Parliamentary debates: Thursday, 8 May 2025

Good morning, members. The committee is resumed. We are on the Wildlife (Authorisations) Amendment Bill. When we suspended last night, we had concluded the debate on Part 1. We come now to Part 2. This is the debate on clauses 5 and 6—“Amendments about transitional, savings, and related provisions”—and the Schedule. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

Thank you. I appear to be very eager this morning.

Very keen!

Thank you. As you’ve just said, Part 2 relates to two clauses—as Part 1 was just one clause—and we also have the Schedule included. These provisions are transitional, and it’s important that we note that, through the Schedule, there is retrospective effect to this legislation. We know that there has been no regulatory impact statement on this legislation, and so it would be useful for the Minister to comment on the need for it to be retrospective and what advice he’s had on the implications of that retrospectivity, given that it is retrospective and it’s unusual for legislation to be retrospective. I say that as if it’s the constitutional norm, but this is the second piece of legislation that’s going through this House under urgency. We’re still in the Chamber on 6 May. I don’t even know what the real date is in the real world, but we’re here on 6 May, and this is the second bill under all-stages urgency that has a retrospective element to it.

I wanted to say in the previous bill, and I’ll say it for this one as well, that it would be great if the Minister could justify that retrospectivity but also if the Minister would consider some sort of review provisions for this piece of legislation that is going through under all-stages urgency. It could be—and we can come to this in the commencement debates—that the bill doesn’t commence until some sort of review is undertaken, or it might be that the bill goes to something like the Regulations Review Committee, for instance, for a review post-enactment and that there is a trigger for the bill coming back to the House if that Regulations Review Committee—or another review body—thought that there was a need to do that.

Why that is important is because there has been no select committee process on this bill and there has been no opportunity for members of this House who are not part of the executive, but who are part of the Parliament, to ask advisers questions. We’ve heard a number of times in the second reading speeches and first reading speeches that Parliament is sovereign. Indeed, Parliament is sovereign, but at the moment, when we have all this legislation avoiding that select committee process and no opportunity for members on the Opposition side to do their job and ask advisers questions about what the executive is putting in front of them, the executive becomes sovereign. That is what we have at the moment. The executive is pushing through these things.

We had a debate in real life yesterday on Part 1 about some phrases in the Act, and I promise to the rest of the House that my concern was a real interpretation concern. I think what will happen is that this bill will come back to the House, because it just doesn’t make sense to me. That is why I’m asking if the Minister can commit to some amendment that he can make now, in committee stage, that there will be a review of these provisions so that they can be appropriately considered by people who have a little bit more time—they’re not staying up till midnight and then going to select committees at 8 a.m.—and who can actually pursue these questions. That would be a very sensible thing to happen. Please, Minister, will you consider that? I’m helpful to table amendments. I’m sorry; I would—I would—

Wake up!

Wake up! I’m very happy to table amendments if the Minister indicates that that would be helpful. I’m sure we can do that now, but I would be interested in both the justification from the Minister for it being retrospective and any comments on review provisions and, potentially, amendments to make sure that there is actually a review.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do want to just begin by emphasising the need, as Rachel Brooking has pointed out, for a review period. What we see is Schedule 1AA refers to, potentially, a large number of projects—perhaps some that are active authorisations; some that are under way—and it is important, given the retrospectivity of this, that there is a review period.

The second point that I want to make—a question for the Minister—is about the number of those projects. Now, we’ve seen, as I’ve mentioned previously in this debate, that there is no regulatory impact statement. There is no proactively released Cabinet paper. We don’t have a huge amount of detail that, previously or in other situations, were this not being passed through all stages under urgency, we would have had access to. I have seen some media reporting that basically says that, in the past 12 months, the Department of Conservation (DOC) has granted 85 similar permits to project applicants and that, in total, 315 applications are under way where a section 53 permit or authority could be granted. My question would be around whether the Minister can confirm those figures and also around whether new Schedule 1AA in Part 2 would then apply to all of those—the 85 plus the 315—that are in train as well.

The third point that I want to make is that, in lieu of a select committee process, all we have—previously, we would have submitters, many of whom have done a fair bit of work in this space in terms of reviewing the Wildlife Act and making suggestions on what should be changed within the Act. We would have ordinarily heard from them through a select committee process. We, of course, haven’t, given that we are sitting in urgency, and so all we have to go on are some of the press releases that have been put out on this particular piece of legislation. There is one from the Environmental Law Initiative—of course, the lawyers who judicially reviewed the decision have said that, basically, it increases the burden on those who are, I guess, pushing those projects through—the 85 and the 315, if, in fact, those numbers are correct. I would be keen for the Minister’s view, given what’s in Schedule 1AA, on whether he agrees that it actually does increase the administrative burden both for DOC but also in terms of the legal tests that, now, those projects have to be put against.

There was also another comment, and I can’t find it in front of me at the moment, around the fact that, potentially, what DOC should have done—again, it’s just been two months since the High Court ruling. That is a point that has been made before: there hasn’t been a huge amount of time. Had this been either delayed a little bit or had there been a slightly lengthier process or some select committee process, there potentially could have been time for DOC to then go through the cases on a case by case basis. We are here because the High Court ruled that in that particular case, the Mt Messenger Bypass case, the authority that was given under section 53 didn’t actually meet the purpose of the Wildlife Act as it was written back in 1953. Therefore, this carte blanche approach to now changing the law to change, ostensibly, the purpose of this Act so that the permits that were given retrospectively will now be legal does not necessarily mean that those who are shepherding those projects through have taken reasonable steps to protect biodiversity.

There is an argument put forward that what DOC should be doing is looking at those 85 cases, where there is legal uncertainty, and trying to work out whether reasonable steps have been taken to protect biodiversity in each of those cases. I would really like to know what the Minister’s view on that is but also what advice he received on that point. Is that something that DOC could actually have done? Was there consideration around the time period that it would have taken for DOC to be able to go through all of those cases on a case by case basis?

Thank you, Madam Chair, and good morning to all. Wakey, wakey. It’s a beautiful day. All right, in response to some of the questions that were made, I’ll just start off with the numbers. I think the member opposite mentioned about 85 that were issued in the year leading up to the court decision. I don’t know the exact number for the 12 months or the seven months leading up to the decision, but under the proposed provisions, all those that were decided and issued—all those authorisations—up to the date of the court decision will be validated.

The numbers I mentioned last night are about right. There are around 500 existing authorities that could be impacted by the decision. Of course, there are a number of permit holders with significant concerns around whether or not they are acting lawfully. That’s not just those in the development or, let’s call it, the economic space, but it’s also those in the environmental space, pest control, and other things. For us, it’s absolutely critical that we restore the universal understanding of the arrangements around the issuance of permits and authorisations for Department of Conversation (DOC) purposes but also the exercise of the permits and authorisations by those who are permit holders.

I acknowledge the concerns about retrospectivity that have been shared by members opposite. There is a low risk of unintended consequences, because everyone who was applying for these authorisations and permits—and also DOC, on the other side, who was authorising these permits and authorisations—had a very shared understanding of the basis on which they were being undertaken and, of course, landing on the conditions that apply to the exercise of the authorisations in the permits.

There was mention of a potential increased admin burden at DOC, and, of course, my concern as the Minister of Conservation is that, now, we’ve got quite a number of applications that are awaiting a DOC decision but DOC is unable to make this decision out of a concern that, actually, that may not be done lawfully, because when the decision was made, of course, it changed the understanding and changed the status quo. DOC wants to be in a space where it can continue to authorise these authorisations and permit these authorisations, issue them, and get on with things.

The comments around the monitoring and whether or not DOC has gone through every single authorisation and made sure that, to the nth degree, conditions are being upheld—that’s an operational matter. I’m confident that DOC is undertaking its role accordingly within its operations and, actually, it’s beyond the scope of the very targeted and narrow changes that have been proposed by way of this bill to restore not only the universal understanding of this permit process but also the ability for us to get on with economic and environmental initiatives.

There was a concern that I think a number of members opposite have raised in relation to retrospectivity. When the announcement was made from Cabinet, by myself, that we would look to ensure that those permit holders had their permits and authorisations validated, we wanted to give absolute certainty to those permit holders today so that they can continue to have the confidence to build the roads that we need to get to far-flung places like New Plymouth—I can see the member for [Interruption]—and other activities like the TBfree programme. Happy to hear further comments.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It seems, on appearance, like this is a small part of this bill, but there is so much in here that I will really appreciate the opportunity to ask about, particularly because it has been so rushed through and there are some real concerns around every aspect, particularly of new Schedule 1AA, inserted by clause 6.

I want to start, firstly, with Schedule 1AA, “Transitional, savings, and related provisions”, in Part 1, clause 1, with the “Validation of certain authorities”. The Minister of Conservation has just been saying in his comments right now that the intention here is to provide absolute certainty that it’s this kind of sweep of this legislation going through and that’s what will fix things.

Now, what my colleagues across the side of the House and I have been trying to say is that it’s actually creating the opposite of that, particularly because the burden of proof and the responsibility for the validation of these authorities is now resting with the Department of Conservation (DOC) and the director-general (DG). The reason that that is is because—and this talks about it as well—it talks about the validation of certain authorities. For the DG to be in the position where they can offer that validation, they actually need to know, right? These 300 or 80—it’d be great to get some numbers and clarity about how many authorisations we’re actually talking about here. DOC need to assess these. They need to have some knowledge and understanding of that.

The Minister also just talked earlier about fixing the administrative burden. We were asking about the administrative burden, and then he said, “The operational stuff is for DOC.” This is operational. To actually know and understand what has been going on with these authorisations and what’s been going on with the projects requires operational knowledge and presumably some form of assessment or surveying or something, some kind of methodology, to enable an actual evaluation of what’s taken place and what authorisations would actually be appropriate.

Now, this was something that we didn’t get answers to in the previous part when we were asking about what resources and what methodologies and assessments are actually envisaged to contribute to this process to ensure that DOC is acting in a way that is informed and that it is then acting in a way that provides the so-called certainty. Now, again, we don’t believe that clauses like this are providing that certainty at all. Really, if DOC is put in this burdensome situation where they’re having to assess these things, that is actually a burden that is unnecessary, given that there are already sections in the Wildlife Act that provide for these incidental aspects of killing.

What I’m also interested in—and I’d love to hear the Minister provide us some advice and assurance around this—is the level of consultation that will take place as part of this. Presumably the activity holders or the companies would be involved, but what about other people who were involved in those projects and particularly in the consultative part of those projects? Are they also going to be involved? This might be experts or iwi and hapū. How will that work? We’re not hearing the real realities of what this means for DOC and how they’re actually going to manage it. Thank you.

I’ll say for the 14th time that there might be up to 500 permits that are implicated by this matter. There’s no burden on the Department of Conservation (DOC) because, under the proposed legislation, those section 53 authorisations that have been issued prior to the court decision are validated. There is a real uncertainty right now that they may be invalid—hence why DOC has, effectively, downed tools until such time as we make these changes. DOC has got enough on its plate trying to look after 30 percent of the entire land of this country and some marine space, and they are absolutely enthusiastic—as you can see—to get on and see this change made.

In terms of the review provisions, there was a question earlier on about whether or not we could include review provisions. Well, in the disclosure statement, we have stated that the Ministry for Regulation and DOC have committed to undertake a post-implementation review within two years of enactment.

Finally, the department, Te Papa Atawhai, has taken on legislative actions to improve the processing of applications, with better guidance for decision making in line with the law. I’ve seen for myself a lot of that hard, diligent, and professional work being undertaken by the officials at DOC to process concessions in a timely manner, and I look forward to further reform in due course that will help enable that much more.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have two points for the Minister. Before I begin, I want to pick up on a comment that the Hon Rachel Brooking made about the importance of retrospective legislation having full scrutiny in committee stages when we are under all stages of urgency. We’re in a long period of urgency where the Government is rushing through legislation. It is really important that we understand the retrospective impact of this law, which is a direct retrospective impact. There are some circumstances in which we would give it a lighter touch because the retrospective impact is not direct, it doesn’t impact directly on someone’s rights, and it doesn’t directly impact on a decision that has been made.

In this case, there are 500 permits—as the Minister keeps saying, as if that will help us conclude our efforts to investigate this—that are directly impacted by this and 85 directly by the case law moving through the courts. This is something actively being considered by the judiciary. It is something we need to consider at this level very carefully before we impinge on any of the rights accrued before this legislative change was made. We should not be analysing it, as the Minister has suggested, as if this legislative change has already occurred. The relevant rights and duties for us to consider are the relevant rights and duties that existed before this legislative change and what the legal situation was then and how it was well understood at the time.

Building on the starting point that no legislation should generally have retrospective effect, there are two tests for direct retrospective effect. One is that it applies to an event or action that has already taken place. This is the case here. The second one—and this is something we wish to explore with the Minister—is that it prevents a person from relying on the rights that existed at the time of the conduct. This is something that I will put to the Minister now: how many of the permits that are impacted by this, Minister, are relying on a situation that was in the law as it was prior to this proposal? How many of those permits will be directly impacted and changed, and what is the scope of the change? Help this committee to understand what sort of work was being carried out unlawfully and whether the work that was being carried out unlawfully was because of an error or because of a decision of the court that was unexpected. Those are the two things we really have to grapple with when we decide about how this Parliament makes the decision about how clauses 1, 2, and 3 should apply under Part 1 in new Schedule 1AA.

The next point I wish to make is that we haven’t heard, from the Minister, who the beneficiaries of this change will be and who those who will lose out in this circumstance are. Are there groups that have brought claims or are in negotiations with the Department of Conservation (DOC) who do not agree with the way that the permits have been applied and whose rights would be extinguished by this decision? Simply put: are there people out there who are upset by this change? Are their rights being extinguished? Parliament needs to consider, every time we make retrospective legislation like this, who the losers are. Is it their livelihoods that are on the line?

No.

Are their rights—

No.

How will they be impacted? What is the effect for the community? We haven’t had any discussion of that, Mr Andy Foster, in this committee stage. We would welcome a call from New Zealand First about the people who are impacted because of these bills.

We’ve heard from the Minister that it may be roads and it may be infrastructure that are being built here which are beneficial to the community. That is great. That is something that Parliament should take into account about who benefits and what the cost of the retrospectivity is. When you extinguish rights for some people for the benefit of others, you should understand the benefits, but you should also understand who is affected. It’s not just the kiwis. It’s not just the lizards. It’s the people who care. It’s the people who have brought these claims that are then impacted by these kinds of decisions.

I also want to ask the Minister: is this validating matters that are generally understood to be lawful but are, in fact, unlawful because of an error? That error question is—well, what is the error? Was there an error when Parliament passed the initial legislation? I know we’re going back some way, Minister, but when Parliament last considered this, was it generally understood that it would be the case that DOC would ever have these sorts of powers that are now being fixed up here? Is this a fix? We need to understand whether the intention here has been broken.

If I can just finish my second point for the Minister. I want to ask the Minister about his review provisions, which he has helpfully outlined. They are different from those proposed by this side of the House, and I want to make that clear. What is being proposed here is that it is appropriate for retrospective legislation, especially with direct impact, to have a review by Parliament, either by one of its select committees, its Regulations Review Committee, or another body, as determined by the House, through primary legislation. What he has proposed is that there will be a review provision by not only his ministry but also the Ministry for Regulation.

I want him to explain to us, firstly, what the role of the Ministry for Regulation is in that review, given that it has no legislative framework yet for us to understand what its review role will be. Secondly, if the ministry is to review this legislation and the impact of its retrospectivity, how will that be public? How will the people whose rights are impacted know what that review is? How will they feed into that? Will there be consultation with them? Who will be consulted? To give a power of review that is, essentially, a review of the primary legislation through the primary legislation with no mandatory considerations, no design for that review—we need to understand, at this point now, how that review will be conducted. Will the people who care be at the table?

These are simple questions, but it is very clearly the role of Parliament to make sure that these rules, which apply to people and take away peoples’ rights—we can do that, but we need to understand what those rights are and that they will be treated carefully, with respect, in the next period for review. Minister, what is the role of the Ministry for Regulation? What legislation will guide the Ministry for Regulation when considering the effect of the retrospectivity here?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I turn to the Schedule, specifically Part 1, clauses 1 and 2. The Minister has helpfully laid out some of the context around this, which is about the 500 permits that need to be validated. I also think that the crux of the situation is that the court has determined that what the Department of Conservation (DOC) is currently doing is, in effect, illegal, and I can appreciate that the Minister would like to rectify that. Out of the permits available—and the Minister has helpfully given us an answer, and previously the Minister has mentioned that this has been going on for many years—what was the earliest instance of a permit being granted?

Considering DOC has been giving these grants under section 71 and there’s no information available to this committee about how DOC reviews these permits or how DOC ensures that these permits are up to date with the most recent legislation or the latest iteration of any relevant legislation as well as the duration of some of these permits, are some of these authorities enduring as in they will go on for 20 years or for another 50 years to come?

Without that kind of information, I want to know whether, when this bill comes into effect, including the retrospectivity, there is a requirement for DOC to ensure that all of these authorities that are now being given, essentially, legal effect under this bill will be compliant with the relevant legislation as it is or with the relevant legislation at the time that they were granted. I feel that in terms of Schedule 1 and the retrospectivity, it just says that they are, essentially, all, in effect, legal, but it doesn’t mention—and we have no understanding of it—whether the legality at the time of grant is now consistent with the Wildlife Act as we see it now. We don’t have the earliest instance. That is my main question around this for the time being. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. One thing I would like to truth test, Minister, is the whole proposition that this legislation is based on, which is that it’s responding to a legal uncertainty that is somehow a perilous threat to these activities that are supposedly authorised. The Minister of Conservation seems to be suggesting that, in the past two months, this whole swathe of projects have been on hold and that nothing has been going on. I just want to clarify if that is what the Minister is saying, that there are perhaps 500 projects that have been doing nothing—or, I presume, a bunch of those are. As my colleague just asked, when was the first unlawful authority issued? How far back are we going? Last night, the Minister talked about it being 20 years ago. Are many of these authorities, which are going to be now validated by this legislation, projects that are long finished or complete, or are we talking about only active projects? Is the Minister suggesting that all of those projects are on hold?

One of the reasons I want to ask that is because the argument for this being so rushed through the House and not scrutinised is that there’s some sort of temporal threat to these things going about their business as they are authorised. In that regard, who would be the prosecuting agency for a breach of the Wildlife Act? Given that this court has deemed that these authorities are unlawful—

DOC?

—who is the prosecuting agency? Yes, you’ve just answered the question correctly. I heard you. It’s the Department of Conservation, isn’t it? No?

Getting repetitive.

Excuse me—point of order. I’ve been accused of being repetitive. I’m asking this question for the first time.

That’s not a point of order.

That is the first time I’ve asked who the prosecuting agency is, and I saw the Minister ask the official that very question because they didn’t know the answer.

It’s not a point of order.

OK. Well, Madam Chair, I would appreciate if the other side could pay some attention. These are serious questions. If the prosecuting agency is the Department of Conservation, then is the Minister suggesting that the Department of Conservation is about to go and prosecute all of these operators with whom they have, no doubt, worked closely to evaluate what the ecological questions are and what the species are that need to be protected? It doesn’t seem plausible. I’d like the Minister to clarify that.

In the interim two months since this court finding, how many court cases have been brought for breaches of the law now that it’s been deemed unlawful? I wonder if the Minister has any answers on that. One of the messages that the Environmental Law Initiative made pretty clear in their communication with Newsroom was that they did not believe it was likely that there would be any cases brought, because the legislation—the Wildlife Act section 68AB—already has a defence of reasonable efforts. Those are those are my core questions.

One thing I want to quickly clarify before my five minutes are up is: clause 1(2) of new Schedule 1AA, inserted by clause 6, “Validation of certain authorities”—the wording there—says, “An authority to which this clause applies is validated to the extent that the authority would have been valid had new sections 53A and 53B(5) been in force when the authority was granted or purportedly granted.” Can you just double clarify what that clause exactly means, Minister? Thank you.

Thank you for this additional opportunity to be involved in “truth, dare, or command”.

The review will be led by the Department of Conservation (DOC). The Ministry of Regulation will administer the process for this review as it’s linked to the regulatory impact requirements set out in the Cabinet Office circular. What I’ll also add is that last night, in the wee hours, I mentioned that we will accelerate, with acuity, the review of the Wildlife Act. As we recall, the previous Government was very intent on talking the talk, but we will walk our talk.

It’s premature to fully articulate the terms of reference for the review that will be undertaken between the Ministry of Regulation and Te Papa Atawhai - DOC, but there will be a post-implementation review and a full-on comprehensive review. I can’t wait to get into fifth gear for that matter.

In relation to the fuzzy math of the other side, I note, for the fifteenth time, there are around 500 potentially implicated permits. Right now, one of the reasons why we’re so intent on progressing this urgent legislation through the House is that there are about 300 permits awaiting consideration by the Department of Conservation. Now, whilst some members of the House might not think that’s important and think that we can wait weeks or months or years for another review and committee, we’re actually very intent on making sure that important programmes—environmental, economic, and others—get kicked off and started. That’s one of the reasons why we’re so committed to ensuring that this set of amendments is made to the Wildlife Act, so that these programmes that often align with the renewable infrastructure aspirations of all those in the House—

And coal mines?

—are accelerated. And, if required, mahi in the mineral space, which I’m sure matua Minita Jones will be happy with.

Over the past two months—in response to a question from my Green colleague—DOC has stopped issuing these permits. The tools are down. That hasn’t necessarily resulted in an increase of orange cones throughout the country, but it has meant that a lot of folks that want to do good things for the motu have been unable to do that because they haven’t been issued with a permit. Now, when permits are issued, of course, there is a bit of consultation that’s undertaken in good faith prior to the permits being issued. Often that consultation will be with local, on the ground, tangata whenua during the permit processing.

There was a question around when the first unlawful authority was issued. I’m not going to answer that question. What’s more important is that we are going to validate all section 53 authorities that were issued prior to the court decision so people can operate with the right signals, with the right incentives, and with certainty, just like my marriage.

In the way they thought they were going to do it.

Yes, that’s right, ditto. Now, on that question around the prosecuting agency, I think we’ve received the answer to that. In relation to the retrospectivity of this, as we’ve mentioned many times, the High Court decision introduced quite a degree of uncertainty. This sort of targeted and narrow solution, with a very short, tight, succinct group of amendments, will respond to the various issues that were raised through the Mt Messenger court decision. It provides that certainty that people can operate in line with these section 53 authorities, which, until this time, have been a universal understanding. We’ll restore the status quo, and, as such, it was a justifiable amendment at this time.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I’m not going to take the question, but I do think we need to be looking for new material. This has become quite repetitive.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ve got three points I want to make. One of them is in response to what the Minister has just said about review clauses—that, within two years of the enactment of this bill, there will be a review and that he wants to walk the talk and review the whole Act. Great. It’s great news that he’s going to get on with that work, but the issue is that this bill is being passed in all-stages urgency, so an immediate review is required.

Helpfully, when I was last speaking, my colleague Arena Williams drafted an amendment to do that immediate review of these words to see if they work. It doesn’t have to be a policy review, just the working of the mechanisms—not a big policy one. It is to insert a new clause 2(5): “This clause does not apply to an authority referred to in clause 2(1) of this part unless the Minister initiates a review, within one month of Royal assent of this Act, of this retrospective provision, to be conducted by Parliament before 5 March 2027.” We could change the dates on that, but that is the sort of mechanism that we’re talking about. There needs to be an immediate review, because this has not had submissions. I have been very unsatisfied with the answers that we’ve been getting from the Minister. That’s one point.

My second point is about the role of section 71. We heard from the Minister—this goes to clause 2 in the Schedule, on page 5, “Lawfulness of certain section 53 authorities when section 71 applicable”—in the Part 1 debate that if section 71 is applicable, you don’t go to section 53. We also heard, in that debate, that section 71 is horribly written and that it only applies to some different pieces of legislation, many of which are now repealed. One of those pieces of legislation relates to roads. If the Minister can engage on this relationship between sections 71 and 53, when the court case was about the road—where section 71 applies, how should it, in the future, interact if somebody gets a section 53 authority?

I note that this, too, is trying to clarify that it doesn’t matter if you got a section 53 authority when you should have got a section 71. That’s OK—it’s lawful. What happens in the future, given that section 71 is such a mess and people, probably, don’t understand when they should be using section 71 as opposed to section 53? I think it would be very useful if you say, for the Hansard, how that relationship between those two clauses is, in your view, supposed to work. Then I think it would also be useful if we go on to clause 4 of this schedule that’s being inserted, on the back page of the bill.

There’s specific mention of the case that we’ve all been talking about tonight. Again, it would be good for the Minister to confirm my interpretation of that. Is that the case, Environmental Law Initiative v The Director-General of the Department of Conservation and others [2025]—well, the Environmental Law Initiative wouldn’t want to appeal it, because they won, but, if the director-general or anybody else who has appeal rights around their case—they are not impacted by these changes, and that is the point of clause 4. That is different to any other proceedings that might already be in train about this. Then, if the Minister has had any advice and if there are any other actions in train at the moment about the Wildlife Act, that would be useful to know as well.

I appreciate the creative suggestions around an immediate review. We will not be undertaking that. It’s a suboptimal and underwhelming idea, and it would just create more uncertainty, but thank you for that interesting and creative idea.

In relation to the Mt Messenger case and the Environmental Law Initiative, the finding, actually was that a section 71 authorisation was valid in that instance. We are concerned about the additional—potentially up to 500—permits that are held by permitholders. One comment was made this morning, and last night, about the rights of people who may be affected. Yeah, the rights and expectations of the people who hold the permits are what we are really concerned about. We are really concerned about their provisions and their authorisations, and any suggestion that there are other people out there who are not involved in the rights and permits that may be affected—the people who those permitholders employ, and the people who are driving on the roads, and the people who are running cows throughout the country and who may be impacted if this decision has an influence on the TBfree programme. All of a sudden, they’ve got issues with their bovine populations and their bovine herds, maybe even in the hemp hurds.

Section 53 is the focus of this targeted, narrow set of amendments that have been proposed, at this moment in this time, to give certainty to many, many permitholders and, indeed, New Zealanders. It’s not section 71, and we won’t be playing “Mickey Rabbit” on an immediate review. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We have some trouble here in this committee stage now. The Minister of Conservation said, “I’m not going to answer”, on a question about how far the retrospectivity goes back in time and what the nature of the retrospectivity is. The problem is that this committee is being asked to make a decision that could affect the rights and interests of people going back 30 or 50 years, without any understanding of what is being asked of it.

My first question to the Minister is: does Cabinet know how far the retrospectivity—which is being proposed in urgency here today, with no ability for the Parliament to review it—goes back? Does Cabinet know what the nature of the retrospectivity is and whose rights are being extinguished?

Madam Chair, this is not a repetitive point. If the Minister doesn’t answer, Parliament needs to be clear that it is being asked to make retrospective, directly retrospective, legislation about a matter that it does not understand and has not been provided with answers on. This is a serious point, and the gravity of it cannot be stressed enough. We deserve the chance to interrogate what is going on here. The reason why lawyers and some sort of appointed board at the Ministry of Regulation do not make these decisions, and why Parliament does, is because parliamentarians are charged with the duty of understanding how these things affect their communities.

I’ll give you an example, Minister. When I worked in Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara, in a role that you yourself have held in iwi organisations, I was responsible for the overseeing of a permit granted by the Department of Conservation that affected the mokomoko—the lizards—in the Woodhill Forest. In that situation, we granted the permits, for a road built in that forest, where it was agreed with the iwi prior to the building of the road that the lizards in the area would be removed by the iwi. This made job schemes for the young men who were employed in the work. They were hunters. They were people who did forestry work in the forest, and, for a long time, they stayed together at the marae and were overseen by a kaumātua as they removed these lizards. Not only did they remove the lizards, but they also learnt about the history and the stories. There is a lizard on the pou of that marae. These are important parts of history and the things that bring these people together. They are local people who share local stories about this wildlife. In that situation, one day, work was being carried out when bulldozers came and removed the trees in an area where this work had not been conducted. That was devastating for the young men working on this project for a such a long time, who had dedicated their time and energy to it.

The reason I am asking the Minister whose rights are being extinguished by this is because people care very deeply about it. Young men who are working out there in forests right now will have problems with the way that it has proceeded over many years. Things go wrong in these situations. Permits are issued wrongly. People take the wrong actions under permits that are granted. They should have the ability for a court, a tribunal, or an MP who represents their interests, to raise these issues, instead of a Minister who comes to this Chamber and says, “I’m not going to answer. I’m not going to tell Parliament what I am extinguishing.” This is something that should be interrogated by this committee. To shut down a debate on this, like the Minister is trying to do, and to say, “I’m not going to answer on the specific examples. I’m not going to make this real.”, makes a mockery of this entire process. Why don’t we let lawyers decide every time we make retrospective decisions? You know why we don’t? Because the real people who are affected by this are represented by us. This is a Minister who has taken an arrogant approach to changing their rights and taking away their ability to have any say in the processes, which affects their jobs, their livelihoods, their families, and their communities. That is a shame.

We should continue to investigate this legislative impact very carefully because this is the only opportunity we have, not only as Parliament but as the New Zealanders who are affected by this. It maybe 10 years back, it may be 20 years back, or it may be 50 years back, so, Minister, tell us how retrospective this is and who is losing.

I appreciate the energy and the passion that all members have for sustaining the environment and mahi out there. That’s one of the challenges out there. Right now, there are hundreds of applications waiting to be authorised by the Department of Conservation, and until they’re authorised, there’s actually not as many jobs in the community. That’s one of the challenges that we have as we try to get this economy moving again.

It’s very plain, as set out in the relevant amendments, that the authorisations that were issued under section 53 before the court decision was validated are valid. There is a real sense of uncertainty and a lack of assurance and confidence amongst many permitholders, and, indeed, there is a lack of certainty for the agency that is responsible for issuing the permits around their ability to issue permits in the manner that was universally understood prior to the court decision. We are very focused on ensuring this targeted set of narrow amendments is enabled so that those very young men that the member just mentioned and just referred to are able to continue doing the important mahi that they are doing in order to look after te taiao, amongst other things.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I still have many questions, and I’m just going to get straight to them. I’ll just make them really clear so that we can, hopefully, elicit some clear responses. The Minister has been saying, even stating, in his last response that this intention is to validate what has happened in the past and what may happen in the future. Now, what we’re still unclear about, and what I’d really appreciate an answer on is: is the intention with this bill that the director-general will validate these without knowing? Is the Minister saying that it will just be validations no matter what? Presumably, there is some form of assessment. What is that assessment? What is the methodology? Will they be validated no matter what?

