Parliamentary debates: Tuesday, 29 July 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.

A petition has been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

Petition of Simon Kemp requesting that the House urge the Government to enter into negotiations with journal publishers to broaden access to academic journals.

That petition stands referred to the Petitions Committee. Ministers have delivered five papers.

Government response to the petition of Greenpeace

Report of the Attorney-General under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 on the Electoral Amendment Bill

Climate Change Commission Monitoring report: Emissions reduction (2025)

2025-26 statements of performance expectations for:

Callaghan Innovation and

New Zealand Transport Agency.

Those papers are published under the authority of the House. Nineteen select committee reports have been presented.

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

2025-26 Estimates for Appropriations within Vote Business, Science and Innovation related to New Zealand Trade and Enterprise

2025-26 Estimates for Vote Customs, and

2025-26 Estimates for Vote Defence and Vote Defence Force

reports of the Health Committee on the:

2025-26 Estimates for Vote Health and

2025-26 Estimates for Appropriations within Vote Business, Science and Innovation related to the Health Research Fund

reports of the Justice Committee on the:

2025-26 Estimates for Vote Attorney-General

2025-26 Estimates for Vote Corrections

2025-26 Estimates for Vote Courts

2025-26 Estimates for Vote Justice

2025-26 Estimates for Vote Parliamentary Counsel

2025-26 Estimates for Vote Police

2025-26 Estimates for Vote Serious Fraud

reports of the Petitions Committee on the:

petition of Duran Nair

petition of Nick Ruane, and the

petition of Speak Up for Women

reports of the Primary Production Committee on the:

2025-26 Estimates for Vote Forestry and

2025-26 Estimates for Vote Lands

report of the Social Services and Community Committee on the 2025-26 Estimates for Vote Women, and

report of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee on the 2025-26 Estimates for Appropriations within Vote Finance related to the infrastructure sector.

The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of three bills.

Antisocial Road Use Legislation Amendment Bill, introduction

Public Service Amendment Bill, introduction

Education and Training (Early Childhood Education Reform) Amendment Bill, introduction.

I have received a letter from the Hon Dr Duncan Webb seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 the Government’s announcement of changes to the Electoral Act. This is a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility. In determining whether a matter requires the immediate attention of the House, one consideration is whether the matter must come before the House reasonably soon in the form of legislation—see Speakers’ ruling 223/5.

The Electoral Amendment Bill is set down as the first Government order of the day for today. It will be debated for reference to a select committee. The Clerk will allocate the associated New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report to a select committee. On that basis, I do not think further time needs be set aside to consider the matter today.

to the Minister of Finance

When were personal income tax thresholds last adjusted?

Personal income tax thresholds were adjusted almost exactly a year ago, on 31 July 2024, and, as members may recall—because many of them opposed this tax relief for New Zealanders—the Government increased the lowest income tax threshold from $14,000 of annual income to $15,600, the next threshold from $48,000 to $53,000, and the next from $70,000 to $78,100. At the same time, the Government expanded eligibility for the independent earner tax credit, and we increased the in-work tax credit paid to low to middle income families with children.

By how much have New Zealand households benefited from these tax changes over the past year?

Well, of course, that depends on their own individual circumstances and those of their family and household. I will give you some averages to illustrate it. Inland Revenue expects that around 1.9 million households will have benefited by $60 a fortnight, on average. That’s $60 a fortnight that would have been denied to them by the members who opposed that tax relief. Inland Revenue also expects that households with children will have benefited by $78 a fortnight, on average—relief that would have been denied to them by those who opposed tax relief—and Inland Revenue points out that in some circumstances, households will have benefited by more than $100 a fortnight.

What other assistance have households received from the Government?

More than 65,000 households, and rising, have received additional help with early childhood education costs from FamilyBoost. Members may recall—because many of them still oppose it—that FamilyBoost has so far given households a rebate of 25 percent of their early childhood fees and that from this month it is rising to 40 percent of their early childhood fees. I could point to many more things, but one policy I would particularly highlight is the move to 12month prescriptions, which will be coming early next year. For families who get stable long-term medications like asthma inhalers, insulin for diabetes, ADHD medication, and blood pressure tablets, this move will save them unnecessary medical costs and give health professionals more time to deal with other patients.

What does this mean for the cost of living?

The cost of living is the relationship between two things: how much people get in their pay packet—[Interruption]

Sorry—just a minute. That’s ridiculous. One or two comments by way of interjection—as has always been the case—is acceptable, but not that barrage. The Minister will start again.

The cost of living is the relationship between two things: how much people get in their pay packet and the prices they pay. We’ve seen in recent history that when prices rise very rapidly to a peak of 7.3 percent, as in 2022—the highest inflation since 1990—wages can’t keep up, and hence there was a cost of living crisis. The Government is focused on both sides of the equation: on costs and on incomes. We are taking deliberate measures to address structural issues like competition that can lead to prices being higher than otherwise. Opposed by many members of this House, we gave tax relief that benefited working families. We are driving sustainable increases in incomes through measures that will grow the economy.

to the Prime Minister

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

Yes, and especially our move to ban surcharge fees on in-store debit and credit payments so that Kiwis don’t have to pay to use their own money, and, of course, this follows a recent announcement by the Commerce Commission to reduce the bank fees that retailers pay to accept card payments, saving retailers $90 million a year. We want to make sure those savings are fully passed on to Kiwis, so we are banning fees at the checkout. That means no more nasty surprises or hidden fees, and Kiwis will know what the price is and can shop with confidence.

Why does his Government think that in a cost of living crisis, hiking up the fees of board directors by up to 80 percent is more important than pay rises for teachers and nurses, who are being offered a paltry 1 percent pay increase—less than the rate of inflation?

Well, as that member will well understand, having been a Minister for the public sector, we want to make sure that our Crown entities which are delivering some our most critical public services are incredibly well governed and well managed and well led. We’ve been advised that we need more competitive payment for those directors, which, essentially, hasn’t moved in the course of over a decade, although I know that the member would have dealt with it himself when he passed on pay increases to directors back in 2022, I think, as well. What we’re doing is making sure that, actually, we’ve got competitiveness. It’s never going to be as competitive as public sector pay, but it’s important, given that we’ve got large expenditure going on, that it’s well governed.

So why should teachers and nurses have to settle for pay increases below the rate of inflation—in other words, a real-terms pay cut—while he’s increasing the pay of directors by up to 80 percent?

Well, in answer to the first leg of the question, I’d just say that on nurses, there has been a big effort around nurse remuneration over a number of years. We are in a place where we have average nurse salary and incomes at $125,000, which is equal to New South Wales, which is 35 percent wealthier than New Zealand, and we’ve also been hiring more nurses. We’ve got 2,100 more nurses in our system, there’s a lot less attrition, and they’re increasingly well remunerated. The only people who lose out on strike actions are those people who want elective surgeries, and we want to be able to get them to them.

So, in addition to denying the fact that the cost of living crisis continues for New Zealand families, is he now asserting that the problem is that nurses are just too well-paid because of the pay increases they got under a Labour Government?

I reject the characterisation in that question. All I was explaining to the member, who would well understand, is that it’s important that we will never be able to offer private sector pay to public sector directors. But we’re making sure it’s more competitive so that we get good governance, so that the money that we’re spending is well spent and gives good value for money.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance. In the past, Speakers have ruled that you cannot begin a question with a word like “So”, make a statement as an assertion, and then lead on to a question. Usually, a question must begin with a question word in this House.

That’s right, and in this case, it was “So does he deny”, and so I overlooked the “So” in this case. I’m sure that the Leader of the Opposition knows the rules pretty well, in and out. I recall occasions when the Minister himself has asked questions that have had one word preceding a question word, and that’s not unreasonable.

Yeah, but I got away with it!

Yeah? Well, guess what’s happening here.

Why, during a cost of living crisis, has his Government prioritised $300 million in tax breaks for a multinational tobacco company while everyday New Zealanders are left paying up to $100 per visit just to see their local GP, if they can find one?

Again, I reject the characterisation of that question, and the member has come back to this point at all times. What we are doing is making sure that people who are addicted to smoking can actually, through heated tobacco products, have an opportunity to come off smoking. We didn’t have those products in the market; they are now in the market. We’re extending that pilot—that trial. The member knows that it’s not a tax. The member knows that it’s a contingency due to lost excise and revenue that would be coming, because if we are successful at moving people off smoking into other products, it reduces harm. That’s a good thing.

Does he stand by his statement that “We have to fix and rebuild this economy so we can actually reduce the cost of living for people”; if so, why has the economy flatlined and why have costs continued to explode under his leadership?

Look, I welcome the member’s new-found interest in the economy and the cost of living, because it’s not that long ago that he was in Government and he actually created this mess that we’re now cleaning up. But I’d just say to that member, let’s just go through a few things, because if you’re really serious about reducing the cost of living, will you support a rates cap on councils—yes or no?

No, no—sorry. The Prime Minister can answer a question, but he can’t ask questions.

It’s a rhetorical one.

Well, rhetorical or not, it’s a question. [Interruption] Do you want to continue the answer?

Sorry, it was just a rhetorical answer—is what I’m asking.

When essential costs like groceries, fees, Government levies, and doctors visits continue to rise, why does he respond to public frustration not with solutions but by making it harder for people who do remain in New Zealand to vote him out?

I’d just say to the member that this a Government that is working incredibly hard. We have made sure that we offer people tax relief—low and middle income working New Zealanders who have suffered because of the conditions that his former Government created. This is a Government that’s expanding FamilyBoost to make sure that low and middle income working New Zealanders can get access and subsidisation for their early childcare costs. This is a Government that has created rent stability. This is a Government that has taken people off social housing wait-lists. This is a Government that is doing everything it can to lower the cost of living for people through good economic management—something that he and his party just don’t understand.

to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs

What recent announcements has the Government made regarding reduced fees at the checkout?

Good news: the Government is banning surcharges. This ban will apply to in-store payments for debit, credit, and EFTPOS cards, putting money back in Kiwis’ pockets. Whether a customer is tapping, swiping, or paying with their phone, they’ll soon pay the advertised price and no more. It’s a win for consumers and a step towards a fairer, simpler payment system. [Interruption]

Just wait for a moment, please. All right, carry on.

Why is it important that Kiwis know exactly what they are paying before they tap or swipe?

No one likes getting stung with a surprise fee at the checkout, and I believe that New Zealanders should be able to pay for things without being penalised just because they choose to pay for a transaction in a certain way. It’s about honesty, clarity, and respect for people’s hard-earned money.

What will this change mean for Mr Major from Thames?

By May 2026 at the latest, this change will do away with those coffee-stained, crumpled-up stickers on payment terminals, and for Mr Major from Thames, he will be able to buy his coffee and scone and know that the price that he sees on the cabinet will be the price he pays at the till. This change is about bringing transparency back to pricing and ensuring Kiwis get the best bang for their buck.

What feedback has the Minister received on this change?

I have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from consumers on this change. Consumer New Zealand has said that “scrapping surcharges will put millions back into the pockets of New Zealanders and make accepting payments much simpler for merchants.” Business New Zealand has said that consumers should be encouraged to use modern modes of payment without having to second-guess a purchase or having to do the “insert card” dance at the till. Consumers are tired of these sneaky charges, and under this Government these surcharges are gone.

to the Minister of Finance

Tank yu tumas, Mr Speaker. Does she stand by all her statements and actions?

In context, yes.

Who is right: the New Zealand Food Network, who said, “We genuinely believed that there was going to be a drop off once everything got back to normal, but then this thing called the cost of living crisis kicked in … so it’s not going down”, or Nicola Willis, who says that the country is “back on course”?

To address this question, I want to remind members of this House of some cold, hard numbers. I’ll start with December 2022, when food price inflation was 10.7 percent. I’ll then take you to March 2023, when it was 11.3 percent, and June 2023, when it was 12.3 percent. I then take you to June 2025, where it is 4.2 percent. Food price inflation is far lower than it was under the last Government, and I would say that that is progress.

Are things really getting back on course when the Compassion Soup Kitchen supplied 1,300 more meals than the previous month, and have said, “The increases right now are just unprecedented”?

I want to acknowledge the Compassion Soup Kitchen and the many non-governmental organisations who support New Zealanders in need, many of whom are vulnerable, and what I would highlight for the House is the statements I’ve made previously, which is that when unemployment is high—as it currently is—that has a significant impact on households. I note that unemployment is tracking almost exactly to the forecasts members opposite presented prior to the election; in fact, when we look at the granular detail, unemployment is slightly lower than the previous Government was forecasting. So while unemployment at these levels is regrettable and is undoubtedly having an impact on New Zealand families, we are, as a Government, able to say that this is absolutely the result of the economic crisis left to us by the last Government.

Is the country back on course when Kaibosh Food Rescue have said that four years ago, 20 people showing up at the Lower Hutt food bank was a busy day, and now it sees between 120 to 135 people each day?

Well, members of this Government get up every day to think about how we can improve this economy so that it delivers for New Zealanders, including those in need making use of food, rescue services, and other support services. Now, what we can look to is the data to track that progress, and what we can see is that after a couple of years of real GDP per capita going backwards under the last Government, inflation remaining out of control for three years, and interest rates being cranked through the roof, we are now in a situation where we have had two successive quarters of real GDP growth where inflation has got back into target and where interest rates have reduced significantly. Now, those are the foundations. There is a lot more work to do, but it’s a lot of progress since the last lot trashed the joint.

Yeah, just calm down on those ending comments after some statistics are presented to the House.

What does it say about her priorities when she finds funding for tobacco companies and board directors but not for community providers, who are dealing with significant increases in demand from families because of her Government’s decisions?

Well, I’d reject just about every characterisation in that question, in particular acknowledging that, as the Minister for Social Investment has outlined, we are working to develop a much better contracting approach with community organisations. However, on the question of tobacco excise, I would simply point out to the member that our goal is to move more people away from smoking, and the numbers which she refers to actually would result from people not paying tobacco excise any more because they have stopped smoking. So if the member’s position is that she wants us to collect more tobacco excise because more people should be smoking, I’d put to it her that that’s a very irresponsible position, and I’d prefer to have the reduction in excise that occurs when fewer people are smoking.

Can the Minister of Finance confirm that the inflation peak in 2022 was the highest since 1990, and do those two years have anything in common?

Well, students of history will know that Labour Governments have had a history of driving up inflation, putting holes in the books, and destroying the economy. But I would like to just share facts, Mr Speaker—referring to your earlier guidance. It wasn’t just the 7.3 percent peak, I say to the Deputy Prime Minister, but it was also the 7.2 percent in September 2022, the 7.2 percent in December 2022, the 6.7 percent in March 2023, the 6 percent in June 2023, the 5.6 percent—[Interruption]

Yeah, good—that’s enough, and can I just say to the Opposition that if you want me to do something about something, don’t sit there trying to tell me what the rules are.

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.

Will his changes to voter enrolments lead to more or fewer people voting?

Well, I hope more people participate in our democracy. It’s a great thing. It’s a gift that should be really treasured incredibly well, and we hope that more people continue to participate in voting in New Zealand.

Does he want to make it easier for more people to vote, and, if so, why is he proposing a change that may see an estimated 22,700 people have their eligibility to vote directly affected?

There is plenty of time before the next election for people to get enrolled. All we’re doing is making sure that it’s two weeks before election day and before advance voting begins. That’s a good thing. If Australians can do it 26 days earlier, I’m sure Kiwis can do it in 12 or 13 days.

Should renters, young people, Māori, Asian, and Pasifika communities be afforded less access to democracy just because they are more likely to need to cast a special vote?

I think all New Zealanders are quite capable of getting registered two weeks out from an election, and I think it would be insulting to suggest otherwise. [Interruption]

No, don’t—just hold on. This ridiculous level from both sides of the House is very unhelpful.

Who does he see as worthy of a say in our democracy, if not renters, young people, Māori, Asian, and Pasifika communities?

We want all New Zealanders to have a say in our democracy.

Does he agree that the fundamental right to vote sits at the heart of our democratic system, or does he believe it should be reserved as a privilege for those with the time and resources to engage in politics?

In answer to the first part of the question, yes. We want all New Zealanders to participate in the voting process.

Question—

Why are you so scared of voters?

Well, can we go on? Question No. 6, the Hon Ayesha Verrall.

to the Minister of Health

Does he stand by his statement that his focus “is on putting patients first”?

In the context it was made, yes. We’re putting patients first, to ensure that Kiwis can get the care they need when they need it. Our Government inherited significant wait-lists, which meant that too many patients had been waiting too long for the care they need. That’s why we’ve brought back health targets to focus the system on delivery, made a record investment of $16.68 billion over three Budgets, and continued to strengthen our health workforce. Whilst these efforts are starting to show positive progress, we know there is still much more work to be done. We’re getting on with the job, and we won’t stop until we deliver better health outcomes for all New Zealanders.

How was he putting patients first when he cut the workforce responsible for protecting patient safety by 30 percent?

Well, the Health New Zealand report which that member is interested in and which that team was responsible for stopped being published in the 2019-20 financial year, and Health New Zealand has committed to restarting publishing of that report next year.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. That supplementary question did not reference a report. It referenced a 30 percent cut to the workforce that is responsible for protecting patient safety, and I don’t believe that that part of the question was addressed.

Well, would the Minister like to make a response to that.

Well, I note that the reporting which that team deliver is going to be restarted next year, after it stopped in 2019-20, and I have made my expectations clear to Health New Zealand that it’s about the outcomes that are important to the delivery for this Government.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. This team has a global responsibility for the quality and safety systems in their hospital. I didn’t ask a question about writing a report, though I am transacting that issue—

No, but you did ask the question about, from my memory, whether he is concerned about the outcomes from this group if their numbers are cut. I think he’s just answered that question.

Is a 30 percent increase in ACC claims for people who suffer injuries, infections, and pressure sores in hospital a sign of a Government that puts patients first, or a sign of an overcrowded and understaffed health system?

Well, that is not an acceptable rise in pressure injuries in our hospitals, and Health New Zealand has a responsibility to ensure that it is addressing those concerns. However, I would say that this Government has invested significantly in Health New Zealand: $16.68 billion over three Budgets. There are 2,100 more nurses working at Health New Zealand today than when we came into Government, 600 more doctors are working at Health New Zealand today than when we came into Government, and our focus is on ensuring that Health New Zealand is delivering on that investment and people and money so that patients get better access to care, following the significant wait-list the last Government left us to fix up.

How is he putting patients first when he has cut funding to the Health and Disability Commissioner to investigate instances of poor treatment and breaches of the code of patients’ rights?

There was a one-off increase in funding allocated in this year’s Budget to ensure that they could continue to address the wait-list—again, a significant wait-list—and complaints made to the Health and Disability Commissioner. There was a one-off funding increase that the previous Government had put forward, which was time-limited. We have put another $1 million in—a time-limited amount of money—to continue the work that the Health and Disability Commissioner is doing to get on top of the wait-list, and the advice that I have received from the Health and Disability Commissioner is that they’re making good progress on that.

Does he accept that he has cut safety systems, suppressed reporting, ignored the warning signs, and closed off accountability, and that next time when tragedy strikes, he has no one to blame but himself?

Well, when it comes to the reporting which the member talked about in her question, I—

I didn’t.

When she talked about the reporting in her question, I would note the report that she is referencing was a report that was discontinued in the 2019-20 financial year. That report is now being reinstated by Health New Zealand next year.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. It does seem like the Minister has really got it in his head that this question was about a particular report. He said “a report” in his answer. I’ve not raised a report in my question; I’ve raised serious concerns about the patient safety system, and I’ve not had that addressed.

You used the word “reporting”, and I’d have to say it’s very hard for me, sitting here listening to your questions about the range of activities across the health sector, without expecting that there might be some reporting of that work. So I don’t agree with you that there is a problem with the answer from the Minister.

to the Minister for Resources

What upcoming announcements, if any, is he planning for the resources portfolio?

This week is an extraordinary time for heat, gas, and steam. Along with my colleagues Minister Upston and Minister Reti, I’ll be launching the Government’s draft geothermal strategy tomorrow, reflective of my commitment to renewable energy. However, to ensure that we don’t repeat the errors of the past and continue the perfidy of the cancellation of the oil and gas industry by Jacinda Ardern, we will have the oil and gas exploration—ill-fated—piece of legislation changed at the end of this week.

