Tuesday, 18 August 2026

Tuesday, 18 August 2026

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Start of Sitting Day

Karakia/Prayers

Hon JENNY SALESA (Labour—Panmure-Ōtāhuhu) (14:00): ‘E ‘Otua Māfimafi, kuo mau taa’imālie ‘i ho’o ‘ofá mo e ngaahi tāpuaki hono kotoa. ‘Oku tuku homau lotó ka mau hū atu ke ke malu’i ange mu’a ‘a e Tu’i mo tataki ange ‘emau fua fatongia ‘i he Fale Aleá, ‘aki ‘a e poto faka-e-‘Otua, ‘ofa pea mo e ‘ulungaanga malū ko e ‘uhí ko e mo’ui pea mo e melino ‘a e fonuá. ‘Oku mau kole atu ‘a e ngaahi me’á ni hono kotoa ‘i he huafa ‘o ho ‘Alo pē ‘e taha ko Sīsū Kalaisi ko homau fakamo’ui. ‘Ēmeni.

Debates

Hon Chris Penk—Removal as a Minister

Urgent Debate

SPEAKER: Members, I’ve received a letter from the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 the Prime Minister’s decision to remove the Hon Chris Penk as a Minister. This is a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility.

Loss of Winter Energy Payments

Urgent Debate Declined

SPEAKER: I’ve also a received a letter from Ricardo Menéndez March seeking an urgent debate on reports that people have lost their winter energy payments. There can only be one urgent debate on a sitting day, so I give priority to the one that is most urgent and important.

In recent times, the dismissal of a Minister has led to an urgent debate. Following oral questions, I’ll call on the Leader of the Opposition to move that the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.

Presentation

Petitions

SPEAKER: Eight petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK (14:02):

Petition of East City Community Trust requesting that the House urge the Minister of Education to direct the ministry to work with the trust and Selwyn College to resolve matters relating to the funding and operation of Barfoot & Thompson Stadium in Kohimarama, Auckland

petition of Hakepa requesting that the House require clear and reasonable time frames for complaint progress updates from the Ombudsman

petition of the Hon Dr Nick Smith requesting that the House amend the Te Here ā Nuku (Nelson Tenths) Bill to retain the requirement in the National Parks Act 1980 for all of Abel Tasman National Park to be preserved as far as possible in its natural state in perpetuity as a national park

petition of Jamie Moore-Jones requesting that the House establish stricter regulations and penalties for Government-contracted database providers; and urge the Government to unify cyber-security teams across Government departments

petition of Joanna Davies requesting that the House require organisations providing disability support services or mental health inpatient care to provide disorder-specific training for staff before working with individuals with a particular health condition

petition of Maria Olsen requesting that the House adopt a clear, publicly accessible code of conduct for members of Parliament, including guidance on appropriate digital or private communication with the public

petition of Melissa Hodgson requesting that the House urge the Government to require all hospitals, rest homes, and care homes to have mandatory sepsis protocols in place

petition of Malcolm Blown requesting that the House urge the Government to increase the number of public gold fossicking areas in New Zealand.

SPEAKER: Those petitions stand referred to the Petitions Committee.

Papers

SPEAKER: Ministers have delivered three papers.

CLERK (14:03):

Climate Change Commission’s second progress report of the national adaptation plan

whole-of-Government direction to centralise digital investment and procurement decision making 2026

Government response to the report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the inquiry into performance reporting and public accountability.

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

Select Committee Reports

SPEAKER: Thirteen select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK (14:04):

Report of the Education and Workforce Committee on the Immigration (Enhanced Risk Management) Amendment Bill

reports of the Health Committee on the:

briefing from the New Zealand Drug Foundation on methamphetamine consumption

briefing on proposed advanced directives legislation

briefing on Uber Eats and alcohol delivery

petition of Kyra Clifford-Marsh, and the

review briefing on the 2024-25 annual review of the Health and Disability Commissioner

report of the Justice Committee on the Serious Fraud Office Amendment Bill

report of the Māori Affairs Committee on the Ngā Hapū o Te Iwi o Whanganui Claims Settlement Bill

report of the Petitions Committee on the petition of Catherine Cooke

reports of the Regulations Review Committee on the:

briefing on the use of the exemption power regarding Civil Aviation Rule 92.203(a), and the

complaint about the Electricity Distribution Services Default Price Quality Path (Firstlight Catastrophic Event) Amendment Determination 2025

reports of the Social Services and Community Committee on the:

Disability Support Services Bill and the petition of Victoria Coleman, and the

Social Security (Jobseeker Support and Accommodation Supplement) Amendment Bill.

SPEAKER: The bills are set down for second reading. The briefings and complaint are set down for consideration. No bills have been introduced. The House comes to oral questions.

Oral Questions to Ministers

Prime Minister

Question No. 1

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition) (14:05) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government’s statements and actions?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister) (14:05): Yes, and in particular, our desire not to introduce a streaming tax.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: If he’s laser-focused on the cost of living, can he name one single item in a family’s weekly grocery shop that costs less today than it did when he became Prime Minister?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I’m very pleased to report that, actually, since we last engaged in this conversation—I think the week before last—I said that food inflation was 2.8 percent. The good news is food inflation has come down further to 1.9 percent—[Interruption]. Of course, that compares to 12.3 percent under his leadership.

SPEAKER: Just a moment. The House needs to calm itself; there’s far too much interjection, verging on a barrage, from the other side of the House.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: When he told New Zealanders he would lower the cost of living, why didn’t he mention that his intention was for prices to still go up?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I’d just say to the member that putting inflation within the band, and getting food inflation to 1.9 percent versus 12.3 percent—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Just wait a moment, Prime Minister. Let’s just have one person answering the question.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: The point I was making was that 1.9 percent food inflation is a lot better than 12.3 percent under the previous Government; 4.1 percent inflation, even when you strip out the Iranian conflict at 2.9 percent inflation, is a lot lower than 7.3 percent, which was a 32-year high. How did that happen? It happened because they spent more, they taxed more, they borrowed more, and they’ll do it again.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: What’s the price of a loaf of bread today; and how does that compare with the price of a loaf of bread when he became Prime Minister?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, 600 grams of white bread, about $2.20 today.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The second part of that question was: how does that compare with when he became Prime Minister?

SPEAKER: As you know, there were two legs to the question. He certainly answered one of them.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Supplementary question, Mr Speaker. How will—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Go and ask the supermarket.

SPEAKER: No talking while someone is asking a question.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: How will increasing petrol tax by 22 cents per litre, as his Government is intending to do, help New Zealanders with the cost of living?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I can just say, putting a capital gains tax in at 28 percent is going to punish every Kiwi in this country. Putting in place a streaming tax on every Kiwi in this country isn’t fair, and certainly putting in a ute tax—

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister is responsible for the 22 cents per litre increase in fuel tax that his Government has planned. He’s not responsible for the things that he’s choosing to try and speak about instead.

SPEAKER: The Prime Minister might start his answer again.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order. In the interests of the conduct of business in this House, exactly what was that point of order about?

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Try and keep up.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: He gets to his feet, he makes a point of order, but there’s no point of order. There’s no detail on it, and he gets away with it.

SPEAKER: I think we’ve just seen a demonstration of how the point of order process can be used to interrupt the House. I’ve heard what the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins had to say. He was questioning why the person answering the question hadn’t gone straight to the answer. It might be a good idea to leave it a little bit of time, and for there to be a little less noise so we can hear it.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We haven’t yet made a decision on the fuel excise tax, as we have said. Given the Iranian conflict—

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Yes, you have.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Actually, we said it’s highly unlikely, but we will look to confirm our position on that very shortly. The point I was making was that Auckland regional fuel tax; a ute tax, a streaming tax; a capital gains tax; a digital services tax; and $5 billion taken out of Investment Boost, a business tax, is incredibly damaging to this country. It is a wrecking ball through the economy, and that’s the difference.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Is it still Government policy, as of today, to increase petrol taxes by 22 cents per litre over the next three years?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I have said to the member before, and I’ve said publicly, in light of the Iranian conflict, that is a discussion that we are having as Cabinet. We will make a decision about that very shortly. I’ve also foreshadowed that it’s highly unlikely the increase on 1 January may happen, but we will have that conversation as a Cabinet and confirm and communicate that very shortly. I just think it’s a bit rich for the member to stand up and ask questions on tax.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Why has he given minimum wage workers a pay cut, in real terms, every year that he has been Prime Minister?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We have had increases to a number of payments, whether it’s been beneficiaries or whether it’s been minimum taxes, that are broadly in line with inflation.

Hon David Seymour: Is it the case that minimum wage workers are paid by employers and businesses with customers, not the Government, and so in fact it is impossible for the Government to give minimum wage workers a pay cut—because the Government doesn’t pay everyone, Chris?

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: It sets the minimum wage.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Absolutely.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Do you need me to draw you a diagram?

Hon David Seymour: Point of order.

SPEAKER: Just a moment. Just bear in mind there was a lot of discussion across the floor there that may affect the ultimate decision about your point of order.

Hon David Seymour: The member opposite asked if he needs me to draw him a diagram; I can assure him I don’t, but I do need him to be clear that not everyone is employed by the Government.

SPEAKER: No, no, that’s enough.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: What is the weekly after-tax income of somebody who’s working 40 hours a week on the minimum wage?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I can give the minimum wage increase—average income is $81,000, and the minimum wage is $23.95 an hour, as you know.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Sorry, Mr Speaker, I’ll repeat the question. Can I repeat the question, Mr Speaker? I think the Prime Minister might have misheard it.

SPEAKER: You can, but you’re basically asking him to multiply $23.95 by 40, I suppose—or 30—depending on how you like to measure full-time work.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: I’m asking him if he’s aware of how much a minimum wage worker actually gets, cash in hand, each week.

SPEAKER: Well, OK, with all due respect, that would depend entirely on the circumstances that worker found themselves in: married, unmarried—

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: If they’re working 40 hours a week, it’s not that variable.

SPEAKER: —children, no children, etc.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Somone working 40 hours a week, earning the minimum wage, is going to get a fixed amount of money. I’m asking the Prime Minister if he knows what that is. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: No, no they’re not. There are many variables.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I am aware.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order. My question was: what is the weekly after-tax income of someone working 40 hours a week on the minimum wage? It is not unreasonable, given the Prime Minister’s just basically talked about the minimum wage and the increases, and so on, to ask him to tell the country what that is.

SPEAKER: Yes, I know, but you would need to qualify it with the circumstances of each worker that was receiving that. The Prime Minister—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order.

SPEAKER: Point of order, the Rt Hon Winston Peters. I hope this is helpful.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why don’t we stop wasting the House’s time and you just tell that fellow over there that it’s about $760.

SPEAKER: Well, it’s actually not my job to either ask questions or answer questions, although, quite frankly, I could probably do quite well.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I’ve answered the question: it’s $23.95 an hour.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Why should New Zealanders have confidence in his leadership when he said he was going to fix the cost of living, and in fact prices have kept going up and it’s got worse; he said he was going to get New Zealanders back to work, and unemployment has increased; he said he was going to back businesses, and businesses have been going into liquidation; and his own parliamentary colleagues in the National Party don’t even support him?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, they know that they can trust me not to increase spending by 84 percent, drive inflation up to a 32-year high of 7.3 percent, have 12 to 13 interest rises, put an economy into slow-down, and have people lose their jobs. They also can be reassured we won’t be doing a capital gains tax, we won’t be doing a digital services tax, we won’t be doing a business tax, a streaming tax, a ute tax, or, Willie, a land tax.

Finance

Question No. 2

RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (14:14) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has she seen on the economy?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Associate Minister of Finance) (14:14) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: Yesterday, Stats New Zealand released the selected price index for July—it’s a monthly series that tracks prices for a selection of household goods and services, including food, rents, and energy; food prices are often mentioned as a pressure point. Yesterday’s release showed food prices rose 0.1 percent for the month; much lower than forecasters had been predicting. In the year to July, food prices rose only 1.9 percent, the lowest annual rise since 2024.

Ryan Hamilton: How does this compare to previous food price increases?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: On behalf of the Minister of Finance, annual food price inflation has recently been declining, and at 1.9 percent per year, it is quite modest in the context of recent history. For example, food prices rose more than 5 percent per year in every month between January 2022 and, to pick a random month, November 2023. The peak was in June 2023, when food prices were up 12.5 percent for the year—the highest rate of food price increases since 1987.

Prime Minister

Question No. 3

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green) (14:15) 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) (14:15): Yes.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Is the supermarket duopoly ripping New Zealanders off?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, again, as we’ve talked about, in this Government, we take any downward pressure we can create by increasing competition very seriously, and that’s why we’ve undertaken a number of actions in this Government.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Does the Prime Minister disagree, then, with the Commerce Commission, who have found that the supermarket duopoly are making excess profits of hundreds of millions of dollars, increasing the cost of living for New Zealanders?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I think the member will also be very excited to hear that food price inflation has further come down to 1.9 percent—that’s good news. We also want to see more competition in the grocery sector; that would put more downward pressure into grocery prices as well, and that’s why we have a number of actions under way to do that.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Does the Prime Minister support ending excess price gouging in supermarkets, like they have done in Australia?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, again, the actions that we have undertaken to actually put downward pressure on prices and to create more competition are practical things like opening up our fast-track process—which I know the member didn’t support—so that it’s open to any new supermarket or grocery infrastructure that that can be managed, and obviously creating one nationwide building consent process. That’s very, very important if you’re an international operator that doesn’t want to deal with the 82 building consent authorities that were created by the previous administration.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Can the Prime Minister say whether he agrees or disagrees with this statement from our bill: “A regulated grocery retailer must not engage in excessive pricing in supplying or offering to supply groceries to consumers”?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I don’t agree with Green Party bills, because the last one I saw was a proposal to actually put a wealth tax on all New Zealanders, and that would be a wrecking ball and drive up the cost of everything and not help any New Zealander.

Chlöe Swarbrick: What does the Prime Minister know that 86 percent of New Zealanders who, unlike him, support prohibiting excess supermarket pricing don’t?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I definitely know they don’t want a 45 percent top rate in inheritance tax, a gift tax, a rental tax, or an asset tax. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Question No. 4—the Hon Barbara Edmonds, and no one else.

Finance

Question No. 4

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) (14:17) to the Minister of Finance: Mālō ‘aupito, Mr Speaker. Does she stand by all her statements and actions?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Associate Minister of Finance) (14:17) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: In the context in which they were made, yes.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Does she agree with the MYOB chief executive on the low-value asset write-off that “Raising this to $10,000 would provide greater certainty and help businesses to make investment decisions, while reducing compliance friction and supporting productivity.”?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: No, I prefer the words of the shadow Minister of Finance, who said after Budget 2025, in relation to Investment Boost, it was “good policy”, and my suggestion to Kiwis is that if they want to keep that good policy, party vote National.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: How many small businesses with a turnover of less than $10 million have actually claimed Investment Boost?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: If the member wants to put that down in writing, I’m sure the Minister of Finance will have a look at it. What I can say is that members of this side of the House—and also, dare I suggest, members of the other side of the House—meet businesses every day in this country who are taking advantage of Investment Boost. We back lower taxes for small businesses on this side of the House; the other side wants to lift them up by five billion bucks a year.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Supplementary—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Just a moment.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Does she agree with the Hnry chief executive’s comments on the GST registration threshold that “For too long, the GST threshold has acted like a red light to growth. We’ve watched sole traders who sell to the public hit the brakes just before $60,000 because crossing the line could make them immediately less competitive. This proposal finally gives thousands of businesses the green light to keep growing.”?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: On behalf of the Minister of Finance, it’s an interesting idea, but I think business is more worried about the $5 billion tax hike that the Labour Party is proposing, and they’re also worried about the swathe of extra wealth-destructive taxes that they will load onto the rest of the economy and that will send a wrecking ball through the economy.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: How many businesses, full stop, have actually accessed Investment Boost?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: On behalf of the Minister of Finance, I don’t have those figures to hand. I’m happy to put them down in writing. But as I said in response to the previous question, there are businesses up and down the country—farmers and tradies and manufacturers up and down the country—using accelerated depreciation, which is investment boost, which the member herself said was a good policy, which is based on the best advice from the IRD and from the Treasury in relation to what will drive wages and productivity. What is the thing holding this economy back? Productivity. What is the driver of our living standards? Productivity. What is one of the things we can do as a Government to drive productivity? It is investment boost—you should keep it.

SPEAKER: Once again we’ll just have the House calm itself.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: What support is she providing small business owners who own two or more businesses, that are experiences nearly three times the level of mortgage stress compared to non-business owners?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: On behalf of the Minister of Finance, the single best thing we can do for business owners in that situation is get interest rates down, and the way we do that is by not having reckless fiscal policy allied to reckless monetary policy—which is what we experienced between 2021 and 2023, until the Government change. We had a focus on fiscal discipline to take the pressure off interest rates.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order. I deliberately waited until the end of that exchange to do this point of order. I was hoping you might be able to advise the House whether it is appropriate for Ministers to use question time to encourage New Zealanders to party vote in a particular way, and if it’s not, whether you’ll be ensuring that doesn’t happen in future?

SPEAKER: Well, it’s probably not, but it would not be the first time in my time in this House where I’ve heard Ministers from both sides of the House make those pleas in question time, but people should restrain from making pleas to voters. You can do that outside the House. So we will take that on advisement, and certainly do not want to see it becoming a regular thing—or again for the rest of the day.

Health

Question No. 5

TODD STEPHENSON (ACT) (14:22) to the Associate Minister of Health: What recent changes has Pharmac made?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Health) (14:22): I thank the member for his question. Back in 2024, my letter of expectations to Pharmac made clear they should be improving health outcomes using robust data and evidence. I said they should serve New Zealanders based on actual need without assigning their background as a proxy for need. Earlier this month I was very pleased to welcome Pharmac’s decision to welcome access to three medicines for people with type 2 diabetes from 1 September. That access will be wider and it will apply to all patients based on clinical need, because never again should two patients go to see their doctor with the exact same clinical need and be treated differently because of who their ancestors were. We want one law for all and one future together—not racial discrimination in our policy.

Todd Stephenson: How else is Pharmac responding to Government policy?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Pharmac has ongoing work to give effect to the Government’s Cabinet circular, meeting the expectation that the target and commissioning and design of public services should be based on the needs of all New Zealanders. As of 13 August—the date of their last quarterly report of progress to meet my latest letter of expectations—Pharmac reports that it’s formalised its access criteria within the pharmaceutical schedule. This new approach ensures target patient populations are clearly defined form the outset, ensuring everyone in the group has access to—

Hon Willie Jackson: Oh rubbish—what a load of rubbish.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: —the medicine. Pharmac reports that it’s reviewing all access criteria where—

Hon Willie Jackson: Oh rubbish.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: —there are ethnicity-based elements, with a view to removing or replacing them with clinical—

Hon Willie Jackson: Sit down.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: —criteria. I hear Willie Jackson saying “what a load of rubbish”, and “sit down”—these are facts, Mr Jackson. Number one, Pharmac is moving to funding by clinical need, and, number two, racism is wrong.

Hon Willie Jackson: Why don’t you come and debate it? You’re too scared.

Todd Stephenson: What has the Minister, in addition, asked Pharmac to focus to in his most recent letter of expectations?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, in my latest letter of expectations to Pharmac, I’ve set clear expectations for Pharmac to continue delivering more efficiently the medicines and medical technologies that Kiwis need. I’ve asked them to ensure assessment, procurement, and exceptional circumstances work continues at pace to support access to medicines. Of particular importance, I have asked Pharmac to continue its work in the wider health, social, and fiscal impacts of funding decisions. For example, diabetes is just one condition where the economic benefit to New Zealand of drug treatment versus simple pharmaceutical cost can be measured in the years of dialysis avoided, kidney transplants avoided or delayed, savings to the Health NZ budget, a person’s ability to work and earn taxable income, and reduced need for disability or other support. By starting to think about all the benefits of medication, we can ensure that we optimally fund medication to help as many New Zealanders as possible. Point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: The point of order is?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: As I was beginning this excellent answer, I heard Willie Jackson say, “You won’t debate, because you’re too scared.” I think that’s a very sad reflection on you, Mr Speaker, and he should be asked to withdraw it.

Hon Willie Jackson: I stand by that. I stand by that.

SPEAKER: I was aware that Mr Jackson was making various statements. I could not actually hear them.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, he just said he stands by it.

SPEAKER: He does stand by it?

Hon Willie Jackson: Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER: Well, Willie, I’ve been in circumstances where I’ve tried to debate you. In fact, in 1999, I wanted to have a debate; we ended up having a bet over it. You lost it, and you’ve never paid it, so I won’t be engaging that further.

Todd Stephenson: How has Pharmac been able to focus on these priorities?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: In response to that earlier exchange, I just didn’t want to have a battle of wits with a half-armed opponent. The Government—

SPEAKER: The previous exchange was between me and you, so I’m not sure you should describe yourself quite that way.

Hon Willie Jackson: Why didn’t you come to the debate on the weekend?

SPEAKER: Please just carry on.

Hon Willie Jackson: Why didn’t you come to the debate on the weekend?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: This Government took over—well, I’ve said: because I didn’t want to have a battle of wits with a half-armed opponent—

SPEAKER: Hang on a minute.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: —and the halfwit is you, Mr Jackson.

SPEAKER: Hang on a minute. We’ll stop the question. Mr Jackson, calm it.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Back over here on the adult side of the room, the Government has—

SPEAKER: That doesn’t help at all.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: —allocated more than $7.2 billion to Pharmac over four years. This includes a $54 million dollar uplift over four years, announced in Budget 2026, and a $604 million uplift over four years, announced in June 2024. That means that Pharmac has been able to make 135 decisions to fund or widen access to medicines, including decisions on 47 cancer medicines. Over 680,000 patients are expected to benefit in the first year of funding from these cancer medicines, but there is more work to be done, and that is the important work that this Government is doing for New Zealanders at their most vulnerable times.

Prime Minister

Question No. 6

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori) (14:27) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all of his Government’s statements and actions?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister) (14:28): Yes, and particularly our desire not to institute a capital gains tax—supported by Te Pāti Māori.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: That’s not true. Does he consider directing 13 Government agencies to review Treaty provisions across 28 Acts to have been an efficient use of Government resources, due to the cost of living and public services crisis?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Again, as we’ve talked about in the House before, we’ve had Treaty clauses build up over 30 to 40 years. They’re quite inconsistent. We want to make sure that they have certainty about the legal risk, that the obligations to all parties are spelt out well, and that’s why we’re doing it.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What tangible improvement in the lives of New Zealanders will result from his Government amending Treaty provisions in 19 pieces of legislation?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, actually, I’m very proud of the progress that we have made for Māori and the outcomes that have improved under this Government. I mean, you can look at the 13 Treaty settlements that have been advanced; you can look at the 1,000-plus Māori families that have been brought out of emergency housing; you can look at a 9 percent reduction and 4,000 fewer Māori victims of violent crime; you can see Māori youth offending down 28 percent; we’ve seen tamariki Māori immunised at 24 months just move from 60 percent to 71.5 percent, improving their health and wellbeing; and I think about the huge investment we’ve put into 1,000-plus homes, contracted with 35 Māori housing providers, in order to make sure we do everything we can on the housing front too. I could go on.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Please don’t. Why did a Government that promised less bureaucracy require 13 Government agencies to search legislation for Treaty provisions to rewrite?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I think I’ve answered this question in my previous answer.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Can he identify one additional hospital bed, teacher, nurse, affordable home, or reduction in household bills that will result from his Government rewriting Treaty provisions?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, what I can say is that Māori patients seen within six hours of showing up at an emergency department has gone from 68 percent to 73 percent. As I said earlier, tamariki Māori being immunised has gone from 60 percent to 71.5 percent. That’s awesome. That’s great news and I’d think that’s something that member would be celebrating with the Government too.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Can he name one Māori right or statutory Treaty protection that his Government has strengthened with the same urgency it has shown in reviewing, removing, or weakening them?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I’m actually very proud of the 13 Treaty settlements we’ve advanced. I’m very, very proud that after many Governments failing to do so that we’ve reached a resolution on the Nelson Tenths and we’re very excited about that. I’m also very pleased to see the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Act passed as well.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Can he name a single iwi, hapū, Māori organisation, or Māori community that has asked his Government to make weakening Treaty protections across legislation a priority?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I’m proud of the ones that we have worked with in terms of offering up a thousand extra homes; $442 million, as I said, spent with 35 Māori housing authorities to make sure that we do a better job on social housing.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does the Prime Minister think that as a criterion of achievement, that Te Pāti Māori is now asking people not to vote for them as a party?

SPEAKER: No, the Prime Minister can’t answer that question.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Oh, I can.

SPEAKER: No, he can’t.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Does he regret his Government’s excessive use of urgency when it has been revealed this morning that rushed laws caused 14,800 pensioners to miss out on the winter energy payments that they were entitled to?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, that is unacceptable and I’m sorry that that has occurred. What has been the focus is for the Ministry of Social Development to make sure those payments do get to those people as quickly as possible, and that a good review is taken to actually fix that issue. It’s important we fix it, and we are fixing it.

Housing

Question No. 7

RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini) (14:31) to the Minister of Housing: What recent reports has he seen on housing?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing) (14:32): Stats New Zealand released its selected price indexes yesterday, for July 2026. Annual rent growth in New Zealand has basically come to a stop. Rents in July were up just 0.1 percent year on year, the lowest for almost 25 years. Rents actually fell 0.1 percent from June to July this year, following on from a no-growth trend in the last year. The affordability indicators from the Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport show a similar picture: rents are the most affordable they’ve been since the series started in 2003—great news for the majority of renting Kiwis.

Rima Nakhle: How have New Zealand rent prices tracked, over time?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Stats New Zealand publishes a rental price index, which has shown a general decline in both the stock and flow measures since November 2023. If you consider rents for new tenancies using tenancy bond data, these have remained flat and have actually fallen in some cities, like Wellington. It’s a vast improvement on the 2017 to 2023 period where rent prices for new tenancies rose by $180 per week.

Rima Nakhle: Supplementary?

SPEAKER: No, we’re all done.

Social Development and Employment

Question No. 8

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) (14:33) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Does she stand by her statement regarding the Social Security (Mandatory Reviews) Amendment Bill that it would “contribute to a more proactive, efficient, and accurate welfare system”; if so, is it consistent with 15,000 pensioners and veterans losing their winter energy payments?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (14:33): Yes. I stand by my statement that the Social Security (Mandatory Reviews) Amendment Bill would “contribute to a more proactive, efficient, and accurate welfare system”. The omission in legislation affecting the winter energy payments for some superannuitants and veterans pension clients is not acceptable. That outcome was not intended and I was disappointed when the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) brought this to my attention last week. I immediately directed MSD to fix the problem, and I have asked for a review to understand exactly what’s happened and the impact. MSD has advised that all affected payments have now been corrected and measures have been put in place to ensure no further clients are affected. I apologise to any New Zealander affected by this.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Who is correct, the Minister who described the issue as caused by a policy omission by MSD, or the Prime Minister, who said it was an IT issue?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: It’s quite straightforward, so let me walk members through it. There was an omission made in the policy stage and the winter energy payment was not included as an excluded item. That policy omission was then omitted in the legislative process. Back then, when the IT rules were put in place, it was again omitted. The policy omission is where this problem was caused. MSD has apologised, and I am apologising to New Zealanders affected by this.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: How long did the average pensioner or veteran who lost their winter energy payment have to go without the money to pay for their energy bills?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I don’t have that detail, but I have asked MSD to provide me with more detail about this issue. But what I can say is that the maximum amount affected was less than $300 per superannuitant, which I accept would have caused harm, and that is why I have apologised.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Did the Minister read the front page of The Post this morning, which reported that her ministry has apologised for their drafting error and that the Government will amend the law to fix this problem, and, after that line of questioning, is she also wondering whether Willow-Jean Prime has even read the newspaper today?

SPEAKER: No, no—we’ll let it go.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Supplementary. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: One person is speaking.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Will she admit that rushing legislation through Parliament without proper scrutiny meant that her mistake left vulnerable people without heating in a freezing cold winter?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: No. As I’ve said, the omission occurred in the policy development, and of course it is very unfortunate that this has occurred, which is why I asked MSD, with urgency, to fix it to ensure that people did not go without.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Will she commit to not rushing future changes through urgency due to the stress and harm that she has caused to thousands of people across the country?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Unfortunately, if I think back on my time in this House, there are many examples where legislation has required fixing at a later date. I am frustrated that this has occurred, and, as I’ve said, the priority was on making sure that those who were without winter energy payments were reimbursed at pace. That’s exactly what happened within 48 hours of me being aware of this issue.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does the Minister share New Zealand First’s concerns about the delay in this matter for those pensioners, and that it is our concern because we were the driving force behind the winter energy payments in the first place?

