upon decades had a genuine struggle for the life of te reo. It was on its knees and dying. The elders who held that treasure were fading away, and it wasn’t being passed on, because of the failures of the Crown. There were a group of people there who fought tooth and nail to preserve that language, to create kōhanga reo, to pass on that language tradition. And they’ve done so successfully. It’s a great example of a language that has been brought from the brink of extinction to become a flourishing language. And that terrifies the Government!
Arena Williams: Boo!
Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: That’s right, thank you. Exactly. Boo! They’re like, “Oh my goodness, we can’t have a piece of legislation which says Māori is an official language and sign language is an official language, because what happens to English? Oh my God, is it going to fade away?”
It’s just so stupid to have a piece of legislation to do this, because we know that English is an official language. And, let’s face it, it is the dominant official language. You don’t get a court summons in te reo or sign language. You don’t get a speeding ticket in te reo. The Order Paper is not in te reo. The language of Government and the dominant language of New Zealand is English. This is like A Few Good Men. You know, this is like Code Red. You don’t need it written down for it to be known that English is the official language of New Zealand. So it is an assault on Māori to do this. It is an assault to say, “Look, we can flex our muscles and say we are going to make English an official language.”, even though it is pervasive throughout New Zealand.
Look, the fact of the matter is that this bill does run risks, because all of a sudden we’ve got these three official languages. If we’re going to say they are on an equal footing and we have three legal official languages set in legislation, there’s an assumption there that they’re equal.
Cameron Luxton: They are.
Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Well, you can say that but try writing a university exam in te reo and see what happens. I’ll tell you, it doesn’t get marked, not unless you’ve given them six weeks’ notice and they’ve organised an interpreter. Turn up to court and give evidence in te reo and you’ll be in trouble, because they want to have lots of notice. Whilst there is some availability to use te reo in official channels, try applying for a job with the Public Service in te reo and you won’t get very far. They’ll want to know that you can speak English, and they won’t be too worried if you can’t speak te reo. Let’s not pretend, let’s not fool ourselves, that the three languages are equal. English remains the dominant language, and this Government wants to stamp that, make that mark, because it’s afraid, it’s concerned that all of a sudden te reo is going to flourish and, as Simon Court says, the great Anglo-Saxon tradition—which came from Germany by the way—is going to be lost.
Well, look, we are here in a Pacific nation on the edge of Polynesia. The idea that we need to in some way reinforce and to spend hours of legislative time, the Justice Committee doing other rubbish, including tonight, such as move-on orders and all of the sentencing reform, is distracted. It’s distracted by a ridiculous and trivial bill like this. People can’t afford to pay their rent, and we’re talking about the English Language Bill! We’ve got increasing homelessness, and we’re talking about the English Language Bill! Doctors’ fees are up by 20 percent, and we’re talking about the English Language Bill, because that’s what this Government is interested in. It’s not interested in solving the real problems of New Zealanders today; it’s interested in fringe issues and its own fragility.
GREG FLEMING (National—Maungakiekie) (21:16):
[Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]
[Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]
DAN ROSEWARNE (Labour) (21:16): It’s at times like this that you wonder what problem this bill is actually trying to solve. As mentioned, we’ll support it, because English is already the language most New Zealanders use every day and because, frankly, we would like Parliament to move on and focus on the issues that are actually keeping people awake at night.
As the bill itself acknowledges, English is already New Zealand’s de facto official language, and this legislation largely puts into law what already exists in practice, as we all know. The reality is that, at the heart of Labour’s position, we support this bill, but we struggle to see why this has been such a priority for the Government. Across New Zealand, families are stretching every dollar further than they used to. Rent is up, power bills are up, groceries are more expensive, and people are looking at what’s happening in this House tonight and asking the question “Is this really absolutely necessary?”
Arena Williams: “Is this all you’ve got?”
DAN ROSEWARNE: It’s all they’ve got, absolutely. This English Language Bill doesn’t actually lower anyone’s power bill. It doesn’t make doctors appointments easier to afford. It doesn’t create a single new job. What it does is confirm something most New Zealanders already know, and that is that 7 November is coming. And they want change.