What if, in opening this huge can of worms and bureaucracy, the Department of Conservation identifies within this process—and it becomes clear, on the odd occasion, with these hundreds and hundreds of authorisations—that, actually, some of these activities have caused something unlawful? They may have actually caused damage that is concerning. Are authorities and the people and companies who have undertaken these activities going to be exempt, no matter what, from prosecution? What is going on with this process in terms of actual assessment of the actual activities and the impact on the environment? Then, what is the assessment that flows through that process into the validation or not? Then, will those authorities actually be exempt, regardless of what actually took place and the impact on the environment? Those are some very clear questions that we are yet to get an answer on. Please elucidate, Minister.

It’s starting to get to sausage roll time, people. How far back do the previous authorisations go? The earliest active authority that I’m advised of started in 2003. Monitoring of these authorisations actually takes place on a regular basis, and the validation of a permit, as mentioned, before a court decision was made—those permits will be validated. It doesn’t mean that the conditions have changed. The conditions are still within the permit and the authorisation. Department of Conservation (DOC) rangers and others go out to monitor these on a regular basis. Sometimes iwi members do as well. A member in the Labour team just mentioned that before.

The validation of these permits, as proposed by way of the bill, does not mean the permit holders can go and do whatever they like. They have a set of conditions that they have to actually fulfil and deliver on, and they are monitored typically by rangers out in the Department of Conservation - Te Papa Atawhai districts concerned. That might involve site checks and reporting, but it depends on the conditions on the permit. In the Mt Messenger example, that was a couple of times a month with the Mt Messenger Alliance crew, who were constructing the roads. DOC staff members sit on ecological review panels reviewing aspects of the consents and ensuring those relevant outcomes have been met. We’re very adamant, again, that people need confidence, and that’s what we’re here to provide.

As I said before, I am looking for new material.

It’s new material. I certainly have it, I promise.

I’m not hearing a great deal of that. I will give the call to the Hon Kieran McAnulty.

I’m actually seeking a point of order, Madam Chair.

Oh, sorry, a point of order.

That’s all right. It’s quite timely, after saying that. I’m really after some clarity here. I don’t think I can remember a time when a Minister has stood up in committee stage—

What’s the point of order?

This is the point of order. I don’t remember a time when a Minister in a committee of the whole House stage has stood up and flat out refused: “I will not answer a question.” That has been raised by my colleague Arena Williams. The Minister has responded after a subsequent question and has not addressed that again. Now, you’ve said to the committee that you’re looking for new material. The issue is that when questions are being asked—and quite serious ones—and the Minister’s response is “I will not answer that”, what option have we got if we’re not getting answers? It’s one thing for a Minister to ignore our questions—

I understand—I understand the question.

Actually, my point of order is yet to come, Madam Chair—

Well, can you get to it, please?

The point is that the committee, I think, is at the point where it needs reassurance from you as Chair that you are taking into account that the Minister is refusing to answer questions, in your consideration of the closure motion.

I’ll refer the member to several rulings that Mr Speaker has made, especially during question time, where the answer may not satisfy the questioner. It’s not my role to instruct the Minister in any particular way to answer questions. That will be judged by the general public.

Point of order?

I’m not going to get into a debate about it.

It’s not a debate, Madam Chair. Point of order?

A point of order, Kieran McAnulty.

This is not question time. This is the committee of the whole House, and the requirements of you as presiding officer are completely different to that of the Speaker during question time. The question was very specific. Presiding officers during committee stages have criteria that need to be met in order for a closure motion to be considered. I asked you to reassure the committee that the Minister’s flat-out refusal to answer questions is being taken into your consideration of the closure motion. It wasn’t anything to do with Speakers’ rulings during question time.

The short answer is yes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank the Minister for finally giving us a date, which is that the earliest instance is 2003. Now, since 2003, based on the New Zealand Legislation website, we have seen that the Wildlife Act has been amended no less than 22 times, at a minimum—the New Zealand Legislation website only goes back to 2007, according to what I can find. I’d just like to get reassurance from the Minister, then, that this means that every time there is an amendment, we look at whether those authorisations that have been granted, or any new authorisations being granted, are in line with the updated legislation. That’s my first question.

My second question is to do with clause 2 in new Schedule 1AA, which is to be inserted by clause 6. This is about the lawfulness of the authorities that have been granted under section 71. I think that there is one thing, that hasn’t really been touched on, that stood out to me while I was going through the High Court ruling. I want to point the Minister specifically to paragraph 116 of the High Court ruling, where the judge said, “I observe that I do not see any basis under s 71 for a retrospective consent to be granted. That section expressly requires the ‘prior consent’ of the Minister of Conservation and the Minister charged with the administration of the second Act in question.” This then meant that under section 71, the Department of Conservation (DOC) not only has granted authorities prior to something taking place but also retrospectively after wildlife has been killed.

Now, this is really, really interesting. My understanding of the legislation you have put forward is that DOC is still required to proactively, and prior, grant an authority but that DOC still cannot retrospectively grant an authority. However, the carte blanche nature of this Schedule—particularly clause 2, which says that everything that was granted under section 71 would be validated regardless of whether they are proactive or retrospective in nature—means that this clause actually goes against Part 1 of this bill. Can I just confirm whether that is the correct reading? Again, Part 1 of this bill specifically does state—well, my understanding is that it does state it, because it didn’t say, “Once this animal is killed,”. It talks about the killing of an animal which is prospective. What that would mean is that DOC still does not have the power to give authorities retrospectively, but the validation of those authorities under clause 2 in Part 1 of the Schedule allows for those authorities that have been granted retrospectively, which then would go against the legislation. Am I reading that correctly?

Those are my two questions. The first one is whether, with the update of the Wildlife Act, the authorisations are still in line with each iteration of updating the Wildlife Act, and the second question is whether that would create an inconsistency between Schedule 1AA and Part 1 of this bill, because the validation of any authority that has been granted retrospectively, which goes against this bill but also against the High Court’s ruling, is not going to create inconsistencies.

Just in respect of those two questions, permitholders who hold a permit with conditions need to stick to those conditions. Now, sometimes the law changes, there’s amendments, and they have to follow the law that’s over and above their conditions. They might have conditions that are negated by legal changes along the way, amendments—OK, you’ve got to follow the amendments to the legislation.

The second thing is that there were additional comments about section 71—the proposed amendments are not about section 71; they’re about section 53. That’s what they’re about. The Mt Messenger case and the decision, basically, came to the view that section 53 was not a legitimate basis for that road to be undertaken and for the activity around wildlife control to be managed, but section 71 was a legitimate basis. This set of amendments is about section 53 and making sure, to your final question, that those authorisations that were issued under section 53, before the court decision, are validated.

In the future, here is the understanding—which is Part 1—through which we can be absolutely certain that the universal understanding that everyone had before the court decision is reinforced and we can rebalance and restart this matter.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I have a further question for the Minister, given that he has not answered the question about how far the retrospectivity extends. I want to ask him why Schedule 1AA does not include a date frame. He must know, surely, even if he’s not going to tell this committee how far back the retrospectivity, which he is asking us to pass in urgency, goes. He must know. Even if Cabinet doesn’t know, he must. Why has he not introduced that time frame in the legislation?

One of the key principles of the legislative drafting guidelines is that if there is retrospectivity in legislation, if that retrospectivity in legislation is direct, and if that retrospective and direct legislation impacts on the accrued rights and duties of people, it’s a really bad one with retrospectivity. If you’re going to do that, be specific about it. “Say it with your full chest” is the way it’s expressed in parliamentary procedure. Where is the authority given by Parliament to extinguish these rights?

I see that National members on the other side of the Chamber are exercised by this point. They know that retrospectivity in this way is sloppy procedure and sloppy legislative drafting. We’re not even sure who is affected by this. It is outrageous, but that is the standard applied by these National Ministers. Just insert a date range, Minister. Would you accept a date range from me in an amendment, based on the date range proposed by Lawrence Xu-Nan, of 2003? Would that at least give this Parliament some semblance of care about the standards that should be applied to retrospective legislation, Minister?

I won’t reach into Hansard so I can read out what I said. I’ll just say it. I’m advised that the active authorities that are in play at the moment are from 2003 onwards. This goes up to the date of the court decision. That’s what we’re dealing with. There may be some—but I’m not advised of that—that are before that, but we’re dealing with active authorities from 2003 up to the time of the court decision. Please, Mr Chair, I do not want to have to repeat that answer for a third time.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you, Minister, for that answer—

Really?

To some extent. I was trying to give him some credit. It’s hard because, for clarity, we haven’t had the thoroughness of answers that we should rightly expect in this process of prosecuting such a significant piece of rushed legislation on the primary means by which wildlife is protected in this country, and legislation that, basically, issues licences to kill.

Now, I want to specifically talk to clause 3 in Part 1 of new Schedule 1AA: “Savings relating to commenced proceedings: Clauses 1 and 2 do not affect any proceedings commenced or in progress before 28 March 2025, or any rights of appeal.” Another question of how many, if any, active prosecutions or appeals will be affected by this clause—does the Minister have an answer for that? Does the Cabinet know? How many will be affected by that clause 3, which states clauses 1 and 2 do not affect any proceedings?

Clause 4: “Effect of clauses 1 and 2 relating to High Court judgment: (1) Clauses 1 and 2 do not—(a) apply to the authority—(i) that the Director-General granted or purportedly granted to the New Zealand Transport Agency under section 53 on 22 December 2021; and”—I won’t read the rest of it out; you don’t need to hear that. My question is regarding clause 4(1)(a)(i) and (ii): why is this one case treated differently? The implication is that the outcome of this case challenges the Government’s legal position. Can the Minister clarify why there’s a clause that specifically relates to the Environmental Law Initiative v The Director-General of the Department of Conservation and others. Finally, on that same—

Minister, answer my question on that point.

You asked already—yes, I know.

But it’s not been answered.

It hasn’t been answered. I was trying to ask it in a way that maybe the Minister would realise that he needed to answer it. Part 1—

Repetition.

The Minister needs to answer questions, and we have a right to ask questions to be answered. If the Minister is going to continue to take the position that he was called to point of order on by Kieran McAnulty, where he’s refusing to answer questions, then we should keep asking them and say, “Why will you not answer this question?” It’s an explicit clause in this legislation—

If I can ask members to direct their conversation my way and not to each other across the Chamber. I would just also note that what we’re looking for is the Minister addressing questions. I understand that members might not appreciate or support the answers given, but having Ministers address questions is important.

Thank you, Mr Chair—the Minister has not addressed that question, to be clear. Part 1 of new Schedule 1AA, clause 4(2): “However, clauses 1 and 2 are to be treated as applying to that authority for the purposes of any proceedings for an offence against section 53(7)”—I won’t read all the numbers to you; I’ll spare you that—“that are commenced on or after 28 March 2025.” In terms of clause 4(2), the intention of the clause is unclear, Minister. Can the Minister elaborate on the intended effect of this, because so much of this legislation is unclear? That’s my question.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, I want to go back to the point about section 71. The Minister tells us, “Section 71 is not relevant.”—yes, it might be a mess; the whole Act is a mess—“We’re just fixing 53.” Fine, I’m not disputing that, and I’m not making a political point about section 71. What I want to know is how they interact, because we have here, in clause 2 of new Schedule 1AA, a specific clause on the interaction.

Now, section 71 is a miscellaneous, strange provision, and it only applies to things that are in Schedule 9. The Minister, in the Part 1 debate—I think I heard, and he can correct me if I’m wrong—said, “If section 71 applies to the type of project you’re doing”—so a road; we know that section 71 applies to roads—“If you are doing a road, then you must use section 71, and section 71 requires the signoff of two Ministers. That is an arduous task, so I would presume that most people would not want to go to the section 71 route if the section 53 route is available, because the section 53 route is by the director-general or a delegated person. The question here is about what the Minister said in Part 1. If you have to use section 71 and if section 71 is applicable, then you can’t use section 53. That question has not been answered.

I think the interpretation that the Minister said in the first reading is relevant to this clause 2, because it says, at subclause (2), “An authority to which this clause applies is not unlawful merely because the person to whom the authority was granted … required consent under section 71”. I presume this transitional piece in the Schedule is to make lawful anything that was granted under section 53 but should have been granted under section 71. That’s for the retrospective nature of these consents—fine—but can the Minister confirm that? He keeps talking about section 71 and saying it’s not relevant. Section 71 is relevant, otherwise we wouldn’t have this clause about section 71.

What happens, then, with future applications for a road? We know the relevant legislation for a big road, a national road, is in Schedule 9. What happens in the future? I know I’m slightly wavering off these transitional provisions, but it goes to the wider point that the Minister has said about section 71: with a new application that is for something that section 71 provides for—e.g., a road—does that application have to go through section 71, or can it avoid section 71 and go through section 53? If that is the case—logic would say it is the case—then we need clause 2 to rectify past mistakes where people thought they got a permission under section 53 but, because of the court case, those were invalidated, not just because section 53 consents can’t be given but because they should have got one under section 71.

See, it’s not a political question I’m asking. I’m just asking for clarity so that—on the Hansard—people who are making roads can know what sort of permission they are needing to get. Is it from the Minister of Conservation and the Minister of Transport? Or is it a simpler process by the director-general?

There are a couple of questions that have been asked. We’ll start with the immediately previous speaker, Rachel Brooking. For clarity about interaction between section 71 and section 53, in the future, all applications that should be considered under section 71 will be considered and granted if suitable under that section. However, as I said previously, some permits that should be granted under section 71 have mistakenly been granted under section 53. These will be validated by way of the amendments so that people can rely on the permit that they hold.

Why is new clause 4(1) in Schedule 1AA, inserted by clause 6, calling out the relevant litigation? Our aim is not to affect the existing judgment in that case or to rewrite the words but to acknowledge the decision of the High Court, noting that the permit in that regard under section 71 was validated.

Finally, in relation to cases, I’ll note that to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place and to avoid affecting jurisdiction of the court or tribunal in line with section 53 of the legislation, the bill will apply from enactment of the provisions relating to the Wildlife (Authorisations) Amendment Act 2025—assuming it’s passed—and will not affect any proceedings commenced, or in progress, before 28 March 2025, the date of the relevant announcement by Cabinet, or any rights of appeal. As at the finalisation date of the materials herein, the Department of Conservation is not aware of any proceedings challenging additional authorities. The risk of additional proceedings being filed ahead of enactment is considered low. As soon as this bill is enacted, it will lower the risk of additional litigation during this period, and we can get in, get on, and get this country back on track.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I really want to pick up on the Minister claiming that these activities will be validated. There are a number of questions that have been asked that have not been addressed in any way. The questions about these validations are: how will they be validated? What is the process? What do they need to meet to actually ensure that they are assessing these before the validation? What kind of assessment will take place? What is the methodology? These are questions that have not been addressed in any way, shape, or form. What does it mean for the actual legal status and standing of these activities that have taken place? Is it that, across the board, they will be validated no matter what? What if there are instances that are picked up where there may have been something unlawful or some unfortunate situation that actually does need some form of prosecution, enforcement order, or something like that? What does this bill envisage the process will actually be with the director-general? These are questions we don’t have answers to, and what is absolutely clear is that we need them. For example, if I just take the Mt Messenger example because it’s the one that’s most prominent with this bill, do the changes outlined in Schedule 1AA, when it comes to clause 4 and the effects of clauses 1 and 2 relating to the High Court judgment, give Waka Kotahi immunity from prosecution from any Wildlife Act offences committed at Mt Messenger?

Now, these are really clear questions. They have not been addressed. I don’t see how, without a select committee process and with this literally being the start and finish of this bill, we can proceed without these questions. I’m really looking forward to the Minister addressing them. Thank you.

This reminds me of a Supergroove song that goes something like this: “Sitting inside my head, laughing at what I said.”

For the fifth time, I will repeat: those permits that—

Don’t sing it!

I might get a contract off their production company!

Those permits that were issued before the court decision are deemed valid. That’s what it is. The Department of Conservation (DOC) has already gone through all of these permits. It’s consulted with the right people. It’s issued conditions, as part of these permits, and they were operating validly until such time some serious uncertainty was created by the Mt Messenger case. If you have the chance to read that and correlate it with the materials on new Schedule 1AA, page 6, we’ll leave that judgment by itself because, actually, there is a section 71 authorisation that was considered in order by the court. The bill deems authorities granted in the past to be valid, as those permitholders had fairly assumed that to be the case. All authorities are issued on the basis of what is required as reasonable steps to protect wildlife. DOC will not be reassessing these decisions. Active permits will be monitored in line with the specific conditions in the permit, as they have done for many, many years. Kia ora tātou.

Thank you. I will just acknowledge that the Minister has addressed the question. Some members might not like that particular answer, but it has been addressed. We are getting into repetitive behaviour. I just want to note that, on this tracking sheet, we are tracking, exactly, all the questions being asked. I do want brand new material. We might make the Minister sing Supergroove songs!

Mr Chair, thank you. This is going back to the Minister of Conservation’s earlier answer. I do want to acknowledge the Supergroove quote, and that may be the most sensible thing I’ve heard the Minister say during this debate—more of it is welcome, particularly in New Zealand Music Month.

This is a very quick contribution from me. I’m back on this interaction with section 71. I appreciate the Minister did actually answer some of my question on that interaction. I would just like him to say for the Hansard—my question was coming, and there were some heckles when he was answering—that if section 71 applies to a road and there needs to be an approval under the Wildlife Act for a road where section 71 applies, that application can only use section 71, and it can’t use section 53. That’s the question. Can they use section 53 or not use section 53 if section 71 is applicable?

I don’t know very many Supergroove quotes that I can say in interim, but I “Can’t get enough” of the answers from the Minister! They had a great concert in Dunedin on Easter Sunday.

The answer is yes. For roads, the channel is section 71 as mentioned in the Schedule. However, that provision in Schedule 1AA, Part 1, clause 2(2), applies for those permits that are old. They’re not new permits.

But they can’t use section 53.

No, the pathway today is section 71, but with the comprehensive review of the Wildlife Act, it may be a different number.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I am hoping to get the Minister’s view on the review period. There is an amendment in my name, supported by the Hon Rachel Brooking, introducing a review by Parliament. He said that he doesn’t support that full review, but can we seek to understand the role of the Ministry for Regulation in the review that he has given this committee some perspective on? Particularly, will that ministry be responsible for reviewing what is the primary legislation here, which grants the retrospective powers, or will it be responsible for reviewing the application of those decisions and, effectively, the decisions and guidelines or secondary legislation that is issued underneath it?

I ask because this committee does not have any view yet but anticipates a piece of legislation that will set out how that may work, but we don’t have that now. I’m asking the Minister to give us some clarity on what the scope of that review will be. I’m not asking for terms of reference. I’m not asking for all of the questions that it will ask to determine whether that retrospectivity has worked well. I’m asking him really whether that review is about the retrospectivity at all. We on this side of the Chamber have asked him to review the retrospectivity and whether that was necessary. He has said that he will be launching a review, but that review might not have anything to do with the fact that past rights that have been accrued are being extinguished by this. What I’m trying to understand is whether there is any way for the House to interrogate the effect of that in the coming months and years.

My next question for him is about the role of the Department of Conservation (DOC) in the review. Will that be alongside the ministry? Is it his view that the two ministries will work together? How will they share that? This is a new and novel thing for the committee to consider, so I think it’s fair enough for him to give a view on which part of the review DOC will be responsible for and which part of the review this new Ministry for Regulation will be responsible for.

I think we’ve just got to make sure that we’re talking about the same reviews. One is a comprehensive review of the Wildlife Act, which has been discussed by previous Governments. It’s timely given—as some mentioned, I think—that there might only be one member of the committee that was born before the Wildlife Act was enacted. That has to be accelerated at pace because we’ve spent many years talking about it. I do want to get through the conservation reform matter, which many of the members are aware of, and there’ll be some adjacency with the Wildlife Act matter in reviewing that comprehensively.

The post-implementation review is to commence immediately, but it will take some time to determine the effectiveness of the changes that are being channelled by way of this set of amendments. A report will be prepared within two years—sooner, if possible. The Department of Conservation will be responsible for the post-implementation review, as they are for the Wildlife Act review, and there’ll be a number of agencies that will be consulted and engaged along the way.

Brand new material. Supergroove lyrics are appreciated—Steve Abel.

It is new material, Mr Chair, that hasn’t been answered. It’s a very specific question. I’ll get it out in one minute—it hasn’t been addressed. I’m looking at Part 1, clause 4, in Schedule 1AA. Why is this case treated differently, Minister? Why is the Environmental Law Initiative case being treated differently, and do these changes give Waka Kotahi immunity from prosecution for any Wildlife Act offences committed at Mt Messenger? This wasn’t addressed, I believe. According to our tracker, it hasn’t been addressed.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is, That the Minister’s tabled amendments to the Schedule, new Schedule 1AA, be agreed to.

The question is, That Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to the Schedule deleting clause 2(2) of Schedule 1AA be agreed to.

The question is, That Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to the Schedule inserting new clause 2(5) into Schedule 1AA be agreed to.

Members, we now come to our final debate, clauses 1 to 3. This is the debate on clauses 1, 2, and 3—“Title”, “Commencement”, and “Principal Act”.

This is a strange way to characterise this bill in the title, because it is amending an Act that is primarily about the protection of wildlife and is, in fact, widening the powers of the killing of wildlife in what is not only proactive legislation but is retrospective legislation.

It is incumbent on all Ministers to exercise their powers on behalf of the Crown, not of their political party. In this case, it is the Minister of Conservation that is making that change—a Minister who is charged with the conservation not only of our natural flora but also our natural fauna in New Zealand, a Minister who is the only Minister who can make many decisions under this Act for the preservation of those species that we as a country decide are important to preserve.

Unlike the title of this bill, which is pretty bland and pretty standard, these amendments actually make long-reaching decisions about what kind of activity can occur and provide a carte blanche licence to destroy natural species that we say are important, not only to those communities who have important relationships with them but also to all New Zealanders who value that wildlife—species like the mokomoko I spoke of in the committee stage earlier, species like the kiwi and the takahē, which feature very prominently in New Zealand in stories not only of ourselves on the world stage but also of prominent businesses like Air New Zealand, which refers directly to Mt Messenger and its takahē species there in the first greetings that it has for any international visitors here.

These are important species, and they are species that only the Minister of Conservation is charged with the duty of protecting around the Cabinet table. It is unusual that this kind of bill, which provides licences to kill for the purposes of building infrastructure or roads, would be brought by a Minister of Conservation who appears to have discharged himself of that duty to New Zealanders and the people who care about these species.

This bill should be called the “Wildlife (Authorisation to Kill) Amendment Bill”. That would be a clearer way of recognising, on the parliamentary record, what use this Minister is making of his duty to conservation.

Thank you. I would like to speak directly to an amendment proposed. Look, I think the key thing with any legislation is that—it’s been made very clear by the Minister of Conservation today—we want to provide certainty and clarity. As my colleague Arena Williams has pointed out, the authorisations part of this bill, the Wildlife (Authorisations) Amendment Bill, does not actually provide that. The tabled amendment in the name of my colleague Steve Abel proposes that we change clause 1: “replace ‘Wildlife (Authorisations Amendment) Bill’ with ‘Wildlife (Authorisation to Kill Wildlife) Amendment Bill’.”

Now, we suggest this not to dramatise this. Literally, the authorisations are in every clause of this. Part 1, clause 4, inserting new sections 53A to 53C—53A, has “killing of wildlife”; new section 53B is about the authority to kill wildlife; and new section 53C authorises the killing of wildlife. Then Part 2 is about the transitional, savings, and related provisions when it comes to validating those certain authorities when it comes to killing wildlife. There is actually nothing in this bill, when it comes to authorisations, that is outside the killing of wildlife.

What we would really like to see here is just a very accurate representation of what the bill really does. I would invite the Minister to consider—particularly when it comes to his intention, which we’ve heard over and over, about providing certainty and clarity—whether this would be an accurate representation of what this bill purports to do. Now, that’s aside from the fact that we believe that this bill is still unnecessary and it’s actually going to cause more confusion and uncertainty for the Department of Conservation, which is, again, as the Minister said, something none of us wants.

I would be really interested in the Minister’s views about, and his acceptance of, these authorisations and the fact that they are simply limited to the killing of wildlife. There is nothing in this bill outside of that. That’s my concern, and that’s our amendment that we’ve put forward today, which we’d like the Minister’s views on. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to start with the commencement: “This Act comes into force on the day after Royal assent.” This would be a good place to make an amendment and say, “This Act comes into force after a review from the Regulations Review Committee on scrutiny.”, and we could have a time period around that. We keep hearing that this is urgent. People are worried that they might be breaching the law because they were reliant on section 53 approval. I get that. I don’t agree that we need all-stages urgency for that point. The way to remedy an all-stages urgency is to do some quick scrutiny, not on the policy settings but on the workability of what the legislation is doing. That is why I think that this should not commence until that workability review has happened. That’s one point.

I would like the Minister of Conservation to comment on that. He said before, in one of my contributions on Part 2, that I was being creative. Unfortunately, I’m not being creative. It would be lovely, when we’re here talking about New Zealand Music Month, to be creative, but, no. I’m actually talking about the types of processes that were used for real emergencies in cyclones, when legislation was passed and it had to have some sort of scrutiny from another body because it was made so fast. That’s not creative; that’s just some good process for when things are being done under urgency. I do not accept that this needs to be done under all-stages urgency at all, but that is a compromised position around the commencement.

Now, looking back to the title, we’ve heard a number of contributions now saying that it should be something about killing. I might differ with my colleagues here, because all I have heard from the Minister is confusion. Maybe it is an authorisation; maybe it’s not an authorisation. Who knows? We’ve got no idea, because these new provisions in new sections 53A, 53B, and 53C, inserted by clause 4, are so convoluted and cannot really be read together. The Minister has given us no insight into what it is that he intends them to do. Maybe nobody’s going to get an authority under section 53.

Another suggestion is that this bill is the “Wildlife (Authorisations but not for Roads) Amendment Bill”. We heard that just before in the Part 2 debate that this is not for roads. I’m sure I heard, in first and second reading speeches, a number of members talking about how this is going to fix the problem with roads. But it’s not, because we heard from the Minister that section 71 still applies to roads. I looked at a press release (PR) from the Beehive website on 28 March, and they said—

Great PR.

The Minister says it’s a great PR. It’s an incorrect PR, because it says, “[This] Government intends to promptly change the law to enable these important activities to go ahead lawfully, including the building of houses and roads for example”. The Minister has just told us that new roads do not apply to these changes, because new roads have to go through section 71. These weird amendments to section 53 that are all in conflict with each other don’t apply to roads, is what he told us. That is why we should be amending it to the “Wildlife (Authorisations but not for Roads) Amendment Bill”.

I think, though, the better title is the “Who Knows?” or the “Maybe”, because we don’t know what we’ll be able to get through this new section 53. If it is to be consistent with the protection of wildlife and individual wildlife, how will anything be able to get through it? Who knows? The Minister hasn’t helped so far. Maybe he’s going to help us now.

As mentioned earlier on—and this is just in passing—section 71 in Schedule 9 of the principal Act intersects with the Government Roading Powers Act. Building a little street, a surfaced road, outside a house is slightly different. In terms of the title matter, it’s not just in relation to the killing of animals. There are also conditions around protecting, translocating, and relocating—there’s a whole range of things. The title of the Act reflects that it’s not just solely about killing wildlife. The purpose of the Act is actually protecting wildlife. We think something simple, such as the Wildlife (Authorisations) Amendment Act, is very apt, very relevant, and very suitable in this particular circumstance. How many bills are like this? Not any.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to ask the Minister a couple of questions. The first one is around the commencement date. Now, we have seen that the commencement date is the day after Royal assent. I want to see if the Minister would consider pushing it back at least three months so that there is some clarity that is able to be granted to the people who are applying or who have an existing consent on some of the issues that we have heard the previous speaker, the Hon Rachel Brooking, mention. There is confusion around a lot of this because of the fact that we didn’t get sufficient clarity.

Now, the reason I’m suggesting pushing it back by at least three months—just three months; I think that’s sufficient—is that the Minister, throughout this debate, talked about the fact that this is required under urgency, etc. However, what started a lot of this was the High Court ruling, the judgment that was made on 5 March, and it was two months ago. If Cabinet and if the Minister were really serious about the urgency of this situation, this bill would have been brought to the House a lot earlier. It did not need to be brought into the House two months after that particular ruling. Clearly, the backlog that the Minister was referring to is not urgent enough for this bill to be brought to the House earlier. I think another three months is not outside the realm of possibility and probability, over here.

In terms of the title of this bill, I really like the suggestion that the Hon Rachel Brooking has made in terms of “Who Knows”. What about if the Minister considered the “Wildlife [shrug emoji] Amendment Bill”. That is, essentially, what we’ve got out of this entire debate. This has felt like pulling teeth from the Minister to try to get any ounce of any information out of him that we could have gotten quite succinctly and clearly from the officials during the select committee stage. Over here, what we have largely heard throughout the debate is “politicisation” and “back on track”.

In terms of other potential titles, I would actually propose an alternative pathway when we are looking at the title for this, because what we are seeing with this—and this is fundamental to democracy in Aotearoa New Zealand—is a distortion of the separation of powers and the overstepping of that, where the executive has decided to overstep into the judiciary and affect the rulings of the judiciary, and also the principle of comity.

I ask if the Minister would consider the “Wildlife (Distortion of the Separation of Powers) Amendment Bill”. Further on from that, despite the fact that we have been doing this under urgency, we are being criticised for doing our job as the legislature to scrutinise the executive. We have no opportunity, and the New Zealand public has no opportunity, to contribute to this. I would say that this is not actually even about parliamentary supremacy, because we have not been granted the privilege of that supremacy as the legislature, so I would recommend, finally, for the Minister to consider the title “Wildlife (Forget about Parliamentary Supremacy, the Executive Rules Supreme) Amendment Bill.”