SPEAKER: The Minister may respond—[Interruption] Just a moment—hang on. The Minister may respond to the first part of that question.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I know that the winter energy payment is valued by many, many New Zealanders.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Will she take responsibility for the thousands of pensioners and veterans losing their winter energy payments?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Well, as I’ve said, there was an omission. MSD has apologised, I’ve apologised, and every single person has been reimbursed for that.

Prime Minister

Question No. 9

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) (14:38) 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) (14:39): Yes; in particular, actions not to institute a 45 percent top income tax rate, an inheritance tax, a gift tax, a rentals tax, or an asset tax.

Hon Marama Davidson: Is he confident that the use of automated decision-making and mandatory reviews has not resulted in wrongful cancellation of main benefits such as jobseeker or the supported living payment due to processing delays or errors?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Yes, and I’m very supportive of the use of those tools in order to be able to free up staff to be able to support others with more complex needs.

Hon Marama Davidson: What is he doing to reduce the risk of starvation, disease, and fisheries bycatch to the hoiho, the rarest penguin in the world?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I know that the Minister of fisheries feels incredibly strongly about this issue, and I’d encourage the member to direct her questions to him.

Hon Marama Davidson: Does he have confidence that his Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, a Minister who has taken pride in being wined and dined by the fisheries industry, is the best person—

SPEAKER: No, no, no—sorry. The question will terminate unless you can ask that without the added emolument to it.

Hon Marama Davidson: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Does he have confidence that his Minister for Oceans and Fisheries is the best person to ensure bold and immediate steps are taken to protect hoiho from commercial fishing?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Yes.

Hon Marama Davidson: Does the Prime Minister accept that fisheries-related mortality is a preventable, human-caused threat to mainland hoiho and that his Government has the power to reduce it?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I’m very confident in the actions of our great Minister for Oceans and Fisheries.

Hon Marama Davidson: Will he commit to extending protections across the known Hoiho habitats, from Canterbury and North Otago to Rakiura, and out to 14 nautical miles?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Again, I would encourage the member to direct her questions to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

Media and Communications

Question No. 10

NANCY LU (National) (14:41) to the Minister for Media and Communications: Is he considering implementing a streaming tax?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister for Media and Communications) (14:41): No—no, I’m not. That is because New Zealanders do not need more taxes, and the people who tune in to Netflix, or whatever other streaming device they have, don’t need to be paying more taxes. The Government that keeps control of its spending doesn’t need to dream up new taxes every day.

Hon Willie Jackson: You don’t do anything anyway, Goldie.

SPEAKER: There’s only one person asking. You know, just calm it all down.

Nancy Lu: Has he seen any recent proposals for a streaming tax?

SPEAKER: Well, can I just remind the Minister, before he answers, to familiarise himself with 181/3, and for that matter 181/4. The Government’s already a little bit behind the ball today for previous infringements, so we’ll see how we go.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Could you give me five minutes to read those two?

SPEAKER: I would have thought, given the Minister’s expertise in all 11 portfolios that he might have that at his fingertips!

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I have seen some recent proposals. In fact, the Government has been considering a member’s bill that has been before the Parliament, by Willie Jackson, proposing such a tax. We don’t agree with it—although I’m surprised because we can’t find that bill anymore this morning.

SPEAKER: No, no—that’s enough; careful. [Interruption] No, you’ve said enough. Question No. 11, Dan Rosewarne.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Your point of order better be a decent point of order, and not a trifling thing.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: I seek leave to table a document, which is the Broadcasting (Commercial Video On-Demand Levy) Amendment Bill, which is no longer available on the parliamentary website.

SPEAKER: But it is publicly available, so we’ll let that go. Dan Rosewarne. [Interruption] Sorry—I’m hopeless at the internet but I could find it, so just let it go.

Small Business and Manufacturing

Question No. 11

DAN ROSEWARNE (Labour) (14:43) to the Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing: Does he have confidence that small businesses are getting a fair go when dealing with large insurers; if so, why?

Hon CAMERON BREWER (Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing) (14:44): Experiences will vary significantly, depending on the insurer, the nature and location of the business, its risk profile, and the type of cover being sought. What I can say is that I have confidence in New Zealand’s insurance regulatory framework and in the institutions responsible for overseeing this sector.

Dan Rosewarne: What is he doing in response to reports that customers seeking windscreen repairs are often directed by their insurer to big players rather than small, local, independent businesses?

Hon CAMERON BREWER: As I said in my primary answer, we have a lot of confidence in the institutions and the regulators that oversee our insurance sector. And, as we know, the affordability of insurance review is under way. I know it’s a residential review of general insurance, but the same principles will apply as to when that review comes back to us, and that, no doubt, will have different suggestions that we can take forward to improve things.

Dan Rosewarne: Does he think it’s fair and reasonable that independent repairers report being required to reduce and resubmit invoices before payment will be approved by insurers?

Hon CAMERON BREWER: As I’ve said, there are plenty of institutions—regulators, consumer entities—that continue to look at this sector, and we, as a Government, will continue to look at this sector, to make sure consumers and paint and panel places are getting a fair deal.

Dan Rosewarne: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The supplementary question explicitly sought the Minister’s view and opinion, and Speaker’s ruling 186/5 states that “Opinions can be sought and will be given.” The Minister’s answer did not provide a view on whether it was fair and reasonable; instead, he spoke about other matters. Could I ask that he address the question that was asked?

SPEAKER: Yeah, but I thought he did exactly do that. Whatever he says, ultimately, is an opinion.

Dan Rosewarne: What is his view on the impact for small businesses that referral arrangements between large insurers and their preferred provider networks may not be disclosed to customers?

Hon CAMERON BREWER: I’m very happy for the member to put these questions in writing and for me to give him full answers, or, likewise, I’m very happy for him to come and visit me on the ground floor of Parliament House. If he is genuinely concerned about these issues, put them on notice and we’ll give him a full and frank answer.

SPEAKER: Yeah, you can’t question someone’s integrity in something like that. [Interruption] Supplementary, Dan Rosewarne and no one else.

Dan Rosewarne: What options, if any, is he considering to level the playing field for small businesses competing against businesses favoured by insurers?

Hon CAMERON BREWER: As I said, we continue to look at the insurance sector, the Commerce Commission continues to look at the insurance sector, the Financial Markets Authority continues to look at the insurance sector. One thing that we’re looking forward to is the Insurance Affordability Review. That’ll just show us where we’re at with competition, the impact of natural disasters, and the impact of building and construction costs. We’re going to turn every stone over to get better premiums for everyone that takes cover, particularly around the vehicle sector.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: To the Minister, does he have confidence that small businesses are getting a fair go when they’re investing in plant and machinery and other important things to grow their business through Investment Boost?

Hon CAMERON BREWER: Thank you, Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: No, I’m sorry; that’s quite wide of the actual question that was asked.

Agriculture

Question No. 12

GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland) (14:48) to the Minister of Agriculture: What recent reports has he seen on Government policies to grow New Zealand’s agriculture sector, including Investment Boost?

Hon TODD McCLAY (Minister of Agriculture) (14:48): I’ve seen reports that Investment Boost is supporting the agricultural sector to grow. Of course, Investment Boost allows farmers to immediately deduct 20 percent of the cost of a new asset from their taxable income on top of depreciation. This means speeding up investment and a much lower tax bill for them in that year as a result of the purchase. Investment Boost makes it easier for farmers to invest in tractors and other equipment, in buildings; many are installing new irrigation and effluent systems, which all helps boost productivity. I’ve also seen the president of Federated Farmers, Colin Hurst, say that “The deduction from taxable income available under Investment Boost can be a significant factor in getting these investments across the line.” Therefore—no longer a quote—Investment Boost shows that the National Government backs farmers in all Kiwi businesses, large and small, to succeed.

Grant McCallum: What other reports has he seen about how Investment Boost is supporting the agriculture sector to be more productive?

Hon TODD McCLAY: The president of the extremely influential Tractor and Machinery Association said, “It definitely feels like the Government’s Investment Boost tax incentive scheme is kicking in.” This is because tractor sales in September 2025 were up 18 percent on the same month of the previous year. This positive trend has continued with tractor sales up nearly 19 percent in June of this year, compared to last year. These sales indicate confidence that it is backing farmers to grow their businesses. I’ve also seen a comment from agricultural tax advisers who call it a “golden opportunity for agribusiness investment”, noting strong early inquiries from farmers and growers about buying new machinery. Of course, this helps them grow their businesses.

Grant McCallum: Supplementary.

SPEAKER: No, we’re all done. That concludes oral questions.

Debates

Hon Chris Penk—Removal as a Minister

Urgent Debate

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition) (14:51): I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.

One thing became very clear to New Zealanders over the last week: while they have been concerned about the cost of living—they’ve been experiencing a rising cost of living every day—while they’ve been worried about losing their jobs, and while we’ve seen youth unemployment reached a 30-year high, the Ministers and members of the National Party in this Government have been fighting about their own jobs and not the jobs of every New Zealander. While struggling Kiwis are trying to put food on the table and as they’re getting to the supermarket checkout and having to put food back because their numbers don’t add up, the only number that Christopher Luxon was interested in was whether he could rustle up 25 of his own MPs to still support his leadership as it becomes increasingly clear that he does not even have the backing of his own MPs to lead this Government, let alone to lead this country. While New Zealanders are worried about whether they can afford to jump on the bus because of increasing bus fares under this Government, Christopher Luxon has instead repurposed the New Zealand Defence Force as his own personal taxi service.

Christopher Luxon is presiding over a Government in complete disarray, and this Government must think New Zealanders are going to swallow anything when it comes to the events of the last week, because Christopher Luxon emerged from his caucus meeting last week and said that the National Party was completely united behind his leadership and then, quite literally minutes later, sacked one of his senior Ministers for trying to get rid of him. Which is it: did they emerge completely united, or did someone need to be sacked for trying to remove the Prime Minister? If there was no challenge, if Chris Penk simply was a lone wolf acting alone, why did every one of National’s 49 MPs need to fly to Wellington to establish them? Why did they need to spend three hours debating it before they could come out and say, “Actually, nothing to see here; no leadership challenge. We’re all right behind Christopher Luxon.” If in fact they are right behind Christopher Luxon, why did so many of them find it so difficult to say that before their three-hour meeting? Why could some of Christopher Luxon’s own most senior Ministers not say that they still supported him before they went into that meeting that took three hours in which they emerged supposedly united? If you listen to Christopher Luxon and his senior Ministers now, this was Chris Penk acting all alone. It’s like a scene from the TV series Blackadder. Chris Penk suddenly decided to go over the top all by himself and found nobody else was left behind him. No one is going to believe that.

Why did it take Erica Stanford three days to front up and say that she actually had confidence in the Prime Minister? She refused to express that before the meeting, and she refused to front up immediately after the meeting and say that. It took her three days to show up and say that she had confidence in the Prime Minister? One wonders whether it was her that said that or whether she was in fact made to say that. Of course, if we believe Erica Stanford today, it was pure coincidence that her staff were gathering in the banquet hall for the post-caucus match before they knew the result of the leadership confidence vote. It’s just pure coincidence that they were gathering for what they thought was going to be a victory parade by Erica Stanford, only to find, oops, that didn’t turn out the way they thought it was going to happen.

The real question for New Zealanders is a pretty simple one: if Christopher Luxon’s own MPs don’t want him to be the leader of the National Party and the Prime Minister of New Zealand, why should New Zealanders think any differently? And why should New Zealanders expect the absolute double standards from Christopher Luxon that they have seen over the last week? Apparently, making racist attacks on Chinese New Zealanders is perfectly acceptable conduct for a Government Minister in Christopher Luxon’s Government; making racist attacks on Indian New Zealanders is perfectly OK conduct for a Minister in Christopher Luxon’s Government—no sanction for either of those things. The message Christopher Luxon sent last week is that firing Chris Penk is, in his view, a bigger crime, because he committed the sin of being disloyal to Christopher Luxon. That gets you sacked from Cabinet, but being openly racist doesn’t. It shows how this Government and this Prime Minister are only interested in themselves and not New Zealanders.

Wayne Mapp, I think, was very revealing in talking about Chris Penk’s sacking. I’ll quote from him directly: “You have to at least have someone to be the fall guy, and you can’t punish everyone who may have a different view. Chris Penk was only a second-level Cabinet Minister, doesn’t have huge name recognition, and so he was chosen”. In other words, he was expendable, because, in the world of Christopher Luxon, the entire backbench is expendable, and most Government Ministers are expendable, because Christopher Luxon is only interested in his own career, not those of his own colleagues. For those who think that he goes around country just slagging other people off, they need a little bit of a reality check, because it may come as news to the National Party backbench and the National Party Ministers and the Government that Christopher Luxon goes around the country slagging all of you guys off as well. He doesn’t have much confidence in any of you, so why should you have confidence in him?

The case against Christopher Luxon is pretty clear; Chris Penk was clearly the only one with the intestinal fortitude to try and make it. Christopher Luxon promised to fix the cost of living, and he’s made it worse; promised to grow the economy, and shrunk it; promised to create jobs, and more people lost theirs; promised to get people off benefits, and more people are on benefits; promised to back businesses, and instead we’ve seen more and more businesses going into liquidation. Christopher Luxon’s response to all of that is to attack anybody who dares to question him. Businesses that question him, he tells them they have a “parent-child relationship” with the Government. When low-income New Zealanders question him, he tells them they’re “bottom feeders”. When small businesses question him, he tells them they are “C-listers”. When Kiwis question him, they’re told that they are “wet, whiny, and inward-looking”. He told a group of business leaders in Auckland that the National Party backbench are—and this is a direct quote—“no better than a bunch of Air New Zealand middle managers”. I’m not sure who should be more offended by that: the National Party backbench or the middle managers at Air New Zealand, who, frankly, deserve a hell of a lot more respect than that. Listening to Christopher Luxon, you can’t help but think he hates this country and everybody in it.

Better is possible, and it is not going to happen while Christopher Luxon remains in this job. We’ve now discovered there’s only one National MP—if you listen to their spin—who was willing to stand up and say, “Enough’s enough, and this just isn’t good enough.” I don’t think that’s true. I’m pretty sure there are a lot more of them. They weren’t willing to stand up and defend Christopher Luxon before the meeting, so why should New Zealanders believe that they were actually right behind him? Better is possible: practical cost-of-living support for Kiwis, free visits to the doctor and free prescriptions; public transport fare caps; help to put solar on the roofs of Kiwi houses; supporting the 97 percent of Kiwi businesses that are small businesses; tax write-offs for small-business asset purchases; increasing the GST registration threshold—the first time that’s happened since 2009; making sure businesses’ invoices are paid on time; making sure small businesses get a fair share of the Government work that gets out there. Those are things this Government could be doing if they were focused on Kiwis and focused on supporting New Zealanders, rather than focused on themselves.

But that is not where their attention is. Their attention is only on themselves—on saving their own jobs, fighting amongst themselves, and undermining the Prime Minister, who has always been undermining them. They’re not focused on fighting every day for the New Zealanders who are regularly struggling. Better is undoubtedly possible, but it is not going to happen with this Government. Any of the three parties in this Government being re-elected to Government is simply going to mean more of the same.

We can do better: a future made in New Zealand, by New Zealanders, for New Zealanders; keeping our best and brightest Kiwis here at home, not calling them “wet, whiny, and miserable”, but making a country that’s worth staying in; backing our Kiwi small businesses so they can thrive; getting Kiwis back to work. That is what the Government should be focused on—tackling the cost of living, not fighting amongst themselves, not trying to defend the indefensible, and not trying to pretend the failed leadership coup didn’t actually happen. Better is possible, but it’s clearly not going to happen under this Government, so it is time to change it.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health) (15:01): I rise on behalf of the National Party in this debate. I’ll tell you what, Chris Hipkins was trying to prove that he could speak for 10 minutes without saying the word “tax”. That’s all he was trying to do. He was trying to roll down the clock just to prove that he could spend 10 minutes not talking about tax. Well, I can tell you what, New Zealanders listening at home know exactly what Chris Hipkins has got in store for them, and it’s more taxes—more taxes, more taxes.

Willie Jackson, who’s just got up off his chair, is really interested in not only a streaming levy, which suddenly has just disappeared off the website, but of course, he also was musing on Friday about the land tax which their mates in the Opportunity Party have. The Labour Party has taxes for New Zealanders, and that’s exactly what they’re trying to focus away from, because they know that their taxes are hurting them in the polls and they don’t want to talk about them. They want to talk about anything other than their capital gains tax, their 45 percent top tax rate, their asset tax, their inheritance tax, their digital tax, their gift tax, their business tax, their rental tax, their land tax, their ute tax, their streaming tax. They’re trying to hide and talk about anything else—they’re happy to talk about anything else other than tax.

I rise on behalf of the Government to respond to the urgent debate regarding the removal of Chris Penk from the ministry.

Hon Willie Jackson: Tell us about that!

Hon SIMEON BROWN: I’ll keep my remarks brief, Mr Jackson.

Hon Willie Jackson: Give us some details!

Hon SIMEON BROWN: The events of last week have been well traversed in the media. The actions of Chris Penk ultimately made his position in Cabinet untenable, and, as such, he was removed from his portfolios, and they have been reallocated to other Ministers. Paul Goldsmith has picked up Defence, Veterans, Space, GCSB and NZSIS. Simon Watts has become Minister for Building and Construction, and that is the end of the matter. Thank you very much.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) (15:03): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I find it an interesting reflection on our Prime Minister that he is capable of dismissing one of his own Ministers for challenging whether he is the Prime Minister that New Zealanders deserve, yet he did not and cannot find the spine to fire his own Minister of Foreign Affairs.

SPEAKER: Don’t make it worse by throwing in words like that, which you know have caused trouble in the past. Just carry on.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: Mr Speaker, it’s a really relevant point that we are debating, which is that a Minister has taken the fall, on his own individual shoulders, and that the Prime Minister is claiming that one Minister on his own was primarily responsible for a leadership challenge, and that Minister has been rapidly removed from his Cabinet portfolios. It is really relevant to then highlight why the Prime Minister has not been able to find the same spine to—

SPEAKER: No, I’m sorry—

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: OK, sorry, I apologise. Why was the Prime Minister not able to take swift action to also hold his Minister of Foreign Affairs to account for what the Prime Minister himself has acknowledged were racist, unhelpful remarks that were actually anti foreign affairs? It is beholden on the Green Party to highlight that particular lack of action when we have seen the Prime Minister, for the sake of his own job, take swift action.

The thing about this debate is that the Minister of Foreign Affairs’ statements were not the first time. Even just in this term, under the same Prime Minister, that Minister of Foreign Affairs spoke outwardly unacceptable and racist remarks towards a New Zealand - Filipino MP, a New Zealand - Mexican MP, a New Zealand - Chinese-born MP—and the latest remark, just this year, again towards New Zealand - Chinese MPs. The thing about those racist remarks is they are not just about the MPs in this House—they never are. Migrant communities have been very, very clear that that has caused harm to entire communities—not just to migrant communities but to relationships between all communities and our migrant communities. It’s also recognising that they are also us. We have mokopuna who are of mixed whakapapa. It was damaging to foreign affairs, but it was damaging to community relationships right here.

We saw the Prime Minister needing someone to take a fall for challenges to his leadership. Swiftly, within 24 hours, perhaps, of the Prime Minister trying to tell the country that he has the full support of his caucus, we saw that not to be true. How on earth are we supposed to believe that? Less than 24 hours later, the Prime Minister took action and held that Minister to account. Where is the rapid accountability from a Prime Minister who, supposedly, is able to lead a caucus, to lead a Cabinet, and yet, time and time and time again, has allowed for harmful, outwardly racist, derogatory, anti - foreign affairs remarks to be consistently targeted at New Zealand MPs?

We know that the Minister of Foreign Affairs consistently does that because he intentionally wants to lay blame for the fact that so many New Zealanders are struggling to live affordable lives, the fact that so many New Zealanders are worried about the harm that this Government is doing to their environment, the fact that so many New Zealanders can see undue influence in this Government. The Minister of Foreign Affairs wants to consistently distract away from the real cause, which is the prioritising of corporate interests over ordinary, everyday New Zealanders. Where is the Prime Minister’s leadership and accountability for a Minister of Foreign Affairs who is anti - foreign affairs, who consistently makes heinous remarks that are racist and harmful to all of our mokopuna, including in the playgrounds and in our communities?

SIMON COURT (ACT) (15:08): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The ACT Party is disappointed to lose such a collegial, competent, and hard-working Minister from our Government. Minister Chris Penk, as the Minister for Building and Construction, has delivered important parts of the agenda that ACT campaigned on: making building easier, cheaper, and more accountable. He has led the opening of New Zealand to overseas building products and reformed the earthquake-prone building regime, which was going to cost New Zealanders billions and billions of dollars and which ACT leader David Seymour pointed out the bleeding obvious about nearly a decade ago. It’s only by getting ACT back in Government to drive that reform, and with Chris Penk as the Minister able to deliver it, we now have sense in the way building earthquake risk is managed.

We’ve introduced a professional self-certification regime for building professionals, and we’ve moved away from joint and several liability towards proportionate liability in insurance. There’s still much to do to achieve ACT’s agenda in Government, particularly giving trusted builders an alternative to council consenting. We have made some progress with setting up a national building consent authority, which I’ve heard from many in the sector, including councils, is actually much more efficient. They’re getting much faster turn-around in consents, and a lot of dumb questions are no longer being asked of builders. Minister Penk, in his time as a Minister, made substantial progress on policies that ACT campaigned on and that we were proud to get into our coalition arrangement with our National colleagues.

For the Opposition: Minister Penk delivered more good policy than the Opposition could ever dream of. He delivered something in his time as a Minister that no member of the former Government—the Labour Government—could ever dream of. When it came to representing his electorate of Kaipara ki Mahurangi—that’s north-west of Auckland; that’s from Kumeū, Huapai, Helensville, up to Wellsford, Warkworth, and Mahurangi on the east coast of Auckland—he sought practical solutions for the problems facing the people in his electorate, particularly those significant infrastructure issues that were revealed after the 2023 anniversary weekend floods in Auckland. He advocated for residents concerned about the impacts of ongoing residential development, particularly fast-tracked developments where there was a lack of infrastructure, like roading, transport, pipes, and, of course, all of that flood management—stopbanks and other things—that keep people’s homes safe but also enable us to develop our communities, particularly in fast-growing places like around Kumeū, like around Warkworth, and the coasts on both sides of Auckland, where people want to live. They want to have a home with enough space for a trampoline in the backyard, or to park a boat on the driveway. Chris Penk understood that, and he represented the people of Kaipara ki Mahurangi very well.

That’s why, in this election, the people of Kaipara ki Mahurangi are going to have a choice as to who should replace Chris Penk as their MP and their representative. They can have more of the same; they can have these Opposition candidates who may or may not have any experience in local matters; or, potentially, they might choose to select Parliament’s only civil engineer. That’s right, I’m standing as the candidate in Kaipara ki Mahurangi, and I offer to those people, and to all the other people of New Zealand, experience as a civil engineer—how we fix infrastructure, how we fund and finance it, including through the private sector, and of course how we deliver resource management reform so that people can have a say about development in their community. When it comes to building the infrastructure, and actually unlocking New Zealand’s potential, ACT has the answers. I’ll be proud to represent ACT and offer the people of Kaipara ki Mahurangi a choice when it comes to the election in November.

SPEAKER: Does the member want to take an extra five seconds to add his authorisation to that?

SIMON COURT: Mr Speaker, with the leave of—

SPEAKER: It’s all right. We’ll take it as read—take it as read. The Hon Jamie Arbuckle—oh sorry, Jamie Arbuckle.

JAMIE ARBUCKLE (NZ First) (15:13): Thank you for that, Mr Speaker. That may be something that comes after 7 November.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in this urgent debate. The decision we are reflecting on is a decision for the Prime Minister. That decision has been made by the Prime Minister, and, obviously, there are some portfolios that have moved. One of those portfolios is the defence portfolio, and all I could say is that, on 7 November, help is on its way with an increasing number of New Zealand First MPs and a very experienced person coming back to this House. Thank you.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori) (15:14): First of all, we are here to talk about the decisions that were made last week. It’s a real hōhā for those of our people in Aotearoa who have had to endure some of the highest power bills, who are now experiencing increased Māori unemployment. They’re having to worry about how they’re going to pay their power bills and whether they’re going to get their right entitlements with the winter energy payment. Our health services are really experiencing hard times. We’re watching clawback on public services. We’re watching hits within Te Tiriti, hits within education, and, in the meantime, we’ve had to watch a Government decide to fight about who should be the Prime Minister, who deserves to have jobs.

The hardest part about all of this is that, while that’s going on, we’ve been hearing the Government tell us, “Trust us. We’re going to get this right.” What happened last week was that the man who had been given one of the highest ministerial positions—in charge of defence and security—and who barely had it for four months was removed. He was removed because he was apparently, singularly, solo, on his own, responsible for the bringing down of a Prime Minister—solely, singularly, on his own. This Government is asking us to believe that and trust, and to take on the confidence that the Prime Minister said that he had.

The thing that’s really difficult to understand in this process is at what stage the Prime Minister decided that this high-ranking Minister had become untrustworthy. How many months into the job did the Prime Minister decide that he needed to force, immediately, the Minister of Defence and Minister responsible for the GCSB and NZSIS out of his post. What conversations happened? Are there others? How long was the Prime Minister going to sit on this situation? We should be really concerned, because we did have some of the most senior politicians in this country holding that portfolio. There’s been no explanation, other than the fact he singularly, solo, on his own, was part of a coup. That doesn’t sit well with us, because motions have to be seconded. Conspiracy has co-conspirators, and we’re not hearing that. We’re being asked as a nation, while everyone’s suffering and enduring some intolerable pain, to believe that that was just a little rotten egg on its own, and everything else has been removed.

That doesn’t sit with the mana that we know Chris had out in the community. He was in the navy and he worked alongside Māori, who hold him in high esteem. In fact, some of the feedback about him is that he was one of the better human beings on that side. He was extremely uncomfortable with some of the decisions that were being made—culture wars. These wars were being asserted and led by the Prime Minister. When we have Māori who are saying to us that he was a man of principles, that he was a man of high standards, and then we watch the public persecution of him, on his own—to use a caucus, on his own, to remove the Prime Minister—that doesn’t sit well with us. Everyone here knows about leadership issues, but what we’re being asked to believe, as a nation, is that that leadership issue was only down to one senior Minister responsible for our defence and our highest security.

If he served, and is perceived as being one of the better ones, then what other better Ministers are we expecting to be rolled next? We’ve seen a Prime Minister that allowed David Seymour to drive his jeep up the steps. We’ve heard from my esteemed colleague in the Greens about what he allowed with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I think that’s what’s not sitting well, and why we needed to have this debate. We have seen this Prime Minister sign two years of his leadership away to the Hon Winston Peters and to David Seymour, all at the cost of holding that seat. I think the biggest thing we know is that Chris Penk, this honourable man, saw something and he knew it had to change. He knew that he was in a Government where Chris Luxon is lite—not “light” but “lite”. Chris Penk dared to enact what the rest of the country are asking for, which is a change of Prime Minister, a change of Government. Te Pāti Māori, who are asking for his candidate votes, are saying exactly the same. Kia ora rā.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Leader—Labour) (15:19): I do want to start by acknowledging the Hon Chris Penk. He is a man who many of us would say, through our own experience, was a gentleman in every way. He is a man who served his country with distinction. He is a man who played the ball, not the person, and he is someone from across the House who many of us admire greatly, and so the starting point for my speech has to be an acknowledgment of that loss—someone who was deeply passionate about their portfolios and was here for the right reasons.

I’m looking across the House and I see many of the National members hanging their heads in shame, and they should hang their heads in shame. They have lost a good man as a result of that man standing up with the strength of his conviction and demonstrating some courage to actually say something about the fact that we have a Prime Minister who is deeply unpopular across the country, who has demonstrated time and time again that he is out of touch with everyday New Zealanders, and a man who made all the promises in the world before getting elected into Government, and elected as Prime Minister, that he would fix so many of the challenges that New Zealanders faced, not least of which was the cost of living challenge.

In fact, under his watch, everyone and the country has gone backwards. Then we had a man, the Hon Chris Penk, who dared to challenge the Prime Minister and to try and persuade his colleagues that, actually, they needed a change of leader if they were going to have any hope of winning back the trust and confidence of New Zealanders. Instead, his colleagues allowed him to take the fall, allowed him to be sacked as a Minister, and then, of course, now to be standing down as a member of Parliament altogether. It is a great loss, but an indictment on that side of the House.

We do need to mention what is blatantly obvious to all Kiwis who watched this unfold over the course of the week: it is a distraction. It has served as a distraction, and it has been a circus. Whilst every New Zealander is struggling to make ends meet, to pay the energy bill, to put food on the table, while there are thousands of New Zealanders who have lost jobs under the watch of that Government, they’ve turned on each other and decided that, instead of focusing on the things that are priorities to Kiwis, they would just have this internal battle and the Prime Minister would come out acting like he was the man because he had won his leadership position for a second time after being challenged over the course of months. It’s instability. It’s instability, and it doesn’t provide the sense of security or the sense that the Government is focused on what matters to New Zealanders—to all of New Zealand.