Now, we’re not opposing this bill; this bill is also explicit in recognising English. It does not alter the status of English, or for that matter, te reo Māori or New Zealand Sign Language as official languages. But, while the Government has spent months pursuing legislation like this bill, Labour’s focus has been on people. We’ve focused on helping families address the cost of living, we’ve focused on affordable healthcare, and we’ve focused on making sure people get ahead through hard work. Christopher Luxon promised New Zealanders that he would tackle the cost of living. Instead, life has become more expensive. That’s why so many people feel that this Government has lost touch with what matters in their daily lives.
The irony is that the English Language Bill is being debated at exactly the same time that people are looking for practical solutions, and they want to know how they’re going to afford the next grocery shop. They want to know why their power bill keeps going up, and they want to know why it is becoming harder to make their household budget actually work. Labour believes that we can fix these issues right now. We can make life easier with free GP visits, free prescriptions, free maternity scans, and cheaper public transport fares, and then also make solar power more accessible for families, real measures that put money back into people’s pockets. At the same time, we need to grow the economy, not through slogans or distractions like this bill but by tackling the small businesses that create jobs, helping them out, helping our communities, and supporting apprentices into learning a trade and investing in New Zealand’s future so that more opportunity stays here at home. That’s why this English Language Bill that we’re debating tonight feels so disconnected, because it’s so disconnected from the conversations that most New Zealanders are having around their kitchen table. For most people, English is already the language they speak. They work in English, and they raise their families using English, and the question they’re asking isn’t whether English is an official language, I’ll tell you that. The question they’re asking is why everything costs so much.
Labour will support this bill, but we don’t understand what it seeks to do, and we don’t understand why it’s necessary. I’ll tell you what, I’m looking forward to 7 November, when the people actually get a say and we’re not getting these distractions like this bill. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga) (21:20): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a common-sense bill. I commend it to the House.
Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (21:20): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I absolutely stand with colleagues on this side of the House who have explained why this legislation is unnecessary and is an absolute waste of Parliament’s time. Many speakers on this side of the House have pointed out that there is no need to protect the English language. It continues to flourish. About a billion people speak it around the world. Almost two-thirds of submitters to this bill opposed it primarily on the basis that they didn’t think it was needed, that it was a waste of time, and that legislation on official languages are usually written to protect languages and to promote languages that might be under threat.
I mean, we have a history in this country where people have been beaten for speaking te reo Māori. It needed to be protected. We have a history of the deaf community who fought for decades for New Zealand Sign Language to be protected as an official language, for it to be promoted, and as a result of the New Zealand Sign Language Act, it is now used in courts. It can be promoted in Government departments, and Government has an obligation to ensure access to that language so that it is protected. It is recognised as deaf culture. It is recognised culturally and as a linguistic identity of Aotearoa New Zealand. It’s for those reasons that both te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language are protected as official languages of this country. And yet we have a Government, a party, and a justice Minister who has said that this would not be a priority for him or his party, but have populist bedfellows. And so here we are, protecting English as an official language when we could instead be using the House’s time to be promoting consent legislation, which my colleague Camilla Belich tried to introduce today as a member’s bill in this House, but was voted down by Government members because they’d rather, apparently, spend their time promoting and protecting English as an official language.
Members on this side at the Justice Committee, I understand, tried to protect New Zealand English. At least if we’re going to be protecting English in some form, perhaps it should be one that is closer to the identity of Aotearoa New Zealand. But no, that was also voted down by members opposite. As my colleague from the Green Party, Lawrence Xu-Nan, said: what are we protecting here today? Is it Shakespearean English? Because perhaps that does have a place in Aotearoa New Zealand, but on a stage in a theatre, not necessarily protected in statute.
Thus, my noble friends, I say this. This bill is but a trifling scroll, fit perchance to line a drawer, yet unworthy of the sweat and breath we spend upon it. For while we wrangle over the primacy of a tongue already spoken by most, the realm groans beneath weightier burdens: jobs, homes, access to health, real action on the cost of living—that is what New Zealanders want us to be debating and to be taking action on, not this drivel.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Have we eaten of the insane root that takes the reason prisoner?
Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula) (21:24): I rise to also speak in support of this English Language Bill. As a former doctor, this actually reminds me of one of the finest examples of literature in medicine, which is Samuel Shem’s The House of God. The Fat Man, the central character, teaches all of his juniors that sometimes the very best one can do is as much of nothing as possible. In that vein, this bill may be one of the finest bills that this Parliament has considered, and in that vein, I commend the bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): You win, Ms Weenink.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the English Language Bill be now read a second time.
Ayes 101
New Zealand National 48; New Zealand Labour 34; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Noes 20
Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill
Second Reading
Debate resumed from 2 April.
SIMON COURT (ACT) (21:26): ACT supports the Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill. It’s an omnibus bill and complements the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill—which ACT championed changes to in Opposition—and the Financial Services Providers (Registration and Disputes Resolution) Amendment Bill, but the most important thing this bill does is it amends the climate-related disclosures. ACT opposed the green and red tape of forcing New Zealand businesses to write a report—an ESG, an Environmental and Social Good report—telling the Government exactly what they’re doing about the climate and the planet. I tell you what companies should be doing: making sure their businesses are sustainable, that they can produce goods that customers want to buy, they treat their workers fairly and pay them well, and that they fulfil their legal obligations. That is why ACT is very pleased to see the reporting requirements for climate-related disclosures much reduced, although not as much as if ACT was in Government alone—we would have got rid of it all together. But this is still a wonderful improvement. I commend this bill to the House.
Dr DAVID WILSON (NZ First) (21:28): I rise to speak on behalf of New Zealand First to the Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill. This bill seeks to simplify and streamline the regulation of financial services, remove undue compliance costs for participants, and improve consumer outcomes. It aims to create a more efficient and robust financial sector whilst maintaining high standards of accountability. It shifts us towards a single market licence regime under the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). In summary, by reducing compliance costs, streamlining regulation, and enhancing the FMA’s oversight, this legislation will foster a robust and efficient financial sector. I commend this bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Francisco Hernandez. Oh, sorry. Ricardo Menéndez March.
RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (21:28): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s always a pleasure when Francisco and I get confused. It’s definitely not the first time, nor the second, and probably not the third either. On this bill, we were quite happy to support this bill at the first reading because, upon first impression, there were some commendable things that the Government was trying to do with this bill. I do want to focus on basically the same thing that the ACT Party made their speeches about, but from the opposite angle on why we have now switched our support from being in favour of this bill to now opposing it. It’s a particularly problematic thing for the Government and the political parties within it to, rather than focus perhaps on the genuinely commendable bits, actually celebrate what I think is just a longstanding line of climate denialism and rhetoric that seems to be counterintuitive to the best available evidence that we do need businesses to actually basically disclose their climate-related risks and opportunities.
I think particularly the challenge that we have here is that the justification for these changes, in my view, were not substantiated. This regime did not have enough time to actually go its course, and for us to actually see the real benefits or potential changes that we would have seen. I think it was quite rushed. And particularly, when we note that the Amendment Paper 446 actually raises the threshold by over tenfold, it seems very, very excessive to, basically, have it go from $60 million market capitalisation reported debt to $1 billion, which is a massive jump and it will exclude a large amount of players.
We’ve also got the amendment removing the Managed Investment Scheme from the regime and adjusting liability settings to remove deemed director liability for certain entity breaches, as well as provide that the directors and entities are not required to have the same high level of evidence for the climate disclosures as they do for the financial disclosures. I think if we take this change, on Amendment Paper 446, into sort of the broader suite of Government policies, it does leave us wondering whether this Government genuinely considers the impacts of climate change on businesses as well as the workers that make up those businesses. I think the answer is no. Particularly, you look at political parties like the ACT Party, who, in their contribution, talked about what they would do if they were alone in Government and go even further. It really tells us that the Government’s priority here is not to listen to the best available evidence or to actually engage in a robust way with what could be a balanced way to actually have businesses report on their climate-related risks, while acknowledging, perhaps, that some players may face some disproportionate barriers and trying to resolve those as opposed to just simply raising the threshold and exclude most players from it.
