Parliamentary debates: Wednesday, 14 May 2025

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

Members, I regret to inform the House of the death, on 19 April 2025, of Peter Malcolm Hilt, who represented the electorate of Glenfield from 1990 to 1996. He chaired the Government Administration Committee, was a member of the Justice and Law Reform Committee, and in 1995 became the last member to be appointed as Deputy Chairman of Committees. In 1996, he was the first to be appointed to the role of Assistant Speaker. I desire on behalf of this House to express our sense of loss and sympathy with the relatives of the late former member. I now ask members to stand with me to observe a period of silence as a mark of respect for his memory.

Members stood as a mark of respect.

I’m sure that members would wish to welcome His Excellency Dr Kao Kim Hourn—Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations—and his accompanying delegation, who are in the gallery.

No petitions have been delivered to the Clerk. No papers have been delivered to the Clerk. No select committee reports have been delivered to the Clerk. The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of a bill.

Legislation Amendment Bill, introduction.

The bill is set down for first reading.

to the Minister of Finance

What recent reports has she seen on the Government’s fiscal position?

There’s been some recent ill-informed commentary suggesting New Zealand’s fiscal position is strong and that our debt is not too high. I disagree. That view counts for New Zealand’s super fund as if it were available for day-to-day costs. It is not. It was confirmed this week that we’ll start contributing to superannuation from 2028. That money is already committed. The reality is our debt is very high by historic standards, we’re spending significant amounts on interest, and our ability to respond to future shocks is limited. Now is the time to rebuild buffers, reduce waste, and get the books back on a sustainable path, and that is exactly what next week’s Budget will do.

What is the scale of New Zealand’s debt problem, and why does it matter?

Between 2019 and 2024, Government debt increased by nearly $120 billion, rising from under $58 billion to $175 billion. Net core Crown debt reached 42 percent of GDP last year, the highest since the mid-1990s. The Government is still borrowing around $500 million a week, and that is not sustainable. Last year, we paid $8.9 billion in interest, and that is money that cannot go to health, education, or infrastructure. High debt limits our ability to respond to future shocks, increases our exposure to global risks, and places an unfair tax burden on future generations.

What is the Government doing to get debt under control while protecting essential services?

The Government is taking a responsible, balanced approach. We are not reducing essential services; we are re-prioritising existing spending towards high-priority areas. That means reducing low-value or wasteful spending and focusing on core services like health, education, and law and order. We’re also limiting the growth in new spending. The goal is simple: to deliver better results from the money already being spent, not just rely on more borrowing and more tax. By rebuilding fiscal buffers and managing spending carefully, we will put New Zealand in a stronger position for whatever lies ahead.

Has the Minister considered alternative approaches to fiscal and economic management?

I have seen some interesting proposals from “Planet La La Land”, including an $88 billion tax grab, and unlike some members opposite, I’m prepared to rule them out.

I’m on my feet. I’m sure even the Minister doesn’t read documents from “La La Land”. If it’s the end of the question, we’ll go to Laura McClure.

to the Associate Minister of Education

What recent announcements has he made regarding school attendance?

Today, I announced, on behalf of the Government, that Budget 2025 includes a $140 million package of new spending to improve attendance at schools over the next four years. This includes around $123 million for the delivery of a new Attendance Service, and almost $17 million to support and strengthen front-line attendance services, with better information, better case management, and more efficiency so that children get back to school when they’re not attending.

What reports has he seen about the existing Attendance Service?

When I became the Associate Minister of Education, I asked the Education Review Office (ERO) to review the Attendance Service. The report found that the Attendance Service was ineffective. It found that the current system fails to consistently improve student attendance, because funding varies by provider. ERO and the Ministry of Education recommended substantial reform, and that is what we’re doing. For example, the Government’s attendance action plan will include a requirement for schools to have an attendance management plan aligned to the Stepped Attendance Response scheme, or STAR, and that new and improved Attendance Service will address all of the Education Review Office’s recommendations.

How will the new Attendance Service be improved?

We have listened extensively to principals, attendance officers, youth aid police officers, and social workers in a series of hui or round tables—

What about children?

—up and down this country. We have also listened to children—for that member who is interested. What we have done through this consultation is ensure that new funding will mean increased capacity to take referrals for chronically absent and non-enrolled students, who will identify and address the reasons for their absence. Providers will be equitably resourced and will work with a range of social agencies. There will be clear expectations, and, altogether, we will see each community working in the way that the most effective communities that I’ve listened to operate now.

to the Prime Minister

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

Yes.

What changed between Nicola Willis saying National “fully supported the 2020 law change to provide better pay equity for women”, stating at the time “it establishes mechanisms which allow people to make claims where pay equity and equal pay principles are not upheld”, and yesterday, when the Government tried to claim that the law change they fully endorsed at the time was wrong?

As I said yesterday, the Minister—it was a priority for her from day one. As we went through the course of the last 18 months, it became apparent that we have a broken, unworkable, unaffordable system left to us behind by the last Labour Government.

So was Nicola Willis wrong to describe the changes made in 2020 as “a National bill with a Labour sticker on it”?

Again, as we said, we went through the last 18 months, as it became very apparent how broken the system actually is. I think the question for the member is actually: are you going to support the new, fairer, clearer system; or are you going back to the broken, unworkable, unaffordable Labour Act? [Interruption]

Questions only come from one side of the House.

When he says it’s unaffordable, is he saying the thing that changed between National fully endorsing better pay equity protection for women and their decision to repeal those extra provisions was that they found out it was going to cost more than they’d previously thought?

No. The system has got completely out of whack as a Labour piece of law, in practice. When you have librarians being compared to fisheries officers, when you have administration workers being compared to civil engineers, it needs some sorting out. We are deeply committed to pay equity, but the practice had become unworkable, unaffordable, and broken. We’re fixing it, like everything. [Interruption]

Before the member asks his question, if the House will just quieten down, and certainly reduce the amount of barracking during answers to questions.

Does he stand by the statement made on his behalf in question time last week: “We believe that a lot of settlements being made now are settlements that should not be made”; if so, which settlements does the Government believe should not be made?

Well, the point that we’re trying to fix up is a few things. One is the fact that we have comparators that aren’t realistic, and so we’re being very clear about tightening up the hierarchy of comparators. The second thing is that many of the claims have been very broad. There have been up to 90 different occupations that often come together in one claim with multiple employers. All we’re doing is going back to what was proposed in 2017, before Labour passed a law—took three years, did it under urgency, created a lot of flaws—and now we are fixing it up. And so the question for the member, again, is: are you with the new system or are you going back to the old system?

Point of order, Mr Speaker. First thing: I think the Prime Minister is well aware that he can’t ask the Opposition questions, but he certainly can’t ask the Opposition questions when he hasn’t even answered the question that he was asked. The question that he was asked did have two parts. One was whether he stood by the statement that Winston Peters made on his behalf, and he hasn’t indicated whether he did. The second is: if there were specific claims that he didn’t think should have been made, which ones were they? He didn’t deal with either of those two things.

Well, I think he was getting to it, but the Prime Minister may continue.

Yeah, I’ll just say it’s not up to a Minister to determine the claims; we have a law to do that. We have changed the law, and under a new law, we expect pay equity claims to come forward, sadly. We’ve put money aside to actually pay and make sure those settlements can be delivered. Again, the question is for the member: which system do you support?

Why are primary school teachers eligible to lodge a pay equity claim under the new scheme but secondary school teachers are not?

Well, again, we’ve tightened up the criteria—going through, looking, making sure that there’s good evidence for a pay equity claim where there is sex-based discrimination, making sure that there is a relevant hierarchy of comparators, making sure that the claims are not broad, that they are specific, and there’s a good review period. You know, anyone—any individual, any union—can actually launch a claim under the new laws, and we encourage them to do so.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked the Prime Minister why it was that secondary school teachers can’t lodge a claim but primary school teachers can. He’s just said that any union can lodge a claim, when that isn’t true. He hasn’t actually answered the question of why one group of teachers can and another group of teachers can’t.

Well, look, you may not be getting an answer the way you want it, but the answers the Prime Minister gives stand. If that leads to further supplementaries or some other course of action, so be it.

Why does the Government think that women working in the funded sector—like Plunket nurses, palliative care nurses, aged-care workers, and midwives—should settle for less pay given his Government’s decisions not to fund pay equity in those predominantly Government-funded sectors?

Again, individuals or unions can make claims under the new legislation. The criteria is clear. We’ve changed the criteria—I understand that—to fix a broken, unworkable system, but individuals, unions may make new claims under the new law.

Is he not aware that his Government has made an explicit decision not to fund pay equity claims in the funded sector?

Again, I just say to the member: we have tightened up this legislation given how unworkable and broken it has become. We are making sure there is strong evidence for claims. If there’s evidence and merit for claims, go forward—if there is, in fact, a case around stronger, tighter comparisons on comparators, if there is actually a need for us to have a longer review period, and also to make sure that the claim is actually specific, not broad. [Interruption]

Good—good. We’ll just calm down.

to the Minister of Transport

What announcements has he made regarding the Government’s crackdown on drunk drivers?

It’s Road Safety Week, and I’m pleased to confirm that our crackdown on drunk-driving is showing signs of success. Stats from 2024 show an almost 40 percent reduction in the number of road deaths where alcohol was a contributing factor. It’s fantastic news; it shows our plan to improve road safety is working.

How is the Government tackling drunk-driving?

We’re focused on improving road safety through road policing and enforcement, investment in new and safe roading infrastructure, and targeting contributors to fatal crashes such as drugs and alcohol. Police have really stepped up their efforts. In 2024, police delivered 4,118,159 breath and breath-screening tests—the highest number recorded in a calendar year, smashing their target which was 3.3 million breath tests per year. They also exceeded their target of focusing 65 percent of their breath testing on the highest risk times. We’re really proud of the police and we back them all the way.

What impact is this focus on drunk-driving having on the total road toll?

It is making a difference. In 2023, there were 92 alcohol-related road deaths; last year, 2024, down to just 57. There’s a steep reduction in alcohol-related road deaths; it’s the lowest in a decade. It’s also significant given the presence of factors that can drive up the road toll such as population increases, continued increases in the size of the vehicle fleet, and increases in the total vehicle kilometres travelled. Every avoidable road death is a tragedy. There’s always more work to do, but this is a step in the right direction.

What other actions is the Government taking to reduce road deaths?

Well, alcohol is one substance that can cause danger and death on our roads. Drugs are currently going untested. That’s why the Government has passed, finally, Parliament’s third attempt at roadside drug-testing, which will come into effect later in the year. Around 30 percent of our road deaths have resulted from crashes involving drivers who have consumed impairing prescription or illicit drugs. This will be a big step forward and bring our drug-testing regime into line with our very successful breath-testing regime.

On the question of road safety and alternative transport and drunkenness, does the Minister consider proposals to fund light rail right across Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch for $11 billion in this document which I’ve got here [Displays Green Party document, with inserted picture of Soviet flag], when Auckland—

Keep advertising!

Thanks for the shout-out, Winston. Join the party—I’ll send you a membership form.

Listen. I don’t want to send an entire party out but I will. When questions are being asked, regardless of whether you like them or not, you listen to them quietly.

Does the Minister consider proposals to fund light rail across Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch for $11 billion—in this document right here—when Auckland light rail alone would cost $15 billion, to be an example of the inebriated influence?

Well, it would be a question that may stand, although you can’t use a Government question to attack an Opposition party.

I didn’t.

I realise how skilfully you’ve put that; no question about that. The problem is the question is about drink-driving, not railcar driving. So we’ll give it a miss.

Point of order. The last supplementary question asked by the original questioner widened the scope of the subject, and the Minister answered. That gave me a chance, which I was waiting for desperately, to ask the question correctly. Thank you very much.

Yeah, well there is always the problem of creeping scope on questions, and so a brief answer might be appropriate. It’d better be brief—like “No.”

Well, Mr Speaker, I noticed the member holding up a copy of the hammer and sickle, and I think that says it all about the party’s plans he’s talking about!

Point of order, sir. Thank you very much. Far be it for me to enter into an issue that involves another party, but there is actually an important principle here. The Deputy Prime Minister deliberately used that question to attack another party in this Parliament. He held up a document produced by that party. Now, that should have been enough clues to stomp down on the question. It should not have been allowed, regardless of what previous supplementaries touched on, and then the answer itself followed through with the exact thing that you tried to prevent.

Yes, that’s true, and I’ll deal with that outside of this particular forum.

Why don’t you dismiss the whole party?

Who spoke then? Question No. 5, the Hon Barbara Edmonds.

to the Minister of Finance

Noa’ia, Mr Speaker. Does she agree with Christopher Luxon, when describing FamilyBoost, that “Our view is it doesn’t cost much more to administer”; if so, how much has been spent on administering the scheme relative to the amount paid out?

Yes, in context, which in this case was a quote made in Opposition long before Inland Revenue (IR) had given any advice. To the second part, as the member will know from working at IR, there is always a cost to administer tax credits and rebates, especially with a new scheme. For FamilyBoost, it was important to have systems in place to ensure integrity, make it easy to apply, deal with phone calls, and provide support and education for parents to claim what they are entitled to. I don’t have information on actual administration costs, but IR received $12.1 million this year to administer FamilyBoost, reducing in future years. So far, more than 58,000 families have benefited from this payment, and I want to see many more benefit from it in the months ahead.

Have the admin costs of $14 million this year proven to be value for money since only half the number of families have taken up FamilyBoost, and only $48 million has been paid out?

I want to see more families benefiting from this scheme, which puts cash directly in the bank accounts of people with high early childhood education costs. That’s why I have asked Inland Revenue to provide me urgent advice on changes we can make to the scheme to ensure more New Zealand families can benefit from it, and I look forward to making announcements about that in June. The alternative, of course, is the approach that member proposes in which zero families would get a FamilyBoost payment.

When she said, “I have told Inland Revenue I expect the cost to fall in coming years.”, does that mean she has instructed Inland Revenue to spend less than the $11 million she has already allocated for admin costs in the next year?

Well, it is wonderful to see that we are now finally agreeing that it is always appropriate to look for efficiencies and reductions in Government spending that aren’t driving value. That is my baseline expectation of every Government agency: look for efficiency; do it with less money if you possibly can—and I have exactly the same expectation of the Inland Revenue Department.

Can she confirm that any money that hasn’t been paid out to families for FamilyBoost this year will be returned to the Government, and Budget 2025 will reflect this?

Budget 2025 will be revealed on Budget day—just a few sleeps to go. What I have made clear is that the indications of the amount that we wanted to spend on the scheme remain my intentions, and what I want to see is many more families benefiting from this scheme. I want those dollars in the bank accounts of Kiwi families who are struggling with the cost of living. They like this scheme. We just need more of them to be eligible for it.

When will the remainder of the 100,000 families she promised FamilyBoost receive it?

Well, as I’ve said, that’s subject to future announcements.

When will she admit that this policy failure has let down working families just like she has let down working women across the country? [Interruption]

Sorry, just ask the question again.

When will she admit that this policy failure has let down working families?

Well, I disagree with several characterisations in that question, and I’d just say this: that member wishes to support women and working women. When she sees misogynistic terms of abuse used against—

Just a minute.

—women, she should—

Stop there! The question is to answer from a Government perspective, not attack other members in the House, and that’s the final warning on that one. Is there another supplementary? Question No. 6, the Hon Marama Davidson.

E tautoko ana ia i ngā kōrero me ngā mahi katoa a tōna Kāwanatanga—sorry, to the Prime Minister. [Interruption]

Sorry, there’s a wee conversation going on over here. You’re obviously talking to me. What were you saying?

No, no, no, I wasn’t, sorry.

Oh, well, that’s something, then, you should keep very quiet, to yourself.

to the Prime Minister

E tautoko ana ia i ngā kōrero me ngā mahi katoa a tōna Kāwanatanga?

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

Yes.

Does he agree that healthcare is a right and that access to it should not be determined by how much money you have?

We want all New Zealanders to have access to healthcare. Whether it’s in the public system, the private system, we want their outcomes and their health needs met.

Is he aware that one in six adults in Aotearoa avoid seeing their GP due to costs, and, if so, what is he doing about it?

Well, I just encourage the member to look at the health Minister’s recently announced primary care package, where he’s doing everything he can to make sure that overseas doctors that are here in New Zealand—that their qualifications are recognised so they can get into GP practices. The work that he’s doing to incentivise attracting nurses and support and GPs into rural practices—I just encourage the member to go look at that policy; I think there’s a lot of things that she would want to support.

If improving access to GPs is a top priority, as said by his health Minister, then why has his Government not maximised GP training placements at Auckland and Otago universities?

The places will be up over 100 over the course of this term; I think the member may have not followed some of the announcements that have happened since we’ve come to Government. But I think the other thing is it’s incredibly sad that the member didn’t actually support the Budget last year that led to $17 billion more going into healthcare.

Does he accept Victoria University research findings that show primary care spending has not increased in real terms since 2009, and will his Government continue this austerity approach or invest in this sector so it can deliver the care New Zealanders need?

What I can speak to is that this is a Government that has a record expenditure on healthcare. We spend close to $30 billion a year. We put another $17 billion in over the course of the last Budget, and the Minister of Finance has already confirmed there’ll be more money going to health this year. We have a lot of money going in. We’re doing some good work in expanding our workforce. We’ve got clarity about the targets that we expect patients to receive. We want to see a higher-performing Health New Zealand and the Minister’s doing a great job trying to get that performance improvement.

Does he agree with the New Zealand Initiative that “Lack of GP access forces patients to emergency departments, overwhelming them nationwide … a financial haemorrhage hiding in plain sight.”?

Well, we know that there is huge pressure on our healthcare system that has built up over a long period of time. But I would just encourage the member to look at what we are doing in health because I think there are a lot of things the member would support. We’re putting more money in, we’re hiring more people, we’ve got clarity around the targets, we’re making sure things are patient-focused. We’ve got work to do to make sure we get a high-performing Health New Zealand, but we’re on to that too.

Supplementary question.

Supplementary question, the Rt Hon Winston Peters. I’ll just say I do hope it’s a genuine question, not a dig at the Opposition.

Does the Prime Minister agree that mining income and royalties will help out with paying for healthcare, and does he also consider that a proposal for mining royalties to increase from 2 to 4 percent in this document being an indication that—

No, no—sorry. The Rt Hon Winston Peters, that’s an interesting topic for a speech. We’ve got the general debate coming up shortly; you can expand it there.

My question is to the Minister for Māori Development in absentia: does he stand by his statement—

No—no. Start again. Sorry, look, the rules are very, very clear. You’ve got to present the question to the House as it’s on notice, and therefore as it’s on the drill sheet, so that everyone knows exactly—no adornments; nothing else. Please start again.

to the Minister for Māori Development

Does he stand by his statement that “Over the past 50 years, the Tribunal has made significant contributions to the Māori Crown relationship and informed the settlement of both historical and contemporary Treaty claims impacting generations of whānau across the country”? [Interruption]

Right, we will wait for total silence as the Minister replies.

on behalf of the Minister for Māori Development: Yes.