It was a circus, and it was an internal battle that we saw unfold, and as a result, as I said, the Hon Chris Penk is no longer here, but it comes off the back of coalition infighting across the course of this whole three years. You’ve got New Zealand First, you’ve got ACT, and you’ve got National all publicly turning on each other. You’ve got a Prime Minister who refuses to hold to account members of his Cabinet for much more abhorrent behaviour than what we saw Chris Penk involved in. We’ve got a foreign affairs Minister who has been denigrating our biggest trade partner, China; we’ve got another Minister in New Zealand First who’s been making racist comments about our Indian community, and the list goes on and on and on. None of them was punished by the Prime Minister, but the one person in his own team who had the courage to stand up for what, to many people, would be deemed as right has lost his job as a result of that courage. This is a reflection of the weakness of the Prime Minister’s leadership, and we all need to remember that.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice) (15:25): I rise to speak on this debate and I’ll keep my remarks short because there’s a very large crowd here for Te Here ā Nuku, and I don’t want to hold them up any longer than necessary.

The events of Mr Penk’s removal have been well traversed in the media over the past few days. Ultimately, as a Minister in the Cabinet, challenging the leader of the party left his position in Cabinet untenable and he was removed. He’s been replaced by a couple of excellent Ministers who will do their best to carry on the good work, and this Government is determined to use every day that it has in the lead-up to the election to carry on its work to deliver for New Zealanders by fixing the basics and building a better future for New Zealanders here in this country.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour) (15:26): It is appropriate that we acknowledge those in the gallery that are here for the Te Here ā Nuku bill, but make no mistake, the Hon Paul Goldsmith did not cut his speech short so that we could get to that bill. He cut his speech short because he doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t want to talk about it, because he’s a member of a party that is in disarray and that is desperately trying to spin this as if everyone in the National Party caucus backs Christopher Luxon’s leadership. Who believes that? No one. They don’t even believe that. They don’t believe it, because they know it isn’t true. How could the Prime Minister stand there at a press conference—which Erica Stanford’s staff thought she was going to win and were standing there waiting for her to come out—and tell everybody that he’s got 100 percent support and then, only a matter of minutes later, sack a bloke for challenging him?

There’s the first point where it doesn’t stack up. The second one is that you’ve got front-bench Ministers of the Government refusing to pledge support to the Prime Minister. There’s the second point where it doesn’t stack up. If the Prime Minister had full support, why would they need to drag every National Party MP down to Wellington to have a meeting, at a cost to the taxpayer of over $35,000, to have us believe that they sat there for three hours giving each other hugs and high-fives? What a load of rubbish—what a load of rubbish. They wanted to get rid of him. They tried for the second time, they bungled it for the second time, and the bloke that’s taken the fall is actually a decent bloke—a bloke that is really well regarded across this House. He’s an honourable man, and that is why he’s keeping his mouth shut right now, but if only he had the freedom to be able to tell the full story, the full story that everybody knows is the case: that, just by the mere nature of it, no one goes up alone.

If this was one bloke stirring trouble, they wouldn’t have called the meeting. If it was one bloke stirring trouble, this wouldn’t have happened twice. He was a stalking horse, and everybody knows it. There were two people that were fighting amongst each other, that were trying to take the leadership—Chris Bishop and Erica Stanford—and the only reason one of them didn’t do it is because neither of them would step aside. In the end, they decided not to do it, and they forgot to tell Chris Penk! He went over the top, and he found out—like most of them will find out eventually when times get tough—that they don’t have mates that are willing to stand alongside them. And he is the one that paid the price.

This is a shameful affair and another example of a Government that is not focused on New Zealanders. It’s not focused on the cost of living or on unemployment or on homelessness or on jobs or on housing. They’re only focused on themselves, and this is a desperate bid to try and distract attention away from one solid fact—anyone that watches this debate will see it to be true—the ACT Party are desperately trying to take the National Party’s votes. The New Zealand First Party are trying—and, I have to admit, not very well, but they’re giving it a go none the less—to take National Party votes. The National Party are stuck in the middle, and they are bleeding. They are bleeding themselves dry. They’re losing left, right, and centre, and I think they will be decimated. And, frankly, they deserve to be.

Why should New Zealanders give them another chance? Why should New Zealanders back Christopher Luxon when his own mates don’t even back him? Why should they back a National Party who are so incompetent that they can’t get rid of a useless leader twice? Imagine that; what a hit to the old self-esteem when Christopher Luxon outmanoeuvres you twice! Goodness me, you’d struggle to sleep if that was the case. But it is the case, and there are MPs on that side of the House, in various seats—and I’m looking at them now—who won’t be back. They won’t be back because they rely on the list, or they won’t be back because they’re in a marginal seat. How can they look their constituents in the eye and say that they are focused on the things that really matter to New Zealanders when, actually, in an adjournment week, they spent their time plotting, they spent their time scheming, and then, ultimately, they blew it? Now, we’re stuck with him, so thanks very much! You could have done the country a favour: you could have got rid of him. You had a second go and you still buggered it up, and now we are stuck with him. We are stuck with a Prime Minister who goes around the country and talks down about New Zealand. He talks down about those that are downtrodden, he talks down about New Zealand businesses, and he even talks down about his colleagues. How does that inspire this country?

How can those New Zealanders that have left this country turn around and look at this situation, where this man is still our Prime Minister, a man who doesn’t inspire hope, who doesn’t drive us forward, and who only talks us down—why would they come back? Those members should have done us a favour and done the job, and got rid of him in the first place.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector) (15:31): We’ve just heard a lot of fantasy and fairy tale from the other side, so let’s look at a very simple fact of what has happened. We had one member of the Cabinet, the Hon Chris Penk, who challenged the Prime Minister for leadership. In anyone’s world, it is untenable to have the very privileged position in Cabinet and to have someone challenging the leader of that Cabinet, and so he was dismissed.

That is the fact, it is simple and clear, and this side of the House is very clear about our focus. It is on fixing the basics and building the future for New Zealanders. We’ve got a track record of the enormous gains that we’ve been making in turning the economy around, dealing with the cost of living pressures, making New Zealand communities and families safer, and improving education and health. That’s what this side of the House will continue to focus on, with a strong Prime Minister in Christopher Luxon.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Te Here ā Nuku (Nelson Tenths) Bill

Legislative Statement

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Attorney-General) (15:32): I present a legislative statement on the Te Here ā Nuku (Nelson Tenths) Bill.

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

Third Reading

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Attorney-General) (15:32): I move, That the Te Here ā Nuku (Nelson Tenths) Bill be now read a third time.

On 17 December 2025, Mr Stafford, the trustees of Te Here ā Nuku Trust, and the Crown signed an agreement to settle the long-running private law Stafford v Attorney-General litigation, also known as the Nelson Tenths case. The agreement was signed here at Parliament, and it symbolically marked an important shift: Mr Stafford’s case was no longer in the domain of the courts. The parties have settled it, and now turn their eyes to Parliament to give effect to aspects of their agreement.

Today, the third reading of this bill marks another important shift. As the work of this House nears an end, the original promise of the Nelson Tenths nears realisation. Even while we debate in this Chamber in the depths of a Wellington winter, across Cook Strait, the days lengthen and dawn brings an air of aspiration and ambition. We once again have many trust representatives who have travelled to Parliament for this occasion, from across the strait and elsewhere, including Mr Rore Stafford. I welcome you to Parliament and I acknowledge those watching from other places around the motu. Tēnā koutou katoa.

I acknowledge Mr Stafford for his dignified persistence throughout this process. This year marks 40 years of Mr Stafford’s advocacy for the Nelson Tenths cause, including 15 years engaged in private law litigation. I also acknowledge Mr Stafford’s whānau and supporters, who have played a role over the last 40 years. It was a real honour to greet Matua Stafford and his whānau and supporters at Pipitea Marae around 3½ hours ago, alongside members of, I think, all our parties in the Parliament. To the trustees of Te Here ā Nuku Trust, tēnā koutou. As I remarked at the marae, the trustees represent the next generation of descendants, who will now build on the legacy and the vision of their ancestors. I especially acknowledge the trustees that negotiated the resolution agreement with the Crown and worked together to finalise the bill: Kerensa Johnson, Jamie Tuuta, Hēmi Sundgren, and George Stafford.

As I think many members of the House know, the Nelson Tenths case has a long and important history. The beneficiaries of the trust know this case well, as it is etched into their whakapapa. The courts have also acquainted themselves with this history. In 2010, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court both carefully detailed it at length in long judgments, and the High Court has now done so twice. At the first reading of this bill, I highlighted some of the history. This showed that Parliament too has a role in the acknowledgment of our nation’s history; indeed, the work we do here must be grounded in history. The physical reminders of this are all around us in this grand old House. I want to spend a bit of time in my speech today looking to the future, and that is Parliament’s most important and distinct role in our constitutional arrangements. When we make laws, they continue into the future, and that is the most valuable gift this House can offer the beneficiaries of the trust.

Briefly, on the history: from 1845, the Crown became responsible for contractual promises made by the New Zealand Company to the customary owners of land in and around Nelson, Golden Bay, and Tasman Bay. Those promises were part of the deal that led to the establishment of Nelson—and I acknowledge the MP for Nelson, Rachel Boyack. First, the land that the customary owners occupied would be excluded from the deal. Secondly, a tenth of the remaining land would be reserved for the benefit of them and their descendants—this was the Nelson Tenths. This reflected a shared vision of settlers coming to live amongst the customary owners. We need to state for the record that New Zealand’s colonial Government failed to keep the promises made to the customary owners. This was contrary to the rule of law, respect for property rights, and the law of trusts and equity.

In 2024, the High Court found that, based on these promises, the Crown held land on trust for the descendants of the customary owners, and had done so ever since 1845. This signalled to our Government that working together to resolve the case was simply, in the words of my predecessor the Hon Judith Collins—who I acknowledge in the House today—the right thing to do, and I pay tribute to her leadership, as the former Attorney-General, for helping to resolve this issue. With Mr Stafford and his supporters, a resolution agreement was negotiated, which this Government was proud to agree to in December 2025. As I say, that brought to an end 15 years of litigation, it vindicated property rights, and it also allowed the Government to continue to deliver on its priorities in the top of the South Island.

From December last year, the resolution agreement has already bound the parties. This bill is not required to give effect to the main components, but, rather, to give effect to some aspects of it, and to remove legal obstacles from its practical workability. The ownership of the trust land has already been determined by the courts and recognised through the agreement. The Crown has paid the trust for the shortfall in that trust land and the loss to beneficial use of it over the last 180 years. The judgments from the courts and the agreement negotiated and signed by the executive neatly illustrate the respective roles of those two branches of government. What this bill will achieve for the future workability of the agreement is an equally good demonstration of Parliament’s role as one part of that trio.

The primary purpose of the bill is to provide for the transfer of legal title to the trust land from the Crown to the new trustees of Te Here ā Nuku Trust. The Crown has come to appreciate in the last two years that it holds land on trust for the descendants, and it has no desire to hold it any longer. While the agreement and this bill are about realising the original promise of the Nelson Tenths, today the Crown can look beyond the ideas of our colonial predecessors. The historical arrangement of the Crown holding land for the benefit of customary owners reflects a dated, paternalism from the 19^th century. In 2026, we are pleased for the trustees to take the title and responsibility for their own land. The trustees have deep connections to the trust land and its history, and with their range of experiences, they are the right people to look after it into the future on behalf of all beneficiaries. What that future holds is ultimately for the trustees and their people, and the Government looks forward to seeing it unfold.

The Finance and Expenditure Committee heard submissions that the agreement and the bill together provide for an intergenerational opportunity, especially in terms of the reconnection of people to place. The committee heard, also, how this notion is reflected in the trust’s new name, Te Here ā Nuku. The trustees explained that this name speaks to the reconnection of the descendants to the land and, through that, the connection of the generations who carried this cause historically to the generations yet to come. It was very moving this afternoon to hear Mr Stafford talk about how this case was always about the future, always about the descendants yet to come and yet to come after that. The trust endowment will provide a foundation for identity and opportunity, and the compensation already paid under the agreement, together with the transfer of title to the trust land, should ensure that the foundation is deep rooted and durable.

It is worth noting that the nature of the trust land is unique, previously held by the Crown for Government purposes—in many cases, for a long time. That has meant the Crown and wider New Zealand have come to have their own kinds of interests in some of the land. Historically, these respective interests have become entangled. It’s been unfair and untidy. The bill reflects that, after all these years, some of these respective interests cannot be completely severed but they must be set out cleanly in law, with the starting point that the land is trust land. The bill therefore provides for future arrangements so that some trust land may continue to be used for conservation, reserve, education, or other Government purposes. For example, we’ve reached agreement regarding public access to and enjoyment of important areas and reserves, including a seamless transition.

There is not enough time in a third-reading speech to express all of the history and all of the hopes and foundations for the future, but I would like to conclude by repeating what I said at Pipitea Marae today, which is that this case and its resolution and its settlement represents Parliament at its best, unanimously coming together to vindicate property rights and the rule of law. Frankly, with 80-odd days to go until the election—and we just heard a robust back and forwards about various aspects of that—it’s Parliament acting at its best, and I think we could all do with a bit more of that.

Mr Stafford’s case has been one concerning land, promises, and persistence. We are proud to resolve it on behalf of the Crown. The fact that the Crown can now enjoy a moment of pride at this stage of a long and sometimes bitter history of the Nelson Tenths is a great credit to two things: the dignity, humility, and persistence of Mr Stafford and the customary owners; and, secondly, the capacity of New Zealand, with our systems of law and our Government, to genuinely look to the wrongs of the past and vindicate rights in the present, and forge a just and durable future.

To Mr Stafford, your whānau and supporters: it’s a privilege to host you here for the passage of this important piece of legislation. Please carry the words and best wishes of this House with you as you go forward into a new day for your land and your people. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson) (15:43):

Hutia te rito

Hutia te rito o te harakeke

Kei hea te kōmako e kō?

Kī mai ki ahau

He aha te mea nui?

He aha te mea nui o te ao?

Māku e kī atu

He tangata! He tangata! He tangata, hī!

[Pull out the shoot,

Pull out the shoot of the flax bush

Where will the bellbird sing?

Say to me

What is the greatest thing?

What is the greatest thing in this world?

I will say

The people! The people! The people!]

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

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

It is a privilege to stand in this House at the third reading of the Te Here ā Nuku (Nelson Tenths) Bill. I begin by acknowledging the descendants of the original customary owners of the Nelson Tenths, the trustees of Te Here ā Nuku, kaumātua, whānau, and all those who have carried this kaupapa across generations. To those seated in the gallery and watching from the Beehive theatrette and online: greetings. Today is the result of persistence, determination, and an unwavering commitment to justice.

For those of us who represent Te Tau Ihu in this House, this bill is deeply personal. The history we are discussing today is not abstract. It is a history written across the landscapes we know so well—Te Tai-o-Aorere, Mohua, Whakatū, the Waimea Plains, and the bays, rivers, and whenua that generations of whānau have remained connected to despite every obstacle placed in their path. The story of the Nelson Tenths is woven through our region and through the lives of people who never stopped fighting for recognition of a promise that was broken.

The expectation was that one-tenth of the land would be reserved by the Crown for the customary owners and their descendants. That promise was not honoured. That promise was broken. Over time, much of the land that should have remained available to whānau was lost. The impacts of those decisions have been felt across generations.

This bill follows years of litigation and advocacy. It follows the landmark findings of the courts and the resolution agreement signed in December 2025. Most importantly, it follows the determination of whānau and leaders who refused to accept that injustice should simply be left unaddressed. I want to acknowledge those individuals who have played a significant role in this journey, and I’m going to mention one person, otherwise I risk getting in trouble for not reaching everyone. That is Rore Stafford, and the many others alongside him who devoted years and, in some cases, decades to pursuing justice. That work from Mr Stafford has ensured that future generations will inherit not only recognition of what occurred but also a foundation for the future.

It’s important I also acknowledge the role of Wakatū Incorporation in this kaupapa. Across generations, Wakatū has helped to hold the history of the Nelson Tenths, support the pursuit of justice, and keep alive the responsibilities and aspirations of the descendants of the original customary owners. Their leadership and stewardship have been central to ensuring this story remained visible, understood, and acted upon.

At its heart, this bill provides for the transfer of legal title and land from the Crown as former trustee to the Te Here ā Nuku Trust. It recognises what the courts found and what the Crown now has now acknowledged: that these lands and assets are held for the benefit of the descendants of the original owners. This legislation is, therefore, about more than administrative arrangements. It is about restoring the ability of descendants to exercise their rights and responsibilities through their own trust and governance structures. It is about providing certainty for the future, and it is about creating opportunities for generations yet to come.

I have spoken previously in this House about the importance of recognising the history of Te Tau Ihu honestly. We cannot build strong communities if we ignore the grievances that continue to affect people today. Acknowledging those grievances and taking meaningful action to address them strengthens all of us. For Nelson, Tasman, and Mohua, this moment is significant. The descendants of the original owners have maintained their connection to these lands despite the many obstacles placed in their path. Their resilience has been extraordinary. The passage of this bill cannot undo the losses of the past, but it represents an important step toward making things right.

The bill also recognises the particular importance of Abel Tasman National Park, a place treasured by people across Te Tau Ihu and by visitors from around Aotearoa New Zealand and the world. I am aware there has been some inaccurate commentary in the public domain about what these arrangements mean. It is important to be clear: this legislation does not close the Abel Tasman to the public nor does it diminish the obligation to care for this extraordinary coastline. The arrangements acknowledge both the rights of the beneficiaries of Te Here ā Nuku Trust and the strong public interest in continued access, conservation, and careful stewardship. The Abel Tasman Coast Track and Tōtaranui campsite will continue to be available for the public, with bookings and access carrying on as normal under the agreed arrangements. The settlement agreement and the associated legislation recognised that justice for the descendants of the original owners can sit alongside the ongoing protection and enjoyment of places that are deeply valued by the wider community. But let me be clear: this land always has and always will belong to the trust.

I acknowledge the constructive work undertaken throughout the legislative process, including the consideration of submissions by the select committee and the engagement that has occurred to ensure the bill can effectively implement the resolution agreement. I acknowledge Crown Law and the officials across agencies, especially the Department of Conservation and Te Puni Kōkiri, who have supported this work with care, professionalism, and attention to detail. Finally, I acknowledge—and she’s here today—the Hon Judith Collins for her role in progressing this legislation through the House, and for the work undertaken to support the resolution being given effect in law. Thank you, Judith.

Today is a reminder to us all that justice can take far too long. The fact that this issue has persisted across generations speaks to the importance of Governments being willing to confront historical wrongs and work alongside communities to resolve them. The story of the Nelson Tenths is ultimately a story of endurance. It is a story of people who never gave up on what was promised to their tūpuna. It is a story of communities holding fast to their history, their identity, and their rights.

I’ll just go off-script briefly, because, when I was notified by the Attorney-General’s office last year about an upcoming meeting I’d been called to—that I couldn’t attend because I was under general anaesthetic—I had to send a staff member on my behalf and we had a bit of conversation about what we could be being called to. I said to people, “Please, please could it be that the Crown has settled the Nelson Tenths.” So I was very emotional and pleased that I’d been right in my guess, but also so pleased that this day had finally come. So thank you.

As this bill passes its final stage, I hope we reflect not only on the injustice that gave rise to it but also on the opportunities that now lie ahead. Te Here ā Nuku Trust will carry forward the aspirations of those who came before and support the wellbeing and advancement of future generations. Today is not just an important day in Parliament; it is an important day for Te Tauihu. It is an important day for the people of Whakatū Nelson, for the communities of Tasman and Mohua, and above all for the descendants of those whose rights were recognised through this resolution and now this legislation.

To the descendants of the original owners, many of whom are here today with us, to the trustees and to all those who have worked tirelessly to reach this day: thank you for your leadership, your perseverance, and your vision. Today is a day where we remember, we celebrate, and we move forward.

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ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): My understanding is that this call is going to be a split call—Steve Abel.

STEVE ABEL (Green) (15:53): Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

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It’s good to see you in the gallery today for this third reading. It is a momentous day, and colleagues across the House have rightly acknowledged that. One of your kaikōrero in the wharenui today spoke of the Kumutoto Stream—I believe I’ve got that name right—that runs under the road to the sea here in Pōneke. We know the value of daylighting streams. Through this resolution, Te Here ā Nuku, you have daylit justice.

You have daylit justice for your people, but perhaps more profoundly, for the whole country, because, when justice is truly done, everybody benefits, including those who are dragged to the table unwillingly, including the Crown that has resisted and fought you for these decades. Through your determination and your persistence and your perseverance, you have brought us to a place of self-reflection, where the Crown itself says, “I want this justice too.” For that, we can but thank you as a Parliament and as a nation, because you have allowed us to reflect on ourselves and say, “What does honourable kāwanatanga look like, and what does it feel like?” It feels like doing the right thing. When justice is done for one, it is done for all.

Previous Governments were not able to see that. You’ll hear us in this House lament and deride and rage against this Government for its injustices against Māori, but here today, with this bill, we stand in unanimity and we recognise the intention and the goodwill that was expressed first through the former Attorney-General Judith Collins, and now carried over to the current Attorney-General, Christopher Hipkins, to bring justice to this Parliament—[Interruption] What did I call you?

Dan Bidois: Chris Bishop.

STEVE ABEL: Sorry, mate.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): You got your Chrises mixed up.

STEVE ABEL: There are too many Chrises. Well, there’s one less now. I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to go there. Christopher Bishop—my apologies.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The Hon Chris Bishop.

STEVE ABEL: The honourable.

Jenny Marcroft: Where were you?

STEVE ABEL: Where was I?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): You were directing your speech to the Speaker, of course, and not using “you” so much.

STEVE ABEL: I was. I know we’re allowed to say some you’s. The special acknowledgment must go to Rore Stafford. I know many people have said that, but I also know that many have stood with him, and there are many here in the gallery today and that have passed on who should be acknowledged for their part in this long struggle.

I want to also reflect that some in the select committee process were anxious that this might lead to other injustices—people who have interests in the same rohe. It is my sincere hope that, in the spirit of seeking the best interests for the long term of all, that Te Here ā Nuku will find pathways to make this work for all.

I also want to reflect on the anxieties of Mr Nick Smith just briefly. I am certain that Te Here ā Nuku will do at least as good a job, if not a better job, of looking after the taonga species in those magnificent ecologies, of which they are the kaitiakitanga—I have no uncertainty of that. We certainly commend this bill to the House today. Kia ora, Te Here ā Nuku, Rore Stafford. It is a good day for Aotearoa New Zealand. Kia ora.

HŪHANA LYNDON (Green) (15:58):

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The waiata I shared was a lament for all those who have gone before us and the generations that have passed waiting for justice. As the uri of Te Here ā Nuku, the Nelson Tenths, gather today for the conclusion of a really long and hard-fought, drawn-out process, it is our opportunity to acknowledge that we move too slow. We move too slow as a Government and as a country to understand the fraught nature by which Kāwanatanga has done harm in the past and has been matapiko in closing the door for generations to the pleas of the hau kāinga. Now, through your fight, we have finally come to a point where justice will finally be served.

It’s an acknowledgment of the Waitangi Tribunal claims; it’s an acknowledgment of evidence shared. The stories and the histories, now, are part of a public record that we might all learn the stories of our districts and our rohe, but also for the perseverance of those of our family elders, such as Pāpā Rore, who led out and continued, humbly, to say, “Now is the time. At what point are we going to be able to sit at a tēpu and see justice served?” You should not have had to go to the courts time and time again. You should not have to have done that buthe tauira koutou

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and so acknowledging Wakatū and supporting the waka but also he tauira koutou for the other Tenths across the motu, for you have fought the fight for your uri but taught us a really good lesson as well, so I share the same sentiments as my colleague Steve Abel,

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Thank you for your patience, thank you for your fortitude, and thank you also for your persistence in not allowing this issue to go away. It has been in this generation that justice is finally being served; acknowledging the trustees and the fiduciary responsibility that the new trustees will have on behalf of the descendants and the uri. It is now time to think about how do we maximise the opportunity, maintain those connections, and look for that brighter future for tomorrow. That’s the exciting part, finally—finally to be able to turn the page and close one door but open up the new opportunities for culture, for language, for heritage, for kaitiakitanga, because as iwi Māori we want to be good kaitiaki, and that will not be lost in what happens from tomorrow, as Te Here ā Nuku stands up and becomes the rightful kaitiaki of lands, assets, whenua,

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CAMERON LUXTON (ACT) (16:03): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill is the right thing to do after such a long and fraught history. Te Here ā Nuku (Nelson Tenths) Bill will pass today. May I take a moment to acknowledge Mr Rore Stafford for your tireless work that we’ve heard so much about; for your present, the past, and the future.

This bill ends and provides an outcome to a lengthy court proceeding that has been well transversed in contributions by members of the House. I also acknowledge the former Attorney-General, the Hon Judith Collins, who was in the House today, who took it by the chain—this final step—and the Hon Chris Bishop who’s sending it to the finish line. This bill will provide a framework that balances recognition and access, and, at the end of this year, my family will be enjoying the hospitality and the wonderful green and blues and oranges and yellows of Abel Tasman Great Walk. This is an end of decades of litigation, but a serious amount has been learnt from it. It’s a good example of Parliament implementing a negotiated legal settlement in a clear and orderly way, and the aranui of patience and justice that you have undertaken to get here; acknowledge everybody here today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker,

Dr DAVID WILSON (NZ First) (16:05): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First.

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To Wakatū Inc., haere. Ngāti Kōata, Ngāti Tama, Ngāti Rārua, Te Ātiawa: haere, haere, haere atu rā. To Te Here ā Nuku: welcome to this House where you have been through such a long journey, and now you have arrived. To Mr George Stafford, respect. I see up there the Crown Law office; I just want to pay some tribute to you because you helped us that were in the Finance and Expenditure Committee to guide us through the nuances. It was very welcomed, because we pushed and we wanted the answers and you gave them to us and it allowed us to get to a place of unanimity in deciding on this bill. To Dame Patsy Reddy and Peter Tapsell, Crown negotiators, thank you for your hard work. To the Hon Judith Collins, thank you for shepherding the Nelson Tenths finally to this final stage. Thank you for that.

The bill formally recognises that the Crown has held approximately 3,250 hectares of land in trust for the descendants of the original customary owners in Nelson, Tasman, and Golden Bay since 1845. The bill transfers the legal title to these lands from the Crown to the trustees of Te Here ā Nuku Trust, who were appointed as replacement trustees by the High Court. It establishes ongoing management arrangements for the trust and that remains part of the Abel Tasman National Park and various public reserves, ensuring continued public access. We did notice also Steve Abel referring to the Mayor of Nelson having some reservations along those lines. Well, it does ensure that the Abel Tasman National Park Great Walk continues to operate via a mandatory 25-year licence back to the Crown.

During the process, we explored extensively settling third party rights that have arisen under Crown trusteeship. There was a lot to be discussed: the nuances of that, the nuances on long-term public access, the nuances on governance, even. I’m sorry to see that Huhana is not here at the moment because I remember a point during our discussion that Huhana and I looked across and we said, “Well, who’s going to be looking after this? There has been some discussion around who is in charge, who are the governors, and so on and so forth.” We looked at each other and we went, “Well, actually, that’s for Māori to decide. They’ll figure that out. We can step back.”

It was one of those times where we came together and transcended party lines. Today, and when historical errors are laid bare by our highest courts, we have the maturity as a nation to correct them. This is entirely human. It’s about resolution, it’s about property rights, it’s about justice, and most of all, for me, it’s about trust. After all, that is what a trust is supposed to do: it’s to build and hold trust into the future. New Zealand First is pleased to commend this restoration of justice and trust through this bill. We congratulate the hapū, the iwi, and Te Here ā Nuku Trust, Wakatū Incorporation for their long suffering and forbearance to get to here—140-odd years is exactly long suffering and forbearance in any regard, in any person’s understanding, but we will build trust and partnership into the future through the settlement of this bill.

Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā rā tātou katoa.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The next call is a split call, but, before that, if I can just remind members not to refer to the absence of another member as well. I know this is an important debate as well, and when you use “you” and “your”, you do bring the Speaker into the debate. As much as I don’t mind that, let’s try to keep that in Standing Orders.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori) (16:10):

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Today is not simply the third reading of a bill; it is a moment in history for the first time, a huge moment where we get to see something that has been 180 years in the making, to make things right. It’s a moment that was born out of promises made, obligations broken, w’enua withheld, and generations of our people who refused to give up.

The Nelson Tenths were part of the original arrangement for settlement w’enua that was to be reserved for the customary Māori owners and their descendants. That obligation was simply not honoured. The w’enua was diminished, mismanaged, and alienated, and our people were left to fight for what was already theirs.