Thank you, Mr Chair. Listen, reflecting on this and the span of this term of Parliament, there is a very clear agenda set out by this Government: they were going to prioritise extraction—the 19th century mindset of mining—over the protection of wildlife. We had, at the beginning of this bill, Minister Shane Jones, the proudest advocate for prioritising extraction over nature, explicitly sitting here in the room and making it clear that this bill was a necessity for facilitating his mining agenda.

I just want to remind the committee, because it seems so familiar to us, at the beginning of the term of this Government, of the Minister’s famous words of “Bye, bye, Freddy”—a reference to him being willing to send to extinction those rare and unique frogs that we have in this country, those amphibians: the Archey’s and the Hochstetter’s frogs. This legislation is a specific mechanism, a pathway, by which that vision of Minister Jones—to send species to extinction—can be fulfilled. This is the “(‘Bye, bye, Freddy’) Amendment Bill”. This is the bill that says that the Wildlife Act—the legislation put in place to actually protect our precious and unique indigenous species—is going to be distorted to being a means to permitting and licensing the killing of wildlife. I propose another title for this bill: the “(‘Bye, bye, Freddy’) Amendment Bill”. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ll just note the Minister’s reply to my suggestion about this Act being the “Wildlife (Authorisations but not Roads) Amendment Bill”. He said, “Aha! Little roads aren’t included in Schedule 9. Therefore, section 71 doesn’t apply to them.” I am happy to amend my suggestion to the “Wildlife (Authorisations for Large Government Roads but not Little Roads) Amendment Bill”, or perhaps we should just call it the “Wildlife (Authorisations Really Rushed) Amendment Bill”, because that is what it is. It appears that Ministers have not realised that this whole amendment bill doesn’t apply to those big roads—to the roads that aren’t little roads, as the Minister just called them. That is what all their speeches have been about: these big roads—not little roads; big roads—that they want to do.

It means that we should be looking, at Schedule 9, at the other things where a section 71 authority must be required. That’s the Coal Mines Act. I don’t even know if that’s been repealed or not, but maybe the amendment to the title should be the “Wildlife (Authorisations but not for Big Roads and Coal Mines)”. There’s also the Fisheries Act 1908, then the Forest and Rural Fires Act 1977, and the Government Railways Act 1949. I have not looked up whether these have been repealed or not, but the Minister keeps saying that this is going to put things back on track. Well, it’s not going to make any difference to railways as well as those big roads if that Act is still in force. It’s not at all about “back on track”. We’ll be seeing the Minister back here, perhaps next week with another bill under all-stages urgency, to get things back on track and to build his big roads without needing the concurrence of two Ministers.

Then we’ve got the Mining Act 1971, the National Parks Act 1980, the Peel Forest Act 1926, the Petroleum Act 1937—that might be one that Minister Shane Jones is interested in—the Public Works Act 1928, and the Rabbits Act 1955. We’ve already talked about rats and mustelids during this all-stages urgency, but now we’ve got rabbits in there as well, so this is the “Wildlife (Authorisations but Nothing to do with Rabbits) Amendment Bill”. The Reserves Act 1977—that is an Act that I happen to know quite a bit about—is not repealed. It’s still on the books.

It needs review.

I don’t know what the Minister’s saying to me. It is an old bill. It is younger than both the Minister and I but, substantially—[Minister gasps] Ha, ha! And I am older than the Minister. I appreciate that it has some outdated language in it as well, but, again, this Wildlife (Authorisations) Amendment Bill will not apply to anything where the Reserves Act applies, because that has to go through, according to the Minister, section 71. There is also the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Act 1941, the Tramways Act—talking, again, about being back on track—the Waitangi Endowment Act, and the Waitangi National Trust Board Act 1932.

What the Minister has told us is that any activity relying on one of those Acts cannot get an authorisation made under this little amendment bill that we are doing under all-stages urgency. The title is wrong, and he should change that title. My last suggestion is the “Wildlife (Authorisations for this Week; I’ll be Coming Back Next Week) Amendment Bill”.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, this is just my brief and very small contribution, but I’m drawn to make a contribution, particularly in terms of the title for this particular piece of nonsense. This is why. Nō Te Aupōuri ko tētahi kōrero mai i a Te Meri Ngāroto: “He aha te mea nui o te ao?” [From Te Aupōuri is a statement from Te Meri Ngāroto: “What is the greatest thing of the world?”] I want to add this into all of the contributions, particularly from this side of the Chamber.

What might we call this bill? My suggestion to the Minister of Conservation—and, please, me ’hakarongo mai koe [you should listen]—is the “(He Aha te Mea Nui o te Ao? Ko te Money me te Mining) Bill” [“(What is the Greatest Thing in the World? It is Money and Mining) Bill”]. Ehara ko te tangata.

[It is not people.]

With all seriousness, this particular bill—well, I don’t know if it’s this particular bill; it’s many bills—disconnects, dismantles, and causes great harm to our people, to our whānau, and to all the things that fly and crawl and swim. Minister, it’s going very badly for us, it’s going very poor for us, and, unfortunately, you’re leading that, Minister.

From Te Aupōuri, who, of course, were raised last night—you all know because Shane Jones and I share that wonderful whakapapa—I am drawn to stand and speak to this new title, which I really want you to consider seriously. He aha te mea nui o te ao?

[What is the greatest thing in the world?]

Money and mining. Kia ora tātou.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that Steve Abel’s tabled amendment to clause 1, to change the title to “Authorisation to Kill Wildlife Amendment Bill”, be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ amendment to clause 1, inserting the words “to kill” after “authorisations” be agreed to.

Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Wildlife (Authorisations) Amendment Bill and reports it with amendment.

The question is that the report be adopted.

Report adopted.

This bill is set down for third reading immediately.

I move, That the Wildlife (Authorisations) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I had a very favoured group when I was about 11 years old. The name of that group was Crowded House. They had a great song that started like this:

Everywhere you go,

You always take the weather with you.

Across that side of the House, it’s very blustery, dank, and dark. On this side, we’re going for growth.

New Zealand’s wildlife is unique and precious to New Zealanders. This country is literally a “Slice of Heaven”. Projects that provide essential benefits to the lives of New Zealanders should be able to proceed without compromising our indigenous species. The balance is key in the protection and the conservation of wildlife populations and key to protecting the world that our mokopuna deserve.

The Wildlife Act is an important piece of legislation, but it’s old and creaking. It’s asking for the “Nature [to] enter me”. The Act provides for the protection of wildlife throughout Aotearoa New Zealand, including some of New Zealand’s most endangered species. It protects our precious wildlife—those frogs that were mentioned before, bats, reptiles, and other things. It also recognises the need to regulate human interactions with them so that our actions do not negatively affect protected species in the long run. This bill makes specific targeted changes to respond to a High Court decision ruling in March this year that deemed the authorisation of incidental killing of protected wildlife under section 53 of the Act to be unlawful. With these changes, we will restore people’s confidence that they can carry out activities lawfully when they’re granted a permit and are meeting the condition it sets. They will no longer feel like a group of “Pacific lambs to the [judicial] slaughter”, enabling the Department of Conservation (DOC) to regulate incidental harm so that these activities do not cause permanent harm to the viability of protected wildlife species.

This bill does not make fundamental changes to the Wildlife Act; it addresses the issue at hand following the court decision while maintaining the existing foundations of this Act. Essentially, it restores what is understood to be the status quo and enables DOC to get on with a practical, pragmatic approach to how it regulates harm to protected species, consistent with previous practice and the Act’s protective purpose. A number of members have raised concerns that this bill will water down protections for wildlife and make it easier to kill wildlife. It does not lower the bar. This is not the case. The protective purpose of the Act remains.

People have said that it is essential that DOC regulates and manages harm to wildlife to minimise its impacts and ensure our precious species are protected. This is exactly what this bill does. As I said: “How many [bills] flow like this? Not many, if any.” It does not reduce DOC’s ability to protect wildlife. It does not change DOC’s approach. Rather, this bill restores the regulatory approach that was universally understood and that had been taken by the Department of Conservation before the High Court’s recent judgment. It will still be unlawful for developers and infrastructure providers to harm wildlife without getting proper authority from DOC. The overall effect of that authority must be consistent with protecting the affected wildlife population and species. I understand that some members are concerned about this bill proceeding so quickly without public consultation or scrutiny—[The Hon Shane Jones walks past Minister Potaka]—Minister Jones—by a select committee.

As has been previously mentioned, the recent High Court decision on the Mt Messenger case means that DOC can no longer authorise and manage incidental harm to wildlife under section 53, as has been done in the past. We need to be very mindful of that well-known Tim Finn song, where he says:

When you want to see where to sing the song of Parihaka,

You’ve got to get over a road.

That road is Mt Messenger. Existing authority holders are concerned that they could now be prosecuted if their projects kill any protected wildlife, despite having a permit and applying relevant conditions to protect them. This could lead to delay, stop projects and a wide range of activities—subdivision, construction, solar and wind farms, power-line maintenance, pest control. DOC has also pushed pause on deciding applications that involve incidental harm until this matter is resolved. It reminds me of that Opshop song, actually:

Lately I’ve found myself wondering out loud

—wondering what some of the MPs from the Opposition parties were actually saying. We urgently need to enable these applications to be processed so that activities can go ahead with appropriate safeguards to protect wildlife. In this situation, urgency is warranted. The bill, effectively, restores DOC’s interpretation of the status quo before the court’s decision. I’ve got to say, like that famous Herbs song, since early March, it’s always been “On My Mind”.

Some members have suggested that these amendments would not be necessary if the wider review of the Wildlife Act had already been completed. This review began under the previous Government and is still going. Actually, we’re going to put the foot down. It remains a priority for me. I’ve been given the encouragement by the matua, now you’ve got the Tama, and the consensus this afternoon, hopefully, shall be the Wairua Tapu. As I mentioned earlier, the Wildlife Act is over 70 years old. It’s old. It’s creaky. The many amendments over the last 70 years have led it to lose legislative coherence. It’s been described as difficult, convoluted, and confused. This Act needs mahi. The section 53 amendments that we’re focusing on today are part of that larger Act. There are many more issues that need to be addressed as part of the review. We need to take the proper time to complete that review. I welcome the feedback and the engagement of many members of this House when we really get under way to ensure it’s workable and to test these changes with stakeholders and the public. In the meantime, we can’t wait until that review has been completed. We won’t be left just turning pages; we’ve got to make this urgent fix to the problem at hand with these targeted amendments.

Benefits of the bill: it’s going to restore certainty. It’s going to restore confidence. We need to make certain that people can rely on those authorisations that have been granted in the past and that enable important developments and infrastructure activities—pest control and other things—and important conservation work, including the TB programme. I wish Minister Hoggard was here. He’s got a lot of biosecurity questions to answer. This bill will ensure that this is possible. It delivers a pragmatic, practical fix to a problem that might otherwise stymie important mahi to get our economy moving again. It continues to ensure that our precious wildlife is protected.

That’s not on trains or Government roads—it doesn’t help there, does it, Minister?

Members of the Opposition have been vocal. They’ve expressed concern. In my ears ring the words of the Herbs in that fabulous song that was on my marriage CD:

You say to me let’s rock on.

That night out stirs my mind.

I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. You would think that when a bill is rushed through all stages under urgency and when we’ve had a reasonably fulsome committee of the whole House, we’d have something at the third reading to report back in terms of the detail of the bill. I’m almost more confused about this bill, having gone through the committee stage, than I was at the start. We didn’t get any fulsome responses or any detail, really, clarifying what is quite a convoluted bill, and I don’t blame the officials who drafted it. They would have had to draft it under immense pressure.

That is why, throughout the course of the various stages of this bill in this House, members on this side of the House have asked and called upon the Minister of Conservation to introduce perhaps even a one-week select committee process so that we could have finessed the detail of the bill, because it is confusing. The Minister himself stood in this House at the third reading and said that this isn’t a bill that will dilute the purpose of the Wildlife Act, and yet it’s going to allow all these things to go through. He can’t really argue it both ways—

We think.

—and he hasn’t—yes, we think; we’re not even sure. It came out at the committee stage that perhaps roads aren’t actually part of the changes and we won’t actually be able to build quicker and better as a result of this bill, and so we’re still none the wiser on this side of the House.

What I am clear about, though, is that this bill didn’t need to be rushed through at the level of urgency that it’s been through yesterday and today. There was no regulatory impact statement and no released Cabinet paper. It absolutely does dilute the purpose of the Wildlife Act, and, ultimately, it is a knee-jerk, ad hoc reaction to a High Court ruling. There was a much better way that this could have been done.

What’s led to this? That High Court ruling, which was just in March this year. Now, we’ve known that, since a Supreme Court ruling in 2019—and the Minister couldn’t even answer this in the committee stage—the approach of the Department of Conservation (DOC) to applications under section 53 changed. At that point, wildlife permits under section 53 were granted by looking at the project as a whole and assessing whether the viability of the population was maintained or improved through the action or some unrelated action through the authorisation. Now, the ruling, basically, said that you cannot kill protected wildlife if the primary purpose of the killing doesn’t have a direct positive benefit—the direct nexus argument—to the purpose of the Act. The nexus requirement is key, and that’s really the crux of why we’re here today. This bill ostensibly responds to that.

What the judge said was that the killing for the purpose of building a road was not directly connected to the protective purpose of the Act, so killing for the purpose of any other economic development project is not directly connected to the purpose of this Act, which is to protect wildlife, and so that’s the main issue. At that point, any Government, regardless of stripe, would have had a choice to make. Either you’d strengthen the legislation and you’d strengthen the Wildlife Act so that the permits for the authorisations are in keeping with the primary purpose of the Act, or you’d dilute it, and you’d just change the law in the sloppy way that we’ve seen yesterday and today to just tweak an already complicated, convoluted, potentially becoming slightly irrelevant Wildlife Act to then revert the processes and then retrospectively make what the Minister now tells us is 500 permits lawful, although they still don’t meet the primary purpose of the Act. That is what we’ve seen take place under urgency, through all stages, today.

As the Environment Law Initiative themselves have said—and I quote—“this was not a question of whether development projects could go ahead or not. It was about making sure all reasonable steps are taken to protect what we have left of our wildlife.” Let me put to bed the accusations from that side of the House that members on this side are anti-development. We’re not. There was never any question that these developments would go ahead. It’s how they go ahead that was in question and whether reasonable steps would be taken to protect the wildlife that we have left. That is an important point as well. Aotearoa New Zealand has the highest species extinction rate in the world. More than 4,000 of our native species are at risk of, or threatened with, extinction.

Now, the Minister has on various occasions waxed lyrical about the fact that one of his key motivations as conservation Minister is to increase tourism to New Zealand. What do most of our tourists come here to see? Our wildlife. Our biodiversity is a huge drawcard, so even if it’s just from that point of view, what this Minister should be focusing on is improving biodiversity, whereas this amendment bill goes against that. It flies in the face of that.

As I’ve said previously—and I’ve said it repeatedly in this House over the last I don’t know how many hours that we’ve been debating this bill in urgency—this is the antithesis of good lawmaking. It is sloppy. There was no need for it to be rushed through all stages in urgency. We have made the case very clearly, on this side of the House, that we could have had one week or two weeks of a select committee process where we could have teased out the wording in the bill, and we do have an issue with the wording of the bill. We believe that, very soon, this Minister will be back in this House to tidy up this piece of legislation, because not even the Minister in charge of the bill could effectively convince any of us on this side of the House that the wording in the bill actually makes sense. I had to read the legislative statement to understand what this Minister was trying to do, because the wording in the bill was so confusing. We have no doubt that we’re going to be back debating this legislation, because something would be wrong.

There was no select committee process. All we had was a couple of press releases from organisations that have invested time and energy over years into looking at the Wildlife Act. I feel that it’s pretty disgraceful that we’ve locked out all of their voices when there was no real need for that to happen. That’s not the way that laws should be made or amended in this Parliament. In fact, as the Environmental Law Initiative has said, quite clearly, it further complicates the Act. The Minister of Conservation has said, “Yes, at some point, perhaps, we’ll look at reviewing the Wildlife Act.”—perhaps. We have heard from Minister Jones that he wants to get rid of the Act, so which is it, Minister?

We have started to review the Wildlife Act. There was a report back from DOC. There’s a whole piece of work that the Environmental Defence Society has done on this. All the Minister needed to do was to pick that up and get that done in the last 1½ years. We wouldn’t be here discussing this sloppy piece of legislation if the Minister had just done that.

Instead, what is this Government’s track record on the environment? It is, as many have said, to wage a war on nature. The proof is in the pudding: the reduction of DOC funding to the tune of $130 million since this Government has taken office, the stopping of work that we had done on having no new mines on conservation land, the plan for the Kermadecs—well, there’s still the Hauraki Gulf / Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Bill, which we shepherded right through to the point that it’s at now. Of course, at the eleventh hour, that too will be diluted because of Minister Jones, and that is what gives me no confidence that this Minister is actually going to review the Wildlife Act. Minister Jones has been very clear that he doesn’t want that to happen, and we’ve seen what’s happened to the Hauraki Gulf marine protection bill.

In addition, we know—we know—that our biodiversity crisis in this country and climate change are the two biggest threats to the environment in New Zealand, and yet what have we seen this Government do? Repeals and deferrals on regulating to protect fresh water and native species, the proposed repeal of the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration, and the setting of climate targets so low that we are now at risk of violating our commitments under the Paris Agreement, not to mention the 30 by 30 target for marine protection. This Minister says that it is just aspirational and that there’s no legal requirement to do that.

What is his vision for conservation in his Cabinet paper? It is having more visits by tourists than New Zealanders to our iconic landscapes and activating more commercial opportunities. Enhancing biodiversity comes last in that. I would have thought that, as the Minister of Conservation, that would be his top priority.

The only progress this Minister has made in conservation has been to make it easier for protected wildlife to be killed. I hope that he’s proud of that. We’re not, and we don’t commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s quite perplexing in 2025 why it is so hard seemingly for us to just protect wildlife, particularly when it comes to our threatened native species and taonga species. We know that the statistics are really bad, and there are some really clear basic measures that we could take to ensure their protection.

We heard really clearly from the Minister of Conservation some really lovely things about creating a world that our mokopuna deserve, but we also heard “growth, growth, growth, growth, growth” while protecting the environment. What is absolutely crystal clear for this Government is that simply saying “protecting the environment” means that it is protected. There are so many unresolved questions, and so much uncertainty, that this bill brings to this whole landscape of even attempting to protect the environment and that have been unanswered. A particular one, a critical one, that is still a mystery to me is about how possibly this bill can be put through where the Director-General of Conservation needs to be satisfied that through the killing of wildlife, populations of wildlife and individual wildlife will still be protected. It’s nonsensical. It’s adding this absolute cloud and uncertainty to the Wildlife Act, which was our key Act that offered that protection for our wildlife.

This law is a deep betrayal of the Government’s duty of care not only to the environment but to the people of New Zealand who care about the environment and want to see it protected. We are absolutely appalled about this Government’s use of urgency in rewriting this Wildlife Act without a regulatory impact statement, without Cabinet papers being released, and without any expert advice or voice of iwi/hapū or voice of the public in actually resolving this very. This is an issue that needs to be resolved, but not like this. This rushing through of this legislation to enable the authorisation of the killing of wildlife is unnecessary, and it’s going to make things more complicated.

We feel that the fact that the conservation Minister comes out just days ago and says things like nature is “part of our national identity, economy, and way of life” and then insists that this kind of bill is still about wildlife protection continually shows that this Government is bulldozing this kind of thinking through the House. It’s a disgrace. You simply can’t claim to value our biodiversity while forcing through law changes, like this, that make it easier to destroy it. This isn’t about protecting biodiversity. It’s about protecting profit and corporate greed.

The one thing that this Government do not seem to understand is that when nature is only valued for its economic benefit, the outcome is inevitable. We’re seeing it today in our statistics across the entirety of our environmental domains, but particularly with biodiversity. We see destruction, we see exploitation, and we see a decline in our environment and its health and, therefore, a decline in the health of ourselves.

Now, what is particularly concerning about this bill is that it’s part of a trend of unprecedented changes within our environmental legislation, where the whole thrust and purpose of the legislation that has been put in place is to protect the environment. Now, we’re seeing this in the amendment to the Resource Management Act, where the whole purpose of it is to avoid, remedy, or mitigate adverse effects. Instead, the Government are allowing significant adverse effects where there are already severely adversely affected or polluted waterways. We’re seeing it with fast track, where all of the Government’s decisions under fast track relegate what we considered to be environmental protections to simply be considerations that are now decided in the context of economic growth. Now, we have these Wildlife Act changes that change the entire focus of the Wildlife Act to no longer be so clearly about protection. It’s about the director-general now being authorised to allow these killings, and it’s unnecessary.

What is really concerning as well in this bill is that we are still unclear about the actual resources that the Department of Conservation (DOC) will have to put in to enable this process to occur. We know that DOC are under huge strain—particularly when it comes to the budget cuts, particularly the $48 million or even more since this Government have come in—and they are struggling. This bill risks tying up their very limited resources and perversely allowing this killing of wildlife.

Now, I think what is really concerning with this—sorry, I’ve just lost my notes here; thank you—is the point that my colleague made earlier in the debate in the committee of the whole House. It was an analogy for us humans in our own work environment. When we humans work in risky or dangerous workplaces, we don’t actually authorise workplaces in anticipation of deaths. We don’t authorise those deaths. We take every practical step to ensure risk mitigation and to ensure protection of life. That is exactly the approach which we can and should be taking with the Wildlife Act in this instance.

We’ve heard various comments from the Minister that the Wildlife Act, for example, is wavering or creaking with its age, and it is. I do welcome the acceleration of the review of the Wildlife Act, because it is so badly needed, but it’s not the Act that is wavering in this case. What is wavering is this Government’s duty of care to actually protect our endangered and threatened native species, which we know are so dear and so integral to New Zealanders and our way of life—taonga species for iwi and hapū. That’s exactly what we want to remain the focus of the Wildlife Act.

Muddying the waters and transferring this burden of proof and evidence in the actual circumstances of the killing of wildlife from the individuals and companies and entities to the director-general to hold that is completely unnecessary and completely counter to what New Zealanders expect from their Wildlife Act and to what New Zealanders expect from the duty of care of this Government. They are showing, time and time again, that not only do they not understand but that, under the guise of this so-called protection of the environment, they are weakening, removing, or completely abolishing protections that we so desperately need.

These are the concerns that Te Pāti Kākāriki have with this bill. We absolutely do not support it. We think that, at the very least, it could be going to select committees so we could actually get some public voice, actually get some expert voice, and actually get iwi and hapū to help us resolve this actual problem, rather than ramming this through under urgency. It’s an absolute disgrace, and the Green Party do not commend this to the House.

Madam Speaker, thank you. ACT will be supporting this bill. It’s a fantastic technical amendment to what is an outdated wildlife management Act. It’s really, really important that we do this at this time. It is minor. It is technical in nature. It is not a catastrophe, as the Opposition has suggested.

I just want to point out that every professional person involved in delivering infrastructure relies on professional ecologists and environmental scientists to tell them how to best mitigate the risks to New Zealand’s little creatures when they go and build a road, when they go and build a pipeline, and when they go and build a piece of electricity infrastructure. Professional ecologists and environmental scientists don’t turn up to work every day to kill kiwi, skinks, geckos, and bats. They come to work every day to deliver on the commitments that these projects have made to identify and protect these creatures. When we think about what infrastructure designers do, we think about the eco-viaducts that have been built over pristine areas of indigenous vegetation, like the Northern Gateway in Auckland, a fantastic four-lane toll road. We think about the—

It doesn’t apply to that road.

Well, clearly these people don’t want it to apply to roads, but I think it should. The Manawatū Tararua Highway is an eco-viaduct across an area of pristine indigenous biodiversity. I want to come back to the Mt Messenger bypass, which is a road and which was the basis for the court case brought by the Environmental Law Initiative, which has led to the need for this amendment. Now, it might be amusing to the members on the other side of the House, but to professional people involved in managing the impacts on wildlife, they want to know there is some certainty. I will give you an example. In the Mt Messenger bypass bat management plan, it recognises that bats are vagrants, because when bats make a nest or roost, they’re only there for a short amount of time. After the bats have left, which we can find out through listening devices and through visual observation, it turns out you can safely clear the vegetation without any harm to the bats. That is one of the ways that we manage risk to indigenous biodiversity under the Wildlife Act.

What’s important about this piece of legislation? It provides certainty to infrastructure development—roads or no roads. It provides certainty for ecology professionals doing their best to identify and protect New Zealand’s threatened species. Then we’ll think about, well, what more could we do. Well, this Government is also looking into biodiversity credits and offsetting regimes. It turns out that, sometimes, when you need to build things, you do need to clear vegetation, and there may be risks to indigenous species, and that’s why it’s important to have lawful outlets where we can actually invest in biodiversity separately rather than saying we can’t do anything anywhere ever simply because we might harm something. That is a practical example of what this Government is doing to address risks to indigenous biodiversity. It’s quite different to what the Opposition is suggesting, which is to do nothing—nowhere, never. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Today is “validation day”. Today is the Crown demonstrating through democracy, when the executive holds a majority in the House, that Parliament is sovereign. This is simply the executive that has a solemn duty to ensure that those mammals in the animal kingdom, otherwise known as human beings, don’t play second fiddle to Freddy—we’re not having that. This is also an opportunity for this side of the House to remind Kiwis that when the High Court makes a random decision, it is not unreasonable for the mining industry, the transport industry, the infrastructure industry, and property developers to ensure that the weaponisation of random skinks, hitherto unknown insects, and various other geckos, and those things that cackle beyond the other side of the House will not trump the need for communities to enjoy access to reliable infrastructure.

The virtue of this piece of legislation is that it is retrospective. It corrects a flight of jurisprudential development, which is a threat to the place in which we develop the country. Let us contemplate how we have arrived at this situation. We are fixing up a problem that Labour left. Labour and the Greens had three unfettered years of power—three unfettered years where they could have used their authority liberally fix up this problem. No. They decided to hold policy seances. They decided to have an endless set of meetings in windowless and sunless rooms—not unlike the character they bring to their politics.

It’s fallen upon my colleague the Hon Tama Potaka to seize this issue and rescue the development of New Zealand’s infrastructure from a narrow, vested, and, I have to say, very shadowy group that has brought this litigation. Their thinking is spawned in murk. Apparently, the funder comes from somewhere in the South Island. I’m encouraging the media to look into the background of the funder of this subversive, guerilla-like organisation called the Environmental Law Initiative. They must be subject to the disinfectant-like qualities of sunlight, because they are wandering around, interfering in the ambitions of communities to grow, finding obscure, pettifogging-orientated references in the law, and they’re weaponising them. I look forward to the Resource Management Act, the reform of the Fisheries Act, and further reform of the Wildlife Act and, indeed, the Conservation Act to ensure there is balance.

It’s actually a pleasure in this third reading speech to remind all the men and women out there today, digging coal, looking for gold, generating wealth in the quarries, looking for new critical minerals that their interests have not been subjugated by a small, unelected cast of intellectuals known as ecologists who keep looking for bats until the number twos of a bat are discovered. I could have quickly directed their attention to number twos in the House; however, that’s another matter.

We do look forward to further work on the Wildlife Act, but in the short term, let’s celebrate the fact that this is a Government who’s going to stand up for investment certainty, jobs, and growth. As I said last night, in the past I talked about getting the nephs off the couch. With investment in jobs, I’ll get the nephs off the meth. Kia ora tātou katoa.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā hoki tātou. E ara ake nei au ki te whakapuaki i ētahi kupu whakakōpani i te kaupapa nei, whakawherawhera hoki i te kaupapa nei hei whakaarotanga mā te Minita, mā Tama Pōtaka.

Nō reira i roto i te iwi Māori e mea ana te kōrero “Toitū te whenua, whatungarongaro te tangata”. Ko te tātai whakapapa he mea nui.

[Thank you, Madam Speaker. Greetings to us all. I rise to express a few words to summarise this topic, to also interrogate this topic for consideration by the Minister, by Tama Pōtaka.

And so, among the Māori people, there is a saying: “The land remains, as people disappear”. Lines of genealogical descent are important.]

This bill will overturn the judgment of the High Court. As I spoke to last night, it seems that this Government is quite fine with overturning rulings of courts, leaving not much confidence, within the public, for the longevity of or even the presence of democracy.

We oppose this bill in the name of mana motuhake, because mana motuhake is the thing that hapū and iwi possess, and in mana motuhake, relationships that include whakapapa include te taiao—the natural environment—and those people. Those two things are inseparable. They are part of the knowledge system, the being system of te iwi Māori. I know Tama understands that, but, miraculously, he seems to have forgotten it in his current state.

Both names please.

I know Tama Potaka understands it, but he seems to have—“He taonga te wareware”. Tēnā anō tētahi kōrero [“Forgetfulness is omnipresent”. That is another saying].

Where does it leave us, really? Where does it leave us? Well, it leaves us with probably more problems to solve than answers. All of the recommendations of chapter four of the Wai 262 claim, where taonga species are clearly defined and recommendations are clearly set forward—this action by the conservation Minister just drives a bulldozer straight over that. The Wai 262 claim is one of the longest-standing claims that Tama Potaka’s own grandparents would have fought for, as did mine.

Here we are. We have te Minita o Te Papa Atawhai, hamumu nei tōna reo, tōna waha me te kī nei koia rā te kaitiaki o aku taonga; koia te kaiwhakaae ki te oranga, te matenga rānei o aku taonga, ngā taonga o tōku whenua. Kāore mātou e paku whakaae ki tērā whakaaro o tētahi Kāwanatanga ahakoa ko wai. Nō reira, kei te Minita, e kī, e kī. E kī, e kī.

[We have the Minister of the Department of Conservation, his voice ringing out, his mouth saying that he is the custodian of my treasures; he is the one to authorise the life or death of my treasures, the treasures of my land. We do not at all agree with that concept of a Government, regardless of who it is. And so, to the Minister, how dare you. How dare you.]