I think, also, if we think about the Government’s position on this bill and their supposed support for businesses—you know, when I’ve been out doorknocking in my electorate, what I’m hearing is small businesses feel like this Government has left them behind. We are seeing that the cost of living crisis is putting a humongous strain on those very same small businesses due to the fact that consumers just simply don’t have anything to spend on those. And I go back to the fact that if this was a Government with a legislative agenda to better support small businesses, to address the cost of living crisis, we would see amendments that would move us towards that.
I am particularly concerned that Amendment Paper 446, while there may have been some ability in the select committee that was in charge of this bill for it to have submissions, I think that wasn’t something that the Government brought forward very clearly as part of this agenda—like the fact that it came halfway through the process, and it wasn’t particularly tidy either. It does concern us that the Government seems to just be using any opportunity in their legislative agenda to undermine climate policy. We know that, ultimately, as extreme weather events ramp up, the reality is that these climate disclosures actually become all the more important.
So it is a shame that the Green Party has to switch our position on this bill due to this Amendment Paper because, ultimately, having requirements on the communication of the price of services, and other bits in the bill initially, was something that we actually thought had merit. But, unfortunately, we can no longer support this bill due to the climate denialist Amendment Papers that were brought forward as part of it.
RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (21:33): Thank you, sir. The Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill, second reading, is one of the three parts in the holy trinity of removing red tape of the financial regulations framework. It is great to see this advance through to second reading, and, of course, to lift the climate-related disclosures from $60 million to $1 billion—seems much more fit for purpose. Removing red tape, we are fixing the basics and building the future.
REUBEN DAVIDSON (Labour—Christchurch East) (21:34): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, it’s a pleasure to stand and have a full 10 minutes to take a call on this Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill.
Hon Rachel Brooking: $60 million compared with $1 billion.
REUBEN DAVIDSON: Absolutely—agreeing, for those who can’t see the member behind me but can hear her, that the threshold shift from $60 million to $1 billion is a significant one and deserves at least a further nine minutes and 38 seconds in this contribution to the House, because we, on this side of the House, are opposing this bill.
I don’t want to simply state a position and sit back down because I don’t think that adequately serves the purpose of the debating chamber of this House, in which ideas such as this, as they progress through the various stages, are assessed and argued and debated by members in this House. There are a number of areas of concern, and ultimately it comes back to that point that was at the very beginning of my contribution, which is that progress should protect people and it should protect the environment. The risk with the way this moves, and the speed at which it is moving, is that both of those will miss out simply to try and cut red tape.
Now, I want to come to the bill and some of the purposes or aims—objectives—of this bill. It is part of a trio of three that are related to the financial services that the Government is progressing as a package now. The other bills are the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill and the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Amendment Bill. I’ve been on the speaking list on a number of occasions to deliver this speech, and, for various reasons, we’ve never quite made it to this point. So tonight, it’s great to finally be able to get here and to go through these speaking notes and to explore some of the—
Dan Bidois: Good things take time.
REUBEN DAVIDSON: They do take time. And that’s exactly what I’ll take tonight as I step through these notes to make sure that we thoroughly explore some of the concerns from this side of the House.
Now, the first is—
Hon Rachel Brooking: $60 million.
REUBEN DAVIDSON: Well, that was the first, in fact, the $60 million to $1 billion, but one of these is around the policy shifts that weaken consumer protections and climate commitments. And it’s not lost on me that the other contribution I’ve made in the House today was for a special debate that we had immediately following question time today, in which we examined a $60 million payout to a cement company in New Zealand to ensure that that cement company can continue to operate and trade here in New Zealand.
Now, the Minister of Finance spoke in the House about some of the conditions that have been put around the granting of that $60 million of financial support, but the consideration that seemed lost in that contribution to keep that company afloat was the environmental impact. In fact, there were some very damning words from the Minister of Finance, that were heard several times in the House this afternoon, relayed by other members, around her disdain for the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund, which we, previously in Government—Labour—had established to support the deindustrialisation of New Zealand and the decarbonisation of New Zealand. It’s a pity to see that, in much the same way as that has been abolished and walked back so quickly by this Government, those same environmental considerations are, in fact, no longer effected into this bill and into the amendments that it sets out to make.