For Matua Rore Stafford, that fight was 40-plus years. Governments have come and gone, Ministers have come and gone, Crown lawyers have come and gone, but Matua Rore has stayed. I spoke with Matua this morning. After 40 years of struggle, he said to me, “It’s quite exciting.”, and then he gave me the lesson that I think sits at the heart of this whole kaupapa for all of us as Māori: through the conflict, through the challenges, always stay focused on the kaupapa—not allowing the conflict to become bigger than the purpose, not allowing personalities to become bigger than the people, not allowing the pain of the struggle to make you forget why you started. Stay focused on the kaupapa, focused on the w’enua, focused on your uri, focused on the mokopuna still to come. His words to me this morning were “Me haere mātou.”—“We keep going.”

That is the story of this kaupapa. That is the story for te ao Māori. When the Crown did not listen, me haere mātou. When the w’enua was not returned, me haere mātou. When the courts seemed endless, me haere mātou. When the conflict was exhausting, me haere mātou—keep going. As someone who knows something of what it means to inherit displacement from w’enua—because the Crown’s decisions made generations ago do not remain in the history books. These kōrero live in the wealth of our tūpuna that they could not pass on. They live in the opportunities denied to our mokopuna. They live in the ache our people know when we look across the w’enua that belonged to our tūpuna. That is why the story of Matua Rore and Te Here ā Nuku moves and touches me so deeply, because it tells every uri of raupatu something really important: never mistake delay for defeat.

Matua Rore took his fight through the Crown’s own institutions, and, ultimately, the Supreme Court confirmed that the Crown owed enforceable fiduciary obligations to the customary owners. Today, the Crown finally returns w’enua to the people it belonged to. In 2025, after generations of failure, the Crown was removed as trustee. I just want you to think about that. The Crown was not simply told about its mistakes; it was removed as trustee. That is the scale of what has been achieved here. Today, through this bill, legal title is finally transferred from the formal Crown trustee to Te Here ā Nuku trustees, to be held and protected for ngā uri. That is what rangatiratanga looks like and feels like.

There is a lesson in this, yes, for Parliament too. At a time when the Crown obligations to Māori are being questioned and weakened elsewhere in our laws, Te Here ā Nuku reminds us of what happens when those obligations are treated as optional. The consequences do not disappear; they simply move to another generation and to the next, and eventually someone will put it right. I acknowledge the Hon Judith Collins—who actually looks much better, by the way—for her role in doing what is right. I will mihi to the right Chris—Bishop—for concluding in doing what is right.

Today belongs to ngā uri, to those who carried this before Matua Rore—to the late Hohepa Solomon; to the many, many w’ānau who endured the hearings, the appeals, the disappointment, and the waiting. Your persistence has given us all an example of what it means to stay focused on the kaupapa when the struggle becomes too difficult. That inspires me, because every mokopuna of raupatu wants the same thing. Today, we finally require the law to catch up with the truth.

So, Matua Rore, after 40 years, me haere mātou. To every uri carrying unfinished raupatu across this motu, me haere mātou.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Kua pau te wā.

[Time is up.]

TĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Tai Tonga) (16:15):

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Nō reira, whānau, welcome. That’s a funny thing for me to say to you all here, but here we are—here you are. I want to take a little bit of time to just talk about the importance of what’s happening today and the importance of the work that our kaumātua have put in, not just for us but for all Māori in this country. I’m sure that many of our people in the public won’t quite understand that this settlement isn’t just another settlement and that this settlement actually doesn’t have anything to do with Te Tiriti o Waitangi. This settlement is about this House upholding the depth and breadth of its own law, which it has managed to ignore, in this case, for 180-plus years—not just ignoring the nature and the obligatory nature and commitments of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, kāo; the nature of ngā ture o tēnei Whare. That’s an important thing for us to understand, and that’s an important taonga for us to achieve and present to the rest of te iwi Māori.

So there’s a precedent being set, and it’s an important one. It’s so important that it deserves to be spoken about. We all know that the House has taken much—maybe glee, but definitely spent a lot of time ignoring its Treaty-based obligations, but, quite simply, ignoring its own obligations to the depth and breadth of its own law is quite a different thing, and here we are today having held them to account to the depth and breadth of that law.

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So, although those things are the nature of redress and settlement, this is a time for us to think about how we move that forward, and for us to have all our mokopuna here to see your kaumātua achieve this i tēnei rā—in this time—our young people, you remember what happened here. You remember that you were here; that you were here with your kuia, that you were here with your koroua, and then this example that has been achieved today is an example not only for us but for every hapū, whānau, marae across the country. Because the Crown, whether it be through the Tenths trust or any other mechanism that they used to settle this country, entered into the very same agreements based on the very same laws that, as I’ve said, are the depth and breadth of the mana of this House. They, too, deserve to be upheld. So [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

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Hon TAMA POTAKA (Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti) (16:21):

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It’s indeed an honour to speak to this third reading of the Te Here ā Nuku (Nelson Tenths) Bill, and to look forward to the Royal assent that will be given shortly by the Governor-General to enact legislation that has been long-awaited for.

To the iwi and to the various marae that are represented here today: Whakatū and Onetahua, Waikawa, Tuamātene, Te Āwhina [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

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and, no doubt, other marae and pā and wāhi tapu that now have been confirmed in the beneficial ownership of the descendants of the customary owners of the Nelson Tenths, but also, very soon, the legal ownership and the trustees of the Te Here-ā-Nuku Trust. We can use many terms and adjectives to describe Matua Rore, Auntie Lynne, and your pā harakeke, along with the many tūpuna, tipua, tāngata who have channelled us to this very moment. Whether or not its steadfast or determined, tenacious or gritty, resolute, obstinate, persistent, doggedness, granite, or indeed the backbone. But what I see is an absolute channelling of mana tangata channelling our mana tūpuna for the responsibility of mana whenua and, indeed, mana moana and the belief and the faith in our mana atua.

Over many years, we have witnessed the vacillation of this House and various officials throughout Governments, and, no doubt within the private and other communities, in Nelson, Tasman, and various other domains that have watched with great intensity where this mahi and where this matter has taken us. There’s been obstinate and blatant and dismissive behaviours for this claim, but we have come to this moment where we can pass the third bill, and, of course, see it enacted in due course.

I wanted to acknowledge Matua Rore and Whaea Lynne and your pā harakeke for being [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

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for this kaupapa, and many others that are intersecting with this kaupapa. Not only you but others of course—some of whom have passed. Whether or not that was our whaea Eva Rickard, or Kahu Kōtua, or others that are still here with us today. I just wanted to acknowledge, in that opportunity, the various chairs and secretaries of the Wakatū Incorporation, and of course Te Kahui Ngahuru Trust.

I’ve had the great privilege of witnessing Uncle Rore age well over time with this matter. Actually, Uncle, you look better today than you did 15 years ago when I first met you with the concern. Maybe it’s just the nature of the moment and the wairua and the spirit that has channelled us here, but to know that this resolution is upon us and you have brought humility, dignity, and integrity to our kōrero. You’ve even bought a degree of—I wouldn’t call it sobriety, but a sombre mood is how Minister Bishop has described it to the House, after the early machinations of parliamentary rigour.

Auntie Lynne and the whānau who have stood alongside with, and for, the whenua for this kaupapa, for the pā and the waitapu, for the papa kāinga that were left behind and not even included and didn’t eventuate into Crown ownership. Places beyond that, like Te Maatu and Te Waikoropupū, Moturoa, and various other parts of the whenua there in Tauihu-o-te-Waka. And indeed, some of the land that has been looked after, but not owned by, Te Papa Atawhai—the Department of Conservation—over the past few years.

I wanted to pay special tribute and acknowledge the Hon Judith Collins in this Government, and indeed our party, that saw beyond some of the obstacles, the hesitancy, and the impatience of some of our colleagues and our forebears to dismiss this. I wanted to acknowledge the Hon Judith, with steel-capped stilettos, that ensured that this matter was prosecuted in the manner that not only befits the importance and the significance of the matters upon us but actually recognises the investment over time. [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

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Judith, your adroit leadership and acuity in progressing this matter to its ultimate denouement. That has been followed by Minister Bishop, who was here earlier today with a pragmatic and practical approach to closing the matter out. One that, indeed, is not rooted in the article 2 rights that we often describe as rangatiratanga, but one that recognises that the rule of law, property rights that come with the form of democracy that we live with here in Aotearoa New Zealand, and one that absolutely recognises the separation of powers and what goes with it.

In the maxims of equity, of course, people come with clean hands and some that don’t do not receive equity. But Matua Rore, Whaea Lynne, and the various whānau and descendants of the customary owners have come with clean hands. Not only that; they have presented in a fair and reasonable manner. There were negotiations that preceded, and I’d just like to take the moment to acknowledge David Tapsell—I think someone said “Peter Tapsell” earlier on—but David Tapsell and Dame Patsy Reddy really have done an exemplary and excellent job in progressing the specifics of the resolution agreement, but also some of the nuances that go with the legalities surrounding the transfer of trusteeship from the Crown to other parties.

The spirit of the resolution is something that I think everyone in this House at this time—those who are here today and those who are apologies this afternoon—will retain, and, hopefully, engender more of, in future days ahead of us in Parliament in this term, but also Parliament and Government and future terms.

I wanted to pay special acknowledgment to the negotiators, to my elder statesmen Jamie Tuuta, George Stafford, and Hēmi Sundgren for your approach, for your multi-faceted personalities that helped curate and shape the resolution that we have today. But in particular, I want to acknowledge Kerensa Johnston [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

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for her absolute momentum, for her aroha, and also for her love for Uncle Rore and Auntie Lynne, but her love for whenua and moana [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

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This resolution, and the legislation that follows, brings together quite an unusual but spectacular intersection of tikanga and ture. [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

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And it has been, in this instance, one that exemplifies and symbolises that pepeha, that proverb, of [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

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In that moment, I just acknowledged some who have passed on, like Te Kepa Stirling and others, that young girl Greensill that passed on recently, and those members of the whānau.

It intersects tikanga and ture, and what I can see in the resolution that’s been reached, but also the bill that is passing through its third reading today, is that te tikanga o te ture—or the actual custom of law—has prevailed. That custom, in this instance, is not necessarily being the hard and sometimes terse common law but a mix of equity, negotiation, and, indeed, the Hon Collins, a touch of innovation.

With that, I wanted to acknowledge, finally, the members of this House who have collated today, who are gathered today, in a spirit of collegiality and whanaungatanga or, as we say at Ngāti Hauiti,

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To come and pass this through in a manner that even Willie Jackson must laugh at—it’s hard to get a laugh out of Willie. So, yes, indeed the taitara, or the legal title, will now transfer from the Crown, and that actually ensures that I’ve less issues, as the Minister of Conservation, trying to figure out if I owe duties to both the customary owners and also the Crown, but it preserves, upholds, and absolutely recognises that the ahikā of this land has never been cold, it has never gone out, it has never gone mātaotao, but indeed burns now and into the future eternally. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour) (16:31):

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Some of us were looking forward to this, this afternoon, and some of us were going to give the Government a bit of a swipe here and there, and then Chris Bishop shocked us. He did the most fabulous speech at our hui this morning, and, well, that knocked us right over, and there goes the speech. He did a tremendous speech. I think we were all taken by that. He’s not here, so I want to acknowledge their kōrero because you wouldn’t have thought it was the same Chris Bishop, if you were watching question time, or the same Parliament. But I want to acknowledge his kōrero when he talked about unity in Parliament and doing things differently. I want to acknowledge Judith Collins over here. Well done—well done. It’s a shame it wasn’t us, but I do want to say that. I want to acknowledge you for your kaha. Well done, Judith. You are looking very stressless these days!

I say that sincerely to all the people here because I was thinking about this kaupapa, and Tama Potaka reminds me of it. He likes reminding me on the quiet that it was this Government that has put this kaupapa through, and, sadly, he’s 100 percent right. We should have done it five years ago. Kia ora, Paul Morgan. I could see you pointing at me, and you’re right. I will never forget when we, as a Labour crew, went into your office, Paul, and you presented—yourself and Kerensa, you two are just two of the unsung heroes. Your name’s not been mentioned too much today, Paul, because I think you’ve got a few raruraru, but I’ll mention it because you’re a great advocate for your people, and I’m sorry we couldn’t have done what we should have done. I’m sorry. It upsets me sometimes how—whether it’s Labour or National—we’ve always got to go back to court when you’ve got a clear case of justice—when you’ve got a clear case of justice—and our people fight on and on and on. Well done, Paul. Well done, Kerensa. It’s a shame—I shouldn’t say that, but, well, it came under Judith and Tama and Chris Bishop. The main thing is we’re there.

I wanted to tell the House that I was at the tangi last night, Uncle Kepa Stirling’s tangi—you mentioned Uncle Kepa—and we talked about this. We talked about this—we talked about this. At the hui, we were saying, “Wow, what a settlement for our people down there.”, and we talked about the analogy between Uncle Kepa and our koroua over here. Uncle Kepa Stirling lost three sons in one hit—one car accident. Gone—1986. Gone. You would have thought that would be the end of his life, but he soldiered on for the next 40 years and he built a school and he built our community. I was thinking about our koroua Rore—it’s the same type of thing. You just soldier on.

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I want to just remember Uncle Kepa now, and I commend him for his efforts and his life and his whānau, but also we keep mentioning Rore, but he is such a tauira in terms of where we should go in terms of te ao Māori. Well done to you e te rangatira because you are a great example of soldiering on and working with us. I thank you and I thank the people here today for not playing politics and just going forward.

This kaupapa is such a wonderful example—isn’t it, Judith?—of where we should be in this country. What saddens me in some ways is the lack of media interest right now in this kaupapa, but maybe that’s a good thing, because it just fires up people who think that $400 million is a huge amount of money to give to people. We know that if you really wanted to work out what the economic loss was and what the people should be getting, they’ll get five times that amount—won’t they, Judith? I get disappointed with the lack of media interest. There are no media people here apart from, I think, one reporter up there. This is significant. This shows that the very way Parliament has behaved is the way this country should behave in terms of Māori issues, in terms of kaupapa Māori. This kaupapa will benefit all the people down there. Their economy will thrive because of this investment in the people. It won’t be just Māori people who will thrive; the whole economy will thrive. All the people will feel the benefits of this settlement.

I just think that, when we were watching this morning and we saw the beautiful kōrero coming from Rore Stafford and Chris Bishop and us working together, this is an example of where we should be going in terms of this country. I have hope. We have hope when we see Parliament coming together like this and we remember the advocates. You were all here earlier, so you saw what was happening between the two sides, but maybe this settlement gives us hope in terms of where we should go as a Parliament and where we should go as a country. I just wanted to mihi to everyone here. What a journey. What a history. What a plan that’s going to be rolled out. I hope that we can work things out in terms of the various factions and that Nick Smith disappears with his petition altogether and doesn’t promote the nonsense that he is promoting, because our people can manage things. Our people can organise their things. Our people can be trusted with these types of settlements. They can be trusted. We do have a history. We’re not going to block or bar Pākehā from going into different areas, as is implied in Nick Smith’s petition. He’s a man who should know better because, at various times, he has been quite good in terms of support for kaupapa Māori. For some reason, he feels this need to come up with this stupid and idiotic petition, and we are where we are.

I want to mihi to everyone today who’s come here. This is a celebration for you all. This is a celebration for the House. Again, I acknowledge the other side and the negotiators and the different rōpū and my friend over here who has been a very, very strong advocate for you. It’s lovely to have this Pākehā woman being a great advocate for you. We’re really proud of her, and that’s what it’s about for us. It’s not just a Māori thing—it’s not just a Māori thing. It’s a partnership thing. That’s what we believe in in this party. That’s what most people believe in in this House. We can achieve this thing through partnership, through working together. So I’m really proud of the way we’ve come together to get where we are today.

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RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (16:40): Thank you, Mr Speaker. [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

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An emphatic welcome to all our visitors here today who have travelled to Parliament to witness and celebrate this historic correction and resolution. I had the privilege of attending Pipitea Marae earlier today with the mihi whakatau, which was awesome. There was a few speakers and one speaker, I believe, Manahi, started to speak and it was a great speech—not that I can understand fluent te reo, but I said to Willie, “Is it meant to be this long?” And he said, “Oh, it is going on a little bit long.” And then I heard the MC use the term “kōrero nui” and I was like, “oh, is that what a long speech means?” But then it could mean a “big speech”. But none the less, it was a great speech, and I’d say tino pai to that.

This bill gives effect to the agreement reached following one of the longest-running legal disputes in New Zealand’s history, transferring legal title from the Crown as former trustee to Te Here-ā-Nuku Trust.

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I also acknowledge and thank the Finance and Expenditure Committee, which I had the privilege of chairing in consideration of this bill, which went through with unanimous support. I can tell you it’s much easier chairing a committee when you have unanimous support and when everyone’s on the same page. The unanimity reflects the significance of what we are achieving here today. To be honest, the hard work was already done; as a committee, we just had to ensure that the legislation met the needs of the settlement. We had some good help from robust counsel and the legal team, which I can see some in the gallery here today. So thank you for your work and guidance as we went through this process as a select committee.

I’d also like to honour and acknowledge the Hon—this is quite a mouthful—Judith Collins, previous Attorney-General, for the work that she started and it’s great that she gets to see it come to fruition here today. It’s amazing that the work that we start continues beyond Parliament, and it’s an important legacy we continue. Of course, the Hon Chris Bishop, who you could tell was very proud of being at that ceremony today; and acknowledging the work and the cross-party support that we achieved. Kaumātua Rore Stafford and all your associates and whānau—I acknowledge you and your team.

Today, we acknowledge the past but, importantly, we look to the future. Although I gave a little bit of banter to a long speech, to be fair that was a pretty compressed ceremony that represents over 100 years of struggle. But the good news is today you’re not going to be compressed by time limits. Once this passes, you’re free to celebrate and dance and waiata for a long time to come. May today mark a new beginning, one of prosperity, wellbeing, and good health for all those connected to this historic outcome and for generations yet to come. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa) (16:44):

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It is such an honour to stand here before you today. What I will always remember as a part of my career, is where we get to be here today to acknowledge 200 years of struggle, of battle for our history, of our kaitiakitanga, of rangatiratanga. And for you today to stand here accompanied by the young people who have come along, our mokopuna, our rangatahi, for whom this as a new day. [Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

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I want to make this speech to the young people who have come with you, to all of the young people I have seen gathering in Parliament in their school uniforms, to the young people who have come along with their parents. This is a day for you. When we talk about that new day which is dawning, there has been such a long struggle over a long night and we have lost so many on the way. But this is an opportunity to start something which is new and in your honour.

I was six years old when my kaumātua and kuia stood in the gallery for the passing of the Ngāi Tahu settlement. That was a day which I always remember because my iwi got to settle and then stand alongside me at every important moment of my life. Back in high school, I was able to reach out to my iwi to support me in getting a career; in university, as I was able to receive a scholarship which sent me to law school and then through a bachelor’s degree in commerce. I was able to work with my iwi, not only in the first commercial job that I ever had but with my aunties and uncles checking in on me in my lunch time, making sure that I was comfortable in a city that I had never lived in. I was also able to then take on work through connections of the iwi in the corporate world. I was then able to meet parliamentarians because my iwi supported me to do that. I was able to stand in this House and give my first speech in 2020 as a new MP wearing a korowai, looking up at an iwi who had supported me through every stage of it. When I had my babies, they received from my iwi a harakeke pēpi pod where they could sleep and be assured of the arms of hundreds of kaumātua and kuia who have gone before us, who supported them in the first stage of their life.

This is the most significant moment for so many uri who you have done this for. This is a moment where you have changed the history, not only for those who have come before you but for hundreds of people right now who will see this day and remember what you have done, and for thousands and thousands more who will benefit from it for a generation to come. Thank you for such a long struggle and thank you for coming here today to celebrate it with everyone.

I also want to speak to just how much this means for a region. You know, the incredible work that has been done here is nation-building stuff. It’s not only regional economic development, which will be incredibly significant for the region; it is also protecting a part of the country that is unparalleled in the world. It is beautiful. It is a system and an ecosystem which supports life that is unlike any other. The seabirds, the creatures that rely on your area are significant to the way that the world works. And for our young people to be able to see some of those species, it is imperative that you are able to reclaim that kaitiakitanga, which has always been yours, but the Crown has done its best job to interfere in. This is significant not only for you but it is significant for a region and all of the rangatahi who are watching today who need to be able to enjoy that special place. So when we reflect on what is being done today, I think about all of those people who rely on your work to be able to enjoy this region, which is important to us all.

I also want to acknowledge the Hon Judith Collins. It is right that there have been mihi in this House to her for fiercely advocating for this settlement. It is right that we acknowledge not only the National Party’s contribution to this but the importance of bipartisan commitment to those Treaty settlements and to legislation like this, which are genuinely innovative and mean that young people grow up supported by their iwi, by their hapū, by their whānau, and by something institutional which is bigger than all of that, by a Government that believes in Te Tiriti o Waitangi and its constitutional commitments to those young people to reclaim their tino rangatiratanga, for rangatahi to reclaim their kaitiakitanga and to live as equal citizens in Aotearoa.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (16:49): Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa, nau mai haere mai. Welcome to you all today. I’d like to just acknowledge the significance of this occasion—181 years you’ve all been waiting for this day. So I have a huge amount of aroha for you all. It’s been great to witness and hear some of the speeches. And we need more of this in the House, don’t we? More occasions where we agree on things that need to be done. It’s great to be here and to acknowledge the passing at the third reading of this significant piece of legislation that isn’t a Treaty settlement, it is actually something a bit more unique than Treaty settlements. Having sat on the Māori Affairs Committee, I’ve been able to witness a number of Treaty settlements, and the kaupapa is very much like the one we have today, where there is a lot of emotion, wrongs that have tried to have been made right by the Crown or, in this case, by other organisations—but the kaupapa is trying to acknowledge the past and focus on the future. That is what this piece of legislation seeks to do. It is really a matter of upholding trust law and the laws of this House.

As a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, I had a brief moment to get in touch with this piece of legislation. I do wish to acknowledge the many submitters who made a submission, even if they didn’t support the bill. I do want to acknowledge the passion that the likes of Nick Smith and others had towards it. The committee simply—we did look at it very seriously, the issues that were raised around access, as has been traversed in the House, and we were satisfied with the arrangements that have been made. We were satisfied with Te Here ā Nuku Trust and the kaupapa that they have to be guardians for the land—their land, your land—and therefore, we did not make any significant changes.

I also wish to acknowledge the various advisers that we have—and I see Jason in the room—Te Puni Kōkiri, and the Parliamentary Counsel Office for their guidance as we were bringing ourselves up to speed with what is quite a complex matter. Minister Chris Bishop, when he referred this bill to the select committee, did say this is quite a unique piece of legislation, and it is quite complex. That is why he referred it to the Finance and Expenditure Committee to have the mana in order to look at this with seriousness.

I just want to, again, acknowledge those who have had a big role in bringing this piece of legislation to the House today: the Hon Judith Collins, good to see you again; Minister Bishop for taking the baton over and sticking with it to bring it through to the House; the negotiators, Matua Stafford, and all of those who have been a part of this significant piece of legislation. As my colleague Ryan Hamilton said, it is a change to focus on new beginnings. I’m an Aucklander—don’t hold it against me—but having visited the Abel Tasman and Nelson area, what a significant, beautiful part of Aotearoa New Zealand. My wife and I have spent Christmas and New Year in that part of the world, and it is, like has been described in the House, a beautiful part, full of the richness and diversity of New Zealand wildlife. It is a significant piece of land, and I know that going forward, you will be good guardians for that.

Without further ado, I commend this bill to the House—nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour) (16:53): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou katoa. It’s an enormous privilege to speak at the third reading of Te Here ā Nuku (Nelson Tenths) Bill.

When I first became an MP, I was a little bit horrified to find out that everything we say in this place is taken down word for word—a rather horrifying experience, because there are a lot of things that are said in this House that potentially shouldn’t stand the test of time. But this is one of those extraordinary days when acknowledgments should—and, in fact, they must. So, please, if I could, I’d like to join my colleagues from across the House in acknowledging Rore Stafford, the trustees, Johnny McGregor, Miriana Stephens, Barney Thomas, Missy Te Kanawa, Jamie Tuuta, Chief Executive Jeremy Banks, Paul Morgan, Kerensa Johnston, and the whānau and community of the descendants of the Nelson Tenths. We have a significant presence of you here today. Welcome to Parliament; welcome to your House.

I want to acknowledge the Attorney-General, the Hon Chris Bishop, the former Attorney-General, the Hon Judith Collins—my respect to both of you for the steps that you’ve taken and that your office has taken to contribute to us reaching here today. To the Hon Judith Collins, who may not have heard some of my previous comments: I referred to her tenacity as being part of the reason we are here and certainly for me as the shadow Attorney-General, with the settlements as we’ve seen it, I see her as a fine example of what an Attorney-General can do when justice is your anchor.

I also want to acknowledge Dame Patsy Reddy and David Tapsell for their role in negotiations; Crown Law, and in particular, Jason Gough; Te Puni Kōkiri’s Steven Sutton; Mark Hickford; Karen Feint KC; Stephen Hunter KC, and the many countless others who worked to get us to today.

I’ve had the honour of speaking in support of this bill in first reading, in second reading, and in the committee of the whole House. In those contributions, I spoke to some of the detail of the legal decision, its unusual nature, the principles borrowed from Canadian law, the creation of a right on the extinguishing of another, and, in some ways, the legal unicorn that this settlement represents. I’ve spoken about the submissions at select committee, the choices between urgency and certainty, and the fact that the technical legislative drafting is sound to ensure that this decades and decades and decades old dispute can at last be made just. I won’t speak to that detail today. I will, however, echo what I consider to be the most significant of what we know to be true: this is land that never changed ownership. It was, has, and will continue to belong to the beneficiaries of the trust.

I will instead speak of today. Earlier today, many of us had the privilege of attending the mihi whakatau for the trustees and descendants, and I wanted to touch on three things. Standing in the marae, we heard the manuhiri approaching, and it felt incredibly powerful. My children sometimes refer to the electricity that you feel run through you at significant moments, and the sense of significance is truly here today. Minister Bishop, when he spoke, talked about the House being still as we head into this third reading, and he was right; it has been still. There are times when quiet speaks to the gravity of legislation the House passes, and this time is one of those moments. I think about the history books and what this might signify the most—whether it’s the extraordinary story of resolution that will land or the weight of how much has had to pass to get here. I think it’s both—both—and history will reflect both.

That takes me to my second thought as I was sitting in Pipitea Marae and looking at the rows of those sitting in front of us who represented just a fraction of those who are beneficial owners of the land. I felt acutely aware of how much I didn’t know and how much I hadn’t seen—about the late-night conversations, the debate, the sacrifice, the things put off until later, the uncertainty, the waiting. For a moment, it felt like even that electric moment wasn’t enough.

My third reflection is on what comes next. It was special to see the young people of Te Tai Ihu at the marae earlier today and some in the gallery this afternoon. I had the privilege of briefly greeting Kingston, probably one of the youngest in the group, who I see is up in the gallery—kia ora. The story of the Tenths land is theirs to guide into the future. It’s special for them to see this House can be a place unified in the interests of justice. For them—especially ones as young as Kingston—I don’t know, but I suspect the lexicon of trust law matters not a lot. This is a matter settled as a matter of trust law, but can I acknowledge that its meaning is so, so much more. We speak of land as though it holds still—a parcel, a plot, a line drawn once meant to hold—but land remembers longer than any instrument we file: who walked it, who was buried in it, whose name was promised and then erased.

This bill may not generate the kind of headlines that dominate question time. It is, in large part, technical legislation. It’s not really conveyancing in the traditional sense. It’s not restoration but affirmation of ownership at a scale most of us will never personally encounter. It’s giving legal form to a resolution and a truth already agreed and known outside this Chamber—but its significance is not technical at all. It closes a 180-year chapter in which a promise made to the customary owners of Nelson was broken almost immediately, and in which generations waited for that wrong to be acknowledged and corrected. So, with that, it is time to move forward. I commend this bill to the House.

NANCY LU (National) (17:01): As the last member to stand to commend the bill to the House, I welcome, firstly, everybody in the gallery who travelled from near and far to listen to the third reading of Te Here ā Nuku (Nelson Tenths) Bill in the House. It is a very significant day, as we have heard from the members across parties, who respectfully honoured and spoke about the very long years awaited before us to witness the day today.

It is also a very proud moment for me as a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee (FEC), where we all heard from submitters. The members who spoke before me have mentioned why the bill was sent to the FEC instead of, for example—more conventionally—the Māori Affairs Committee, because of the weight and the uniqueness of this bill.

It is also a very special moment to welcome back the former Attorney-General, the Hon Judith Collins KC, to the House. It is a very special moment when we have someone so significant return to the House and to be sitting here all afternoon to listen to every single speech, but also to hear the very moving speech from the Attorney-General now, the Hon Minister Chris Bishop.