It’s highly unlikely that the provisions contained in this bill will uphold many of the other commitments that the Crown has already made in conservation in other areas, particularly in iwi settlements, like partnership and shared decision-making between departments and kaitiaki—i.e., the hapū and iwi; partnerships between the Department of Conservation and the iwi; Treaty principles in general; policies in national parks; co-management and customary use; no ownership of protected wildlife; Māori ownership of taonga, taonga species in particular, completely related to the whakapapa kōrero that I just gave. These things all sustain culture. They are part of culture. They are not decompartmentalised, from a Māori point of view, yet here we are, passing a bill under urgency that does that for us. Tēnā koe e te Minita. Āe, āe, me mihi kia ora atu ki ō iwi.

[Thank you, Minister. Yes, yes, you should say thank you to your people.]

Here we are, e te iwi Māori: first, the attack on Te Tiriti o Waitangi—besides all of the attacks on everything else we’ve had to endure over the last 18 months—and here we are down to a plain-out attack on te taiao and all of the whakapapa connections and meaning that that has to te iwi Māori. We do not agree.

I want to give you a statement. I want to read you something from Ngāi Tahu: “Conservation Minister Tama Potaka mentioned, in a recent interview, that it will cost too much to save every single species and that we need to target only those of high value.” Who determines high value? “However, the whakapapa of te taiao relies on a collective of species to thrive, not individuals. Whakapapa stores key information, a reminder of where things come from, where to find them, when to use them and for what purpose. Māori can recite whakapapa from the beginning of creation, from the stars to the oceans, from the trees to the birds to the birth of the first human. This knowledge system connects us to our natural environment and everything in it, living as part of a system, not dominating or changing it.”

Those are the words of Ngāi Tahu, and they quite eloquently describe the natural relationship of Māori—the principal sovereign in this country, the partner that this House is obligated to listen to and work with—completely out of the picture. Nō reira e te Minita Take Taiao, māu anō ēnei kōrero e kawe ki te motu. Māu anō e hiki, e hāpai, e whakatika hei tōna wā. Kāore mātou mō te whakaae.

[So to the Minister for the Environment, it is up to you to convey this discourse to the nation. It is up to you to upraise, to promote, and to correct in time. We are not about to agree.]

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is not simply a disgraceful bill but a convoluted bill. We have seen, as we went through the committee stage, nothing other than grandstanding and politicisation from the Minister to try and justify this bill when all we are trying to do is to get some sense out of the bill, which we would have if this bill had gone through a select committee stage as per the normal parliamentary practice. Here we are, and here we are in Aotearoa, where the people of Aotearoa have not been granted their right to participate in our democratic system once again, and we have seen a troubling amount of that happening under this Government.

There are a couple of things I want to address specifically around this bill. We have put a number of questions to the Minister during the committee stage around the retrospectivity of this bill and the fact that what we are seeing is a knee-jerk response to what is a standard process, and the rightful process, under the separation of powers and under the constitutional arrangements of Aotearoa New Zealand to allow the judiciary to interpret the law as required. What we are seeing here is the executive overstepping the judiciary’s decision, and we have specific clauses in here that refer to that specific ruling.

This is really, really concerning. The part of the retrospectivity here that is the concerning part is that we haven’t yet had clarification on the extent of the authorities that will be granted and that will be affected, and also on the effect that it will have on our taonga, on our natural species. We would have got all of this if we had proper public consultation and were able to talk to and speak to, and ask questions of, the officials. Again, we have not been granted that very basic right as parliamentarians.

We have heard from people in the House saying, “We are looking at your average New Zealander who just wants to build infrastructure for Aotearoa and be able to do the work, and they care about the species and all of the outdoors.” Let’s be clear. This bill and the authorities have nothing to do with the New Zealanders who build our infrastructure but everything to do with the companies who may potentially just want to cut corners on squeezing every dime out of nature and out of New Zealand.

There are so many contradictions within this bill. This is fundamentally inconsistent with the purpose of the Wildlife Act, which is to protect. As much as we hear the Ministers and the governing parties trying to gaslight the New Zealand public by saying that “by killing, we are actually protecting”—how? Where? This is actually in the explanatory note on the first page. If the governing parties read the bill and did their job once in a while, maybe they would actually understand what was happening here.

We have heard before, from the previous speaker, that we operate within an ecosystem and we simply do not know the impact of this bill. I go back to what the Attorney-General said last year. The fact that we’re using urgency and are rushing through laws means that we’re making bad laws, and we will come back for this. What we are seeing is a Government that panders to the greed of international overseas companies at the expense of the taonga of Aotearoa and of our future generations. The debt that this Government refuses to acknowledge and refuses to take on is the debt against our future generations and our mokopuna. What this Government has done through this bill is give people licences to kill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise in support of the Wildlife (Authorisations) Amendment Bill. While we have just heard great theatrics and also some great scaremongering from the other side, the hyperbole is unbelievable. You’d think they’d been listening to the Counting Crows on repeat about paving paradise. Let’s be clear, that is just hyperbole and scare tactics. What we are doing is reinstating a system that has worked for many years.

The Department of Conservation only authorises projects when there’s incidental harm and only when it is minimised, and the permits are granted with very strict conditions to protect that wildlife population and its long-term viability. We’re not debating that. It is a good aim, and that is what we’re continuing to do. If you listen to the other side, you’d think that it was completely the opposite. This isn’t about allowing unchecked development. It covers things like pest control, which is actually an essential part of preserving our biodiversity. Unfortunately, in pest control, some things can have incidental harm. This piece of legislation is about restoring certainty, not about removing protections. Engineers and pest control specialists will still need to minimise harm, still seek to relocate animals wherever possible, and look after our environment. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, what an interesting time we’ve had during all stages under urgency on this bill. I did not expect to be called creative for suggesting that it is normal good practice for a bill that is going through all stages under urgency to have a review. Apparently, that’s creative. No, no, no. This is what the Labour Government did after the cyclones—a proper emergency. There is no proper emergency here. There is no need for the complete absence of a select committee process. It could be a short one. I take the point that the court case has resulted in the need for a fix.

We’re not debating the need for a fix and that general policy intent, but we don’t know what that fix is, because this bill is so badly drafted and the Minister refused to answer my drafting questions about clause 4 of the bill. It still makes no sense. We found out that, in fact, it seems like most of the Government bench speeches that have involved roads are entirely wrong. This bill doesn’t do anything about new road projects for Government roads, because all of those projects still need a section 71 permission or authority and that requires the concurrence of two Ministers, which is a much more arduous administrative thing to do than getting an authority from a director-general or delegate.

Government Ministers have crowed about how this bill that requires all stages under urgency is going to get us back on track. I don’t think it’s going to apply to railways, and it’s certainly not going to apply to Government roads. Yet I haven’t heard any acknowledgment of that from the Government members in their third reading speeches. All I heard is from the ACT member whose whole contribution was about Government roads and how this amendment bill would fix his problem. It does no such thing.

That is why I think the Government will be back here next week. We will be back in urgency next week. I do not think that this Government is good at learning lessons, and there is a very basic lesson here to learn, and that is that if you are drafting law under speed, not using the Parliamentary Counsel Office, I presume, and bringing a bill to a House under two months after a court decision, and not sending it to select committee, it will be muddled. There will be mistakes.

One way to get around that would be for a Minister to act in an engaged way with questions in the committee stage and take a little bit of time to go through some of the key sentences. That did not happen. The Minister could have kept us in committee stage and stopped at that point and not gone to third reading. I’m advising the Minister that he will regret not asking the Leader of the House to come down here late last night, just before midnight, when we were still in the committee stage, still on Part 1, to say “Actually, I’m ending urgency now so that this Government has some time to consider what this bill does.” At the moment, it makes no sense. It does not do what the Ministers say it’s going to do. That is a problem for them.

Another solution, which again I don’t think this Government is likely to learn from, is one of those so-called creative review clauses where this bill could be sent, before it commences, to the Regulations Review Committee or another select committee to review not the policy intent but the actual logistics of how the bill is supposed to work, and then come back. The Minister has disregarded all of these suggestions and quoted a lot of music at us. I note that he hasn’t quoted “Scorpio Girls”, because, of course, scorpios are not included under the protection of the Wildlife Act.

I do note that the wording of “Can’t Get Enough”—well, I was kind of wondering whether you can help me out with a problem that will kind of make you “Scream & Shout”. Whenever they’re coming, they’re “Bringing It Back”. Now, that, I think, is pertinent to how I have been feeling during these debates. There is a little bit of making me want to “Scream & Shout”, because I have tried over and over again to try and engage with the Minister about how it is that the words in his bill make sense and how it is that they don’t contradict each other. There is clearly confusion in the Government because we heard in question time, in real time, yesterday but still on 6 May in this House, that Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters at his first go at answering a question said, “No, no. This is just about culling.” But then we hear all these other speeches: “No, this is about housing.” “Oh, this is about Government roads.” Then we find out that, no, it’s definitely not about Government roads, because section 71 applies to those, not section 53. That is what the Minister said. It doesn’t apply to new Government roads.

New roads.

The Minister’s interjecting here, I think. His head is down, but he is saying “new roads”. That’s right; new roads. They have to go through section 71, which is quite different from the rhetoric that we heard in the speeches from Government members. This bill is a hot mess. I mean, it just shows the craziness of using urgency for all stages, particularly when the policy problem has only arisen recently, so there’s clearly not been much time to develop that.

That is me being positive rather than cynical about why this bill is in fact in front of us in urgency for all stages. A cynical version could be “Well, we know that the Minister for Resources doesn’t like wildlife protections of any sort.” He thinks that the only mammals we should be concerned about are humans. “Goodbye, pekapeka. Goodbye, Freddy the frog.”, he says. We know that he has already passed the terrible fast-track legislation that overrides environmental protections. One aspect of the fast track, which I don’t disagree with, is that you can be a one-stop shop. You can look at different permissions that you would need.

Often a big project, such as a large road, will require some sort of resource consent and also an authority under the Wildlife Act, so you can have the decision makers consider both of those decisions together. We know that there are projects on that fast-track list that get a private benefit by not having to abide by the normal environmental protections that other consent applicants would have to do. We know that some of those are in areas where there is wildlife. We keep hearing the Minister for Resources talk about Freddy the frog.

Is this bill really here under urgency for all stages because of Freddy the frog? We don’t know. We haven’t had a regulatory impact statement. We don’t even know if the applications under the Fast-track Approvals Act that might be in national parks might involve some ancient legislation that is mentioned in Schedule 9 of the Wildlife Act—whether this bill in front of us will apply or not; we don’t know that. We do know that this Government has cut funding to conservation, has cut funding to anything environmental, and has a total disregard for the importance of our economy being based on our environment. It seems that all you need are roads. You don’t need to worry about the air that we breathe if you listen to the ACT contributions on this bill.

That is why we are opposing this bill. It is a dreadful process. The Government doesn’t know what it’s doing, and shame on them.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. There’s been a lot of reference to New Zealand music, it being New Zealand Music Month, and I’m pleased to say that Homegrown, New Zealand’s largest music festival, will be held in the city of the future—Hamilton—in March 2026, so I’m looking forward to that. On that note, I commend this bill to the House.

Rachel Boyack—a five-minute call.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to just indulge the House quickly, if I might, because the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary has, yesterday, reintroduced kiwi into Nelson Whakatū, and I’d like to congratulate them. I’ve got Kāpiti Kiwi here with me just to celebrate the immense achievement for the team at the Brook. I think it’s appropriate, when we’re talking about this bill, that I congratulate the team and acknowledge and bring Kāpiti Kiwi into the House. This is to the team at the Brook: thank you for all of your mahi over so many years to get us here.

Now to the bill, which is not something to celebrate. I might just start by focusing on the process that we’ve followed so far. My colleague the Hon Rachel Brooking has traversed this very, very well, but there are some really significant process reasons why we are not supporting this bill today. There was no regulatory impact statement, there are no Cabinet papers available, and there was no select committee. Now, we’ll get to, in a little bit, the impact of that, but the lack of a select committee has led to us having a situation where this bill is just not in a workable state. The Minister’s going to have to come back to progress further legislation, or there’s going to be stuff in the courts that’s going to come up as a result of it.

The other thing is that, last night in the committee stage, I must say it would have been really helpful if the Minister could have been more concise in his answers. One thing he said, I think, was a good example. He said, about the discussion in committee stage, that “We’re starting to stray … into feral space based on speculation and conjecture.” What does that even mean? The Minister could have spent some time answering questions properly—some really legitimate legal questions that we had yesterday.

As the Hon Rachel Brooking has said, there are a couple of matters that are quite critical to this. We don’t disagree that there’s actually an issue that has been raised by the courts that needs to be addressed. The Minister could have reached across the House and talked to us, and we would have been able to come up with some shared solutions.

Did that happen?

It didn’t happen. I’d say to him, next time, to come and talk to us in advance because I agree, as the animal welfare spokesperson, that there’s an issue to be resolved. I’m quite happy to engage about what is the pragmatic solution, because this isn’t it.

The Minister finally admitted that section 53 doesn’t apply to Government transport projects, which was actually the court case. The court case involved a Government roading project, and it doesn’t actually address that specific issue. Why are they doing this? Why are we doing this under urgency? Why? I mean, what else could be going on here? We’ve got fast-track projects coming through. What is that going to mean for our wildlife if the Government, it appears, is seeking to make a more permissible approach to killing wildlife, potentially to get some of their little pet projects through, when it doesn’t actually address the very, very issue that came to the House via the courts?

The Minister also could have sent this to a select committee. I sat on the Governance and Administration Committee a couple of years ago where we had two bills related to Cyclone Gabrielle come through. On both occasions, we had short select committees—two or three days. We reached out to potential stakeholders and submitters. We heard from submitters, and that helped ensure that there was robustness around the select committee process. We got better law as a result.

There is a reason why Parliament has select committees. That’s what they’re there for. They’re actually there to directly engage with officials and with the Parliamentary Counsel Office. The Wildlife Act itself is well overdue for a rewrite. If you read through section 53, it’s challenging to interpret anyway. Now, you’ve added new section 53A, inserted by clause 4, which is written in gobbledegook, in my view, and the two combined together make it even more challenging. There’s going to be a huge job for lawyers and a huge job for the courts to actually try to get their head around understanding this bill. I predict the Minister is going to be back, because I think others, probably the Minister of Transport, might be a bit concerned to hear that it doesn’t actually apply to his Government transport projects. He might have a yarn to the Minister and ask for them to come back. I don’t commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill just validates existing permits, ensuring the holders of those authorisations can actually continue their activities without legal risk, provided they comply with conditions. It applies to a wide range of activities, such as infrastructure and environmental programmes like TBfree, which may cause incidental harm. It’s not about allowing unchecked development; it’s about protecting people who’ve followed the rules. We’re validating those authorisations granted before 5 March 2025 and restoring the ability to process new applications responsibly. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is the first opportunity that I’ve had to take a call on the Wildlife (Authorisations) Amendment Bill. To be quite honest, I just wanted to make a few comments around the process of this bill. This is the second bill that we have seen go through this House through all stages in urgency with no regulatory impact statement and with retrospective effect. Now, this is very similar to the last bill that we saw go through urgency, which had no regulatory impact statement and had retrospective effect. What kind of Government is this that puts forward these types of bills? These are not minor issues. These are not cleaning up tiny things. These are things like bringing in laws that would get rid of the pay in women’s pockets and allow, and most likely cause, further deaths for our wildlife and make it easier for those to occur in this type of legislation. This is absolutely shocking behaviour by this Government, and it’s something that everyone on the other side of the House should be ashamed of.

I haven’t been involved in this bill—there hasn’t been much opportunity, I have to say, to be involved in this bill. Normally, we’d say, “I wasn’t able to be at select committee.”, but, unfortunately, there was no select committee for this particular bill. This bill was really the result of a decision by the courts, which, as my colleague Rachel Brooking—and then my colleague Rachel Boyack added in a later contribution—explained, was a court case where there was a very particular finding that the Government is overtly reacting to with this particular legislation, bringing in retrospective law without any thought as to what it could be.

This is an area that I know is very important to a lot of New Zealanders. A lot of New Zealanders care very much about the natural environment. A value that many New Zealanders share is that we should protect our natural environment. In New Zealand, we have a very, very important natural environment with a lot of different animals that are there and that should be protected. We do have a lot of endangered species, and we have a lot of bird life and marine fish species. We’ve got a lot of native reptiles and frogs, and I know my colleague Rachel Brooking is very passionate about the fact that we should protect our bats.

We need to take pragmatic decisions as adults, sensible decisions, to make sure that, when we are implementing law change, we are not putting these species at risk. These species are obviously not in a position to advocate. It’s up to us to look at our biodiversity and make sensible decisions around the laws that we bring in. I’ve had a look through this particular law, and I have to say there are a number of aspects of it that are incredibly concerning. I don’t think it would take many New Zealanders very long to reach that same conclusion if they were looking at this particular bill. Essentially, it makes it easier and more permissible, as far as I understand—and I’m not the major expert here, but you’ve heard from some of my colleagues who are—and more likely that important wildlife will be killed, and I don’t think that’s acceptable. I don’t think it would be acceptable to most New Zealanders. I don’t think the legislative process is acceptable. I think this is bad law. I think the other side of the House should be ashamed not only at the content of this law but at the process that it has gone through.

The Labour Party will not be supporting this particular bill, and I would like the Government to really reflect on why it continues to take these reactionary steps when there have been well-thought-out decisions made by our courts and when these are important decisions to be made that have implications on our natural world, and to reflect on why they need to bring these through urgency.

All stages.

All-stages urgency. It is absolutely shocking. I feel that, as my colleague Rachel Brooking said, this bill will be back in the House, so it will waste further time. This is the deep irony of urgency. When you bring a bill that isn’t fully thought through, that hasn’t had the opportunity of submissions from the select committee, and where there hasn’t been the opportunity to scrutinise all of the nature of the bill, often it needs to come back to the House as an amendment bill, and that wastes time. If the Government is trying to save time, actually, they will waste more time in the long run, and they will waste New Zealanders’ money, because there will be court cases and there will be aspects of this bill that are unclear. This is not how we should make good law. We saw that yesterday when the pay equity changes were rushed through under urgency, and we’re seeing it again today. Unfortunately, we do have other bills on the urgency agenda here.

The Labour Party will not be supporting this bill, and I, again, would ask colleagues on the other side of the House to really reflect on how they have determined to make law, what that says about them as a Government, and the future implications for New Zealand and our wildlife as a result of this terrible bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take the final call in support of the Wildlife (Authorisations) Amendment Bill at its third reading. All we’re doing here is just getting things back on track so that we can go out there, we can do the pest control, we can control the possums in the bush, and we can build the roads, including the one over the Brynderwyns. I commend this bill to the House.

I present a legislative statement on the Social Security Amendment Bill.

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

I move, That the Social Security Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Our Government believes that people are better off in work. Since 2023, unfortunately, the number of working-age individuals receiving a main benefit has steadily increased. It is critical that we have a welfare system that actively supports job seekers into work, rather than allowing them to get stuck on welfare.

This bill seeks to amend the Social Security Act and the Social Security Regulations to expand and enhance welfare settings to support people off benefit and into employment. The welfare system will always be available to support people when they need it, but they need to meet their obligations to look for a job and be held accountable when they don’t. That’s why, last year, I launched the traffic light system to communicate to clients what’s expected of them when they are on a benefit. Those changes reinforce the expectations for those on benefits, and, now, I’m ready to expand and strengthen the tools available to support people into work through this bill.

Currently, a financial sanction is the only option available to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) when responding to an obligation failure. Clients who have a grade 1 financial sanction imposed have their main benefit reduced by half. This bill introduces non-financial sanctions—money management and community work experience—which will expand MSD’s toolbox. They provide an alternative option, for some clients’ first failure, that enables them to keep their full payment while reinforcing the message that failing to meet obligations is not acceptable. The bill also extends the period over which an obligation failure counts against clients from 12 to 24 months, increasing the likelihood that those who are repeatedly refusing to comply with their obligations will have their benefit cancelled if they remain on the benefit for more than a year.

I also propose two other changes that focus on assisting people into employment. The bill will require new applicants for certain benefits with work-related obligations to have completed a jobseeker profile before their benefit is granted. This change will encourage work-focused conversations from the earliest possible opportunity and help MSD to better match people to suitable job vacancies. The bill will also reduce the amount of time before someone on jobseeker support must reapply, from 52 weeks to 26 weeks. This means that clients will have more frequent engagements with MSD about employment.

I’d like to put on record my thanks to the Social Services and Community Committee for its careful consideration of the bill. I also want to thank members of the public and organisations who provided both written and oral submissions. I have heard and want to acknowledge the concerns associated with these changes, and I want to reassure members of this House and the public that the non-financial sanctions proposed in this bill will only affect those who are not complying with their obligations. Non-financial sanctions will ensure accountability while recognising that financial sanctions are not the answer for everyone. I accept that the Opposition would prefer to have financial deductions taken off people’s benefits. This side of the House doesn’t see that, necessarily, as the best first option.

Other changes in the bill reinforce the Government’s commitment to helping people transition off benefit and into employment. It is not acceptable that over 70 percent of people on jobseeker support who are not in employment case management will experience only one work-related engagement in a year in their 52-week reapplication. Having more frequent work-focused engagements through reapplications will reinforce the importance of looking for work.

After its consideration of the bill, the Social Services and Community Committee has recommended the introduction of two additional non-financial sanctions, as well as further minor amendments, to better support the effective administration of the proposals in this bill. The two additional non-financial sanctions are “report job search” and “upskilling”. These will sit alongside the other non-financial sanctions detailed in the bill as introduced. As they appear, clients will be required to report on their job search activities. If people are undertaking job search activities, it is more likely they will find a job. Also, the other one is to participate in employment-related training. As with money management and community work experience, these new non-financial sanctions will not impact clients’ entitlements and will reinforce the expectation that they are searching or preparing for work. I want to, again, thank the members of the Social Services and Community Committee for their careful consideration of the bill, and I look forward to seeing the amendments progress towards the initial changes proposed.

This bill represents another important step forward in refocusing our welfare system to better support individuals towards employment. By introducing these changes, we aim to create a more transparent, accountable, and work-focused environment for jobseekers. I look forward to seeing this bill progress through the remaining stages of the parliamentary process, and I commend the bill to the House.

The question is the motion be agreed to.

I rise, once again, in this Parliament to speak against this Government’s cruelty and spite—cruelty and spite—aimed at the poorest and most vulnerable with this appalling amendment to the Social Security Act. Following on from what happened yesterday, we should not be surprised—we should not be surprised—because this is all about saving money in the Budget. That’s what yesterday was about—saving money at the expense of women around the nation. I salute all the women who stood up, particularly our women in Labour, and the vote of no confidence they put in this Government yesterday.

I bring this up because this is very, very similar to what’s happening in terms of this Social Security Amendment Bill. Yesterday, we traded away generations—generations—of great work by people, all to save Nicola Willis’ Budget. It was a disgraceful act from the Government yesterday, and particularly with our women lined up—some of them National Party women. I look at the Minister now, who’s been a former Minister for Women, and I ask her how yesterday could have happened. The whole nation is asking questions. The whole nation is asking questions about how a National Party, who previously supported equity in terms of equal pay, could walk away from that yesterday. It was a disgraceful act, and even the right-wing—

Mr Jackson, they’re probably waiting for you to get on to this bill, too.

I had to make that comparison with yesterday, because it’s all very, very, very similar. Anyway, this is not about improving the welfare of our most disempowered Kiwis; this is about punishing them. That’s what this kaupapa is about today. Very similar to yesterday, it’s about punishing them for having the audacity to look to the New Zealand State for help. How sad it is that they’re being punished for asking the Government for help. They’re getting continually punished, damned with needless bureaucracy that will be managed by a faceless AI program—as if their disability has magically healed since you last asked them—and penalised with sanctions that remove their agency in spending money with a money management scheme that makes it impossible—makes it impossible—for beneficiaries to pay for rent, power, and school uniforms.

This is what this Government is doing. They’re doing it under the umbrella of urgency, and they’re forgetting about our vulnerable people at the coalface, who are not able to organise themselves at times, who need a bit of support, who need a bit of awhi, and who need a bit of community help. This is what this Minister is doing, a former Minister for Women. This isn’t welfare reform; it’s revenge against the poor for having the temerity to ask for help from the Government, who have purposely crashed the economy and pushed up unemployment. No doubt about that—

Ha, ha, ha!

Check the Māori unemployment rates out if you’re having a laugh over there, Mr Mooney—check the Māori unemployment rates out. You’ll see that the Māori unemployment rates are getting worse and worse.

And the regional unemployment rate as well.

Yes, there is no change there. How outrageous it is, though, for Joe Mooney and his crew to crash the economy. They’ve just spiked unemployment, and now they’re punishing those Kiwis needing help from their economic decisions. “We don’t have money for beneficiaries.” Oh, but we do have money. We do have money for military. We do have money for more military. We do have money for tax cuts. That’s the theme—it’s always the theme here. We have got money for the tax cuts, we’ve got money for the rich landlords, and we’ve got $200 million for New Zealand First’s mates in the tobacco industry. Let’s be clear: there is money, but there’s just no money for the poor, there’s no money for the vulnerable, and there’s no money for those who are struggling. There’s now no money.

They’re taking money away from everyday New Zealand women, and this Government will pay. They will pay for their decision yesterday. They know it. It’s one of the worst decisions they’ve ever made, and it’ll catch up with them. This kaupapa—these amendments—will result in more beneficiaries and their dependants being unable to buy food and to pay rent and other basic bills. The policy will generate more hardship, more poverty, and more homelessness. The community work experience—oh, that sounds nice! Joseph Mooney and his mates will go out and give you a boring speech in the community. That all sounds nice, but it amounts to forced labour, and if people don’t complete it—if they don’t complete it—they lose their welfare. They lose their welfare. That’s what this community experience is all about: making those on welfare poorer and more abused so that the poor will cower and ask for more help, “Please, Government, please, help us.”

This is the sort of bullying, of course, that Donald Trump does, and we know that the Government is a great fan of Donald Trump—

They love Trump.

They love Trump; Winston says so. They replicate and duplicate him all the time, and that’s the strategy. It’s all about bashing the vulnerable. This terrible Government is in trouble when it starts bashing beneficiaries for nothing more than its reactionary, angry voters, because that’s all this is. It’s about bashing beneficiaries. I’ve just come on to the select committee, but I’ve seen the type of resistance given by the Greens, ourselves, and Te Pāti Māori. It’s been a good response in terms of this kaupapa. All of this is highly counterproductive and will only entrench poverty by spawning an underclass frightened to engage with the system. That’s the type of feedback I’m getting back from the experts out there.

The Government wants to make the process of obtaining welfare as difficult and Draconian as possible so that it intimidates and frustrates those attempting to use it, in the hope that they will simply go away. That’s the strategy. That’s what this Government is really doing with this amendment. They want all the poor people to go away. It’s like the emergency housing kaupapa. You hear them waffling on about the numbers. They are carrying on, “We’ve reduced the emergency housing numbers.” No one knows where these people have gone. If you ask Minister Potaka, he’ll say, “I don’t know where they are.”, but Minister Bishop will come out with, “Well, we’ve reduced it from so many.” It’s just a disgrace. They’re putting them out on the road. They’re putting them out on the road. People are dying out on the streets.

The most appalling part of this is that the Government are making these types of cruel decisions because, as we all know, they refused point blank to tax their rich mates. That’s just a reality. They want to look after their rich mates. That’s what this is all about. New Zealand knows it. Who are you going to boot? “We’ll boot the women, we’ll boot the vulnerable, we’ll boot the beneficiaries, and we’ll boot the Māoris.” They are a disgrace.

Well, Mr Jackson, if you can just tell us what it is that the Government are doing and what came out of the select committee.

Lots came out. I thought I’d been doing that, Mr Speaker. Well, let’s talk about community work experience—thank you for that reminder. The community work experience and the money management scheme are the key to the Minister’s success. They won’t be able to access emergency housing or special needs grants. That’s the problem here. The Government is saying, “We’ve got the panacea. We’ve got the recipe here. We’ll look after you. We’ll look after you by going from 52 weeks to 26 weeks.” Come on. We can’t keep bashing beneficiaries and think that’s the solution. They’re setting every poor person up for failure by punishing them with sanctions. They’re making it impossible. That’s the key here. They punish them with sanctions, and then they make it impossible for them to access grants or their housing special needs grants.

It’s not about the welfare of the people. Mr Mooney, you should know that. In fact, you should hang your head in shame, being the chairman of the select committee. You were driving this for your rotten Government. This isn’t about the welfare of the people; it’s about punishing the poor with ever-increasing thresholds—that’s the key—purposely designed to confuse, frustrate, and demean individuals. They make it so difficult—they make it so tricky—to traverse these areas that some of the beneficiaries just give up. They just give up. They’ve got to pick this call up. They’ve got to ring Joseph Mooney. It’s just an impossible strategy. No, they’ve got to comply with this National Party.

There’s no aroha from this Government and no compassion and no kindness in their welfare. It’s a bleak diet of animosity and hostility. The National Party and this coalition Government should be ashamed of themselves. It’s all going to come home to roost, mark my words. Kia ora.

This Government should hang their heads in shame for trying to push a bill that will literally increase poverty and deprive people of the means of survival. No matter how much spin we get from the Minister for Social Development and Employment that these are so-called non-financial sanctions, if anyone reads this bill, they’ll understand that if you’re subjected to these non-financial sanctions, you can’t access hardship assistance. What that means is—they would understand if any of them actually talked to people on the benefit—that many people on the benefit rely on hardship assistance on a regular basis to put food on the table. If you’re subjected to non-financial sanctions, you have a financial impact on you, which is that you can’t put food on the table. I find it appalling and actually ignorant for the Minister to say that we prefer financial sanctions.

If it was up to the Greens, we would have a welfare system that actually adequately supports people into employment. This is not what the Government is doing. The Government is not actually supporting people into employment. They have created so much bureaucracy for Work and Income that they now have to stop other programmes because—and the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) said it themselves—their front line is oversubscribed thanks to the Government’s own cuts, own actions, and ineffective policies that do nothing but create more hardship. The sanctions in this bill will simply push people deeper into poverty, make no mistake.

I can’t accuse anyone on the other side of the House of lying, but, at the very least, what I can do is point out the facts that they just seem to ignore. The facts in this bill—for anyone who reads the report, because members seem to be either unable to read or unwilling to see the truth—are that this bill will literally push people into potential homelessness.