Now, a further concern here is around the reduction in the requirements around staff training, around monitoring, and around the regular review of fear conduct programmes before the programme has really had enough time to bed in. This is of particular concern because it’s about ensuring that you look after, as I said earlier, the people that are affected by the changes that these amendments make, but also by the people working in these organisations. Those people need the training and the protections as well. One of the trends that we’re seeing at the moment, particularly in the context of artificial intelligence (AI), is a real shortcutting and a real lack of training in workplaces for workers. If you want to know what that looks like worn out in statistics: just in February of this year, we’re seeing estimates that in some workplaces you have 44 percent of the workforce relying on AI. Nothing wrong with that, potentially, but only 13 percent of that workforce is getting any training in the use of AI. So there, what you’re looking at, is a real gap between the ability to be trained and effectively use a pretty incredible productivity tool such as AI, or, in the case of the Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill, a new set of operating frameworks for people in the finance sector.
If there aren’t the adequate provisions in this bill to ensure that they receive the training and guidance that they need, not only does this bill let those people down; it also lets down the people that they should be serving. There’s a real concern there.
Finally, one of the other concerns is that there’s a risk that these turn the conduct of financial institutions (CoFI) requirements into a box-ticking exercise rather than a really strong system that will treat people fairly. Fairness, I think, is something that, in New Zealand, we should and have previously been very proud to say we have. I think the risk in moving legislation like this through, at the speed that it’s being moved through, and without taking people and the environment properly into consideration, is that it’s not fair legislation that actually serves New Zealanders well. I think we should be concerned about that. I know that there are a number of amendments that may seek to address that in the future.
Ultimately, I think we’re not saying let’s not progress, because we’re a very progressive group on this side of the House. But what we’re saying is that we shouldn’t have progress where it leaves people behind or where it walks back our commitments to the environment.
Hon Rachel Brooking: It’s not progress; it’s going backwards.
Arena Williams: It’s not progress.
REUBEN DAVIDSON: That’s exactly right. From my colleagues here, if you didn’t catch them on the microphone, they said, “It’s not progress; we’re going backwards.” That’s absolutely what’s happening with this bill in this sector, but it’s also what’s happening for so many New Zealanders right now—New Zealanders who, previously, hadn’t faced such severe struggles with the cost of living as they do now. Every week, in my electorate office, I meet with families, with individuals, with people who are struggling with the cost of living, and they cannot believe that a Government that came in on the promise of fixing the cost of living has, in fact, made it worse.
Dan Bidois: Back to the bill.
REUBEN DAVIDSON: Not only have they made it worse; they don’t seem to care about the fact that they’ve made it worse at all. In fact, when I bring it up in the House just now, members say, “Get back to the bill.” They don’t want us to talk about the fact that they have made things so much worse.
I want to acknowledge that it is very, very tough going for many Kiwis right now. Bills like this and removing the provisions for the protection of people in the finance sector, customers in the finance sector, very much risk making things tougher. I think we have to ask ourselves the question in the House tonight why there is such haste to push this through, there is such a lack of care or attention to try and pick up the amendments or the suggested changes that will make it better for the people that it seeks to serve.
As I suggested at the beginning of my speech—you’ll remember that; it was only nine minutes ago. I’m sure it feels a lot less. But as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, we do oppose this bill. The reasons that we oppose it—some of them I’ve outlined. Probably, I think, I wouldn’t have wanted to take any less time. I do think that the colleague behind me, the Hon Rachel Brooking, made a very good point when she simply reiterated the shift from $60 million to $1 billion as the threshold.
Our hope is that by the time this comes back to a third reading in the House, having gone through committee of the whole House, we might be able to see ourselves in a position to be able to support the bill by the third reading. But there are still a number of changes that need to be made, and I’ve outlined some of those in my contribution tonight. Where those changes are technical, it’s up to the Government to make it work. So get to work. Make this a better bill. Make it work for people. Make it work for the environment.
DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (21:44): It’s a pleasure to be here at the second reading of what is part three of the holy trinity of bills. Good things take time. This bill has been through a process, and ever since we changed select committee chair on the Finance and Expenditure Committee, things are improving, aren’t they? We’re more efficient. The reporting thresholds have changed. It’s all a part of this Government’s plan to remove red and green tape, remove bureaucracy, and fix the basics and build the future. I commend this bill to the House.
Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (21:45): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill, the Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill, does three things, apparently. It makes changes to some of the minimum requirements under the conduct of financial institutions regime, or the CoFI regime; it expands the licensing and approval powers of the FMA, the Financial Markets Authority; and it slips in some late amendments from the Government that weaken climate-related financial disclosure settings. That seems to be a bit of a trend with this Government, where they sneak in some stuff at the eleventh hour that makes things worse.
On balance of all of those things, we are not supporting this bill at its second reading. However, I am an optimist, and it appears that many of my colleagues on this side are quite optimistic as well, and we’re hoping that there will be some amendments as this bill progresses through the House that will improve the legislation to a point that we can support it on this side of the House.
Many of the changes that we are hoping to see, as my colleague Reuben Davidson has pointed out—he’s already outlined a number of those, and I won’t traverse those. But they are very technical amendments that we’re hoping to see, and, basically, the onus is on the Government to make those changes. Currently, what this bill does or achieves is a series of policy shifts that ultimately, unfortunately, weaken consumer protections and climate commitments across the economy.
I want to take us back a little bit and mention or talk a little bit about why CoFI, the conduct of financial institutions regime, was put in place. One of the reasons was to fix some real systemic issues. Now, many of us would be quite familiar with the sort of popping up of loan sharks across many electorates. I know that my predecessor Labour MP based in the Maungakiekie electorate, Carol Beaumont, brought some legislation to this House when she was a member of Parliament that would crack down on the behaviour or the actions of these loan sharks.
We know that there are many that would offer loans with rates above 30 percent; in some cases, effectively, above 50 percent. They would go about in these trucks as well, offering goods. That was probably slightly different, but also loan sharks would go around, particularly in the more socioeconomically deprived parts of electorates. They would prey on young people, on those who were marginalised, on those who were more vulnerable, single mothers, people who already had large debts, and then get them to take on these consumer loans that would only end in hardship—further hardship—for them and their families. So there was legislation, there was action taken, to crack down on this.
It is against that context or based on that context that we are very careful when we look at or consider legislation that would tilt the balance away from consumer protection in the way that this legislation does. One of the reasons that we oppose this—of course, as I’ve mentioned, CoFI was actually introduced because of repeated and systemic failures by banks and insurers to put their customers first. Now this Government brings in all of these changes that will reduce things like staff training, monitoring, regular reviews of fair conduct programmes—all of that before this particular regime has even had a chance to properly bed in and for us to see what the benefits could be of the regime that was put in place to protect consumers. While we would support proportionate and some efficient regulation—and we support, for example, the FMA getting some more powers for enforcement, taking over investigations, and things like that—we wouldn’t do it at the expense of consumer protection in the way that this bill does.
Finally, as colleagues of mine have also pointed out, one of our key concerns is with Amendment Paper 446 on climate-related disclosures. The change from $60 million in terms of the threshold being raised to $1 billion would, effectively, rule out a number of companies from being required to report, remove entire classes of entities, and soften liability settings, and is bad.
SUZE REDMAYNE (National—Rangitīkei) (21:50): I commend the bill to the House.
CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti) (21:50): How does one follow that, Mr Speaker? [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]
[Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]
I want to pick up on some of the key points that my colleague the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan just made, and, in particular, focus on the consumer. We are here representing consumers, and I want to talk about—of course, in this day and age we want everything to be instant, and we want everything to be “efficient.” But if we, as good lawmakers of this country, don’t actually centralise the wellbeing of consumers, we are failing. Sometimes these proposed efficiencies actually target the vulnerabilities of some of the people we represent, so I want to talk about what lending and access to finance represents to a lot of people—not only the people I represent in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti but the people of New Zealand, who tell us all, each and every day, that the number one priority for them is the cost of living.