Of course, as we read through and try to remember the significant parts that were mentioned in this bill and, also, all the media coverage to date before today, it is a bill that every member of the select committee has supported unanimously to pass through and to make sure that the sooner that we can have Royal assent to make this a day that is all for you, about you—it’s not about anybody sitting in this House, but it is to recognise that transfer of the legal title and the relevant lands in Nelson, Tasman, and Golden Bay areas from the Crown back to the former trustee, to everyone sitting in this Parliament right now.

It is my honour, as the last speaker of the House, to commend the bill. I’m sure that you will make it the most memorable day and, together, we look forward to a better future for all New Zealanders going forward—but, most importantly, to everyone sitting in the gallery today. Thank you.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): I now invite our guests to perform a waiata.

Waiata—“Ka Pioioi”

Haka

Disability Support Services Bill

Legislative Statement

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Disability Issues) (17:08): I present a legislative statement on the Disability Support Services 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 LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Disability Issues) (17:08): I move, That the Disability Support Services Bill be now read a second time.

I want to acknowledge the Social Services and Community Committee on their work on this bill. I also want to thank every one of the 3,000 submitters who took the time to make a submission during this process.

The bill aims to make the current system clearer and creates a solid foundation for which future improvements can be made. It clarifies that the key purpose of disability support services (DSS) is to contribute towards disabled people being able to live their everyday life. I strongly believe that people should be able to easily understand what the disability support services system does and what they can access. The bill was always intended to do that; however, as I’ve already acknowledged to representatives from the disability community, our initial drafting wasn’t clear enough. We have listened to the feedback and we are acting with important changes.

The bill as it is being considered today will provide improved consistency, fairness, and transparency about how the system operates and how decisions are made. The bill continues to reflect current practice and settings. It does not result in any changes to current eligibility, entitlements, or support.

The bill also responds to a December 25 Supreme Court case relating to paid family carers by clarifying employment relationships and putting in place measures to reduce Crown fiscal and litigation risks. It affirms that it is the Government and Parliament who set policy and funding, and not individual court decisions. My intention is that appropriated funding for DSS goes to quality disability support services and not to further costs from litigation.

The bill has been amended to further align with the Enabling Good Lives principles and to ensure that decision making is more person-centred. Any decisions about funding must also take into account a disabled person’s choice and preference, immediate and long-term needs and circumstances, and their safety and dignity. It has also been amended to make clear that a disabled person is not expected to exhaust family support before support from Disability Support Services (DSS) is provided. DSS remains a contribution alongside the support that is currently available from family. The Social Services and Community Committee has also recommended, which I strongly support, amendments to require consultation with key stakeholder groups when significant changes to DSS support programmes are being made.

The committee considered almost 3,000 written submissions and heard from about 140 oral submitters. Many submitters shared deeply personal experiences about their disability, care, family life, and their interactions with DSS. This was critical to inform the committee’s recommended amendments. The key concerns I heard during the process were that the bill will place additional caring responsibilities on families and extend to wider family members, might directly reduce allocations or trigger reassessments, and didn’t include processes to involve disabled people, the disability community, or carers in determining policy or funding settings.

I want to acknowledge that disabled people’s needs and circumstances vary greatly. This extends to their families and wider support networks. Where appropriate, families make a contribution alongside DSS-funded services. The bill does not establish new or unbounded obligations on family. It does not require family to be a disabled person’s primary source of support. I’m pleased the committee recommended clarifying the bill’s family provisions. These provisions now emphasise consideration of individual circumstances and preferences. We do still have work to do to support carers, and that’s why, in consultation with key community representatives, we are also developing a new carer support package.

I’m pleased that the select committee has recommended amendments that strengthen support programme provisions in this bill. These changes provide a clearer framework for future decisions and make support programmes publicly available through secondary legislation, which, of course, improves transparency and accountability. Importantly, the committee has clarified that the needs and outcomes of disabled people must be at the heart of decisions to establish or amend support programmes. The amendments reinforce the principles of independence, choice, safety, and dignity. They ensure disabled people are supported to make decisions about their everyday lives, participate in their communities, and pursue their goals they choose.

Consistent with my commitment at first reading, I support the committee’s recommendation that disabled people be consulted through their representative organisations when support programmes are established or amended. This is in line with New Zealand’s obligations under the United Nations’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Disabled people and the organisations that represent them bring invaluable expertise, insight, and lived experience, which are essential to the ongoing development and improvement of DSS.

Many submitters spoke about the bill introducing means testing or moving away from needs-based services. While most funded disability support isn’t income or asset tested, some DSS service lines already are. This has long been the case, and the bill reflects current practice. I do not intend to expand the use of income or asset testing beyond where it is already used. The consultation requirements recommended by the committee means representatives of disabled people must be consulted before any support programme or any amendments to a support programme involving means testing is made.

There’s a lot of work to do to develop support programmes, and I want to work with the sector to get them right. The committee has recommended extending the transitional period from three to five years to allow time to consult. The committee also recommended including a provision to require the Minister to review and present a report to the House on the operation of the Act within five years of its commencement. This bill was always intended to be the first phase of providing a legislative framework for DSS. The next phase, including a second bill, will focus on addressing important matters such as safeguarding, information gathering, and appeals and complaints processes. I will continue to work closely with the sector and seek input from the community on proposals to inform the development of the extended legislation.

A clear legislative framework for Disability Support Services is needed to ensure there is a fair system rooted in certainty, transparency, and consistency. I’ve heard the concerns around the bill, and I’m pleased that the committee has proposed changes to improve it. That’s exactly how the select committee process should work. These changes will ensure the needs, interests, and views of disabled people are key to the development and provision of fair and sustainable support, and, very importantly, the opportunity for us to continue to improve DSS for disabled people. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (17:15): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill was considered by the Social Services and Community Committee. I am not a permanent member on that committee but I was able to sub on to listen to a number of submissions and be part of the process of this bill, and I thank colleagues on this side of the House for the opportunity to be able to do that.

Just before I get into the substantive report-back, or the select committee report and recommendations to improve this bill, I do want to note that this was a shortened select committee process. It was not anywhere near the full six months that is usual for a bill, particularly complex, technical pieces of legislation that have the potential to have a significant impact on people’s lives. This was under three months in total and three weeks for the submission period, and yet there were many who had their voices heard.

I want to, right at the start, acknowledge the close to 19,000 people who had their voices heard, who made their views heard; close to 16,000 through a petition by Victoria Coleman; 3,382 who wrote in to the select committee, provided written submissions; and the committee heard from about 140 of them—143 oral submitters in total. Many of them shared a very personal and poignant stories of their lives with us. Their submissions spoke to the daily struggles that disabled people, whānau, and carers experience; the exhaustion that many of them continue—that all of them, actually—to experience; and they spoke of systems that have bent them to almost breaking point. I want to thank everyone who shared their lives, or glimpses into their lives, with members of the select committee.

I also want to register that the Minister for Disability Issues said in a stand-up that she had not read or listened to any of them. I would not expect a Minister to sit in on select committee hearings, but I would expect Ministers who are making decisions that impact people’s lives to read, at least, or to watch some of those submissions, and many have expressed to me that they were disappointed too that she did not do that.

I want to now get into the substance of this bill, plus some of the changes that the select committee has recommended, and I will also lay out why Labour will not be supporting this bill at the second reading. A lot of what I draw on will also be bringing in the voices of the disabled people, carers, and organisations who had submitted. I was hoping the Minister would listen to that, at least in the House.

Just before that, I want to also acknowledge Stew Sexton, the senior accessibility adviser for the New Zealand Parliament, and members of select committee staff and the Office of the Clerk who went out of their way to make the hearings or the sessions more accessible for those who were submitting in person as well. I want to acknowledge their care and their work today.

A lot of what I’m saying or what I will be sharing in my contribution today in the House is taken from an excellent piece by Dr Huhana Hickey. Anyone who is interested in the details of why we don’t support this bill should read her Substack article, and there are others as well who have provided a fair bit of analysis into this bill as reported back from the select committee.

The first is around the rallying cry of disability communities, “Nothing about us without us.” The Minister said that the select committee process is where the voices of those who have a stake in legislation should be heard. However, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities states quite clearly that disabled people should have a much higher level of participation when it comes to the development of legislation, and that did not happen with this bill.

One of the clauses that a number of submitters shared their concerns and their anxiety over was clause 8. The original clause said that families and whānau had responsibility in the first instance for family members’ wellbeing. Many shared with us that the legal interpretation of that would be that families had to provide support to disabled people before the State would step in with funded supports. Many pointed out why that was deeply problematic, and I want to share some of that in the House today.

Le Va pointed to this and said very clearly that family and whānau support must not replace funded Government support. They’ve said—and I quote—“It is important to recognise that not all disabled people have access to family or informal support networks. Reliance on family care alone risks reinforcing inequities between those with available whānau support and those without. Assumptions that family will fill gaps in formal services may reduce disabled people’s independence, choice, and control over their own lives. Family circumstances vary widely, including geographic distance, relationship breakdown, carer health needs, and safety considerations. Where older parents are primary carers, there is also a risk of future uncertainty regarding continuity of care. Disability support policy therefore needs to recognise that family capacity is finite and dynamic and cannot be assumed as a substitute for appropriate funded supports.”

Also, Debbie Hager, who has done a huge amount of work in both the spaces of disability and violence prevention, talks about how the legislation in the original clause would lead to more disabled people being subject to abuse and emotional violence, potentially. Now, the select committee did suggest a recommended change to that. The amended clause says that families have a responsibility to contribute. That is a meaningful improvement, and all of these changes, frankly, are testament to the strength of the submissions by disability communities to the committee. However, the bill still does not contain a clear guarantee that family care will always be complementary rather than a substitute for funded support, and we are deeply opposed to that lack of clarification in this bill for the reasons that submitters have stated.

The other point that I would like to make is one made by many, including the Ombudsman, that appropriate safeguards—robust, transparent, accessible safeguarding—and a complaints and appeals process is fundamental to this legislation. The Minister has indicated that that will come later in phase two. We disagree with that. It should be in this legislation. Disability support services legislation is woefully inadequate if it doesn’t contain those safeguards.

Means testing: the Minister has said that she doesn’t intend to expand it to more than what is already means and income tested. In that case, our view is that primary legislation should clarify that. Legally, this could lead to more means testing. Again, I want to point to what Huhana Hickey has said. She says the opposing concern—that is, the concern of many disabled people—is valid because this framework legally equips future Ministers to alter important settings without passing another primary Act. The amended bill does not prohibit extending means testing beyond its present use. If that is not the Minister’s intention—I said this in my first reading contribution as well—if that is not this Government’s intention, they should clarify that in primary legislation.

That then leads me to my next point. I have always held this view and it has not altered as a result of select committee recommendations. There is way too much detail that is in secondary legislation rather than primary legislation. This bill enables ministerial programmes to contain eligibility and allocation criteria, income-based criteria, asset-based criteria, conditions on funding, and rules about how services may or must be delivered. A lot of the substantive part of this legislation that I believe and Labour believes should be in primary legislation is in secondary legislation. That does not give disability communities any greater certainty or transparency around the support services that they are able to access.

Finally, this is rushed legislation. We have just seen today 15,000 pensioners who have lost the winter energy payment because of this Government’s reliance on urgency and rushing legislation through—more than any other Government since 2008. This should not be rushed. It should have had a proper select committee process, and it should have been, right from the start, drafted with input from disability communities. The changes are the bare minimum that the Minister should have known to include in the legislation in the first instance. It has come back; she claims it has been improved as a result. It has, but not enough. For those reasons, Labour cannot support this bill.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (17:25): Thank you so much, Mr Speaker. Can I first begin by acknowledging the thousands, tens of thousands of disabled people who stood against this bill, who not only stood against this bill but stood against the process that this bill went through—the lack of consultation, the lack of active invitation to participate and co-design a bill that is so integral to the wellbeing, the safety, and the future of disabled people across the country.

Disabled people mobilised and sent a clear message to the Government that the process that this bill followed through was not good enough from the get-go, let alone the truncated select committee process that saw countless disabled people being excluded from being able to give an oral submission. I had the privilege, like the previous speaker, Priyanca Radhakrishnan, to sit through some of those oral submissions, and the message was really clear: disabled people were angry—angry at a Government that just does not seem to listen nor care.

I want to also give a shout-out to the disabled people who were part of this process outside and inside the select committee for putting enough pressure on the Minister to actually come and front up to a half apology and present some changes that I think were a very well earned concession for everyone who rallied against this bill. But the message from people across the country, who I want to also put a bit of a footnote about, is that we cannot claim that there is such thing as a monolithic disability community across this country. There’s a diversity of political views that I think we also need to honour and we need to make and hold space for. By and large, the feedback I have seen has been one of calling for Parliament to actually start over and actually co-design disability support services legislation that actually actively seeks the participation of disabled people from the first moment, which did not happen.

I want to comment on some of the key things that have been covered in the previous contribution and have been noted by people who have submitted and commented on this bill past the select committee process—this onus on the family to provide support before the State adequately steps in and takes a rights-based approach to the sort of services that are given to disabled people to enable their full participation in the communities that they are part of. I think this consistent approach of trying to put family as the first resource before the State gets involved is deeply problematic. It risks the safety of disabled people who need the support, particularly because families are often having to juggle, for example, multiple jobs or their caregiving responsibilities. Families are often not adequately equipped with the competency to provide the care that the disabled person needs, as opposed to people that the State can deploy that could be adequately trained and adequately equipped to provide that very same support.

Ultimately, even if families are trying to do their best, when you put someone under so much stress—financial or otherwise—you can break them, and you put everyone involved in the situation at greater risks of harm. This creates a situation where disabled people could be left still, as we’ve been told by disabled people over the decades, in a position of their livelihoods being at risk, and carers feeling like they’re simply not adequately supported, which we also heard plenty during the select committee process and outside these four walls and in the streets, where carers have been really, really clear that they do not feel like the mahi that they provide is adequately valued.

I find it really interesting that the Minister both tries to acknowledge carers and their contributions, while, at the very same time, presenting a bill that closes the door for future litigation in the courts to further enhance the rights of carers, which I think really contradicts some of the well-meaning words in relationship to how the Minister deems to present her views on carers. I just want to sort of point to that contradiction that I think we’re seeing in this bill.

The other element that I want to note is the opening of the doors for further means testing of the programmes that are available and support that’s available for disabled people in need of disability support services. I support and echo the submitters across the country who continued being concerned about the opening of the door in secondary legislation for further means testing. I echo and support the comments from disabled people who have told us that the reassurances from the Minister are nothing but empty words, because this Minister will not be in this job for ever. When we’ve got senior Government politicians throwing slurs at disabled people, it tells us that we cannot take these words for granted.

The provisions that could have stopped further means testing and asset testing should have been put in primary legislation. If that’s what the Minister intends to do, there is no reason why this could have not been put in primary legislation to make it extremely clear to the public that no matter who is in charge, this will be safeguarded. Because there’s nothing stopping a future Government—and particularly when I look at the National Party’s coalition partners, who seem to either actively campaign on preventing disabled people on the benefit from getting on to the supported living payment by adding additional restrictions, or other coalition partners throwing literal slurs at disabled people. There’s just simply no guarantee, and we cannot take this for granted, which is why a rights-based approach is the way to go, and actually and genuinely honour our commitments we have made to the world and to disabled people in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which this Government just seems to continuously pretend that it’s not there. I see this every day in the mahi that I do with my immigration portfolio, where I’m fighting against disabled people being actively discriminated and deported within the immigration system, despite us signing up to these conventions internationally.

Finally, I want to comment on the fact that I think part of our vision of starting again and redesigning this bill is to build a disability support services legislative framework that honours the interdependence that we have to one another, that honours the fact that disabled people have a right to full participation, have a right to a life of dignity, to be treated with respect, to be co-conspirators in the legislative process, and for their voices to actually be front and centre. The select committee process we undertook, in my view, continues being a disservice to the experience that I think should have been given to disabled people.

I too want to none the less commend the staff in the select committee ,who I know—as has been said—went above and beyond to accommodate the process that was given to us by the Government parties by way of numbers. So, once again, I want to finally reiterate our position, which is that if in power, we will repeal this bill and start again with the vision and goals that disabled people have told us over and over again, which is that “There’s nothing about us without us.” I know that that has been said so much in this Parliament that it can feel, I think, in this room, as empty words when the legislative process, I would say, in successive Governments has not been the case. But I do think that, if anything, this process has shown that people will not be silenced, that people will not be told what their rights are—that rights are fought. There is power in numbers.

So I want to continue encouraging disabled people across the country to continue their fight and their campaigns for better rights, because this isn’t the only piece of legislation that threatens the rights of disabled people. Even this week, we’re supposed to debate a bill that will deem people who are perhaps struggling with mental health or battling cancer, disabled by health conditions, who are going to be stripped of income support. So when I see a Minister giving us empty platitudes on how much she deems to care about disabled people, yet that very same Minister with other roles continues pushing a legislative agenda that tramples on those very same disabled people, I just don’t buy it. So, again, the Green Party will keep fighting against this bill.

I want to mihi to disabled people across the country. I want to mihi also to the fact that there’s a diversity of views from disabled people. We’ve got disabled people who are active participants in every political party. That is exactly what it should be about. So to any politician that claims that they have consulted with the disability community, I invite them to honour the multitude of voices and political views that exist within it—in this case, many who have told the Government that they need to start over and make this bill right.

LAURA McCLURE (ACT) (17:35): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to firstly also thank all of the submitters that came before the Social Services and Community Committee. I’m a first-term MP, so some of the submissions that we heard were very moving. It was really hard not to feel the concerns that were coming to us. So I just want to say thank you so much to those disabled people and their whānau that came through to let us know their thoughts on this piece of legislation. I also want to thank the select committee staff, because they made accommodations for us to be able to hear submitters. We used a larger select committee room. We made sure that, where possible, we could have an interpreter to do sign, which I think was great. That was all done pretty last minute.

I do want to say that I do have concerns that the disability community weren’t consulted in advance with this bill. I know that this bill came as a bit of a shock. I also know that no matter what we do at this point in this bill, nothing is probably going to be enough. But I think it’s also really fair to say that there’s been a lot of accusations from the opposite benches thrown at the Minister and this Government, but they’ve had since the early 1990s to put a disability support services (DSS) framework in place—successive Governments have—and nobody has done it thus far. Right now, without a framework in place, a Minister could quite literally make changes overnight. So it is important that we have a framework. So I do actually want to acknowledge the Minister in trying to fix this issue, because what is going to create the most certainty for those that are receiving DSS is to actually know that there is a legislative framework around it.

There were a couple of things that I’ll note that submitters raised that was the most important, and I think the select committee has done a good job at taking on the feedback and actually changing the wording in the bill. We’ve added some amendments to the bill. I want to thank the Minister for also acknowledging these amendments, and also noting that these are really important for those that submitted. So clause 8(2)(a), as introduced, said that “families … have responsibility in the first instance for … well-being of their members:”. I know that that wording was brought up with us a lot during the process, and there were concerns that that meant that the main burden or financial burden would fall on families. That was not the intent of the bill, so we thought it was really important that we clarified that. So we have changed the wording to say, “a responsibility to contribute to”, as opposed to it actually being in the first instance. Where I think that is important is because not all family is able to contribute. Actually, the person with the disability has a right to be able to live their life the way in which they want to. Actually, sometimes, family aren’t in the best-placed position to be able to provide care, for example. So I think that this is a better reflection of where we are actually heading with that.

In clause 8, we have actually also added a requirement for decision makers to take account of eligible disabled persons, and there’s a list there of principles, choices, and preferences, including support required to communicate to them, safety and dignity, immediate and long-term needs and circumstances, what are their own resources where appropriate, support available through other publicly funded sources, and support available through family or community where appropriate. I think “where appropriate” is a really important differentiation that we’ve made.

The committee has decided that these elements are in line with the principles of Enabling Good Lives. I think it’s important that any framework that we have does actually align with this, because many members of Parliament across the House have agreed that this is the direction of travel that we need to be heading in.

Some of the other things that we did and some of the other things that we heard were around consultation and around secondary legislation to do with regulation-making powers. There was a concern that some details—things like means testing, for example—would be left to secondary legislation, which would mean that a Minister would be able to change these quite easily and, potentially, without consultation. The select committee has put in some safeguards to ensure that there is consultation with the community when making these decisions, and I think that that alleviates quite a lot of the fears that people had around secondary legislation.

It is important that we do have something in regulations as opposed to primary legislation because we need to be able to be agile and to move quickly with new policies which benefit our disabled community the most. I do think that it is important, though, that, as everyone who has spoken before me has noted, and also the submitters—they were concerned that with a change of Minister or a changeover of a Minister, we may see some new regulations made and they may not be in line with what the community desires. That adds an important safeguard, and, look, I think that we’ve just got to come back to the fact and remember that at the moment, we don’t have a safeguard, and this could actually just be done right now. In fact, I was really surprised to know that the DSS system was set up on a Cabinet minute or a Cabinet paper from 1991, currently. That is not a safe situation that we’re in right now for those receiving DSS. Any Minister could come in and make changes without this framework.

While I know that it’s not perfect, I think that it’s really important to note that this is actually a better change. I challenge the Opposition members who say that they would go back to square one and start again, because I think that they had possibly tried to look at a DSS framework when they were in Government and hadn’t done it themselves, and yet we have managed to commit to that and made that happen, and get it across the line.

I want to again thank those who did come forward and talk to us, and I also acknowledge the hard work that the select committee has done. I commend this bill to the House.

JAMIE ARBUCKLE (NZ First) (17:42): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Disability Support Services Bill in its second reading. Like many speakers who have already spoken before me, I found that it was quite a moving time in the Social Services and Community Committee, hearing from submitters. We did receive a large number of submissions: over 3,000. But those 140-plus submitters whom we heard from—as a first-time MP, I think that after hearing directly from the disability community, a lot of those submissions in those hearings will be things that I’ll take away with me in future dealings because they were very, very moving.

We’ve heard about the way that in the past, decisions have been made by Cabinet minutes or decisions of Cabinet. You could only call that process an ad hoc kind of system. Up to this point, you couldn’t go and physically find in a piece of legislation for people with disabilities what they were entitled to, and so it makes a lot of sense to put it into a piece of legislation and bring together historically a lot of decisions over decades and over a long period of time. This bill is also intended to confront the other issue around clarifying the employment provisions, and that was a very important part of this bill.

From having the committee hear those submissions, there has been a change of language in this bill, and I think that for families who have family members with disabilities, there was a huge concern about what their responsibility was. The bill now reads “a responsibility to contribute to” wellbeing. That wording, I believe, will give some relief to families and a better understanding of what the bill is trying to achieve.

We’ve just heard from the previous speaker Laura McClure about the Minister being able to make secondary legislation and we heard from many submitters their concern around the lack of consultation, and this bill now deals with that. Consultation will take place when new programmes come into place, and so that consultation will be a very important, vital point, which was missing from the initial draft.

The Minister for Disability Issues also said that disabled people should be able to access what they’re entitled to, and this bill doesn’t change any of those existing entitlements. I think that that is an extremely important point. Under this bill, the entitlements that you were entitled to before, you are still entitled to now, and so nothing has changed.

We have heard from previous speakers about the framework of the Enabling Good Lives principles, which we fully endorse. Another important point that I took was that families were very concerned about the fact that they may have to exhaust all their current resources. Again, this bill now tells us that you don’t need to exhaust all those existing resources—you are entitled to what you’re entitled to. The bill does make some other important changes, including a five-year mandatory review of the Act—and so every five years, the legislation will be reviewed—and the transitional period is being amended from “3 years” to “5 years”.

In closing, New Zealand First does support this bill because we want to be sure that the regulatory framework is strong. On that, I commend the bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): This is a five-minute split call.

ORIINI KAIPARA (Te Pāti Māori—Tāmaki Makaurau) (17:47): When a tāngata whaikaha—a disabled person—spends five years fighting the Crown just to be heard, the system isn’t supporting them; the system is disabling them. That’s the reality of Adam Rangihana, living within my electorate of Tāmaki Makaurau with a severe, traumatic brain injury, and he has put directly those words before me.

For more than five years, Adam Rangihana says he has tried to get answers and help from ACC. ACC held hospital evidence of his catastrophic brain injury. He needed a process that was clear, accessible, and accountable, but instead what Adam Rangihana got, he says, was that the burden was put back on him. He had to find the information and he had to navigate the system, follow the process, and chase the complaint, all with a traumatic brain injury. Five years later, he says that there has been no meaningful investigation, no written outcome, and no resolution. His message to us here in this House today is very blunt: “I’m not asking for sympathy or an election slogan. I am asking for action.”

That is why Te Pāti Māori is opposing this bill. The disability community is not asking this Parliament for sympathy; it is demanding—we are demanding—the rights of our tāngata whaikaha. They have told us that this bill takes us all backwards.

More than 16,000 people signed Victoria Coleman’s petition calling on Parliament not to pass this bill. Disability organisations warned us, tāngata whaikaha Māori warned us, and even whānau and carers warned us, and yet here we are.

This bill says that the responsibility for a disabled person’s wellbeing sits with family and whānau “in the first instance”. Absolutely not—kāo. Whanaungatanga is not permission for the Crown to outsource its responsibility. It means another māmā having to leave work to provide care, it means another whānau who has to carry the cost, it means another disabled person fighting a system that was meant to support them, and whānau cannot be that system. We can’t expect the family to be the system.

There is also Fleming v Attorney-General. Family carers challenged discrimination and fought for recognition of their work. What does this bill do? It protects the Crown against certain liabilities, extinguishes some proceedings, and restricts avenues for challenging past discrimination. You don’t fix discrimination by making it harder to challenge discrimination; you fix the system. The Wai 2575 Health Services and Outcomes Kaupapa Inquiry exposed serious barriers experienced by tangata whaikaha Māori. Te Tiriti requires better, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires better, and our people, the people of Aotearoa, absolutely deserve better.

Te Pāti Māori would establish a Māori-led mana hauā authority so that tangata and whānau whaikaha hold real power over the services affecting their lives. We would build a whānau-centred support grounded in whakapapa and whanaungatanga. We would recognise unpaid carers, invest in a kaupapa Māori disability workforce, and demand accessible Crown services, including systems such as ACC, because accessibility isn’t just ramps, it’s not just doorways; it’s being able to understand better: to understand a letter, to navigate a process, to reach one accountable person, and to get an answer—that’s what our whānau are dealing with on the daily—and challenge the Crown when it gets things wrong.

Adam Rangihana is of Ngāpuhi descent. His experience raises a simple question for every member of this House, and that is: how many more tangata whaikaha Māori are trapped inside Crown systems we designed and are unable to fight their way out? They should not have to fight at all. Tangata whaikaha are not liabilities. Justice is not something the Crown gets to ration when accountability becomes inconvenient. Mana hauā is mana tangata. Fix the barriers, fund the support, and give our people power—they deserve nothing less. We oppose this bill.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (17:52): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Green Party strongly opposes the Disability Support Services Bill because this bill will make the lives of disabled people and tangata whaikaha worse here in Aotearoa. But let’s go back to why this bill came to the House in the first place. This is to do with the Supreme Court decision ruling in Fleming v Attorney-General in 2025. Now, you will hear the Government gaslighting the disabled community, saying nothing is changed, none of the entitlements will change, but that was not the intention of the Supreme Court ruling. The intention of the Supreme Court ruling is to expose the issue that our disabled people and their whānau face on a daily basis. It exposes the issue that the current setting, the status quo, simply is not good enough in addressing the needs of our disabled communities. That is the reason why the Supreme Court made that ruling. So this bill that we see here, and for Government to say that this changes nothing—it’s fundamentally the issue that the Supreme Court tried to address, fundamentally the issue that disabled communities are trying to address, fundamentally the issue of why we’re not upholding our international obligations.

Now, when this bill was introduced, we didn’t see a section 7 report on it. However, subsequently, the Attorney-General’s office confirmed that this bill breaches our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. That is significant, because we have seen, over and over and over again, legislation that affects our disabled communities undermining them, undervaluing them, and underpaying them. We’re seeing through the select committee stage whereby most of the people opposed this bill, most of our disabled communities opposed this bill, and yet you have a Minister and you have a Government that come in here and tell us how they have been heard. That’s disingenuous.

With this bill, one of the things that we are going to be seeing, and what the disabled communities are concerned about, is what it would mean for the ability for them to look after their whānau. Now, we have seen this Government constantly on one hand pulling the rug from underneath our whānau through the changes to the Ministry of Social Development. We’re seeing the fact that you have a Government that says that it is the parents’, it’s the whānau’s responsibility to look after their children if they’re sick, we’re seeing them sanctioning and removing benefits to sick 18- and 19-year-olds with severe mental issues or with cancer because they’re saying that they cannot afford it. We’re seeing them cutting the benefits and removing entitlement eligibility left, right, and centre. We’re just seeing that today in terms of 15,000 pensioners who are not getting the winter energy payment because of rushed legislation, such as this one, going through this very Parliament. That’s simply not good enough.