For example, compulsory money management: what it will do is put 50 percent of someone’s income into a green card. What it will mean is that people who spend around 50 percent of their income weekly on rent will literally be unable to put food on the table. Again, here are some more facts: we just need to look at the ministry’s own figures to show that, on average, people on jobseeker support spend more than 50 percent of their income on rent. That means that people subjected to compulsory money management won’t be able to afford their rent and they won’t be able to access emergency housing, actually, if they’re subjected to that benefit sanction. According to the non-financial sanction, they won’t actually be able to obtain that level of support.

I see members of the ACT Party yelling at me, but I dare them and challenge them to actually talk to anyone who they’ve punished, anyone who they’ve sanctioned, and talk to them about whether it’s easier to find employment when you’re struggling financially, when you can’t even access financial support that allows you, for example, to get a uniform for an interview, and when Work and Income’s wait times on the phone to access support when you need financial help for transport are so, so long that you may be missing appointments to actually help you get a job.

Aotearoa actually invests less than other comparative countries on initiatives that help people get into employment. It’s all smoke and mirrors from the Government when they tell us that their goal is to get people into employment. Their goal is to simply strip people of the income support. We know this because of, again, facts: the Government has a target to get people off the benefit. This target does not include getting people into jobs; it simply includes stripping people of the means to survive.

We’ve got other benefit sanctions in this bill, including the community work experience, which is—as others have talked about—forced labour. Did the Government take into account the feedback from community organisations? No, they didn’t. Community organisations who submitted to the Social Services and Community Committee told us very explicitly that they were not adequately consulted, that, actually, most of them did not have the means to accommodate people on benefits subjected to this kind of sanction, and that it actually destroys the purpose. This is what we heard from submitters. No matter how much those members want to cover their ears, if people are forced to attend volunteer organisations, it destroys the very purpose of volunteering and the spirit of community that is built by those very organisations, many of whom are filling the gaps thanks to the cuts that this Government has made.

The Government, on top of that, decided to introduce two additional benefit sanctions with absolutely zero scrutiny. I look forward to scrutinising the Government for this terrible lawmaking that they’ve decided to pursue by actually adding further benefit sanctions without public consultation and without the ability for members of the public to give their feedback. Actually, public feedback is critical here. We had over 3,500 submissions sent to this bill. Over 97 percent of people did not support this bill. Less than 3 percent of people actually supported this bill. If this Government was so confident that the reforms were so popular, why didn’t their supporters actually swarm the select committee to tell us how much they love punishing beneficiaries? I know that, actually, everyday people want all of us to do well. When we have people who are stripped of the means to survive and who end up is in the streets with poor health, there are costs to livelihoods attached to that. Even within their fiscal conservatism, it makes absolutely no sense.

Economists across the world have told us that, actually, it makes sense to invest in a welfare system that adequately supports people. Yet this Government does not care. They don’t care about the evidence that sanctions do not support people into employment. We literally just had media reports that quoted MSD saying that there’s no actual correlation they can find between sanctioning someone and someone then finding employment, which means that all these sanctions end up doing is pushing people into hardship. It’s intellectually dishonest for the Government to call these non-financial. There are literal financial consequences attached to this bill.

We also know—again, facts—that the Government is simply trying to make it harder for people to stay on the benefit by making them reapply for a benefit twice as often. When we have the Ministry of Social Development already telling us that the front line is oversubscribed, I can’t see how this will actually help anyone in any meaningful way. All it will do is add busybodies to the front line who are trying—many of them—to simply support people to have the bare minimum. Once you have a front line that is doing all this additional admin work this year and applying all these nonsense sanctions, they actually don’t end up giving the tools and the means to support people to be their best selves to enter employment that meets their skills and aspirations.

The Government has also sneaked through other changes that will make it harder for people who are in part-time employment to remain on the benefit by changing the definition of a “work gap”. Again, all this shows is that this Government does not care about our poorest. If they did, they wouldn’t be pursuing this bill. If they care about people in precarious employment—the kind of employment that many people likely will go to from being on the benefit—they would not be cancelling all the pay equity deals that were being worked through.

The Government can’t have it both ways. They can’t say that work is the pathway out of poverty and then undermine those very same low-income workers that most likely will be people who were on the benefit shortly before this Government came into power. They can’t have it both ways. Where they’re investing the most is on tax cuts for landlords and on military spending but not on the things that people need to be well.

This is a shameful, shameful bill that does nothing but increase poverty. We are already seeing the evidence and other reports about the impacts of this Government’s policies. We have seen how material hardship for children is increasing. We are seeing how food insecurity for children under this Government’s watch is increasing. This Government’s decisions are literally making it harder for children to have what they need to be well. We’re going to create a generation growing up in poverty without the opportunities to do well. No one is buying the trickle-down economics that were well debunked 40-plus years ago and that equate the idea that if we give more money to the rich, it will suddenly trickle down to people on the benefit and low-income workers.

It’s straight up factually incorrect. The Greens will keep campaigning to abolish all of the sanctions in this bill and more—all the financial sanctions that the Government claims that we like. There is no place for benefit sanctions in a welfare system that is designed to support people into employment. I challenge members of the Government to get out in the streets more and talk to people on the benefit and to actually engage with the people who submitted to the select committee and told us that they didn’t like it. All I can see is the Government members conjuring a beneficiary, in their head, that they never met, they never engaged with, they never talked to, and they don’t care about to punish those who are in some of the toughest situations.

I look forward to these members of the House finding themselves on a benefit after the election and being subjected to the very same policies that they’re putting through. They will hopefully, one day, realise the damage that they have caused to generations across the country. The Greens will continue standing for taxing the wealthy few so that we can have a healthcare system that works for all and an income support system that lifts people out of poverty, and we’ll continue fighting back against the policies of austerity and cruelty.

I look forward to scrutinising the Government in the committee of the whole House as well about, for example, how their policies in relation to obligation failure will simply just kick people off the benefit. I also look forward to scrutinising the Government about how they even think that case managers will be making the correct decisions when we know, right now, almost 50 percent of people can’t even have their benefit entitlements accurately assessed, because most of the safeguards in this bill rely on discretionary decision-making that is not correctly happening right now. We condemn this absolute nonsense of a cruel bill, and we will keep fighting to ensure that this Government doesn’t get a second term.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of this bill. This is, actually, one of the ACT-National coalition agreements. Firstly, I just want to thank the select committee for your diligent work. We had to split up into a couple of subcommittees to hear from all those that were submitting on this bill. I think it’d be quite appropriate to acknowledge what the previous speaker, Ricardo Menéndez March, was saying around those that submitted and those who support or don’t support the bill. Well, guess what? Who pays beneficiaries in New Zealand? The taxpayer. What are the taxpayers often doing? They’re out there working hard. They’re out there making money for their families. I think that a lot of taxpayers that are propping and playing—

Beneficiaries are taxpayers too.

Beneficiaries pay tax, but do you know what? At some point in time when you accept money from the State, that comes with obligations. Having a job comes with obligations. We can’t just not show up for work—although some of us in this House seem to think that’s OK. We can’t just not show up for work. Every day, people need to get up and get ready and get out the house and do the grind. How is it unreasonable to expect those that are receiving money to have to adhere to some kind of obligations? I think it’s absolutely outrageous. Attending a work seminar, having a jobseeker profile—this is the bare minimum that you should be doing if you are on a benefit.

Are you going to talk about the bill?

I 100 percent want to talk about the bill, because I think it’s important. The aim is to reduce those that are on the jobseeker to support people into employment. It is to reduce costs to Government by decreasing benefit numbers. It’s going to reinforce expectations on beneficiaries to work, where appropriate. Those who can work should be working.

This in no way diminishes those very real people that are unable to work. Those with disabilities, those with chronic health conditions, and those people that are genuinely unable to work should be taken care of. I think there is a place and a role for the State, and I think a lot of people can agree that we should be taking care of those people. If you can work and you are not working, you, at the moment, only have to apply once in a 52-week period to stay at home, potentially. It’s absolutely outrageous. A 26-week period to have to renew, getting on the phone, and filling in forms are very minor, little things that you need to do in order to actually go ahead and take this money from the taxpayer—the rightful taxpayer, should I say.

Money management: what is money management? This is a type of sanction that will only apply to about 3 percent of those people that are receiving the benefit that aren’t actually meeting their obligations. I do want to thank those beneficiaries that are meeting their obligations. Quite a few of them are. If we think about this, is it fair that if we do not meet some of those obligations? We say, “Hey, look. I think there are better ways of doing this. Maybe we should be paying your rent for you. Maybe we should be making sure the bills are paid.” I 100 percent think that this is a good policy. I think that those hard-working Kiwis out there want to support people, they want to give people a hand up, and they want to support people that do find themselves in a really unfortunate position. At the same time, they want to make sure that their money is being well respected. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the Social Security Amendment Bill. Also, being on the Social Services and Community Committee, I would like to say that it was a very, at times, emotional and passionate time listening to the submitters. I want to acknowledge all of my colleagues in the House who were on the committee with me. Even though there was passion at times, it was still done in a very respectful manner, which is the way it should be done. To the submitters who submitted, I know that many of you struggled to submit. It was a very emotional submission, and it takes a lot of bravery to stand and do that, so I just want to acknowledge you.

Just very briefly, this bill is in alignment with New Zealand First’s policy of believing in a hand up rather than a handout. Whilst we really believe that people need to be helped in our community, we also know that we need to look at long-term rewards for individuals and encourage personal responsibility for people to find it in themselves to get out there and make their lives better if they can, and we also need to keep the country in mind when we do that. We feel that this is a balanced approach, and whilst it does create passion and emotion in the discussion, it needs to be said at times that we do want to encourage personal responsibility with individuals. I know that some may find that hard to hear, but it is something that we really do, as a party, believe in. We feel that that encourages not only fairness but also responsibility, and it will hopefully break this long-term cycle of dependency, which does sometimes stick. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Five-minute split call—Mariameno Kapa-Kingi.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. It’s less of a pleasure and mostly more of a duty to stand and have a crack at this ridiculous nonsense called the Social Security Amendment Bill. One would think that when it’s called “Social Security”, those things are actually present in the mind and what you come up with, but, frankly, it is completely the opposite to that; there’s nothing “social” nor “secure” about this. This bill erodes basic human rights. Why do I talk about it in this way? I’ve worked in this sector, and I know this sector from the ground up. I’ve worked in the social sector and health sector for long enough to recognise that this will work against us and create far more harm than need be the case.

In the actual select committee process, I’d like to say things were passionate, but it was more than that. It was depressing, and it was confronting. It’s hard to show respect to a process when the ideas and the ideology that were running through it were loaded with bigotry, ignorance, and absolutely no sense of reality. I recognise some of the discussion before. As painful as it is to listen to, I want to share these thoughts. During the submission process for this bill, we received a particularly confronting piece of testimony from one organisation. Through their submission, the voice of a young person experiencing homelessness in Tāmaki was shared, someone who had tried to engage with the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) for support. He rangatahi ia, koinei wana kōrero.

[This is a young person; here are their comments.]

“I was asking MSD for help. It made me always feel like [s-h-i-t]. They don’t help me. Half the time, it feels like they aren’t listening. I hate it. It makes me feel alone.” These words should have stopped that committee and asked them to change their minds, and they should stop every person in the House right now in their tracks—in their “fast track” and getting something “back on track”—because, while we were hearing this submission, this young person, whose experience was shared with us, was lying-in-state. To their whānau and to the community still holding the pain of that loss, I want to acknowledge that grief. It is likely still to be very raw and still unanswered and still unmet by any action from this House and by those on the left of this House sitting next to me.

This is not just a bill. It is about the real-life cost of systems that fail our people tremendously—daily and minute by minute. This House failed that young person, and this bill will deepen that failure. These are not just administrative tweaks as they suggest it is. These are policies that continue to cause harm. Whether it touches you—it’s likely that it doesn’t, because when I was listening to the nonsense earlier, I was like, “Well, just because it doesn’t touch you and you don’t get it, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t harm the rest of our whānau in our communities.”

This bill is a stain on the voices of rangatahi, on single māmā and pāpā, on whānau with disability, on Māori, and on minority communities—you might not recognise any of those words, but you need to read more, koutou mā [all of you]—all who came forward in the submissions and told you to change your mind: “Think about this—think about this.” If this place is about the test of good ideas, frankly, there are too many that are poor ideas that are not tested, that are not understood in reality, and that cause more harm. That’s what privilege does. Privilege, particularly white privilege, blinds you to the reality of people, of many, many families and whānau. I want to make this point: passing this bill won’t just ignore those voices, it will reinforce the very experiences that drove some to lose hope entirely.

This Government has shown and, I’ve no doubt, will show in the upcoming Budget that they are business orientated and money focused and the suffering of people is just better for the economy and it’s better for business but not for whānau—not for whānau in Tai Tokerau, not for whānau in Tairāwhiti, not for whānau Māori, not for whānau e hauare ana [families that are missing the mark]. To these nonsense voices to the left to me, you don’t know what you don’t know, and you remain in your seat of ignorance and privilege. Shame on you. It’ll come back to haunt you. This bill must be condemned. I despise it with all my might, as does Te Pāti Māori. Kia ora tātou. [Interruption] Thank you—stop nattering.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just want to bring it to your attention that the member who’s just resumed her seat was bringing you into the debate.

Well, I’d just—thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa to oppose, in the strongest terms, the Social Security Amendment Bill. This bill is not about dignity, it’s not about evidence, and it’s certainly not about supporting people into meaningful employment. This bill is about punishment, punishment dressed up as reform and designed to make life harder for people who are already struggling under the weight of systemic inequality.

During the select committee process, we sat and listened to hundreds of voices—submitters who took their time, many of them with lived experience, to share their truths, people living on the benefit, disability advocates, and child wellbeing organisations. Over 97 percent of submissions oppose this bill—3,413 out of 3,499 submitters—and only 19 submitters submitted in support. Yet here we are again, debating legislation that ignores the overwhelming weight of public feedback.

CCS Disability Action warned us that “The sanctions that are being proposed will cause direct harm to disabled people and their families, it will result in those receiving Government assistance being unable to buy food, pay for housing, afford medical treatment, and other basic necessities in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.” How can any Government with integrity ignore that?

We heard from Save the Children, who raised a deeply concerning impact on disabled people who are forced to rely on jobseeker support because barriers prevent them from accessing the supported living payment. They said, “With the proposed changes forcing disabled people to re-apply for the benefit every six months, this group will be further detrimentally impacted by the additional doctors’ fees required to prove the person is still eligible.”—because maybe they don’t have their disability any more? This is cruelty by design. This is bureaucracy wielded as a weapon.

Let’s be clear: the measures in this bill—compulsory money management, increase reapplication burdens, and so-called community work experience—are not about employment. The Minister was asked repeatedly to provide evidence that these sanctions led to better outcomes. She could not, because that evidence does not exist. What does exist is the Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s advice. Their report told us that sanctions do not work. In fact, they increase material hardship, reduce trust in the system, and worsen outcomes for children.

Instead of listening to the experts, the Government has chosen ideology. Instead of working with communities, you are punishing them. Let’s talk about these so-called non-financial sanctions. When a person is placed under compulsory money management or community work sanctions, they lose access to hardship assistance. That’s not non-financial; that’s people being unable to pay for food for their children, pay rent, or get to a job interview. That’s a financial punishment with real-life consequences. This bill will hurt disabled people the most, people who are already navigating barriers across health, housing, and employment. We heard from submitters that many are on the wrong benefit already, facing job-seeking obligations that they should never have been subjected to. Instead of addressing those systemic failures, which the Government could have chosen to do, this bill piles on more obligations, more sanctions, and more barriers.

The Green Party has long called for a welfare system rooted in trust, not suspicion. I’m proud to be able to help people in need, and I think that most New Zealanders would take the shirt off their backs to help their neighbours. Why don’t we as a Government actually act with that integrity and support people who are vulnerable, children who aren’t getting fed, and disabled people? We want to see the recommendations of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group implemented. We want to see sanctions abolished. We want income support to lift people out of poverty. The select committee heard these voices. The Government just chose not to listen. The Green Party recommends this bill be discharged immediately.

The time has come for me to leave the Chair. The House will resume at 2 p.m.

The House is resumed. I understand the Leader of the House wishes to deliver a Business Statement.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Next week, the House will consider the last of the annual review debates covering the social development, children, workplace relations, Police, environment, conservation, Māori development, and climate change portfolios. On Wednesday, there will be extended hours for the first reading of the Ngāti Hāua Claims Settlement Bill and the remaining stages of the Ngā Hapū o Ngāti Ranginui Claims Settlement Bill.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to move a motion without notice and without debate to mark 80 years since the end of World War II in Europe.

Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There appears to be none.

I move, That this House notes that 8 May 2025 marks 80 years since the end of World War II in Europe, VE Day or Victory in Europe Day, and subsequently in the Pacific; recognises that this anniversary represents an enormous cost to human life, fundamental questions of human freedom, self-determination, and dignity, and a global fight for the freedoms enjoyed by New Zealanders, the establishment of a new rules-based order centred around the UN charter, and a new body of international law; and recognises those who sacrificed themselves in the war for the hard-won conditions of peace and prosperity that we have enjoyed over our last three generations.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the Social Security Amendment Bill. I rise as the member of Parliament for Southland and also as the chairperson of the select committee that has heard submissions on this bill. I want to take the opportunity at the outset to thank the members of that committee for the hard work on hearing many submissions and considering the evidence and considering the material brought before us and reporting back to the House. I wish to also take the opportunity to commend the work of the committee clerks and advisers and to thank all the submitters who did submit to the committee. I also should take the opportunity just to acknowledge the 98 percent of beneficiaries in New Zealand who take personal responsibility and are compliant with the obligations that are asked of them. I also want to acknowledge and thank the taxpayers of New Zealand, who support those who find themselves in difficult circumstances and need to rely on the Government for a period of time for a benefit and, therefore, from the hard work of the taxpayers of this country, who support that. That is a part of the social contract that New Zealand has had for a very long time, and I think something we can be proud of is that we have a system in place to help those who fall on hard times for a variety of reasons and to assist them.

This is a relatively simple bill. It has, however, unfortunately, been misunderstood by many, including members of the Opposition, and I want to take the opportunity in this speech just to clarify a few things. Evidence indicates that employment and suitable work generally leads to improved incomes and is associated with better health and wellbeing for individuals and their families, while unemployment is associated with a range of negative outcomes. I’m speaking here from the report that the committee had before it. I do really question whether some members have read that report or understood that report, but I’m going to go through a number of elements of it so that others can understand this and, hopefully, have that information available to them.

There is a cost to Government of benefit receipt. Currently, at the time of the report, the cost of paying benefits to working-aged people was forecast to be $9.341 billion in the 2024-25 financial year. That’s just a bit over $9 billion of paying benefits to working-aged people. The Government has introduced a target to have 50,000 fewer people on the jobseeker support benefit, reducing from 210,000 people that are on that benefit as of March 2025 to 140,000 people by December 2029.

The current regime of work-related sanctions has been in place since 2010—2010. We have heard, frankly, some quite outrageous comments from the Opposition saying this is a mean Government that is placing sanctions on beneficiaries. The regime of work-related sanctions has been in place since 2010. It was there for the entire six years of the last Government, who did nothing to change that. This Government is putting in place non-financial sanctions, an alternative to financial sanctions, that can be applied rather than taking money from beneficiaries. As opposed to taking away something from beneficiaries, it’s adding an option so that they don’t have a financial sanction, which is currently the only option in place and was the only option in place during the six years of the last Government. That’s a really important point that hasn’t been understood by many, including members of the Opposition.

Come on, Joseph! You’re the one who doesn’t understand.

I’m going to go through this report because I don’t think the member speaking on the other side of the House has read it.

The traffic light system is designed to provide more transparency and clarity to beneficiaries about whether they are complying with their obligations. If benefit recipients continue to meet the obligations, they will not be sanctioned. Just bear in mind that 98 percent of beneficiaries are compliant with their sanctions; there are 2 percent who are not. We want to make sure that they understand what their obligations are and that they will comply with them. They’re relatively simple. The intention is for the non-financial sanctions, which this bill puts in place, to be less punitive than the financial sanctions, which have been in place since 2010—less punitive. Members of the Opposition would be well reminded to communicate that clearly rather than to try to claim it’s something that it’s not.

The application of non-financial sanctions at the red level of the traffic light system will expand the tools available to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to provide an alternative to what are currently called grade 1 sanctions, which are financial sanctions. The introduction of these traffic light colours is a communication tool so that benefit recipients can get a clear indication of their current compliance with the obligations and associated system changes. This will also help enable welfare system settings that reinforce expectations to work where appropriate and will lift economic outcomes of people and their families through exit into work.

There is a place and time for people, for various reasons, to be on a benefit—for reasons of health, reasons of family circumstances, and reasons of loss of employment—but there are so many opportunities from being in employment; there’s so much to be gained from that. There’s so much mana to be developed from that where there are opportunities available to people, and on this side of the House, we want that opportunity to be available to people.

Income support does provide people with protection against life shock, such as job loss. However, to ensure that they return as quickly to work as possible, they have obligations to take steps to prepare for and search for work, and they need to understand what those obligations are. There are also opportunities to improve the understanding of benefit recipients to look for—their obligations—to work.

Automated decision-making: I just want to make it clear that automated decision-making will not be used to assign sanctions. That addresses a point made by the Green Party. Work seminars, which are also another option, will provide MSD with the ability to talk to people more personally and directly and provide them with consistent messaging about their obligations. In terms of medical certificates, this raises another point: we note medical reviews are not tied to the 26th week reapplication process for jobseeker support. A jobseeker will not be required to seek another medical certificate for this process.

There’s a lot more I could go into in this report, but the key point here is that this is actually assisting beneficiaries. This is assisting them to get back into employment. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you. I want to take issue with the suggestion that anybody in this House is thinking it’s a good thing to be unemployed. Absolutely not. In the Labour Party’s time in office, what you saw was a record level of employment, and I was incredibly proud of that. That’s what moves people out of poverty, out of unemployment, and into employment, and you’ll never get an argument from this side of the House that that is not a good thing.

We are the party for workers. We know the value of a decent job. What we also know is that, under this Government, there is a rort going on. This kind of legislation is all smoke and mirrors. We’re supposed to look over here at what is being said about these people who just can’t get themselves a job while the Government calculates how to take away jobs to reduce inflation. I can substantiate the point, as I’ve been in the House as that happened, and I’ve seen the result.

Last year, we had a bill before the House that meant that the Reserve Bank Governor no longer looks at maximising sustainable employment when balancing the needs of the economy. It was taken away, and he was given a single mandate. That was taken away on purpose. For those people who are watching this and don’t understand this, the point of it is that if you raise unemployment up, then wages drop, and inflation comes down. Real people pay a real price when that happens. They can’t feed their kids. They’re unemployed.

I want to also dispel another myth here. I have just heard a speaker talk about taxpayers and thank them. Well, taxpayers and beneficiaries are not different things. People who have paid tax all their lives end up suddenly unemployed under this Government. That is an all too common occurrence. The people in Kinleith who lost their jobs—and the Government was not prepared to step in and do anything for them—are now beneficiaries. We are never that far away from it in this country. We simply don’t have the savings. Remember back during COVID when many of us wondered what was going to happen the next day? How were we going to cope if our job disappeared? That was something that was really close to us. What’s really important in this country is that we have had a proud tradition of a safety net that is the unemployment benefit. We have had a safety net. Not every country has it, and I’ve been incredibly proud that the Labour Party has been associated with it.

Let’s also bust the myth that there haven’t been sanctions before. Of course there have been sanctions before. In every system like this, there are going to be boundaries. There have always been sanctions. If people have not met their obligations, there have always been sanctions. In 2018, the Act that we are amending today had sanctions in it. It had a hierarchy of sanctions. You could have your benefit taken away.

There have also always been good relationships between the Ministry of Social Development and our budget services, who have sent people off to get help with managing what is a very meagre amount of money and with making ends meet. Our budget services are to be applauded for the work they’ve done, particularly since they tell me that the Government has cut their funding. Since we’re creating a sanction, under this particular regime, where we’re supposed to be sending people off for money management, who’s going to do it, people? You’ve cut the money for budget services. All my community is suffering as a result. You cut the money for budget services at a time when you made people unemployed—deliberately. It’s a rort, people; it’s a rort. You deliberately made them unemployed because the idea was to bring down inflation. There are many ways to bring down inflation. This way is morally unacceptable.

We have watched this happen under this Government’s watch, and then what do we get? We get time in urgency spent passing a piece of legislation that actually paints a picture of a beneficiary as a slacker. That’s what it’s about—demonising a group of people, many of whom are our relatives or our friends. They are unemployed at the moment because of this Government tanking the economy. That’s what happened under the watch of this Government.

I was door-knocking the other day in Point Chev, and I came across a guy who’d come up from Wellington because, as he put it, the place is dead. There’s no work here. He was in Point Chev, going off and finding other work because this place is dead for a lot of people. They cannot find a job. If you’re in Kinleith, it’s much worse than being in Wellington, I can tell you, because where do you go for a job? What this Government is doing is getting on its preachy, preachy high ground. It’s preaching.

There’s a vacancy in Mount Albert.

I don’t think that that is a very relevant comment, and it sounds a little bit like this is hitting a nerve. I suspect that at doors in many parts of Auckland right now, the member who said that is actually hearing exactly the same thing. They’re hearing that it’s really hard to pay the bills. There isn’t any work out there. The economy’s being tanked. All of those things are true, and this piece of legislation suffers from being a complete rort. It says, “Look over here. We’ll tinker around. We’ll put a few more sanctions in. We’ll blame these people here.”

Now, don’t get me wrong; there is always a place for making sure that when we are giving out taxpayers’ money, we have proper boundaries in place. Let’s face it: we did have proper boundaries in place. We have had a regime in place for a very, very long time that serves the needs of the community, and it gets people into work. What’s the best thing we can do about getting people into work? Prioritise it. Prioritise decent work, people. That’s what we need to do.

We need to make sure that New Zealanders have pathways through to decent jobs, not to hand-to-mouth existences—decent work.

What’s an indecent job?

Indecent jobs are ones that pay so little—so little—that people end up mentally ill, they end up with addiction issues, and they end up in stressed relationships where they are mean to their kids or stressed with their kids. Those are the things that happen when you don’t have decent work in an economy, and it’s got to be our number one priority. It’s not this current Government’s.

Now, yesterday, when the tax cuts couldn’t be paid for and when the Budget fell short, who was first on the chopping block? Women. Women and low-paid workers. Low-paid workers are easy pickings for this Government. They are not the people who are, necessarily, writing to the Minister. Well, they weren’t yesterday; I suspect they are today. I suspect there will be a whole lot of workers out there at the moment thinking, “This Government doesn’t have our interests in mind. It doesn’t have a clue.” It’s busy focusing on blaming people who it catapulted into unemployment for its own means. It’s focusing on blaming them rather than assisting them in any way.

I’ve heard a lot of rubbish language this week. I’ve heard that what they are doing in pay equity is simply trying to make things better and expedite the system, but the opposite is going on. It’s utterly frustrating to hear such a twisting of what the focus of a piece of legislation is. On this one, I think the same thing; I think this is about making sure that New Zealanders are distracted, that they’re blaming people, that they’re feeling resentful of people, and that they’re mythologised. I think that’s what’s going on here.

The Government doesn’t want ordinary New Zealanders to see that people don’t have work—they did last year. That is the truth. We have the highest unemployment we’ve had for four years under this Government’s watch, so when sanctimony about people who apparently have to be sanctioned even further than they are comes forth in a piece of legislation like this, I ask the New Zealand public: what is the reason the Government’s doing that? It’s so that you look over here and you blame your friend and your neighbour and you blame your kids or whatever, rather than blaming this Government for putting us deliberately in this situation because it did not prioritise the right thing. Labour will do that when it gets elected.

The Social Security Amendment Bill is really aimed at better helping, supporting, and enabling people to get back on their feet and back to work and to be able to regain that confidence in work and be able to uplift their lives themselves and to support themselves. With all that has been said and expressed, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ve been listening to contributions from members of that side of the House for much of today on this bill, and it’s quite disheartening to constantly hear beneficiaries being characterised in the way that they have been, as people who don’t want to go to work, who need to be forced off a benefit to get into work, and who need to be sanctioned and have punitive measures put on them, making it harder for them to survive. I would genuinely just say to members opposite to try and understand the context of people who live very different lives to your own.

A recent Social Cohesion in New Zealand report—

Oh!

It bodes well for our society if people on both sides do that. Recently, there was a Social Cohesion in New Zealand report that compared various indicators across New Zealand and Australia. One of those figures was stark: 25 percent of New Zealanders skip a meal because they can’t afford it—one in four of us—compared to 13 percent across the Ditch. Yet what is this Government doing? They’ve gutted pay equity, taking money away from women workers to balance their Budget. They have diluted a law that aims to protect wildlife, and, now, this: deflecting attention by punching down on beneficiaries.

Ninety-seven percent of submitters to the select committee opposed this bill, with good reason. This is the second reading, and so I’m going to bring their voices into this debate and into my contribution. There was one that stood out for me from a 50-year-old former lawyer who had to retire due to disabilities. The disability arose from an event that happened with a gas system—no fault of this person. This person says, and I quote, “It is extremely difficult to get a supported living payment. There are some 52 pages to the application form that was necessary for me to obtain significant support, over a space of five weeks just to fill in that form.

Ongoing requirements are also onerous, and disabilities don’t go away. The requirements are onerous for someone without disabilities, and for someone who is unwell or has disabilities, that adds significantly to the burden.” It goes on to say that the process is already “dehumanising and humiliating”. Most people—in fact, I would dare to say that the vast majority of people—who are in receipt of a benefit would prefer to be working. For the most part, there is not an issue of motivation. There is an issue of availability of jobs or capability.

I point also to an excellent submission by the Disabled Persons Assembly New Zealand. One part of that that talks about that availability of jobs to disabled people: “The system does not recognise barriers to employment or accessibility for disabled people.” It goes on to say, “Many people highlighted the barriers to employment that disabled people face, and the emotional pressure continually being expected to apply for jobs that they cannot get.” There is, in there, an excellent quote from someone who cares for a teenager who has a rare syndrome and autism about just how difficult it is to get into the job market when you’re in that position. Many submissions talked about the money management system where 50 percent of a person’s benefit is loaded on to a Ministry of Social Development payment card that can only be used to buy certain items. Many disabled people pay 50 percent of what they get on rent. The system that members opposite are lauding will now put people in the position where they cannot pay their rent—reflect on that.