What problem is he trying to solve by reviewing the Waitangi Tribunal when it is doing exactly what it was originally set up to do and has been doing an exemplary job for the last 50 years, like that member?

Just why the last bit in the question? It causes problems for everybody. The last bit was totally rhetorical and unnecessary.

Move on.

Excuse me! Ask the question again without the flick at the end.

What problem is he trying to solve by reviewing the Waitangi Tribunal when it is doing exactly what it was originally set up to do and has been doing an exemplary job for the last 50 years?

On behalf of the Minister, the tribunal has been doing a good job, but the problem is—they’ve raised this issue as well with the Minister—that after 50 years of doing the job and with the same legislation that they’ve had, they know that they have a lot of claimants who are waiting an extremely long time to have their matters heard. They want to be more efficient, and the Minister has received many complaints from claimants as well as the tribunal that they need to be able to do their job in a more timely fashion, and the Minister is cognisant that that is a good thing.

What accountability mechanisms, if any, are in place to ensure this review will not breach Te Tiriti o Waitangi or existing settlements, given this would normally be the role of the Waitangi Tribunal to determine?

On behalf the Minister, I think it would be very odd to have the tribunal reviewing itself. It is actually much better to have an independent, technical advisory group, led by eminent KC Bruce Gray, with a small but very talented and experienced group of people working with him. The Minister is very aware this is a serious matter and not one for joking, and he takes it very seriously.

Is he aware of any other constitutional bodies being reviewed with the same level of scrutiny, or is it just the Waitangi Tribunal that’s been lucky enough to be singled out?

On behalf of the Minister: he is a highly educated and experienced person—he’s fully aware that, from time to time, courts have been reviewed in their structures. He’s aware of the excellent work of the then Minister of Justice on the judicature review, which I think I may have had something to do with. He’s also extremely aware that every tribunal in every system of justice and constitution from time to time needs to be reviewed. But it’s great to hear that the member is so keen on exactly the same constitution that he’s often railed against.

Does he agree with the incoming Deputy Prime Minister that the Waitangi Tribunal has become woke and that, ironically, the Government is fast asleep?

On behalf of the Minister, I’m sure the Minister has never heard the Hon David Seymour make those statements, but I do think that Mr Seymour agrees with the Minister very fully that this is a matter that needs to be reviewed. And when the Waitangi Tribunal’s made clear some of the issues that they’re having, of course the right thing to do is to consider a review and then to get on with it.

Has the Minister come to the conclusion that for some, the only good thing about the 1840s was the 1848 Communist Manifesto?

Now, look, I’m sorry, I have to say, in the world of three strikes and you’re out, you’ve used up your three strikes.

to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety

Does she agree with Andrea Vance, who said about the Equal Pay Amendment Bill, “It is a curious feminist moment, isn’t it? Six girlbosses—Willis, her hype-squad Judith Collins, Erica Stanford, Louise Upston, Nicola Grigg, and Brooke van Velden—all united in a historic act of economic backhanding other women”; if not, how is unilaterally stopping 33 pay equity claims not a historic act of economic backhanding other women?

Sir, I raise a very serious point of order. It’s quite clear in Standing Order 390(1)(c), it’s quite clear from Speakers’ rulings that it is not in order to quote in such a way you bring fellow members of the House into disrepute. How on earth this question got through your process—that’s something that obviously you can address. I’m aware that Speakers’ ruling 175 does enable a member to ask a Minister for matters that they’re responsible for, but any reasonable person watching today knows that that member is asking a question containing material derived from an article designed to bring my colleagues into disrepute.

Well, I’ll thank you for firstly giving me the opportunity to review my own performance, and I will undertake that with some vigour. The first point is that Standing Order 390(1)(a) makes it clear that the bar for discreditable references is a very high one. Criticism of a Government policy—even if it is in the strongest terms—is permitted. That’s why we have a Parliament. The system of accountability that we have means that if a Government Minister has responsibility in a particular area, they can be questioned on opinions that might come from somebody in the media, as is the case here. On further reference, Speakers’ ruling 175/5—Ministers can be asked if they agree with the opinions of others, so long as the opinion is about something the Minister is responsible for. That brings this—although it’s uncomfortable and could be considered a little pointed—within the scope of the current Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. Speakers’ ruling 175 has to be contrasted with 192. I’d like you to look very carefully at Smith’s ruling—Speaker’s ruling 192/5.

I will certainly do that. Thank you for the advice.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to test with you the scope of what you’ve just ruled. Are you now saying—

Now, I want to make it clear I’m quoting the Standing Orders and existing Speakers’ rulings.

Is it therefore in order, sir, for the Government to find any old article about anyone in the House and ask themselves questions about the Opposition in order to respond to particular areas within their scope of ministerial responsibility? Because that has the potential—

No, no, it’s not. That’s a ridiculous proposition because the Standing Orders make it very clear that a question in the House cannot be used to attack the Opposition.

But there are lots of ways through that—

No, no. Stand on your feet if you’re going to talk to me. If you can find some clever ways that get past me, good luck. If the Government wants to waste its time doing that, it’s perfectly acceptable.

Speaking to the point of order, I want to refer you to Standing Order 390(1)(c), which says “Questions must be concise and not contain … discreditable references to the House or any member of the Parliament or any offensive or unparliamentary expression.” That catches the provision that Mr Jones is complaining about.

Do you want a mirror?

You wouldn’t know about the law.

Sorry, what did you say—390-something? We may as well get it right. What was the—

It’s 390(1)(c): “discreditable references to the House or any member of Parliament or any offensive or unparliamentary expression.” It says at the beginning “(1) Questions must be concise and not contain [that]”. So they’re caught, and I don’t know how it got through the—

Yeah, well, the point is it says the “question” must not contain—the question itself is: does she agree with a comment made by someone else? I mean, how would a democracy work if there can be never any questions in the House about what people outside the House have to say—what people are reading in their newspapers, etc., etc. Why would you want to deny the Minister the opportunity to refute that?

Speaking to the point of order. This question refers to “girlbosses” and “hype-squads”. How can that be consistent with Speaker’s ruling 192/5 about discreditable references to any members of Parliament and unparliamentary expression? I accept it’s in a quotation from a newspaper article, which many members found offensive. How can those references possibly be in order? [Interruption]

Sorry, listen. We’re going to start again if people can’t do that. The next person that speaks during a point of order will be having an early afternoon.

Primary questions and the purpose of question time is to elucidate facts, not to have a go at the Government Ministers by way of quoting offensive newspaper articles through quotations in primary questions. It clearly falls foul of Speaker’s ruling 192/5.

Yes, but I’ve just ruled that it doesn’t. So that is the end of that and we’ll have Brooke van Velden answer the question.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It was hard to find a single sentence in Andrea Vance’s article I agree with.

That’d be enough of an answer.

Mr Speaker, point of order.

No, there’s no point of order on this. You’ve answered the question. It’s a controversial question. I’m keeping order in the House. The member would be advised to take my advice, resume her seat, and take the next supplementary.

Does she believe that teachers are entitled to pay equity, and, if so, why did she say they don’t have a right to be angry at her changes?

Mr Speaker, point of order. I was not given the opportunity to answer the second part of that question, so I did not answer the primary question.

With respect, I ruled that you did answer enough of it, and I’m now telling the House that the first supplementary does not relate to the primary. So we’ll move on, if everyone’s ready?

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I actually agree with the Minister in the sense that in not being allowed to answer the second part of the question, fully accepting that the first part was answered, it then makes the supplementary question that was asked not relevant. If the second part of the question was addressed by the Minister, the supplementary was absolutely linked to the primary, sir.

Yes, but you can’t suppose what the second part is. I’ve taken a simple view that the first part of the primary question asked that the Minister agrees. She said she doesn’t. There can’t be a second part beyond that.

Point of order, Mr Speaker.

A point of order—this better be something that’s really useful.

I can assure you, Mr Speaker. We’ve got a Minister here who has been attacked by a very questionable question. I think the best thing that can happen right now—instead of everyone else interrupting—is she be given a full opportunity to respond the way she wants to.

Well, thank you for your view. I don’t agree with you.

Supplementary.

No, well, your first one was out of order.

So I can bring one into order.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m a strong woman and I can speak for myself.

That’s good, and you only get to do that when you’re called to do it. This is a highly controversial question. You answered that you didn’t agree with anything in the article, and I’ve ruled there can’t be a further question on it. This question can attempt it, but I think we’re going to be moving on if it doesn’t meet the test.

How is unilaterally stopping 33 pay equity claims not “a historic act of economic backhanding other women”?

I disagree with the comments made, and particularly the note of the use of the term “backhanded”, which refers to Andrea Vance’s article, which was quoted from this weekend. I do not agree with the clearly gendered and patronising language that Andrea Vance used to reduce senior Cabinet Ministers to “girlbosses”, “hype-squads”, references to “girl math”, and “c[unts]”. The women of this Government are hard-working, dedicated, and strong. No woman in this Parliament nor in this country should be subjected to sex-based discrimination. I’ll tell you who I do agree with: I agree with the former Minister for Women, Jan Tinetti, who said that misogynistic abuse against women in public office was “an indictment on our society.” I actually think it’s very curious—and it’s a very curious feminist moment—when a former Minister for Women repeats parts of a clearly misogynistic article in this House.

Good. [Interruption] That’s enough. Just let me make it very clear that while the—[Interruption] Who’s speaking? Just let me make it as clear as I can: while the Minister was giving an answer that was quoting commentary from a news article, it may have been better to refrain from one word that was fully expressed.

Is her idea of a “robust and workable” pay equity system one that entrenches women being paid less than their worth?

The whole point of a pay equity system is to find sex-based discrimination and stamp it out. That is what this Government is keeping. I have heard so many references from people across this Chamber to things that this Government is not doing. We are not cutting women’s pay. We’re not cutting equal pay. We’re not removing a pay equity system. We are making the pay equity system better so that we can find sex-based discrimination and stamp it out.

Was changing the threshold for female-dominated work from 60 to 70 percent a result of feedback and consultation, or simply the first number the Minister thought of?

I can think of many numbers, and I would suspect that the Minister for Women should stop refraining from—

Former.

Sorry. The former Minister for Women should refrain from any attempt to conflate those numbers with girl math, like Andrea Vance did.

How about 8 percent? There’s a number.

Mr Speaker.

There’s a number—8 percent.

Just wait—just wait till your colleague has finished the rant.

Was saving Nicola Willis’ Budget worth gutting the future pay of 180,000 workers?

No, you can start that question again. We’ve had people being very pedantic about how questions should be asked; that certainly doesn’t meet any test.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Was saving the Budget—

No, you can’t make that point on it.

OK, I will go into my next one, Mr Speaker. Was “saving” the Budget worth gutting the future of 180,000 workers?

Nobody’s pay has been cut.

Does she believe that teachers are entitled to pay equity, and, if so, why did she say they don’t have a right to be angry at her changes?

Anybody can bring a pay equity claim.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Immigration—

No, just hold on. There are far too many conversations going on around the House—far too many conversations going on around the House. When we get a bit of quiet—Dr Campbell.

to the Minister of Immigration

What update can she provide about the recent changes to the Active Investor Plus Visa to attract more global investment to New Zealand?

Since the Active Investor Plus Visa opened on 1 April, we have received 100 applications. Sixty-three of them are new. For context, in just six weeks, we’ve received over half the number of applications that came in under the previous Government’s policy in 2.5 years. It’s not interest; it’s action. These investors have indicated they’ll be investing a minimum of $380 million into our business and economy—how’s that for “girl math”? They’ll also be bringing girl networks and expertise to New Zealand businesses to create real opportunities for growth. New Zealand is open for business, open for investment, and serious about unlocking our economic potential.

How does the new Active Investor Plus Visa differ from previous policy?

The previous policy settings were restrictive and uncompetitive. We’ve replaced them with a modern, flexible framework featuring two clear pathways: growth and balanced. The growth category supports high-potential Kiwi businesses, while the balanced option allows a more conservative investment. Almost 80 percent of new applications are for the growth category, showing strong interest in active investments in New Zealand. We’ve also removed the unnecessary hurdles like the English language test and reduced physical-presence requirements. This flexibility is key to making New Zealand a top-tier investment decision.

What feedback has she received about the new Active Investor Plus Visa?

Licensed immigration advisers and lawyers that I’ve spoken to have been very positive. They’ve all told me that they’re seeing a significant increase in interest in the new visa, and some have advised they are recruiting new staff to be able to respond. Malcolm Pacific Immigration’s CEO, David Cooper, also noted the offshore market is ready for these changes, with significant interest from Germany, the US, Japan, and Korea. By attracting foreign investment, this Government will boost economic growth, create more jobs, and foster long-term partnerships to help us ensure a prosperous future for New Zealand.

Where are applications being received from?

We’re seeing significant global interest in these new investment settings. Sixty-two percent of new applications are from the United States, with China and Hong Kong following, but applications have also been received from Germany, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Japan, Taiwan, and the Czech Republic. These investments will help grow businesses, create jobs, and provide new skills for young people. This is all part of our plan to grow the economy and provide higher-paying Kiwi jobs.

to the Minister for the Public Service

What impact will recent changes to the Equal Pay Act 1972 have on public sector workers, particularly women?

The changes to the Equal Pay Act do not cut women’s pay or change their rights to equal pay. What they do is give women a system that focuses on the actual issue of sex-based discrimination. Equal pay is fully supported by the Government and remains protected in New Zealand law, as it has since 1972. Public sector workers can still make pay equity claims, but they will now have a much more robust, sustainable, and workable system. We expect that there will be additional pay equity settlements for further workforces under the Government’s improved pay equity regime. It was, by the way, a National Government that delivered the first ever pay equity settlement in New Zealand.

Has any public sector pay agreement been set at lower levels due to expected increases from future pay equity settlements?

Well, I’m not sure whether or not they have. I haven’t heard that, and, certainly, as the Minister for the Public Service, I might have heard that, but I’m certainly not aware of that.

Is cancelling 33 pay equity claims consistent with the commitment to close the gender pay gaps in the public sector?

I am delighted to tell the member that the pay gap in the public sector is actually very low—it’s about 4 percent. Now, I actually think that of the particular claims that will be discontinued, nine are in the public sector and four are in the Public Service. These claims are still able to be raised under the new system, and further pay equity settlements are expected.

Is it consistent for the Government to claim it supports eliminating gender pay gaps while removing obligations to recognise pay equity and prevent gender bias, as proposed in her 6 May 2025 Cabinet paper?

I think it’s really important to realise that women actually do a brilliant job, as do most men, and I look at this and say that women just want to be treated in a fair manner. They don’t want to be patronised and told that if they do math, it’s “girl math”, or that they should not be able to stand up for themselves or else they are suddenly referred to by indecent names and treated unfairly. I have always hoped that all the women in this Parliament—and men—would like to stand up for women to be able to be treated in a humane and decent manner, and not reduced to foul names.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I thank the member for her speech, but she didn’t actually address either limb of the question, which referred to a specific decision she’s made in a Cabinet paper.

Oh well, if the Minister would like to add, that would be—

No, not really.

No, well, I’m asking the Minister to address the specifics of the question.

Well, she’d need to ask the question again, please, because I was so enjoying myself—

Yes.

—I forgot what her question was.

Yes, everyone’s got plenty of time today.

Is it consistent for the Government to claim it supports eliminating gender pay gaps while removing obligations to recognise pay equity and prevent gender bias, as proposed in her 6 May 2025 Cabinet paper?

Yes, it is.

Yeah, on balance, I think the question was answered, with all due respect. So that’s two goes at it. Have you got another supplementary?

If she supports the agreed gender pay principle that trust and engagement improve performance, how does bypassing consultation with affected women align with this?

Well, I’m sorry; the question doesn’t seem to make sense to me. Perhaps if we could have it again?

Certainly. To the Minister: if she supports the agreed gender pay principle—which is outlined in a document on the Public Service Commission’s website—that trust and engagement improve performance, how does bypassing consultation with affected women who have pay equity claims align with this?

Well, I think the fact is that the Government has to make decisions, and even though we certainly are consulting with women—because women are taxpayers; women are people who are going about their jobs—the fact is that the Government has to make certain decisions. The Government has made a decision because the changes brought about that we’ve inherited in the pay equity system made it unworkable, and it cannot be right to have civil engineers and librarians on the same level or treated as though they’re doing the same job. They’re quite different jobs.

Will axing current pay equity claims mean lower future pay for affected public sector workers?

Well, I wouldn’t have thought so. They seem to have a very strident union that could assist them with collective bargaining. But I’d also say this, which is that everybody needs to be treated with respect, whether they’re on the centre or the right, or employer or employee, and there’s nothing wrong with treating people as humans and not using the sorts of terms as though suddenly these women, who are taxpayers, are not valued as well. I think: why don’t you just treat them with respect?

to the Minister for Veterans

What investments is the Government making to support veterans in Budget 2025?

The Government’s making significant investments to ensure that our New Zealand Defence Force remains a credible contributor here and overseas, but also looking after our people, past and present. That’s why the Minister of Defence, Judith Collins, recently announced in the pre-Budget statement that there will be a boost of $1 million additional funding for Veterans’ Affairs. This will specifically help to ensure that applications for the treatment they need and deserve will be processed in a much more timely fashion.

Why is the Government making this investment?

It’s consistent with our efforts to improve public services across New Zealand, and that in turn must include that veterans have access to the timely services, such as treatment and rehabilitation, that they need. It’s been a priority for me and the Government as a whole to reduce the period of time that veterans must wait to receive the processing of their claims. That’s why last year, in fact, in the Budget, an additional $4 million had already been provided to ensure faster processing times.

What progress has been made to clear the backlog of applications for veterans’ support?

Veterans’ Affairs faced, at the peak of the backlog, some 2,800 unresolved claims. That was clearly unacceptable in the context of these personnel having served New Zealand with pride and distinction. Through a combination of hard work and the additional resourcing from Veterans’ Affairs and the Government of the day, respectively, that backlog has been reduced to a little over 2,000 outstanding claims. That is still unacceptable. There is more work to do, but progress has been made and we look forward to continuing to make further progress in the weeks ahead.

What other recent announcements has the Government made for our veteran community?

The Government’s also working to formally recognise more of our ex - New Zealand Defence Force service personnel as veterans in law. For those who’ve worn the uniform, that particular word speaks to pride and holds deep personal meaning accordingly. We also intend to establish a national veterans’ day, accompanied by an annual veterans’ service award ceremony. As we speak, we’re consulting with the veterans’ community and all its key players about when this day should be commemorated.

to the Prime Minister

E tautoko ana ia i ngā kōrero me ngā mahi katoa a tōna Kāwanatanga?