The disabled community has said in the select committee—their voices are loud and clear—“Nothing about us without us.” If you want to create a system that truly values our disabled people, truly allows them the dignity and autonomy that they rightfully deserve, every part of that needs to be co-created and collaborated on with the communities, not just simply at a presumed secondary legislation stage, as suggested by the department report.

This is why the Green Party is incredibly firm and staunch in our support of the Enabling Good Lives approaches. This is why the Green Party’s incredibly staunch in our call to build more accessible public housing that provides warm, dry homes for our disabled community. This is why the Green Party has been championing changing ACC into an agency for comprehensive care which covers our disabled communities and those who are chronically ill. The Green Party will not support this bill because it will not help our disabled communities.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland) (17:57): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Thank you for your indulgence. I rise to speak on the second reading of the Disability Support Services Bill as the chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee. I firstly just want to acknowledge and thank those 3,382 interested groups and individuals who made submissions; the 143 submitters who gave oral evidence; to my colleagues on the Social Services and Community Committee—we worked long hours to do that—to the Office of the Clerk, who provided sterling assistance and also worked long hours to ensure this could make its way comprehensively through the process; Ministry of Social Development advisers and the Parliamentary Counsel Office, who assisted with legal drafting; and those who provided the interpretation. We spent a lot of time on this. We listened very carefully to the submitters and their submissions, and the committee has recommended a number of quite substantial changes, which I’m very pleased the Minister for Disability Issues has accepted and those changes are going to be made.

I just, at the outset, wanted to say that there has never before in New Zealand been a legislative framework for disability support services. This will be the first time there has been one. The current system distributes billions of dollars of funding per annum on the basis of Cabinet minutes that date back to the 1990s—to letters—and our committee was told, in fact, that some of the original instructions are probably sitting in a desk in a rubbish tip somewhere. There’s a lot of complexity and a lack of ability for people working at Parliament, let alone those in the community, to actually understand the rules that are guiding decisions that have been made. So this is providing, for the very first time, a very clear, transparent legislative framework for everyone to understand the process and for there to be accountability and transparency.

Notwithstanding that, I should also note that this Government over the past two years has increased the amount of funding for disability support services by $2.1 billion—$2.1 billion of new money for disability support services over the last two years. So I just put that in context with some of the speeches we’ve heard tonight from the other side of the House, which, unfortunately, have not been considered.

But we did hear, like I said, some very compelling submissions, which we listened very carefully to, and we thank those submitters for making those submissions. We have recommended some key changes. I won’t go through all of them tonight; I’ll just touch on a couple of particularly important ones, and those are around clause 8 of the bill. This is the “Principles that [the] Ministry and contracted providers must take into account when making decisions about [the] provision of [Disability Support]-funded disability support services”. The original legislation said that “families, whānau, and other culturally recognised family groups, where appropriate, have responsibly in the first instance” to contribute to the wellbeing of their members. We heard a lot of concern that that could be misconstrued that family members could be required to provide the equivalent of disability support services before the State provided them.

So we have made a recommendation to change that to: where appropriate, they have a responsibility to contribute to the wellbeing of members, not a responsibility in the first instance. It’s a significant change, and it reflects the reality that family members of course contribute to the support of their disabled family members around the country but it’s making it really clear that the focus is on not only that but it’s, most importantly, on the State in providing these disability support services.

We have also—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): The member, obviously, is intending to make a full speech, so the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the meal break. The member can resume after 7.30. The House will resume at 7.30.

Sitting suspended from 6.02 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The House is resumed. When we broke for the dinner break, we were on the Disability Support Services Bill, second reading, up to interrupted speech No. 7, and Joseph Mooney has five minutes and 43 seconds remaining.

JOSEPH MOONEY: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I was just about to start talking about the second tranche of clause 8, and the committee’s recommendation was that we thought it was important that the principles would include aspects specific to the disabled person rather than focusing solely on the wider system surrounding them. We recommended that decision makers should take into account any eligible disabled person’s choice or preferences, including whether the person requires support to communicate and make their choice and preference, safety and dignity, immediate and long-term needs and circumstances, their own resources where appropriate, support from other publicly funded services, and support from family, whānau, or other culturally recognised groups in the community where appropriate. This was in response to submitters’ suggestions that we heard throughout the hearings on this bill, and we took elements for these principles from the Enabling Good Lives principles in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

One of the most important things that we heard repeatedly from submitters was in clause 11 of the bill and what’s often called “ministerial programmes”. We heard the importance that the community placed on consultation. Submitters expressed concern about leaving the details of such important programmes for secondary legislation. We note that in the absence of this bill there is nothing currently prohibiting the Minister from introducing changes to means teasing without notification, but we thought it was important to recognise this consultation concern. Again, I understand the high standard of communication is consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the New Zealand Disability Strategy, and so we recommended inserting a new clause to provide that the Minister must consult such representative disabled persons as the Minister considers appropriate before making such a support programme. We note that the bill does not change eligibility entitlements or support.

Finally, the last and most important substantive change that we recommended is that we recommend a mandatory review of the Act’s operation within five years of the Act’s commencement, noting the various concerns that were raised, but also noting that this is the first phase of establishing a foundational legislative framework for disability support services, and a further phase is envisioned that will address things such as safeguarding information gathering, and appeals and complaints processes.

I conclude my comments by thanking again all those who worked very hard on this. I think we’ve got it to a very good place. I want to thank the many members of the disability support services community and disabled people who came and spoke to our committee and informed the changes that we now recommend to the House. I thank the Minister for taking these and indicating that this will be amended accordingly. With that, I support this bill to the House.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) (19:33): Well, Christopher Luxon promised to make life better for New Zealanders, and not only has he made it worse for the disabled community but he’s made it able to be worse in the future, going forward. I can’t imagine many disabled people across New Zealand tonight watching this, thinking that this is any kind of a good bill, regardless of the things that have been done to it at select committee.

Think about what it must be like to have a disabled child, to fight all the time to try and get your child the same level of rights and opportunities as other children, to be able to afford them dignity that every New Zealander deserves, and then also to lie awake at night sometimes thinking, in particular cases, “What is going to happen to my child when I leave this earth? Who is going to look after them?” That is the nature of some of the submissions that were made to the select committee—harrowing submissions. That is what brought more than 16,000 people to this Parliament to protest against this particular bill. The Government’s own documents admit that most people were against this bill, so I don’t know why members opposite think that it’s suddenly been knocked into shape.

If we look at the bill, it tells us exactly what National thinks about disabled people. Look at the language. It describes disability support as a “contribution to care”. It focuses on the responsibilities of families and whānau, it gives Ministers power over programmes governing eligibility assessments and conditions on funding, and it explicitly legislates to manage the Crown’s fiscal and litigation risks.

So here we are talking about the different and diverse disabled communities across New Zealand who are now being characterised, as “fiscal and litigation risks”. Where is the dignity in that? Where is the dignity in that? Disabled people are worried about risk to their independence; brothers and sisters are worried about what is the level of so-called responsibility that they will have to carry for their siblings, regardless of how much they love and care for them; family carers are worried about their rights; and National is just worried about fiscal and litigation risk.

This shows that this Government doesn’t listen, because we’ve heard in this House tonight that the disabled community have said “Nothing about us without us”. They’ve made that very clear. They made it clear at the handover of the petition which I attended. They were angry. But this Government introduced a bill that most submitters opposed, and disabled people are frightened by this. And I know why they’re frightened: because they know their way around the disability system better than anybody—better than the officials, better than the Ministers. They have navigated it all their life. They know which bits work and which bits don’t work, because they are motivated by looking after their lives, looking after their loved ones, and especially looking after their children.

Then, on 26 June, in this House, this year, the Minister said that their fears were scaremongering and misinformation. She characterised the real fears of that community as misinformation. Now, those families are not confused—they understand how much is at stake—and legislation isn’t just about what the Minister Louise Upston promises she will do tomorrow; it is about what is going to happen in the future. That is what they’re nervous about, because the bill allows support programmes dealing with eligibility to have different assessment requirements, conditions on funding, and how support can be provided, and it allows ministerial directions about how powers and discretions are exercised. Even after select committee, the Minister must only consult with representatives of the disabled people “only as the Minister considers appropriate”. Where is the dignity in that and what gives the Minister that level of discretion? What part of “Nothing about us without us” and what part of the power imbalance that is going on here is served by that little tweak at select committee? Yes, it’s better than it was, but it’s still not good enough to support.

The bill says that a failure to comply with those consultation provisions would not invalidate the programme, and then look what happens when families fight back, because families have already fought all the way to the Supreme Court over paid family care, and they won.

So what does the bill do? It limits employment claims. It extinguishes unresolved claims. It bars certain claims from relating to past decisions. This is all about the Crown wanting to manage its fiscal and litigation risk, once again dehumanising the many disability communities across the motu. That is so undignified. It is so unfair to the families who fought. It is so unfair to the families who went to court. It is so unfair to the families who won. All they want to do is legislate away the risk to the Crown; that is not putting disabled people at the centre of the response.

Then there’s a question that keeps many parents up—questions from parents of disabled children, with their parents thinking, “Maybe my kid’s going to be all right, but I’ve been the one fighting this fight for so long, who is going to be there for them?” There were submissions—there was a father who had a seven-year-old disabled son and a five-year-old disabled daughter, and his fear is that, one day, responsibility for his son’s care could fall on the little girl. That is because, despite the protestations from the other side, that gate is still wide open for legislative changes to be made about where the level of responsibility lies. It is not enough just to put the word “responsibility” and think that’s been handled. There is still a duty and a burden on those families that is fundamentally different from where we were before, that says that because you have a familial relationship, the State is able to walk away from its duty of care to you.

Dana Kirkpatrick: No, it doesn’t say that.

INGRID LEARY: It absolutely does say that. It absolutely does, and that is what will happen in the future. It may not happen now, but that door has been opened. Also, because it’s a framework, there’s plenty of scope for regulation, as this particular Government is so wont to do. Let’s look at what this means around the disability community and its relationship—

Joseph Mooney: You’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.

INGRID LEARY: —with the Government. I can see the member for Southland, Joseph Mooney, laughing in his seat. Wait till you get the emails tomorrow from the disability community because guess what, Government! They don’t trust you. They do not trust you with those powers. They don’t trust you with those regulations. They don’t trust you with the eligibility. They don’t trust you with the funding. They do not trust you with their children’s future. Guess what! Neither would I—neither would I.

Labour has listened. I want people at home to know loud and clear, we will repeal this bill. We will repeal it because disabled people are not a fiscal risk to be managed. I was just on a committee before around the seniors poverty report. I heard a member from the Government parties talking about the fiscals of seniors. This Government sees people as fiscal risks and fiscal opportunities. That’s how it measures the world. It is dehumanising. Disabled people are New Zealanders. They have rights. They have dreams. They deserve dignity. They deserve choice.

What the Government’s doing is frightening the very people it should be protecting. We heard that loud and clear at the handover of the petition. It’s all very well for the members over there to sit there and snort, but I didn’t see any of them at the handover. They were not listening to the disability community and neither, apparently, was the Minister, who admitted that she did not listen to the submissions.

The broader question then is, given what this Government is prepared to do to the disability community, who are already one of the most marginalised groups, what will it do to other New Zealanders? The disability community quite rightly has said it doesn’t trust this Government. It’s lived through the trauma. It knows what this Government’s capable of. It has seen many, many cuts and many of their rights taken away. I deal with constituents all the time who tell me about this, who tell me about the fact that they can no longer have choice over how they spend some of the money or they can no longer buy materials or equipment that is going to help their children.

They don’t trust this Government, but to other people watching, take this as a lesson and wonder what would happen to New Zealand and what would happen to our disabled community if there’s another three years of this kind of treatment from this Government. They don’t deserve another chance. They are happy to kick people to the curb. If they can do it to one of the most marginalised groups in society and then try to say, “Oh, we’ve taken responsibility. We’ve made some tweaks at the select committee and we promise you that we’re not going to change things in the future around means testing. Trust us.”—that is their mantra, and we’ve heard that in the House tonight—then imagine what they could do with another term of Government.

It’s good to see some of the changes at select committee. It’s good to see other members of the House acknowledging that we are not dealing with one community here; we are dealing with many different diverse communities across New Zealand, many of whom are seniors who I speak to all the time in my seniors spokesperson capacity. But disabled communities, regardless of where they fall and where they live, are deserving New Zealanders and they deserve better. They do not deserve to have this Government in for another three years. They do not deserve to be treated with such contempt and such disregard. I do hope that the rest of New Zealand, if you can’t decide for yourself, do it for our disabled community. Do not give this Government, this cruel and heartless Government, another three years. They’ll just make things worse.

DANA KIRKPATRICK (National—East Coast) (19:44): Well, honestly, I’m almost speechless at that nonsense that I’ve just heard from the member of the Opposition. I would just like us to get back to a few facts. This is the Government that invested $2.1 billion extra in disability services to support the disabled community. Yes, there’s always more work to do; we understand that. I’d like to thank the Social Services and Community Committee members who spent a lot of time deliberating and talking and discussing the issues in this bill and made significant changes at the behest of the submitters. We listened and we heard and we talked at length about the themes that came through very quickly and we made some significant changes.

But there are some things that just need to be repeated for the people of the other side who have clearly missed the memo. Until now, there has been no legal framework for disability support services. The bill provides a clear legislative foundation reflecting how the disability support services operates. The bill does not change current eligibility, entitlements, or support. The changes we made strengthen the bill by providing greater clarity. Our priority in this Government is that disabled people and their families can now understand how the disability support system works and have confidence in how decisions are made. I commend the bill to the House.

Hon JENNY SALESA (Labour—Panmure-Ōtāhuhu) (19:45): Mālō e lelei and happy Tongan Language Week. I rise to oppose the Disability Support Services Bill at second reading. I would like to state what we on this side of the House know. Disability support services has needed a proper legislative foundation for years. Families and whānau, disabled people themselves, and the sector organisations that support them have said so consistently over the years. Nobody on this side of the House is defending the status quo of confusion about who qualifies for what and how decisions get made.

But a bill that fixes a real problem can still get the answer wrong, and this bill gets it wrong in its process and in substance. On the issue of process, this bill was referred to the Social Services and Community Committee under urgency, with roughly half the normal time to report back. There was no community consultation before it was introduced. The Government’s own regulatory impact statement admits this, citing sensitivity of the proposals, but sensitive to whom? It’s most definitely not to the over 55,000 disabled people and whānau who rely on the system every single day.

Parents told the select committee that this approach may breach our obligations as a Government under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to closely consult disabled people’s own representative organisations on matters that affect them directly. When your own statement flags a likely breach of a United Nations convention, that is not a technicality; that is a warning.

Now, in substance, three things stand out. First, most of what actually matters in this new system will sit in regulations, not in this actual bill—regulations that a future Minister can change with far less scrutiny than this House can apply towards primary legislation. CCS Disability Action, the largest pan-disability organisation in Aotearoa New Zealand, has told the committee plainly that this bill could reshape disability support for decades, and most of the detail sits outside this bill itself.

Second, this bill embeds language of natural supports and family responsibility that risks shifting more unpaid care on to families who are already stretched to the breaking point, and it does this while sidestepping a Supreme Court ruling that recognised some family carers as employees.

Third, Blind Low Vision New Zealand put it better than I ever can. They said that this bill builds the fence around the budget before it builds the doorway for our disabled people. It leads with funding constraint, executive control, and risk management, and it trails behind on rights, autonomy, and participation. This is a reversal of everything that the Enabling Good Lives approach was built to achieve. The Enabling Good Lives approach was something that was developed across parties. It was something that both of the major parties agreed on and it is an approach that Parliament has invested in across parties over one decade.

I have to note that there is something else that’s missing from the Government’s report on this bill. There isn’t one word about Te Tiriti o Waitangi—not one word about tāngata whaikaha Māori. If a bill this significant to tens of thousands of disabled New Zealanders cannot even acknowledge Te Tiriti, that tells all of us everything about the priorities behind it. Over 3,300 submissions came in on this bill.

Thousands of people also signed a petition. This House owes them more than a rushed process and a bill that manages them as a fiscal risk, rather than recognising them as people and citizens with rights. As it stands, this bill does not deserve a second reading. It was rushed. It was not properly consulted on. It leads with control rather than rights. I urge members across the House to vote it down and to send the Government back to do this properly, in partnership with disabled people, not about them: “Nothing about us without us.” I do not commend this bill to the House.

PAULO GARCIA (National—New Lynn) (19:50): The Disability Support Services Bill establishes a legislative framework for the disability support services for the first time. It’s intended to improve consistency, fairness, transparency, and the sustainability of the system. It is also aimed at providing a stronger voice for disabled people in future decisions. I commend this bill to the House.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (19:51): Mālō e lelei. I want to pick up where the last speaker stopped, because he talked about how this is a bill about improving sustainability. I want to take issue with the use of a word like “sustainability”. Because what we’re really talking about here is that there was a case that suggested that people should be paid for the work they were doing 24/7 with caregiving responsibilities for disabled people. As a result, this Government has brought in a piece of legislation that cuts across any discussion of those rights, any exploration and any finding that they had rights to that kind of payment—that’s what actually is happening. That’s what we’re calling “sustainability”. So it’s no wonder, when we talk about language like that being used, instead of talking about how we’re actually cutting financial cost, that people don’t trust this Government. It’s absolutely no wonder, when we abuse words like “sustainability” when we do that.

I was on the select committee. I note that the chair was suggesting to Ingrid Leary that her speech was not compelling because she wasn’t on that committee. I listened to Ingrid Leary’s speech, and I agreed with what she said, and I was on that committee. I was on that committee, but I was also here when the House decided that that matter needed to go to our select committee, along with several other matters—other law changes that were significant. It had to go and we had to meet in the time of the usual sessions of Parliament, which means I cannot do my job in this House in the same way I usually would. I had to go and sit on that committee in those times, and submissions had to be rushed, and they have to be in very, very quickly.

Nevertheless, we had many submissions. We had to get through that process. I rose and I objected at the time. I said, “This is going to be really hard because (a) we have other work that the committee has been sent to do in this period of rush, (b) we have people who are disabled and it’s going to be really important that they’re heard on this, and it’s going to be harder to make that possible and to make them feel heard on this.” Actually, that was all dismissed. When we got into the submission process, we heard repeatedly from submitters, telling us that they were distressed by the fact that it had been a rushed process. They were distressed by the fact that they hadn’t had much time to come to this House, where they belong, to give submissions. I felt ashamed. What got mixed up in the message, again, was, “You don’t understand. This isn’t urgent. We’re hearing submissions.” We were hearing submissions in a big rush, and it did impact on those submitters and it did impact on the quality of what we heard, but it also impacted on the trust that people had in us.

I will never actually forget one of those submitters coming in and talking about looking after his disabled family members. He was pretty eloquent, actually—he gave a pretty good account of what was going on for him. The heaviness of some of the responsibilities he had—and I don’t think he meant any disrespect to the love that he had for the people he was looking after at all, but when he got into the corridor, he just burst into tears. And there was a howling from the corridor. It was one of the moments I was most ashamed of in this House, because we were whipping through submission after submission. We had to have a subcommittee so people could only meet with half the committee. That’s what we do when we’re in a rush. It was to get this piece of legislation back here.

It sure as hell was not coming back because we urgently needed a framework. What we urgently needed to do was actually cut the rights of people to go through a legal process in the Supreme Court. So if anybody is listening here and they’re confused about why this is here tonight and why we are going through this process, it is not because it is a more sustainable system; it is because this House did not want to face up to the reality of the cost—the actual value of the work done by those family members.

Now, I want to get on to why people feared that there would be further changes in this piece of legislation. That is because a lot of the detail isn’t in this piece of legislation at all. Yes, it has a framework and it has an enabling of things like asset testing. We’ve heard the Minister tonight, and I wrote down what she said, and she said, “I do not intend to expand asset or income testing”. Well, the Minister may be prepared to make that commitment herself, but she might not be the Minister in a few months—she might not be the Minister. There may be the same Government and she might not be the Minister. That’s the way that Ministers work—they flip from place to place. Another Minister won’t have made the same commitment. Actually, it will be possible for that to happen. So it’s cold comfort to have that kind of assurance.

What you could actually put in the legislation is you could put some promises and binding obligations. It could have in the primary legislation that there are not to be regulations or secondary legislation that takes this further. There could be that, but that’s not here. So I am not reassured by those words. In fact, I think they are a response to what was the outpouring of anger and grief and frustration that was undeniable by those people who were heroes. We had these people come into our select committee room who were actually managing disability in a heroic way—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Oh, come on.

HELEN WHITE: —and we had people come in who were managing their family member’s disability in a heroic way. I just heard the Minister Goldsmith make a comment which was, “Oh, come on.” I urge him to have a look at some of those submissions, because this is New Zealand. New Zealand families have people who are disabled in them. In fact, the Minister could be in that position one day himself. It happens within our families.

What I want is a New Zealand that supports those families, that actually supports them, and that puts its money where its mouth is when it comes to this. It’s not an “Oh, come on.” situation. I was genuinely moved by seeing those submitters and understanding, from what I was hearing, just how much they were doing for our community, because they’re our people too, and our community needs to take responsibility. It’s not just a case of foisting all responsibility on to biological families, which is, effectively, what has been slightly softened in this legislation, but it is definitely happening. We are foisting on to people huge burdens, and this is only one of them. We are doing this over and over again. We are talking up self-responsibility, instead of talking up community responsibility. I want to be part of a New Zealand that’s better than that. I think we’ve got a much, much better future than that. I think we have to face the fact that caregiving in this country has not been given the value it deserved.

We’ve had an argument, in the last few years, about pay equity for the same reason. A lot of the workers who had their pay equity claims dismissed by this Government were the same people. They were our caregivers, and they are not being valued. We have to decide as a society where we’re going from now, because we are breaking our families. They are ending up in trauma as a result of the way that our society is structured. That’s a big question, it’s a big idea, but we have to have it. We absolutely have the capacity, in a First World nation, to look after our families and our caregivers. This is another step in the walk-away from that kind of society, and I’m not happy about it whatsoever. It’s why I am a proud member of the Labour Party, because the future in this country is not going to look like this. We’re lucky we’re having an election, and it’s people’s chance to decide whether they’re going to have a better future than the one that Minister Goldsmith wants for them. Thank you. I do not commend this bill to the House.

Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula) (20:01): Thank you, Madam Speaker. In this second reading of the Disability Support Services Bill, I think it’s useful to clarify that the legal framework that is being laid out by this bill is a new situation and enables the ability to make the funding programmes much more clear. Now, that is a useful thing, and I commend the bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is, That the amendments recommended by the Social Services and Community Committee by majority be agreed to.

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

Ayes 67

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

Noes 55

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

Amendments agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Disability Support Services 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.

Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill

Legislative Statement

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice) (20:03): I present a legislative statement on the Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill.

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

Third Reading

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice) (20:03): I move, That the Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

The bill amends the Climate Change Response Act 2002 to confirm that the role of the developing, setting, and implementing regulatory policy in respect of greenhouse gas emissions sits with the elected Government and the Parliament. It does this by creating a statutory bar on tort liability for emissions-related climate change effects. The bar will apply so that no person can be found liable in tort for emissions-related climate change effects. The bar is targeted. It does not affect all tort liability that has already been established under common law, such as negligence. It does not change New Zealand’s climate targets or the approach that the Government has set for meeting them under the Climate Change Response Act 2002. It does not change the obligations of New Zealand businesses under the Act or the emissions trading regime.

The change responds to Smith v Fonterra and will prevent the courts from creating a parallel and potentially contradictory regime to the one provided by the Act. The bar is aimed at preventing the development of a novel form of tort liability that does not yet exist. I note that, although the bar will apply to existing proceedings, it will not take existing rights away from Mr Smith. The court has only dealt with procedural matters. It has not heard, let alone determined, whether tort liability for emissions-related climate change may exist. As no rights have yet been identified in the existing case, the bill will not deprive the litigants of any fruits of litigation. The bill has not altered the law. Rather, it will remove the prospect of finding out what the common law might eventually say.

I consider that the application of the bar to existing proceedings is necessary to ensure that there is no risk of a parallel regulatory regime being developed which is inconsistent with the Government’s regulatory response. As Peter Watts KC has observed, Mr Smith is seeking orders to control the future conduct of defendants rather than compensation for past damages. The injunctions being sought were ultimately asking the courts to exercise powers to shut down or sequestrate the assets of such businesses as the courts, in their discretion, chose where those businesses fail to meet the court’s orders to stop net positive emissions by scheduled dates.

The Government’s view is that tort law is not an appropriate mechanism for responding to greenhouse gas emissions. Responding to climate change harm is complex. The Government is better placed than the courts to consider the social, the economic, and the distributional implications of different climate change policy responses. The bill will, therefore, confirm that the role of setting and implementing regulatory policy in respect to climate change gases sits with the executive and the legislature.

Making this change now is necessary to avoid years of uncertainty as the case navigates the courts. The statutory bar will provide businesses with the certainty about their obligations and maintain the coherence of the regulatory system. In conclusion, the bill clarifies the law to ensure there is certainty around climate change obligations of New Zealand businesses. It also ensures our response to climate change is managed by Parliament and by the executive at a national level, rather than piecemeal litigation in the courts. On that basis, I commend this bill to the House.

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

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) (20:07): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just want to start by acknowledging the departure that we had from this House of Chris Penk. He was someone that was respected on both sides of the House and will be missed, undoubtedly, by many of us. I just want to acknowledge his contribution.

There is a lot to unpack here in this bill, and one of the important things about this bill is not just the rights that it would take away but the process that the Government is undertaking in order to remove those rights. Let me be clear: no matter what the Minister says in terms of the fact of his allegation that rights will not be removed, rights certainly will be. In fact, if they were not to be removed, it is hard to know why this piece of legislation has come, with such urgency, to this House to be passed to prevent Mr Smith from following through on those exact rights.

Certainty of the law is a right of all citizens. That means that we sitting in this House, sitting in the courts of law, sitting in our homes, sitting in our schools, and sitting in our prisons—wherever we may be in the country—are all subject to the law, and no one, including Parliament, is above the law. The law that applies to us as we sit here and stand here in the various places that we are around this country is the law that currently stands in New Zealand at the moment. That is certainty of law, and that is the right that all citizens in New Zealand should have.

There is sometimes retrospective law, but the constitutional conventions that we have in New Zealand is that retrospective law should only be and can only be justified in the most extreme circumstances. I would submit that those circumstances have not been met in this case and that the type of retrospectivity that is proposed in this law is something that I have never seen before in this House.

To have a man who has taken a claim under the law as it stands have the names of his cases, which are currently before the courts, that he has spent a lot of money and time along with his representatives pursuing—they are listed here in this very bill and will be removed by the passage of this legislation.

It’s not just my words but if we look to the words of the Law Association, they call this bill extraordinary, and that’s because that’s what it is. What this Parliament proposes to do today with the passage of this law is extraordinary in the sense that it is retrospectively changing the law and it is taking away the common law right of Mike Smith to take his case to the High Court and determine if he has, in fact, had his rights impinged as a result of climate emissions. That is what they are taking away today.

The Government may say, “We didn’t have a choice about this, because it was creating uncertainty for business.” Well, I disagree. The Government had a choice: they could have let this case go through the courts. They could have seen what the courts would determine in respect of Mr Smith’s claim. They could have let the law as it currently stands in New Zealand at the time of Mr Smith’s claim and to this day, until this law is passed, be determined by the court, as it is for many hundreds of citizens around New Zealand every day, and they chose not to do that. They chose not to let the law take its course. They chose not to wait until an appropriate time to see if legislative change was needed. They chose to act in the middle of a court case and change the law not only today but for yesterday.

There’s been a lot of talk about Parliamentary supremacy, and we’ve had people on the other side of the House talking about the importance of Parliamentary supremacy and the fact of this bill is indicative of Parliamentary supremacy. I take a different view to that. I don’t think that Parliamentary supremacy is in question. I think it is very well accepted that we do have Parliamentary supremacy and the reason that we have that is because of the democratic country that we are in. The fact that Parliament can pass a law that changes the law not only today but tomorrow for Mr Smith’s case, in terms of his existing rights, and also on the rights that affected him yesterday, is not in question. Parliament is supreme and Parliament can do that. The question is: should Parliament do that? I would say that Parliament should not do that, because it is an affront to our certainty of law—the fact that you would put in place retrospective legislation that would change the law.

We have fought hard against this bill. This bill would have been in place last week if we had not fought this through the committee stage, but we can only, as an Opposition, prevent this for so long. Tonight, the guillotine will fall on Mike Smith’s case and he will be prevented from pursuing his case that he has fought so long and hard over after tonight. We asked the Ministers: will there be any compensation for Mike Smith? We were told no. I don’t know how any New Zealander can have confidence in the fact that their rights as they exist today can be able to be challenged in a court of law when the Government has decided that it will intervene in this case in such, as the Law Association said, a dramatic way—an extraordinary way.