Finally, a disabled beneficiary and PhD student who submitted to the select committee said, and I quote, “I’m a disabled beneficiary and PhD student. It is clear that this bill is not actually about better outcomes for those on benefits. It’s about instituting punitive and bureaucratic measures designed to save the Government money, at the expense of those this Government is choosing to leave in financial hardship.”

This is a bill that just makes things so much harder for those who are already struggling. I even got a message from someone who is in a similar position. She says, “I’m not skipping meals per se, but I’m not eating meals either, when the kids aren’t here. Like, I’m eating a tub of yoghurt or all the beans from the can rather than making a meal. Living off the benefit I get weekly is not possible in any way, shape, or form. My life isn’t terrible because I have my house settlement to live off, but it would be if I didn’t have that. Life is hard enough. I can’t imagine trying to claw my way out of the hole I was in if I didn’t have it. I’d be miserable.” How do you build yourself up and back when you’re in desperation daily? The desperation is being made worse by this bill.

I am confused. The other side keep telling me that they are fighting for the workers, but to me, it sounds like they actually want people to have long-term reliance on benefits. They don’t understand that this legislation will not affect those who are actively looking for jobs and it will not affect those who don’t have the ability to look for jobs. We believe that the beneficiaries who are able to work should be taking reasonable steps to re-enter the workforce and that consequences should exist for those who don’t. I commend this bill to the House.

The same assertions are made from that side of the House—whenever we have a debate on social security and on the welfare system—that this side of the House wants to encourage long-term welfare dependency and that we want to encourage people to languish on benefits. It’s simply not the case, and I have to say that it’s simply not the case for any political party in this House. We all want New Zealanders who can work to be able to work. Some of us are just a little bit more in touch with the realities for New Zealanders.

I think that side of the House forget that, actually, the economy is doing poorly under their watch. People are losing jobs en masse under their watch. In fact, unemployment is at 5.1 percent now. In Auckland, it’s 6.4 percent unemployment. For Pacific, it’s 10.8 percent unemployment; for Māori, it’s up around the 10 percent mark as well. These are the same people who lose jobs during bad economic times, which all too often seem to fall under national-led Governments.

What we have here is a piece of legislation that is, again, an attempt by the Government to make it look like they’ve got the whip out and they’re coming down hard on those that have lost jobs and are on benefits. In actual fact, since they’ve been in Government, even though they set a target of reducing the number of jobseeker beneficiaries by 50,000, we’ve got over 30,000 more people on benefit under their watch. Then they come along with these measures that they say will help push people into employment, when all of the evidence in front of us, including when we look at the departmental report, tells us that many of the measures reflected in this bill have no evidence to support the argument that they will actually do anything that works. It’s disappointing, and, actually, quite frankly, it’s farcical. This is supposed to reduce the number of people on benefit, but it seems like the only strategy for reducing the number of people on benefit is to sanction them off benefit or to make being on benefits so difficult that they simply cannot stay on it.

They were given the option of setting a target of increasing the number of exits into employment. Instead, they just chose this reduction target with no regard or concern for where people might go when they leave benefit. Frankly, they don’t care. All they want is for their books to look better—even though they look worse now than what they looked like when they took them over—and they don’t care whether or not these families have positive outcomes or not. They are very clear with their objective for the bill that it is to reduce the cost to the Government by reducing the number of people on benefit. Again, this is a reflection of the fact that all they care about is the money they need for their priorities and Budget, rather than caring for those New Zealanders who have sadly found themselves out of work and needing some assistance from the State in the form of welfare.

I also want to reflect on what my colleague Priyanca Radhakrishnan referred to, and that is the numbers of people on benefit who have health conditions and disabilities. Now, many of them are not precluded from the measures in here, because they haven’t precluded jobseekers who have health conditions and disabilities. Again, they have no sense of realism for these people’s realities and how difficult it is to take up employment or, in fact, to get employed. They never seem to mention that, actually, there are a number of employers out there that are simply not willing to take a chance with people who are in the welfare system. That’s not the fault of those people who are in the welfare system.

Many of you will know I once was the Minister for Social Development. We all receive the same advice. That hasn’t really changed in terms of the research and evidence. The international research on sanctions is not good. It doesn’t lead to better outcomes for those on welfare. It doesn’t lead to more of them getting into employment. What it does do is it raises the stress levels of those people who already have very little bandwidth to deal with the stresses that have come their way, and it leads to more individuals and their families being in poverty. That is what this Government is wanting to happen and is pushing to happen when they put this particular bill through.

We’ve seen, in this bill, that they have included things like non-financial sanctions of money management and community work experience. As we’ve debated across the course of considering this bill, the Government has continued to push that this is actually some kind of charitable addition to the suite of sanctions that are available and that they are doing something good for beneficiaries by not actually giving them a financial sanction. Well, again, it shows how out of touch they are. If they were to take 50 percent of a beneficiary’s benefit and then expect that that would be money-managed by putting it on a payment card, then they would be ignoring the fact that for so many of these beneficiaries, because of the fact that their benefit incomes are so low, they are already paying 50 percent or more for their accommodation. Then they say that they won’t apply it to those people. Well, that means that a whole lot of people won’t have it applied to them. All I can think, when I’m looking at that, is they’re just trying to look, to the general public, like they’re coming down hard on these people, when the reality is it’s not even a practical measure that can be implemented with these individuals or these families.

The community work non-financial sanction was criticised by the community work sector, by the charitable sector, and by the community and voluntary sector. The expectation that they would be able to on-board a volunteer as quickly as what would be expected by this measure, do all the vetting, make sure that they are safe in their own practice and safe for those that they would be serving, within a matter of days, and that those undertaking the community service would only serve a period of time of two weeks or something is absolutely unrealistic. All of these organisations came out and told the Government that that was the case. How they can possibly do the work that it takes to on-board a volunteer, get them ready, make them safe for themselves, make them safe for everyone else, and then give them a community service experience that is going to inform their future work prospects, as well as support that organisation is unrealistic, and the Government were told that. Again, it’s just some attempt to try and look like they are coming down hard on beneficiaries. In many ways, it’s a disguised version of working for the dole or something—something that we know members on that side of the House like to talk about.

This is not a piece of legislation that is going to support those who are already down and out to get into employment. It is, instead, a bill that is another attempt to blame beneficiaries for the current economic conditions and to deflect away from the fact that, actually, they are responsible for the fact that over 30,000 more people are on benefit and that that has occurred under their watch. Instead, they want to put the boot in and make out that it’s these people’s fault that they are unemployed. This is a sad continuation of the National Party’s legacy of beneficiary bashing over the course of decades. It is predictable. It is so incredibly predictable. You have to wonder at what point in time that political party will reflect on some of the decisions that they have made since the outset of their party being formed and realise that, actually, there was no evidence behind any of those decisions. It did not help New Zealand become a better place. It did not turn the tide on the levels of poverty that we as a nation have faced over the course of decades, and it did not improve the lives of not just those beneficiaries but of the children in those beneficiaries’ households.

We, of course, will not be supporting this bill, and I stand here saying—I put on record, again—that we, of course, will always support New Zealanders who are out of work to get into upskilling and training and employment. But we’re not going to kick them while they’re down to deflect from any of the mistakes that we might make. Certainly, that lot over there have made a lot of mistakes in their last 18 months.

From welfare to work—that is our goal, and nothing contributes to the overall wellbeing more than work. This bill, in my view, encourages work. It’s not—

Have you read it? It does nothing to do that.

I have read the bill. It’s right here. It’s actually pretty reasonable to expect those on a benefit to upskill, to continue to reapply for their benefits, and to make sure they’re doing everything they can to get into work. It’s a carrot-and-stick approach. This side of the House has much, much greater ambition for Kiwis than staying on a benefit, and that is why I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the amendments recommended by the Social Services and Community Committee by majority be agreed.

This bill is set down for committee stage immediately.

Members, the House is in committee on the Social Security Amendment Bill. Members, we come now to Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 3 to 58—“Amendments to Social Security Act 2018”—and Schedules 1 and 2. The question is that Part 1 be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to flag that this is a robust and long bill, so I’ll try to go clause by clause as much as I can. I’ll flag when I’m speaking to amendments as well, just to make sure that it’s in order.

I want to start with clause 5 of Part 1, which amends section 21, in relation to “work gap”. It’s repealing section 21(3). I want to ask the Minister what the policy intent is. I ask this because that didn’t actually get a lot of scrutiny in the select committee, nor was it something that the Minister publicly talked about. The bill, effectively, is doing away with a specific definition of “work gap” in a provision, and, if we look at the Social Security Act, for example, somebody is considered to have that if that person is “(a) … receiving jobseeker support at the rate in [other clauses]; and (b) during a temporary period, [the person] engages in full-time employment; and (c) the income from that employment and [person’s] other income (if any) when calculated over a 52-week period is less than the amount that would, under the appropriate income test, reduce the applicable rate of jobseeker support to zero.” I guess our concern is that rather than just changing the 52 weeks to potentially 26 weeks, the Minister’s just done away with that. We think this is problematic because it would, effectively, reduce the number of single parents who are eligible for jobseeker support. In some ways, it also disincentivises engaging in employment because of that narrowing definition of “work gap”.

I wanted to start with that because it also ties in with an amendment that we have, which is under my name, to delete clause 5 in and of itself. The amendment means that, basically, we would ensure that single parents who temporarily engage in full-time employment where their income from that employment would not reduce the applicable rate of jobseeker support to zero can continue to be considered to have a work gap and remain eligible for support, notwithstanding any other eligibility criteria.

A lot of the bill—particularly if we think about, for example, the debates in the first and second readings—has been in relation to the additional non-financial sanctions, which I will touch on later. This change to what is considered to be a work gap has not actually been given much mention by the Minister, and, I think, actually, the public should have it on the record as to why the Minister is narrowing this definition and taking away one of the specific provisions that helps define whether somebody has a work gap. I’m really concerned about the negative impacts that this could have on people, and I wonder whether this very specific clause’s intent is simply to narrow the scope of who then would be eligible for a benefit, which, in and of itself, will then reduce the amount eligible for a benefit, which then in turn may help the Government meet its target of having less people on the benefit. That doesn’t necessarily mean more people in full-time employment or ongoing full-time employment.

I’m keen to understand, particularly, what the policy intent is and the level of consultation she had on the work gap, because the Minister didn’t talk about those changes in the select committee, nor in her public communications. I think that part deserves a bit more commentary from the Minister. I’m also interested to see if she would be supportive of our amendment that would remove clause 5, because we think, despite our political and ideological differences, that clause 5 will actually disincentivise employment. I think this just feels like an odd thing to be putting forward in the bill.

I’m really eager to start off the debate with clause 5, and I will then go on to other parts of this piece of legislation as we go. I also wanted, while I’ve got one minute left, to flag to the Chair that I recognise that, when we start getting into clause 10 onwards and we talk about the different non-financial sanctions, the language is relatively similar, but I want to float that I may be touching on some of those things that may sound repetitive but that the way that the language ends up applying to the specific benefit sanctions will be different. I just want to pre-emptively flag that in case I’m referring to language that may sound similar where the policy intent is different.

I just thought it would be useful if I provided some opening comments and context. This is a really simple bill. There are really only four changes that we’re making in terms of non-financial sanctions. I think some of the impressions that may have been left by Opposition members in their comments in earlier readings may be misunderstood.

Let me first say that no one is sanctioned if they can’t find a job. There are obligations in terms of people being available for work, looking for work, attending meetings with their case manager, and attending sessions at the Ministry of Social Development. This is all about rights and responsibilities and ensuring that those who are on jobseeker benefits, for example, are taking the steps they need to. Unlike the current settings, which had been unchanged for the six years of the Labour-Greens Government, we are adding sanctions that are non-financial.

At the moment, the only ability is to either reduce a benefit in half or end it completely. These four new non-financial sanctions mean the entire amount of the benefit is retained. There are just a couple of changes. The clause that the member refers to is also related to a 26-week reapplication. We want to ensure that people continue to be eligible for the benefit type they are on. Again, that’s a very simple change that we’ve made. I do want to make it clear that this is not a complex piece of legislation. It’s been through a full select committee process, and I’m confident that we can get through it quite easily.

Just following on the comments from the Minister for Social Development and Employment, if she says that clause 5 was in relation to the 26-week changes, why did she not just simply change the language in section 21(3) of the Social Security Act 2018—the bit that said 52 weeks to 26 weeks—as opposed to just repealing it altogether? That to me doesn’t make a lot of sense, so I will just seek clarification once more: why is she repealing section 21(3) of the Social Security Act and narrowing the definition of “work gap”?

I will move, now, to clause 8A so that I can broaden the scope of the debate a bit. Another thing that she didn’t communicate in her public communications and that wasn’t tested thoroughly, because of the lack of proactive debate in public by the Minister, was clause 8A and the changes to section 181 of the Social Security Act in relation to the application of health and safety legislation. I wanted to understand, basically, the consequences of applying health and safety legislation in a broader sense. I wanted to understand whether, from her perspective, clause 8A was specifically needed as a result of the community work experience. I know that, in clause 8A(2), there is a slight mention of beneficiary activity in the community arranged by the Ministry of Social Development.

More broadly, the broadening of how the health and safety legislation applies to some of this—I’m curious to also know what consultation she did around the enforcement of that. There are a lot of volunteer organisations that work in the community—maybe quite small organisations—and they themselves may not have, for example, an understanding of health and safety legislation. I’m keen to understand how she sees the enforcement of any potential breaches of health and safety legislation as it applies, in clause 8A(2), to, for example, activities in the communities. Otherwise, this feels like it’ll just sound nice, but there will be very little ability to be able to enforce it. What feedback, since this has been debated and introduced, has she received at all in terms of the ability for clause 8A in Part 1 to actually apply in a meaningful way?

Part of the reason why I also wanted to talk about clause 8A(2)(b)(ii) is that it’s an activity that is voluntary. It could be a volunteer organisation. This is quite different from being in a workplace where, for example, you may have people who may be more in tune with health and safety legislation. A lot of our volunteer organisations are struggling to even have enough, for example, governance training to understand the very basic responsibilities under the Incorporated Society Act or the laws that dictate our charities. They would have even less ability to actually understand how health and safety legislation applies to them.

With the broadening of the application of health and safety legislation, how does she expect that the volunteer organisations that, I’m assuming, will likely be part of the community with experienced staff—we’ll debate that later—are equipped with the knowledge of how, when they’re engaging with someone on the benefit, to understand the responsibilities that they may have under the new, now broadened application of health and safety legislation under clause 8A.

Actually, the member Ricardo Menéndez March was on the Social Services and Community Committee where this change was recommended by the Parliamentary Counsel Office. It’s a very minor change that just ensures that, in terms of the report job search that this refers to, the health and safety legislation applies.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just support what the Green member Ricardo Menéndez March was saying there, also. It’s an incredibly frustrating experience for jobseekers, at the moment, being forced off the benefit and then forced to reapply. I want to come to clause 10, in Part 1, inserting new section 183A. Just listening to what the Minister for Social Development and Employment was saying—in particular, on jobseeker profiles—I just need to hear from the Minister, particularly with the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), what assessment the Minister has considered in boosting capacity at MSD to process the jobseeker profiles and whether are there enough staff to process these profiles so not to delay their benefit payments. I’m particularly interested in this area, given that our staff at MSD are not trained social workers. They do not, with respect, have the skills to deal with some of the experiences that people are going through and with some of the problems that are being raised out in the community. I’m worried, particularly, about the emphasis and the extra burden put on MSD, given the current climate, also, in terms of funding, with the Government cutting back on funding.

I’m also speaking to an amendment I put up on clause 10, inserting new section 183A. Is there sufficient capacity to process profiles within 10 working days, and can they guarantee the protection of clients’ personal data? These are some of the areas that we want the Minister to look at, and I’ve put an amendment up to record that. Also, to the Minister, how will jobseekers be informed about their profiles and keeping their data safe? I think this is a huge concern amongst the community. What sort of security can people have at that level? How will the bill also assure accurate assessment of jobseeker profiles, and will there be provisions put in place to prevent AI-generated jobseeker profiles from being used? This has been a push, now, that has been put forward. If we’re going to be relying on that, how secure and how comfortable are our people in the community, and what role does automated decision-making play, to the Minister, in jobseeker reapplication processes? I ask her to consider that also, given there’s a real emphasis in terms of automation.

There’s a real worry at the moment—obviously, we’re speaking to these questions—in terms of how whānau are feeling at ground level with this more punitive approach from this Government. How will they feel in these areas? These are questions that I would like the Minister to consider. In terms of guaranteeing the protection of clients’ personal data, can she give us some assurances that will happen? Will she consider putting that forward as a further amendment in terms of some guarantee with regards to people in our community? We do have communities who are very much on edge at the moment. It would help if the Minister could give some assurances that their lives are not going to change dramatically, given the past history in terms of National Governments and given the Labour Governments’ approach particularly in terms of being more embracing. We’ll get into some of the more community-type kōrero later on.

I would ask the Minister to consider some of these questions in terms of assurances for our people at ground level. What level of comfort can they take now going to MSD, who are working under a budget that we would consider is now underfunded? They don’t have the resources, they don’t have the expertise, and they don’t have the skills at MSD to deal with some of these issues. I haven’t even got on to the Māori situation or the disabled situation. There are a lot of concerned groups in the community at the moment. I put those questions forward for the Minister to answer and to consider, and I look forward to her response.

Yes, I’d like to keep to the issues that are outlined in the bill, and the one that the member the Hon Willie Jackson raises is the jobseeker profile. This is more about the fact that we do want to have more meaningful employment conversations with those who apply for the jobseeker benefit. The front-line staff do incredible work. I don’t have the lack of confidence that the member does in the ability of the Ministry of Social Development staff to actually have an applicant have a jobseeker profile with their work experience. Their qualifications will actually make it so much easier for Work and Income to support them into employment. That’s exactly what it’s about. It’s really simple, and we’re just asking that that jobseeker profile is completed at the commencement of a benefit.

I really want to look at clause 12, inserting new section 233A, which is where there is the detail around “Cancellation of main benefit for continuing failure to comply”. I want to ask the Minister for Social Development and Employment if she was presented with any new evidence that showed that the measures in this particular section would be effective in any way with regards to not only compliance but also to supporting those who are on benefit to go into employment. Ultimately, it’s important to refer back to that, because the objective of this bill is supposed to be to support New Zealanders into employment. The evidence that I’ve previously seen is certainly clear about the fact that sanctions are not a tool that should be considered effective for the purpose of supporting people into employment, so I’d like the Minister to let us know if she’s been presented with any new credible evidence that would support the new section to stand as it.

Because of the concerns that I have with the proposed new section and with the way in which the sanctions will be applied, I also want to ask the Minister whether or not the operational instruction has changed. In the past, it was always the case that a sanction should be applied as a last resort as opposed to something that is willy-nilly dealt out to clients on benefit, given the very serious implications for the individual receiving the benefit, particularly if that beneficiary has children or minors in their care.

Because of the concern that I have with this section and the implications for people who would already be deemed vulnerable, my colleague Minister—Minister! Ha, ha! Sorry, the Hon Willie Jackson.

Wanna be, one day—again.

He hopes to be a Minister again soon. The Hon Willie Jackson has suggested, after new section 233A(3), the insertion of subclause (4): “MSD must not cancel a person’s (P) main benefit—(a) unless adequate support systems are in place to support client compliance; or (b) without considering an evaluation on the impact of sanctions on the client and their family; or (c) there is a risk of the client being homeless as a result of any cancellation; or (d) if any assessment concludes that the sanction is overly punitive.”

Now, on top of wanting to know, from the Minister, if she has received any new advice that states that sanctions will support New Zealanders or beneficiaries into work, I do want to know whether there was any advice about whether this particular section could lead to increased homelessness of those that are on benefit. They are already receiving very low levels of income through the welfare system. Many of them are paying upwards of 50 percent for the accommodation that they’re living in. If they are to lose half or part of the benefit or the full benefit, then common sense has to prevail: their ability to retain and maintain accommodation would be compromised. I’m concerned about this because, of course, we’ve seen this with the barriers to emergency housing being put in place and the blockage to New Zealanders who require it, and with the increase in homelessness being seen across the country. Our social service providers are very clear that that homelessness increase has come about as a direct result of the policy change to accessing emergency housing, so I want to know whether this section is going to result in increased homelessness and whether or not the Minister has received any advice from her officials that suggests that may be the case.

If I go back to the first question, around whether or not operational practices have changed, in the past, sanctions were applied as a last resort. The increased emphasis on sanctions makes me wonder whether or not that operational instruction, or operational way of implementing the policy, has changed. If the Minister could respond to those questions, that would be great.

Yes, the previous Government had a directive that sanctions should be used sparingly. That’s not the view of this Government. The view of this Government is that there is the balancing of rights and responsibilities between those who are receiving benefits and the taxpayers who are funding it. With the traffic light system, 98 percent are at green, which is fantastic news. They know what their obligations are. They know what the steps are that will improve their chances of finding a job. I’ll repeat that there is no sanction if you can’t find a job. It’s just about taking the steps necessary to improve your chances. The 13-week cancellation, I would reiterate, is for if they fail to re-comply. It would be a very rare occurrence where someone continues to ignore their responsibilities with all the assistance that’s available through the Ministry of Social Development at the moment. There’s incredible support that’s provided by front-line staff. At the end of the day, if people don’t engage and don’t comply with their obligations, there has to be a consequence, and our Government believes in consequences.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is our first call on clause 10—at least on the Green Party side. This is the bit that’s adding new sections 183A to 183D into Part 4 of the Act after the subpart 2 heading. This is the jobseeker profile bit. I wanted to jump on to 183A(2), and I will also touch on 183A(4), and then I’ll move on to new section 183B.

In the select committee, a lot of the questions we asked were about how this would work in practice. We heard from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) that a lot of stuff was still being developed around how this would be applied. For example, in new section 183A(2) of the Social Security Act that has been proposed, it reads “MSD must require … [a person] to have a jobseeker profile completed to MSD’s satisfaction.” Since the select committee process, is the Minister aware of any guidelines that have been developed to ensure that people on the benefit, particularly those who are expected to complete a jobseeker profile, have a clear understanding of what MSD’s expectations are when it comes to the level of thoroughness that needs to be put into this profile? I guess the language in the legislation is very broad. It just says, “to MSD’s satisfaction,” which means there’s a high level of discretion attached. Often some of these more specific bits get added somewhere on the website. I guess I’m curious to know whether these guidelines have already been developed or whether they’re still under way, as we understood they were at the time we were considering this bill in the select committee.

New section 183A(4), for example, proposed for the Social Security Act, talks about how the “Form and revocation of requirement” communicated to a beneficiary may be oral or written. I’m curious to know whether there have been guidelines already developed as to when either of these will be applied. When will MSD choose to communicate things orally or in writing? I’m also interested to know, in clause 10 but basically in new section 183A(4), about the changes to the Social Security Act. That’s on page 12, just for the Chair in case she’s trying to follow my references. It talks about how this “Form and revocation of requirement” may be revoked orally or in writing and only if MSD considers a requirement “not reasonable in the circumstances of … [the person], … [the person’s] spouse or partner, or of both.” Has MSD already developed a list, since the select committee process, of these “not reasonable circumstances”?

Now, we’re moving on to new section 183B, which talks about what happens if a person does not have a jobseeker profile completed. Basically, I’m concerned about how this may result in delays to a benefit being granted. This brings me to my amendment—that is No. 266—which would basically, in clause 10, add new sections 183B and 183C in the Social Security Act and require MSD to assess a claim for a benefit despite the beneficiary failing to complete a jobseeker profile if the person is in serious hardship and if not granting a benefit could present a serious risk to their wellbeing.

The reason for that is that I think it isn’t clear enough in the Act. For example, when I was a welfare advocate, I would work with people who were homeless and who were not receiving a benefit. Sometimes, people would take them on to Work and Income, for example, for them to receive a benefit for the first time. Delays in this would have massive consequences to the person. A lot of the people that were working and who may have been chronically without a home may have literacy issues, for example—some of which are not easily communicated. There’s a lot of shame attached to those. Not everybody may be so open to, I guess, sharing the barriers that they may experience in filling out some of these things.

But, for example, if MSD assesses that somebody’s already in serious hardship and if delays on granting a benefit or the requirement to complete a jobseeker profile exacerbate that, I think the jobseeker profile doesn’t seem to be of much use. At the end of the day, if what we are asking for is for people to be in a good position to enter employment eventually, I would say that going from zero to having a baseline income is actually a really good step to supporting people into employment. I’m curious to know if the Minister would be open to making that provision clear so that if somebody is in hardship, the jobseeker profile does not become a genuinely unnecessary barrier to receiving income support.

That also takes me to another amendment of mine that touches on this very same clause. I want to speak to it over the next five minutes. It is around the inclusion of people on sole parent support. Now, currently, people on sole parent support, depending on the age of their youngest child, have different types of work obligations and requirements, but, for example, in the provisions that are being added in clause 10—new section 183A(1)(b)—sole parent support is explicitly mentioned. I just wanted to test whether jobseeker profiles will be required for people on sole parent support who have children under three. If that is the case, I would invite the Minister to perhaps change that and to not require people on sole parent support with very young children to fill out this jobseeker profile. As has been debated many, many times, we recognise that those first 1,000 days of the child’s life are really important. We want to support parents to be able to focus as much as they can on this, recognising that caregiving is work. I’m curious to know whether the Minister would be seeing people, under new section 183A(1)(b)(ii), to still be required to fill out a jobseeker profile if they have a child under the age of three and whether she is open to my amendment.

With the remaining three minutes that I have, I want to move on to new section 183B(3) and the parts where it talks about the lapsing of benefit applications in relation to a jobseeker profile. We’ve got a provision here that means that somebody could apply for a benefit, but if MSD is not satisfied, I think that can end up lapsing. I do wonder whether, since the select committee, she’s talked to MSD around, for example, what the time frames are in which she expects MSD to be able to evaluate a jobseeker profile and to then make sure that MSD can make a decent enough assessment that it has been completed to MSD’s satisfaction.

The reason why I’m raising this—and this will likely come up in other clauses of this bill—is because we have recently heard from MSD about how the front line is “oversubscribed”. The reason why I’m concerned about this is that we’ve got all these provisions, particularly new sections 183A and 183B, that require MSD to be satisfied. I’m assuming that requires people on the front line to be making decisions and assessments and to be reading those jobseeker profiles, which in and of itself adds new tasks to the front line. If we’re hearing from MSD that the front line is “oversubscribed”—as has been reported in the media by Radio New Zealand recently—I’m curious to know whether—since the select committee process, as I’ve said—she understands, for example, the staff capacity and how much time on average she expects front-line case workers to take to assess this, and whether any additional training has been already developed since the select committee process to ensure that those front-line case officers can assess those benefit applications and jobseeker profiles in a timely matter so as to not put people in situations of hardship.

What I would hate to see is for somebody, for example, to make an application for a benefit, fill out a jobseeker profile, and then for there to be delays of days, weeks, or an indeterminate amount of time and for that delay not to be appropriately communicated to the person on the benefit. The Minister talks a lot about responsibilities, but I would hope that MSD also sees a responsibility to assess these jobseeker profiles quickly. Again, I want reassurance, from the Minister, particularly about whether MSD has developed any more operational guidance or documents around how this is going to be put into practice and about the time frames that she expects these jobseeker profiles to be evaluated and assessed so that people don’t face unnecessary and cruel delays that could actually put them into homelessness, as my colleague to my right, Carmel Sepuloni, expressed in relation to other provisions that exist in this bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have answered both what the jobseeker profile is and why, and I don’t intend to repeat myself.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I wanted to ask some questions about clause 15, new section 236B. This is the one with regards to community work experience, which is being introduced here for the first time as a non-financial sanction. I wanted to ask some questions of the Minister for Social Development and Employment to get clarity on this particular clause and this sanction. It’s really important we have this discussion, given the number of concerns that were raised by the community and voluntary sector and their belief that this particular community work experience is, in actual fact, unworkable for a number of reasons. I would like the Minister, on top of responding to these questions, to perhaps give a bit of a general overview on how they may have made it more workable, because we certainly haven’t had that feedback from the community and voluntary sector.

I’m wanting to know, from the Minister, what the expectation is in terms of the length of time that people may undertake community work experience as a non-financial sanction and to ask the Minister whether or not there was a change of heart and consideration given to hardship support being provided to those who were undertaking the community work experience, whether or not those who might find themselves homeless over the course of undertaking the community work experience will be able to access emergency accommodation if they have no other options, and whether or not they will be punished with financial sanctions. If, whilst undertaking the community work experience, they encounter life challenges, which many do, and perhaps become homeless over the course of that time and find it difficult, if not impossible, to show up, what will be the repercussions for them, and will they then face financial challenges on top of whatever life challenges have affected their ability to complete the community work experience?

It’s really important that we have these discussions because we’re talking about a group of New Zealanders who will encounter a level of challenge and barrier in their lives that most people in this Chamber would fail to comprehend. Because this sanction is being imposed on beneficiaries and, in many ways, it’s like a type of non-paid work that they will have to travel to, perhaps on the daily, I’m wondering whether or not the Minister gave consideration and whether or not—because I can’t see it—this clause provides for support for travel and transport across the period of time that they are undertaking community work experience or what some people are calling “forced voluntary service”; and, if so, what does that look like? I mean, clearly, many of them will be struggling with the day-to-day cost of living, let alone the additional cost that they will be faced with as a result of having to find transport to and from that community work experience. If they aren’t able to access hardship support during this course of time, then that is going to cause a major issue for them as well.

I wanted to know from the Minister whether or not they have an expectation, or the ministry has an expectation, that vetting will be undertaken for the organisation and for the person undertaking the community service to ensure that both parties are safe in the work experience that will be undertaken and whether or not there had been a conversation about that. In the event that the client is sick, what are the expectations of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD)? The community or voluntary sector organisation is not really an employer in this situation. They are taking someone on through a scheme that’s been imposed by the Ministry of Social Development, and, therefore, what are the reporting requirements of the organisation so that MSD can hold to account the client who is faced with this non-financial sanction and also for the organisation that has taken them on?