Why is geothermal energy important for the New Zealand economy?

It’s important that our economy boosts its productivity through more affordable and secure energy. As we grapple with the legacy of failed energy policy, cancellation of the oil and gas industry, and unicorn-kissing, shallow green ideas, we’re a lot more serious. We’re unlocking the geothermal potential—

Point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you, sir. This is a clear example of the very thing that you have warned this Government about numerous times over various sitting weeks of using a question asked by their own team to express their opinions on previous policies. Now, it is a clear attempt to—

Thank you. I agree with you, and I think that the Minister should recognise that the attack aspect of his answer is not acceptable. Talking about factual matters is and it has been allowed, but the general tenor of that answer falls in the category of using a Government question to attack the Opposition, which is not acceptable.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m very happy that you’ve used the word “factual”. It is a fact that the oil and gas industry was chilled, halted, as a consequence of a decision announced by so-said woman.

Well, that might be true in your opinion, but the reality is that there is still gas flowing at the moment, so it can’t have been stopped dead. So I’m sure there will be another supplementary that gives you the opportunity to—[Interruption] Oh, sorry, are you still answering that other supplementary?

Yes, I think that in the interests of democracy, I should give a fuller answer.

Well, I think that the House has lost track of it, so Jamie Arbuckle might like to repeat it, word for word.

Why is geothermal energy important for the New Zealand economy?

Our economy requires a diverse range of energy sources. Geothermal is a key feature in ensuring that we have affordable energy, that our productivity is boosted, and that we have rules, laws, and opportunities where it can be further utilised. We have the ability to become world leaders: we have the human capital and the technology, and, with appropriate modesty, I would say we have the political leadership.

What more can he tell us about the draft geothermal strategy?

Tomorrow, I shall travel to Taupō, the heart of geothermal potential, and unveil the strategy. Consultation will begin, as befits a participatory democracy like the one I’m privileged to belong to. I’m also very keen to identify what barriers, red tape, and third-party interests might be blighting the ability of us to accelerate the availability of geothermal energy for tourism, recreational purposes, manufacturing, and further electricity. This follows the $60 million funding through the Regional Infrastructure Fund, designed to ensure that supercritical deep geothermal energy can play a bigger role in securing a resilient energy future.

What more can he tell us regarding reversing the ban on offshore gas exploration?

A worse decision in the history of capitalism in New Zealand, driven by a very shallow, juvenile, and mistaken approach—

Point of order, sir.

Sorry, I know what you’re going to say, but for a Minister to say that a previous decision was bad is not out of order. I think you were heading into territory that’s probably unnecessary, but if that was your point, then that’s what I would respond to.

No, certainly not, sir.

Oh, it’s something new? My goodness! That’s unusual.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. Yes, just specifically, the use of “shallow” and “juvenile” surely cannot be an acceptable—

Yeah, I just said that to him.

—use of language. That’s right. So—

Yeah.

—and with respect, sir, he shouldn’t be allowed to continue along those lines when you’ve already warned him not to do so.

Yes, that’s right, and so I’m sure he won’t.

Right. When this bill passes, it will remove the ban of petroleum exploration beyond onshore Taranaki—something, sadly, that has left Taranaki bereft of economic opportunity. But wait! Ironsands await—they’re on their way. A new tier of mineral permits and a new tier of entitlements will make it easier, and this bill will ensure that when dealing with decommissioning, there’s a balance between protecting the Crown balance sheet and ensuring that investors in this sector continue to prosper. It is also—

Good—OK.

—going to ensure that the thousands of dollars sucked out of the Taranaki economy will over time be restored in inverse—

Yeah—that’s it.

—proportions to what the Māori Party actually deliver—

No, no—no, sit down. Thank you.

to the Minister of Justice

What recent announcements has he made on the recovery of court fines? [Interruption]

Just everyone calm down.

Last Friday, I announced that the Government is trialling new technology to identify vehicles registered to those who have overdue court fines and reparations. If they do, the vehicle may be clamped and seized by bailiffs, and the message is simple: pay your court fine and reparations, and if you haven’t—if you’ve left somebody out of pocket—you might soon find yourself walking home. We promised to find new, effective ways to get people paying their court fines, and that’s exactly what we’re delivering.

Why is the recovery of overdue court fines important?

Because when the courts impose fines or reparations, they need to be paid, or the system loses its credibility, and for reparations victims, the victims are victimised again. As of 30 June this year, there were $456 million in fines and $104 million in reparations outstanding, and that is not something that we’re prepared to tolerate.

What insight can he share on the success of the clamping trial over the weekend?

Well, 4,859 vehicles were scanned by bailiffs positioned at breath-testing stations on the weekend. Of those, 208 people were identified as having outstanding fines. The majority of them had a payment plan in place, but there were 32 that didn’t. Of those 32, 31 paid their fines in full—without a surcharge, maybe; well, we’re going to change that—and one didn’t pay, and their vehicle was seized and towed. The Ministry of Justice noticed an 11 percent increase in the number of fine payments made online yesterday. The message can’t be clear enough: there are no more excuses—pay your fines.

Will people be left stranded on the streets?

No. I’ve seen some misinformed comments by other political parties scaremongering on this issue. Bailiffs will make sure that people who have had their cars seized or clamped have arrangements to get to where they need to go. But if you don’t want to use public transport and you don’t want your cars taken, take responsibility and call 0800 4 FINES to make a payment.

to the Minister for Infrastructure

Does he stand by his statement, “This is a Government serious about investing in New Zealand’s future. Serious about infrastructure”; if so, why have 18,000 jobs been lost in the construction sector since this Government took office?

Yes, and, in response to the second part of the question, the construction sector has undoubtedly been affected by the economic downturn. In answer to her question as to why the jobs have been lost, I would say that this Government came to office in November 2023 with record inflation, a cost of living crisis, high interest rates, and, ultimately, a recession, and in a recession, as the rest of the economy has discovered and as has the construction sector, unfortunately, jobs are lost. But we are doing what we need to do as a Government to get this economy growing again, and there are green shoots of confidence coming through, through the EBOSS report and others, and I would point the member to that.

Why did 1,000 people lose their jobs in the construction sector last month?

Well, ultimately, if you want the literal answer, the employers of those people decided not to employ them any more. This Government is doing what it can do across a range of initiatives in order to support the construction sector. As the member, I think, noticed—I hope she noticed—there is $6 billion of Government-funded construction due to start in the next six months across roading, across health, and across school property, where there’s $800 million alone of school property projects about to start in the next six months. There are significant roading projects about to start—and, of course, that’s just the Government-funded part of the construction sector. As interest rates come down, there will be increased economic confidence around the construction sector, particularly residential construction, and of course we want employers to have the confidence to employ more people as the economic recovery gets under way.

How many of the 47,000 Kiwis who left New Zealand last year were construction workers?

Support fast track.

I don’t have that number to hand, but if the member puts it down in writing, I’m happy to look at it. I would say—as the Prime Minister rightly pointed out as the member was asking that question—the Opposition is good at talk about construction sector losses, but very bad at offering—

That’s all right.

—answers—

No, no—that’s not their job. Another supplementary?

What does it say about this Government’s commitment to infrastructure when the building sector is the least confident sector surveyed by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion for July 2025?

What it says is that we are in a difficult situation economically caused by the recession induced by the last Government’s profligate spending and useless economic policies. The Government cannot magic up jobs overnight. The Government cannot magic up an economic recovery. What it actually takes is sound fiscal management, reducing red tape, sensible investments in infrastructure—which the Government is doing—across health, across education, across roads, and across rail, and that will generate the economic return to form that this country needs.

How can he claim to be serious about infrastructure when all his Government has done is re-announce infrastructure projects, stop construction work, and slash support for apprenticeships?

Well, in relation to the second part of that member’s question, it’s interesting that she can’t name a single project that has been stopped, because stopping Lake Onslow in 2035 does not affect construction jobs today. Stopping—[Interruption]

No, sorry. The Minister will stop, and the House will go silent for the balance of that answer.

Stopping Auckland light rail, which even on the most heroic assumptions was going to start in 2032 or maybe 2033—it may affect the number of people working as the consultants, who made hundreds of millions of dollars out of Auckland light rail, but it doesn’t actually affect construction jobs today. In relation to the first part of the member’s question, the Government has put more money into the projects that we inherited from the last Government. I’ll give you two examples: one is the Melling Interchange, which did not have enough money appropriated to be delivered properly. This Government drew down a tagged contingency to put it into it—[Interruption]

Sorry, is someone down there talking when I’ve said we’ll hear it in silence?

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I think you might have more chance of getting silence on this side if the Minister was talking about the actions of his Government and not the actions of the previous Government.

Well, that’s true, but for a moment there I thought he was being complimentary. Please talk entirely about this Government.

Well, the member asked me a question about projects of the previous Government, and so I think I’m entitled to respond to those projects. The point is some of the projects the member was talking about had had money appropriated in March 2020, for which the money appropriated was half of what was required. I’ll give you an example: Ōtaki to North Levin, we were told, was going to cost $817 million in February 2020. I can advise the House—

Yeah—good.

—that the cost to deliver that—

I think you’ve made the point.

—is at least double.

That’ll do. I think you’ve made the point.

to the Minister for Building and Construction

What announcements has the Government made about overseas building products?

As of yesterday, the first pathway in the Government’s new regime for overseas-approved building products is open. Along with the Prime Minister, I made that announcement in the member’s own electorate on the weekend. It means that thousands more high-quality products can now be used more easily on construction sites across New Zealand. This helps tradies get on with the important job of building housing and other infrastructure that Kiwis need.

Why were these changes needed?

These changes are critical to bringing down the cost of building in New Zealand—costs that had jumped by 40 percent since the year 2019. It’s now 50 percent more expensive in this country to build a stand-alone house than in Australia, which I and others have described as, frankly, outrageous. The Government is pulling every lever to drive economic growth, and by opening access to more quality products, we have the potential to cut thousands of dollars off the cost of building a home. More choice means more competition, which, along with innovation, will help to put downward pressure on prices, giving Kiwis options to suit their budget when building or renovating.

What building products will become easier to access in New Zealand because of this policy?

A hundred and thirty international standards released yesterday cover some of the most important elements of the materials used in homes—for example, plasterboard, cladding, windows, and external doors. I note that we have some of the most expensive plasterboard in the world, with Kiwis paying around 40 to 60 percent more than in comparable countries. Thanks to these changes, plasterboard made in Australia, the UK, the EU, the United States, and, yes, still in New Zealand will be far easier to use here.

What feedback has the Minister received about these changes?

The feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive. Registered Master Builders chief executive Ankit Sharma called this a big step forward for builders facing rising costs and a shortage of key materials. He has said that “By allowing overseas products that meet standards to be used more readily, we can improve supply chain resilience, reduce delays, and ultimately deliver more homes, faster and more affordably.” I would also like to acknowledge all the parties in the House that supported the passage of the primary legislation allowing this regime, including the coalition Government parties but also parties from across the political aisle. This Government has many more steps planned in addition to make it easier and affordable to build in this country.

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.

Who is his Government here to serve—

Whoa!

—banks, supermarkets—

Right, stop—just stop. Someone is going to go from the backbench very shortly, because questions are heard in silence.

Are you seeking nominations?

No, I’m not seeking nominations, but if you want to self-nominate, I’ll certainly oblige.

Who is his Government here to serve: banks, supermarkets, and electricity companies making billions in profit, or regular, hard-working New Zealanders?

Well, as the member will be well aware, we are here to support all New Zealanders, and we’re giving particular help to low and middle income working Kiwis. We’re doing that by offering tax relief for the first time in 14 years. It’s not a deeply ideological concept, but one that is the right thing to do, given the inflation that people have encountered. We are expanding the thresholds and the coverage of things like FamilyBoost for working families who have early childcare costs. Most importantly, we’re running the economy well, because if you care about low and middle income working New Zealanders, you run the economy well so that you don’t have high inflation and high interest rates.

Does the Prime Minister take responsibility for the 27,000 fewer jobs and 22,000 more people unemployed than at this time last year?

Well, as I’ve explained before, what happens is that when you increase Government spending by 84 percent, it drives up domestic inflation. The only tool that you’re then left with is to drive up interest rates. When interest rates go up, businesses actually have got high interest rates and high inflation costs, and, as a result, they get squeezed, the economy goes into recession, and people lose their jobs. That is the unfortunate thing when you don’t run an economy well—that is the consequence. The people who suffer are low and middle income working people, who the other side of the House used to care about but don’t.

Will the Government guarantee a job for every person that it has made unemployed?

Well, we are building an economy to create jobs. We are doing that by making sure we are getting kids taught the basics brilliantly so that they can access high-paying jobs. We’re doing that by making reforms to our science sector to make sure we create value-added products and services that we can sell to the world; we are getting rid of the barnacles that led to over-compliance and higher costs by getting rid of the red tape and the green tape that’s slowing New Zealand up; and we are making sure that we are expanding—doubling—trade and attracting investment to New Zealand, as well as building modern, reliable infrastructure. Those are the things that will lift the collective living standards of all New Zealanders.

Why is his Government forcing small businesses into paying bank interchange fees instead of the banks, which are making billions in profit absorbing it?

Well, I’d just say to the member that the Commerce Commission came out last week and identified $90 million worth of reductions that merchants are charged by, say, Mastercard and Visa. We know there has been excessive charging going on. We’re proud of the fact that we’re removing fees and surcharges for New Zealand consumers, and, actually, if there are any other charges, we expect it to be built into pricing, just like it is for everything else.

Will the Government ban banks from charging interchange fees?

Well, again, what you’ve seen is a Government that’s actually done something about it by lowering the interchange fees by $90 million—the fees that are charged by Mastercard and Visa—and making sure that $65 million of excessive charges that retailers often pass on to consumers that have no bearing to the cost of those transaction fees is taken away. We’re proud of the fact that we’re taking away fees and surcharges on debit cards, credit cards, and EFTPOS payments.

to the Associate Minister of Housing

Does he stand by his statement, “This Government takes homelessness seriously”; if not, why not?

Āna—yes.

How can he say that the Government is taking homelessness seriously when homelessness in Tāmaki-makau-rau has increased by 90 percent in just nine months under this Government?

No one in this Government or, indeed, this House wants to see Kiwis living without shelter or on the streets, or living homeless. That’s why we have undertaken a number of initiatives—both existing and new initiatives—to ensure that we meet these challenges head on, whether or not that’s cost-proofing the transitional housing and Housing First costs that were not cost-proofed before this Government came into administration; the Going for Housing Growth initiatives that Minister Bishop is leading; Priority One and seeing over 2,000 children come out of emergency motels; or whether it is the 1,500 community housing provider houses that we are supporting, the $500 million of support that we continue to support with transitional housing, or other things. Yes, we are not perfect. However, we are confronting these issues head-on and making sure we remain agile to some of the key homelessness concerns that confront many Kiwis.

What targeted measures will he implement to support rangatahi or wāhine Māori, who the Auckland Council has shown are overrepresented among the homeless in Tāmaki-makau-rau?

Yes, and I’d acknowledge that there are some cohorts in our communities—our rangatahi included—that have been disproportionately represented in housing deprivation and homelessness stats for many, many years. We continue to provide a whole range of supports, whether or not that’s rangatahi supported accommodation, transitional housing, or other avenues for those cohorts in those communities that confront these serious housing and homelessness challenges. We are also very determined to ensure that more granny flats and papa kāinga are enabled through national environmental standards changes that can help accommodate some of these folks and whānau members who are in serious housing need.

Should the Government’s housing and homelessness strategy be grounded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles, as recommended by the Salvation Army and the Waitangi Tribunal?

There are many views around how we can better confront the homelessness and serious housing deprivation challenges. On this side of the House, we are absolutely committed to ensure that we generate more supply so more Kiwis—Māori, rangatahi, wāhine, and otherwise—can be housed.

Who is the Government governing for: the tamariki and whānau who are homeless and freezing, or the landlords that received $3 billion worth of tax cuts?

We govern for everyone.

Can I riff off Minister Goldsmith—we govern for all New Zealanders.

That concludes oral questions. I’ll take 30 seconds while those who need to leave the House for other business do so quietly, and today I’ll be particularly watching for people who decide to have a conversation on the way.

I move, That the sitting of the House today be extended into tomorrow morning for the recommittal and reconsideration in the committee of the whole House of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill, the committee stage of the Local Government (Water Services) Bill, the first reading and referral to select committee of the Constitution Amendment Bill, the committee stage of the Crimes Legislation (Stalking and Harassment) Amendment Bill and the Statutes Amendment Bill, and the second reading of the Crimes (Countering Foreign Interference) Amendment Bill and the Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.

I present a legislative statement on the Electoral Amendment Bill.

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

I move, That the Electoral Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 1 December 2025.

Our electoral laws are a core element of our democracy. The ability to throw Governments out and to bring new ones in, in a manner that is accepted and with a process that is trusted, is fundamental to our democratic accountability. Broadly speaking, our electoral system and our democracy are strong, but they need constant maintenance. Confidence in the Electoral Commission has fallen in recent years, and we know the system has come under significant strain. This bill overhauls a number of our dated and unsustainable electoral laws. The package of amendments will strengthen the system, helping to deliver timelier election results, manage the costs, clarify rules, and provide more efficient services to voters.

When and how people enrol matters. Every democracy we compare ourselves with requires voters to be enrolled in order to vote. But there’s a lot of variation as to how early people must be enrolled. In Australia, at the last federal election, voters were required to be enrolled 26 days before the election. In New Zealand, for many years, voters needed to be enrolled the day before the election. The previous Government allowed enrolling on election day itself.

New Zealand’s approach had the benefit of making it easier for some people to vote, but it also removed the incentive for people to get enrolled before the election. We had the Electoral Commission, on one hand, with one message saying, “Get enrolled; get enrolled.”, and they were funded with many millions of dollars to encourage people to enrol, which the law says you should do; but, on the other hand, they were also saying, “By the way, don’t bother, because you can just rock up on election day and vote.” More people heard the second message than heard the first message. As a result, more and more people were turning up and enrolling when they voted. That’s led to more and more special votes and pressure on the count. The final vote count used to take two weeks. Last election, it took three. The advice I received is that if we leave things as they are, it could well take even longer in future elections.

The 20-day time frame for a final result is likely to be challenging, as it stands, without these changes. Therefore, one of the most significant changes in the bill is to close enrolment before the advance voting begins. People will need to make sure that they enrol and update their enrolment details by midnight on the Sunday before advance voting opens on the Monday. That’s 13 days before election day. The earlier deadline will mean enrolment changes can largely be processed before voting closes. Special voting processing can then begin sooner, reducing pressure on the final vote. This gives people a year to get organised, and I have every confidence that New Zealanders can manage.

We’ve heard lots of claims about 100,000 people being disenfranchised. I reject that absolutely. Around 110,000 enrolled or updated their enrolment details on election day last year only because they were told they could, so some people did. The message will be different this election. People will be told they need to be enrolled well before voting starts. It’s not that hard, and people are capable of doing these things. We’ll be making it even easier to stay enrolled for future elections. The bill modernises and streamlines enrolment in several ways. The Electoral Commission will now be able to use data from other Government agencies to keep address details up to date. This will make it easier for people to stay enrolled. Over time, this change will help keep enrolment details accurate between elections and contribute to a timelier vote count.

Enrolment services need to become more efficient and digital as well. The bill will remove costly postal requirements so that people can be contacted digitally about their enrolment status. I think we all know that if you have large families like me, you’ll have six envelopes from the Electoral Commission in the letterbox on a regular basis. It’s very wasteful, so we’re going to change those rules and adopt more modern methods. The commission will no longer have to collect and update enrolment information that it doesn’t need for electoral purposes, which seems sensible.