Democracy, in terms of our certainty of law and in terms of our principles against retrospectivity, is under attack, and it is just another attack. Unfortunately for this Government, although the Minister has stated that it’s not impacting the climate commitments that the Government has, it’s another step that prevents citizens from taking action around climate change when the Government is failing to act. It’s another right taken away from New Zealanders to allow them to ask the Government to take climate change seriously when the Government is ignoring climate change.

We’ve said and we commit to repealing this bill because it’s the wrong thing to do. It is the wrong thing for an individual person but the wrong thing for New Zealand as well. I’m sure that others will mention this in their contributions, but the way that this bill came to this House adds another layer of distrust in our democratic system through the fact that this bill came through a process that was managed by the Prime Minister’s office in a total mess that meant that—and this is all on the public record—there were staff members who requested documents to be provided in hard copies only. We can only assume the reason that those requests were made, and it does not reflect well on the processes that that office has. I know that that’s why the Ombudsman and other Government officials are looking into those processes, because we deserve the right to know that transparent accountability is being made by our highest level of decision makers.

This is a very sad day, and I want to just, if I might, briefly reflect on the Attorney-General’s speech to the Law Association. I know the Attorney-General; I was at law school—in fact, in public law—with the Attorney-General. Many of these things that he is saying about public law I also agree with. But I have to say, when he states in his speech that we need to perhaps have slower lawmaking, I just think it really is a situation where New Zealanders need to look at the actions of this Government and not their words. The speech in and of itself states to respect the rule of law and respect the constitutional conventions that we both learnt when we were at law school, but where we differ is the fact that when it actually comes down to it, the bills that are coming before this House—and this bill in particular, which he does mention—are an affront to those conventions.

His justification for this is that—he says, “Climate change is an example of the type of policy that should be made by the legislature.” I don’t disagree that climate change policy should be made by the legislature, but that doesn’t justify a retrospective case going in, cancelling existing litigation that’s before a court. It doesn’t answer the question of why this extraordinary step is justified. We cannot support this bill, and I would encourage New Zealanders on when they will say this is enough in terms of this Government’s trampling on our democratic conventions and the certainty of our rule of law.

This is serious. If the Government can do this to Mr Smith, the Government can do this to anyone. It’s an affront to Mr Smith’s right; it is an affront to all of our rights. Justice denied for one is justice denied for all of us.

STEVE ABEL (Green) (20:17): If this apple is the Earth, then the livable atmosphere is contained in the skin. In fact, the troposphere where all terrestrial life exists makes up about a quarter of the thickness of the skin on the apple. From the deepest ocean at its maximal point, the Mariana Trench, about 11 kilometres down, to the top of the troposphere is about half the thickness of the skin on an apple, which is only a third of a millimetre. That tiny film of existence is wherein everything that swims and flies and crawls and breathes exists on the Earth—not just everything that exists now but everything that has ever existed, from the primordial ooze to the dinosaurs to today. Outside that skin there is, so far as we know, no life in the universe. We look at the Earth floating as that blue marble in space and we think the whole Earth is living, but, actually, that thin sliver of skin on the outside in which we live is the only bit that sustains life.

This bill amends legislation designed explicitly to protect the stability of our atmosphere—that vital necessity of life. Why do we have legislation like that? Because Dunwich Heath is cinders. Because the Amazon faces critical collapse. Because rivers and lakebeds across the Earth are cracking. Because there is a fierce El Niño forming in the Eastern Pacific. All of those things are an expression of the collision between the exponential factor of our industrial civilisation—our growing economy and population and pollution and energy consumption—and the razor-thin sliver of life wherein we exist. And it’s happening far quicker than we can even begin to imagine.

The actuaries in the UK have just produced a report out of the University of Exeter, and they assessed that if we achieve 2 degrees of warming by 2050, the consequence will be 2 billion dead. That’s 24 years away. It’s actually unimaginable; we actually should all be forgiven for not being able to imagine the scale of the catastrophe that climate change represents. Since the earliest part of the 20^th century, we’ve known that climate change is caused by burning coal in the world’s furnaces. The Rodney and Otamatea Times said in 1912 that burning coal “tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature.” The greenhouse gas effect was described in 1824 by a French physicist, making it as old as the concept of evolution. The fires and the droughts and the floods that we are hit with by extreme ferocity and increasing ferocity are fuelled and intensified by the burning of fossil fuels.

Now, I first encountered the problem of climate change when it was explained to me that a company called ExxonMobil was paying and bankrolling a candidate for the US presidency, a guy called George Bush, because Bush was sympathetic to their position that climate change should be denied and that there should be no action on climate change. Indeed, they succeeded. Bush became president and he shut down, and he perpetuated doubts and denial of climate change, and he halted and stalled the necessary political action.

In that very Parliament in Britain, that congress, they said, “Drill, baby, drill.” We’ve heard those words echoed here in this Chamber by this Government—that mocking “Drill, baby, drill”. Those companies and their executives have locked in this earthly cataclysm for even their own children, to protect the profits of the company.

To this day, those companies the world over do the same thing. They pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the efforts to influence politics away from decisive or necessary action to curb their poisonous pollution. Legislators the world over bow to the will of oil and gas and big agricultural lobbyists and act against both the will and fundamental interests of the people.

The fact of this bill today is that it extinguishes the public’s ancient common law right in favour of New Zealand’s six biggest polluters. When a Government acts so intentionally against the public interest, when the matter is existential, as climate change is, and that Government goes against Ministry of Justice advice and excludes the most impacted party, Mike Smith, while receiving the solicitations of the vested interests, what do you call it? What do you call it?

Mike Smith was not consulted. The Minister, I believe, misled the House and the committee of the whole House when he said that Mike Smith had been engaged with by the Minister of Climate Change and the Minister for Māori Development. I’ve spoken to Mr Smith, and he said that that did not happen; no such discussions occurred. But there were discussions with Fonterra and Z Energy. There were discussions with those vested interests who stand to benefit from the striking out of this legislation in this court case.

There’s a concept that was conceived by a philosopher called Hannah Arendt. She came up with the concept of the “banality of evil”. She described the character of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi who participated in the Holocaust. It strikes me that those corporate bosses today—and, frankly, complicit politicians—are a truer form of the banality of evil, because though they will never personally come so close, as Eichmann did, to transporting human souls to the gas chambers, collectively their actions are far more consequential. They are gassing our whole planet towards an inconceivable human and animal death.

Simon Court: Point of order. Madam Speaker, while I respect the member’s right to share his views, I think it’s incredibly unhelpful, and brings this House into disrepute, to impugn members as if they are akin to the Nazis and Eichmann who perpetrated the Holocaust. I would like that member to withdraw and apologise.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you for the point of order. I think the member—it wasn’t a great comparison to use, but I could link that back to the earlier discussions in the speech, so I think I’ll just ask the member to be careful with the wording. I can see the picture that the member is trying to build, but just be careful with that comparison and don’t use that comparison again. Thank you.

STEVE ABEL: May I express, to complete the idea, that the concept of the banality of evil implies that there is a sort of blandness to an action that has a terrible consequence. Right now, our whole planet is being, effectively, gassed. The consequence of that is not 6 million deaths but tens of millions and hundreds of millions of deaths. This is what the predictions are.

Simon Court: Predictions, Steve.

STEVE ABEL: Yeah, the predictions.

Simon Court: Like Cassandra.

STEVE ABEL: I will finish by saying—thank you; I appreciate you calling me Cassandra.

I had the privilege of sitting alongside Mike Smith and Hinekaa Mako in the hearings in the Supreme Court. Those were some years ago. I saw the superb work of the counsel David Bullock and Davey Salmon, who was in full flight, at his finest, eloquently presenting the case for why tort law was an appropriate pathway for addressing climate change. The argument—in simple terms, in my layperson’s understanding—was that if the Government can’t fix it, which it hasn’t, and industry can’t fix it, which it hasn’t, then cannot the courts fix it? If the courts can’t address the existential challenge at the time, then what use are the courts?

Fonterra was lawyered up to the eyeballs; it was half a dozen dirty polluters versus one. They had the best-paid and brightest lawyers in the land. I watched the Justices scrutinise the arguments and I saw their countenances soften and turn. All of those polluters stood and made the arguments against Mike Smith, and they lost.

The Justices said there was a case to be heard and the grounds for a tort argument on climate change should be heard in the High Court. So what did those companies do? They cheated—they cheated, by coming to the Government of the day and saying, “Please extinguish this case, wipe out this case, nullify it.” The great judgment of the finest legal minds in the country, the Supreme Court, is burned by this law today. It is struck out, with all of our rights as citizens to take polluters to court, by this bill.

For now, the banality of evil wins the day. But there will be another day, not too long from now, when we will bring justice back to this Parliament and we will act on climate change appropriately. Thank you.

SIMON COURT (ACT) (20:29): Thank you, Madam Speaker. ACT supports the Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill. It’s an important bill because it answers a very simple question: who should make the laws of New Zealand? Should major questions of climate policy affecting billions of dollars of investment, energy security, farming, and, ultimately, the cost of living be decided here in Parliament by elected representatives or should they be developed by novel torts, one court case at a time?

ACT is very clear: Parliament makes the laws; courts interpret the laws. Members of this House are elected. We debate legislation in public. We have select committees. New Zealanders make submissions. The media can scrutinise us. And, ultimately, if New Zealanders don’t like the laws we pass, they can throw us out. That is democracy.

This Parliament has already made decisions about New Zealand’s climate policy, and we respond to greenhouse gas emissions in the following way: we have the Climate Change Response Act; we have the emissions trading scheme, which puts a price on carbon; and we have emissions budgets and targets. Those are deliberate policy choices.

At first reading, I warned that the litigation that this bill responds to could result in a parallel and contradictory climate regime. That remains the fundamental problem that this bill fixes. If somebody believes that climate policy is wrong, then there is a democratic solution available to them. Let them make the case that oil, gas, and coal have lifted billions of people out of energy poverty, but the Greens want to turn them back to poverty. Let them make the case that oil and gas have enabled billions of people to escape food insecurity and have prevented famine—global famines. Let them make the case for global famines and food insecurity. Let them make the case for unreliable transport, because having oil and gas means we have reliable and safe infrastructure and transport.

Convince Parliament, make the argument, campaign on it, win an election—

Hon Dr Deborah Russell: The election’s coming, Simon.

SIMON COURT: —change the law—angry Deborah Russell—but what we should not have is activists attempting to achieve through litigation what they’ve failed to achieve through the democratic process. New Zealanders spoke and they’ve sent this coalition Government here to fix the problems that the previous Government has caused.

If a court created a new tort that exposes a handful of New Zealand businesses to enormous liabilities for their tiny contribution to a great global problem, those costs don’t magically disappear; they fall on shareholders, and that’s us, if you have KiwiSaver or any type of retirement savings. They fall on workers who are made unemployed or are put in poverty because of high energy prices. They fall on farmers and they fall on consumers. They show up in the price of electricity, transport, fuel, construction, and everything else New Zealanders need, and, eventually, investment looks at New Zealand and says, “Too hard, too dodgy. We’ll go somewhere else.”, and that matters when New Zealanders are already struggling with the cost of living.

ACT wants this country to be a place where people can build things, produce things, and invest with confidence. We need more energy, we need more infrastructure, we need productive farms and businesses, and we need investment that creates jobs, raises wages, and unlocks New Zealand’s potential. We cannot fix what matters to New Zealanders if productive businesses are spending their time worrying whether complying with climate laws passed by Parliament actually protects them and fulfils their responsibilities, or whether there’s another entirely new set of liabilities invented by courts through litigation.

There’s another point that I made at first reading, which is the climate doom that the left consistently refuses to grapple with, and that is carbon leakage. You can make producing something in New Zealand prohibitively expensive with climate policy and taxes and bans—and I see the member Chlöe Swarbrick there, looking up at the ceiling, wishing that the climate gods would save her from this Government. What the climate gods are telling you, Chlöe Swarbrick—you can congratulate yourself when the factory closes and you can celebrate when investment that you dislike disappears. But if that production simply moves to another country, the atmosphere and the planet—that little skin on the apple that Steve Abel described in such emotional terms—simply doesn’t care. The emissions are simply created somewhere else, New Zealand imports the products we need at a higher cost, there are fewer jobs, and we’re all poorer as a result. Now, that is not serious climate policy. It’s economic self-harm; it’s self-harm dressed up as environmental virtue.

ACT supports sensible, effective climate policy. We support using mechanisms that recognise the reality that climate change is a global phenomenon. We must play our part, but we reject sending New Zealanders into penury and simply shifting economic activity, our wealth, and our opportunity overseas.

There will be members opposite who say that Parliament should simple stand back and let activists and the courts decide. ACT disagrees, and those people misunderstand Parliament’s job. We do not need to wait for judges to create a new climate tort, and then wring our hands about the consequences or scramble to come up with new policy in response. If Parliament believes this law should be clear, our job, as members of Parliament and as a Parliament, is to make it clear.

This is not an attack on Mike Smith and this is not an attack on the judiciary, as it has been framed by some members of the Opposition. This is Parliament doing its job—Parliament doing exactly what it exists to do.

The courts will continue to interpret and apply the law, but this House decides what the law is, and when the question involves balancing emission reductions against energy security, investment, jobs, the cost of living, and New Zealand’s international obligations, those public policy choices should be debated here, openly. They should be made by people who have to explain themselves to the public, and those people, including members of the Opposition who have brought climate catastrophe and doom to this Parliament, should be accountable at the ballot box too, particularly those people in the former Labour Government who banned oil and gas exploration, declared a climate emergency, flew off to climate conferences first class—enormous boondoggles. Those people, including Megan Woods, the former Labour energy Minister; Jacinda Ardern; and her cohorts should be accountable to the people of New Zealand for wrecking our economy and making us poorer.

ACT believes in fixing what matters. For families, that means affordable power, affordable food, and a country where their children can see a prosperous future in high-paid and highly skilled jobs. For businesses, that means knowing the rules before they invest millions of dollars and employ people. For New Zealand, our lovely country, it means climate policy that actually works, instead of policies that export jobs and export emissions while we make ourselves poorer.

This bill provides certainty. It protects the integrity of the climate framework that Parliament has established and it reasserts an important democratic principle: major questions of public policy should be decided in this House by representatives that New Zealanders elect to represent their best interests. ACT supports this bill. I commend it to the House.

Dr DAVID WILSON (NZ First) (20:37): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill. One thing I’ve learnt over the years is that those who peddle fear are trying to sell you something, and they’re trying to sell it to you so that you can get to vote for them more. [Interruption] So, when you’re finished with your little chirping over there, I’ll carry on.

It’s in the public interest to not let this spurious case cause a domino effect of other spurious cases, just to prove a point. I take offence at the member who called Fonterra dirty polluters that cheated, and yet, at the same time, our dairy farmers are the most climate-efficient in the world.

Hon Dr Deborah Russell: No, that’s actually a myth, I’m sorry.

Dr DAVID WILSON: Oh, another myth, of course—you mean like climate change happened last week, when it was cold?

In the 1970s, I remember that what we were all going to die from, from what the climate activists said at that time, was an ice age. It was an ice age, right, and then what followed that was we were all going to die from the thinning ozone layer. Well, actually, that was quite believable, in some cases—

Francisco Hernandez: But they fixed it.

Steve Abel: We did something about it.

Dr DAVID WILSON: Yes, we have fixed it—exactly. That points exactly in my lane—thank you very much, Steve Abel, the honourable member from the other side. Yes, we can address climate change. Yes, it is an issue, except that it’s over 100,000 years, and not last week, last month, or the last 10 years. That’s the issue we’ve got here.

Climate change is a real thing. We can address it with innovation and we can address it with new forms of energy that we have been investing in, like supercritical geothermal. The emissions trading scheme is a good initiative—even though I didn’t like it to begin with, but, actually, it’s working out fine, thanks very much. The Regional Infrastructure Fund—what are we doing with the Regional Infrastructure Fund? We’re adapting. We’re looking at those things that are really threatening. [Interruption] We’re actually building something instead of just doing this: constantly, chirp, chirp, chirp; offering no real solutions but still selling the fear.

Climate change policy should be made by the executive and the legislature. New Zealand’s response to climate change must be balanced, wherein Parliament, not a courtroom, is the arbiter. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori) (20:40): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Every aspect of this bill is rotten: its w’akapapa, its content, its whole process for its enactment. This bill has been designed, without a doubt, to protect the largest corporate emitters in Aotearoa from being held accountable for any of the damage that they have done and will continue to cause. This is a huge shame for us to carry as a nation, because, effectively, we’ve gone out and said to them, “Carry on doing what you’re doing; we’re OK. We’re blind to you as long as you continue to bring us the profits, profits, profits.”

We’re going to remain, Te Pāti Māori, steadfast in our tautoko for the complaint to the UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change and Human Rights filed jointly by Mike Smith. We tautoko the thrust by the National Iwi Chairs Forum and its Pou Tikanga, and we also commend the advocacy of Climate Clinic Aotearoa and Lawyers for Climate Action, because what we had seen is this Government, not surprisingly, use its powers beyond what it should have done in this form of what should be seen as natural justice.

In 2024, Mike Smith was granted permission by the Supreme Court to sue seven of the largest corporate emitters—seven. What it was specifically was a mana mokopuna crime of greenhouse gas emissions. In the same year, Z Energy and Fonterra provided briefing documents to the Prime Minister’s Office, which just happened to land there without anyone knowing how they landed there, and then these documents became exact replica of what the Government announced in its decision to change the law. If there is nothing rotten about that, then we are all in denial, just as much as this side of the House is in denial of climate change.

Then we’ve got this whole part here where we are being asked to trust that you’re thinking for everyone in Aotearoa. When do we see everybody from Aotearoa? In the submission process. Instead of the standard six-month process, there were 11 days. In those 11 days, we received 621 submissions to this bill, and only 16 were in favour—only 16. Amongst the concerns submitters raised was rule of law and separation of powers, New Zealand’s climate response, lobbying concerns, process concerns, Te Tiriti concerns, international obligations, interference with individual rights—human rights—and legal clarity.

And what did we do? We’ve got remember how we got here. We had a handwritten bill lobbied by the biggest polluters in Aotearoa—a bill delivered to the Prime Minister’s Office in secret, a bill that was then rushed through the legislative process without regular scrutiny. This violates every part of Te Tiriti, article 2 and article 3 specifically, by removing any course of action that tangata w’enua can utilise to hold large corporations creating taiao damage to task. It’s a violation of article 2 in its destruction of our environment, a violation of tino rangatiratanga; it’s a violation of article 3.

I today have seen this Government acknowledge when mistakes have been made and tangata w’enua have been ignored. Everyone in this House, particularly Government, supported Nelson Tenths. They were comfortable with supporting mistakes that had been made, and this is going to be one of those intergenerational mistakes the Government afflicts on Aotearoa which will be fixed up.

This bill sends a message to Aotearoa that large, polluting companies do not need to be held to account. In fact, it tells everybody that there is one law for them and another law for everyone else. They can go out and do whatever they want to our taiao without any concerns, because we will continue to see this type of Government allow them to carry on, this type of Government allow the pollution to carry on. This type of Government doesn’t give a heck about the future of Aotearoa—certainly not the mokopuna or the impacts that they’re looking to do.

Climate policy should be grounded in w’akapapa, regeneration, and justice—not the interests of large companies. For Te Pāti Māori, our ultimate pledge to the public, to our w’ānau, is that we will continue to fight for a system that centres Māori authority, protects mokopuna futures, and commits to a just transition that brings communities with us. This Government does not care about its communities who are forced to live with the consequences of the damage that these large corporations do. This Government does not care about ordinary New Zealanders. This Government only cares for corporate polluters.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green) (20:45): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I had for a really long time believed in the kind of rhetoric that circulates around this place: that all of us come here for the same reasons; we just have different ways of getting here. But then we’re confronted with legislation like we have today, a bill that was only first introduced less than two months ago, which will actively cut off a live case in front of the Supreme Court to prevent New Zealanders from being able to hold the biggest polluters in this country accountable for their pollution. I can’t believe it, really, but maybe it is naive to believe that everybody in here is here for the right reasons—to serve the interests of regular, hard-working New Zealanders—because this law was not drafted in the interests of regular New Zealanders.

In fact, we know, because we have found out as a result of quite substantive investigation by independent, objective bodies, that this bill was actively lobbied for and, effectively, represents the wish list of some of the largest polluters in this country—again, to cut off an active case currently in front of the courts. This will prevent New Zealanders, regular New Zealanders, from being able to hold those big polluters accountable, which really leaves us with the only conclusion: that this Government is actively deciding to protect those big polluters at the expense of regular people in this country.

All of the arguments that the Government has progressed in support of this legislation are exactly the same arguments that those big polluters have progressed in the Supreme Court, so it’s hard not to see that they are just echoing the wish list of those massive corporations that have clearly lobbied them so effectively. The Supreme Court had already found that this case, the Smith v Fonterra and the half dozen - odd polluters, did not cut across already existing climate law. The Government’s argument is that it’s their place to make the law. Let’s forget about just that really basic fact that the Supreme Court has already found that this doesn’t impact any already existing laws and actually addresses a gap in legislation. But let’s also deal with the reality that this Government is actually actively undermining a law that is necessary for us to take climate action as a country and to protect the interests of and to lower the cost of living for regular, hard-working New Zealanders. This Government tells us that it’s their place to make the law. Meanwhile, they actively weaken that very law that protects regular people’s interests. Then they have the gall to talk about the democratic process that, apparently, shields them from any critique as far as the progress of this legislation goes.

Again, let me remind everybody that this legislation did not see the light of day—bar for, evidently, the lobbying that’s happened behind closed doors and secretly through the Prime Minister’s Office, but it did not see the cold light of day until less than two months ago. Then, the general public had just 10 days—just 10 days—to submit at select committee, and then we found that 93 percent of those who were submitting were opposed to the legislation.

Of course, let’s not forget that this legislation cuts off a live case in front of the courts right now. How’s that for democracy? How’s that for the charade that this Government would like to uphold when it comes to actually engaging and doing anything proximate to representing the interests of regular, hard-working New Zealanders?

Then we had Ministers and members of this Government dare to talk about the cost that not progressing this legislation will present to businesses. Well, as plenty of the analysis and those who did submit have demonstrated—doing a lot of work to get their act together when this Government clearly refuses to get its act together—with this legislation cutting off the right for regular people to hold big polluters accountable, in fact, the costs will be borne by every other business and all other households: regular hard-working people in this country. When something like this progresses—legislation to cut off the rights to remedy through tortious law, as occurred with rights in healthcare—you create a different system like that which occurred with ACC. This Government has not done that and is actively cutting off New Zealanders’ rights to access the court. It is morally abhorrent.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) (20:51): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m really proud of the process we undertook as the Justice Committee, on both sides, actively hearing from the submitters who submitted to the committee. Everybody who wanted to make an oral submission was given the opportunity.

Chlöe Swarbrick: You ignored them!

TOM RUTHERFORD: I’m really proud of the process we ran as the Justice committee. That member on the other side can scream and yell, but she did not once participate in the select committee process—didn’t turn up. You can say the same about Te Pāti Māori MPs and the independent MP on the committee. They did not once engage or participate in the process.

Chlöe Swarbrick: How about you do your job?

TOM RUTHERFORD: And she says, “How about I do my job?”. We did. We had submissions; we heard from public submitters. I’m really proud of the process, and so I commend the bill to the House.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (20:51): Mālō e lelei, Mr Speaker. As I said in my first speech, in the first reading of this bill, and again in my speech in the second reading of this bill, after discussions with our caucus—actually, it was quite a brief discussion because it was so obvious what we needed to do—we have committed and we commit that, if we are elected to Government in November this year, we will repeal this bill. This bill is an egregious affront to the process of law and lawmaking in this country. It is an egregious affront to the rights of those who would bring a case to try to establish a novel tort. It is an egregious affront to the rights of Mr Mike Smith, and we will repeal it.

I’ve listened to the speeches tonight and I want to refer, in particular, at this point, to a speech made by a member of the Government, which was, effectively, a speech of climate denial, a speech that claimed that global warming and climate change was happening over the course of 100,000 years. It was topped off by another member of the Government parties saying that we were just preaching gloom on this side. Those gentlemen may not care to believe in climate change, but their insurance companies certainly do. Beyond that, those gentlemen may not think that climate change is happening, but scientists all over the world do. Those gentlemen may not believe in climate change, but the leaders, the people, and the parties in our key trading partners certainly think that climate change is happening. Those gentlemen might like to live in a fantasy world where they could say something and that makes it true, but climate change is not like Santa Claus. It’s not something that one can choose to believe in or not; climate change is physics, and it is happening. It is happening fast.

Last week, The New York Times published an article, on August 15, and it noted the extra deaths in one week in Europe, in the European summer. The deaths over and above the normal rate of death: 16,000 people. Sixteen thousand people dead during the fifth heatwave that Europe has experienced this summer. Those are deaths that are attributable to climate change. You know, Shropshire, normally so green; photos of Shropshire at the moment look like central Spain. There is drought. There is heatwave. There is climate change affecting Europe.

Why does this matter? It matters because we have signed trade agreements with the European Union, with the United Kingdom, that commit us to sustainability, that commit us to making our best efforts on climate change. Trust me, with the summer that people in Europe and the United Kingdom are experiencing right now, they will be getting even more serious about commitments to climate change. Even if those gentlemen—even if those gentlemen—don’t think that climate change is happening, not only do their insurance companies think it is happening but our key trading partners think it is happening, too. They will be looking at us and looking at this retrograde step by this Government and questioning this Government’s commitment to sustainability, and questioning whether we are holding to those commitments we have made in our free-trade agreements.

On straightforward prudential grounds—on straightforward grounds—of what might work best for the New Zealand economy and for New Zealand trade, there is no way that this bill should have seen the light of day. The trouble is that this bill fits in with a pattern of behaviour from that Government: a Government that says it is committed to actions on climate change but has rolled back and cancelled policy after policy after policy that works to hold back climate change. From the Clean Car Discount to cancelling Lake Onslow, to subsidising oil and gas exploration, to—for goodness’ sake—at this stage looking at having a liquefied petroleum gas terminal for gas, there is policy after policy after policy from that Government that walks back our commitment to climate change. Put that alongside this bill, this bill that cancels Mr Smith’s rights to challenge some of our big emitters, and our commitment to taking serious action on climate change looks thinner and thinner and thinner. And it matters.

As I was waiting to take my call in this reading, I was recollecting the huge climate marches in 2019. That was the first one: on 15 March 2019, the first big climate march. Now, that’s a day that is remembered in New Zealand as a day of terrible infamy, when 51 of our fellow citizens were killed in Christchurch, but it was also the day of the first big climate march. Later on that year, there were more big climate marches, and those marches were very influential in getting this House to pass the zero carbon Act. The entirety of this House—bar one—supported the zero carbon Act. The entirety of this House—bar one—supported the idea that we should get serious about acting on climate change and that we should put in mechanisms to make that happen. It was extraordinary bipartisanship, and yet that Government has walked that bipartisanship back and back and back.

We were not consulted about this bill. I don’t think any of the Opposition parties were consulted about it—just like we haven’t been consulted about other climate measures. This Government has walked away from our nation’s commitment to taking serious action on climate change, and they said they are the people who are best placed to make Government policy on climate change. Well, guess what! Their policy isn’t working. One of the justifications for this bill was that the Government was best placed on this to make the policy and that the courts shouldn’t.

Just in the last few weeks, we have had the independent Climate Change Commission’s annual monitoring report showing that we were at real risk of not meeting our climate budgets. Just last week, the independent Climate Change Commission’s monitoring report on adaptation came out, and it said that we need to move fast in a number of areas because the need to adapt to climate change is coming at us fast and we are not adapting fast enough. And what does this Government spend its time doing? It spends its time putting through a bill that, even though the Government itself won’t take action on climate change, was trying to force action on climate change. It said it was the best place to do the work, but the Government is not doing the work, and now it won’t let Mr Smith’s tort action do the work either. That Government has no commitment to working on climate change. This bill is a symbol of that, and it is an absolute disgrace.

PAULO GARCIA (National—New Lynn) (21:01): The Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill addresses a gap in New Zealand legislation, that gap that the Supreme Court in Smith v Fonterra noted. This bill is designed to ensure that no parallel regime may be developed in common law. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central) (21:02): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Having listened to Dr Deborah Russell’s speech, she traversed the climate change impacts of this bill and the fact that it reflects the Government’s total disregard for the climate emergency that we see facing us. I want to focus on some really troubling constitutional aspects of this bill. Probably at the heart of it is the retrospective nature of this bill. In fact, there’s a whole lot of things about this bill—the fact that the bill is, essentially, to use a Latin term, an in personam bill, a bill that attacks a single person, a bill that is actually about one man’s claim and denying his ability to bring a court action. In particular, in doing that, it is taking away established rights.