Then, finally, I have seen some of the international research on these types of measures, and it’s not positive. In fact, the outcomes are pretty minimal or poor. I want to know whether or not the Minister’s received any recent updates to show anything different.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would just reiterate that there are four non-financial sanctions, where no non-financial sanctions were available prior to this bill. One of the things that is really important is the front-line Ministry of Social Development staff that are working with those who have not complied with their obligations. They are in the best place to decide if one of these non-financial sanctions is preferable and which one. Of course, just as some community organisations won’t be suitable for placements, others will be. This is all about making sure that there are sensible non-financial sanctions that, actually, as a result of individual support for that person and a sanction that is suitable for them and their circumstances, improve their ability to find work.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just following up also in terms of jobseekers—I’m still looking at new section 183A, inserted by clause 10—I’m wanting to know from the Minister for Social Development and Employment how the bill would accommodate people with disabilities and learning difficulties trying to complete jobseeker profiles. There are some real complexities that I would expect the Minister would be very supportive of—or sympathetic to, I should say. How will the bill accommodate these special needs in terms of disabilities?

I would also like to know from the Minister, because this is such a private thing for some of our people in the community, what measures are in place to prevent the misuse of jobseeker profiles? There is a real fear in our community, particularly our Māori communities, that their data, their information, will be misused. I would like to know from the Minister whether there is a strategy in place with regard to that?

Of course, talking about our community, Māori are disproportionately represented in benefit numbers. Are there any specific strategies around Māori clients to support them in completing their profiles and compliance, and to ensure they clearly understand what’s happening? What has the level of consultation been with Māori organisations and Māori community groups on this? It’s incredibly important, and there’s huge worry at the moment out there about what’s going to happen next, particularly in the sanctions area, as we keep talking about sanctions. We have a clear line on this that we have to be more embracing and there has to be more aroha shown. That’s certainly what the previous Minister was showing, which changed much of the culture that was permeating at the time. I’m very proud of what happened before.

I would like these questions answered, but I also want to come to new section 183A, in Part 1, inserted by clause 10. As I said, in terms of filling out the jobseeker profiles, for some of our people at the community level, it’s very hard. It may be OK for us in terms of filling out a jobseeker profile, but for people who live in poverty and who have complex social and mental health needs, they’re not accustomed to that constant compliance of filling out forms. I want to know from the Minister—just under Part 1, new section 183B, inserted by clause 10—whether the Minister has considered the impact on whānau and kids whose parents are sanctioned if a profile is not completed. We keep hearing that there’s not going to be any change, but the problem is there is a flow-on effect in terms of whānau. There are tamariki affected, and there are mokopuna affected. Has she considered the impact on whānau? What extra supports is she considering to help clients complete a profile and to accommodate the complex needs of some people?

Everybody thinks everyone’s got cellphones. That’s not the case. There’s a lot of people without cellphones. Some people are gang-affiliated, but those people have still got rights. After you get through the whole patch carry-on, how do you traverse a system that you don’t associate with? I suppose that’s the problem in terms of gangs. I wonder if the Minister has considered some of these areas, such as clients with complex mental needs, etc., etc.

Coming back to my original question, how has she assisted her Ministry of Social Development staff in going down this track? They are not trained social workers, they are not trained at community level, and many of them do not have the proper background in terms of tikanga, in terms of iwi needs, and in terms of community needs. I think there’s a lot for the Minister to consider here. I look forward to her response.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for allowing me to take my first call on the Social Security Amendment Bill. I just wanted to add some supplementary questions to the excellent questions that were raised by the Hon Carmel Sepuloni regarding clause 8A(2)(b)(ii). I really want to home down on “an activity in the community arranged by MSD [staff].”, because there is a community work expectation as one of the non-financial sanctions that’s been imposed but I’m concerned that there’s no definition of it anywhere. I think that’s potentially quite concerning, given that, in overseas jurisdictions, we’ve seen these sorts of programmes potentially open to abuse and potentially open to exploitation. What meets the threshold for community work? I do think that is quite important.

What safeguards, if any, does the Minister intend to put in place to ensure that this sort of programme isn’t being abused? There are two ways that I can see it being abused. I invite my colleagues to think of some other hypotheticals and examples of how it might be abused, but the first is that a legitimate NGO might offer work that should be paid work but, instead, offer it as voluntary work. The second is that a business might set up a fake NGO arm to channel workers into their work. Has that sort of thing been considered?

In particular, I’d like to ask whether there has been advice that the Minister has requested, commissioned, or received around the impacts of this on the labour market. It could have the impact of supressing worker wages, and it could have the impact of actually cancelling jobs that might have been created or making jobs that are instead, basically, make-work jobs where the people in these positions are potentially being taken advantage of. That is a particularly important concern because we have seen in overseas jurisdictions—particularly in the experience of Australia—how there have been concerns that there are some employers who might take advantage of this situation. How might we distinguish between different kinds of legitimate community work and businesses that are looking to take advantage of that situation?

Another impact that I’d like to ask about is around whether there has been much consideration on the potential impact of this on the organisations themselves in terms of there being additional resourcing that will be made available to the community organisations. I can see there are a lot of people who are unemployed at the moment, and it’s being exacerbated by this Government’s slash-and-burn policies, but I won’t go that deeply into that. There’s a lot of unemployment at the moment. I can see a situation whereby the NGO sector, which is already dealing with quite a lot, has to suddenly accommodate a lot of people. Look, a lot of the people who are on the benefit in New Zealand—let’s not resort to stereotypes—are skilled, a lot of them are innovative, a lot of them are resourceful, and a lot of them will offer a lot of value within the organisations that they work for. However, the organisations will need a little bit of resourcing and will need a little bit of support to make sure that the employees, the people they are welcoming into their organisations, can have the proper manaakitanga that they deserve. The other—

Madam Chair!

We don’t have Lawrence here, so we’re scrambling among ourselves! Where was my train of thought? Yeah, it’s that concept that’s particularly important.

The other side of my questioning is around what the impact might be on wider volunteering itself. If volunteering in New Zealand becomes associated with being something you’re forced to do by the oppressive hand of the Government—the heavy hand of Government—will that lead to a drop-off in volunteer numbers? I think the vibe will be considerably different if I show up to a meeting and there are people who clearly don’t want to be there but are forced to be there.

I want to return to the threshold, as well, of the community work. Will political parties be able to use these community workers? Will we have people campaigning for different political parties who are forced to be there? I’ll leave these questions for now. I’m looking forward to an answer—

The member’s time has expired. I just want to recap on something, because we’ve had a change of Minister in the chair and we had some questions from the Hon Willie Jackson, just before we changed Ministers, about those people with special needs or those people unfamiliar with the system, people with capability who might need particular help in terms of completing profiles. The other question was around the misuse of profiles. I’ll just put that on the table. I’ll give the Minister a chance to think about that.

And the ministerial capability to fill them out, to assess whether they’re correctly assessed.

Yeah, so I just want to give the Minister the opportunity to—

Shall I repeat the speech?

No, I don’t need you to repeat, unless I’ve missed anything. I think we’re quite happy with that. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to ask some questions that are related to those ones and to extrapolate a little bit further. One of those is simply whether the Minister can share what sort of organisations are saying yes to this kind of community work option. Do we know what kind of organisations would do that? I would hesitate to say most organisations that are based on voluntary work would necessarily want to engage. What sort of work is being considered, and where is the benefit seen in that for both parties?

I also want to know about new section 233A, inserted by clause 12, on page 14. That’s about the cancellation of the main benefit. I took, from the previous Minister in the chair, that she was talking about how we didn’t really have to worry about the settings around community work, because the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) workers would have quite a high degree of discretion and judgment about where they place people and how they place them and the kinds of capability they had to get to the job and whether they had enough money etc. to do that kind of work in that way. I take the point that we have a lot of really talented people in our MSD offices, who, actually, should often be given quite a lot of discretion, but this section, which is about cancellation of the main benefit, seems prescriptive. It says MSD “must cancel” a person’s benefit.

I’m hesitant to use this example because I don’t want to suggest that people who are on benefits are dealing with drug issues; a very small group of them are. If you’ve got somebody who’s, for example, got an addiction issue, they may be going through a process of coping, or not coping, and learning. The point where they get to this point of a breakdown in meeting obligations might be one where the case manager looks at them and thinks, “Actually, right now, they’re at a critical stage”. This provision seems to dictate to the case manager that they have no discretion at all in the situation. What I wanted to know from the Minister is why there is a “must” in this. Why have we gone for discretion in some places—“Don’t worry about it; we don’t have anything to see here.”—and yet, in other areas, we’ve tightened up and made things mandatory in this way? I take the point that one’s about placing someone in work and one’s about cutting off a benefit, but you’re still dealing with a human being in front of you, and there are myriads of situations.

When you have those kinds of discretions that you give people for, I think, very good reasons and where they actually get to make a judgment call and get to know a client and get to make those kinds of decisions, what kind of auditing is going to go on to balance that out? If they’ve got those discretions, usually we would see a check and balance in that situation, and so I would like to know what is going on there.

I’ve got a question about the money management part of the situation. I think a lot of us would have experienced, in our communities, going into a shop with a big sign on it saying, “WINZ quotes here”. You go into the shop, and the things that are being sold aren’t necessarily that great. They’re sometimes of quite questionable quality, but they’re often also more expensive than what I would pay for them if I had cash. I want to know, when the proposal is money management—which, to my understanding, means you’ll be telling people where to get things and how to use their money and controlling what purchases are made—how we are avoiding the problem that we constantly have where, if we subsidise accommodation, it goes up in cost and, if we manage the money and we have a preferred provider, suddenly that is built in because the Government is paying etc., and the cost goes up. These costs are often eventually placed very much on the beneficiary, and we end up with people who are also—[Time expired]

I think I can very quickly respond to the last question around the use of “must” and the lack of discretion. If the member draws her attention to clause 14 and the definition of “failure”, there’s the new section that will provide that the department must impose a sanction if there is a failure to comply with obligations. Then, in the “failure” definition, you must comply, or you must have failed without a “good and sufficient reason”. There is discretion in there for the department to determine whether or not there is a good and sufficient reason. There is a bit of discretion, although the “must” has to be applied in the person.

Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. Kia ora tātou. Can I turn our attention to some questions that were asked, just prior, around clause 12 and new section 233A. Looking at this new section, I’m concerned, obviously, that people will have their main benefit cancelled. The impact of that is a big deal. It is a big deal for whānau. What I’m referencing, when I make those comments, is working in a family-harm team and working with people that were trying to get themselves, I guess, well and better. In a similar example to that of my colleague on my right, trying to get to all the appointments to comply, trying to get to the interview, trying to get to the court is tough—God, the whole setting is tough!—and trying to get to all of those, meeting those obligations, getting there on time, and ticking them off is often near impossible, particularly when they’re under such stress.

I live next to a Ministry of Social Development (MSD) office, by the way—well, I think it’s an MSD office because there are security guards outside. It’s a scary scenario for many families that are already in a really vulnerable place. It’s like, “Gee, here I go again! Now, my benefit is going to be cut. I have to go and reapply. I know these people haven’t already listened to me.” All of these new rules and regulations are furthering tension and pressure on families that do, in the main, want to get well. I guess my question is: in Part 1 clause 12, what support and mechanisms might be in place for families who become subject to these orders and provisions in ensuring that they have the tools, the resources, and the understanding of what is needed to become eligible?

This will likely need to be in a timely fashion, so there’s a lot of pressure. These people, without income, cannot survive—even some with income can’t survive, by the way. These are administrative processes that cause a lot of pressure. I have concerns around that and around how this will actually be activated and how it will occur. As you waltz up to a door—as I was saying, with the security guard—you walk in, you’re tagged, you’re given a number, and then you’re lined up like cows. Those are the recent memories that I have of working in such places. I’m not saying that all the MSD people are horrible. In fact, most of them are probably not horrible, but the conditions and the pressure that they are required to work under are tough.

I’m keen to know what the understandings are and what the support mechanisms are that the staff will have to engage with people that are already doing it tough and that are really ticked off because you’ve just cancelled their main benefit and because of the sheer pressure and stress that they’ll be carrying when they walk in the door. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. From my experience as a constituent MP in Ashburton, I can say that the support offered by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to their staff is incredibly valuable and rigorous. In an electorate where there was a horrific incident 10 years ago, the support offered to staff over that time and continuing is very robust, and so I can provide assurances that it is of a high standard. If for any reason it would be found to be wanting, then it would certainly be improved.

I will go to questions from Mr Jackson, who asked around the jobseeker profiles. I’m informed that the profiles are a standard feature in MSD’s current practice. MSD does support clients to complete the profiles, where that’s required, so if there are any accessibility issues, they can help with that, and they can also provide extensions. The member asked about the potential misuse of those profiles and misuse of information. Of course, MSD, along with every Government agency, takes the security of people’s personal and private information very seriously and takes misuse of that information very seriously as well. They will require information security and compliance with all privacy requirements in storing those profiles.

Now, there were some further questions—I don’t recall from whom—about community groups being able to offer community work experience. MSD can’t anticipate which community groups may be in a position to offer work experience until the clients are actually out there in the community, but they will reach out to wider local groups for those opportunities.

You could have consulted.

There was actually a mixed response during MSD’s consultation, but there are providers out there who are willing to be open to helping clients with opportunities like this.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I find it really concerning that members of the other side have started trying to take calls, likely for closure motions. Two of the four benefit sanctions introduced here did not receive adequate select committee scrutiny and were not flagged publicly by the Minister for submissions, which means that, actually, this is the first time we get to adequately scrutinise two of those.

I want to take us to new sections 183C and 183D. These are found in clause 10. We haven’t actually spoken about those. I have a few questions and an amendment that I want to touch on on those. This is in relation to what happens if a person, spouse, or partner does not have the jobseeker profile completed. I particularly wanted to take us to new section 183C(3) in relation to the language, which says that “(a) any benefit referred to in section 183A(1) that … is granted, at half of the rate of that benefit payable to a beneficiary—(i) who is in a relationship;”. This is, basically, trying to articulate what happens if one half of a couple does not fill the jobseeker profile. What I wanted to ask is whether that half-rate would be deemed to be at the couple rate or at the single rate?

I say this because a couple rate is less than two single rates combined, which is a really archaic way of thinking. It immediately assumes that being in a relationship is cheaper than being single. I’m assuming mathematically that that doesn’t make sense. It’s just a really weird thing.

It is. You share bills.

Not necessarily, because people who are considered to be in a relationship—

You share cars.

No, Mr Simon Court. Being in a relationship could be dating. We’ve had news stories about people going on Tinder dates being deemed to be in a relationship in the nature of marriage, which is why this is actually quite concerning. I wanted to ask, from a technical point of view, whether new section 183C(3) is going to be half a couple rate or, basically, a single rate.

On new section 183D, the “Period allowed for completion”, if we go to subsection (2), there’s that 20-working-day period that’s allowed for completion when it comes to the jobseeker profile. I particularly wanted to ask whether the Minister had sought any advice from Whaikaha or, for example, any of the disability organisations as to whether that 20-day work period adequately accounted for disabled people. I say this because the jobseeker benefit is often the first benefit that a disabled person will enter. Then, they will likely try to apply for the supported living payment if they do have long-term disabilities. Since a person’s first point of contact with the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) as a disabled person is on the jobseeker benefit and they only have a 20-working-day period, I wanted to understand what work the Minister did to adequately consult with disability organisations to understand whether that was suitable.

This takes me to an amendment that I have under my name. This is Amendment Paper 281, which would go to clause 10. Basically, it deletes new section 183 and related clauses so that a person cannot be refused the benefit for the failure of their partner to complete the jobseeker profile. The reason for this amendment is that I’m really concerned about how family violence is not adequately incorporated here. In some ways, financial coercion could be used by one half of the couple to, basically, say, “I’m going to refuse to fill out this jobseeker profile and then, basically, strip away income from you.” In my view, it seems really counterintuitive that this could be used as a form of financial coercion in the way that the new section, as it is, is written. I would say that, actually, if the Government didn’t want to add new tools of financial control and coercion, my amendment to it would be a good way to—even if the Government wanted to retain the intent of the jobseeker profile—make sure that no perceived partner—I say “perceived” because it’s MSD who determines them, not necessarily the beneficiary—can actually then say, “I’m not going to fill the jobseeker profile” as a form of control, which, basically, becomes a tool of violence.

The individualisation of income support is something that has been campaigned on by advocates for a very, very long time. I myself, before becoming an MP, actually helped launch a campaign around this. It’s been well documented, actually, and the Child Poverty Action Group has talked about how this marrying of benefit entitlements and mixing of them has resulted in family violence becoming more prevalent. I wanted to touch on that. I still want to talk about clause 11, which I haven’t had a chance to do. I wanted to particularly go into the new section 233A on the “Cancellation of main benefit for continuing failure to comply”. I wanted to talk about subsection (3) that is found in this new section, because this subsection is subject to sections 236D(3)(d) and 245 to 248.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We’re jumping around a little bit, and I thought we’d moved on from clause 12, but I’ll address Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s questions from clause 12 around the support in place for clients to meet their obligations and to recomply. I’m advised that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) can do things like arranging recompliance activities at the earliest opportunity. Where a client makes contact, they can explain to clients exactly what they need to do to recomply and to get back on track with their obligations. That’s the initial support that’s in place for those clients.

There was a range of questions around community work experience, and I’ll try and fly through the answers quite quickly. I think these were in Mr Hernandez’s section. They were questions about whether community organisations will be vetted. Yes, they will. Is there support for travel entitlements—i.e., to attend the placement? No, there is no direct support for that. Access to hardship: clients will not be able to access the special needs housing grants—oh, yes, including emergency housing, yes, and special needs grants—while on non-financial sanctions. What kinds of organisations would be suitable? The MSD undertook consultation with a small number of community organisations, and some signalled that they actually could support clients.

Mr Menéndez March raised a point around his Amendment Paper. We, unfortunately, will not be supporting that Amendment Paper. He raised points about challenging the notion that it’s cheaper to live as a couple than it is to live separately. I can think of things like sharing fixed costs like the power costs that you could share, and the fixed-line daily rates would be more affordable if you were living in a shared relationship. I can think of things around telephone costs or internet costs, which would be much better shared in a relationship, and, of course, there’ll be situations on the border where the definition of “relationship” is blurred. I think, in general, it’s commonly accepted that it is much more affordable to live in a partnership and in one household, which is, of course, why many people, when they go out in the world, look to get boarders or they look to flat in order to share or split some of those core household costs. That’s why the rate for a single person is not exactly half the rate for a couple.

I’m going to call the Hon Willie Jackson, but before I do, I’m just going to say that if the Minister is going to be standing up answering questions, I’d prefer people not to be shouting back at him as he’s answering. The odd interjection is fine, but if you want to ask the question and listen to the answer, please listen to the answer.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank the Minister in the chair, the Hon James Meager, for his previous answers. I still haven’t got the answers to what I was asking before in terms of new section 183B(1), inserted by clause 10, pertaining to Māori relationships. Knowing now that in the chair we have one of the Māori experts in the National Party, I’m sure he’d be able to traverse this very well, given his background and expertise. I asked it earlier, and I haven’t had that response. The impact in terms of whānau and kids—I’d like to know where the Minister stands on that.

I also talked about the gang question and what extra support—I know it’s a tough area, but it’s an area that has to be dealt with, because they come with complex needs. They’ve got these new laws around patches, which we understand and we work by, too, at my marae, so there’s not a problem with that. What extra pūtea or funding has been put in to support this area?

The key area in this, for me and for us, is the by Māori, for Māori area, which has been a real component in terms of this Government. I want to remind the Minister that it’s actually been a strategy from previous National Party Governments. I want to know from him, in terms of jobseeker profiles, what sorts of Māori approaches are being put in place to facilitate the completion of profiles and compliance. I know that, on my marae, we have an approach that’s not just an individual approach; it’s an approach that embraces the whānau, the wider community, and trained professionals who’ve worked with the whānau. What has the Minister got in place, and what are his comments on this? Is a by Māori, for Māori approach still going to be the strategy in terms of where this kaupapa goes? We’ve been assured by the Minister that there are not going to be huge changes. Given Minister Meager’s expertise in terms of tikanga Māori, I’m sure he’ll want to comment on this and give us his view. Has the Minister considered the unintended consequences with regards to this?

Further to the question I asked earlier about the level of consultation, I’d like to know that if the Minister’s able to find out. Has there been a level of consultation in terms of Māori NGOs, and is there a strategy around that? Has there been a level of consultation in terms of the Iwi Leaders Forum? Minister Meager, perhaps, may have been involved in some of that kōrero. What is the stakeholder feedback to these measures? As I say, we’d like to really find out if there has been a real strategy, given the high benefit numbers—too high; too high in terms of Māori. Our people still deserve a certain amount of respect on this.

Given that, I want to draw your attention to one of my amendments to new section 183A, inserted by clause 10, which adds, “Consider the specific needs of Māori.” Would you consider implementing that going forward? Is there going to be a radical change in terms of the relationship with Māori? Is by Māori, for Māori something that this Government is still—I remember previous National Governments led by Bill English were quite embracing of that kaupapa; they were absolutely embracing of this kaupapa. Is that something that is on the table still, in terms of this Government? Given all the bad publicity, we’ve been assured that that type of kaupapa is still in place. I ask the Minister: where does the Government stand on this consultation process? Will he consider the amendments in terms of considering specific needs for Māori, and is there a specific strategy going forward that embraces the community?

Also, I want to know, from the Minister, how he distinguishes between iwi and NGOs. This is quite a major question, given Mariameno’s got some fundamentalist mates who just want to be consulted. We want some of our groups at ground level to be consulted. Is the Minister going down that track in terms of broad consultation?

I thank the member the Hon Willie Jackson for his kind comments and his elaboration on my many years of experience of being a Māori. I’ve been a Māori all my life, despite the protests of some people in this Chamber.

I want to respond to one of his questions about whether there is going to be a specific approach taken to clients. I would have faith that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) would take whatever approach suits an individual client’s needs best, whether that be bringing in expert advocates like himself to support people through the process, whether that be including whānau in that process, or whether that be determining what the individual themselves actually wants help with to go through that process. I think it’s whatever works best for that person and that family and how well MSD can help them best move through the jobseeker process and back into work that would be the approach that we should take—whether that’s through a particular kaupapa Māori approach or whether that’s a Pasifika approach or a particular ethnic or age or any kind of demographic approach. Take whatever one works best, based on the individual’s needs and assessment. We won’t be supporting the member’s amendment, by the way.

I’ll address Mr Menéndez March’s questions around consultation with disability groups, which were, in particular, in regards to whether a 20-day working period was enough time to complete a jobseeker profile. Along with the assistance that I outlined before, the 20-day working period aligns with how long a person has to complete their whole benefit application. MSD, in that situation, can allow a client more time if they have a good reason for needing it. In those particular circumstances, a disabled person could take longer if their condition means that they need it in order to complete the requirement. I would anticipate that MSD are quite forthcoming with that.

I’ll just address some of the reasons why we’re not going to support Mr Menéndez March’s amendment in Amendment Paper 281. It’s our view that the bill already provides protections for clients when their partner does not complete jobseeker profiles. Clients and their partners can have an extension, all the requirements can be revoked, and MSD has discretion in this matter and would certainly use it in situations involving family violence.

We indicated at the start of this that we were going clause by clause, and it’s been going very well. People have been looking at the clauses. It’s now my judgment that probably everything before clause 15 amending section 236A on page 16 has probably been well-traversed and well-answered, so I’d prefer if questions came from beyond there. The Hon Kieran McAnulty—is this a point of order or a call?

Oh, no, I’m seeking a call.

OK—the Hon Kieran McAnulty.

Point of order. Thank you very much for your reflections. I did want to touch on, particularly, parts of clause 14. For example, I just want to, because no one has mentioned anything—

I’ve just taken a call from the Hon Kieran McAnulty.

I know, but I wanted to just test the comments—

Well, is this a question? I know it’s a point of order—is this a question that hasn’t been—

It’s a point of order. I’m seeking your clarification.

No, but the point of order—is it about a question that hasn’t been answered?

No, I’m seeking your clarification and your comments around the clauses that have been covered.

Yeah, well, we’ve had plenty of opportunities to take them. We can’t spend all day at the beginning of the parts, so it’s my discretion that we’ve covered that part off pretty well. I’m going to take a call from the Hon Kieran McAnulty.

Can you point out where clause 14 has been adequately—

No, I’ve made a ruling, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. You’ll be pleased to know that my contribution is about new section 236B, inserted by clause 15. I specifically want to talk about the community work experience. It goes down under subsection (4)(a)(i) and outlines the type of community work experience that might be suitable. Obviously, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has the discretion to decide.

I actually hadn’t intended to take a call, but I was reading through the bill, and this thing caught my eye. It caught my eye because many years ago for a period of time under the Key Government, I was a case manager at Work and Income.

I did not know that.

Yep. Yeah, no, I’m a pretty private guy. The regular frustration for us when we were trying to help people into work during that time—and it was a difficult period of time—was that many of the rules that came out in that period were really made for the cities and weren’t made for regional and rural New Zealand. Of course, if you become unemployed in rural New Zealand, it is exceptionally difficult to comply with any requirements. It’s even harder to comply with sanctions just by virtue of the fact that you live so far away from the place where you’re supposed to engage with your case manager.

Now, obviously, technology has improved since then, but the point remains the same: if you are on a significantly restricted income due to being unemployed and you are required to report at significant cost and time just to get there, or you’re required to search for jobs in some areas where there are no jobs, that is a massive barrier. It wasn’t considered then, and reading through this, I’m concerned that it’s not considered now. More specifically, I want to look at the two descriptions that may comply with community work experience—the first being with a community or voluntary sector organisation that MSD is satisfied is reasonably suitable, and the other one that MSD is satisfied is reasonably suitable. This part hasn’t been addressed by previous speakers.

My concern is that some communities—and, actually, the Minister in the chair will recognise this from his electorate itself—are so isolated and so small that the opportunity to engage with the community or voluntary group is actually really limited. In some rural communities, the only volunteer organisation would be the rural fire brigade, and there is no way in hell that they—through their rules that are based on health and safety—would allow anyone that is required to comply with these to volunteer for them. It’s quite a long and protracted process to get involved in the fire brigade, with good reason. The point I’m trying to make is that, in these isolated rural communities, the opportunity to comply with this is actually quite restricted. It’s not unreasonable or unfeasible that there could be someone in these current, difficult economic times that finds themselves without work and needs assistance through Work and Income and is required through the process to then do community work experience but can’t find anywhere that would take them on. I want to know what would happen in that instance. It’s a genuine question. I think it deserves to be traversed in the committee stage today.

The other thing that I want to clarify is whether the Minister can rule out that an organisation that isn’t a community or voluntary sector organisation would be considered to comply with this. In other words, could a business fit the bill? If a business does fit the bill and it could be deemed reasonably suitable by MSD given the lack of suitable community and voluntary organisations in a specified area, can he rule out the prospect that someone who’s required to do community work will end up doing so for a private employer for no pay? Now, that might seem ridiculous, and, if it is, it’s easily clarified, but if there isn’t a restriction on that, then that’s quite a serious thing that would deserve further exploration. That’s just a couple of questions for the Minister there, and we might follow up after.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I am trying to answer these questions in real time so we can get some good back and forth and some quick progress. I’ll point the member back to retread a couple of pages back to clause 14 and the definition around “failure”. That failure does not include having a good and sufficient reason, so you must have failed without a good and sufficient reason.

In the circumstance that the member outlines around the rural and regional community, he makes a very valid point. I’ll push back a little bit. I think, actually, our rural communities are relatively strong when it comes to the accessibility to voluntary groups. I can think of an incorporated society’s constitution that I rewrote for the Lagmhor Westerfield War Memorial Hall Committee, and in and around the community of Lagmhor and Westerfield, where my brother farms, I can think of three or four community organisations that centre themselves around a school of about 30. So, yep, in some communities, it will be limited; in others, there are very strong community organisations. In the rural sector and regional sector, the only things that we have sometimes are our strong community organisations, our parent-teacher associations, our kindergarten groups, our Playcentre groups, our hall societies, the local school pool organising committees—all those things that form the backbone of our rural communities.

I’m advised that the bill, in fact, will give case managers more scope to apply consequences that are appropriate for the client than what existed before. If anything, along with removing that binary choice between financial or nothing, this provides, actually, more of a medium way to put some obligations on clients but also to give them the opportunity to meet those obligations and continue to work their pathway back into work, and that includes considering things like where they live and what’s available locally.

I think the only other question there for the Minister was around whether businesses could fit the bill. I’ll get some advice on that. My instinct would be that, if it was replacing something that would ordinarily be paid work, it would be similar to how you can have interns but not interns that would ordinarily replace paid work. Members around the Chamber have had experience with that in the past, and we’ve all seen instances of interns coming into Parliament and doing jobs that ordinarily wouldn’t be paid for. Sometimes they push the boundaries a little bit, and we’ve seen that in the past too, so I’ll get some advice on that one from the ministry.

Ricardo Menéndez March. I do note that I have confirmed and I did hear the advice that was given before regarding clause 15.

Sure. I’ll take it. I wanted to ask why dependent children were added to the definition of “failure”. That is in clause 14. It hasn’t been touched upon. It’s new language that’s been added. Why would you be including that “failure” means “by the person, or in relation to the person’s dependent children” when that was not there? What is the policy intent to that? That is massively unclear and has never been articulated by the Minister at any point in this debate. That’s a significant addition in terms of language. Unless it’s intended to fill some sort of gap that had been identified, I’m keen to get clarity as to why, for section 235 of the Social Security Act, this is being proposed.

Before I move to clause 15 on money management—that also hasn’t been touched upon—I wanted to clarify for the Minister in the chair, who seems to not understand, the definition of “relationship” under the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). You actually don’t have to live together for MSD to treat you as being in a relationship of the nature of marriage. Actually, you could be flatting in different places and still be considered to be in a relationship of the nature of marriage. In fact, there have been well-documented cases of MSD constantly misattributing a relationship of the nature of marriage for people, which is why I was asking those questions.