Now, instead of making laws that make life easier for them, right now what we’re doing is making the risk of targeting them and their vulnerability. What “easier access to lending”—I say in inverted commas—actually represents to a lot of whānau is the opportunity to provide, and the opportunity for what they perceive to be security for their families. If some of our whānau go into a lender at the moment, say, and there are protections and criteria, often it will be disappointing to them that they may not meet the criteria of the lender under the current legislation. But if we move to a more discretionary model, rather than giving the whānau the dream of having a roof over their heads and somewhere to raise their families, what we give them is the risk of that all being taken away and more. Not only do they no longer have the home, because they haven’t been asked all the questions and they haven’t been given all the information.
Naturally, they’re going to want that dream, that dream of putting their whānau in a home, of having a warm whare for their children, nearby the school, to support their community. But without all the information, what’s truly at risk, with this low deposit and low payments, or whatever—if indeed they get that information, we’re leaving this to the discretion of the lender. Rather, they are left with no house and still the debt, which can actually cripple a family for a generation.
What we also risk is not only whānau entering into this for the security of a home. People will do this for vehicles. In fact, I already know families who are doing this for food, for day-to-day expenses. I know it might seem more efficient to do this, but the big picture, if we truly focus on efficiencies for consumers, is we must consider what this means for their livelihoods.
Another example: we talk about the environmental or the climate rollbacks. We hear, often, “Toitū te whenua.” We know that whānau are heavily impacted by erosion and connection to whenua. But this isn’t just about landslides. This is not just about weather events. Whānau—whānau Māori, whānau Pākehā, [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]
[Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]
whānau in New Zealand—are far more sophisticated about their desire to protect our environment. If, for example, someone’s KiwiSaver is investing in a company that they don’t feel serves the best interests of the taiao, of Papatūānuku, our environment, and this is not disclosed to them, that, too, is not in the best interests of our consumers of New Zealand. They deserve all this information to be given to them, so they make the wise investment that they want to, based on their beliefs and their values of where they want their money to go.
Speaking of climate disclosure, another example is you look, for example, at Māori companies, Māori trusts. Not only do they serve the interests of many, many people—beneficiaries can go into their thousands—they have an obligation to look after the whenua to which they whakapapa, and of which they are kaitiaki—yes, to make economic returns but also to make sure that that whenua is viable for generations to come. But when we talk about climate disclosures, let’s say a Māori trust, a Māori land trust, is considering how to develop their land. Let’s use an example, which, sadly, we all know too well: forestry. Let’s say they were considering planting radiata pines on their land. If, in fact, all the climate information was not disclosed to them, that is detrimental, as I said, for generations. We’ve seen this; it’s playing out in front of us right now. It’s not going to give the economic return that they thought they were investing in for the benefit of their beneficiaries, but also it’s going to be to the detriment of that land, potentially for generations.
I think we need to remind ourselves that, yes, efficiency is great in this day and age, where we can open our phones and have access to lenders, have access to whatever we want in an instant, especially when people are, quite frankly, desperate. People are desperate to the point they are taking out lending for groceries, for fuel, to pay their electricity, to pay their day-to-day bills. When we make them more vulnerable by relaxing criteria for lending, we place the people that we represent at risk.
You’ve heard my colleagues explain that we do want to see some amendments to this. We do want to see things more efficient for our whānau across Aotearoa. We want to see people in homes. We want to see people investing. We want people to know that their KiwiSaver can go into causes and investments that they actually believe in and that will help them see a return. We want whānau to have those opportunities, but they deserve to be fully informed—fully informed not only because they have the right and it is their pūtea going towards this, such as the Māori land trust that I’ve just explained, but fully informed especially when you look at the climate, and because of the fact that kaitiakitanga has just been voted the most beautiful word in the world. That is because of the meaning that goes with that, and the risks that the kaitiaki of our Māori land trusts take, for example, and of all households, they deserve to know what they’re entering into when they embark on these lending experiences. So for that reason, and for the reasons outlaid by my colleagues before me, we do not commend this to the House.
NANCY LU (National) (21:59): I commend the bill to the House.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill be now read a second time.
Ayes 67
New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Noes 55
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): With exquisite timing, the House now stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Sorry—the bill is set down for committee stage on the next sitting day. Now the House stand adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.
The House adjourned at 10 p.m.