The bill also makes several changes related to integrity. It will ban all prisoners serving a prison sentence from voting. This change reverses the 2020 amendment that the previous Government did. Currently, prisoners serving three years or more can’t vote. Now, all sentenced prisoners won’t be able to vote while they’re in prison. Citizens bring both rights and responsibilities. When people are sentenced to prison for committing a crime, they should temporarily lose some of those rights, including the right to vote. This change underlines the importance that New Zealanders afford to the rule of law and personal accountability. When they’re released, of course, they regain the right to vote, and Corrections will work with prisoners to facilitate that. The bill will allow people who have committed a crime but who are detained in a hospital or secure facility on mental health or disability grounds to enrol and vote. This change recognises the different status of people who are detained for the purposes of mental health treatment.

Free and fair elections rely on voters not being subject to improper influence. I’m concerned that the current treating offence, which prevents people from providing food or drink to influence a person’s vote, is unclear and not being enforced. The bill will make it an offence to provide free food, drink, or entertainment within 100 metres of a voting place during the voting period. The offence will be an illegal practice and subject to a fine of up to $10,000. This approach will make some rules around treating clear. It will manage the risk of any perception of inappropriate influence when people are voting. It won’t apply to businesses near voting places undertaking their usual activities or where there is a reasonable excuse. The bill also extends existing offences of treating, bribery, and undue influence to cover inappropriate influence over a person’s enrolment choice. This change will make sure that decisions around enrolling have the same protection as decisions around voting.

The bill makes lots of changes to strengthen the resilience of our system. Currently, the Electoral Commission decides how long the advanced voting period is. This bill will require 12 days of advanced voting at each election guaranteed. This is a useful thing that we’ve done. We’ll also expand the Electoral Commission’s board from three members to up to seven members. This change will ensure the board is well equipped if a board member is unavailable at a critical time and will widen the skill sets of the board.

The bill updates thresholds for reporting donations from $5,000 to $6,000, recognising inflation and rounding it up to a round figure. Finally, the bill makes many systems improvements, such as setting a single deadline for candidate nominations, automating how electoral expenditure limits are set, and addressing gaps in the law. These proposals are outlined in full in the legislative statement.

Well-run elections are vital to upholding public trust and confidence and support the smooth and swift transfer of power, if indeed that is required by the people’s vote. The changes in this bill begin to transition to more modern and sustainable settings and enabling more timely and efficient elections in the future. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, it’s a dark day for democracy. Here in New Zealand, we have a proud tradition of extending the franchise to women before any other country in the world and of constantly making our democracy accessible to everyone, and what’s this Government doing? What’s Christopher Luxon doing? He is making it harder for people to vote. It’s shameful—it’s absolutely shameful.

We know that 110,000 people enrolled and voted on election day last year, and it’s all very nice for the Minister of Justice to suppose that they might enrol earlier, but 137,000 people actually changed their details in the voting period. That’s 137,000 people for whom he is making it harder to vote. He wants to stop people enrolling, stop all those people exercising their vote—that’s hundreds of thousands of people who might not get a say in our democracy.

I think that everyone is entitled to have a say in our democracy: working people, busy people, people caring for kids, and—hey, do you know what?—people who forget to enrol two weeks before as well, because not everyone is fixated on politics and elections, and sometimes it takes until the last two weeks to think, “I really need to get around to that.” Politicians should be making it easier for people to vote, not harder. That’s how we make sure that everybody’s voice is heard, that everyone gets a say, and that this democracy—this Parliament—is truly representative.

Making it harder for working Kiwis and Kiwi parents to vote just shows how out of touch Christopher Luxon and this Government is, but do you know what’s really shocking? It is that all of the advice that the Minister has got has said that this is a bad idea. In fact, if you look at the regulatory impact statement, it says that there are other things you can do which are much more effective: enable electronic enrolment, enable automatic enrolment—and then there’s the Attorney-General’s report. The Attorney-General, frankly, slated this bill. I have never seen an Attorney-General’s report which is so bluntly vicious and damning, saying things like “freezing registration earlier in the voting period has the potential to harm confidence and trust”.

If people want to vote and they’re shown the hand and they’re told “Sorry, too late. You’re out of luck—you didn’t do your paperwork.”, what does that say about trust in our democracy? It is undermining the trust in our democracy, and that Government has undermined it a lot already and it’s doing it again.

The Attorney-General also said—and this is important—that the “starting-point is the fundamental importance of the right to vote within a liberal democracy. A compelling justification is required to limit that right.”, and did the Attorney-General think that there was a compelling justification? No, she quite honestly and frankly said that this is not justified. This is an unjustified limitation on the guaranteed right in section 12 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act to exercise that vote.

What’s more, if you then go to the departmental work—the regulatory impact statement—it says that it won’t work. Their advice, on page 23 of the report, is that this initiative “Could result in lower enrolment rates, lower turnout, and more disallowed votes.”—

That’s what they want.

—and that it “Reduces ease for voters and creates a barrier to participation.” That is right, Damien O’Connor—that’s exactly what they want. They don’t want everyone to get down to the polling booth and have their say, because they don’t represent all of New Zealand. Christopher Luxon is making it harder for people to vote. He is so out of touch with ordinary New Zealanders that he doesn’t get that not everyone remembers to do their administration 14 days before the voting period.

It is a dark day for democracy. This is a huge step backwards, and we should be thoroughly ashamed of it.

Here we have this Government making it harder for ordinary, everyday, regular people to be able to have a say and have a vote, and easier for big money to influence Government. The beginning explanatory note of this bill talks about a “modern, robust, and effective” democracy. This bill proposes the exact opposite of a modern and robust, effective democracy, because it intentionally seeks to deny entire groups of people and communities from having easier access to be able to enrol and to be able to vote, while at the same time it is shifting the threshold for donations to be declared.

It allows for more and more of big money to have a say, which is consistent with what this Government’s approach has been this entire term: making it easier for their mates, like tobacco, like fossil fuel executives, to be able to have an influence—like landlords, who own massive swathes of houses, who have more influence on this Government than the ordinary person who’s just trying to get along, just trying to survive, has got a million things to be responsible for, and also doesn’t always see themselves represented in the political decisions of successive Governments.

I would have thought that any Government wants to, actually, instead encourage higher voter turnout, encourage more people wanting to be able to register, wanting to participate. The fact that we had hundreds of thousands of people turning up to vote on election day speaks to the fact that people want to have a say, speaks to the fact that if we were serious about—and this was the Minister’s own words at the beginning of his speech—ensuring a strong democracy, then we would be removing the barriers that this Government is wanting to put back in place by removing the ability to vote on the same day, by it removing the ability to enrol and vote on the same day.

The many research reports—the Auditor-General’s reports and independent election reports after reports after reports—have highlighted exactly who would miss out on being able to participate with these particular proposals; have highlighted that young people, people who rent, Māori communities, Pasifika communities, Asian communities, and people with disabilities have had these barriers for far too long, and that the proposals that this Government is trying to put in place put those barriers down in the concrete even more so. That is the message that they are sending to this country: who they want to make it easier for, and who they want to make it harder for.

I did want to pick up on the prison voting ban as well, because report after report, research after research, has again highlighted that we have inbuilt systemic discrimination in our prison systems, in our justice systems. That has been clear; that’s not even up for debate. It has been said time and time again. It means that disproportionately more Māori are imprisoned, more Pasifika people are imprisoned, more brown people and low-income families are imprisoned. So adding an extra punishment on top of the penalty that they are already receiving—it’s no wonder that the Auditor-General really called that out as actually denying basic, fundamental human rights. We do not add an extra penalty on top of the punishment that they are already serving, and especially when it is highlighted that this justice system already discriminates on communities and people.

So, again, who is this Government wanting to benefit? Not all of those communities that I’ve just mentioned in the speech. In fact, if we were truly interested in a strong democracy, then we would actually reduce the donation disclosure—according to, also, the independent report advice, which wanted to go down to $500, and instead this Government wants to increase it.

We would restore same-day enrolment and voting. That’s what the Greens would do. We would make it 16. If we want a strong democracy, all the evidence shows that when we are able to afford younger voters that opportunity, that will set up good voting habits for life. So that’s something that this Government could do straight away if they wanted. We would ensure things like civics in schools. If you want people to be enrolled, then having that education in schools is a good way of having a strong democracy. The Greens would also cap donations at $30,000. It is clear this Government are here simping for big money in politics.

I rise on behalf of ACT to speak on the Electoral Amendment Bill. Yes, our voting arrangements and our democracy are very important, and it is appropriate that from time to time we do look at the settings under which New Zealanders cast their vote. This bill looks to make some significant but effective changes to ensure that our democracy and the results of our elections are upheld, integrity is maintained, and we have it done in a timely way.

There has been a lot said already about enrolment on voting day. As has been outlined, one of the changes the Minister spoke about is just ensuring that people have to be enrolled 13 days before the election. Voting in a democracy such as ours does come with some responsibilities, and it’s one of those responsibilities to actually be on the electoral roll—that’s a legal requirement. If you can’t be bothered doing that within a short period before an election, you’ve really got to question whether you have a commitment to being a participant in our democracy.

It’s a modest change—13 days before the election, you need to have enrolled. As the Minister has also said, other jurisdictions like Australia require you to have enrolled 26 days before an election, so it’s a fairly modest change. There are actually a thousand days between elections, so that is plenty of time for people to take a few minutes. You can actually enrol online; you can go to elections.org.nz today and enrol, if you wish. There will be plenty of time for people to be enrolled, and the Electoral Commission will be running reminders around that. Tied to that is a really good change around setting 12 days for the advance voting period and putting that in legislation. That’s a really great change.

The other one, which we are very pleased to support, is actually stopping prisoners in prison from voting. Labour made this change, and we think it was unprincipled. As people in New Zealand understand, if you’ve committed a crime, you’ve violated someone else’s rights, and there are consequences for that, and so for prisoners in jail, not voting is one of those consequences. We think these are sensible changes. The other one is around treating. Again, we believe in this clarification around treating, because we don’t believe freebies and gimmicks have any place near the ballot box, and we just want to make sure that’s spelt out very clearly and people understand that.

There will be a select committee process, and as a member of the Justice Committee, I look forward to hearing people’s submissions. But it is important that we ensure that our electoral system integrity is upheld, it is transparent, and it’s not open to fraud. We think these changes do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in support of the Electoral Amendment Bill. The purpose of this bill is to amend the Electoral Act to make electoral law and administration more modern, robust, and effective ahead of the next general election. It’s about making a range of systems improvements, etc., and I’m going to pick on a couple of those.

The first is that I think we can all remember back to the last election, and one of the things that there was significant concern about was the length of time it took to get to the final result. This piece of legislation is part of—

That was your fault.

The Opposition may have been more concerned about the actual result than about the length of time it took to get to that point, but I think the country wanted to get to the point where we actually had a result, so that the parties could then form a Government and be able to move on with that. This will allow that to happen more effectively, more efficiently, and for the Government to be able to get on with the business of governing. There are a number of other things in terms of efficiency. One of those is to be able to do a lot of the electoral enrolment process in a way that is not confined quite as much as it is today to the postal system.

The other two things I wanted to say: first of all is this issue that we’ve heard raised by the Opposition about 110,000 people now somehow being disenfranchised because they chose, in the last election, to enrol on the day. Well, the reality is that if you say to people, “Look, you’ve got to enrol a number of days in advance of the election to make sure that the electoral rolls are ready and the system is ready to go and is able to deliver the electoral result more efficiently, effectively, and earlier”, then there is a different deadline. Instead of being on the day, it’s some days before that, and that, as we’ve heard before, is about some degree of personal responsibility to be able to get yourself organised in time to enrol.

The other thing I wanted to mention was the Manurewa Marae amendment clause, and that is the one about stopping treating close to a polling place. I think that that is a very sound amendment, because, clearly, if you are giving people something in the process of the election which is associated with a particular political party, that is something that is going to potentially encourage people to vote in a particular way, and that clearly is not appropriate. We all, I think, are looking forward to a report on that matter at some point in time—hopefully, before the next election would be very, very helpful. That, to me, seems a very, very sensible amendment and a very sensible clarification.

The final thing I wanted to say, because we have heard a little bit about the prisoner voting side of things, is, look, if you’re in prison, you can’t be enrolled, can’t vote, but on the flip side of that, which I don’t think I’ve heard the Opposition say yet, people who are in other forms of institutions—whether it’s mental institutions, disability institutions; those kinds of facilities—will now be able to vote, and I think that that is a positive thing there. I know there will be a lot of debate to and fro as this goes to the select committee. I think we will all look forward to that process, and I commend the bill to the House, and good luck to the Justice Committee in dealing with it.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. First of all, I stand up to oppose this bill. This bill, listening to it all eloquently being introduced as something that’s going to help efficiency and accountability—I call that out. This bill is about silencing. It’s about using power hoarding—this obsessive control—to rig the electoral system.

It’s been really interesting to listen to the previous speaker bring up Manurewa when there’s actually been no conviction. What we’re listening to, in fact, is speculation, and those who are happy to spend millions of dollars to go out and advertise on TV, but for goodness’ sake, don’t dare give a cup of tea to anyone. What it is—and we saw it, actually, this rigged system. We saw the mask slip this week when the so-called Minister for Regulation, David Seymour, who helped design these reforms, had the audacity to label 100,000 people as “dropkicks”. This is, in fact, a politician, a leader whose ideal leader was once Jago.

I want to talk about what this bill will do. First of all, it’s banning enrolments 13 days before the election, which, according to their own team member, the Attorney-General, could disenfranchise over 100,000 people disproportionately: Māori, Pasifika, Asian. It reinstates a total ban on prisoner voting, when every court in the country, including the tribunal, the electoral review, have all said that this is a breach of basic human rights, but—ha!—surprise, surprise from this Government. It raises the donation disclosure threshold, making it easier for the rich donors to buy and influence in silence. It criminalises the provision—as we heard earlier—of free food, where those are going to be eligible for a $10,000 fine, which for some of them is actually more than what their whole income will be.

This is an electoral suppression by design. It is racism by design. It is justice by design in the image of a Government that wants fewer Māori voting, fewer rangatahi engaged, and fewer people with any power. And let’s talk about the numbers. In 2023, 48 percent of Māori voters aged 18 to 19 enrolled or updated their details during the voting period; only 9.8 percent of non-Māori did the same. So nearly 19 percent of Māori roll voters used this period to enrol or update. This bill is not race-neutral; it is race-targeted, like a whole lot of other bills that we’ve seen come through from this Government.

It’s not a coincidence that the very communities who would be silenced are the same communities that wouldn’t vote for this Government, and probably the same communities that made up the netballers on the weekend. They say they’re fixing democracy, but let’s remember this is the same Government that has abolished Māori wards, introduced the Treaty principles bill, dismantled co-governance, Te Aka Whai Ora. And we know, again, why they do not want to see 16-year-olds voting.

Under Te Pāti Māori, we would reinstate the right to vote for all prisoners, because prison shouldn’t mean political erasure. We would bring the vote to 16-year-olds, because many of them are working two jobs before they even go to school—do not insult their intelligence by saying they do not know what this country needs. We would ensure every whānau has the right to enrol right up to the moment that they can cast their vote, because that is what a fair, secure democracy demands. We would defend mana motuhake, because our right to participate in decisions that affect our lives does not begin and end at the convenience of the super-rich and this particular Government.

The bill is a declaration of war on rangatahi Māori, on the rights of the incarcerated, and on the political agency of our people. It’s not about fairness. I want to say to those 100,000 people that have been called “dropkicks” by this Government’s Minister, by this Government’s, actually, current Deputy Prime Minister: you are not the problem. You are not the reason why votes and these types of Governments are getting in. You are the reason why we fight. You are not worthless—you are worthy. You are worthy of dignity, you are worthy of equity, you are worthy of leaders who serve and recognise you. We want to make sure that you never ever ever let this type of Government through again, whānau, so make sure that you enrol. And to David Seymour, if you are so worried about dropkicks, start by looking in the mirror. Kia ora rā.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is a great piece of legislation. It’s time for people around New Zealand to take some personal responsibility. The law already requires you to be enrolled to vote, so get on and get enrolled in advance of next year’s election. Don’t wait for election day to do it; do it now. Get enrolled today. Get in there and do it. This improves timeliness and efficiency of electoral administration. It’s great to see Te Pāti Māori turn up to the debating chamber today. Strengthening the integrity of electoral law, ensuring resilience of the electoral system—this is a great piece of legislation, and, as a member of the Justice Committee, I’m looking forward to considering it and I’m looking forward to the member making contributions to the Justice Committee as well. I commend it to the House.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. E tū ana awau ki te whakahē i tēnei pire, arā te Electoral Amendment Bill, mā te Pāti Reipa, mā Ikaroa-Rāwhiti.

[I stand to oppose this bill, the Electoral Amendment Bill, for the Labour Party and for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti.]

The rhetoric around this bill is that these proposed changes will make voting more reliable and efficient. I ask: for whom? The purpose of an election is for the people across Aotearoa to have their say. Each of us here is an elected voice of the people across Aotearoa. They are the priority—the voters. Should we not be making it convenient for them, the people we serve? Minister Goldsmith stated in his introductory speech, “The system is under strain.” How out of touch with New Zealand can you be? If we want to talk about being under strain, let’s talk about whānau across Aotearoa who are under strain—under strain from the everyday struggles this Government is imposing on them; under strain from the cost of living; under strain with worry about where they will live; under strain from job losses—the list goes on. Instead of choosing to sort these very real issues out, the Government is choosing to make it harder to vote.

Māori participation is already low. In Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, voter turnout over the last two elections sat at around 67 percent, rising from 26,047 in 2020 to 27,362 in 2023. That increase of 1,315 voters, I know, partially came from first-time voters enrolling on the day—as they should have the right to do. Voter apathy is very real in our communities, and walking through that door is hard enough for a lot of whānau, who, potentially, have saved up their gas money to be able to do it on the day. While I want to acknowledge the many local faces who work at our polling booths and make what can be a frigid process a bit more comfortable, there were still reports of people being turned away last election. Putting up another barrier is the last thing we need to do. Work does need to be done to increase participation, but the work needs to be done on the system, not the voters—or, as the ACT Party leader called people who enrol late, “disengaged, lazy dropkicks”. E kī, e kī! [Is that so!] How on earth can you claim to be a Government of all people when you are marginalising the voices of voters? The short answer: you can’t. Aotearoa knows this.

One word comes to mind when thinking of the motivation for this bill: mataku—fear. People across Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, and Aotearoa, know that this Government are taking us backwards, and they will be lining up at the polls to make sure this is a one-term Government—and this coalition do not want that. This is another pitiful attempt to marginalise and silence people, and it will be unsuccessful. Continue to enrol, whānau mā.

How exactly are they going to engage with whānau to ensure the opportunity to enrol, and transfer roll, and vote? I don’t know if this Government have noticed, but there’s a housing crisis going on in Aotearoa; people are transient and homeless. Don’t tell me digital communication is the answer, because I invite you to Maraehara Road, Rangitukia, where we don’t have cellphone coverage, and not every home has internet or devices, but we do still have good old rural delivery. Sadly, though, Minister Goldsmith said that postal mail-outs are wasteful—and I guess our rural, isolated voters just ain’t worth it. This bill is another tool to isolate and silence people at a time when this Government know Aotearoa wants them out. I do not commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. We’re in the first reading of the Electoral Amendment Bill. I’d just like to remind our listeners that in 1975, the third Labour Government allowed all prisoners to be regifted the privilege to vote, and in 2020 the sixth Labour Government gave convicted prisoners the right to vote again. What does this say? Labour is on the side of criminals; National is on the side of victims. I commend this bill to the House.

I agree with my colleague that this is a dark day in democracy, and I rise to speak against this irrational and profoundly unjust bill. There are times when this House but also the people of New Zealand need to pay very, very close attention, and it’s when bills are tabled that touch the bones of our democracy, as this one does.

This is an abhorrent breach of rights, because here in New Zealand, we lean so heavily into parliamentary supremacy that the only way people truly have—the singular way people truly have—to agree to being governed or to object to being governed is to exercise their vote. When the vote is diminished and when it’s removed from certain groups of people, we must pay attention, because in many ways, it is following what could be described as a handbook on authoritarian politics, where rule number one is when you get into power, you must work out how to make it very difficult to be removed from power. This is what we’re discussing today.