If we move to new section 236A on money management, I want to talk about the proposed new subsection (1) under new section 236A, where the money management—which, again, is the first time we’ve raised it—would apply if somebody is under active case management. Now, I ask this because this kind of section, even though the Minister has talked about how it’ll apply to a small percentage of people on the benefit, will still apply to thousands, and it requires somebody to be under active case management. I wanted to know, since the select committee process, whether the Minister understood, or had any updated figures around, how many people are under active case management.

Actually, what is MSD’s capacity to, potentially, for example, increase the amount of people that are under active case management? Actually, for a lot of these non-financial sanctions that are being added, there’s an ongoing requirement for people to be under active case management. Now, I think that, in and of itself, raises concerns in relation to the oversubscription of the MSD front line. If there’s going to be, in primary legislation, a requirement that somebody’s under active case management—the Government has indicated that they’ll want to increase the amount of sanctions; the Minister who was here before the one in the chair literally talked about how this Government believes in sanctions being applied more often. I have concerns about whether this is actually able to even be executed. That’s on new section 236A.

I also wanted to then move on to new section 236A(1)(b) in relation to the “first failure”, particularly in relation to the language that is being added around discussions with MSD and an appointment with MSD in relation to a person’s failure to comply. I wanted to ask whether, so far, MSD had already designed any operational guidance around whether these forms of communications will be by phone, face to face, or by email, and how that would be incorporated.

I also wanted to then move on to new subsection (4), which is in relation to how money management will be applied in “the prescribed proportion of an instalment of [a person’s] main benefit that is an instalment payable to [a person]”, where this touches on the regulations under section 418(1)(ia). I wanted to ask whether the Minister would be open to one of our amendments in relation to this, because, at the moment, with the way that this is worded and as the Minister touched upon earlier, people won’t be able to access hardship assistance. We have an amendment that allows people to access hardship assistance while they’re under non-financial sanctions. “Non-financial” isn’t defined in the bill in and of itself, but if we are told that people can’t access financial assistance while they’re under a non-financial sanction, that to me has financial implications, and I just don’t see how that is logical. I wanted to understand whether, after seeing advice from MSD, which wasn’t presented to him or to us prior to this bill being introduced, that shows that jobseeker beneficiaries on average are paying more than 50 percent of their income on rent, he thinks new subsection (4) in new section 236A is adequate.

I also wanted to ask about new subsection (6), which talks about how money management is imposed on a person, and there are conversations around the minimum amount of time, but there’s nothing around the maximum amount of time that is being prescribed. We do have an amendment as well that I haven’t spoken about that would then add—[Time expired]

I’m just wary that we’re running through too many five-minute slots without getting to questions that previous members have asked, so I wanted to circle back to Kieran McAnulty’s question. It was an important one around whether the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) consider organisations such as businesses for community work experience when they aren’t actually community or volunteer organisations. The definition of “organisations” in the bill is broad, but MSD has been quite clear that those opportunities cannot displace paid work, and MSD would not approve community work experience if it is not a community organisation in a volunteer-type role. There may be some grey areas around some businesses that run charitable operations or have charitable aspects to their business, but it cannot replace paid work.

There was a question from Mr Menéndez March around dependent children: why were they included in the bill? It refers to social—

No—on the “failure” definition.

Yes—the “failure” definition back in clause—whatever it was—that we’ve gone back to, but hopefully we move forward. It refers to the social obligations which require clients to meet certain requirements in respect of their dependent children, and those obligations are part of the traffic light system. Dependent children, themselves, do not have obligations.

Can I just indicate to you, members, that the endeavour, in the committee of the whole House stage, is to try and get interactions going—questions and answers. I know it takes a committed Minister and a committed questioner to do that, but let’s endeavour to do that, and, in that case, I’ll make sure that I give the questioners and the Minister the time to do that. That way, we can get through it. There’s a lot to get through in here. To those who are calling for closure motions, can I suggest you actually have a look at the bill and see how big Part 1 is. Not to curb your enthusiasm, but there is quite a lot in here. It is within your rights, but I would suggest you pick up the bill and have a look at it.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I am trying to pack in as many questions as I can to actually respect the process. I genuinely want to honour the process that we have.

Can I just—

I’m just going to continue—

I’m endeavouring to keep up as well—

I can slow the process down.

If you could just, perhaps, make it a little bit easier, particularly when we’re using a lot of sections and numbers.

Yes, absolutely. There are no worries from our end. I wanted to understand whether the Minister in the chair thinks there’s any merit to having not just a prescribed minimum amount of time that people can be subjected to some of these non-financial sanctions but actually having a prescribed maximum amount of time. I say this because of the financial implications that people can end up being subjected to.

The other reason that I wanted to talk about money management and continue that line of questioning was because the Government has yet to produce a list of essential items and what is considered to be essential. I have another amendment under my name that would seek to give greater clarity. Why I’m putting this amendment forward is because, at the front lines, for example, there’s very little clarity for people on the benefit and, I would say, even for front-line case managers, as to what is considered, for example, essential under what can be purchased with the green card. The green card is something—colloquially known as a green card—that people use when they get given a hardship grant. This green card will now be used more often because it’s the one that’s going to be used when people are subjected to compulsory money management.

For example, colloquially, people assume that that can only be mostly used, at least in the grocery store, for things like food, but, for example, toiletries can be included in that. I would say that there’s an opportunity to add a non-exhaustive list of essential items, or what could be considered essential, to give greater clarity and guidance. I think that could be something that the Minister could consider.

One of the questions where I left off before the Minister stood up is whether he had given any other thought about the use of discretion in the application of compulsory money management, following the evidence we received at the select committee stage in relation to the percent that people pay on rent. I find that this shows that compulsory money management, in and of itself, is unlikely to be workable for the average beneficiary. The departmental report—and even the select committee report that we had—very clearly showed that it’s just over 50 percent for a person on the benefit, and it is not just that, right? While you’re under compulsory money management, you may not be able to then access hardship assistance. You will be able to access your accommodation supplement, but the reduction on your ability to use half of your benefit to pay for your rent will leave the person under compulsory money management without the means to survive.

I also wanted to understand—because people can’t access emergency housing grants, should somebody lose their home while they’re subjected to compulsory money management—whether the Minister believes that the access to the grants that allow people to access emergency housing should be relaxed. The worst-case scenario we could see is somebody being subjected to compulsory money management, losing their home, and not even being able to access emergency housing while they’re under compulsory money management. That seems like a financial impact to what is supposed to be a non-financial sanction.

Just lastly, on compulsory money management, I wanted to see if the Minister had an update. At the select committee, we were yet to get, for example, the most up-to-date list of the retailers that people could then use for compulsory money management. Specifically, are these going to be absolutely the same as, for example, the ones that you can use the card for when you receive a hardship grant, or will there be a slightly different list there to better accommodate things?

I also want to note that bills cannot be paid with the card that is used for compulsory money management, and that is another problem, because it’s not just that the 50 percent that goes into people’s rent will mean that they can’t put a roof over their head but it’s also that they can’t use the rest of that amount to cover the bills. We are looking not only at people not being able to put a roof over their head but also at people not being able to pay their bills. I’m curious to see how the Minister sees the provisions of the compulsory money management sanctions in relation to the potential hardship that people can experience under this benefit sanction.

Thank you, Mr Chair. The officials are doing a much better job at keeping up with the flurry of questions than I am. I’ll do my best to try and get through as many of Mr Menéndez March’s questions as possible. He started off, a couple of contributions ago, asking whether or not we have confidence in there being capacity to execute the policy. Yes, we have confidence. He then went on to ask whether or not subsection (4) was adequate under new section 236B, inserted by clause 15. Yes, we believe it is adequate.

Then we had a long discussion around money management and active case management. In response to some of the questions, part of the reason that money management is targeted at clients already in case management is that the Ministry of Social Development is already working with these people and they are well equipped to determine the most appropriate sanction for them, because they are the ones that are most familiar with their clients’ individual circumstances. All non-financial sanctions are available to clients who are in case management.

In terms of the question around “We have a minimum time; will we set a maximum time?”, we have decided not to set a maximum time in the bill. We would be hoping that our clients would be under these sanctions for as little time as possible because we want people back on their feet. We want people to be independent and living strong, independent, and healthy lives.

There were some questions, again, around active money management. I’m advised that a list of suppliers will be available to clients when the policy is implemented. Mr Menéndez March has proposed a range of Amendment Papers that would change and cap the amount of money on payment cards. This would actually reduce future flexibility in the system, and we don’t support those changes.

There is an additional Amendment Paper there from Mr Menéndez March around providing clients access to the temporary additional support. That’s already the case under the bill. However, it is a longstanding policy that clients under sanctions cannot access hardship assistance. Access to hardship is a matter outside of the scope of the bill, and those settings exist in secondary legislation.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I wanted to move to one of the benefit sanctions that was introduced at the select committee stage, with no ability for the public to actually feed into those during a submission process. This is the report job search, which is in new section 236E, which is being added under clause 15B—well, new section 236E to the Social Security Act, under clause 15B of the Social Security Amendment Bill. This is called the report job search. I wanted to ask the Minister—because, again, this was approved by Cabinet but wasn’t even mentioned in the press release by the Minister when she announced the bill. We were only alerted to this when amendments at the select committee stage came through, which means that the Minister knew that she intended to introduce this and didn’t let the public know; therefore, the public wasn’t able to submit. Mm-hmm! That’s correct. We’re now debating this, basically, for the first time.

This job search, those job supervisions, which is one of the non-financial sanctions that is being added, requires that beneficiaries subjected to the sanction apply for a number of jobs each week and report back to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) as a result of this. For example, if we look at subsection (4) under the new proposed section 236E of the Social Security Act, it reads: “If report job search is imposed on [the person],—(a) [the person] must within the prescribed period … undertake at least the prescribed minimum number of job-search activities per week”. Again, there’s a minimum amount prescribed here; there’s no maximum amount. What’s stopping a vindictive case manager, for example, from potentially setting a really cruel and punitive number of prescribed—or a future Minister from directing MSD to add a really unreasonable amount of minimum job search activities that must be undertaken?

In relation to this, the bill talks about how these must be reported, and this clause talks about how these must be reported back to MSD, but the Minister hasn’t given us clarity about, for example, what tools are being developed—for example, MyMSD. Have these already been finalised? What are the fiscal implications around potentially having to design a new portal for people to actually report these job search activities? While I totally understand that the Minister has just talked about how he is confident about MSD’s capacity, we do have recent statements about the front line being oversubscribed. Particularly in subsection (4)(c)(i), (ii), and (iii), these provisions read that a person “must provide MSD with supporting evidence of all job-search activities that [the person] has reported under this section,—(i) only to the extent that the evidence is of a kind that it is reasonable … (ii) in the way that MSD decides … and (iii) promptly after MSD requires the evidence, and in any case within five days after the prescribed period.”

This actually adds quite a bit of work to MSD, because it’s not just assessing the work that the beneficiary has undertaken to then report that they’ve done these job search activities. In order for the beneficiary to be deemed to have then complied with the requirements of this new non-financial sanction, MSD must be satisfied, which means the casework must then have to evaluate these three—at least three, as Minister Louise Upston has indicated she’s requiring right now—job search activities. That’s quite a bit of additional workload. It’s not just looking at three applications for each person who’s subjected to the sanction; it’s actually determining that they meet the standards that MSD will be asking for. Will this be, for example, just sending your CV or having a cover letter that, actually, is not just “Hello, I want a job”? The fact that MSD will then have to determine whether these meet some specific requirements does add quite a bit of workload.

I also wanted to understand, for this new section 236E in relation to the report job search, whether any additional funding will be given to people for whom English isn’t their first language, because I can see that, for example, for someone for whom English isn’t their first language or who may have limited English skills, this may be an obligation that may be hard to comply with. When I was on the front lines, I would work with a lot of migrant Pasifika families for whom English wasn’t their first language. Complying with these obligations can be really difficult. I understand that MSD has phone lines where people can access interpreters, but there are delays around this, so I’m just asking whether the Minister has sought clarification from MSD about the support available for people with limited English skills to be able to comply with the requirements set out in new section 236E, particularly in subsection (4)(c)(i), (ii), and (iii).

We are really rollicking along now. Let’s go to the remaining questions on active money management. There was a question around how money management interacts with hardship people may experience. In terms of paying bills, clients will still get 50 percent of their main benefit as well as any supplementary assistance in the hand. Clients can use these funds to pay bills that can’t be covered with the payment card, but the payment card can be used for some essential costs, such as food. We all know all of this, of course. The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) then assesses whether money management is the most appropriate sanction to impose, and this will include working out whether a person could pay their housing costs from their in-hand amount. But, fundamentally underlying this, a non-financial sanction must always be a better option than a financial sanction, which can only reduce payments by 50 percent. That’s that binary choice. Again, on that, although cards cannot be used for bills, clients’ expenses will be considered when deciding whether to set active money management. If a client’s expenses—that includes rent and bills—exceed 50 percent, it would be considered as a factor in deciding whether to apply it in the first place.

Now, Mr Menéndez March made some comments around information being in or out of a press release. Now, with all due respect to the very competent communications advisers around the building, press releases are not the be all and end all of Government policy. You do have to look further into various policy documents. The bill itself—

There’s no way they could have submitted.

I’ll get to the rest of the question—and then the question around how this is the first time we’re considering the change made by the Social Services and Community Committee.

In the House, yeah.

Well, of course, that’s the process that this Parliament goes through in terms of considering a bill. A bill goes through to select committee. The select committee hears submissions. Submitters sometimes make really good points. Those points are incorporated into select committee reports, which recommend changes to the House. The House considers those changes at second reading, and they vote on them, and they incorporate them into the bill. Then the bill moves forward to the committee of the whole House stage where we get a chance to debate them. That is the process that the select committee goes through, and I’m very encouraged that we have a legislative process that is one of the strongest in the world, actually. Of course, it sets out a very detailed and well-trod pathway for legislators in this House to consider the content of bills, to hear submissions, to make changes, and then to debate them, whether or not they’ll be supported in the House. Of course, the House has accepted the amendments to the bill at second reading, and, now, we’re talking about the detail clause by clause.

Finally, just on whether or not MSD are capable of implementing these changes, well, MSD are a highly professional, competent organisation. They are a large, established organisation who have been doing this for many, many years. They will implement the appropriate training for their staff to be able to roll out these kinds of new policies. I’m very, very confident that our excellent men and women at the Ministry of Social Development can do this now and a long way into the future.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I only have, unlike my colleague Mr Menéndez March, one point. It’s actually around what happens if the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) fails to impose a sanction. In my constituency role, I’ve dealt with a number of people whose benefits have been paid mistakenly. One was an accommodation benefit, which was paid about $20 too much for six months. Now, it was money they weren’t entitled to, and MSD came and sought to recover it as a debt, and that was really onerous. I understand that, and we resolved that.

One of the challenges here—and I’m looking at clause 15, and section 236 of the Act itself—is “If this section applies to P [a person], MSD must, for the first failure of P, reduce the rate of P’s main benefit by half until P recomplies.”

Now, given that, as the Minister just said, MSD is a large organisation and it deals with a lot of clients, there’s going to be a lot of these things going on, and these are actual trigger points. It does not say MSD “may” impose this sanction; it says they “must”. If the trigger occurs and they don’t impose the sanction, does that lead us to a conclusion that the beneficiary “P” is being overpaid? Now, the sanctions are, on some occasions, half but, on other occasions, the entire benefit. That could be $700 or $800 a week. Now, if the MSD system fails to pick up or a person fails to action the reduction that is mandated by this legislation, is it the case that the beneficiary is receiving, wrongly, $800 a week and MSD will then be obliged to go and recover that $800? Are we, if this occurs, throwing the beneficiary into a pit of debt? Of course, they won’t be concerned; they’ll think, “Well, MSD’s not too worried about me. I’ll keep my benefit. All is well and good.”

MSD is stuck on the horns of a dilemma, because they’re obliged to impose the sanction—they haven’t—and they’ll be obliged to recover it. Is that what’s happened? Now, I know that, in the depths of the Act, there is a provision that says, where MSD makes a mistake—I can’t remember the exact details, but there is some ability to give an indulgence, but if my memory serves me right, this wouldn’t fit within it. It’s actually quite an important problem, because there will certainly be cases where, for whatever reason, sanctions that meet the “must” test aren’t imposed. I’d be curious to know what the response to that would be, once you get some advice.

Thank you, Mr Chair. We’re getting a number of questions generally around the suitability of sanctions, so I’ll reiterate that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) determine the most appropriate sanctions for clients, and if a particular non-financial sanction is not appropriate, MSD have a range of other options they can consider. Hopefully, that puts to bed questions around whether or not some sanctions or others are suitable.

On Mr Menéndez March’s questions around the tools being developed to support the report job search, people will be able to complete the requirements via their MSD profiles, and staff are being trained to support people to meet these requirements. On the question along the lines of assistance for English, or otherwise, literacy skills, as with any client engagement, MSD have been doing this for years. They’re mindful of different clients’ circumstances in engaging with them, and they can provide assistance with literacy or English skills.

There was a question around what we do if MSD acts unreasonably in setting a minimum time period. Well, those decisions are administrative decisions which are all reviewable for reasons of reasonableness. Those remedies exist under this change, as they have existed under administrative decisions across Government for years and years.

Then to Dr Webb’s question, which is kind of a circular one: what happens if MSD don’t impose sanctions and what’s the impact on a client? Well, sanctions don’t apply until sanctions are applied, so it’s kind of a circular argument, but there’s not going to be a disbenefit to the individual until the sanctions are actually applied. You can’t fail to follow a sanction until the sanction is in place. It’s kind of a tautology that tracks itself.

On the general question of what happens if MSD don’t follow the requirements under the Act, well, again, that’s just similar to any agency that has requirements under a piece of legislation. The failure to follow those obligations are the same ones that have been in place for years and years and years.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I think I can help the Minister with his problems around sanctions. I think we all know that the research tells us that sanctions don’t work. In fact, we’ve been told very clearly that it can just compound problems for the whānau.

Why did you keep it for six years as the Labour Government?

Well, we made a lot of changes, I thought, in that time. The culture of the Ministry of Social Development was changed dramatically by the previous Minister, and we brought a more aroha and manaaki - type approach. I was very proud of what the previous Minister did.

I can help the Minister in terms of new section 236A, inserted by clause 15. He will see that I’ve got a tabled amendment up which is designed so that families are not left with nothing. That’s the problem with the sanction; they’re too punitive. I know it fits in with Joseph Mooney’s and many of the National Party members’ general views about always pushing down on beneficiaries, but it’s not the right type of policy for us to see our community thriving. That’s why I put up an amendment. I’m sure that the Minister, given some of his answers, will probably agree. This is under clause 15, in new section 236A. He’ll see my amendment in terms of reducing the rate of a person’s main benefit to an extent that it threatens the wellbeing of children or people for whom that person is responsible or it diminishes the financial position to an extent that recovery will be difficult to achieve. I think that that will cover the problem in terms of the punitive side.

He will also see, in terms of my amendment, that the principles of the Treaty are there. Again, given his background and his experience in te ao Māori, I’m interested in his view. Does he see this as a breach of Treaty principles that the National Party holds so dear—as they told us during the Treaty principles debate—or where does he see it? I’d like him just to elaborate in terms of his Māori answers. He gave me some answers before, but does he consider that there is a partnership in place, and where does that extend to in terms of Māori going forward? In terms of whānau going forward and in terms of the strategies around by Māori, for Māori, where does that extend? What is the Minister’s position? I’d like a response in terms of that sanction because I think it’s far too punitive at the moment. I think that my amendment will help the Minister immensely and the House, who all have whānau at the forefront of their priorities.

We’re talking about subsection (3), “Effect: general”, in Part 1, clause 15, new section 236A, “Sanction for first failure: money management”. That sanction, as per my new paragraph (c), is put in place so as to not impact the wellbeing of our children, so that their financial position isn’t made worse by the sanction preventing recovery and making it difficult to achieve. I think it’s a pretty clear message and question for the Minister. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair. This one is an easy one: we won’t be supporting the member’s amendment, because the bill already does exactly what he wants it to do. It introduces non-financial sanctions so that there is a stepping stone rather than it being an all or nothing situation, and so we can put obligations on people who are trying to get back on their feet and do not unfairly financially penalise them. In terms of his question around Treaty partnership, I just refer the member to the inspirational speech given by the Hon David Parker last night and his views on that particular question; I thought they were quite enlightening.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to ask you about—on page 39, new section 270A, inserted by clause 33—the cancellation of the youth payment and incentives for continued failure to comply. At subclause (2), it says that “MSD must”—“must”; again, it’s the use of the word “must”—“also cancel the following benefits if P is receiving them:”. Along with those two incentive payments, or youth payments, there’s a cancellation of the accommodation supplement, temporary additional support, and any disability allowance. I’d like to understand the rationale for this.

My understanding is that this is dealing with fairly young people, by the nature of the wording, and if they’ve entered into a lease for accommodation which has attracted an accommodation supplement, they’re then in a situation where they have a lease that they’re contractually obliged to be in, but there will no longer be money to make that possible. I’m concerned about this sort of spiralling issue for somebody who might already be in difficulty then having that compounded by the cancellation of an accommodation supplement and really having the rug pulled from under their feet. I’m not quite sure what they’re supposed to do, at that point, about that and why we’re seeing that this is going be a good thing or is in proportion. I understand that there is a need for other penalties, but that seems quite dramatic, and I wondered whether the Minister has had advice on that particular section and what the rationale was.

I note that there’s a very similar treatment of young parents in that situation. They, again, lose their accommodation supplement, temporary support, and disability allowance. In that case, there’ll obviously be an impact on children in that situation, given that it’s a young parent. I would like to know if there was any advice on that and to get the Minister to talk about why that’s justified.

Then, finally, I’d like to know about the credit card payments. This is an interesting thing. My understanding is there’s credit loaded on a card, in money management. It’s to be used in certain ways. It says, in that paragraph—this is page 46, new section 340B, inserted by clause 50, subclause (2)—that “MSD may, after receiving an oral or a written application to do so”, actually pay the person out if they come to the end of the money management period and there’s money on the card. They can be given that money. It’s an interesting concept. I’d like to know whether the idea is to incentivise saving on that card so it can be cashed up at the end. I really am open to what the point of this is, but it’s an interesting one because the amounts are pretty low anyway. I presume we’re not talking about a great deal of quantum that would even accumulate on a card, but I’d like to know what kind of quantum might be possibly at stake here. Thank you. I’m looking forward to the answers.

I’ll approach the first half of those questions, and the officials can provide some specific advice on the second half. In terms of the failure to comply with the sanction, the legislation is very clear that there’s a 13-week window in which the client has, or individual has, to comply with the particular obligation. That’s three months. Then the failure must be without good cause or good reason, so not only does it have to take a three-month period of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) continually trying to engage and work with that individual, particularly if they’re a young person, but then there also has to be a failure without good reason or good cause. You’re talking about a situation where there is repeated unreasonable failure to work with MSD and to comply with their obligations and to hold up their end of the bargain.

We understand there are all sorts of exacerbating circumstances and there are difficult situations that could cause MSD to believe that there are good reasons for failure to comply, but at some point, there must be a balancing test between what the obligations are on individuals receiving support from the community and what the obligations are on all of us to provide that support. That’s the reason why the penalty is in place if there is a failure to comply, and I’ll get some advice on the second part of the question.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. Following on my line of questioning on the report job search, in my last call, I talked about subclause (4) of new section 236E, inserted by clause 15B, but I want to move on to subclause (5), which talks about the duration. One of the concerns that I have in how subclause (5) is worded is that the way in which I can see the report job search working is that it’s applied for a duration of time in which the person’s required to apply for a specific number of jobs and to report back to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), but they can’t access additional assistance. The key concern that I have is what happens if, during the duration of the sanction, somebody actually reports that they’ve applied for a job, they get an interview, and, for example, that interview requires them to travel, to get a uniform, or to require additional assistance. There are grants that very much specifically exist. The transition to work grant, for example, exists. Are people eligible for the transition to work grant if they’re subjected to the report job search non-financial sanction?

The transition to work grant hasn’t been updated in quite some time, but it’s actually really critical to, for example, supporting people should they be required to have, for example, specific types of footwear for a job. If they have to present wearing boots for health and safety reasons, that allows them to actually get the job that they need.

The concern that I have is that we have a so-called non-financial sanction that requires them to apply for a specific number of jobs, but then they can’t actually access the assistance that allows them to then follow through with the application, the interview, and then getting the job. The Government is doing the very opposite to what they told us they want to do. I wonder if the Government would consider suspending the report job search sanction should, for example, somebody get to the interview stage of this process so that they can then apply for the additional assistance that means that they can then acquire other types of grants that allow them to then enter into employment, which I would have assumed was part of the Government’s goal.

That actually takes me to two amendments under my name that I haven’t spoken to. Similar to what I said around lifting the report job search should the person meet the required intent, I also wonder whether, in the compulsory money management section, maybe we could have language in new section 236A(6)(b), inserted by clause 15, to replace “even if” with “or until”. That’s with the intent that the money management is lifted if they have met the requirements that the person was deemed to have failed to comply with and that then triggered that sanction. For example, we have these non-financial sanctions that have a duration of time, but some of those are overly prescriptive—for example, four weeks. If somebody already meets the requirement, then they can just continue having no access to the hardship grants and other types of assistance. I wonder, for the purposes of ensuring that no one ends up being further disadvantaged by this so-called non-financial sanction, whether the Minister in the chair would consider that amendment that I have, which actually ties in really well with what I am asking in relation to the report job search.

The other question I had is around whether MSD was collecting any information about the ratio that exists—particularly in the report job search sanction—between jobs and the number of people on the benefit. In times when unemployment is high—and if we have a number of people being subject to the sanction—the reality is that there’s not a job for every single person on the benefit. That’s a fact; there just simply isn’t. That has been the case, actually, since capitalism’s been around. I wanted to ask the Minister whether he thinks that the job search sanction is also relatively unworkable, because there’s no way that the Minister will be able to make things in a way that everyone who’s either subjected to the sanction—or to the obligations that exist that, if failed, could trigger the sanction—will ever get a job. You always have a group of people on the benefit who will never actually be able to attain a job, because unemployment is baked into the system, which puts into question the whole purpose of these sanctions.

Most importantly, I want to go back to my question around the transition to work grant in relation to people that are subjected to the report job-search sanction. I’m yet to talk about the upskilling one—the other one that wasn’t flagged by the Minister before coming into the Social Services and Community Committee.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I just wanted to make a comment. I’d be wary of stating what counts as full employment pre-capitalism, because some of the definitions of what someone was doing for employment under feudal systems and other kinds of distasteful forced labour systems—I’m not sure we really want to get into whether or not full employment 300 and 400 and 500 years ago was a good thing to aspire to. But, anyway.

We will go on to the general response, I guess, to Mr Menéndez March’s questions, and it’s something we’ve covered before. What happens if there’s not enough employment in a particular area to meet the job search requirements? What happens if we live in a rural area where the community work or the voluntary groups aren’t available? That’s all covered under the “failure to comply without good cause or good reason” section. If we consider all of those individual circumstances, those are all captured under that “failure” definition. I think a lot of these questions around particular circumstances have well and truly been answered and captured under that section.

I will touch very quickly on the second part of Helen White’s contribution. The question was around whether the provision to be paid out money on a payment card after money management will incentivise savings. I’m advised that we actually expect clients to be using the money on the card to meet their essential costs. This provision is useful, though, where a client has completed the sanction and may need to access the money. For example, if someone moves off the benefit or into employment, they might prefer for the Ministry of Social Development to pay them what is left, rather than continuing to use the credit until it runs out. That’s the reason why there’s provision to be paid out money on a payment card.

My colleagues are celebrating for me because, after an hour and 10 minutes of seeking a call, the youth spokesperson for the Labour Party is able to ask the youth Minister, now in the chair, answering for the social development Minister, about youth benefits. I hope to ask the Minister some questions about the effect of the non-financial sections on young people. I’m talking here about 16- to 19-year-olds who are eligible for the youth payments and the youth jobseeker benefits, but I’m also speaking about people who are older than 19 but younger than 24 and who are an important group to target in getting into work quickly. The research shows that being in work and getting into the workforce is really important for the development of young people, but it’s also really important to support them.

I’m asking here about new section 233A, inserted by clause 12, through to new section 243AA, inserted by clause 19, and the impact of the non-financial sanctions. I want to put four different questions to the Minister. Firstly, is he concerned about the increased reapplication frequency punishing instability for young people? Does he think that young people—especially those new to the workforce, without strong family support, and often facing unstable housing and fluctuating health conditions and patchy access to technology and transport—are all well placed to respond to an increase in sanctions, whether they are financial or not—but particularly around the non-financial sanctions—and whether young people can in fact comply with those? When we’re talking here about some of the most vulnerable people in our community—16- to 19-year-olds with nobody backing them, no stable housing at all, and no adults in their corner—are these the people who we should be sanctioning in the way that new sections 233A to 243AAA envision?

The next question is about the burden of the administration—say, on a minimum income—that would be put on to young people who might not be able to access either the system through the front of the house, because they don’t have access to ordinary transport. Driver licensing is a real problem in New Zealand for young people, and so getting there in rural areas is harder, and access to public transport, now that public transport is more expensive for young people, is a real issue.

It also points to this idea that missed appointments, lost paperwork, and systems errors are going to have an impact on everyone in the system but particularly on young people who do not have those skills after years of experience in a system. If you are 16 and have had limited educational opportunities and limited work opportunities, you’re exactly the kind of person who, if you then have to comply with further rules in a bureaucratic system, is going to muck it up. Are these sanctions at all appropriate for the young people to whom they will apply, and how is the Minister considering the impact of this on the dignity of young people who are within the system already?

My next question is about extending the sanction periods on the records of young people. As I read the application of the sections, it looks to me that recording obligation failures for young people will now increase to double the period—so a full two years for young people. Effectively, that would mean that somebody who was 17 who found that they were unable to comply might have a failure notice on their record for a long time, and they would be required—

I’m sorry, I know the member has waited patiently for this moment, but the Government has indicated that it does not wish to proceed any further with urgency. I will therefore leave the Chair to report progress.

Progress to be reported.

Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Social Security Amendment Bill and reports that it has made progress on the bill. I move, That the report be adopted.

The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 13 May.

The House adjourned at 5.56 p.m.