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

Yes, and I welcome the member’s support for our coalition Government’s support and use of gas. I notice in their alternative budget that they have $800 million set aside for securing gas supply and I think that’s a good idea.

Good.

Does he stand by his answer—

Just a moment. You’re here to answer questions about the Government, not to inform the Opposition of their own policies.

I’m happy to debate the Green Budget.

Ha, ha!

Yeah, we can.

No, no. Chlöe Swarbrick, you are trifling with the House. I’ll cut your question off if you do that again.

Does he stand by his answer yesterday, “I am comfortable with the concept of profit” in the context of our country having among the world’s most expensive early childcare costs, clearly driven by profit motive?

Well, I think there’s a lot of assumptions in that question. What I would say is that I’m against $44 billion in additional debt, I’m against $88 billion in additional tax, and that would be very worrying as an alternative Labour-Greens Government if that was followed through as real policy.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. How can that question be allowed when it makes an argumentation about the cost drivers of early childcare education, which may be the member’s ideological presupposition but actually has no basis in fact?

We’ve had one of those days where people have said a lot of things that don’t strictly comply with some of the Standing Orders that it has been suggested I should be strictly following. I thought it was question No. 12, the House was in a quiet state, and I thought it was a question the Prime Minister could relatively easily answer.

Why does the Prime Minister think we have among the most expensive early childhood education costs for parents in the world, while we also happen to have among the highest Government subsidies in the world for early childhood education, if not for the profit motive in the middle?

Well, many commentators have observed that we’ve got high early childhood education costs, but we do have Government subsidies to support parents. One of those great programmes is FamilyBoost, and I encourage more parents to apply for support.

What would make the most difference for families in this country: his administratively expensive FamilyBoost, which just 249 families are receiving the full entitlement for, or publicly owned free early childhood education?

What would make the most difference to families in New Zealand is a Government that runs the economy incredibly well, that doesn’t waste money, that lowers inflation, that lowers interest rates, that gets economic growth going, and that gets people in jobs. That’s the work of this Government, you know; that’s what we’re doing. We want to lower the cost of living for New Zealanders and that’s because we’ve got good economic management. Fundamentally, if you care about working people, you run the economy well. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen in the Labour-Greens Government.

Should early childhood education be free for families; if not, why not?

Well, we have an early childhood sector that, actually, the Minister’s done some good work on, about taking out cost and compliance, by getting sensible regulation in place. Of course, parents have the support from Government with some subsidies and, also, as I say, the FamilyBoost programme’s a great one and I encourage parents to sign up for it.

Point of order. Sir, I want to raise a tricky point of order, because we had the most extraordinary day of language in the House. Speakers’ ruling 188 deals with the acceptance of questions. We know—those of us who have been around for a while—that the Clerk’s Office has a great deal of influence and guidance as to the content and character of questions. But the final arbiter, sir, is you. Then we go down to Speakers’ rulings 191, where it makes specific reference to newspaper articles. When you go away, hopefully, and review today’s events, can I urge you to not make the same mistake we made today by enabling a quote to slip into a question which was guaranteed to lead to disorder, presumably because the architect had that in mind. It’s not good for the people in the gallery and it sure as hell ain’t good for the people watching at home.

It’s also not particularly good for the member to tell me that I’ve made a mistake.

Point of order, Mr Speaker.

A new point of order?

Yes, entirely new—thank you, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to correct an answer to an oral question from today.

Leave is sought. Is there any objection to that course of action? There appears to be none.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I answered a question from the member Camilla Belich regarding the gender pay gap. What I should have said was that the gender pay gap has decreased by 1 percent over the last year in the Public Service to 6.1 percent and that the pay has gone up 4 percent for men since 30 June 2023 and up 5.1 percent for women in that time.

We come to the end of question time. Before I call on an honourable member to move miscellaneous business, those who need to leave for other activities, other commitments, please do so quietly.

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

Fundamentally, Budgets are about people and choices. We have already seen the choices this Government are making in this year’s Budget. For landlords: billions of dollars. For tobacco companies: hundreds of millions of dollars. For the New Zealand Defence Force: billions of dollars. For low-paid, hard-working Kiwi women wanting pay equity, they get nothing—“Get back in line” according to this Government. In fact, not just “Get back in line” but “Get to the back of the line and start again.” That’s the message from this Government and this year’s Budget for hard-working Kiwi women who have been fighting to be paid fairly. It says everything about this Government’s twisted priorities that they are looking to balance the Budget by taking billions of dollars away from our lowest-paid workforces.

There’s been a lot of contention in the last few days about the facts around pay equity, so let me just recap some of the facts that even the Government are not contesting. Fact number one: 33 existing pay equity claims covering 180,000 people, mostly women, have been extinguished. That is a fact that not even the Government are denying. Fact number two: not all of those 180,000 people are eligible to apply under the new pay equity regime that they have delivered. So some of those who are working through the process have found their claim extinguished, gone for ever; the promise of pay equity off the table for ever for them under this Government. Number three—which, again, the Government are not contesting: that this change has saved them billions of dollars. Billions of dollars. In fact, David Seymour was caught telling the truth when he said that it had “saved the Government’s Budget”. The Government saved their Budget at the expense of low-paid, hard-working New Zealanders, most of whom are women. That is how the Government have chosen to balance their Budget, and that cannot be contested. Four, and a very clear claim: those who do pursue new claims will almost certainly get less under the new formula that the Government has come up with.

Those are clear facts. What we’ve seen from the Government is gaslighting. I think New Zealanders know a cut when they see it, and this is undoubtedly a cut to the pay of hundreds of thousands of low-paid women in New Zealand, and they can see a cut when they are given one, and this Government has absolutely done that. Then we saw the defence from the Government, the myth that this was somehow a result of a flaw with the 2020 law. Well, let’s go back and see what the National Party said at the time. Nicola Willis stood in this House, not far from where I’m standing now, and actually said that the bill in 2020 “was all National’s work”. In fact, she claimed it was their bill. She said it was “a National bill with a Labour sticker on it”. And now she’s trying to claim that the bill was wrong, despite the fact that, at the time, she was trying to say it was all their idea. I think New Zealanders can see gaslighting when they see it, and that is exactly what they are seeing from this Government.

Then we have seen Chris Bishop jumping on his high horse and saying, “Labour needed to do better”. I can only say I hope he didn’t injure himself as he fell off his high horse when it was flying at breakneck speed in the opposite direction, because at the same time he was saying we needed to do better, his own party was posting artificial intelligence - generated images of me when he was saying that we needed to “raise the tone” of the debate.

Despite the best efforts of members on the other side, this isn’t actually about us; it’s about the low-paid New Zealand women who this Government are cutting millions of dollars from the pay packets of. They try and say, “that’s not a pay cut”. I think those who are now going to be paid less in the future because of the Government’s decisions, the Government’s choices, are going to feel like it’s a pay cut. If we legislate it in this House to take away the two pay rises that members of the House—including members opposite—are going to get over the next 18 months, they would regard that as a pay cut. Why should low-paid New Zealand women regard it as anything other than a pay cut when this Government legislate, change the law, to cancel their pay equity claim and take away billions of dollars that have been set aside to pay for fair pay for Kiwi women?

The “c” word’s been thrown around a bit in the last week. I want to read out some “c” words that I think apply to the Labour Opposition: callous, cruel, and cowardly. I’ll tell you what’s callous: callous is spending the better part of five years as the alleged progressive feminist movement on the Opposition crying about gendered abuse of female MPs and, when it’s doled out to women on the right, saying nothing. That is callous.

The standard you walk past is the standard you would set, and this week Chris Hipkins and the Labour Party senior MPs had an opportunity to stand up against misogyny and gendered abuse. In 2023, Chris Hipkins said there was “no question … women in leadership … [were] the subject of far more abuse and vitriol” and “I think we do have a responsibility as men to step up and to condemn that and to speak out against it.” I agree. Fast-forward two years, after a disgusting column on the weekend, widely condemned around the country, using the “c” word and other pejorative terms about senior women MPs on the right—fast-forward two years later, what does Chris Hipkins say? Oh, that’s just free speech: “I’m not going to tell them what they’re allowed to say.”, “I believe in the independence of the media.”, “What [they] choose to publish is a question for them.”

No one’s disputing they can publish that. The question is: is it right? And Chris Hipkins, the alleged progressive feminist who leads the party that like to tell us that they are the “party for women”—in fact, they spent much of the last week lying about that. He likes to tell us that they’re the party for women. He had an opportunity to condemn that column and the pile-on that resulted afterwards, and he chose not to—and I apologise, I shouldn’t have said that, Mr Speaker, I know you’re about to get to your feet. I shouldn’t have said that word that you’re not allowed to say.

Then apologise.

So that is callous. That’s a “c” word that applies to Chris Hipkins and the Labour Party. I’ll tell you what else is cruel, is the double standards and the misleading statements that have been put out by the Labour Party over the course of the last week. Because this debate all started because of the actions the Government took when it comes to equal pay, and we have heard all sorts of nonsense from the Opposition. They have said on Facebook that National is cutting women’s pay; that is not true. They have said that equal pay is being abolished; that is not true. They have said pay equity is being abolished; that is not true. They have said equal pay and pay equity claims can no longer proceed; that is not true. In fact, the Government has set aside more money for pay equity claims. The Labour Party really needs to do better when it comes to what they are saying about this controversial topic.

The other point that I would say would be callous and cruel would be the alternative budget released by the Green Party, to segue to something completely different.

Sing it!

She says “Sing it”—oh boy, I’ll sing it. Here are the facts—here is what they’ve literally just put out in the last couple of hours: $44 billion in additional debt, taking debt to 50 percent of GDP. It’s already gone up by $120 billion, but, “No, no, no, no, no”, say the Greens, “We need more.”; $88 billion in additional tax—this is all in their budget; higher income tax rates, wealth tax, trust tax, inheritance tax, higher ACC levies, higher company tax, the private jet tax, higher mining taxes, and bringing back the tenant taxes.

Oh, well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Labour Party’s coalition partner. Goodness me, the next 18 months are going to be a good time. Because here’s the question for the Labour Party: do they believe in all of these things? Because I can’t wait to hear them talk about income tax, wealth taxes, trust taxes, ACC levies, and don’t worry, here’s a really good one: reducing the prison population and closing the military academies to pay for it, and paying everyone on the unemployment benefit more money. What a prescription for New Zealand! Bring on 2026.

Point of order, sir.

It’s a point of order; we’ll be quiet.

So Hansard will recall that in response to Chris Bishop indicating that he said something that was unparliamentary that you said, “Well, apologise” and he did not. I believe if we are going to ensure that parliamentary standards are adhered to that he should at least withdraw and apologise even though he has acknowledged he shouldn’t have said it.

Can I just—I would have intervened, but I heard it asked as a question, which brings it slightly into order. Same discussion I had with you a couple of weeks ago. But for the sake of order, it might be useful to withdraw and apologise.

I did say it in my speech, but I withdraw and apologise.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. [Holds up image] This image is a naked image of me, but it is not real. This image is what we call a “deepfake”. It took me less than five minutes to make a series of deepfakes of myself. Scaringly, it was a quick Google search for the technology of what’s available. When you type “deepfake nudify” into the Google search with your filter off, hundreds of sites appear.

The rise in sexually explicit material and deepfakes has become a huge issue. As our party’s education spokesperson, not only do I hear the concerns of parents but I hear the concerns of teachers and principals, where this trend is increasing at an alarming rate. This worrying trend is becoming more prevalent with this available tech readily available to use—anybody can use it. In fact, I didn’t need to enter an email address; I just had to tick a box to say I was 18 and that it was my image and I could use it—which is pretty scary, to be honest. It wasn’t on an app that I downloaded, because the App Store has a pretty good filter to actually deal with quite a few of these things. It was just on our internet, not the deep dark web.

For the victims, it is degrading and devastating. It even gives me the ick having to stand here in Parliament and hold up a photo of myself—knowing that it’s not me, but that it looks exactly like me. This technology is getting better and better every single day. Creating and posting deepfake porn without consent is a form of image-based abuse. Vaughan Couillault, the president of the Secondary Principals’ Association of New Zealand, said, “It’s not as low level and as simple as the perpetrator might think it is. It’s not cheap entertainment, it’s life-damaging work.” Catherine Abel-Pattinson of Netsafe is quoted as saying, “Every day we answer the phone and we have suicidal people on the other end because stuff like this has been sent and it’s not them.”

While researching for this bill, I heard stories—mostly from youth and nearly always female. All talked about the lack of consequence or support for victims in schools for this type of bullying and abuse. In a news report last year, it talked about two schools reeling from the spread of social media of deepfake pornographic images of their students. Fifteen of those students were at a school in North Canterbury, quite close to me. Around 50 at another location have asked to not be named.

One story I have heard of this happening to is a migrant student, who not only was humiliated and degraded by it, it was also culturally crippling and devastating. This young girl went on to self-harm as a coping mechanism to deal with the effects of this trauma. Current legislation does not keep up with this tech and the world we live in. There is a grey area, and we haven’t defined the use of AI for synthetic, sexually explicit content, images, or content providing harmful intent without this clarification, and it needs changing.

I have a member’s bill, that is in the tin right now, that we could actually close this gap. I think that everybody across this House would find how alarming this could be. This may not be limited to just celebrities any more—or, potentially, politicians—this could be your child, this could be your colleague, this could be your friend, or anyone within your whānau. This Parliament, no matter what side of the political spectrum you come from, must act now to protect our most vulnerable.

This also leads me to the other issue currently being discussed amongst politicians, parents, schools, and our youth: it’s the possibility of a social media ban. As a parent, I find it extremely worrying the effects that social media may be having on my children. They, very thankfully, are not on social media. I really welcome this House to have a deep and thorough debate, and I think it’s important to see that today there is a select committee that is opening a type of inquiry into this. I think it’s extremely important that we all engage in this. What we want to do and what we must do is we must make sure that we get the right settings in place, that we don’t just act out of fear and concern and just rush in a piece of legislation that may not work. We need to think about how we can best protect our children, our youth, going forward. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today, we released the Green Budget, which shows that we can have an Aotearoa where everyone has what they need to live good lives, where we protect our rivers and our oceans and our native species, and where we leave our mokopuna with a stable planet. We have enough. It just takes political courage to make the decisions. There is enough to go around, there is enough kai for no one to starve, and there is enough money for everyone to have a livable income. We do have what we need to mitigate and adapt to climate change. We have what we need to protect our rivers and our health.

The Greens are standing proudly behind our plan that shows Aotearoa that we can and must address the big issues that people care about. But for too long, the economic system has been rigged to benefit the rich at the expense of the wellbeing of everyone else and the wellbeing of our living systems.

Just last week in this House, we saw this Government urgently rush through law that means that low-paid women are bearing the burden of this Government’s tax cuts for the wealthy. Those are the types of economic choices that this Government chooses and that continue to bake in the inequities and the injustice of the uber-wealthy being able to hoard more wealth while the rest of the vast majority have to scrap over the crumbs. The Greens are proud of taxing wealth so that we can have free GP visits and free early childhood education and build more public housing and have livable incomes and protect our rivers and nurture our ecosystems. That is how we protect our economy—by building our own resiliency, because we have the people, we have the land, and Governments have the tools to make sure that our communities are building the skills that we will all benefit from, like in our green-industry plan.

It is insulting to hear this Prime Minister declare that New Zealand has been living beyond its means when so many families who are doing their best are struggling to make ends meet. Meanwhile, only 311 families have more wealth than 2.5 million of us. We can afford to pay workers, including women, what they are worth, but we cannot afford to keep propping up the super-rich. Unlocking the wealth we already have will help us invest back into the services that we all rely on, and I am proud of the Green Budget that we have released today.

During breast cancer treatment, I heard from women who had to go back to work after chemo infusion because our current ACC system does not provide for illness right at the time when their immunity is low and when they are feeling their crappiest, but they are worried about how they’re going to pay their rent and look after their whānau. The budget that we announced today would bring illness and sickness into the agency of comprehensive care to make sure that anyone diagnosed with illness can put their health and their whānau first and not have the stress of having to worry about going back to work when they are sick. I know how important this is. I know every single family in here and every single person has a story of when it is so unjust and unfair for people to just not be able to focus on their health.

Those are the sorts of decisions that we have made in our budget today. We look forward to getting out to communities and discussing what this would mean, the way it would improve our lives and the lives of our mokopuna to come. No one should have to return to work when they are sick, and not everyone has the support that everyone deserves. We can change that. We can choose for our lives to be made better. We can choose to take care of each other and our living systems for our mokopuna to come.

I am so proud of the work that we have done to share our Green Budget. I welcome all of the Government MPs talking about it the way that they are. Keep talking about it! We are going to keep talking about it. Kia ora.

Budget season has arrived, and we are now just eight sleeps away from the Minister of Finance revealing Budget 2025. But how could we forget one of the big announcements today, speaking of budgets. Of course we have seen Labour’s coalition partner, the de-growth Greens, come out with their alternative budget, which focuses on taxing people more and letting debt skyrocket. I think we call it green waste.

While the Government is focused on economic recovery, the Greens want to snatch more money out of the back pockets of hard-working Kiwis. While this Government is focused on getting the books back into surplus, that Opposition is thinking about skyrocketing debt and taking debt up by $44 billion, or over 53 percent of GDP. That is in stark contrast to what is required and that is not what you’re going to see from this side of the House.

Let’s reflect on Budget 2024. This Government promised tax relief and delivered it. We promised no new taxes and we delivered it. The first time in 14 years that tax relief has been given to hard-working Kiwis—$3.7 billion back into the back pockets of hard-working Kiwis, and the Opposition voted against it. Budget 2024 also allocated $116 million over four years to support Inland Revenue (IRD) to collect debt and improve the tax compliance system. We know no one really likes paying taxes, but most Kiwis do the right thing and pay it. Those Kiwis meet their obligations, and we as a Government expect others to do the same.

Under the previous Government, New Zealand’s tax debt rose substantially. For a party who loves taxes, the Greens and Labour aren’t particularly good at collecting them. By the end of 2024, New Zealand’s tax debt hit just over $8.5 billion. That is billions of dollars that could be used and devoted to fund front-line services like schools, hospitals, and our Police. That’s why we allocated in Budget 2024 more money for Inland Revenue to collect debt and to improve the tax system.

Let’s be clear: that investment isn’t about punishing Kiwis who are doing their best and doing the right thing. It’s about fairness. It’s about making sure that that small number of Kiwis who are not paying their taxes are being followed up and ensuring that those people who do pay their taxes aren’t being ripped off by those who deliberately don’t. It’s also about making sure that that money is used to fund the real things Kiwis need. These aren’t abstract issues. They are real threats to our tax integrity in our system and it undermines trust and fairness.