Now, I want to talk about the irrationality, but firstly I want to talk about an oddity in this legislation. Before it was introduced to the House, it was actually in an omnibus bill with the changes to the Constitution Act that the Government is introducing later today or this week. I was trying to work out why the two have been separated. From what I can see, the philosophy between the two is quite different. With the Constitution Act, the change made acknowledges that a statutory time limit, the 28-day rule, can and should be removed. In this case, what the Minister’s telling us is that the 20-day rule is very, very important. If we can’t get all the valid votes counted in the 20 days, that’s hugely problematic, and we need to stop some people being able to vote. Well, hang on! It feels like there’s an easy solution to this, which is to extend the date, but that doesn’t seem to be something that the Minister has considered. In fact, many countries that we compare ourselves to don’t actually set a date by which those votes must be counted. The UK just has a practical test. Canada doesn’t. Sweden doesn’t. Denmark doesn’t. Norway doesn’t. They recognise that the most important thing is that the most people who have the right to vote are given every opportunity to do so. Yet this Government is taking us backwards—apparently for a very, very disturbingly particular reason.

Now, the other thing I wanted to talk about is the oddities in the bill, and my credit goes to the Attorney-General, who sets this out beautifully in her section 7 report. She talks about the “blanket disenfranchisement” of people imprisoned, and she makes these points about who will and won’t be able to vote: “A person imprisoned for a one-month period, that happens to coincide with polling day, shall be disenfranchised but a person who committed a premeditated murder, but is released on parole in the weeks prior to election day, shall be able to vote, as will a person that serves a two-year sentence in between elections. A person convicted of serious sexual offending but [who has] not yet [been] sentenced, shall be able to vote. Persons sentenced to imprisonment of two years or less are eligible for home detention, but whether [that] person is detained [at home at all or is in prison will depend on whether they’ve got an address to be detained within].” It is absolutely incomprehensible that these people are being treated quite differently, just dependent on where they’re located.

A member opposite referenced the fact that people who are in mental health or other facilities will now be able to vote. Well, guess what! This means that people who are in prison who have medical issues during the election will be able to vote if they’re held in a health facility but won’t be able to vote if they’re held in prison. It is simply irrational, simply illogical, and very, very telling—very telling—about the motivations of this Government when it comes down to really considering whether they want to hear what everyone believes. There are many people who are sick of the rising costs of living who would like to be able to tell this Government so. Give them the right to be heard.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak in support of the Electoral Amendment Bill. Banks Peninsula is one of the most engaged electorates in New Zealand. At the last election, we had 99.5 percent of eligible voters enrolled, and over 86 percent of them turned out to vote. I’m sure that my constituents will be able to get themselves sorted and get themselves enrolled to vote in such outstanding numbers again. I commend the bill to the House.

The question is, That the Electoral Amendment Bill be considered by the Justice Committee.

on behalf of the Minister of Justice: I move, That the Electoral Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 1 December 2025.

I move, That in the preceding motion, the words “1 December 2025” be replaced by “9 February 2026”.

I move, That the order of the day for the third reading of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill be discharged and the bill be recommitted immediately to consider Amendment Paper 343 in my name.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of Amendment Paper 343.

Members, the House is in committee. The House has resolved to recommit the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill to consider the Minister of Resources’ amendments set out on Amendment Paper 343.

I just wish to give the committee some guidance about the committee stage of the recommitted bill. There are aspects of the bill that were debated when the bill was last considered in the committee of the whole House that are not amended by Amendment Paper 343. These matters are therefore not open for debate again. This includes provisions relating to the issue of Government policy statements in Part 1 of the bill, matters relating to the removal of the ban on new petroleum exploration beyond onshore Taranaki in Part 2 of the bill, and provisions relating to service of documents in Part 3 of the bill. Other aspects of the bill are amended by the Amendment Paper or affected by it. I will provide further guidance at the beginning of each debate. The chair is the sole judge of relevance, and we will be looking for material that is relevant to the Amendment Paper. Noting that this is a complex and technical area, the bill has just been recommitted, and the Amendment Paper was only released at 5 p.m. yesterday.

Members, we come first to the amendments proposed to Part 1 of the bill. This is the debate on amendments to clauses 5, 8, 9, and 10 set out on Amendment Paper 343. This question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 1 be agreed to.

Point of order, Madam Chair. Thank you for your guidance to help us in this, but as you’ve mentioned, it was 5 p.m. yesterday that this was presented. From this side, as we go through and we work our way to make sure we clarify and understand, I think for some of it, we may, potentially, veer in a few spaces because we’re trying to dig into the actual answer. I’d just ask for some guidance, but also some support, from you, as the Chair, that as we do, maybe, veer off, we’re not doing it on purpose; we’re just trying to make sure that we can get clarity and come to the places that we need to in this legislation—which is very unusual. It’s not unprecedented, but it is unusual for us to be coming into this space this afternoon.

I understand, which is why I made those signals early on, that we’re taking into account the fact that this was only presented at 5 p.m. and that there is some relevance across other parts of the bill—so there will be some leniency in the scope.

I draw the House’s attention to this Amendment Paper 343 because the contributions to this sensible amendment ought to be tight and they ought to be focused. If I can very quickly elaborate what is the problem that we have sought to remedy: the previous regime did not deal with a particular issue. The issue is that there are several ways how a person or an entity can move on from holding a permit. One is they can sell the permit; one is they can dispose of the script or the equity in an entity that holds a permit; of course, the other two involve the Crown: either have the permit taken off you or, indeed, a surrender back to the Crown.

If I could direct the attention of the various members who will speak on this issue: it became evident to us that someone departing, through a process of a share transfer or disposal of equity, may escape any liability whatsoever. Now, this is an important issue, that an entity or a person, having held these entitlements to derive economic returns from our natural resource base with rights allocated, if not originally under the Petroleum Act 1937 then certainly under the Crown Minerals Act, which we are amending today—so this corrects that loophole, which has actually existed for quite some time. The balance that we’ve sought to strike is to ensure that we don’t provide an unnecessary level of risk to the revenue base of the Crown or, at the same time, we don’t add to the chilling impact that has blighted this sector for quite some time. That is the balance that we’ve sought to strike in remedying the situation that we uncovered once we went to a more finicky level than was originally used.

Before I take the first call, can I please ask members to refer to the clause that you are speaking to.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just as the Minister did, I will spend a little time on the problem definition in this contribution, that one of the—we know that what this bill is doing, this Amendment Paper that we’ve got before us, is around the decommissioning regime and particularly the liability laws and the trailing liability rules that are around that. I think we’re in a relatively unique situation for this House, to have a recommitted bill with an Amendment Paper of this substance to go through.

These are big questions that sit in here that we do need, as a committee, some time to scrutinise. There’re some very important questions that sit in this Amendment Paper that is before us here. The Minister says that these are loopholes that are being closed for the betterment and to protect the public interest. Throughout all parts of this bill, we’ll be saying and asking and asking for an explanation from the Minister: why does that require ministerial discretion-making powers? That is what this Amendment Paper gives. It stops there being a statutory decision being made to one where a Minister or two Ministers—the Minister for Resources and the Minister of Finance—will make discretionary decisions and, as we will go into throughout various parts of this bill, there is no criteria for that decision making.

So the Minister needs to spend his time in the chair answering some very specific questions and outlining to this House—given he has brought an Amendment Paper that has only been before the House for a very small amount of time, given that this has been away from the House for nearly eight months and this has dropped with 24 hours’ notice, he needs to explain in some detail how it is that these discretionary powers are exercised.

Now, obviously, Part 2 of the bill does put into play those discretionary powers, but we can see, for example, clause 10 of Part 1: “to make decisions (with others) on whether to require outgoing guarantees and, if so, to determine what outgoing guarantees are appropriate”—we can see that discretion is coming in here and we need to start doing that.

Now, to say this Amendment Paper has had a unique passage to this House is somewhat of an understatement. This started out that the Government brought a bill to the House, it went away to select committee, and then an Amendment Paper was brought at committee stage around the decommissioning regime.

The Amendment Paper that we have in front of us scraps all of that; it puts aside both the original bill and the original amendment, and proposes a different regime. So this requires some solid explanation, because we are not talking about something trivial or small or, indeed, theoretical. This is about how we protect New Zealand taxpayers, and this is not a theoretical discussion. We know from the cost of the Tui clean-up, when our Government had to change the law because the previous National Government had left the door wide open, that New Zealand taxpayers had to fork out over $440 million to clean up, in that in that scenario. Our Government changed the law to protect New Zealand taxpayers.

The original bill that was brought to this House weakened those decommissioning obligations that we had put in place on the oil and gas companies. This Amendment Paper that we have before us today further weakens those protections for the New Zealand taxpayer, and this is serious, because what we do know is that we have total decommissioning costs for New Zealand oilfields of approximately $2.5 billion sitting ahead of us; we have $2 billion needed for four offshore fields, and nearly $500 million for 2021 onshore fields.

So this is no small or theoretical problem that we are discussing today. Our Government—when we were in Government—was not prepared to put the New Zealand taxpayer at risk. This Government has shown they are. They have bowed to the suggestions of the oil and gas companies and done what they wanted. They have further bowed to the interests of the oil and gas companies in taking eight months to sit with them, find out what they wanted, and then bring a bill back to the House.

This is not a Government that is putting New Zealand first, that is certainly for sure. What we see is a Government that is prepared to put big oil and big gas companies before the interests of the taxpayers of New Zealand, with these watered-down provisions that we are going to be seeking answers about today in these decommissioning obligations that are there. It has been a torturous path to get here; it is going to require some unpicking, and our side of the House certainly will have a series of questions around why a Government thinks it is better to bow to the interests of the oil and gas companies than to stand up New Zealanders and to protect New Zealand taxpayers.

Just a short response. Can I encourage all contributors to identify what provision and what page they’re referring to, because I suspect they haven’t read the bill. On page 11, new section 41F clearly lays it out. This is why the answers, had they read the bill—you don’t need to address it in a generic way. Those answers lie in front of you. It’s just not reasonable for a recitation of a regime that’s long gone. We don’t need to hear arguments that were recited when this matter was dealt with before, prior to us discovering the loophole that had been left by the Jacinda Ardern regime.

Point of order.

There’s no need for a point of order, Dr Megan Woods. I did give instruction at the beginning for contributions to refer to the particular part and clause that we were debating. I gave some leverage on that because it was an introduction to the bill, but I think, from now on, we come back and we’re very explicit about the part and the clause that is being referred to.

Point of order. Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m just seeking clarification. That ruling that you just made will also apply to the Minister, I take it, to be in the right part of the bill.

It applies to the whole committee.

Point of order, Madam Chairperson. Thank you, Madam Chair. I didn’t want to interrupt the flow earlier, but I did note that the Minister has a penchant for, effectively, providing objections from the chair during the contributions from members. It’s well understood that that is not an appropriate practice to adopt, and so I was just wanting to flag that with you so that perhaps we would get off to a good start and good tone, rather than having to draw that to the attention, moving forward.

I assure you that it did not escape my attention.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will be referring to new clause 26B on Amendment Paper 343, which is the removal of sections 41AA and 41AB, which are to be replaced with new sections 41AA and 41AB, as outlined on page 3. It is important, of course, for context, to understand the problem that we’re trying to deal with here, and in that regard, a lot of my questions will prosecute the scale of the challenge that we face with decommissioning, because defining who is liable for those costs of decommissioning, which can be substantial—as has been outlined by my colleague Megan Woods—is very important, and so is how those liabilities will be met.

Noting that the Minister has obviously grappled with a lot of advice on this matter and has come back to the committee of the whole House a second time with his new amendment, which reverses the position of the bill that was introduced in November 2024 and makes it so that existing permit holders are absolutely liable for unmet commissioning—

Look, I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but can you please clarify which part—

New clause 26B on page 3.

Is that in Part 1 of the bill?

Sorry, yes, we’re on Part 1, right—oh, shit!

Yes.

I’d jumped across.

I’ll come back to you in Part 2.

Oh, you’re absolutely right—my apologies, Madam Chair. Yes, I’ve got ahead of myself.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to pick up on something the Minister said. The Minister said that if only we had read the bill, we wouldn’t be asking some of the questions that we were asking. Of course, this Amendment Paper was dropped on the Table at 5 p.m. last night, when no members were here in the House. It’s a substantial Amendment Paper. It might be about a narrow and technical issue, but there are 21 pages before we get to the explanatory note. We actually need to spend some time on this, and we’re going to do it clause by clause.

I want to direct the Minister’s attention right back to the start of this, and I’m going back to clause 5 on Amendment Paper 343—it’s page 1, clause 5—which is in Part 1 of the bill, and it inserts—sorry, it’s page 4 of the bill, page 1 of the Amendment Paper. What it does is it inserts clause 5(5), “a transfer of a participating interest in a permit or the transfer of a license or a participating interest in a license is effective on and after the date of the Minister’s consent to that transfer.” So there’s a couple of things that are interesting there. Now, we do need to explore what the Minister’s consent is. I understand, from the fact that the Minister went into this on his previous contribution, that perhaps that is addressed later on, and we’ll get to that.

The date, as well, is kind of quite interesting, because it just implies that until we know what the conditions of the consent around that are, there’s a degree of judgment, a degree of flexibility, a degree of, I suppose, a capacity for the Minister to delay the particular date of consenting to it, to accelerate the date. There’s a degree of discretion there for the Minister as to when that transfer might become effective. Of course, that then impacts everything else in the bill, because the transfer is quite important. What I want to understand from the Minister is the extent to which that Minister’s consent—which we’re going to discuss later—can be, I suppose, gamed, as it were, by shifting the date around. There’s a possibility that that could happen. I want to know what safeguards the Minister has in mind.

You know, when we give Ministers discretion to do such stuff, it does imply a degree of, of course, trust in the Minister’s judgment. And perhaps the current Minister in the chair is someone we would trust in that judgment. But what about the next Minister and the next Minister after that? We need to know what safeguards the Minister has in place around the exercise of what seems to be a discretion around the date of the consent.

So if the Minister could perhaps just talk a little bit about the safeguards that are there—and perhaps they are there later in the bill. Of course, only having gotten it, you know, perhaps ready today as we all arrived back here, it’s a little hard to know what’s going on here, so just some advice on that. Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to speak to clause 10 in Part 1 of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill. The Amendment Paper is amending “Section 5 amended (Functions of Minister)”—we’re on page 2 of the Amendment Paper.

Section 5 is the amended functions of the Minister. What we have, through clause 10, is “After clause 10(2) (page 7, after line 2), insert: (2A) After section 5(c), insert: (caa) to make decisions (with others) on whether to require outgoing guarantees and, if so, to determine what outgoing guarantees are appropriate:”. So, although the bulk of ministerial discretion and decision-making powers are covered in Part 2 of this bill, what we can see here in clause 10, in Part 1 of the bill, under the functions of the Minister, is we are starting to see the introduction of these discretionary powers—and even in this very short inclusion, around (2A)—“(caa) to make decisions (with others)”. Which others? This is not spelt out. Who are the other people?

We see, in other parts of the bill, that that’s the Minister of Finance, but the Amendment Paper doesn’t say “with an other”—it says “with others”. So who else? It’s plural. Who else is envisioned as being a decision maker in that amended clause, “on whether to require outgoing guarantees and, if so, to determine what outgoing guarantees are appropriate:”? I would seek some of the policy thought that the Minister can share with the committee that went into this clause 10(2A) amendment, around what were the criteria around that. We know that discretionary powers need to be a little bit more than the whim of a Minister. It’s not a statutory decision that’s being made as defined; it’s a discretionary power that’s being granted here. Surely the Minister has had some discussions around parameters, around criteria, and what will guide decision making—what will be the principles that guide his decision making in this area? I look forward to the Minister elucidating further on that.

Yes, thank you. Look, it’s really a remarkably succinct response I offer. Answers will be revealed as we work in a methodical way through all parts of this Amendment Paper. It is probably superfluous at this stage to go into answers on both of those points when we will get to the necessary detail as we plough through the remainder of the bill.

Thank you. I do just have a follow-up question for the Minister on that, given we are on Part 1, and we are asking questions about clause 10 of the bill. We will get to further parts of the bill at a later date, but given the short period of time that the House has had this bill, can the Minister please refer us to the clause where those parameters or criteria are defined, that we’ll get to in subsequent parts of the bill?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. Related to this statement—and noting, as my colleagues have said, that it is interesting to be looking at an Amendment Paper on a bill that’s already been reported back—the point that Dr Megan Woods appeared to be making that I think the Minister was responding to, but I’m not sure, was the relationship with outgoing guarantees and when they are appropriate. I realise that in Part 2, there is a definition of an outgoing guarantee, but the question here is about the Minister’s functions. So it is the Minister’s function now to make decisions on whether to require outgoing guarantees or not, and this seems to be a very big power and a new power for the Minister to have. So it would be very useful for the Minister to comment on—doesn’t have to go on exactly about what outgoing guarantees are—the nature of this new power and whether or not there are any constraints in Part 1 of the principal Act, the principal Act as amended by last time we were in the committee of the whole House, or this Amendment Paper. Are there constraints on those functions that he can point us to?

I appreciate the Minister’s position, but he’s kind of just said, “Well, trust me.”—“Trust me.” Perhaps we might have a little bit of concern about that, because the particular history suggests that things get changed around quite dramatically from time to time. It’s a little tricky to just go with it, because we are dealing with an Act and then the bill which amends the Act, and now this Amendment Paper which amends the bill which amends the Act—so there’s the amendment to the amendment. It is actually complicated, and the speed with which we’re having to deal with it does mean that we’re going to have to do a little bit more than just take the Minister’s word for it. All we’ve asked for is which clauses. We don’t need to debate them now, but if he could indicate those clauses, that would be very, very helpful.

I’m conscious that—please pull me up if I’ve raced ahead too far. What I said to the committee when I referred in my first contribution: sections on pages 10 and 11, essentially, provide the detail, and I accept, Madam Chair, by the time we get to those pages, we’re probably not able, without the leave of the House, to come back to clause 10. But having been pulled up myself many times in this House for talking about the wrong part of the bill—not this bill—I want to be absolutely sure you don’t chide me. Can I suggest, for ease of understanding, that elements of the reference in clause 10, where people may want to understand, well, what will the determination be based on—I direct their attention to pages 10 and 11.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m now going to go backwards and talk about clause 8 in Part 1 of the bill. Amendment Paper 343 deletes the new section 2C(1)(c) inserted by clause 8—that’s page 6, lines 14 to 20. So if we have a look at 2C(1)(c), that’s in the “Determination of permit tier status”, and this is a significant part of how the legislation will operate. So determination of permit tier status 2C(1)(c) is: “at any time that the permit is partially surrendered under section 40(2) if—(i) the partial surrender results in the permit applying to an area not exceeding 50 continue continuous hectares; and (ii) the permit holder, in the application lodged under section 40(1)(a), states that the purpose of the application is to satisfy the requirements of a Tier 3 permit as set out in section 2B(2A).” Now, according to the Amendment Paper, there is no replacement for what is being deleted in this section. So I just would like the Minister for Resources to explain to the committee, first of all, why that is being deleted, what the impact would be, and what the policy rationale is for the removal of that clause. Just to repeat, that’s clause 8 of the Amendment Paper.

I just want to add a little bit to what my colleague Megan Woods has talked about, and that is this Minister determining the tier status of a permit: “The Minister must determine the tier status of a permit”—if I can get that phrase out—“… on first granting the permit”, and so on.

By deleting that clause determining the tier status of a permit, does that mean that the tier status of a permit is no longer determined anywhere? Is it just something that doesn’t exist anymore? By deleting that, the Minister has left several unanswered questions about, obviously, what the tier status of a permit is, but is there a clause somewhere else in this Amendment Paper that actually does say how the tier status of a permit is to be determined? It says it is determined by the Minister—this is in the amendment bill—but is it now determined, perhaps, on a factual basis? Is there another way it’s determined? Or is the idea of the tier status abandoned altogether? Or is there something in the original Act that does it?