Now, there’s been some chatter that because the claim was never successful, you can’t say they’re established rights. I actually want to dig a little deeper into that, because as I’ve said in this House before, the claim of Mike Smith has three branches to it—three legs, if you like. One is a genuinely novel claim that there is a climate tort. I actually want to put that to one side, because it’s a genuinely novel claim. The other two claims in public nuisance and negligence are actually really simple and common claims. One of the reasons we have a strong legal system is that you can use the law of tort to bring claims and say, “In this situation, which we haven’t looked at before, the ingredients of this tort are met.” To take negligence, for example: “You failed to take care, I’m in a proximate relationship with you, you’ve caused me harm, and it’s foreseeable.” Now, the rules around medical devices, asbestos, Agent Orange, all of these were novel damage at the time, but they all used exactly the same legal mechanism—that is to say, the law of tort and, in particular, the law of negligence.

To deny someone the right of asking the question “Does the damage that has been suffered fit within this tort of negligence?” is actually really undermining. It doesn’t just take the right away from this litigant in this circumstance; what it says is this: any time the Government doesn’t like this litigant taking this kind of action, they see that they might, because they claim this sovereignty, intervene. That’s the real concern. This strikes at the heart of the delicate balance that is struck between the courts and Parliament. The Parliament shouldn’t strip rights away from citizens who want to pursue them through the courts. It may be awkward, and it may be inconvenient, but the day that Parliament says, “We don’t have to follow the law.” is the day this stops being a democracy and it starts being an autocracy, and that’s deeply, deeply concerning.

The fact that the Attorney-General has stood up in a public forum and said that this concept of parliamentary sovereignty is, essentially, the concept of a parliamentary dictatorship is deeply, deeply concerning to me, because the balance between the courts and Parliament is one that has been carefully negotiated and struck not over years but over centuries. This Government is undermining it in a way that is deeply, deeply concerning.

RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini) (21:07): Listening to the doom and gloom from the other side of the House, you’d think that the apocalypse was upon us and that the world is ending—even a law professor that doesn’t believe in parliamentary supremacy. All we are saying is that greenhouse gas emissions is a subject too complex, too important, and too profound to be dealt with by a different set of court precedents. That’s why we commend this bill to the House.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin) (21:08): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is, talking of novel tort claims, fairly novel for me to be speaking on a bill that’s gone before the Justice Committee, but here we go. I have an interesting relationship with torts, and that is primarily because I have been an environmental lawyer for most of my professional life. Why that’s relevant is that we’ve just heard from the very knowledgeable Hon Dr Duncan Webb about tort and how you can have these novel torts—the idea that there is some foreseeable harm, that there’s a proximate relationship, that harm is caused by breach of a duty, and that then you can have an argument in the courts. That is where we got a lot of our initial environmental laws from. This idea of environmental pollution comes from some of the nuisance that Dr Duncan Webb was talking about.

What we’ve done in New Zealand is interesting in terms of our relationship with tort. Looking across the House there to my colleague from law school, when we were in second year at law school—

Todd Stephenson: That was me—thanks, though.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: —Todd, over there—we learnt about the ACC scheme in New Zealand and how unusual it is in the world because it’s a no-fault scheme. What that means is that we’re putting the tort to one side and having instead a comprehensive cover, so you don’t have to go ambulance chasing and you don’t have to have this argument in tort.

Interestingly, the same is true to an extent for our environmental laws. We have codified them, so you might be able to mount an argument about a nuisance. If someone causes pollution upstream of someone else and they cause some damage, there would have been an opportunity to have an argument in tort, but instead we have the Resource Management Act. Now, that legislation is going through a process of being replaced and there’s going to be a regulatory relief scheme in that that will probably diminish many of our environmental protections. I’ve been talking to a lot of concerned people about this, and they have told me that Simon Court from the ACT Party is saying to people, “Well, you need not worry about environmental protections because you can go back to tort.” It’s a strange position that I find myself in here, where the Government members appear to be talking about adding in tort for some things but taking it away for other things. I would be interested in the logic of what it is that Mr Simon Court is talking about.

Tort is complicated. We haven’t got that far with the Smith v FonterraCo-Operative Group Ltd case. The claim was not struck out. That is where we are at. The Government—it says here on the front page of the bill—is concerned that the litigation could lead to a finding that causing or contributing to the emission of a greenhouse gas could result in tort liability. There’s a lot of “could” in that sentence, and that’s important because we haven’t got there, to the courts’ saying whether or not there is this tort liability or not. What we do know is that we will never find out, because this remarkable legislation is stopping an active court case. We’ve heard that the individual, Mike Smith, is there, taking his action to the court, and this Government is saying, “We’re not going to wait to find out if there is a tort; we are going to stop you in your tracks, Mr Smith. We’re stopping you in your tracks. Very specifically, this legislation in this schedule will retrospectively apply to your case. Not only are we going to specify your particular case but we’re going to make this process where we do it very quick. We are going to have some scrutiny by the Justice Committee, but not for long.”

I also reflect on arguments that we’ve had in this House before about when something should be a private bill and when something should be a general Government bill. As Dr Duncan Webb was just speaking about, this law specifically applies to one person who has one court case, and then it also applies to a general group. Because that individual is identified, should we even be here with a Government bill rather than a private bill, knowing, of course, that private bills are there to specifically address an issue that is only going to affect one person or entity? That is important because of corruption. It’s the simple reason why we separate out private bills from Government bills. If someone is going to have a specific benefit or attack on them, everybody needs to be very clear about that, which is why you make it a private bill. But this bill is a Government bill. I just note that it’s interesting when, of course, a specific individual is having his rights diminished by this piece of legislation.

Then we know about the rest of the process. We’ve had this quick select committee, but we’ve also had documents hand-delivered to the Prime Minister’s office. They haven’t come up in Official Information Act requests, yet they did come up in the discovery is my understanding of it. It’s just not a good way to make law, and it’s not a good way to govern the country, nor is it a good way to govern the country by stopping almost every action that the past Government had taken to reduce climate change pollution. That is a deep shame on this Government. Not only have they stopped activities but they have also taken policy measures to increase climate pollution. We have seen the roll-back of funding for public transport and active transport. We have seen in Resource Management Act reforms that climate comes out of the planning process. We have seen that foreign fossil fuels will be subsidised with a liquefied natural gas terminal. This is all appalling, and the National Party is rolling back its commitment to have a pricing mechanism for methane. Everything has gone backwards.

I want to also note what my colleague Camilla Belich was saying, and this goes back to this bill being a justice bill. She made the point that justice denied for one is justice denied for everyone. I totally agree with that point, but I would also add that it’s just not denied to the climate polluters. They are the winners here. They came, they lobbied the Prime Minister, and what did they get? The court case—a novel court case that may not have even worked—doesn’t even get to have a decision-making process around the substantive point, all in the context of this Government listening to those that would have them have their head in the sand about climate change. Climate change is real. Climate change is happening. We need to play our part in reducing that pollution. We need to not just be here for the short term; we need to be here for the long term. We don’t just want to be here for those big companies that do that pollution. We need to be here for everyone—every citizen of New Zealand that is going to be affected by climate change, and the future generations as well.

CARL BATES (National—Whanganui) (21:18): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This bill is important not just because of the role these big companies play in the New Zealand economy but because of the hundreds and the thousands of farmers and businesses and people and workers who participate in the economy that is created by the work of these businesses. This law doesn’t alter the Government’s responsibility under the Climate Change Response Act, nor does it change the obligations businesses have under the emissions trading scheme, where they’ll still be required to meet them. Therefore, I commend the bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 67

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

Noes 53

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 13; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Amendment Bill.

Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Amendment Bill

Committee of the whole House

Debate resumed from 6 August.

Part 1 Substantive amendments to principal Act

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, the House is in committee for further consideration of the Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Amendment Bill. When we last considered the bill, we were debating Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 4 to 40, “Substantive amendments to principal Act”. Once again, the question is that Part 1 stand part.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) (21:21): Thank you, Mr Chair. If I also remember correctly, I think my last contribution was speaking to my tabled amendment timestamped 7.05.27, and that was an amendment to clause 4, new section 320J(1), and I believe I had completed my contribution on that one. I can’t quite recall whether there were any outstanding questions from that for the Minister for Children.

However, moving on to my tabled amendment timestamped 7.05.28: it is proposing an amendment to clause 4, new section 320L, and inserting restrictions on disclosure of young serious offender (YSO) status. As I have spoken about in some of the previous sections and amendments, there are some serious concerns that were shared by submitters around the labelling of young people for the purposes of this legislation. It was really clear in the select committee process that it is unnecessary to have such a declaration and status given to the young people; that it is purely political rhetoric, and point scoring that can also be potentially harmful to young people by giving them that label—and many of those concerns were outlined in the submissions.

The question that I have for the Minister in particular around this tabled amendment—and I hope that she, and her officials have had a chance to read that proposed amendment given that it causes significant stigma if it’s disclosed beyond what is necessary for the justice or care purposes. As I have said, there is no need for the “young” because we know how old they are from their date of birth, and there is no need for the “serious” part of it because we know that from the offences that they have committed. So it is completely unnecessary as an administrative tool.

My questions to the Minister around this proposed amendment—given that stigma and the issues with it—what advice did the Minister consider regarding the potential harm of labelling young people with a YSO declaration? And did the Minister consider strengthening privacy protections regarding the label of young serious offender declaration placed on the young people; and if not, why not? And did the Minister consider how a YSO declaration label could stigmatise young people, or even be used as a badge of honour, and the impact this would have on the young person throughout their life?

This proposed amendment would prohibit the disclosure to third parties for unrelated purposes, and imposes a positive obligation on recipients of such information to maintain confidentiality and limit its use to permitted purposes. The overall effect is to strengthen privacy protections, to mitigate risk of harmful labelling, and support a child centred and rehabilitative approach to youth justice. It aligns with the principles of minimising harm and promoting reintegration by ensuring that sensitive information is tightly controlled and used only where justified.

Again, my questions to the Minister are: did the Minister consider regarding the potential harm of labelling young people with the declaration? Did the Minister consider strengthening privacy protections regarding the labelling so that it’s not used beyond this—even though we don’t agree that you even need it for this? And did the Minister consider how YSO declaration label could stigmatise young people, or even be used as a badge of honour, and the impacts that it has on a young person throughout its life? And has she considered my tabled amendment to limit where that declaration can be used?

Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children) (21:25): Mr Chair, I believe this has been addressed multiple times—last time we sat on this—but I’ll repeat it one more time for tonight: that would apply to the amendments timestamped 7.05.28 and 7.05.29. I do not support these amendments, and it’s the same reason for both: those that need to access information about the person’s young serious offender status, such as lawyers, police and the courts, will have access to this information, but the information will not be publicly available. The young series offender declaration is just used as a tool. As such, this amendment is not necessary.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (21:26): Thank you Mr Chair. I want to check with the Minister for Children—I know that we’ve done quite a few bits of clause 4, new section 320. I want to check a couple of things with the Minister regarding section 320I, particularly with 320I(e) and 320I(i). I guess this is more trying to get an understanding from the Minister on some of the ministerial intent on what is the Minister’s expectations on how some of these could be measured.

For example, with 320I(e), when it comes to YSO—young serious offender—looking at “measures taken or proposed to be taken”, particularly around reparation or apologies, what measures does the Minister have in mind when the Youth Court are considering this? Or as part of the policy development process, what are some of the things that the Minister may have considered? I think that is important. While the Youth Court are going to be able to make some of those decisions themselves, I think it would be helpful to have something on Hansard or record to indicate the ministerial intent, if the Minister wouldn’t mind elaborating on some of her considerations.

With regards to 320I(i), when we’re looking at “the causes underlying the young person’s offending,” are the same things sort of—if the Minister wouldn’t mind maybe expanding on how some of these measures would be available to address some of those causes. For example, would we see, when it comes to youth offending etc., there’s a lot of undiagnosed neurodivergency, or potentially undiagnosed disability? We’re looking at potentially higher instances of ADHD, autism, but in particular, quite prominent, as we see in the corrections system, higher instances of fetal alcohol syndrome disorder (FADS)—whether that is something that the Minister would expect there to be availability for some of that diagnosis, so that way the court is able to make a more informed opinion.

With that, my colleague Tamantha Paul has an amendment that’s date stamped or timestamped to 11.50.06. This simply introduces a new subsection (k) in here, which refers to the matters that Youth Court must have regard for when considering an application for YSO declaration—any medical conditions or disability that may affect the behaviour of young person. Now, I understand that that might be something that is potentially covered under (i) already, if it does, it would be good to know from the Minister. But if not, then would the Minister consider this additional insertion by my colleague Tamatha Paul?

Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children) (21:29): In regard to Tamatha Paul’s amendment date stamped 11.50.06, I believe I’ve previously responded to this amendment already. I don’t support this amendment. The existing principles of the Oranga Tamariki Act apply to these provisions, including the young serious offender declarations. The courts are already required under the principles in section 5 of the Oranga Tamariki Act to put the wellbeing of the young person at the centre of decision making. This expressly includes, for example, a young person’s experience of disability.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour) (21:30): Thank you, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to ask the Minister a question. Maybe as a quick preface, one thing that I frequently came across when I was working at Youth Law was that we’d have young people who often really weren’t sure where they were in the process and why certain decisions had been made, and we found often that there was quite a delay in terms of explaining to those young people the decisions that had been made about their placement or even, in the context of the Youth Court, where they were in the system.

With that background in mind, I’m looking at Part 1, Subpart 1, clause 4, which inserts new section 320L(4). This is an amendment proposed by my colleague. It was filed on 5 August at 7.05.32, and it is proposing a new insertion, after “practicable” inserting “but in no circumstances later than 48 hours after the time at which the order was made.” This amendment introduces a clear outer time limit on the provision of a written statement to a young person where it’s not practicable to provide the statement before the young person leaves the court, but it just means that that time period ensures it’s provided as soon as possible. I completely understand that we have the word “practicable” there but, particularly for a young person, it is useful for them to know in what time period they can expect that information, and, certainly, for the provider of that information to know what is considered reasonable.

As drafted, new section 320L(4) does require that very broad kind of language, but, again, we would suggest that that’s quite uncertain for the young person involved. We’re really trying to ensure that there is no delay in the provision of those reasons to the young person. Preferably, that information would reach the young person well before the 48 hours, ideally while they are still in the courtroom, but, again, that is the outer time limit, just to ensure that there’s a sense of fairness and justice for the young person, who might be very unaware of the conditions that they’re being subject to and the reasons and the rationale for that. I’m just wanting the Minister’s response as to whether she would consider that amendment.

Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children) (21:33): I consider that the current requirement for the court to provide the written statement to a young person as soon as practicable is appropriate. This time frame is consistent with similar requirements in section 340 of the Act around providing written statements after the Youth Court has made disposition orders. I won’t be supporting that amendment.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central) (21:33): Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s good to see that the Minister has actually gone through these amendments and has prepared responses to all of them, despite what we might say in the Chamber. There is considerable importance in terms of new section 320L, in Subpart 1, clause 4. It is obviously important to let the young person know what’s going on, but the interesting thing about that is that, in subsection (3), it says, “The court may, for the purposes of subsection (1)(c),”—which is, telling them what’s going on—“direct that the offender remain at the court for a period, not exceeding 1 hour,”. There are two things that are problematic there.

The first thing is: not exceeding 1 hour—from when? It could be 1 hour from when they arrive at court, 1 hour from when the judge says, “And that’s my decision.”, or 1 hour from any other period of time. The other thing is that the idea that the offender must remain at the court is actually quite unclear, because, if you go into any court building, you’ll know that it can be, in some circumstances, a quite large precinct. Now, if what the Minister means is that you’ve got stay in the courtroom, that’s actually quite a different thing from staying in the court precinct. Take Christchurch, for example—a very large precinct, and I can’t remember how many courts—there are something like 13 District Court rooms, and various lower courtrooms and a number of High Court rooms. If you want the young person to remain—because, of course, it’s obviously a serious question if they don’t remain and they are obliged to by order of the court—we need to know exactly where they have to remain.

My apologies, it appears that one amendment has been duplicated, but the one I’m referring to is 7.05.30. It actually sets out a proposed replacement subsection (3), which states, “The court may, for the purposes of subsection (1)(c), direct that the offender remain at the court or within the precincts of the court for a period, not exceeding 1 hour after the time that the young serious offender order is made, that may be necessary to enable the statement to be provided to the offender.” It makes it clear that, in fact, it’s the court precincts that are the relevant area. It is actually really important. You’ve got to remember that this is, essentially, a detention. It’s a human rights issue. If you are going to say, “You are detained”—I guess there are two points, and my friend and colleague Vanushi Walters is much more knowledgeable in this area than me—I would have thought that you need to make it as modest a limitation as is reasonable in the circumstances, and that you need to make it certain.

I can understand that an order is made and the judge or someone else has to write the order up—do the paper work, if you like—and frame it in a way that the young person can understand. That may take an hour, but, at that time, it’s not appropriate that that young person has to sit in a chair in the court, under the beady eye of the registrar. It’s entirely appropriate that they say, “Well, don’t go away, remain within the precincts of the court, and we’ll call you when you’re required.” That’s why I think the replacement subsection (3) is a much more workable and effective subsection (3) than the one that is there at the moment.

Having made that comprehensive, sophisticated, and detailed argument, I am hoping that the Minister won’t read out some notes that someone has written for her previously on this amendment but will give full and due attention to the argument that I’ve made.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) (21:38): Thank you, Mr Chair. The Minister for Children must be thinking about her response to the questions from the Hon Dr Duncan Webb.

While the Minister is doing that, I want to turn our attention to a tabled amendment in my name. It is time stamped 5 August, 7.05.33. It is proposing to replace subsection (1) of new section 320M with “a period not exceeding 1 year”. What we’re asking the Minister to consider here is to reduce the default duration of the young serious offender declaration from 2 years to 1 year, with the provision for renewal by the court for a further period of 1 year. As it is currently drafted, the provision establishes a 2-year duration as the standard period for the young serious offender declaration. Given the significant impacts of such a declaration on a young person, a shorter default period, we argue, would be better and would better reflect the principles that interventions should be proportionate and no more restrictive than necessary. The amendment ensures that the declaration—[Interruption]

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Can you just keep it down a little bit on that side of the Chamber, please. It is making its way across the Chamber.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: The amendment ensures that the declaration remains in force for only as long as is justified, and by requiring any continuation beyond 1 year to actually be actively renewed by the court, it introduces an additional safeguard and promotes regular judicial reconsideration of the young person’s circumstances and progress. This approach would align with the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989, including the importance, once again, of minimising intervention and promoting rehabilitation. It avoids the “set and forget” model and ensures that the extended use of the young serious offender (YSO) regime is subject to ongoing scrutiny and justification. That effect is to create a more responsive and proportionate framework in which the duration of the YSO declaration is tailored to the individual circumstances of the young person and reviewed as those circumstance change.

My questions to the Minister, in addition to whether she has considered this amendment and what is her response to it, are: how did the Minister assess the impact of the longer duration of the YSO declaration on young people, and whether or not the two-year default is the best way to minimise intervention and promote rehabilitation, and why did the Minister not set the duration at one year and then allow the court to expand rather than simply setting the default at two years? So please explain to us, the committee, why it is the two years, and your response to the proposed amendments and the question we asked around the merits of making it one year, with the ability of the courts to extend that to a second year, if necessary.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (21:41): Thank you, Mr Chair. I do want to support the Hon Willow-Jean Prime with her amendment, because my colleague Tamatha Paul has a very similar amendment in clause 4, and this is dated to 11.50.07. The Hon Willow-Jean Prime has already mentioned all of the consideration and evidence and context on why it should be reduced to one year, so I won’t dwell on that, and I think the only thing I will mention, with regard to that, is the fact that this would also align with some of the consideration by the submitters, particularly the Criminal Bar Association, but this also echoes the sentiments of the Children’s Commissioner around the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well. So it is something that’s important to hear from the Minister, on that consideration.

I want to check with the Minister on new section 320O, inserted by clause 4, which is “Term of YSO declaration may be extended”. Noting there’s a whole list of criteria of how the two-year period can potentially be adjusted, the one I want to specifically focus on is the interaction between subsection (9) and subsection (10)—this is page 16 of the bill, roughly between line 10 and line 15. Subsection (9) says that “A YSO declaration may be extended for a period not exceeding 1 year and may be extended more than once.” The clarity that might be needed there is: if it’s extended once, it can’t go beyond one year—does that mean that it can be extended more than once but they can’t go within a one-year duration in total, or, every time it extends, it can be no more than one year? I presume it is the former, because in subsection (10)(b), it says that YSO declarations may not be extended at all in a situation that will mean that a declaration is “in force for a period exceeding 3 years”. My assumption is that it can be extended more than once, but the total duration can’t be above three years. Would that be a correct interpretation—that being my first question?

My second question around this is: let’s say it can’t be extended more than once: hypothetically, we have a scenario where a young serious offender is 14, they had a three-year declaration that will take them to 16, they had extensions that would take them to 17, and if the maximum is three years, it means that if there is offending in between that, it can’t go beyond the age of 17. But once they turn 17, if they offend—and this question could be responded to in the next section, and my apologies if this is covered in the next section, and the Minister can tell me if it is—and something happens after that previous maximum three-year declaration has lapsed and there is new offending, does that mean they get a new declaration of two years as a result of that? I won’t ask in terms of the extension, because there is the limit to that of 19 years of age.

It’s just kind of how that maximum three years would interact in this case, particularly around the mode of extensions, and if you’re looking at earlier clauses, like subsection (1), I presume the extension is only when you’re looking at a case where a young serious offender is charged with a further specified offence. I won’t discuss the offence itself, but it’s the three-year limit that I’m interested in.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI (Te Tai Tokerau) (21:45): Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to focus, similarly, on the new section 320K and 320L space of this discussion tonight. It might even have some reference to new section 320I and 320J, which I think we covered a little bit last week. I want to know, Minister: do you know whether any part of that engagement with the young person and their family is facilitated, supported, and taken care of by any iwi providers? Does it enable that? If so, if you’re looking at 320I, and paragraphs (a) to (j), that’s a mountain of work. I’m wondering: it’s one thing to get the perspective and understanding of what happened for the young person, but what happened for the young person and their families has got to be a critical part of the discussion.

In new section 320L, I’m imagining, too, like the previous speakers have discussed about the engagement in court—how does that actually occur? I know too many, because I used to sit inside these places. They’re not the nicest places to be, of course. But, again, you imagine you’re a young person, and this material is being explained, and they’re going through what’s happened and where they’re going to head with this particular situation, but where in that are their whānau and where are they understood in this engagement, and then, potentially, any iwi engagement in this? So all the whānau and all the iwi that come with these young people—does this process appreciate the value of that and enable it in court? I’m really interested to know whether the Minister knows that and understands that, and I’d be interested to understand that, firstly.

Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children) (21:48): Thank you, Mr Chair. There’s been a few amendments spoken to, so I will just go through them. In regards to the amendment with the time stamp 7.05.33—and that also includes the one time stamped 11.50.07—I don’t support these amendments, because I consider the two-year declaration length is necessary to make meaningful change in these young people’s lives. These are young people who the Youth Court considers are likely to reoffend, and previous interventions have been unsuccessful. Changing behaviours takes times. None the less, the bill also provides for the Youth Court—and, hopefully, this answers the Green Party member’s question at the same time—to be able to reduce the term of the young serious offender’s declaration on application, but the application can be made once after the declaration has been enforced for 12 months and once after 18 months—so a maximum of three years.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour) (21:49): Thank you, Mr Chair; thank you to the Minister for her answers thus far. I’m looking at an amendment filed by my colleague Helen White, time stamped 7.05.36. The headline I would put on this amendment is just ensuring that the courts have sufficient discretion to consider the particular circumstances of the young person in front of them.

The amendment being proposed is in relation to Part 1, Subpart 1, clause 4. This is a new clause 4, new subclause 320P(6) after paragraph (b). I’m just going to go there now because, in subclause (6), we’ve currently got paragraphs (a) and (b), and this is where “The court may grant an application and make an order reducing the term of a YSO declaration if the court is satisfied,” on one of two grounds, either that “there is a low risk that the offender will reoffend;” or that “the YSO declaration is not required to promote the offenders compliance with orders made by the court.”

The proposal from my colleague is the addition of a new paragraph (c), that “the grounds upon which the YSO declaration were made no longer exist or no longer apply, or that, for any other reason, the declaration would not be made in the current circumstances.” Essentially, it’s expanding the grounds on which the Youth Court may reduce the term of a young serious offender by introducing a broader, I would say, circumstance test.

For example, we’ve got, where the young person has addressed their cause of offending, things like new support arrangements that might be in place, so that might be covered by the current paragraph (b); but perhaps where there are broader contextual factors that have altered the appropriateness of having an order in place, the jurisdiction isn’t quite there under the existing drafting to allow a court to stretch into circumstances that might just relate particularly to the individual concerned. A question to the Minister is whether she would consider broadening the jurisdiction of the court to take into account circumstances that may be quite particular to the individual young person.

Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children) (21:52): To Helen White’s amendment timestamped 7.05.36 proposing to provide more grounds for the court to reduce the term of YSO declaration, I won’t be supporting this because the bill requires the Youth Court to consider that there is a low risk that the offender will reoffend, and the young serious offender declaration is not required to promote the young person’s compliance with the orders being made. You are correct—these existing provisions reflect the grounds upon which the declaration was originally made—and, therefore, the proposed amendment is unnecessary.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI (Te Tai Tokerau) (21:52): Thank you, Mr Chair. I would like to come back to my question earlier again, “leaving the courtroom”, and it literally says that in this bill. I’d like to know from the Minister for Children whether iwi providers, supporters, whānau, are notified and engaged in this process before the young person leaves the courtroom. The reason I ask that quite deliberately, and I’m not sure why it’s not been answered earlier, is the way in which, again, it’s just so readily discussed as “a young person”, “a youth”, or “a young person”, as if they belong to nobody.

Again, this is why the things were changed in 1989 to “children, young persons, and their families,” because it recognised that they belong to families, they belong to whānau, they belong to iwi, and they belong to hapū. Nowhere in this does it suggest that this young person has anyone but their shadow. I beseech you to just speak rationally, or maybe naturally, Minister, to explain what you know and understand will occur before they leave the courtroom. I’m interested to know whether you imagine what that’s like, and some kind of decent response to that, Minister, would be useful. Thank you.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) (21:54): Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to take the committee to my tabled amendment timestamped 5 August, 7.05.37. It is proposing an amendment to clause 4, new section 320Q, to replace subsection (2) with “The grounds on which an application may be made under subsection (1) are compassionate grounds, including that”—and it provides a list there—“(d) the offender is suffering from serious mental health issues, whether or not those issues amount to a diagnosed mental illness; and (e) any other reason that the court considers appropriate.”

What this proposed amendment does is it actually broadens the compassionate grounds on which an application may be made to discharge a young serious offender declaration under the new section 320Q(2) and clarifies the list of examples and makes sure that it’s not unduly restrictive. The effect is to ensure that a “compassionate grounds” regime is sufficiently flexible, humane, and responds to the lived circumstances of young people, enabling the court to make decisions that are proportionate and consistent with the welfare-focused principles of the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989.

As it is currently drafted, the subsection is framed as permissive, but it provides such a limited and relatively narrow set of examples that may influence how the Court interprets its discretion. The existing references to circumstances such as the offender being expected to soon give birth or being unlikely to recover from an illness set thresholds that may exclude significant and genuinely compassionate situations. This proposed amendment makes several improvements to ensure that pregnancy itself is sufficient without requiring that birth be imminent. It also clarifies that a serious illness need not be terminal or permanent by introducing the concept of “recovery soon”, thereby capturing conditions that may be temporary but none the less severely debilitating. In addition, the amendment expressly recognises serious mental health issues, whether or not they meet the threshold of a diagnosed mental health illness, reflecting the realities of young youth offending and vulnerability.

I ask the Minister for Children questions regarding this because we know that, in the first pilot of the military-style academy (MSA), we had a young person opt out of the programme and leave within just a couple of weeks of that programme starting. In MSA 2.0, the second military-style academy, we know that two young people have voluntarily left the in-residence phase of the military-style academy. Now, once this is made into law, young people will not be able to voluntarily leave the military-style academy programme. My question to the Minister before our time expires tonight is: what does she say to my tabled amendment about extending the compassionate grounds on which a young person can leave the military-style academy and this YSO declaration given that, in the first pilot and 2.0 version, we have had young people voluntarily leave?

Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children) (21:58): Speaking to the tabled amendment timestamped 7.05.37, I don’t support this amendment. The compassionate grounds as currently drafted in section 320Q reflect that a young serious offender declaration would only be discharged in very limited circumstances. I note the current ability of the Youth Court to vary or discharge any order, such as a “supervision with residence” order, or any condition such as curfew that a young person is subject to. This bill does not change this. These options remain available to the Youth Court whether or not there are grounds to discharge young serious offender declarations.

Progress to be reported.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The committee has further considered the Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Amendment Bill and reports that it has made progress on the bill. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 9.59 p.m.