Take the hidden economy. It’s not just dodgy cash jobs; it’s people operating entirely off the books while using the very services like health and education like the rest of us who pay for it. Or take electronic suppression software tools which are used to delete transaction records. It’s deliberate action to avoid paying tax. We’re already seeing significant results from that Budget’s funding.

IRD has ramped up audit activity by 50 percent this year and uncovered more than 2.5 times the tax discrepancies. By March, $1.2 billion had been assessed from audits. That’s up $500 million from this time last year. Inland Revenue released figures on student loans yesterday. They collected more than $200 million in repayments since this time last year—a 43 percent increase in the same period. Twelve thousand borrowers have been contacted, 1,300 have entered repayment schedules, and nearly 1,000 as a result of that activity have now fully paid off their overdue taxes.

In conclusion, these efforts show what is possible when we take a firm but fair approach focused on compliance. If you think that you might have outstanding tax debt, don’t wait to be contacted by the IRD; they are there to help you. This Government is focused on delivering for Kiwis and every dollar we collect in those taxes is a dollar we don’t need to borrow.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It was just over a week ago that we passed, through urgency, an egregious piece of legislation—egregious piece of legislation—which saw National cutting future women’s pay to balance their Budget, taking money out of women’s back pockets. It was said that it had to be rushed through—it had to be rushed through. Their justification was that they might see an increase in claims. Well, how disingenuous is that? We know that claims took a long time to process. And why did they take a long time to process? Because they were robust.

The process that was put in place after the 2020 amendment Act was a robust process that made sure that we were getting it right. It was a process that was agreed across the House. The reason they put this through in urgency was it silenced voices. It silences the opposition that was going to be seen against this bill. Did it silence those voices? No, because people refused to be gaslit by this Government. We saw huge turnouts across the country, at very short notice, to protest against this, and we will see more over the coming weeks. That side of the House tried so hard—so hard—and are still trying so hard to justify this.

The Minister of Finance said that she was shocked at how much these claims were costing when she came into her role. Was it that she was shocked at the cost of these claims, or was it that she was shocked at the extent of inequality across our society? Because that’s exactly the pay inequities. What they are showing in this country is the extent of the inequality between those workforces that are male-dominated and those workforces that are female-dominated. It costs money to rectify inequality, but when you do rectify inequality, there are social and fiscal economic benefits for all, and they will ripple right through the community. So people that believe in trickle-down economics should be right behind and go hard-out for these pay equity claims.

Amy Ross from the pay equity taskforce, who was the head of that before it was disbanded by that side of the House, said that they had conducted research that showed pay equity under the previous legislation, which they got rid of last week, reduced costs for Government through tax credits, income subsidies, and an increase on GST take. Money in communities revolved more. There was an increase in discretionary spending. But, most of all, people realised, and felt proud of the fact, that their work is being valued. Instead, what this Government has done is taken a short-term, rather than a long-term, look at this. They have made sure that they have put their priorities in finding money for tobacco companies, finding money for tax breaks for landlords, and finding money for tax cuts. That is what this is all about. Rather than taking a long-term look, they have taken the money out of the back pocket of women. Women are paying the price for their bad fiscal management.

Women and people around this country have had enough. They are tired. They are tired of talking about this like this is something that they will need to keep working for. This is a right. This is something that women should not be having to fight over, 50 years since the Equal Pay Act was first put in in the 1970s. The other area that I would mention is that they either have a misunderstanding or they are deliberately clouding the debate around comparators. They have said, “Oh, we’ve got this job and this job, and they do not add up.” The job-evaluation process is not about that. It examines the skill, the responsibility, the effort, the experience, and the conditions of work, and it is an extremely robust process that was happening. That is why it took so long. For them to misrepresent it is them misrepresenting the work that women have been doing for centuries and are being undervalued for.

I will go back to say that women and other people who are in those jobs have had enough. It is time we stood up as a Parliament. It is time that we said we will come together on this and not play short-term politics.

Boy racers are out of control across the mighty Rangitīkei, across New Zealand, and we are not alone; we’re absolutely over it. New Zealanders are saying the same thing everywhere: enough is enough.

We’ve had enough of the rise in antisocial behaviour, dangerous driving, illegal street racing, intimidating vehicle convoys, threats to police. Behaviour like this has left our communities fed up and fearful. I’m proud to support our Government’s decisive move to crack down on this behaviour with tougher laws, stronger penalties, and more powers for our police. The changes we announced over the weekend will give police more tools in their tool kit when trying to rid the streets of this kind of antisocial behaviour. More expensive fines to dish out, too; higher likelihood of offending cars being crushed—bring back “Crusher”!

The good people of Rangitīkei have seen and heard more than enough. In March, Feilding residents endured three days—three consecutive nights—of road closures, roaring engines, street racers turning Makino Road into a skid pad. “It makes your blood boil.”, one resident told me. Another told the local Manawatū Standard: “It’s just crazy. This is our intersection—it’s just littered with tyre rubber. They wreck the streets. It costs ratepayers money to fix it. It’s out of control.” She made 10 calls to 111. “The time for action is now,” she said, “before we face further destruction or even worse, a tragic accident.”

That’s exactly what happened last year in Himatangi: a spectator, a 16-year-old boy, lost his leg when a car went out of control. Gatherings of hoons and spectators routinely take over Halcombe Road near the Kākāriki Road Bridge, the Colyton Road turnoff at Kimbolton Road, and Mt Stewart Halcombe Road intersection. Suburban streets aren’t immune either. The problem isn’t just noise and roads and public safety; it’s the escalating lawlessness. In Levin, my colleague Tim Costley witnessed things turning violent, with reports of drugs, weapons, and intimidation. An event in June 2024 was described by one officer as the worst situation of its kind he’s ever encountered in his 26 years of policing. He said participants and spectators are displaying a new level of militancy and arrogance. It used to be that the boy racers would disappear as soon as they got wind the police were on their way. It’s now more war than hide and seek. They’re acting like “This is our patch and if we want to do burnouts, tough luck to you.”

Members of the public have even resorted to vigilantism, using tractors to charge at racers—not something I’d recommend. It’s Mad Max in Rongotea. While I understand the justified anger of the public, this is not the way to go. Our Government has acted to resolve these issues. Minister Chris Bishop and the Minister of Police, Mark Mitchell, are taking action. Under our new proposals, those caught fleeing the police, organising street races, or refusing to name drivers will face presumptive vehicle destruction. If you want to act like a hooligan, you can expect your car to be crushed.

There will be new powers to manage illegal gatherings, by closing roads and issuing instant infringements, and the fine for making excessive noise is going to go up sixfold. We’re backing our communities and backing our police with the tools they need to end this behaviour. We won’t tolerate this any more. The legislation will be introduced to the House in the next few months. We’re going to see it through all the way to the scrap metal heap. Our message to the people of Rangitīkei and the people of New Zealand is clear: we’re empowering our police and taking back our community roads. We’re putting these hoods on notice. To the boy racers: no more Fast & Furious. With this Government, reckless driving doesn’t get you a sequel; it gets you a sentence and a crushed car. If you put lives at risk; you tear up our roads; if you engage in intimidating, illegal, antisocial behaviour, you will face the consequences and you will face life without your car. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I stand in the House, again, to talk about the fast-track legislation and the impact that it is having on local communities because this Government favours the ultra-wealthy big business over the voice of community. This Government has shut out the voice of community when we saw over 23,000 submissions submitted against the fast-track legislation and gave a hand up to 149 projects that saw those companies getting to the front of the line when developing across the country and shutting out us as te iwi Māori. Because, as te iwi Māori, we’ve got a limited purview—only 20 working days to respond to fast-track applications. That’s how narrow it is for us.

Now, in Tai Tokerau, we have zombie projects coming back into the rohe, like McCallum Bros, who were pushed out of Pākiri after 80 years of sand mining, are now sniffing around Bream Bay, and will get the opportunity through the fast track to mine and dredge across te whanga o Whangārei for 35 years, five days a week, six hours a day. And that’s coming into our rohe of Te Tai Tokerau.

The ultra-rich are the ones getting the hand up from this Government. When we look at Waipiro Bay, a current application which is live: 250-berth marina in the Bay of Islands. My kāinga. [Holds up map of Waipiro Bay] As I might share with the House, this is whenua Māori. This is called Orokawa. Over here is the area where Waipiro Bay marina is to be established, with 250 berths, retail stores, a petrol station, and hospitality, in the back blocks of the Bay of Islands. That’s my kāinga. This is where our people gather kai. This is the pātaka of Patukeha and Ngati Kuta. The community is being shut out of the fast-track process. Because that’s the thing: this Government favours the ultra-wealthy to build a 250-berth marina in Waipiro Bay, the Bay of Islands, and forgets about those most impacted—whenua Māori, Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act claimants, also our hau kāinga and marae and hapū and iwi—with only 20 working days to respond. There is going to be massive visual impact with 250 boats parked up in Waipiro Bay, just around the corner from Parekura Bay, Orokawa bluff, where my tūpuna and whānau currently live.

This is like a lived experience right now, and this is what the rest of New Zealand has to look forward to through the fast-track legislation. Because it’s not just the 149 projects; it’s those that were not listed and are coming through the front door right now, impacting upon communities, impacting upon iwi Māori. Now, Patukeha and Ngati Kuta are unashamedly working with community, saying, “No. We don’t want this development in our kāinga. We know that there’s going to be impact on our takutai moana.” The hapū is already under stress with the Caulerpa outbreak just around the corner at Omakiwi. There’s a can in the area where Waipiro Bay is proposed to be built. You’re meant to be protecting the takutai and yet, in the fast track, you’re going to degrade the takutai, because you’re going to be privatising takutai moana, locking out our customary interests as 11 hapū and iwi and intensifying development. Scraping up the takutai. Nine hectares of sand—of takutai moana—will be tutū-ed with by a company that is only there to furnish wealthy businessmen and landowners so they can park up their boats and yachts.

Tangata whenua have united with community, and today we have nearly 12,000 signatures on a petition launched only one week ago. That’s how important fast track is to community is that it is the voice of the people coming through. It is showing support for Patukeha, Ngati Kuta, and all of the tangata whenua impacted, and this is what this Government prioritises: the ultra-wealthy, the rich, compared to us as iwi kāinga, as community, shut out through a process that neglects the taiao and neglects the voice of mana i te whenua. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Last week, on 7 May 2025, this House took a step backwards for the rights of women when it unilaterally cancelled, without any notice and any due process, the pay equity claims for equal pay for work of equal value for 180,000 New Zealanders. This is a huge step backwards for our country, not only in relation to women’s rights but also in relation to human rights. But we on this side of the House know that we are on the right side of history by standing up against these unilateral decisions that take literally billions of dollars out of the back pockets of women.

Now, Budgets are a choice. It is a choice that the Government has to make, whether to build a future or to cut, and the National Party and the National-led Government, in this instance, are cutting what women are getting paid. They have managed to find hundreds of millions of dollars for tobacco companies, but at the same time, they give with one hand to tobacco companies and take with the other from the pockets of working women.

We’ve heard a lot about the particular scheme that was in place, and I would like to challenge anyone who has an issue with that law to provide evidence on any allegations that you make that it was unworkable. We have seen, since that last Act was passed, 10 settlements that have valued the historically underpaid work of working women. That shows that this process is working. Is it straightforward? No. Is it simple? No. Is it affordable and cheap and easy for the Government to find that money? It’s a challenge to be able to fully address the historic undervaluation that women have suffered. But does that make it wrong? No.

We’ve also heard about the impact of comparators, and I would like to ask, rhetorically: how do you assess historic undervaluation without the use of comparators? The bill that the Government has put forward will continue to require the use of comparators. They will continue to require the comparison of jobs that, on the face of it, look very different. This is how undervaluation is assessed—very, very carefully, very, very scientifically, in agreement, looking for the skills that underpin that. That is a part of this new law, and it shouldn’t be used as a reason to attack the law that was lost.

The rhetoric around this has been strong, and it deserves to be, but I want to bring the debate back to the people who are really affected by this. I have something to read out from one of those people who were affected, a library worker whose claim has been extinguished. She says, “The end of our claim is devastating to myself and my colleagues. We were so close to a result, and to see that stripped away is so incredibly painful. We will go on providing for our community. We will continue to help elderly patrons with their technology problems. We will keep on helping children to develop their love of reading. We will keep on assisting patrons with other requests that we get every day. It’s just now that we do it knowing that our Government does not value our work and in the knowledge that we will have to start our long fight for fair wages all over again. Our hearts are broken.”

That is just one example that I have time to read in this short call, but I can assure the House that it is not an isolated example. Every single one of those 180,000 people that stood to benefit from those pay-equity claims will have similar stories of hope and similar stories of heartbreak at what this Government has decided to do—similar stories of dreams for their family, of what they could finally do when their work was properly valued and similar stories of how those dreams have been taken away.

The Government has said that this was not about the Budget. No one believes that. They’ve said that it won’t make a big difference to women. No one believes that. They’ve said it was about improving the law. No one believes that. They’ve said that this pay equity, working for equal pay for work of equal value, was a grievance industry. That is simply not true. They have tried to blame those on this side of the House and tried to say that we are the ones at fault when they are the ones who are taking billions of dollars away from undervalued women in New Zealand today. This is a shameful week for this Parliament, and I do not doubt that, when we come back to look at this period of history, we will see who was on the right side—this side of the House—and that that Government was in the wrong.

Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to stand up in this general debate. The last time I had this awesome opportunity was late last year, and so much has happened to continue getting Takanini back on track that I’d love to share with the House, and with my husband in the gallery and with people listening from across these walls. But, first, I’d like to acknowledge our Anzacs, our veterans, and our Māori Battalion, particularly with Anzac Day just past a few weeks ago—lest we forget.

Just the day before Anzac Day, we had the pleasure of hosting Minister Chris Bishop, Minister Simeon Brown, and Minister Judith Collins in Takanini as, collectively, they announced that the New Zealand Transport Agency Board had endorsed the investment case for stage one of the Mill Road project, and this is Manukau to Alfriston. In my maiden speech, I spoke about Mill Road, and I, along with many other MPs, have been fighting for Mill Road to be done for a very long time. The previous Labour administration said that they would do it in 2017. They reneged. Then they promised they’d do it in 2020, and they reneged on that, again. But we’re getting it done, and I cannot wait.

Also in April, a few weeks ago, Minister Stanford, the Minister of Education, announced 18 extra classrooms—more rebuilds—at Ormiston Senior College, and this is just wonderful news for the teachers, for the students, and for the parents in my patch, in Takanini. Flat Bush is one of the fastest-growing electorate areas in the country. This is going to help so much.

In February of this year—it just keeps getting better for Takanini—Minister Bishop announced our Government’s plan to invest $200 million towards removing the train level crossings, most of which are in Takanini. This will mean less time in traffic, it’s safer for drivers and for pedestrians, and it will improve productivity, something that we love to improve on this side of the House.

This year has seen so many beautiful cultural events take place in my electorate of Takanini. We celebrated the Cambodian Buddhist New Year at the Cambodian temple in April. Thank you, Mr Lim and your team for the beautiful display of culture you put on.

In the first week of April as well, the PM and other Ministers were at Polyfest at the Manukau Sports Bowl, which is also in my electorate. I personally loved watching Alfriston College score on the Niuean stage, with their powerful and beautiful performance.

In February, there was the official opening of the Auckland New Zealand Temple for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thank you to the elders for opening up the temple for those small few weeks so that we could have a fascinating tour and learn more about their practices.

There was also the Lunar New Year at Manukau Sports Bowl in Takanini; Holi, the Festival of Colours, at Barry Curtis Park in Flat Bush; and the Tamil harvest festival, or Pongal, at Bruce Pulman Park. I love being the member of Parliament for Takanini.

I’m very proud of the six students from Ormiston Senior College that were in the eight finalists for the Auckland region for the Race Unity Speech Awards competition. One of those was the ultimate national winner, and I’d like to acknowledge Jordyn Pillay from Ormiston Senior College for her outstanding speech. I’d also like to acknowledge the principal, Tim Botting, and his team for obviously instilling so much confidence and self-reflection in their students. I’d like to ask the House: what do we say to our young students about how to present themselves to the world as they embark on their futures?

If you don’t mind, Mr Speaker, although most of my speech was filled with happy thoughts, I will end with this. Where are our standards, and what are we saying to our young girls when the Opposition members across the House—not one of them has stood up and condemned the disgusting use of the “c” word from a disgusting journalist last week. They’re silent on the “c” word, but they’re not silent when it comes to manipulating a situation to harvest votes. It’s disappointing, and I encourage them to not manipulate the broken hearts—if they’re going to say there are broken hearts of people—to harvest votes, but to call out disgusting behaviour, just like we often do on other matters.

Mr Speaker, that’s how I will end this speech. Thank you for this opportunity.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Tēnā tātou. The only “c” word that’s done more damage to us here in Aotearoa is “colonisation”.

This Government is committed to working against the needs of its people. They are committed to making aggressive and regressive changes to this country. And they are dedicated to blaming the system they inherited, to detract from how willing they are to keep the everyday people of Aotearoa suffering. What we are seeing is not hidden. What we are enduring is not subtle. It is blatant disregard for our people and it is unacceptable.

When Te Pāti Māori offer up transformative solutions or speak to an Aotearoa hou and what that will look like for our mokopuna, this Government is quick to scream “separatist”. They say “separatist”; we say “independent”. They say “radical”; we say “transformative”. They say “race-based”; we say “rights-based”. They say “divisive”; we say “restorative”. They say “special treatment”; we say “equal footing”. They say “grievance politics”; we say “justice”. They say “backward”; we say “honouring our tīpuna”. They say “identity politics”; we say “mana motuhake”. Does Government fear anything aspirational; anything that dares to dream beyond the confines of comfort for the 1 percent? What they call “separatism”, we call “self-determination”.

Self-determination is not divisive. It means Māori designing solutions for Māori, based on our own tikanga, values, and aspirations. It means a future where both Te Tiriti partners thrive in their own right and in mutual respect. This self-determination is not only for the benefit of Māori but for the benefit of all of Aotearoa. A Whare Māori that speaks to sovereignty and partnership. A Whare Māori is not a breakaway State; it is a constitutional commitment to shared power, as promised in He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It supports localised solutions and economic justice. It’s about restoring what was promised under Te Tiriti o Waitangi: that Māori would have full authority over our lives, resources, and systems.