There is a lot of confusion around this particular clause, and it looks so innocuous in the Amendment Paper. It just says, “In clause 8, delete [this]”, but, in actual fact, when we dig into it, it turns out that there is a wee bit more substance in it and a few unanswered questions there, in terms of what is actually going on with this deletion, what problem it was supposed to solve in the first place, but now, if other problems are introduced by the mere fact of the deletion, that’s all getting a little bit complicated. But this is, indeed, as we said, going to be complicated, and we’re just going to have to try to deal with it. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. While the Minister for Resources prepares his thoughts to tell us why that part that clause is being deleted, what the policy rationale is that sat behind it, and how it is achieving the policy intent that he’s told the House is the reason why he’s bringing this Amendment Paper to the House in this highly unusual fashion in the way in which this bill is progressing, I’d also like to know if there’s a reason why there’s nothing that it’s being replaced with. To simply remove a chunk of an amended piece of legislation that’s gone to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, that hearings have been held on, that submitters have had the chance to submit on—I can understand sometimes that we need to have clauses of bills that need to be tweaked and fixed, and there might need to be the odd word changed, but to simply just remove quite a large portion of this clause of the bill is quite unusual.

If this was at select committee, Madam Chair, as you will know, there would be quite a discussion with committee members about whether or not that was the right thing to do, and the implications for further on in the bill. We know in these Part 1 bits, where you’re doing things like setting up the functions of the Minister and determining the tier status of permits, that these have long flow-on effects into a piece of legislation.

I just want to hear from the Minister the why—we’ve already indicated and we’re waiting for him to give us an explanation on why it was done—but also further to that why it wasn’t replaced.

I think it’s important that I remind the committee that this bill not only deals with elements of the oil and gas industry but it also creates a new level of permissiveness for mining. This particular change gets rid of duplication. The power remains solely with the Minister in the event that a tier 2 permit, which is quite restrictive, might then be changed to a tier 3 permit, which, in the bill, is, essentially, a type of hobby mining. But it’s propelled forward by a policy set of impulses that wants to see an acceleration of mining in New Zealand.

It may just be that I haven’t had the bill very long, but that didn’t really inform me a great deal on what the policy intent was. So I’d like the Minister to clarify, given the answers that he’s just given, whether or not this only applies to hobby mining permits, as he indicated in the answer that he just gave, because I can’t see anything in that “clause 8, delete new section 2C(1)(c)”. New section 2C(1)(c) states: “at any time that the permit is partially surrendered under section 40(2)”, because this is the determination of permit tier status. This clause in the amendment bill that the Amendment Paper is amending does not specify it’s around hobby mining. So I’d just like the Minister to clarify to the committee whether he is indeed informing us that this entire determination of permit tier status is confined to that narrow window.

The Minister has a way with words, but I just wonder if his way with words sometimes fails him. In particular, the Minister said—and this has got me even more worried now—that a lot of what was going on in here was “the impulse to allow more mining”. Now, I accept that the Minister was searching for a word, but “impulse” has got me deeply worried. I’m really hoping, Minister, that, in actual fact, it’s more than just an impulse here—that it wasn’t just that the Minister woke up one night and had a bright idea. If that was the case, Minister, I don’t think we actually want to know! I am concerned now; in fact, I am just going to say, Minister, that perhaps every time the Minister speaks, I get a little more worried.

In terms of this, Minister, I do want to understand now this tier 2 to tier 3, and he mentioned hobby mining. I think having mentioned hobby mining, I do want to understand from the Minister what is meant by “hobby mining”? Is this just some kid digging in the backyard? Or is it a farmer having a crack at what she thinks is some deposit on her farm that might actually hold minerals of some worth? What is actually the distinction between hobby mining and proper mining? That’s a distinction that the Minister seems to have brought into this debate. Perhaps he didn’t really mean to; perhaps it was just an “impulse”, but a little bit of clarification around that so that we can be sure that what is going on with this deletion is actually worth it.

I thank you, Madam Chair. My question to the Minister—look, I think it’s—what are we? Part 1, clauses 8 to 10. Specifically, I want to drill into—and that’s a pun—the trailing liability protections and the problem that the Minister is looking to solve and the confidence with which the Minister is looking to do something completely different to what we’ve seen done in the past. I speak from experience, being one of three—no, I think he’s gone—who live in Taranaki at the moment, and I have seen the knowledge on the ground being disregarded when we’ve seen the likes of Tui and Tamarind and what that cost taxpayers. What should have been a $150 million clean-up then became a $443 million and then a two-hundred and something million.

My question is: from those lessons learnt, is the Minister confident that the amendments will give him the discretion to protect and pre-empt when we see companies not only flipping shares—not permits—and then how sophisticated they are in avoiding decommissioning costs and the way that that affects the wider community?

A follow-up to that question is: if the Minister is confident—having lived in Taranaki for most of my life—what has happened differently in the same agency that existed when Tui and Tamarind were creating those problems? What capacity does he see surrounding the amendments to the bill that he’s making so that not only can the sector get confidence but, obviously, that those who live around these companies and their activities have confidence that we’re not going to have to foot another bill? Also, given that the Minister’s amendments—I’m not sure that they’re ambitious, but they’re looking to solve a problem and a gap that’s clearly been identified. What support does he see and what gear-up of that particular agency is there to ensure that what the gap is will never happen again?

Without delving into the innards of Part 2, I do respect the contribution that’s been made, because the circumstances of the incident, the Tamarind brouhaha—the answers don’t just lie in this bill; they lie also in another piece of legislation administered by the Environmental Protection Authority. I don’t want to cut across what the honourable member has raised—but I’ll address it when we get into the innards of Part 2—but her point is extremely well made, that, sadly, the last regime spent $300 million more than should’ve been necessary.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Clause 10: after clause 10(2), there will be inserted “to make decisions (with others),”—it would be good to understand the definition of those “others”—“on whether to require outgoing guarantees and, if so, to determine what outgoing guarantees are appropriate:”.

It’s a question as to the discretion of the Minister here, in so far as one of the feedbacks that came in the supplementary analysis report was that it would be useful to have further analysis of the guardrails to support ministerial discretion, to address any risks or perception of risk of regulatory capture, and to ensure discretion is exercised in a consistent manner. It specifically referred to consultation on proposed changes, particularly with iwi and hapū, but I wonder the extent to which the Minister has this discretion and the ability to make determinations about outgoing guarantees and what outgoing guarantees are appropriate. It just seems like a very broad ambit—and understanding what the basis for those things will be.

There will be a strong enthusiasm—and the Minister has clearly expressed a great enthusiasm for trying to bring back this dead industry that had its final nail in the coffin placed by the 2018 ban but was already well on its way to departure—to not put in place barriers to that industry, to the extent that the Minister might be encouraged to not place burdensome or onerous expectations in this area on that industry. That would be a significant concern, given that where those guarantees were not appropriate, the cost would fall to the public purse. So I wonder if the Minister could elucidate us on the parameters around which that sort of discretion will be exercised?

I’m always trying to be useful. I thought it could be useful at this stage to remind the Minister for Resources of the outstanding questions that still haven’t been addressed that had been put to him in the chair, given the unique nature of this committee stage with a bill being recommitted. We’re still waiting to know which “others” in clause 10(2A) of Amendment Paper 343—“others” plural, where in other parts of this Amendment Paper it only talks about the Minister of Finance. So who does he envision are the other people, and what is the policy intent behind that? Is it specified anywhere in the Act, or is that, again, just an impulse that the Minister will act on?

Clause 8: we’re still waiting to find out is this just confined to hobby mining, or is it indeed the whole gambit of things covered by the Crown Minerals Act? The Minister, in his answer, indicated that it was hobby mining. That’s not my reading, but, as I said, I may well be wrong. We’ve only had this bill for a very short period of time, so I would seek clarification from the Minister who has penned this Amendment Paper and brought it here. It is important that we understand the forensic detail and thinking.

What we’re also wanting to understand and we haven’t had any answers from the Minister on is why it is that there is a clause that is being removed and not replaced with anything, that I asked the Minister of in new section 2C, which is what clause 8 of this bill does. So there are many, many unanswered questions that are sitting out there.

I have another one to add to the list, that we have in clause 10, amending section 5, which of course is the section of the Act which is the functions of the Minister. One of the things I’d like the Minister to let us know: when considering those functions of the Minister—and particularly the new clause 10(2A), inserted by Amendment Paper 343: “After section 5(c), insert: (caa)”—we received advice in the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, the Minister received advice, everybody received advice that what was happening in terms of the reversal and the changes to the decommissioning regime, which is the subject of this Amendment Paper, would reverse the additional protections for some Taranaki conservation land, and iwi were concerned that this would undermine rights in existing Treaty settlements if mining is once again allowed on those tracts, or adjacent tracts, of land. So whether or not the undermining of Treaty settlements was something that the Minister considered when he was considering that clause 10 section of this bill, which are the functions of the Minister—because that is the kind of thing that when a Minister is thinking about their functions, they do need to think broadly about those things.

Yes, the word “others” obviously refers, as the Hon Megan Woods has already adverted to, to the Minister of Finance. Now, why would that be the case? Largely because there are liability questions at stake here, and the person ordinarily charged with having responsibility for managing what the Crown signs up to and its fiscal impact is the so-said Minister I just referred to.

In respect of clause 8, I repeat what I said: it avoids duplication, and when we get further down the track into Part 2, I’ll be able to point to the necessary sections. I accept that the amendment bill has not been held particularly long, but as a community of parliamentarians, it’s important that trust is exhibited. Yes, there will be large decisions to be made by Ministers, but that’s what we are: we’re public officials accountable for our decisions.

Look, first of all, thank you to the Minister for making an attempt at answering that question about “others”. But the Minister is someone who is known for his ability with language—I think, someone who prides himself on his ability with language and of knowledge of how language works. I’m just going to point out to the Minister that “others” is a plural.

That’s right; words matter.

Words matter. “Others” is a plural. The last time I looked, the “Minister of Finance” was a singular—I won’t say entity—a singular person. So unless something changed about the nature of the Minister of Finance—I mean, I’m sorry, Minister, that is just not going to fly. It might need to say, “with another”, or something like that. I know it only seems minor, but words matter in law, and as soon as we’re using a plural, we do need to worry about it. So perhaps there is someone in addition to the Minister of Finance who is going to be making that decision with the Minister; perhaps there is not.

But if it is just one person, Minister, I’m very, very happy to put together an Amendment Paper to the Amendment Paper to ensure to take that “s” out. It would be an unusual thing for an Opposition Amendment Paper to be accepted for an Amendment Paper to a Government bill, but perhaps the Minister might be happy to do that. Alternatively, as the master of words that he is known as, perhaps he could let us know who the “other” of these “others” is, other than the Minister of Finance?

Listen, we are prosecuting this particular clause deeply because it has a very significant impact on an issue that we know is a big problem for this industry: decommissioning. Particularly as the industry is in its sunset era, it all the more becomes the concern that if the Minister’s ambitions for attracting back the oil and gas industry fail, then we are going to be on the hook for the cost of decommissioning. Particularly, the companies, as we know and in the examples we’ve been given, go belly-up, they haven’t got the funds to deal with the mess they’ve left behind, and the taxpayer is on the hook for it.

I would just really appreciate if the Minister could give us absolute clarity as to what advice he got on the perception of regulatory capture and the risks of that perception, with the combination of these two wordings that are achieved through this amendment to clause 10, whereby in section 5—the functions of the Minister—the duty to “attract permit applications, including by way of” is associated with “by way of making decisions on whether to require outgoing guarantees”. That seems to be a direct contradiction in the duty of the Minister responsible for protecting the common interest and the common good from the risks of decommissioning not being covered, in terms of its costs and in terms of its impact on people, on the environment.

I would just really appreciate if the Minister could give us some clarity, given that in advice received, the risk of regulatory capture was specifically pointed out as something that should be addressed.

I repeat again that the parameters within which a ministerial decision or a determination might be exercised will be dealt with when we get to Part 2. I have articulated to the Hon Dr Megan Woods the specific sections. The underlying question that is raised of a policy character, presumably, goes to the point: why have you posited with a politician holding a Crown warrant the responsibility for making these determinations, and could that person act in such a fashion that that person endangers the very things that people feel need to be managed risk-wise very, very fastidiously? I say once again that the essence of this bill is that the power will be with two Ministers. The parameters will be dealt with in Part 2, and I would urge members to race there as quickly as possible.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. We still have outstanding questions. The Minister has not told us whether or not the clause in this section, in terms of clause 8, section 2C, is just confined to hobby mining. He indicated it in an earlier contribution. We’ve been asking whether that is the intent of this Amendment Paper that he has brought and whether indeed it is just confined to there. We’re not even concerned who the second “other” in the “others” is, in terms of the Minister of Finance—we know that.

I’d like to hear from the Minister in the chair whether or not he’s going to accept the very kind offer of my colleague the Hon Deborah Russell to put forward an Amendment Paper to clear up that misunderstanding that seems to have creeped into the amendment to the amendment to the amendment in an effort to tidy up this bill, to specify that that would just be the Minister of Finance. So clause 10(2A) would then be: “After section 5(c), insert: (caa) to make decisions with the Minister of Finance”—so replace “others” with “the Minister of Finance”. If the Minister is telling the House that is what it is, it is not what is indicated in the wording that is in the Amendment Paper in front of us. It’s a plural; he’s talking about a singular. So we would like to know that.

One of the things, as well as the Amendment Paper being presented to the House, was the annex to the regulatory impact statement to go along with this legislation. One of the things that I think is incredibly important—we’re only in Part 1. We’re talking about the functions of the Minister. We’re talking about the permit tiers—very fundamental parts of the building blocks of our Crown Minerals Act (CMA). The annex to that regulatory impact statement makes the very important point that “Changes to the Minerals Programme for Petroleum will need to be made. The Programmes are considered secondary legislation that interpret the CMA. The Programmes have specific consultation requirements, as set out in the CMA, including public notice and submission requirements. There is currently a process underway to update the Minerals Programme to align with changes being made through the Bill, as [with] … earlier legislative changes that have not yet been incorporated.”

So we’re in this very sticky situation that we’ve got a clear as mud situation of what this Amendment Paper is actually doing, who is making the decisions, and what permits, what tiers it actually applies to. The Minister can’t give us this clarity, and this is the very basis for secondary legislation and how that is going to be passed, so we’re in a very serious and dire situation. The Minister doesn’t seem to understand the Amendment Paper that he’s brought to this House, or certainly can’t articulate what it means to the House.

We are waiting for the Minister to tell us some of the fundamental things that we need to proceed to Part 2 of this bill, where we can discuss in detail the criteria that the Minister may or may not use. The Minister tells us that we need to trust him and trust needs to be put in politicians to make decisions—couldn’t agree more. But part of that contract is that you have a Minister capable of coming to the House and answering some fundamental questions about the legislation they’re bringing, and that’s not what we’re seeing here. We’re having a Minister that thinks that hyperbole is a substitute for an answer to a straight question.

We will keep asking these questions because they are important. I’d also like to know, as well as who the “others” are, and whether or not it’s just relating to hobby mining, whether or not the Minister considered whether this would be in contravention of Treaty settlements.

Despite my best efforts, the parent bill does not extirpate the reference to the Treaty of Waitangi, so that’s a fact. Secondly, I repeat, in respect—clause 8 takes out a duplication. The original contribution pertained to what we are calling tier 3 hobby entitlements for mining. It became evident in the 2021 legislation—just remember who was the Minister in 2021—there already existed an entitlement, and we are taking this route because it built on something that someone before me had already put in the law. That’s why we call it duplication.

Well, the Minister has told us that this is a duplication—a duplication of what? I mean, this is the difficulty. We’re just left with a deletion here and we don’t have a detailed, clause-by-clause analysis which could perhaps have been helpful. We just don’t have anything much to go on except what the Minister can tell us. So he’s asserted that clause 8, deleting new section 2C(1)(c), removes a duplication, but a duplication of what? And where can we check the particular duplication? Because we would like to see—he’s asserted this, could he please tell us exactly where that duplication is so that we can be sure that taking this out does in fact eliminate a duplication?

OK. I will repeat it again very slowly. In the parent piece of legislation exists section 2. That section was in the 2021 legislation. It already gives enough authority for the necessary changes, if necessary, to be made in terms of a tier 1, 2, or 3 permit needing to be changed. When the bill was first introduced, it introduced—with a specific reference to—hobby mining, which is tier 3. We have now worked out and decided, because of the existing provision entered into the law in the 2021 legislation, it’s now unnecessary, because it represents a duplication.

For fear of trivialising the House’s time, this is the fifth attempt that I’ve had to explain something that was passed by a Minister prior to my arrival.

Thank you to the Minister for clearing it up. It wasn’t that hard; we could have got there sooner.

In terms of the Treaty, the Minister, in his last contribution, talked about the Treaty settlements. What I want to know from the Minister is what advice he received around these changes, and, given that there has not been consultation with iwi on this Amendment Paper 343, whether this is undermining rights in existing Treaty settlements. We know, and the updated regulatory impact statement makes it very clear, that the Minister had his officials—and we’ll come to this more fully later—talking extensively with the oil and gas industry, but there was no consultation on the Amendment Paper with the iwi who were concerned. So I ask whether he’s had advice on whether or not this Amendment Paper could undermine the rights in existing Treaty settlements, bearing in mind that this was part of the initial advice that was provided with the original Crown Minerals Amendment Bill—the need to consult with iwi—because of those Treaty settlements.

OK, getting very good at this repetitive approach. The parent legislation contains a reference to the Treaty of Waitangi. It also enables engagement, as the member has said, between the different tangata whenua communities. They have been engaged with in relation to the parent bill, and, as I’ve said, that bill does not contain a deletion of the Treaty of Waitangi reference, so in the future, the engagement will happen. This highly technical matter was not the subject of consultation in a detailed way. It was dealt with with a great deal of confidentiality. In terms of providing a Māori dimension, I interviewed myself.

This is a very serious issue that I think the committee does need some more detail on from the Minister for Resources. We have an amendment bill that he tells us was consulted on in a very confidential manner. Well, the committee of the whole House will be wanting a list of who it was that was consulted with. But whether or not it’s in the parent bill, what we’re debating here today is Amendment Paper 343, and the Minister’s own documents that have been released with the bill and his officials’ documents that have been released with the bill make it patently clear that iwi and hapū were not consulted on this Amendment Paper. So the question becomes whether or not the Amendment Paper that is before the committee is an undermining of those Treaty settlements.

It’s not about the parent bill, and it’s not about the original bill that was brought before the House, which was consulted on, but the point of the matter that the Minister needs to answer is whether or not the Amendment Paper that we are voting on today constitutes a contravention of the Treaty settlements. The Minister can’t just skirt around that. It’s a serious issue that the House deserves an answer to, because if we were at select committee and this bill was going through its normal process, Ministers can’t just circumvent scrutiny of their legislation by withdrawing a bill at third reading and dropping an Amendment Paper and not expect there to be scrutiny in the committee of the whole House. This is a question the House needs and deserves an answer to: does the lack of iwi consultation on this Amendment Paper constitute an undermining of the Treaty settlements in that area?

I propose that the debate on this motion now close.

I really want to dig into these tiers now. I’m sorry; I apologise for having my laptop on my desk, but I’ve used it to pull up the Crown Minerals Act. I’ve gone back to section 2C because that’s where—I shouldn’t say damage because that’s not the right thing. So the bill amended 2C, but now Amendment Paper 343 to the bill takes the new 2C out, and that means that the original 2C stands—is that the case?

What page are you on?

The Crown Minerals Amendment Bill replaces section 2C—

Yes, but what page are you referring to?

Oh, I’m sorry—on page 6 of the bill. It’s clause 8 of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill.

Oh yeah, cool.

There’s a 2C sitting in the Act; clause 8 of the bill replaces 2C. Clause 8 of the Amendment Paper deletes new section 2C(1)(c). So we’re taking out that bit. Oh, it only takes out section 2C(1)(c)—this is the complication with having something delivered at—which is on the partial surrenders and so on like that. What I’m finding complicated here is the stuff around tier 3 permits. The tier 3 permits are the new permits. So they’re brought in by this bill; they’re new to the Act, and they seem to be this area which is less than 50 hectares. That’s sitting in the bill itself.

I’m sorry, Minister. I know that it’s clear and easy in your mind, but this has been dumped on us at the last moment, and we are genuinely trying to sort our way through this to understand what is going on here and why you’ve put the new 2C in and now you’ve taken the new 2C out. We just don’t quite get it, and you said you’ve explained it clearly. I’m just going to assert that we are doing our best to follow this and we would really like—

You’ve got three degrees. You must understand it by now.

Oh, take a call—take a call. So I would like to hear from the Minister on that one.

Mr Chair.

Is that a point of order?

No, I’m taking a call, Mr Chair.

Was the member continuing to speak?

I was finished, yeah.

If you’re not taking a point of order, continue.

I want us to contemplate a situation where an Act is already in existence. That Act has a section 2C. That Act was delivered under the stewardship of a Minister in 2021, and it had some redeeming features in it, right—modest. Then—because the air is thick with redundancy, and these contributions are proving the air is right—the amendment bill was introduced with an additional clause. It has now occurred to the Government that that additional clause is redundant; therefore, it has been removed, but section 2C, delivered in 2021, still stands, and it addresses the issues pertaining to the transition of various mining entitlements. I really can’t say much more, and I’m quite confident that the former Minister, having realised that she’s the architect of this, now realises what I’m talking about.

Thank you very much. I want to move on to a new clause of Part 1, and that is clause 9, which inserts new section 2D(3) into the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill. What this does is it, in clause 9(2), new section 2D(3)(a), replaces “the day after the date of the notification”—and that’s on page 6—with “the date of the notification”.

I want to know what the rationale for changing it to the day of the notification from the day after. When we come to the commencement, there are actually some serious and quite technical questions that we’ll ask, at the appropriate time, around the use of moving from a statutory start date to a statutory instrument - driven start date. But why is it, in clause 9 of that amendment bill, “the date of the notification” rather than “the day after”?

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Mr Chairman, with all due respect, there’s still a number of questions on Part 1 that the Minister for Resources hasn’t been able to answer and that we’re still waiting for answers to. I think that given the nature of the way in which this Minister is choosing to legislate, with a very atypical process of what has happened in terms of the recalling of this bill from its third reading, and with a very substantial Amendment Paper being put back to the committee of the whole House and not having it go through a select committee phase, it is our job, as parliamentarians, to scrutinise this Amendment Paper 343 in the committee of the whole House.

It is also the job of the Minister to answer the questions. As I have pointed out in previous contributions, the fact is that what is in this bill actually becomes really important in terms of the secondary legislation in that the minerals programme for petroleum is a piece of secondary legislation that is drawn from interpretations of this Act. The regulatory impact statement that the Minister himself has had tabled in the committee here tells us that they’re considering this Amendment Paper. We still have unanswered questions on the very fundamentals of this bill, so I think it would be useful for the House and for the passage of good legislation for the Minister to be able to explain his own legislation.

Point of order, Mr Chair. Sorry to do this. I’m just seeking a bit of clarification on how debate on this Amendment Paper goes. We have been concentrating on the clauses in the Amendment Paper that relate to the Part 1. Do we then move a separate closure motion for just those clauses, or how does it work? Because I’m concerned that if we accept a closure motion now, it closes the debate on the entire Amendment Paper, not just—

No—there is Part 2 and Part 3 to go to as well.

Right—OK. So in that case, the motion that is on the floor now is just relating to the clauses relating to Part 1?

Yes.

OK—thank you. I appreciate that clarification.

Let me repeat again: this is the debate on amendments to clauses 5, 8, 9, and 10, set out on Amendment Paper 343, and a couple of other debates on that. Just to note, there are other opportunities to ask other questions in Part 2 and Part 3, and, actually, some of those questions might be relevant to those particular parts there as well. We are keeping an eye on relevance and repetition. Acknowledging members have now moved on to clause 9, which, as far as I understand, is new, we are looking for new material.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Amendment Paper 343 be agreed to.

The amendments are agreed to; therefore, Part 1 as amended stands part.

Members, we come now to the Minister’s amendments to Part 2. This is the debate on—[Interruption] Please listen carefully so you can focus your contributions—amendments to clauses 25, new clause 26A to 26C, 27, 28, and new clause 29A, as set out on Amendment Paper 343. The question is the Minister’s amendments to Part 2, set out on Amendment Paper 343, be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to start with a contribution on Part 2 on the new clause 26A, “Section 41 amended (Transfer of interest in permit)”, on Amendment Paper 343. Subclause (1) says, “After section 41(6), insert:” new section 41(6A). This is going to be quite a short question, but I’ve heard previous speakers mentioning that the Minister for Resources has a particular way with words, and so I just wanted to get a clarification from the Minister.

In this, we are looking at a conditional sentence, so we are looking at an “if” and “then” sentence. The “if the Ministers require an outgoing guarantee under section 41I,”—that’s the protasis of a conditional sentence. However, the apodosis of a conditional sentence is missing here. What I’m not seeing is where the “then” part of this sentence is. At this stage, if we’re saying that if the Ministers require an outgoing guarantee under section 41I, an outgoing guarantee that the Ministers consider to be appropriate—i.e., let’s say an outgoing guarantee—must have been provided in accordance with that requirement. Does that mean that if the Ministers require an outgoing guarantee, then an outgoing guarantee must have been provided already, before the Ministers required it? What we’re also seeing here is that it is using “require” as a simple present, but it is immediately followed by a conditional, which is present perfect, but the present perfect seems to precede the simple present. It does create an anachronistic sentence in this case.

I’m assuming that the Minister means that if an outgoing guarantee is required, that should be provided—am I getting that correct? But that’s not how that is currently worded, so I just wanted to get clarification from the Minister on where the apodosis of this conditional sentence starts.

OK, for ease of comprehension, I direct the member to the actual words that he’s quoted. I’m on page 2, at clause 25(1A): “ ‘section 41A(7)’ with ‘sections 41AG(8) or 41A(6)’.”

If the member races ahead, he will see, on page 678, the wording—why does that wording exist? It exists to cope with transfers or revocations. Why is it included? It deals with a temporal issue, the period of time or grace where either a revocation or a transfer takes place, or, indeed, what money is involved. So I strongly urge the Green Party member, rather than randomly quoting scattered parts of the alphabet, to actually go to the page, and the answers are laid out there in comprehensible English.

Thank you, Mr Chair. So jumping a little bit ahead, then, and speaking in more generic terms, what I’m interested in is the fundamental change here. The bill tells us—the explanatory note—that whereas the previous amendment let you trail back, or have discretion to trail back, to previous permit holders, the Minister’s amendment is changing their ability to go back in time to previous holders of the permit. The hook to do that—the temporal nature—is that any current permit holder has to get the permission of the Ministers—being the Minister and the Minister of Finance—before they are able to on-sell that permit or licence. I’d like the Minister to confirm that that is correct.

Then all of the amendment bill also appears to be about decommissioning, so the decommissioning liabilities. It doesn’t appear to be—and again, this is a question for the Minister—about consent requirements and upholding the operational parameters that will have been set for these permit holders. My question is: does this Amendment Paper have anything to do with the conditions that permit holders have to meet that aren’t decommissioning? Because my understanding is that, normally, you have bonds that address both the “Are you following through with all your consenting requirements?”, and then a separate bond, or some similar financial instrument, for the payment of the decommissioning. So those are my questions there.

I’ve been looking at page 10 of the amendment, and that is the new section 41F that talks about this outgoing guarantee and, I think, the mechanism whereby a permit holder might be on-selling. That goes back to the change to clause 27, so that’s at page 6 of the amendment, which is when the “Minister may consent to change of control of permit operator”, and then there’s a new section inserted after section 41AE(1)(a), a new paragraph (aa): “if the Ministers require an outgoing guarantee under section 41I, an outgoing guarantee that the Minister considers to be appropriate has been provided”. So this language looks very open—and maybe that’s the Minister’s earlier point, to trust the Minister. But if the Minister could comment on the width of that—and I acknowledge that there are further sections that are at pages 11 and 12 of the amendment that do give some parameters, but they don’t seem to be vast, and it does seem to be that there’s a lot of discretion in these new provisions.

Obviously, for those of you who have the actual Act on your computer, and if we look at the specific wording on page 2, clause 25, in section 39 as amended—what does section 39 do? In the magnum opus Act, section 39 pertains to the revocation or the transfer of entitlements to the Minister. It contemplates a situation where a holder is about to suffer the loss of an entitlement. We have had a situation where these things have, from time to time, been triggered because of non-payment. We have had a period of 90 days in section 39 within the parent Act. What this does is prevent any gaming, any protraction of honouring the fiscal obligation to the Crown. It gets rid of the 90-day period, it retains a 40-day period, and it tightens up the conduct and makes it very clear what the obligations are. It also provides for such a revocation to be reported to the Registrar-General of Land, and also, where the land qualifies as ture whenua land, a notice is also sent to the Māori Land Court. This is how this part of section 39 has been improved.

I don’t mean any disrespect. I am being somewhat laborious because I take on board what the Opposition members have said. It’s very finicky and they haven’t had the full amount of time. But I have to say: we are amending the 2021 legislation and we’re also improving the contribution that this Minister brought forward. We have the expert of the 2021 legislation sitting there, so I shouldn’t need to remind the architect of her work.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Of course, the whole, sole purpose of the 2021 legislation that the Minister has talked about in his contribution was to protect the New Zealand taxpayer. As I said in an earlier contribution, it wasn’t from a theoretical risk; it was a real risk that previous National Governments had left New Zealand exposed to, and that our Government fixed when we were in Government. It cost a lot to clean up.

What we did—there was liability if a permit holder failed to decommission or meet the cost of the decommissioning either directly or through a financial security, and the Act placed a liability on all former permit holders. This was about protecting New Zealand taxpayers from having to pick up the tab from global multinationals that decided to just exit New Zealand and not pay for the cost of their own decommissioning and clean up after themselves. As a Government, we could not tolerate that.

What we had then is the Minister we had in the chair in September 2024 brought an amendment bill that watered down those protections and altered the trailing liability protections in the decommissioning regime with his amendment legislation. We then had an Amendment Paper that proposed to extend training liability to a wider range of people, beyond existing and previous permit holders, by adding various persons having a controlled interest in a body corporate to the list of persons.

The Amendment Paper that we are debating today wipes both the bill the Minister brought and the Amendment Paper that was put up and replaces it with a new Amendment Paper. So we are in a somewhat absurd situation of the amendment to the amendment to the amendment and trying to trace our way back through that.

It is in this Part 2, it is in these clauses 25, 26A, 26C, 27, 28, and 29A, that we really have the guts of this legislation, of what this amendment is trying to achieve. That is about bowing down to the oil and gas industry and further watering down the liability that they will need to shoulder for doing business in New Zealand.

Now, New Zealand is not an outlier for saying to oil and gas companies that if you operate in our jurisdiction, we’re going to protect our taxpayers, we’re going to protect the people who live in our country, from cleaning up after you. But what we have is a Government who thinks that it’s a good idea to actually not put the interest of New Zealanders first but put the interests of the oil and gas companies at the forefront.

In the Annex to the Regulatory Impact Statement: Amendments to the Crown Minerals Act 1991 relating to petroleum exploration and mining that has been tabled with this Amendment Paper that is in there, it states that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) had several meetings with key stakeholders from December 2024 to March 2025 to hear their concerns, and has shared, in confidence, an outline option of option 4. So the paper, which I’ll come back to when we’re talking about the policy that sits behind these provisions that we’re debating in Part 2 of the Amendment Paper—but this regulatory impact statement tells us that the Minister had his officials sharing with some people what the options would be. What I’d like to know from the Minister is who were the options shared with? Who was privy to those confidential discussions?

We know from the regulatory impact statement that has been provided that iwi certainly weren’t. In fact, despite there being Treaty settlement obligations to consult with iwi, they just were ignored when it came to this. But I’d like to know, for example: were lawyers for climate change consulted? They certainly submitted on the previous bill and are experts in many of these areas.

The Minister needs to tell the committee—if this was a select committee process, we’d know who was being consulted with. It would be open, it would be transparent, there’d be a website, people could see the submissions, they could tune in, they could watch the submissions, and people would know what was being discussed. But what we see in this regulatory impact statement is that MBIE has engaged with these key stakeholders—who were the key stakeholders?—who had voiced a strong opposition to the bill. They didn’t manage to get the changes at select committee. They kept on going, and the Minister sent his officials off to consult with them. So who were these people?

They raised two primary issues: “Extending liability to all persons with controlling interest ‘pierces the corporate veil’ ”, is what the regulatory impact statement tells us, “in a way which they consider undermines the foundation of the Companies Act 1993 and common business practices”. What it doesn’t talk about is whether the Minister instructed his officials to go and talk to groups who had submitted, who had New Zealanders’ interests at their heart—the taxpayers of New Zealand, and the protections that have been put in place for those people. Instead, the Minister was more interested that his officials go off and talk to those who had concerns about “piercing the corporate veil”.

It also went on to say that the concern of the “Imposition of liability on all exiting and existing persons a with controlling interest is a statutory overreach”. Well, on this side of the House, we call that standing up for New Zealanders and protecting New Zealanders from the liability of oil and gas companies just leaving the country and leaving New Zealanders with the tab to clean up after them. But this is the priority of this Minister; this is the priority of this Government. They’re showing very clearly where they are.

We would like to know, and this committee deserves to know, who were these key stakeholders that were shared with the different options that were there—that they shared in confidence an outline of option 4, and who else was privy to those confidential sharing of the various options that were there?

I do want to add some force to my colleague the Hon Dr Megan Woods’ speech just now, because I’ve picked up the supplementary analysis report dated 16 June 2025, so the most recent analysis, and, well, there’s some pretty telling lines in it, and they’re rather scary. I’m looking at page 5 of this, right down the bottom: key stakeholders, consultation from January 2025. Flicking over on to page 6 of that, it says, “The sector has been clear that their preference is for no trailing liability in the [Crown Minerals Act].” Well, no kidding. Like, of course they don’t want the liability. Of course they’d like to just, you know, make a mess and walk right away. Then it goes on, “They consider it adds significant costs”—well, those are costs that will be borne by the New Zealand taxpayer if the members of this industry don’t bear the cost themselves—“and [it] reduces the likelihood new entrants will come into the New Zealand market.” But oil and gas is a dying industry anyway. You know, it’s on the way out. I don’t think the new entrants are coming here, and they weren’t coming here a few years ago. They’re certainly not coming now.

Then here’s another telling line: “Despite this position, those consulted preferred Ministerial discretion to the current Act and approach in the Bill.” In other words, these shadowy participants in the oil and gas industry—a dying industry—who we don’t know who they are, much prefer to be able to lobby a Minister and get that Minister to apply ministerial discretion instead of to go through some pretty clearly set out steps in legislation.

This kind of stinks. It actually stinks. You know, does something pass the sniff test? Well, this does not. I think one of the only ways for it to get to pass the sniff test will be if the Minister can tell us exactly who he was consulting with. We don’t know—just that they were participants in the oil and gas industry. And we do know that ordinary New Zealanders have not been consulted, iwi have not been consulted. So this is really worrying.

The next line says, “Targeted consultation was limited to those directly impacted by the proposed change,”. Well, I propose that the New Zealand taxpayers, who have to pick up the tab when these guys just skate off into the never-never and ignore their liabilities—we are directly affected by this too. Why was there not much wider consultation?

So to sum this up: it stinks, and the only way to clear this stink up is for us to know who was consulted with.

Thank you, Mr Chair. You know, gas doesn’t have an aroma; they have to add one to it so that it doesn’t kill us all.

Indigenous gas is the best gas.

And “indigenous gas”—really? Really? That’s such a cooked-up concept.

What do you call it?

Fossil gas is what you’re talking about, and it is a dying industry.

I want to speak to clause 26B, replacing section 41AA. I was so excited to ask this question, and I tried to make it my first question today, but we’re there now—we’re there now. I want to, specifically—there’s other parts to this clause that deserve some prosecution, but I’m going to jump down to new section 41AA, on page 3 of Amendment Paper 343. That is new section 41AA(1): “outgoing person means any of the following: (a) a person who ceases to have a controlling interest in a body corporate that is undergoing a change of control:”—that’s logical; that makes sense—“(b) a person who ceases to have all or part of an interest in a body corporate that is undergoing a change of control that results in another person acquiring a controlling interest in that body corporate:”.

Look, acknowledging the exceeding complexity of these corporate structures, which, let’s be honest, are designed very often to avoid the liability of those corporate interests—so getting this stuff right is important, because these companies, as my colleague just prior articulated, would like to not have any trailing liability; they would like to avoid liability for the mess that they leave behind, of course, just as they would like to avoid liability for climate change, which is a consequence of their whole industry. Paragraph (b) says “a person who ceases to have all or part of an interest”. Paragraph (c) also says “a person who transfers all or part of their participating interest in a permit or licence for petroleum, or transfers their licence for petroleum, to another person”.

So my question to the Minister is: does the definition of an “outgoing person” include those who might have ceased only part of an interest in a body corporate, or part of their participating interest in a permit or licence for petroleum? Can the Minister explain why a person who has only ceased part of an interest in a permit or licence is still captured as an outgoing person, even if they were to retain a significant commercial stake? Thank you.

Going back to my question—and I think the Minister answered part of it; I’m not entirely sure. He kept telling me to go back to the primary piece of legislation, which—obviously, there are a lot of bits of paper to look at here. But my question was around: those outgoing guarantees clauses just seem to be about decommissioning, and I was asking about the ongoing permits and the conditions associated with those. I think he referred to “clause 39”—but I think he might have meant “section 39”, and I’d like that confirmed—of the primary legislation, which is about when the Minister can revoke a permit. At page 8, there is reference to section 39, and there’s a change here on whether or not—or there’s a reference to section 39. So it says, “The Minister may revoke the permit in accordance with the procedure set out in section 39”—which is of the principal Act—“if (a) subsection (1) is contravened; or (b) the Minister is not satisfied that, following the change of control, the permit holder has the financial capability to meet its obligations … or (c) in the case of a change of control of a permit participant that is a permit operator, the Minister is not satisfied that, following the change of control, the permit holder has the technical capacity to meet its obligations under the permit.”

So my question, then, in relation to the Minister’s answer, is: what is the relationship between section 39 and being able to revoke a permit, and the next provisions that are related to decommissioning? What is the relationship between the permits and the operation and the decommissioning? If he could explain that, that would be—

Can you just say that again? Sorry.

Yeah. The Minister, when he was answering my last series of questions, I think he referred to section 39 of the primary legislation. I think he said it was “clause 39”, though, so I was looking around for it, and I think he was referring to section 39, because that is about revoking permits. My question is: what is the link between the financial instruments and the controls that the Minister will have over both the ongoing conditions around the permit and, separately, the decommissioning of the infrastructure? How do those two relate and what is this amendment to the amendment bill doing to that relationship?

For members of the committee, I’m on page 9. We’re still on Part 2. Please don’t imagine that I’m not treating this seriously. I’m on new section 41E. The Labour member is absolutely correct: the authority now rests with the Minister. This section, if I understand her question correctly, identifies the nature of the guarantee, and when we go over the page and then we go to new section 41F, when someone does move on, what exactly can the Minister impose upon them as a trailing responsibility liability. That, in contrast to the old regime—and I’m not going to refer, because there’s no profit in it, to the contributions earlier about who we were talking to, because I can’t see what section in Part 2 those remarks actually relate to. So if I come back to new section 41F, “Ministers must consider outgoing guarantee: permits and licences for petroleum”, obviously, the Minister and the Minister of Finance, or the Minister of Finance, may delegate in the unlikely event they’re conflicted or someone’s more appropriate to undertake that issue. I presume that’s where you get the term “others”, which we’ve already spoken to.