When we speak to a Māori tax system, this calls for economic autonomy. When we speak to a Māori health system, we are calling for oranga grounded in kaupapa Māori—models like Whānau Ora that are centred around wairua, whānau, and whenua, not just pharmaceuticals and profit. When we speak to Māori superannuation and ACC, we say that reflects intergenerational equity, where our needs, realities, and contributions are recognised. When we speak to Māori supermarkets, it is about feeding our people, controlling our supply chains, kai sovereignty, supporting Māori producers, and keeping profits in our communities. It is not exclusion; it’s economic liberation. It’s about creating a future where Māori are not an afterthought but a cornerstone of the society in Aotearoa. It’s about honouring Te Tiriti. It is about building a nation where equity comes from empowerment, not assimilation.

Often this kōrero is met with scoffs from across the room and heckles from those with the inability to think bigger, to think wider than the confines of Western colonial constructs. But Te Pāti Māori isn’t responsible to you and the inability for you to see the bigger picture. We are responsible for normalising what an Aotearoa hou can look like for our people.

What does an Aotearoa hou look like for us? We would welcome you—not just the landlords and the 1 percent but the unseen essential workers who work tirelessly to support this country, our takatāpui whānau, our whānau with disabilities, and our whānau who have immigrated and have so much expertise to offer Aotearoa. We would feed you proper school lunches, supporting kai sovereignty and alleviating the cost of living crisis. We will clothe you, not cut your benefits or subsidise prescriptions our kaumātua depend on. We will educate you on the history of Aotearoa and the partnership this country was founded on, under Te Tiriti. We would house you because housing is a right, not a business for profit at the expense of whānau living on the streets. Everyone should have the right to a constant, warm, secure home. We would manaaki you, not incarcerate you.

These are not radical ideas. So when you say “rule breakers”, we say “change makers”. They say “uncompromising”; we say “principled”. They say “disorderly”; we say “disrupting injustice”. You say “performative”; we say “unapologetic”. They say, “activist”; we say “protector of the people”. They say “too Māori”; we say, “We are good enough because our tīpuna made it so”. Kia ora tātou.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. We’re a pretty welcoming bunch in the Wairarapa. We welcome all and sundry to come and enjoy our region, but we don’t want the idiots, the boy racers, because they are not welcome.

It’d be an understatement to say that the people in the Wairarapa have had a gutsful. For far too long, the people that want to come into our region and cause mayhem have felt they’re above the law. Well, guess what! It’s all about to change and I welcome the proposed changes for tougher penalties to deter antisocial and intimidating driving wholeheartedly, as do all the people I’ve spoken to since it was announced on Sunday. The landowners whose business is horses—they told me about the thuggery, the intimidation, fireworks, exploding tyres, putting themselves at risk and their animals. They also expressed concern at the danger that not only locals but also the police find themselves in. They told me that the idiots involved think they’re above the law and can do what they want. Well, we’ll see about that. They told me that they heard about the announcement the other day and it’s a really positive move. They did ask if they could push the button on the first car to get squashed.

The local council where that particular event took place is spending thousands to clean up the roads each year. In fact, one of the costs incurred for one intersection—one intersection—was $150,000. So not only do the ratepayers have to put up with the offenders, now they have to foot the bill to fix and change the roads. The council talked about threatening, intimidating behaviour, alcohol, mess, noise, mostly late at night, and the sheer frustration within the community.

I’ve talked to another resident that’s had to put up with idiots in their urban neighbourhood repeatedly and the sheer intimidation it causes, let alone the stress, and they’ve really been struggling.

I did a quick Google search on incidents in the Wairarapa. I ended up using half a tree to print out the articles. Here’s one: “Boy racers costing Carterton ratepayers thousands each month.” Local mayor: “These idiot racers, these clowns, are going to get it wrong and someone is going to get killed.” Johannes Ferreira: “It is a frustration when we have just resealed or remarked an area to turn up to go out every Monday and clean up tyres, tyre marks and damaged signs.” The mayor, again: “There are a number of elderly residents [at one boy racing hotspot] and there’s no way in Hades that an elderly couple are going to walk out there and photograph boy racers’ number plates or ask them to stop. The intimidation factor is just too high and it’s not worth the risk.”

Another one: “Violent attack sparked after driver’s car hit spectator”. “A boy racer who was attacked at a Wairarapa meet-up had ‘spun out and hit the crowd’ moments before the violence interrupted.” “I was just standing there and … all of a sudden this car comes out of nowhere, it had McDonald’s trays on the back wheels and it spun out into the crowd.” “The bystander said it was ‘gutting’ when a select few ruined the events for everybody else. The hosts and organisers that go to show off their skills, they just want it to be about skids—a way to practice for competitions, some of the spectators get in the way and get drunk.”, he said. “I think we need a spot to go where all the interested people can go and practise safely.”

Well, guess what! They’ve already got somewhere to go. It’s called the Masterton Motorplex. They’ve got a place for them to go. It’s safe for the drivers, safe for the spectators. Do they turn up? No. No, they don’t turn up. They prefer to intimidate our locals and damage our roads. I’ve got no sympathy for any of them. Go to the Motorplex if you want to burn a bit of rubber. If you don’t want to do that, don’t bother coming to our place; you’re not welcome.

Another one: “ ‘Horrific scenes’ at Wairarapa boy racer event”. “Wairarapa locals are outraged … Masterton District Council mayor Gary Caffell said the ‘rather horrific scenes’ were ‘really disappointing’ … the community was lucky to get away with nobody being seriously injured or killed as ‘that could’ve happened’ … What needs to be done is that we need to get really tough.” Another one: “Boy racers in Wairarapa hurl fireworks, rocks, and bottles at police.” Another one: “Boy racers leaving an unwanted mark”; “Wairarapa, a boy racer ‘epicentre’.”

We’re acting now, because we aren’t willing to accept unsafe, unacceptable behaviour on our roads, in our community. If you want to act like a hooligan and put people’s lives at risk, that’s where the real rubber hits the road. You can expect to face the consequences and get your car crushed. At the end of the day, you reap what you sow. You want to break the law? Don’t bother crying us a river of tears. You won’t get any sympathy. Bye-bye little car, it’s getting squashed.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

I move, That the sitting of the House today be extended into tomorrow morning for the first reading of the Ngāti Hāua Claims Settlement Bill, the remaining stages of the Ngā Hapū o Ngāti Ranginui Claims Settlement Bill, and the first readings of the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill and the Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill.

I move, That, under section 7(2) and in accordance with clause 1 of Schedule 3 of the Public Audit Act 2001, the House recommend to the Governor-General that Grant James Taylor be appointed as Controller and Auditor-General for a term not exceeding seven years, commencing on 3 July 2025.

Mr Taylor is a chartered accountant and licensed auditor with years of experience in both the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General and in the private sector as a managing partner for Ernst & Young. He will become our 21st Auditor-General in office, which was first appointed in 1846.

I also want to congratulate and thank John Ryan, the outgoing Auditor-General, for his great contributions.

On behalf of the Labour Party, I would like to endorse the appointment of Grant Taylor as Auditor-General. This is something that only happens once every seven years, so I think it behoves the House to know a little bit about this job and how we’ve arrived here.

Like most members of Parliament, the first real understanding we have of the role is when we arrive and we go to select committee and we’re about to review the Minister or the ministry and all of a sudden, this mysterious organisation arrives and gives us some questions, tells us what we should be answering, and what we should be asking, more importantly. As a result, we understand the importance of an independent organisation reviewing Government spending.

The process of appointing this role is an important one. I have to congratulate my fellow members of the Officers of Parliament Committee, made up of members of all parties here.

Now, you might think that would perhaps risk a political decision. I can absolutely reassure the House that this was a search for the right person for this job as a result of an absolute understanding of the importance of the role. Chaired by the Speaker, I can actually give that assurance that we have arrived at a decision that has put the right person in this role for the next seven years, Grant Taylor.

The role itself—it’s quite a role. There are over 3,600 entities which are actually examined either directly or through the books of the Auditor-General’s office. Obviously, that work’s not all carried out by the office, but they ensure that the work is done, and they contract the work. In fact, Mr Taylor in his role at Ernst & Young (EY) was responsible for overseeing many of those audits. As a result—of course—he has a good knowledge of not only the role of the Auditor-General, but in fact the organisations which he has been auditing, many on contract on behalf of EY. In fact, he did actually work for the Auditor-General’s office early in his career.

In ensuring that we bring someone to this role, which is a key role in New Zealand overseeing Government spending, it is someone that has that innate understanding of how New Zealand works. Mr Taylor is certainly that man. One thing that did attract me from his CV is he’s a Naenae College boy—State house boy from the Hutt Valley. That, again, shows, I think, in appointing someone to this role that New Zealand still is a country where anybody can rise to the top if they’re given the right opportunity, and certainly Mr Taylor was given that.

On behalf of the Labour Party, I can stand and reassure the House and those who will be meeting Mr Taylor for the first time—particularly at select committees when he will be advising on how to make sure that Ministers are given the right questions and on behalf of their ministries—that I actually have total confidence that we have the right man for the job. Therefore, I am very pleased to commend this appointment of Mr Grant Taylor to the House as Auditor-General.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand to speak on the appointment of the Controller and Auditor-General. Like the previous speaker mentioned, the Controller and Auditor-General has a vital role when it comes to safeguarding the financial integrity of Aotearoa’s parliamentary system of Government, and the Controller and Auditor-General is someone who leads the team that supports a lot of the work that we do here in Parliament, particularly when it comes to select committees.

In terms of the appointment itself, the current Controller and Auditor-General is John Ryan, who began in 2018. Again, we would just like the opportunity to thank Mr Ryan for his many years of public service. Best wishes for his future. In terms of the appointee, Grant James Taylor, as the previous speaker has mentioned, Mr Taylor is already a chartered accountant and a licensed auditor and a former managing partner for Ernst & Young. Although from the private sector, he has worked and collaborated with the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General for many, many years.

Also, in terms of the process, again, I would like to thank all of the members of the Officers of Parliament Committee for the robust process that we had when we were looking to find the right person for the role. Again, like the previous speaker, Greg O’Connor, has mentioned as well, this is something that we do take incredibly seriously, and it’s something that all members of the Officers of Parliament Committee take very seriously and collaboratively to try and find the right person for this particular role.

With that, we do thank everyone who has expressed an interest in the Controller and Auditor-General. We welcome the appointment of Grant James Taylor, and we commend this appointment to the House.

I move, That a respectful Address be presented to Her Excellency the Governor-General commending to Her Excellency the alterations to the appropriations for the 2024-25 financial year in respect of Vote Audit and Vote Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, and the estimates of expenses to be incurred for each appropriation in 2025-26 in Vote Audit, Vote Ombudsmen, and Vote Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

The question is that motion be agreed to.

Once again, on behalf of the Labour Party, I commend the appropriation. Again, I’ll commend my fellow members of the Officers of Parliament Committee where each—the Auditor-General, the Ombudsman, and the Commissioner for the Environment—came and gave us a good understanding of their roles, and certainly a justification for the spending and any adjustments required. So, with that, I’m very pleased to commend this motion.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa to also support the alterations to the 2023-24 appropriations for Vote Audit, Vote Ombudsmen and Vote Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and the 2024-25 draft budgets for the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General, the Office of the Ombudsman, and the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

Now, for context as well to the House, this particular collective and this particular group, we’re doing it in this way and going through the Officers of Parliament Committee to maintain the independence of such Offices of Parliament, and the Public Finance Act 1989 provides the funding for such. In terms of the submission also made by the three offices, we examined the submissions in conjunction with the Treasury, and I just want to take a little bit of time to go through the context for each one, starting with the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General.

I think the main thing to recognise in terms of the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General is that, to the best of their abilities, they try to operate in a fiscally neutral environment, but due to certain circumstances around the COVID-19 pandemic there has been the requirement of capital injection into this. I think, in this case, what we are looking at here is that we have received reassurance from the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General that they are on track to ensure that they go back into that fiscally neutral environment, with no additional capital injection required other than a transfer of funding from the 2023-24 appropriation into the 2024-25 Budget. That is one of the really interesting observations that I think, as a collective, as a committee, we have observed.

I think, in terms of the second office, when we’re looking at the Office of the Ombudsman, a couple of observations are, number one, what we have seen as a result of extreme weather events such as Cyclone Gabrielle. We have seen that there has been a triggering of a surge of complaints as a result, and in order for the office to both ensure that complaints are dealt promptly but also at the same time ensure that there’s a high level of retention of staff, which is one of the concerns that we did address with the Office of the Ombudsman, there is an additional budget being set aside in terms of the remuneration for staff when it comes to the Office of the Ombudsman.

It’s also noted that, although in terms of the particular type of performance payment that has been suggested, it is not necessarily something that was initially supported by the Treasury. But again, as a committee, we think that it is important for us, and particularly for the office, to be able to retain some of the staff. I think there’s another element of the funding that deserves mentioning in terms of the Office of the Ombudsman, which is the fact that the office is also seeking additional funding—which this committee has supported—around the office system upgrades to ensure that the system that the Office of the Ombudsman is using is robust and secure. This is particularly when it comes to things around cybersecurity and business continuity.

Finally, when it comes to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, we are looking at, again, the Commissioner having not sought any additional funding for the time being. It is part of the baseline funding. It’s also important to note that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s baseline budget has not increased in the last six years, and it is something that they have signalled they might be seeking, an increase in funding in the next year round, in order for them to maintain the level of staff and also in terms of the rising costs and around the inflation. If that wasn’t being met, there might be some reductions in terms of the research budget and moving around some of the other budget. But, in terms of this year, they have not sought for any additional budget other than transferring funding of $50,000 from the 2023-24 appropriation into the 2024-25 Budget.

With that, we support the recommendations that have been made, and we commend this to the House.

Motion agreed to, and Address agreed to.

I declare the House in committee for further consideration of the Appropriation (2023/24 Confirmation and Validation) Bill.

Members, the House is in committee for further consideration of the Appropriation (2023/24 Confirmation and Validation) Bill. This is the debate on the financial position of the Government and the annual reviews of departments, Officers of Parliament, Crown entities, public organisations, and State enterprises, as reported on by select committees.

There are 13 minutes remaining in this debate. New Zealand National has 17 minutes, New Zealand Labour has 13 minutes, Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand has 14 minutes, ACT New Zealand has no time remaining, New Zealand First has 16 minutes, and Te Pāti Māori has three minutes.

The Government has indicated that the Minister of Climate Change will be available today for the remainder of this debate to respond to members’ questions. The debate will be led off by the chairperson or another member of the Environment Committee.

Thank you, Mr Chair. As the Environment Committee chair, I’ll just take you through some of the main points made in the Climate Change Commission’s annual review. The commission’s total revenue for the 2023-24 year was $18.56 million and total expenditure was $20.38 million, resulting in a deficit of $1.82 million. One of the commission’s statutory deliverables is to review the 2050 emissions reduction targets every five years. The current 2050 target reflects Parliament’s judgment of how much New Zealand should reduce its emissions to contribute to global efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. To achieve this, there are targets such as Nationally Determined Contributions and emissions reduction targets.

The commission emphasised that it is in New Zealand’s interest to reduce emissions. We heard that this is particularly so for the energy sector, where new technologies are already available, so that New Zealand can move towards being more energy independent. The commission told us that 80 percent of the markets New Zealand exports to by value have either got or are planning to require that emissions levels are disclosed. The commission said that accessing affluent markets is really important for New Zealand, because although there may be demand for New Zealand products, other countries may not be able to afford to buy them at the cost incurred to produce them. So we heard that adaptation to climate change is also about creating products and services that the world will value in the future.

According to the Government projections, the national sheep flock is declining, and that was alluded to during the annual review process, and the commission said that it is likely that that will continue. But the forecast for dairy cows is different. The commission said that emerging technologies will enable dairying to continue, while reducing the amount of biogenic methane emissions. The commission’s modelling suggests that a 35 percent reduction in biogenic methane emissions can be achieved, with no loss to dairy protein production.

Those were some of the main points that were touched on, as well as transport policy, heavy vehicles, industrial allocation, forestry offsets, and agricultural emissions pricing—and I’ll let the Minister of Climate Change talk to that. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I acknowledge the Environment Committee chair—Catherine Wedd—and the Environment Committee for their great work and contribution on what is a very important topic. I thought it would be helpful to offer some opening remarks before we get into some questions, just to remind those that are watching in terms of the work that is under way by this Government in regards to climate change. I want to make it very clear from the outset that as a Government we are committed to meeting out climate change goals while driving economic growth. We’re determined to meet our targets in a way that unlocks innovation, creates jobs, and also ensures that our businesses remain competitive.

I want to remind those of some of the key milestones which have been achieved so far, and also a bit of an outline of some of the work ahead. Last year, within the term of the review, I released this Government’s climate change strategy. This document provides a clear pathway for New Zealand in order to reduce its emissions and also, importantly, as we heard from the select committee chair, to adapt to the impacts of climate change. It is absolutely the reality that New Zealand is already dealing with the impacts of climate change. This year, which is obviously not part of the scope of the review, but it is important that we’re now moving into implementation, the strategy that we released focuses on clean energy, boosting innovation, and supercharging sustainable investment, while also ensuring our communities are well prepared for a changing climate.

New Zealand already has a very strong foundation to do this. We have abundant renewable energy potential, world-class innovators—particularly those within the agri sector—and one of the world’s most mature emissions trading schemes. We also released our second emissions reduction plan: a blueprint for reducing emissions for the second half of this decade. That is important because we do need a clear, robust, and practical plan in order to meet our targets. A plan that’s focused on actions in key sectors, including agriculture, transport, energy, waste, as well as the New Zealand emissions trading scheme and sustainable finance. Some of the key policies included within that are through enabling more renewable energy projects through Electrify New Zealand, recognising carbon capture utilisation and storage through the emissions trading scheme, targeting a network of 10,000 electrical vehicle charging points by 2030—and you would have seen more updates in regards to that recently—exploring partnerships between the private sector and Government in order to plant more trees on Crown land, and leveraging the Waste Minimisation Fund to enable resource recovery systems and infrastructure to process organic waste.

Our plan that we have released ensures and shows that we can have affordable and secure clean energy, we can have an efficient and competitive agricultural sector, and we can also have a booming economy while meeting our climate targets. With these policies, we are on track to meet New Zealand’s first and second emissions budget and could reach net zero as early as 2044. The Government is committed to our climate targets, and this includes the first Nationally Determined Contribution, NDC1.

During this term, the Government has delivered specific action, consistent with our commitment. Specifically, delivering the climate strategy, delivering reduced New Zealand units to the emissions trading scheme auction through auction settings in 2024, and delivering the second emissions reduction plan. In partnership with industry, this Government is increasing and has increased funding to accelerate the development of tools to reduce agricultural emissions. Consistent with the Government’s market-led approach, New Zealand businesses are leading in undertaking material levels of decarbonisation; for example, Genesis has committed to materially reduce and potentially eliminate coal from Huntly and replace it with torrefied biomass by 2028. We have also seen other initiatives through the primary sector to incentivise emissions reduction by the sector, which is important for farmers to reduce emissions overall.