So a question was raised: what part of the infrastructure is going to be actually covered where decommissioning obligations can be enforced against someone who is no longer directly involved in running that business? I direct your attention to new section 41F(3)(b)(i): “the petroleum infrastructure and wells were, at the time of the relevant transaction, in place or used for the purposes of carrying out”. A good point was made earlier: is this going to be as thorough or as exacting as what the former Minister for Resources talked to? I hope not. That was a gross overreaction. It was something, in my view, as the surprisingly sensible remark from the Māori Party—I’ll have to bottle that sort of lightning in a bottle. So that gives you an indication as to what needs to be considered, what is the criteria, which I think I understand that to be the essence of the question from the last contributor, the Hon Rachel Brooking.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I actually just have two very short questions. I think, in terms of what the Minister is talking about in reference to Part 2—I think it’s page 10, new clause 29A, which is inserting new section 41F(1). It perfectly captures the previous question around the fact that the Minister of Finance, as far as we believe in terms of our understanding, is singular. Therefore, the Minister has accurately pointed out that new section 41F is in relation to clause 10. But I think the Minister hasn’t answered the question of who those “others” are. Is there another Minister beyond the Minister of Finance? That “other” doesn’t include the responsible Minister, because the responsible Minister is stated earlier in that clause. So that’s the first question. I think the Minister has very accurately pointed out my colleagues—both the Hon Dr Megan Woods and the Hon Dr Deborah Russell—have been asking consistently on who that other is.

The second question is in terms of what the Minister mentioned before around the policy statement. I think it is important for the Minister to elucidate the committee in terms of some of these consultation processes and who the Minister is consulting with, because, again, we are seeing this for the first time and we have no idea. As part of this committee, we would like to trust in the Minister, but it is also the role and the job of this Parliament and as the legislature to ask these sorts of questions of the executive. So we do understand where the Minister’s coming from as a member of the executive. The Minister has also shown a level of appreciation for the way that us as the legislature are also scrutinising this particular amendment. But the reason I mentioned the part about who the Minister is consulting with—and I’m looking at page 3 of the supplementary analysis paper report—is the fact that when we are looking at something like this, there is the opportunity and the potential risk of judicial review. I think that is something that we haven’t heard from the Minister in terms of what would then be the additional risks of the judicial review as a way of maybe the opaque nature of the way the consultation has been conducted.

OK, I’m about to put a stone on my tongue, but I want to respond in an instructive way to what I understand the member to be referring to. Can we please go to new section 41F(1)(a) and (b), in new clause 29A. Can we contemplate a situation where a party has done a transaction and party B now is the owner of the assets, including what’s in subsection (2). What obligation can the Minister put upon the seller? To understand that, let us go to a definition—and there’s some pretty sharp lawyers on the other side of the Chamber, although things have diminished since my friend David Parker went away, but anyway. At subsection (1)(a), we see “outgoing person”. It gives us a definition of who is qualified to be pursued as the person—and I use that in a figurative sense as well—who formerly owned the asset.

Now, does the Minister, acting jointly with the finance Minister, have the ability to secure, as they go out, a guarantee? Yes, they do. What does it apply to? It applies to the infrastructure outlined in the statute. Is it possible that if you look at paragraphs (a) and (b), that obligation can also be imposed upon a related body corporate to overcome any chicanery? I remind everyone that part of the motivation is that a loophole was discovered. You could effect a transfer of script, of equity, and, in an earlier version of this legislation, including the legislation of 2021, escape liability. Upon myself learning about that in discussions with the officials, it did not seem correct or moral that the Crown should be left with that liability and the people with some very shrewd manoeuvrings of script would escape liability. We have solved that problem.

So about to finish. If you look over the page—

Which page?

—I’m now on page 11—we have sought high-quality advice as to what and who is a related body corporate, but what problem do we think we’re solving here? We’re solving the problem of corporate chicanery where shifty transfers of equity did not attract an ongoing liability. That has now been solved; the way in which it’s been solved and what assets it relates to is on page 11. The entities, to the solicitors in the Chamber, are identified in subsection (4). Now, I know it’s technical, but—and I repeat it again—it’s designed to ensure that we capture people who don’t want to be held responsible, therefore they transferred script. That will no longer be legal. They are now caught in terms of a trailing liability.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. I appreciate the Minister’s sensible contribution there, to talk through the details of this. I do have some questions around the trailing liability because, of course, the 2021 amendment that the Minister is speaking to did put in place a trailing liability for the real reason that these are technical and complex transactions; that the situation that we had, where New Zealand taxpayers were left to pick up the tab, was a result of a parent company selling to a subsidiary and the parent company exiting, and a subsidiary of that parent company, essentially, holding that licence.

Now, one of the concerns that we had at the time, when we were making the changes to protect New Zealanders, and what has been unpicked by this Government, is that if you don’t have trailing liability, you just have enough transactions to go through the line to ensure that the liability doesn’t sit with the permit holder, that there can be liability loopholes. From the Minister’s explanation—I appreciated it—I’m not convinced that New Zealand taxpayers are being protected.

What we see is that this is a Government that has watered down those protections that we’d put in place for New Zealand taxpayers to make sure that if someone does come into New Zealand waters and that they do drill for oil and gas, they are the ones that are responsible for their costs and their fair share of decommissioning. That is not unreasonable, for a Government to put some cast-iron guarantees around that to protect New Zealanders in that way. That is what is being undone, and further undone, in this bill.

As we’ve identified, the sanctions that we’re debating here in Part 2 really are the guts of this trailing liability. What we’ve seen in this regulatory impact statement—the annex to the regulatory impact statement that has been tabled—is the work that has gone on after that committee of the whole House stage and the options that were put to the Minister. This is the updated policy work that has resulted in this Amendment Paper, and it goes through the problem definition but also the proposed policy changes. I think, in this Part 2, it is the time for this House to question him, and for the Minister to have a serious discussion with the committee of the whole House, around the policy process he went through, what the rationale was, and what the merits or otherwise of various options were.

There were five options that officials put to the Minister, as outlined in this annex. One was to maintain the status quo, which was the original amendment bill that he had brought to the House; option two was to partially extend liability by statute in the context of change of control only; option three: extend liability by statute introduced to the bill through an Amendment Paper prior to committee of the whole House—there was an amendment then; option four: extending liability by ministerial discretion at the point of approving transfer changes of control; or option five: broad ministerial discretion to apply liability at any point.

Now, there is a big jump in here. It is one thing to want to tidy up a piece of legislation—it’s not unheard of for a Minister to bring an Amendment Paper—but it is quite unique the way we’re doing this one in terms of how we’ve pulled the bill back from its third reading back into committee of the whole House to do this amendment. This isn’t just tidying up the will and the policy of the Government that was being done through statute; what this has done is actually give the Minister ministerial discretion, and that is a change from the bill that was brought to the House. That is a leap in policy.

The Minister needs to tell us why it was that he was convinced by officials that the only way to solve this problem was for Ministers to make the decision, not as it was—and I may not agree with the Minister’s policies, and I don’t in this area; in fact, I vehemently disagree with them. But why is it that he made the decision to remove it from being a statutory set of provisions that were outlined in a bill to then giving himself and the Minister of Finance discretion to decide this? We’ll come to those discretionary powers and the perimeters of those discretionary powers in other parts of the bill, because I think that the paper goes through some of the critical aspects of each of those options, but we need to understand how the Minister’s thinking thought into this.

What we also know from this regulatory impact statement is that his officials went away and had had confidential meetings with key stakeholders and shared an outline of option four. Now, this wasn’t shared with everybody who’d submitted on the previous bill; this was key stakeholders. It is critical that, in the course of this debate in the committee of the whole House, the committee understands who it was that was privy to these inside conversations that were shared confidentially with some people and not all.

I have here a list of everybody who submitted on this bill. It is long and it is varied. Unless we get a list of who it was that officials went away and did consult with, I think it would only be fitting for the committee to ask, submitter by submitter, reading out from their submissions any contributions they’ve made on the trailing liability and decommissioning regime, what their thoughts were, and ask if the Minister considered this in coming to the policy decisions that are contained in Part 2 of the bill.

That is the alternative. The Minister can give the House a list of who it was that was consulted on in this confidential manner, or we can go through, one by one, everybody who submitted on this bill and ask the question whether their contribution to the trailing liability and decommissioning question was considered. That would obviously be a very lengthy process, but one that we’re willing to do. When you have a look, I think it numbered in the hundreds, the numbers of submitters on this bill, and most were concerned with that issue of decommissioning and the trailing liability question.

This is not just a trifling question; this is fundamental to how law is made—that we had an industry group that were not happy with what had happened through a select committee process, or the committee of the whole House, who then got special access to officials. Not only did they have meetings—what the regulatory impact statement is. They also had the option to provide written feedback in the days following those meetings. So not only face time—and not everyone got that. They’ve had fundamental input into this Amendment Paper that we’ve got before us, and it is the job of this House to understand exactly who those people are.

I direct the Hon Megan Woods to page 11, clause 29A inserting new section 41G, carrying on with new section 41H and new section 41I. I’ll overlook the highly conspiratorial and clumsy attempt to talk about subterfuge, because the matua is a nationalist. It has fallen to me to restore this part of our economy, and, of course, how I have provided that leadership is reflective of my strong pro-industry approach, something I’ve never hidden—pro-industry to the point that why would you not engage with the stakeholders, the risk-takers, the providers of what precious little gas we have, ruined by the cancel culture? So, yes, of course you should expect nothing less than Shane Jones to be talking to a source of expertise: the people who have prepared themselves to remain involved in this essential industry.

Now, what has come out of that? Here, new section 41G outlines that the Minister, statutorily, has the ability to impose burdens, enforceable claims, liabilities. What sorts of things do they talk about? They talk about, i.e., the proximity that a particular party, person, company may have actually had at the point where the guarantee is either called upon or required. Not only that—what’s the nature of their financial strength beyond that? Will they be expected to offer an ongoing guarantee?

Now, to move beyond these common-room conspiratorial charges, most not befitting of the committee in its tone and its culture and its heritage at all—this is a demonstration that these tawdry attacks show—and I’m sad to say this, Mr Chair—that the contributions are now descending into cant, well away from facts. The facts are laid out here; they provide guardrails. Yes, the decision will lie with the Minister. That is a policy decision that has been taken to ensure that we have a segment of our economy flourishing. In fact, I’m looking forward to some investors coming down off the coast of the South Island to reinvigorate what people were forced to leave because of an abrupt, awful decision—and I’m only sad the person who made that decision is still a fugitive from electoral justice.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. Now, the Minister has just told us in terms of one of the policy options that he went through—that are outlined in the regulatory impact statement—that it was to ensure a flourishing sector. What he needs to tell us is why that was. What was the evidence? What was the evidential base for this policy decision that the Minister taking that decision was making? He may want that sector to flourish. If that was the outcome he was looking for, why was he convinced that for Ministers making that decision—what was the evidential base that that would ensure that there was a flourishing sector?

I’m very interested that the Minister thinks that him making the decision will ensure more investment on the east coast of the South Island, given the hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars, that have been invested in the exploration in those basins and exited because there were not commercial finds. I guess this is what the Minister’s $200 million subsidy fund is for. But why was it that the Minister was convinced that it was ministerial decision-making that would ensure a flourishing sector? That is a causal leap that is not covered in the regulatory impact statement. It jumps from there being statutory fixes along the lines of what the current Government’s policies wanted to be, and that is their prerogative, but then there is a causal link to the Minister having that discretion and him assuming that what will eventuate is a more flourishing sector. I have not seen anything in the documents that have been tabled that showed that there was any policy advice put to the Minister, but I would be very interested to hear what policy advice the Minister received on that.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Thank you, Mr Chair. The question that my colleague Dr Megan Woods just asked is actually a very significant one, because the whole premise of this legislative approach that we’ve seen from the Minister for Resources—to respond to his previous comments—is the presumption that there is some vast reserve of gas or oil to be found. The specific narrative that the Minister has raised and therefore entitled us to respond to—in his previous comment, he referred to himself as a nationalist. In fact, it is offshore oil companies that come and look for oil and gas here.

He then said that it was cancel culture that caused the demise of that industry. Is the Minister aware that before the 2018 ban was put in place, Statoil had come and explored and then relinquished their Northland permits? Is he aware that Petrobras had been awarded a permit in the Raukūmara Basin? They came, they searched, they got rightly harried by some excellent activists out at sea with Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, and they found nothing and they relinquished their permits. Is he aware that Exxon Mobil searched in the Great South Basin and relinquished their permits? Is he aware that Shell Oil sold up their entire domestic infrastructure, and a month before the ban came into place, they sold what remnants they had to OMV? Is he aware that Anadarko did the same thing? They came, they searched for oil, they prospected, they found nothing, and they left.

It’s a very important point, because these companies were coming and looking and leaving before the ban came—

Just to help the member, please relate it to Part 2. Yes, the Minister has said some things and members are able to respond to that, and there is some leeway, but then we also need to bring this to Part 2, so if that could be done, I’d appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Yes, I will bring it to Part 2. I’ll finish up. I’ll wrap up with that point. Essentially, those companies cancelled themselves. They were not cancelled. This is why this legislation is all the more important, because the premise that underpins it must be an understanding that, in fact, there is a significant risk for us if we don’t have proper decommissioning regulations in place that don’t rely solely on the enthusiasm of the Minister of the day to try and desperately get that dying industry back.

I will go to replacement sections 41AA and 41AB in clause 26B. This might seem a minor question in the context of the overarching issue, but I note that it refers to tier 1 permits for minerals other than petroleum. Why is the change of control provision extended to tier 1 permit operators for minerals other than petroleum when most of the surrounding obligations relate to petroleum? What’s the rationale for this inclusion? That’s the first question.

The second one is replacement section 41AB(3)(a). The bill notes that permit participants must notify the Minister for a change of control. Replacement section 41AB(3) notes that a copy of any agreement or document that specifies change of control must be given to the Minister. Is the requirement to provide a copy of any agreement or documents specifying the change of control sufficiently precise? That’s my question.

What if the change in controlling ownership occurs through a series, for example, of indirect offshore share transactions with no single agreement? How is the Minister or the regulator to keep track of where such a change in control has occurred? What are the obligations on the regulated entity, those corporates, to make sure that they will provide a copy of any agreement or document specifying the change of control? That’s the gist of that question. Thank you very much.

Given that I’ve been so lucid in my stewardship of this bill, I direct the member’s attention to page 8—this is what I think the member is talking about—replacement clause 28, amending replacement section 41A. The member also raised what level of obligation is on a permit holder to furnish the necessary information to the Crown via the Minister. Well, I direct the member’s attention to 41A(1). The word “must” is not discretionary. The word “must” is, essentially, an enforceable duty. I need to say no more than that.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just briefly, noting that the Minister for Resources and the Hon Dr Megan Woods have been talking about some policy decisions and also the role of the Minister, I appreciate that there is a “must” for that notification of a change of control, but then there are a lot of “mays” about what the Minister can do when deciding whether an outgoing guarantee is needed or not. But going back to the conversation I’ve been having with the Minister about that outgoing guarantee and what it applies to, and if it just applies to decommissioning—and I’ve referenced section 39 of the principal Act before, but I still can’t see the hook.

He’s talked about the trading liability. The Minister has talked about how he’s fixing a loophole here. So, as I said in my initial contribution on this part, if this amendment is changing things so that we can’t go back in time to old permit holders and the “must” that the Minister just referred to is when a permit holder wants to sell the operation to somebody else, then they must tell the Minister, and the Minister may set this outgoing guarantee, and that outgoing guarantee is always referring to decommissioning. There is some link to the information that’s required to relate to the permit, but my question is: is there anything in here that links to the Minister, or is it already in the existing legislation and so it doesn’t need to be changed?

Can the Minister require a financial instrument for the ongoing conditions of a permit—so not the decommissioning, but the ongoing permissions? That is the question.

The time has come for me to leave the Chair. The House will resume at 7.30.

Good evening, members. When we broke for the dinner break, we were on the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill, and we were on Part 2, the debate on amendments to clause 25, new clauses 26A to 26C, clause 27, clause 28, and clause 29A, set out on Amendment Paper 343.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to go to clause 27, in Part 2 of the legislation. There’s some quite specific legislation. I think we’ve still got a lot of the bigger policy questions that particularly pertain to clause 26, which is where the meat of the changes that we’re seeing come through. But if we go to clause 27, which will replace clause 27 in the amendment bill, one of the things is “Section 41AE amended (When Minister may consent to change of control of permit operator)”. One of the things in clause 27(3) is “In section 41AE(1)(a), replace “change in control” with “change of control”.’ Now, I’m not trifling; this is an amendment that officials and the Minister have decided was important enough to put in an Amendment Paper. Can the Minister explain to us what the material difference between the “change in control” and “change of control” is? Also, what was the policy difference and what was the policy driver behind deciding to use the committee’s time in terms of an amendment to move from “change in control” to “change in control”?

Furthermore, just sticking with clause 27—and, as I say, these are very specific questions—clause 27(5): “In section 41AE(1)(b), replace ‘health and safety requirements of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015’ with ‘health and safety and environmental requirements of all specified Acts’.” Why was that change made? What was the thinking behind it? Why was the original amendment to the Crown Minerals Act limited to only the Health and Safety at Work Act? Is it a legacy from the parent legislation that was drawn through? Why the change? What drove that? What was the policy thinking behind it, and what other Acts is the Minister, in bringing this amendment to the committee, thinking will be covered off by clause 27(5) when it says the “ ‘health and safety and environmental requirements of all specified Acts’ ”? It’s been broadened out—why is it, and what in particular does it pertain to?

What we are wanting to understand throughout all of this is—there are some very big changes, like going from having statutory decisions being made and a criteria where officials do that, to the Minister seizing discretionary powers, but then there’s some very specific things, like “change in control” to “change of control”, and we’re trying to understand what’s driving both of these changes that we’re seeing in this amendment bill. On clause 27, we’ll be really looking for some insight from the Minister around that.

I just want to remind the committee that before the dinner break, one of the issues we were discussing was who exactly was consulted with by the Minister. There is very targeted consultation, limited to those directly impacted by the proposed change. We’ve asked the Minister for who he actually consulted with in terms of these changes, and the Minister doesn’t seem able to tell us, so we are going to go on a bit of a forensic process here.

I’ve gone to some of the submissions that have actually come up that were made. If the Minister won’t tell us who commissioned him, we’re going to have to ask for it. I’m looking right now at the submission by Energy Resources Aotearoa, “Powering a better New Zealand together”. I just want to go to paragraph 36 of their submission—“Updating the decommissioning provisions”—and they absolutely argue for much less liabilities for energy resource firms. They say, “Our concern is that the changes”—that the Minister had put in, that were there—“do not sufficiently or more fairly reallocate risk between the Crown and permit holders. The unequal burden on permit holders will continue to dampen the desire to invest in new exploration, appraisal, and development,” and so on. So they were actually quite strong advocates for much less liability. In fact, if we go down to paragraph 41, they say “trailing liability is redundant with appropriate financial security arrangements”.

This is a group of people who are very, very, very clearly in support of much reduced liability for energy companies, when it came to decommissioning wells. Given that the Minister won’t tell us who he consulted with, we’re going to have to go, one by one, through all these submissions and ask a very straightforward question.

If the Minister won’t tell us, we’re going to ask, one by one: in terms of forming this very last-minute Amendment Paper, did the Minister or his officials consult with Energy Resources Aotearoa Ltd? Straightforward question, Minister.

Obviously, we’re no longer talking about Part 2, which is disappointing because I was hoping to raise the quality of contribution by ensuring it’s of some technical relevance. However, needs must.

We do have some questions from Part 2, Minister.

I’ve been asked a question of clause 27. The improvement and the change reflects, from the drafting personnel, a superior form of wording. There is nothing else beyond that.

I got asked a question also—and I’m on page 6, at new clause 27(4)(aa). It is evident that when the Minister exercises his or her discretion, then it’s what the Minister considers to be appropriate, but, once again, the appropriateness is measured against the schema, the criteria outlined in the various sections, which I took us through prior to the dinner.

There was one other question which I do want to respond to. A reference was made to bonds—so, this pertains to the decommissioning obligations under the Crown Minerals Act. Any other obligations that may have been incurred by an operator will inevitably fall under environmental legislation, and that is where they may also attract enforceable obligations. But our attention tonight is dedicated to the Minister enjoying the statutory authority, his or her judgment, based on criteria which is clearly and lucidly articulated in this pithy but lucid amendment bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a very small question for the Minister. I really appreciate both the Hon Dr Megan Woods and the Hon Dr Deborah Russell for their forensic analysis of the submitters, but I’ve done a little bit of forensic analysis in a different way and I’ve gone through the comparable sections of the Crown Minerals Act. The section I’m referring to is clause 28, which is replacing section 41A(1). This is a section that the Minister was referring to just before the dinner break.