We acknowledge that over the time, the gap between our projected domestic emissions and the NDC1 has reduced. When the NDC1 commitment was increased in 2021, the gap between our domestic emissions and the NDC1 was in the region of 149 million tonnes of CO2. If you now use projections from last year, and including the impact of policies that this Government has put in place and update the data based on the latest data available, the projections—[Time expired]

Thank you, Mr Chair. I rise to take a call on behalf of the Green Party, and I’m really looking forward to interrogating the actions that this Government has done within the first review period. It was heartening to hear the Minister of Climate Change refer to the Government’s commitment to climate change, but, quite sadly, the rhetoric doesn’t match the reality of the situation. This Government has slashed and burned its way through the previous Government’s climate programme, leading to some very deep and very serious cuts in the climate change response. I’m going to concentrate my remarks in the area of transport and waste, and my colleague Scott will follow on and ask some questions around energy and agriculture within the review period.

It’s interesting that the Government mentions how committed they are. I’d like to start by asking questions about the independent advice that the Government received in April 2024 from the Climate Change Commission. Does the Minister agree with the Climate Change Commission that offshore mitigation should only be used in force majeure cases, that it should not be used domestically? Does the Minister agree with the commission that achieving emissions budgets will require “further electrification of light transport including [further] phase out of light internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle imports … low carbon fuel alternatives and reductions in vehicle kilometres travelled … [and] increasing rates of active and public transport in urban areas.”? And if the Minister agrees, why has the Government pursued policies in total contravention of this?

One of the first things that the Government did when they came into office—and I wasn’t even a member of Parliament then—in December last year was repeal the Clean Car Discount under urgency, and also weaken the Clean Car Standards a few months later. Now, the cumulative effect of that, according to some independent modelling by Concept Consulting, is that by 2050, the impact of repealing these policies could have added up to 9.8 megatonnes of carbon equivalent avoided. Now, just for context, the current emissions profile of New Zealand in net terms is about 56 megatonnes. So we could have reduced one sixth of our current emissions just by keeping the Clean Car Discount and not weakening the Clean Car Standard as this Government did when they first came in.

One of the other things they did around the transport area which was regressive and deeply unhelpful was the general policy statement—a draft was released in March 2024 and finalised in June 2024. Now, according to analysis by Greater Auckland, the Minister ignored widespread concerns that these actions would actually decrease the amount of mode shift going to active transport and public transport, and overly prioritise road transport. So my question is: as the Minister of Climate Change, was he concerned by the general policy statement that came out, and does he agree with the officials who raised objections around the potential for these to actually decelerate the mode shift that was already happening?

I’ll turn my attention to the waste area because I only have a minute and a half left. We’ve seen the work that this Government has done. They’ve weakened the waste levy by reducing the de-hypothecation of it and making the funds available for landfill remediation and not just waste minimisation—worthy causes, but it should be funded by a separate pool. They’ve cancelled waste diversion policies such as kerbside organic collection and recycling. My question around the waste area is: to what extent have the changes in the waste levy shown up in the modelling, and what detrimental impact has that had towards this Government achieving emissions budget targets?

This is technically outside the review period, but since the Minister referred to it, I’ll also ask a question about it: to what extent did the changes in the second emissions reduction plan, including the improved projections of achieving the net target earlier, rely on methodological changes, and to what extent do those rely on assumptions about increased forestry? Thank you.

Climate change is an inescapable reality. No matter how much some might like to escape it and might pretend it isn’t happening, no matter how much some on the Government benches might prefer to pretend it isn’t happening, no matter how much some businesses might prefer it’s not happening, it is happening to us. It’s a huge obligation that we need to admit.

It was gratifying to hear that the Government is committed to its climate change goals while getting economic growth, but it turns out that in the last year, New Zealand has dropped seven places to 41st in the global Climate Change Performance Index, which ranks countries based on their emissions, on their deployment of renewable electricity, on their overall energy use, and climate policy. Seven places down to number 41. In that context, how is it possible for the Minister of Climate Change to sit in the chair and say that they’re committed to action on climate change?

What exactly are the climate goals that this Government is committed to? We heard a series of tactics from the Minister, a series of actions that they might take, but what actually is the climate goal of this Government? Will the Minister state that this Government is absolutely committed to meeting the Paris Agreement? Will the Government state that it is absolutely committed to meeting the emissions budgets set out by the independent Climate Change Commission? Will it commit to ensuring that we have a just and equitable transition through climate change? Will it commit to ensuring that New Zealanders are equitably enabled to adapt to climate change? Could the Minister please state his commitments to climate change?

I’m very happy to reinforce some of the points I noted in the opening statements, and I refer again to the Government’s strategy on responding to a change in climate—the Government’s climate strategy—and the headline there, as it states: “The Government will meet its targets to reduce the impact of climate change and prepare for its future effects.” As I noted previously in my contribution, the Government is also committed in regards to the targets, including its nationally determined commitment targets.

This Government has taken a number of steps in the period in which it has been in Government to put in place mechanisms in order to achieve its emissions reductions target. The question before raised waste minimisation, and that is a whole chapter in the emissions reduction plan that has been released by Government that outlines the mechanism and the processes for us to reduce emissions in that space. It is an important sector with plenty of opportunities to do that.

There was also a question in regards to methodology changes and assumptions. I think everyone will understand and be aware that forecasting involves assumptions and underlying changes. The prior Government made assumptions in regards to a number of aspects of policy, including such things as Tīwai Point and its utilisation of energy, or the role in which Huntly was going to play in the future. This Government has a different view on that, and those are examples of changes that have been reflected in the modelling.

I come back to the point: the plan that this Government is pursuing and this plan that the Government is implementing does put us on track in order to achieve net zero earlier than 2050—as early as 2044. Taking away the politics, we should celebrate the fact that this is a country that is on track, and we do need to undertake and make gross emissions reductions, in addition to using forestry as a removal tool. We’re committed to both of those mechanisms; they’re both critically important and it is also reflective, ensuring that we have a credible emissions trading scheme (ETS) to do the heavy lifting in regards to emissions reduction in this country.

This Government has spent a huge amount of effort in terms of ensuring we have a credible ETS and a credible policy position. Again, the actions speak louder than words in terms of the actions that this Government has undertaken on that pathway, and we do have a plan in order to meet our targets.

Just before I take the next call, I’ll just warn members that the debate will be completing at about 5.55 p.m. Just because members have times left in their party, that doesn’t mean the debate will go past 5.55 p.m.

In light of what the Minister of Climate Change has just said, can the Minister then unequivocally say that his Government is committed to meeting the Paris Agreement? Not the nationally determined contributions, not the tactics, not the strategy. Is the Government unequivocally committed to achieving the Paris Agreement?

Thank you, Mr Chair. I have some questions about the short-, medium-, and long-term actions the Government has been taking on climate change over the period from November 2023 to June 2024. I am mindful that just about everything that the Government has been doing has been making things worse—from cutting the Clean Car Discount and opening up oil and gas and chanting the mantra of “growth” as if, once we’ve trashed this planet, we can all hitch a ride with Elon Musk to Mars and start over.

Last week, at the Antarctica Parliamentary Group meeting, we heard from Antarctica New Zealand about the global impacts of ice loss from Antarctica, in particular when the Thwaites Glacier gives way—and it is known as the Doomsday Glacier—it will raise the sea level by 0.8 metres, and it’ll trigger more ice loss from Antarctica—up to 4 metres of sea-level rise. This is something that is not really survivable for most societies, and it’s easy to despair, but we have it within our power to change this, because every fraction of a degree matters.

I want to know, from the Minister of Climate Change, where the Government is going to make up the 2 million tons of carbon, emitted out to 2050, that the Clean Car Discount was going to abate from, noting that the Clean Car Discount programme was fiscally neutral in the last six months of 2023. As we heard about the 10,000 fast chargers, I’d like to know how many had been funded and installed.

I also want to know what the emissions impact had been from the decision to cut funding from active transport—walking and cycling paths—in half at last year’s Budget. What’s the climate cost of entrenching fossil-fuel transport?

When flooding overwhelmed Civil Defence in Ōtepoti Dunedin in 2006, I rode across paddocks to rescue sheep that were drowning. Those flood events have happened on a regular basis ever since. We’ve had repeat after repeat after repeat. Homeowners have lost insurance. We risk climate ghettos. The South Dunedin Future programme has created a model for collaborative community leadership on adaptation, and it’s got exceptional buy-in from the community. But the Government—in a kick in the guts for the South—rejected an application from the Dunedin City Council and the Otago Regional Council for $132.5 million to support a buy-out of flood-prone properties to help that community—the most densely inhabited, the most at risk from climate change, the most impoverished community in Aotearoa—to help that with that adaptation effort, with the millions that have been invested so far. That was rejected. What other support has the Government provided for the South Dunedin Future programme over that period, if any? And, with the gutting of the Climate Emergency Response Fund in May 2024, what alternative complementary funding was the Minister able to provide for climate change - related initiatives outside of the main Budget allowances, if any?

I’m also interested in the more general actions the Government may have taken over this period. What immediate actions has the Government engaged in that are more visible and simple to evaluate, such as brokering partnerships with housing in flood-hazard zones to foster innovation and adaptive housing, like developing climate-safe housing? I can refer the Minister to this report from the National Science Challenge called Our City, Our Climate, a report dealing with how the community feels about adapting to those climate impacts.

I’m also interested in what the Minister might have to say on the other complementary programmes, such as the Warmer Kiwi Homes’ investment in home upgrades. Has the Minister paid attention to reports such as Aukaha’s Houses into Homes evaluation report on the home energy retrofit project, which has a recommendation in there that we need to resource solutions for whare beyond scope? Their recommendation is that, because there are houses that are being invested in by Government in flood-prone areas, that money is being wasted.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. I just have some quick questions for the Minister of Climate Change. I do remind the Minister that he hasn’t answered my colleague the Hon Dr Deborah Russell’s question about whether or not this Government is committed to the Paris Agreement, and whether that is a commitment that they will be adhering to.

My questions are around industrial process heat that was covered off in the work of the climate commission, and also in various Environment Committee questions that have been put there. One of the things that we know in terms of reaching our emissions budget is that it is heavily dependent on the fact that New Zealand Steel is performing better than first anticipated in terms of the emissions reduction that that conversion is incurring.

What I want to know from the Minister is: what work is under way to further accelerate industrial conversions away from fossil fuels, and how the Minister is tracking that; what initiatives are being put in place, and what mechanisms to track conversions that are happening? We know the Government’s withdrawing support by scrapping the Government Decarbonising Industry Fund scheme, but what have they replaced it with in terms of monitoring there? And whether or not the Minister is doing any work around industrial allocations, which in many ways has the perverse incentive of paying people to pollute and subsidising people to continue to emit, while at the same time objecting to partnering with businesses when they are reducing our emissions and reducing the burden on New Zealanders.

Thank you, Mr Chair. A few questions from me about coal. One is: does the Minister of Climate Change realise that coal is a fossil fuel and not good for the climate? If so, why has this Government enabled coal mining through its Fast-track Approvals Act, which includes the Bathurst Resources Limited project and BT Mining Limited? Does he agree with the then Climate Change Commission chair, who presented in front of the Environment Committee, that those who promote fossil fuels are committing, “a crime against humanity”?

If he doesn’t have anything to say on coal today or to answer the other questions that have been put to him today, will he revoke the decision from his party’s members and other Government members on the Environment Committee to halve his time in his appearance at the Environment Committee?

Sorry, members, I’m just conscious of time so I do want to be able to provide answers to the questions that have been raised. To directly answer the point noted by the Hon Megan Woods in the context of this Government’s commitments: I mean, I would remind the member that, actually, the commitments under the Paris Agreement include the nationally determined contribution, NDC, of which I’ve now said on three occasions that as a Government we are committed to meeting, and that was again reinforced as part of the Biennial Transparency Report submission that the Government has recently made, and other obligations in regards to that. As a Government, we are continuing to fulfil our obligations in regard to that commitment and we are committed to our targets and committing to undertaking the work in regard to that.

I want to answer the point also raised by the member in regard to South Dunedin. I think that is a very important aspect, and whether it’s South Dunedin or Tairāwhiti or Auckland or Westport, many parts of our country are impacted by climate change, and it is important, as the member knows, that we move and have a position in regard to a framework to deal with the impacts of climate change.

We did a cross-party consensus through an inquiry, and I acknowledge the members in the House who have actively participated on that. That is an important piece of work which this Government strongly supports, and we are working quickly to introduce legislation by the end of this year to support an enduring national adaptation framework which deals with the questions of: how do you share the costs, who pays, making sure that our citizens have the information and data to make informed decisions around where they buy and where they build and also dealing with citizens that don’t have any choice in terms of where they are and the impacts that they are dealing with and how they can transition to a different state.

They are very important questions for our communities, and they are important for, I think, the majority, if not all, in this House to come up with the answers. We are committed to working together with other members of the House to get resolution to that matter.

In the context of living in a global community, we know that many of our trading agreements contain commitments to continuing to meet our climate and environmental goals. But given that our position in the world adaptation Climate Change Performance Index has dropped, has the Minister of Climate Change assessed whether any of our trade agreements are likely to be at risk because we are not meeting our climate goals?

I’d just like to return to the question of the different departments, the different ministries, that are working on programmes that might be impacted by climate. In relation to the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, which funds the Warmer Kiwi Homes programme, we know that this programme really does help people in energy hardship, and it has great effect. But what we’ve also discovered is that many homes are actually beyond repair or are in areas which will be impacted in the future. So what work has the Government been doing on checking whether programmes are suitable and are futureproofed?

We have a recommendation here from the Otago home energy report that says that a proportion of whare are in such poor condition that energy-efficient upgrades to the existing structure are largely ineffective and may actually extend hardship at high cost. Some whare are exposed to flooding or sea-level rise and have a limited lifespan. In these cases, investment is needed and solutions need to be developed in collaboration with whānau and community in examples of new builds, climate-safe housing, etc. Has the Minister of Climate Change been working across Government and with the community sector to look at this? Thank you.

Members, the time for this debate has expired. The question is, That the report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the annual financial statements of the Government for the 2023/24 financial year be noted.

The question now is, That the reports of committees on annual reviews be noted.

The question now is, That clauses 1 to 9 and Schedules 1 to 3 be agreed to.

Clauses 1 to 9 and Schedules 1 to 3 agreed to.

Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Appropriation (2023/24 Confirmation and Validation) Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

This bill is set down for third reading immediately.

on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Appropriation (2023/24 Confirmation and Validation) Bill be now read a third time.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take a short call on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). I want to start my contribution by just making a few high-level comments and observations. My view is that this bill is Government overreach because it will enable ministerial micro-management and the undermining of the teaching profession.

The bill is unnecessary and several of the amendments are already in practice. The bill removes some of the key parts of the Act that aim to promote and protect the rights of children and young people, such as those in Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the National Education and Learning Priorities (NELPs), and school strategic plans will no longer be required to be holistic approaches to educating children and young people from complex and diverse backgrounds.

The bill deprioritises Te Tiriti o Waitangi and removes local curriculum—removing local curriculum is a concern. Schools won’t see the immediate impact, but there is nothing good in this bill: the Teaching Council should be independent—National introduced the professional body—and it should not be politicised through ministerial overreach; attendance management plans are already there; and the National Education and Learning Priorities were collectively developed by schools and removing them will narrow the curriculum.

Those are some of my initial observations and thoughts about this bill. I want to spend some time, though, on noting for the House the fact that due to the rushed time frames for this bill, the regulatory impact statement (RIS) notes that they have not been able to undertake consultation on many of the proposals that are contained in this bill. Is anybody in the House surprised to hear that they have rushed the time frames and have not been able to consult with those that will be impacted by this legislation?

Oh, there is a RIS this time, lucky us!

I feel like, yeah, we should probably be happy there’s a RIS that at least states that and is honest about that because that’s not what we experienced last week when pay equity was rushed through in urgency.

Stick to the bill, please.

It’s all relevant because, of course, the pay equity claims impact the teachers who this bill is about, doesn’t it? The House is well aware of that.

So we have here the regulatory impact statement for refocusing on the Government’s priorities, and it notes here, in the regulatory impact statement, that, really, the Act doesn’t allow for the small set of critical priorities of the Government to dictate what happens throughout the Education and Training Act. So they want to align the school’s statutory objectives with the Government’s priorities and reduce the number of mechanisms the Government uses to set these priorities. In here it notes that resourcing and timing constraints did not allow time to engage fulsomely on these proposals and the options did not consider non-statutory mechanisms for refocusing schools on the Government’s priorities. Really, it’s just giving effect to something that was in the coalition agreement. That’s what this is about. It hasn’t come from feedback that they have had from the sector on it.

Now we have the regulatory impact statement for “Improving accountability and transparency for standard setting and approval functions for initial teacher education”. This is supposed to be independent, but what we have here is the possibility for, and it’s noted here that there’s potential sector opposition because evidence shows “change is most successful when parties buy-in to the … process”, but they were not consulted, and consideration should be given how to “reassure”—but when it is being implemented, so after the fact. The “increased accountability will increase government and ministerial influence”. That should be a concern for everybody.

We do not support this bill, but I do look forward to the submission process and hearing what people have to say. But they should have been consulted.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa to oppose this particular bill, and I’ll give the reasons why we are opposing this bill. First of all, we’re looking at changes to section 127 of the Education and Training Act, which is the crux of this bill. Now, one of the things that we hear this Government talk about all the time is the dire situation that we are facing in terms of literacy and numeracy in Aotearoa. Yes, there are definitely issues that need addressing. However, none of the issues are addressed in isolation. You cannot split it out and look at just student achievement only using one particular criteria to look at the student achievement.

What we are seeing is an engineered crisis by this Government when it comes to education, and addressing and skirting around the edges and trying to do anything other than addressing the real issue around the systemic barriers that we have seen in our education system. That was being addressed by section 127 of the Education and Training Act. The reason we have those four priorities is because we realised the issues that are facing our students and our country and our future collectively and holistically. By removing or deprioritising three of them, and by removing the Statement of National Education and Learning Priorities (NELP), it signals to the country that this is a Government that doesn’t actually understand education. It is a Government that has never stood in front of a classroom and understood the needs of our ākonga in general, or just period. This is what we are seeing manifesting through this bill.

Now, if you’re looking at it more closely, during the consultation period, we had a document that says that, overwhelmingly, people did not support the changes to section 127 of the Education and Training Act. We saw 11 organisations—that includes the New Zealand Educational Institute, the Post Primary Teachers’ Association, the New Zealand Principals’ Federation, I believe the Teaching Council, and also Te Akatea; some of the most independent and most senior, revered, and well-experienced organisations in Aotearoa—coming out against any changes to section 127.

But what would that change manifest? This is something we would love to hear during the select committee stage. A couple of things: number one, the Minister of Education fundamentally does not understand what statutory interpretation means, and how do you interpret legislation? When you have paramount objectives and we have primary objectives, you need to fulfil the requirement of all of those. But when you push Te Tiriti o Waitangi down as a supporting objective of that paramount objective, it means that the school has the ability to determine and say that, “Complying with and upholding Te Tiriti is not something that we see as achieving that paramount objective. Therefore, we do not need to adhere to that.” That is what a supporting objective does, and that is what’s being proposed in this bill.

We’re seeing the same thing here when it comes to putting down the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (NZBORA) and also the Human Rights Act as a supporting objective, which is incredibly ironic because it challenges and contradicts the other section of this particular bill, around universities—“Yes, we believe in freedom of expression, just not when it comes to schoolkids.” That is what the changes to section 127 are signalling, because what we are seeing here is, under the current legislation, schools cannot, under NZBORA or the Human Rights Act, ask students to not wear certain items of clothing, and particularly taonga. But when we are seeing something like this being introduced, what does that signal to the community and to students on ensuring that they have a sense of belonging in our education system? It doesn’t, and that is a concern.

The Government is putting millions of dollars into truancy without actually addressing the fundamental levers of why our education system has not provided this kind of support to our students and to our future generations.

When it comes to the removal of NELP, which I have mentioned before, the removal of NELP also meant that we are fundamentally going to remove some of the action plans for certain communities that are much needed, including the action plan for Pacific students and Pacific education. Because of that, we will not support this bill, and will look forward to the select committee stage.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m taking this call on behalf of ACT to support the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). I’m supporting this bill on behalf of ACT because this bill contains many initiatives that the ACT Party campaigned on for some time. It’s really great to see that this bill has come before the House. I know that this bill is going to be referred to the Education and Workforce Committee. As a member of that select committee, I look forward to working on this bill in the select committee process as well.

We know that education plays a very important role in shaping young peoples’ future. What we want to see is that, yes, while students achieve in their academic subjects, we also want to see that they are able to navigate the complexities of the world that we live in. That’s why one of the topics that I want to talk about in this bill is about freedom of expression at universities, because this is something that the Hon David Seymour has been campaigning for, for a very, very long time. So it’s really good to see that what this bill does is this bill imposes a duty on the council of a university to protect and promote academic freedom and freedom of expression. And also it requires that the university council, in their report, include how they have complied with this requirement and also the number and nature of complaints.

This is a very positive step, because what we have seen in so many cases at so many universities is that universities somehow have taken that kind of protective approach towards staff and students and they have been censoring some speakers from coming and speaking at university campuses. This kind of woke censorship needs to be reversed. That is what this bill will do and that is why the ACT Party is really proud to see that this policy is part of this bill.

We know that young people should be able to challenge views that they hear and they should be also prepared to be challenged for their own views. They can be prepared for these things only when they go out and hear what is happening out there and they get the exposure to different kinds of views which sometimes other people think are controversial kinds of views. So we are really looking forward to working on this bill. Of course, along with this, there are some changes to the school boards’ goals that this bill will make which are, again, positive steps, so the ACT Party supports this bill. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

This a very good and very much needed bill. It is focusing education on education. We heard across the House there that it’s an engineered crisis. No, it’s not. The system is failing—it’s not delivering numeracy, it’s not delivering literacy, it’s not delivering attendance—and this is all about fixing that.

It makes educational achievement the paramount objective, which is a great thing. It requires school boards to pay a lot of attention to getting kids actually at school. They can’t learn if they’re not there—so monitoring that. It desires to lift teacher training standards, which we know is needed, and it imposes a duty on university councils to make sure that they protect and prioritise academic freedom and the freedom of expression, which is very, very important to this side of the House. I think it’s a great bill, and I commend this bill to the House.

I have great pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

Madam Speaker. I think it’s me, isn’t it?

I’m a bit confused about what’s happening here.

He aha?

There is confusion because the Māori Party wasn’t available to take their call when that call stood up, but I understand that the speaker is withdrawing from that call. So if you are seeking the call, Mr Ferris—

Yep—kia ora. Tēnā koe e te Pīka.

I call Tākuta Ferris.

Kia ora. Tēnā tātou. Ka tū au ki te whakapuaki whakaaro mō tēnei o ngā pire e mea nei ko te Education and Training Amendment Bill.

[Hello. Greetings, everyone. I stand to express some opinions about this particular bill called the Education and Training Amendment Bill.]

I just want to be really clear with the House, with the Minister of Education, and with the Associate Minister of Education that when it comes to Māori education, we do not need any help; we do not need any help from the Minister or any other part because, for decades now, te iwi Māori has championed their own independent education models, and for more than 50 years they have done outstanding work and now consistently produce outcomes that outperform the rest of the system. So, despite the many amendments and adjustments over time, the Māori-delivered, Māori - thought-up; Māori-directed; by Māori, for Māori, to Māori education has consistently done better than the central delivery of education for Māori.

It sort of begs the question: why are we continually fighting the battle to prove that Māori understand education for Māori better than the Government, better than the centre? This is not a thing that’s being debated; the experience over the last 50 years clearly demonstrates that the way forward for successful education for Māori children and adults is through Māoridevised, delivered, monitored, -re-imagined delivery of education.

The bill that’s before us is an unfortunate continuation of a particular type of thinking when it comes to education, inasmuch as the ultimate aim for it is to reorder the bill—particularly the Treaty clause—to give predominance to the idea that culture, identity, language, these types of things aren’t really necessary in educational delivery, when the experience of te iwi Māori is the exact opposite. Also the fact that there is no evidence around that would support the idea that language, culture, and, indeed, the ways of the people are not important in the delivery or in the experience of education by them—be they tamariki, or all the way through to adults—when it is.

In the Ministry of Education’s own publication, entitled He whakaaro | Educational Insights, it clearly states that the connection between language, identity, and culture has a positive impact on NCEA results for ākonga Māori.

Now, this is not a new discovery; it’s not a new idea. The people who have championed Māori education for the last 50 years and produced amazing results have known that for a very long time. So why we’re back reconsidering what the legislation looks like—not to just forget about the other actions that have taken place by the Government—we really have to consider: well, where to from here for te iwi Māori? And this move by the Minister to, effectively, demote Te Tiriti o Waitangi in the legislation is quite simply just a continuation of the attack on all things Māori that the Government has been undertaking for 18 months. Those things include the demotion of te reo Māori to a second-class language in our own whenua, the defunding of Te Ahu o te Reo Māori—one of the most successful professional educational development programmes in education in Aotearoa—the removal of funding for Māori resource teachers, all the way down to here.

Here we are now, considering how to water down or deprioritise the place of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in the legislation. Indeed, with the removal of the Statement of National Education and Learning Priorities, which basically requires that the education system include instilling in each child and young person an appreciation of the importance of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and te reo Māori, what else are we to think? What else are we to think and where does it leave us? Well, it leaves us with a Government who are trying to frame their changes as clarifying the role of Te Tiriti, when all it is doing is eroding the mana of Te Tiriti and continuing the identity erasure of the education policies of the 1800s and 1900s. We do not commend the bill.

One of the things that this bill supports is this Government’s focus on attendance targets—something that I know members of the House will be particularly interested in! I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. A Government that is focused on the things that matter in this country isn’t a Government that is focused on the things that are in this bill. Tell me a university or a tertiary institution in this country that says that this is a priority. Tell me where a university or tertiary institution in this country has said that they want the Government meddling in their business, overreaching and making a decision about who can speak at their university? There is none. I have travelled around institutions across the motu, and universities don’t agree with this legislation. They don’t agree with this Government; they don’t agree with the ACT Party. And where is the Minister for Universities speaking on this bill? It’s because he doesn’t agree with it either.

This is an unnecessary Government overreach into our tertiary institutions and universities. Universities are independent institutions that can absolutely manage themselves. They need the ability to make decisions on health and safety—this is what they tell me when I go and visit. When they host speakers, it’s not a decision about freedom of speech; it’s whether they can actually host an event safely for their students, staff, and the public—do they have the right venues in place, and what are the risks that they have to manage? And what we’re finding is that some far-left or far-right speakers that are hosted in institutions create a number of protests—hundreds of people, in many instances, that will turn out. As a result, universities sometimes have to make the difficult decision not to host events. One of those reasons is because it’s an expensive exercise. This Government expects universities to foot the costs to host speakers and events because the Government is meddling and they’re overreaching in their business. That is unacceptable for a Government and an ACT Party that believes in organisations making their own decisions and making their own choices.

Some irony there.

It is ironic—isn’t it ironic?

But this is this Government. This is, when, within the last 24 hours, the Minister for Vocational Education has launched legislation to replace Te Pūkenga too and hasn’t actually addressed the critical issues that confront the tertiary sector. It doesn’t address the funding issues that the sector faces. It doesn’t identify whereabouts institutions fit in that.

So I come back to my starting point: this is a Government that isn’t focused on the issues that matter, that isn’t focused on what New Zealanders are asking for from them. Particularly, it isn’t a Government that is focused on what tertiary institutions, universities, and wānanga are asking of them. Most of all, they need help to address the funding inadequacies that we experience in the sector. That’s what they want the Government to put on the table, not an overreaching piece of legislation that isn’t necessary at the moment. They want to know how they can support learners within their institutions, and how they can address their pay inequity issues—particularly for women, if we’re speaking about librarians; support staff that this Government has shafted by taking away their right to put a pay equity claim forward. They’ve removed that opportunity.

But I come back to this piece of legislation—universities don’t want to be micro-managed. They’re actually big enough, academic enough, intelligent enough, and independent enough in their own right to be led by their councils, to be led by their vice-chancellors, and to be trusted that they have the best interests of their learners, their staff, the public, and Aotearoa alike—to be taken care of within their jurisdiction. The point here is that it’s a duplication of provision. This request that’s put forward can already happen. It’s an overreach and it’s just unnecessary.

While the public of New Zealand wait in vain for this Government to focus on the things that they really care about, like fixing the public health system, like getting more houses built, and by creating jobs at a time of high unemployment, what is the House’s attention being directed at tonight? Stoking an imported culture war to satisfy some kind of negotiation that ACT have carried out in the coalition agreement to change the rules and impose an unnecessary burden on our tertiary institutions and our universities, who—at first glance, looking at this bill—are going to have to undertake a heavy bureaucratic reporting regime on freedom of speech.

That sounds like something you’d like.

Well, it’s not the kind of thing I like to see, Mr Bates, because I believe in academic freedom. And there have been a number of cases in recent years where our universities have found themselves in the middle of some pretty intense debates about who should and shouldn’t be allowed to speak on university campuses. If you care about academic freedom, then you would realise that it’s something that needs to be carefully looked after and nurtured. It’s not a simple one-dimensional thing where anyone with any view and with anything to say should be given the space, particularly in a public institution, to express those views.

There’s no shortage of people out there peddling disinformation and of people preaching hate. My concern is that if the effect of this legislation would be to tie the hands of our tertiary institutions, forcing them to provide their public facilities to people who are preaching hate against, for instance, the trans community, to people who are Islamophobic, and to people who are Holocaust deniers, then I think that would be damaging for our democracy.

Universities need to be given the academic freedom to make those decisions. I’m a believer in free speech. I want to see a wide variety of views discussed and debated in our institutions. But, if the effect of this legislation is to tie the hands of universities and prevent them from exercising their judgment to protect freedom of speech in our tertiary institutions, then I think that would be a very backward step.

As my colleagues have noted, this is a bill that is full of examples of ministerial overreach and micro-management. It’s clearly pushing a political agenda, and I look forward to unpicking that and subjecting it, at select committee, to the kind of scrutiny that it deserves. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise in support of the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). This is a sensible bill that makes 11 proposals, mostly aimed at increasing attendance, to improve the outcomes for the children of our country. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is, That the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2) be considered by the Education and Workforce Committee.

I move, That the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2) be reported to the House by 16 September 2025.

Members, the House is in committee on the Social Security Amendment Bill. Members, when we were last considering this bill, we were on the debate on Part 1. Part 1 is the debate on clauses 3 to 58—“Amendments to Social Security Act 2018”—and Schedules 1 and 2. The question is, again, that Part 1 stand part.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So, yeah, we resume on Part 1, and I want to acknowledge that this is a complex bill with quite a few insertions into the Social Security Act.

I wanted to pick up on new section 236A, which is being added to the Social Security Act under this bill, under clause 15, particularly around the sanctions for first failure, report job search failure “without good and sufficient reason to meet requirements”. I wanted to ask whether the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) had developed guidelines already to ensure people know how, and to what kind of jobs, to apply. Where has MSD gotten so far with developing these guidelines? So, for example, if you have, let’s say, somebody who never pursued a degree and then is applying for a lot of jobs where, clearly, the person’s qualifications are not matched with the jobs—like, would the person then be deemed to have met the requirements under the job search non-financial sanction?

If so, I’m just keen to get the Minister for Social Development and Employment’s update on how she thinks this could be actually operationalised in a way that meets the intent or the desired intent from the Minister. In some ways, part of the reason why I think section 236A and the broader components of the report job search can end up becoming unworkable is that people can end up applying for jobs that clearly do not match the skills or even, for example, could be applying for jobs that are really, really far away but then they can’t access things like the Transition To Work Grant to allow them to then relocate, etc.

The other question I wanted to ask in this call was in relation to new section 236H, inserted by clause 15B, in relation to upskilling. I noticed that there doesn’t seem to be a definition of “upskilling”, and so I wanted to ask whether she thinks that’s a bit of a gap. I say this because the way that this sanction is laid out—and I note, by the way, that this is one of the sanctions that didn’t end up getting any public scrutiny via submissions because it was introduced later down the line, so the public did not get to submit on it. But I wanted to understand, as well: how will MSD end up defining “upskilling”? If people are just required to attend specific workshops, for example, and comply with and participate in those for a prescribed minimum of hours, how then will MSD ensure that those actually are upskilling people—right? It’s different to just require people to attend seminars for the sake of attending seminars, but whether they’re actually meeting the intent of upskilling. Has MSD developed guidelines to ensure that the prescribed workshops actually meet the intent of upskilling people?

I once again wanted to check why there is no—in relationship to upskilling, but I guess this could apply to other sanctions, but specifically on here, why is there a prescribed minimum amount of hours laid out in the legislation but no maximum amount of hours? Is the Minister concerned that this could be utilised in the wrong way by a Minister or future Governments to then lay out a really unrealistic amount of maximum hours? I note that the status quo in so far as what we’ve seen in the public is that the intent is to have a minimum five hours in one week for four weeks.

I want to take this opportunity as well to speak to some amendments under my name that touch on clause 15, and those are Amendment Papers 279 and 285. I haven’t talked about those two amendments. The first one, 279, would delete new section 236A to remove “money management”; and 285 would delete the new sections 236B, 236C, and 236D to remove “community work experience”. We believe that these two financial sections in particular are the most harmful. I wonder if the Minister would be open to removing the most harmful parts of the legislation.

Otherwise, I’m quite keen for the Minister to address the other questions I laid out. Thank you.

There was a lengthy discussion last time the committee sat around the job search, so I’m not going to repeat things that have been covered. In terms of the upskilling, the guidance will be developed in the next couple of months—the go-live is not until October. In terms of the hours limit, we do still expect that people will be looking for a job.

Just further to that kōrero, I think one of the major worries we have is the impact on whānau. That being the case, we’re putting up amendments to help the Minister for Social Development and Employment in that regard, and so we have just provided a couple of amendments there. But we have to remember that in that March 2025 quarter, job seekers have increased—209,839 people, in terms of receiving a jobseeker benefit. This is an increase of 22,000 people or 11.6 percent compared to the same time last year.

That being the case, we had a look at replacement section 236, inserted by clause 15. After replacement section 236, after paragraph (p), we’re wanting to insert that an assessment is completed within 10 working days on the impact of cancelling the main benefit on a person’s family, because from what we see, there’s no obligation on the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) in terms of follow up.

So, again, the concern is, well, what about the kids? The whole punitive approach puts aside the obligations to the wider whānau, to the kids. So I would like the Minister to consider that that be inserted, that an assessment is done within 10 working days on the impact of cancelling—what that will have in terms of the impact on the whānau.

I also want to add another clause there that MSD considers the welfare of the client to ensure that the client has the support they need to pay for food and rent. I ask the Minister to answer what consideration is given to that wider whānau and the impact that cutting the main benefit has on the kids and wider whānau. The children and partners surely shouldn’t have to go without if the parent is sanctioned and I think that we have to put some thought into that strategy. What happens to the client after being sanctioned? This has been a constant question through this process. Can she explain where they are meant to go?

Also, in relation to my inclusion of subparagraph (d), ensuring there is not enough funds for food and rent, could the Minister clarify how that will be delivered? We could consider the utility for food banks and budget advisers to support the client and whānau. So I’m just asking, in this amendment, as I said, the earlier one, an assessment done within 10 working days on the impact that cancelling the main benefit will have on the family, and then that MSD must consider the welfare of the client and to ensure that the client has the support they need to pay for food and rent—would the Minister consider that?

I’m not going to cover ground again that we’ve already covered in terms of non-financial sanctions as they are and restrictions on sanctions on households with children.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I’m not going to take that question, but I think we are getting close. Some of those issues have been well canvassed. We’re looking for new material.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to point out to the Minister for Social Development and Employment that we have four distinct non-financial sanctions. Those have distinct effects on people. They deserve to be evaluated on their merits, and each of them insert different sections to the Social Security Act.

I really take issue with the Minister describing her bill as “simple” when the person who was subbing in for her earlier, when we were last debating, couldn’t even adequately define a relationship as the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) defines it.

Anyway, so moving on to clause 17, which we haven’t touched on. That’s the insertion of section 239 into the Social Security Act, “Reduction or suspension of reduced benefit”. I specifically want to touch on the continuation of sanctions following the regrant of specified benefit.

What I want to seek clarification on—and I also ask this because of the additional section 239(1)(a)(iiia) and then (iiib), report job search and upskilling, which, as I said, didn’t get adequate scrutiny at the Social Services and Community Committee because those were added later, even though a Cabinet paper actually noted that the Minister intended to insert them and then didn’t publicly announce them.

I wanted to ask the Minister whether in this new section she foresees that, if the benefit is cut and then regranted and people were subjected to a non-financial sanction, will the minimum time that they’re required to comply with then reset, or whether—for example, in the report job search, if they had complied for those three weeks, then their benefit was cut then regranted—they would only then have to do their report job search sanction for one more week? Because even though the language in this bill says that, for example, in the new section 239(2)(a) and (b), there’s no clarification of that minimum amount of time. So I wanted to get clarity from the Minister as to how she sees that new section 239 working in practice.

I say this because I think that clarity is kindness. So far, what we do know is that people on the benefit, many of them who are struggling to survive on a daily basis, do not have the time to be going through the Social Security Act to understand, for example, the implications that if their benefit is cut then regranted whether they’ll need to re-comply with that amount of time. So I’m keen to understand this.

I also wanted to understand, then, what this could mean in practice in relation to the new section stated in clause 17 of this bill, for something like community work experience. I ask this because, for example, if you have someone on the benefit who was, say, two weeks into their community work experience non-financial sanction, had their benefit cut then regranted, then is deemed to then have to continue complying with the community work experience, does the Minister believe that it would be easy for that person to then participate once again with that same organisation and whether that would be feasible? If that organisation says, for example, “Yep, this beneficiary was working with us for two weeks. Their benefit got cut so they didn’t have to attend. We actually don’t have capacity to take them any more.”, what would happen then?

This clause 17 just adds a blunt reintroduction of the sanction without adding any new ones to the reality that in practice it’s a lot easier said than done, particularly for the community work experience sanction that involves a third party here—an organisation. Equally, with upskilling, you could argue that that one also has a third party in the case of a, sort of, community organisation as well that MSD may be OK with the beneficiary working with. That’s a question that I think is really important to get clarified.

I also want to ask whether MSD had developed, for example, any communications in plain language around how this would work in practice. What are the portals that people would then be able to access to understand with clarity what this new clause 17 adds and the provisions that it touched on?

I’m yet to take a call on clause 18, by the way—so this is around section 242—but if the Chair allows me, I may just, for the benefit of time, continue with clause 18, unless the Minister’s keen to answer my previous questions. So this one is on adding section 242, “Failures that cannot be counted”. I wanted to ask, particularly with clause 18(1) and then (2), whether MSD had worked since the report of the select committee on any projections on people having their benefits cancelled as a result of the changes to the failure count moved from 12 months to 24 months. If so, has she got any projection around, for example, how this specific clause—I want to get clarity around how she thinks this could help meet her goal of reducing the number of people on the jobseeker benefit by 50,000. Specifically, I’m curious to know: how far does she think clause 18 takes her towards that goal and does MSD have any information that could help elucidate us on this?

Since I’ve got 4½ minutes remaining, I’m going to move to clause 19. So that is around the new section 243AAA. This is the exclusion of sanction for first or second failure, if not failure to accept offer of suitable employment, and timely recompliance occurs. I wanted to ask about this new section that’s being added, particularly the new subclause (a) that reads: “the failure is not a failure to comply with the work-test obligation to accept any offer of suitable employment”. I wanted to ask why not just allow people to re-comply, basically, because I’m worried that this will end up being a bit of a blunt tool.

I also wanted to ask how MSD will define suitable employment under this new section. For example, is MSD thinking of suitable employment under this new section being work that meets caregiving arrangements, proximity to home, if somebody is on the jobseeker medical—like whether, for example, the disability that someone has with their health conditions will be factored around the definition of suitable employment. I think this is particularly salient with the new job search sanction that is being added, because then people under those sanctions will be required to apply for a number of jobs. Do all those jobs have to be considered suitable employment? Because what if somebody under job search applies for a job that is actually not suitable and then they don’t take it? Will they be subjected to the provisions that are added under this new section 243AAA?

Then I’ll move us to—actually, I’ll just let the Minister answer that one before I move to clause 19 and further.

As I said, I’m not going to repeat myself. The intention of this bill is all aimed at supporting more people into work, which is aligned with our target: making sure that job seekers know what their requirements are and that they fulfil them. If they have a non-financial sanction, of course they will need to complete that sanction, and these are non-financial. It’s fairly straightforward.

Thank you, Madam Chair. With respect to the Minister for Social Development and Employment, I don’t feel that she’s adequately answered some of the questions that we’ve had around some of the kaupapa Māori strategies that we’ve talked about over the last few days. Given the disproportionate amount of the Māori population, sadly, who are on benefits and are high in these statistics, I would ask the Minister to consider some of this kōrero with regards to working with Māori; by Māori, for Māori solutions; by Māori, for Māori strategies. I want the Minister to explain how Māori and other culturally appropriate interventions are being accommodated when sanctioning clients.

We all know, particularly with Māori, that when you create an environment conducive to the needs of Māori, their whānau and community will see better outcomes. I’m looking at clause 15, replacement section 236C, just for the Minister’s benefit. Also in relation to replacement section 236D, what other culturally appropriate interventions are being considered to support our Pasifika communities who are sanctioned, and can she explain how this is going to be prioritised so we can ensure they’re not left on the streets with nothing?

So I just want some response here from the Minister with regards to this kaupapa Māori area. I have a couple of amendments there to clause 15, replacement section 236C: “In clause 15, section 236C(2), after subparagraph (c), insert—(d) MSD must provide culturally appropriate interventions (e) When the client is Māori, that a marae based option is provided” or a pan-tribal strategy is put in place. So I think if the Minister could come back to us with regards to that, it would be very helpful, because I don’t think we have traversed the Māori area adequately enough, given the high statistics in terms of Māori, sadly, in this area.

While I’m up, too, I would like to go to my next part, which would be Part 1, clause 36, “New section 280A inserted (Cancellation of young parent payment and incentive payments for continuing failure to comply)”. So my amendment is clause 36, new section 280A, to delete clause 36, because it’s far too punitive—far too punitive—in terms of young families. I want the Minister to consider that. This amendment is about ensuring that a young parent is not punitively sanctioned.

It is important that young people—particularly our young mums—are not left in vulnerable situations. Sometimes, through no fault of their own, they’re put on their own to work things out and it’s so hard looking after their tamariki, their whānau, let alone filling out forms. So I think a better way forward would be just to cancel out clause 36, new section 280A, and delete clause 36 altogether. We know with the young mums, if they’re not supported financially, it leaves them in a vulnerable situation in terms of exploitation from partners. They could be in a domestic violence position situation—not a good position for any young mum to be in. So why does the Government have to be so punitive in this situation? Why can’t there be a more embracing, aroha-type strategy that is employed by this Government. It’s a complex situation here, I understand that, but the section as it is currently written is too simplistic and too blunt of an instrument to adequately address this issue.

So I would ask the Minister to consider this in terms of going forward. I think that my amendments will be very helpful: clause 36, new section 280A, deleting clause 36. And going back to the other amendment that I had in clause 15, replacement section 236(4)(c): “that an assessment is done within 10 working days on the impact of cancelling the main benefit”—what will that have on the whānau and is the punitive approach being adopted by the Government really the right approach at this time? I would ask the Minister to consider that and the amendments in front of her. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Before I take another call, can we talk to Part 1 as a whole. This is not a clause by clause debate. Some of the contributions have become very repetitive. So we’ve got the messaging, but we need questions for the Minister about the detail in the bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That is exactly what we’re trying to do—at least here in the Greens. I just want to make it clear to the Minister for Social Development and Employment because I have heard from the Minister that she has answered questions already, but she actually hasn’t really touched on the substance of the sanctions she’s introducing, including some that didn’t get adequate select committee scrutiny. While I note that is not a clause by clause debate, I’m saying the clauses to aid the Minister in knowing what to respond to.

I want to talk about the new section 252A around “MSD must give notice of non-financial sanction”. The Government is hoping to introduce a whole area that sets out how notice of non-financial sections have to communicated. One of the things I don’t know that is present here is the means in which that notice must be given. So, for example, right now, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) can use different ways of communicating with people—literally from correspondence to MyMSD portal, to text, phone calls, etc.—but I’m concerned that, if there isn’t a responsibility for MSD to use specific, or at least try to use specific, avenues to contact people, what I foresee will happen, as it has with the financial sanctions—and I say this from my own experience in the front line—is that we have people who, for example, don’t have access to a phone and have lost access to MyMSD, people who have been chronically homeless, who MSD may have thought that they had communicated that somebody was going to have a non-financial sanction applied, but that person is literally homeless and hasn’t received adequate support to then be on the receiving end of that communication.

The way that the proposed section to the Social Security Act is laid out doesn’t specify what the steps are that MSD needs to take in terms of the means that that is communicated. I don’t believe that’s been something the Minister has answered. I know she talked about the intent of the bill and supporting people to employment, but MSD then also has, in other commentaries, said there’s no correlation with sanctions and employment. So I’m also keen to understand whether MSD’s recent comments that they have said to the public actually aligned with what she just said. But, yeah, I’ve got a question there specifically to new section 252A being added.

I also wanted to ask about clause 28 that amends new section 261 around how a person may re-comply after failing to comply. Again, the reason why I wanted to ask this is that there seems to be a very specific note of the drug-testing obligations here. I wanted to know whether the insertion of it is specifically with the intent of ramping up the use of drug testing within the welfare system. Right now, we have this obligation in place. It’s rarely used. People are rarely sanctioned with it. It’s kind of like a leftover of previous Governments that had intended to use it, and it just became a bit of a scaremongering thing. But, in practice—at least in the front lines—I rarely have seen people who have been subjected to it, and it just seems like it’s stuck in legislation without getting used. Does the Minister intend to ramp up the use of sanctions in relation to drug-testing obligation; if not, what does she think is the use of adding it under the provisions of clause 28? Is it because of, I guess, the requirements on some jobs to go through drug testing, for example? I’m keen to get some clarity on this. This is because in clause 28(2), we do have a specific mention of the “report job search”.

I want to remind the Chair that these were added without proper scrutiny from the Social Services and Community Committee due to the lateness in which the Minister brought them to the committee. So this is the first time we actually have the ability to scrutinise the Minister on those two additional sanctions she decided to introduce late into the process.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I picked up an Amendment Paper that I hadn’t been aware of before. It’s an Amendment Paper on the Table which includes a change to clause 50 and it seems to be about circumstances where someone dies while money management’s imposed. I think this is a new Amendment Paper. I’d like to know whether it is. It looks like it’s a situation where a person dies and then it goes through a number of amendments that talk about what will happen in those circumstances. I would like the Minister for Social Development and Employment to just explain why this Amendment Paper has come up. It looks like, to me, that there has been a consequence thought through and that there are amendments to change things to remedy that.

I’m not suggesting that there’s anything particularly wrong with this amendment—I simply don’t know. But if I could just have it explained to me what the point of these amendments are, why they’ve come up, and have they just come up. Is this what’s happened, that they’ve just been put on the Table? I don’t remember these being on the Table last time. So can I please have an explanation of those amendments?

Members, the time’s come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The committee will resume after the dinner break at 7:30.

Good evening, members. When we suspended for the dinner break, we were on the Social Security Amendment Bill. We were debating Part 1. I want to be very clear that we are hearing some quite repetitive things at this point in time, and I am looking for a bit of record of what’s been asked and I’m looking for completely new questions.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I did ask some fresh questions just before I went, about an amendment that had been put and that I wanted to know about, but I’d like to add a question that’s absolutely fresh. There’s an amendment on the Table that is about the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) considering the welfare of the clients, and I wanted to know from the Minister for Social Development and Employment whether she would consider an amendment which at least considered the welfare of the child involved. This is about having an assessment, 10 days in, on the impact of cancelling someone’s main benefit, and my understanding is we’re also cancelling the accommodation allowance in those situations.

It’s a pretty serious situation, but we also have an issue that often it’s children in this family that are going to suffer the most. So would she consider an amendment that simply took this amendment and looked at having a 10 - working-day review where there are children involved, and then MSD is having to consider the welfare of the child.

Yeah, can I—

Thank you.

Can I just make a comment. I’ve been checking my tracking sheet, and that question did come up on Thursday when I was in the committee of the whole House, and it has subsequently been asked. So we are—

The welfare of a child?

Yes—yes, it was definitely asked. It has been asked a couple of times, actually, but it definitely did come up on Thursday. So I think we are starting to traverse things, and, you know, when there’s a weekend in between, sometimes we get different people in the Chamber, so—

I certainly haven’t asked that, and I—

No, I—

Yes, I appreciate it.

I appreciate you haven’t, but it has been asked.

Yeah, thank you for the advice. The questions I asked before dinner were about an entirely different amendment, which was all about the death of someone and the impact on the benefit. Have we had those questions before?

I’m going to check, but if you’ve asked it before dinner, it’s on the sheet.

Yes, it’s on it; it just hasn’t had an answer.

OK, thank you.

Thank you.

I’m going to call Ricardo Menéndez March just while I’m checking on this, but I am serious about new questions.

Yeah. And I’d just like to alert the Chair as well: I am trying to note the clauses that I am referring to. I know that this is not a clause-by-clause debate, but hopefully by moving through the clauses and having individual questions I can demonstrate to the Chair that we are approaching this with good faith.

I wanted to move us to the provisions around automated decision-making, so these are clauses 52 and 53, and I particularly wanted to ask the Minister for Social Development and Employment around my amendment to delete those clauses. We haven’t really devoted much, if any, time to automated decision-making, but definitely not to my amendment to remove those clauses. Advocates on the ground have highlighted concerns around the expansion of the use of automated decision-making, and particularly when they come to the relation of application of sanctions and the expiry of benefits. We’re really concerned that the application of sanctions should not be administered by computers without human interaction, and that even opening the scope to allow for that to be possible is really, really dangerous, particularly when we know that the Ministry for Social Development’s accuracy rate when it comes to the application of, for example, benefit entitlements is not adequately applied in almost half of the cases.

I’m interested to know whether the Minister would support my amendments to then do some more work around the actual scope, and define the scope of automated decision-making in a much more narrower sense, to ensure that we don’t have these provisions that then enable any future Minister to broaden the scope. And I’m also seeking guarantees from the Minister, because I don’t believe that she has given many public guarantees at all around where she thinks, in her term as Minister, she will broaden or limit the scope of these provisions in clauses 52 and 53 in relation to automated decision-making. Can she make any commitments right now around the areas she’s not willing to go into when it comes to broadening the scope of automated decision-making? And if she can’t make those commitments, I would recommend that she supports my amendment to then do some further work, so that the public has clarity about the intention she has in relation to expanding the scope.

In relation to that, I’m also interested [Interruption]—Madam Chair, Madam Chair—I think I have, like, two minutes—

Ricardo Menéndez March.

Thank you. I’m also interested to know, in relationship to the expansion of automated decision-making in clauses 52 and 53, how she intends to communicate that specific expansion to clients. I’m also interested to know whether MSD is preparing—for example, having provisions that let clients know when a decision has been taken by a human, or when, for example, something has been taken by the way of automated decision-making. How will a recipient of a benefit know when something is triggered as a result of the provisions in clauses 52 and 53, as opposed to a case manager? I think, without having benefit recipients having certainty about whether a decision was made by a person or automated decision-making, I think then it creates even more confusion around, for example, if a beneficiary is to do a “review of decision”—so, for the committee, “review of decision” is a paper you can fill out to challenge a decision made by Work and Income that can lead to a Benefit Review Committee; the Benefit Review Committee can decide on an outcome and that can even be further challenged by the Social Security Appeal Authority.

I guess my question is, if automated decision-making is expanded, and somebody wants to challenge that, what’s the level of accountability, then, in terms of when we have a Benefit Review Committee hearing, when someone is challenging a decision being made by automated decision-making? How does the Minister expect that to work? When we know, for example, as well, that the wait times for Benefit Review Committee hearings, when people are challenging decisions—and this bill is introducing more decisions by MSD by nature of introducing more sanctions—there’s a huge delay to get a hearing. There’s reports from advocates that the balance of those hearings is very skewed towards MSD, and there are also long wait times and lack of resources to then go to the Social Security Appeal Authority. The provisions in clauses 52 and 53 concern me because I do think they will make the Benefit Review Committee hearings far more complex, confusing for benefit recipients, and there will be less clarity around who made the decisions. So any assurances on the scope, how that will be communicated when a decision has been made by automated decision-making, and how people can challenge decisions that are made through automated decision-making, would be greatly appreciated, as this has been an area of concern for many people at the front lines.

The answer has been given multiple times before. The whole concept of non-financial sanctions are only given by a Ministry of Social Development staff member who can take into account the individual circumstances of a person who has breached their obligations. It is why we are introducing non-financial sanctions, and a person, a human, who is at the front line, providing service to beneficiaries will be making that decision.

Helen White, did you have a question about death? I said to you before, I thought it had been traversed and I can’t find it. Just really quickly, what was your question?

Thank you. There was an Amendment Paper on the Table that seemed to be all around where a spouse had died—I suspect—and it went through and it talked about the different treatment of a person in those situations. I was asking for a plain English explanation of what the amendments were.

It’s in the Amendment Paper, so if you just read it in plain English. You didn’t actually have a question before.

Apparently the explanation—the Minister’s just answered: the explanation’s in the Amendment Paper so I think the explanation’s already there.

Point of order. Helen White was on her feet making a speech, and the Minister, quite outside of the Standing Orders, simply stood up and interrupted her. In your comment now, you seem to endorse that behaviour. Now, I accept that you can interrupt a member who you think is wandering off topic, but for the Minister—

Yeah, thank you, Dr Duncan Webb. That is a relevant point, that members—including Ministers—should wait to be called. But I do deem now that the Minister has answered—

Speaking to the point of order. I’m seeking some guidance in relation to that interruption, more importantly around the content of the interruption, because throughout this debate, we have been told by the Minister time and time again that questions have been answered. I would challenge that. And I’m asking how are you, as the presiding officer, taking guidance to ensure that the Minister is not factually incorrect when it comes to her assertions that specific questions have been answered?

Look, it’s not my role to judge what the answer to the Minister’s question is. The Minister has been taking calls, and it is not the job of the presiding officer to enforce that the Minister answers your question in a way that you will be satisfied, either. So what the Minister’s answers are, are the Minister’s answer and that’s as far as our job goes.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendments to Part 1 of the Minister’s Amendment Paper 263 set out on Amendment Paper 279 be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendments to Part 1 of the Minister’s Amendment Paper 263 set out on Amendment Paper 285 be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendments to the Minister’s Amendment Paper 263 set out on Amendment Paper 284 be agreed to.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Amendment Paper 263 be agreed to

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s tabled amendment to insert new clause 3A is out of order as being outside the scope of the bill.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to delete clause 5 be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Amendment Paper 265 be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Willie Jackson’s tabled amendment to clause 10, new section 183A(1)(c) be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Amendment Paper 266 be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendments to clause 10 set out on Amendment Paper 281 be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Amendment Paper 283 be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Willie Jackson’s tabled amendment to clause 12, new section 233A be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Willie Jackson’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 236(4) be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendment to Part 1 set out on Amendment Paper 269 be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Willie Jackson’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 236A(3) be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Amendment Paper 276 be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Amendment Paper 264 be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendment to Part 1 set out on Amendment Paper 270 be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Amendment Paper 271 be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendment to Part 1 set out on Amendment Paper 272 be agreed to.