My question is in the existing Crown Minerals Act, in section 41A(b)—and it is quite small, and, hopefully, it’s a quick confirmation from the Minister. There is a definition that is given to a “guarantor”, but that definition, in the updated version of section 41A in Amendment Paper 343, has been removed. In the Crown Minerals Act, the definition for “guarantor” is right after the body corporate “has provided a guarantee for the permit participant’s obligations under the permit (a guarantor) has undergone a change of control.” But that bracket with the definition of “guarantor” has been replaced by “other than a body corporate that has provided an outgoing guarantee for those obligations”.

I just want to check with the Minister, in lieu of having no definition, that the definition of a “guarantor” is still the same—that is, a body corporate “that has provided a guarantee for the permit participant’s obligations under the permit”, “other than a body corporate that has provided an outgoing guarantee for those obligations”. So is that still the definition of “guarantor”? And I’m guessing that a body corporate that is for providing an outgoing guarantee is not a guarantor. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Going from that very specific clause 27, going back to the question that I had posed before the dinner break around who are the stakeholders that the Minister had officials meet with, it’s talked about that there were confidential forward drafts of the proposed amendment given to them. We’ve asked the Minister to give a list. He hasn’t been forthcoming with that, so we’re left with no option but to go through each and every submitter and ask the Minister if this was an area that did feed into the final Amendment Paper that we have here. I think everyone in this committee will note there’s around 500 submissions.

I want to turn us now to the Lawyers for Climate Action submission that was a very fulsome submission to the original bill. I want to know whether or not they are one of the key stakeholders that were consulted with, as set out in the annex to the regulatory impact statement that’s been tabled along with this Amendment Paper, which pertains to the meat of this legislation, which is in this clause 24 kind of area. Paragraph 27 of their very fulsome submission to the select committee—the Lawyers for Climate Action, who are a group of legal professionals in this country who have a great deal of expertise in this area—noted that “perpetual liability on the last remaining permit holder for decommissioning costs is not an adequate substitute for requiring payment of upfront security for such costs. New Zealand would be left with no recourse if a company ceased to exist, had insufficient assets to pay, or if its assets were in jurisdictions where rights of recovery were not recognised. These are all highly likely scenarios [and] there are already plenty of contaminated sites in Aotearoa New Zealand caused by private companies that are no longer around to clean them up.”

This is a group of legal professionals that have a lot to offer. I would expect that this would have been part of the group of stakeholders, given their expertise, that the Minister would have had his officials meet with and who would have been privy to confidential briefings—not only a meeting and a confidential briefing, but given the opportunity to give further advice in writing, as is outlined in the annex to the regulatory impact statement. So I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not the Lawyers for Climate Action were one of the key stakeholders that were consulted with.

Thank you, Madam Chair. A small question here, and it is on page 4 of Amendment Paper 343. It is related to new clause 26B, which is inserting new section 41AA, which is an interpretation section, and at subsection (2), there is a definition of “controlling interest”. It is a controlling interest if they have control of “50% or more of the voting rights in the body corporate” in terms of “person A” in subsection (2)(a) and (b). The question is whether or not the Minister has looked at any advice to say that this is enough of a controlling interest, and how this definition relates to the people who are in control. “Change of control” is a phrase that is used throughout the amendment.

Again, I’m interested in how this links through to the legislation and whether it’s a change or not, and that goes to the wider policy point that the Minister was making before the break about the whole idea of his amendment being to stop loopholes and to stop companies—I can’t remember the word that he used, but to stop companies sliding out of some obligation. So does he think that that definition of “controlling interest” is strong enough in the new section 41AA?

Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. Perhaps, because I can with the Minister, in this exchange if I may, Madam Chair, I’ll speak in te reo Māori, because I think it will capture exactly the spirit in which this question is asked towards his Amendment Paper.

E mōhio ana au, e te Minita, i te wā i whakaritehia tēnei pepa hei whakaarotanga mā ngā iwi me ngā hapū huri noa, i haere, i whātoro atu koe, otirā ō āpiha, ki ngā tini hapū, ki ngā tini iwi. Engari ki roto i tēnei o ngā pepa tāpiri, Amendment Paper and an amendment, me te panonitanga i tērā o ngā pepa tūturu nei, ko te pātai nui ki a koe mehemea kua whātoro atu ō āpiha, tō tari anō hoki ki wēnei o ngā iwi i noho ki roto i te nohoanga tuatahi o tēnei pire?

Nō reira he maha ngā iwi ki roto i tērā o ngā rōpū, ki tērā o ngā rārangi ingoa. Ko ētahi, anā, ko ngā mana nui me ngā tapu nui o Te Arawa waka, me te mōhio anō hoki he tini ngā hapū me ngā iwi kei roto, ā, ko te hiahia kia whakarongo atu mehemea ki roto i wō pepa e whakarerekē nei i te pire tuatahi, mehemea kua noho ngātahi ō āpiha me tō tari ki te taha o Te Arawa waka whānui.

Engari e mōhio ana koe ki ngā rārangi ingoa ki runga i ngā rōpū e pā kau atu ana ki tēnei pire, mai i Te Rarawa, ka huri tua atu ki roto i a tāua i Te Taitokerau, anā ka heke iho rā ki roto i te Waipounamu me te tini o ngā rawa o te whenua kei raro iho i ngā mana whakahaere a te iwi, kei raro anō hoki i ngā mana kua whakaritehia e tēnei Whare e pā ana ki ngā take Tiriti kua tatūngia ki roto i ngā tau kua pahure ake.

Kāre au i te whākī i te roanga ake o ngā rārangi ingoa ki roto i ngā rōpū kua kōrerohia nei e au, heoi anō ko tāku e hiahia ana kia whakarongo atu mehemea kua hoki atu anō ngā āpiha me tō tari ki wēnei o ngā tāngata e whai pānga ana ki te kaupapa.

[I am aware, Minister, that at the time this paper was prepared for consideration by the iwi and hapū all around, you went, you visited, indeed your officials, the many hapū and manu iwi. However, within this Amendment Paper and amendment, and the amendments to this particular original paper, the main question to you is whether your officials, your office has visited these particular iwi that engaged in the first sitting of this bill?

And so there are many iwi within that particular group, on that list of names. Some of them, indeed, are significant and sacred authorities of the Arawa confederation, and I’m aware that there are many hapū and iwi within it, and I would like to hear whether within your papers that amend the first bill, whether your officials and your office has engaged with the wider Arawa confederation.

However, you know the list of names on the parties that are affected by this bill, from Te Rarawa, and turning beyond that to you and me in Northland, and then coming down into the South Island and the various assets of the land that are under the governance authority of the iwi, and also under the authority that was arranged by this House with respect to the Treaty issues that were resolved over the years that have passed.

I will not recount the entire list of names within the parties that I have spoken about, however I would like to hear whether the officials and your office have returned to these particular people that have interest in the topic.]

Tēnā koe e te Tiamana. Me huri e tātou ō tātou whakaaro ki te wā i whārikitia mā tā tingia ai te pire. Kātahi ka kitea he kōhaohao. Ka haria mai he menemata nō te marama o Nōema. Ka whakatakotongia tēnā menemata, kātahi ahau ka mōhio ko te takoto o ngā kupu kāhore e tino ū ana ki tāku i hiahia ai.

Kīhai ahau i whakapapā atu ki te tangata whenua, heoi nā noa te wā i whakapapā atu ahau ki te tangata whenua, te wā i waihangatia ai te pire ake.

Ko tātou e kōrero nei mō ngā menemata, ngā pepa nonohi nei, pēnei me te matikara o te pepa ake. Te hunga nāku i whakapā atu, ko te hunga e whai pakihi ana, e whai pānga ūmanga ana ki roto i tēnei rāngai o te ao ohanga. Kīhai ahau i whakapā atu ki ngā kākāriki, ki ngā tāngata e pahupahu ana mō te huarere. Koinā noa te hunga i whakapā ai ahau ko te hunga e whakangao ana o rātou pūtea ki roto i tēnei rāngai o te ao ohanga.

[My acknowledgments, Madam Chair. We should think back to when the bill was first presented. As it was then that gaps were noticed. In November, an amendment was brought. When the amendment was tabled, I saw that the wording did not align with what I wanted.

I didn’t initially contact the locally affiliated tribal groups, but when the bill itself was put together, that was a time that I did contact the affiliated tribes.

We are discussing the amendments here, these little documents, like the fingerprint of the paper itself. The people that I did contact were the people who have companies, those who have a business involved in this sector of the economic world. I didn’t make contact with the greenies, with people who yabber on about the weather. The only people that I contacted were those who invest their own money in this sector of the economic world.]

The consultation with tangata whenua ended when the bill was established, and they were very keen on a decommissioning regime that avoided the pitfalls of the Tamarind imbroglio. When the November amendment, which sought to redress a failing, which was the ability of people to trade shares and, potentially, evade liability—there was no consultation with the tangata whenua. Then when that amendment—I’m talking November now—was studied, and it became evident to me that the words in that particular amendment did not capture the outcomes that, from a policy perspective, we determined were necessary to reinvigorate the sector. I spoke to no climate group. I spoke to no tangata whenua group. I engaged with the people who are investing and who will be the risk takers to salvage and rescue this sector, and I’m extraordinarily proud of myself that I’ve done that.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I’m going to take a question from the Hon Dr Megan Woods, but I do think now that the Minister has answered the question around consultation—not as comprehensively as members may have wished in terms of not naming each of the groups, but that is the Minister’s answer—I’m looking for broader questions now.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Minister has said he has not met with any environmental groups and he has not met with any iwi. So I will not ask him any questions about whether or not he has met with those, because that has been answered.

What I am interested in is: where’s the expert legal advice, given that a number of submitters came at it from a legal perspective in terms of offering their submissions on the original bill? I’ve already asked the Minister about the Lawyers for Climate Action; I won’t be asking about them again. What I am going to ask the Minister about is the Environmental Law Initiative submission, which is an incredibly comprehensive submission on the original bill that went in there. It goes through the changes that were made in 2021 around how the changes were made so we could avoid the situation where taxpayers were lumbered with the liability again and then goes through the changes that the Government was proposing in that original piece of legislation that was brought.

They made a very good point, and I would have thought something that the Minister would want his officials to have followed up on. He would have wanted this point to be taken into policy advice in bringing this Amendment Paper to the House, because they made the point in paragraph 30 of their submission: “While the Government has argued that it is possible to ‘make adjustments to the petroleum decommissioning regime in a way that does not materially increase risk to the Crown’, it is ELI’s”—that’s the Environmental Law Initiative’s—“view that the changes proposed will undermine the intent of the whole regime by making it much easier for companies to avoid liability for decommissioning by transferring permits to smaller, less well-resourced companies towards the end of the productive life of the field, as is known to occur in New Zealand and overseas. These smaller companies are less likely to have the resources to pay for decommissioning, increasing the risk that the Crown will end up having to foot the bill.”

Now, for any Minister whose job it is to put New Zealand’s interests first, this is exactly the kind of advice that should be followed up. To only go to the largely multinational companies that want to come into New Zealand, who have made it clear they don’t want to pay their own way, and seek their opinion is a dereliction of the duty of that Minister to stand up for New Zealanders, to make sure that he is protecting the interests of the taxpayers of New Zealand. Putting corporate interests before the interests of the New Zealand taxpayer is not something that New Zealanders expect of their Ministers.

So it is imperative, when we know that there have been comprehensive legal submissions into a select committee process, and the Minister then decides to have a very unusual process for amending that legislation in terms of bringing the bill back out, when it was due for third reading, and recommitting it to committee stages, that this is the only chance we get to examine this. There were some expert opinions that were put into that select committee process—that was bypassed, and we’re going through this quite extraordinary process to do it. The Minister needs to tell us: is this the kind of meeting that he instructed his officials to have? We’re told that there were confidential briefings on different options that were under consideration. I think the New Zealand public and this House, in deciding whether to pass this legislation, needs to know whether warnings like this factored into the paper that the Minister has brought to the House.

I’ll make a few additional remarks. I did not meet in the engagement pertaining to this document, which establishes the Minister, within guardrails, to enjoy a certain level of discretion to deal with the ebb and flow of decommissioning. There was no contact with the Environmental Law Initiative group. They are a shadowy organisation funded from Americans, and I will never ever talk to them.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 2 set out on Amendment Paper 343 be agreed to.

The amendments are agreed to; therefore, Part 2 as amended stands part.

Members, we now come to the Minister’s amendments to Part 3. This is the debate on amendments to clause 36, new clauses 36A to 36C, 37, 38, 39, 40, 43, 44, 45, 45A and 45B, new clauses 46AAA, 47A and 47B, clause 49, and amendments to the Schedule, set out on Amendment Paper 343. The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 3 set out on Amendment Paper 343 be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Short question to start with—on new clause 36A, inserted by clause 36, so on page 13. This is about the decommissioning and totally removing it, and then there’s some exemptions, but then at subsection (2A), it says: “Despite subsection (2), an item of infrastructure left in place in accordance with an exemption … must be treated as having been decommissioned.” So I take that to mean that oil and gas infrastructure can be left to contaminate the seabed. I wonder, with the Minister, has he consulted the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries about the impacts that leaving such infrastructure on the seabed could have?

Also, going back to the questions that we were having in Part 2 that are relevant to Part 3, as well, on the people who were consulted on this amendment: I know the Minister has said that there’s been no consultation with environmental groups or iwi groups, but has there been consultation with the type of people who know how to decommission this large infrastructure in a difficult environment?

Also, the guarantees—I know the guarantees might be more in Part 2 of the bill that we just closed off, but it is relevant, the guarantee, to the decommissioning and the cost of decommissioning, because, of course, if an incorrect cost is assumed for the cost of decommissioning earlier on in a process, and it turns out that it’s actually going to be a much larger cost to decommission because of—who knows; it might be health and safety laws. Who knows what might change, but the decommissioning might be more expensive than first anticipated. So how is the financial mechanism going to provide for that increase in cost of decommissioning, and did the Minister consult with any of the financial institutions that might provide that sort of guarantee to work out how much the liability is?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Extending on those questions from my colleague Rachel Brooking—the decommissioning cost is a crucial question. One thing that, also, we didn’t get to ask in Part 2 was how the evaluations are made for the appropriate level of liability or guarantee that is to be set aside for different forms of petroleum exploration. We know that shallow wells have costs associated, but a deep-water well would have significantly more costs in terms of decommissioning. What are the evaluations that are made? What are the means by which the nature and extent of an outgoing guarantee may vary between these different types of wells? That’s the essence of my question. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My questions pertain to new clauses 36B and 36C. That’s page 13 of the Amendment Paper.

What we know is that this Amendment Paper, in essence, what it’s doing is it’s removing automatic liability for the cost of decommissioning—which has been covered off in questions from the Hon Rachel Brooking and from Steve Abel—from those previous permit holders. But more importantly, and also one of the things that the legislation that we put in place in 2021 did, was it brought in associated criminal offences and pecuniary penalties for failing to meet the cost of decommissioning. But this Amendment Paper is removing all of that. It is a complete watering down of those protections that were there for the New Zealand taxpayer.

What we see from new clause 36B is that removal of their automatic liability and the associated criminal offences from a person with a participating interest in a permit, whenever that was granted, who transfers all or any part of their participating interest in the permit. Then 36C does that “from a licence holder or any person with a participating interest in a licence who transfers the licence or all or any part of their participating interest in the licence (see the repeal of section 89K(2) by new clause 36C, inserted by this Amendment Paper).”

So what I would like to know from the Minister—and he never addressed the question in Part 2, but it pertains as much to Part 3 as it does to the question of the five policy options that are spelt out in the annex to the regulatory impact statement that were considered. What was it that made him settle on the preferred option, option four, that the Government ultimately went with? Why was it that it was ministerial discretion to decide these things that were decided on? We haven’t had a policy explanation from the Minister about—sure, he may have seen that there were some problems with the bill he’d brought to the House and that it needed to be tidied up, but there’s a leapfrog away from having those decisions laid out in statute to then giving discretionary power to a Minister to decide. That has not been adequately explained to the House.

What was the policy rationale between not only the first and second reading and the select committee stage and the committee of the whole House, that we get to the point where the bill is looking for its third reading and that scrutiny has already happened, and there is such a fundamental shift, going from a decision that is defined by statute, to giving discretionary power to a Minister to make that decision? That needs to be spelt out.

It wasn’t all of the options that were put to the Minister. He’s told us that the explanation was that he wanted to see the industry blossom. Well, there is no causal connection. He needs to explain to us how it is that giving a Minister the discretionary power to do it is going to lead to that particular outcome, because the logic simply doesn’t follow and it doesn’t stack up. What was the advice that he received that actually saying to multinational companies, “You can come to New Zealand, and if you just leave your mess for New Zealand taxpayers to leave up, don’t worry, there’s no penalties. I’m removing those in the legislation as well and letting you off scot-free.”—what was the rationale that led him to that?

Now, the rationale is best conceived in the following way: this piece of legislation is a response to the worst energy natural resource decision ever recorded since the Treaty of Waitangi. Sadly, the main instigator is a political fugitive from electoral justice living at Harvard, so it has fallen to our Government. With the stroke of genius in new clauses 36A and 36B, it posits the responsibility with a Minister to make the judgment as to what flexibility—because no statute, no bureaucrat can know all the scenarios, and as a consequence of these two clauses, the policy intent is absolutely clear. We are not going to trust our economy, corrode the productivity of our economy, by denying ourselves access to fossil fuels. The high-tide mark of that heresy has come and gone. That is why, in every speech I give about this bill, I am hailed and feted by all four corners of our motu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think the Minister needs to realise this is a committee of the whole House stage, where there are very particular questions put about individual sections of the bill. The Minister has theoretically opened this debate up to any energy decision made since the Treaty of Waitangi was signed with the contribution that he just gave. So I do encourage the Minister to actually start addressing the questions that are put to him. They are serious questions. This is a very atypical process that this bill is going through in that it has been recommitted to the House and is bypassing that scrutiny that it had previously gone through at select committee stage and the committee of the whole House. It’s made some fundamental changes, not least of all the Minister giving himself discretionary power.

Now, that is something that a Minister should come to this House prepared to answer questions about, not engage in hyperbole. They should actually be on top of the bills that they bring to this House and be able to answer basic questions like “What does this section do?”. That is not too much to ask of a Minister, and we haven’t been able to get any of that detail out of this Minister in the time that he has sat in the chair. Don’t worry, Madam Chair, I’m not going to engage with every energy decision since 1840, which the Minister has brought into scope of this debate. So he may want to curb his enthusiasm while he sits in that chair, because he’s broadening the debate with every utterance he makes.

But I go back to the policy rationale. We are asking for this. It has not been adequately explained why it is that it requires ministerial discretionary decision-making to make it. Now, I might not agree, and I don’t agree, with the changes the Minister is making, but why could he not pursue those through the original amendment bill that he brought, which wasn’t through ministerial discretion making? There was a different route to do that and there were five options that were considered by his officials that are laid out in the regulatory impact statement.

I’m not debating on this occasion the merits of the decision. I’m just asking about why he has chosen this particular route. The committee does need to understand that. It’s not enough just to say that he wants to be heralded from all four corners of the land—that just makes no sense. Why is it—what is the causal connection between ministerial discretion and what he thinks are the desired outcomes? The committee is still waiting and the committee deserves to know.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I take the first call on this piece of legislation, as someone who did represent an area that arguably had the largest reserves of hydrocarbons and mining. I’m not going to go off onto a wider tangent—I’m tempted to—but I will focus on the issue and the points being discussed now, and that is ministerial discretion.

The Minister will himself know that we have three-year terms in this Government, and if indeed he is looking to support the mining sector—and, coming from a region that has quite a history of mining, of decisions, good and bad, that have been made, some by politicians, others by heads of companies; decisions that have left the region of the West Coast in a mixed kind of situation. At the moment, it’s OK. If you had a look and tried to assess the value of mining to the economy or to the community, you would expect that every person on the West Coast would be a multimillionaire. We should be multimillionaires. There have, literally, been billions and billions of dollars of resources taken from the West Coast region and, indeed, still are being taken from our region. We have towns that can’t even put in a decent water-supply system. We have ratepayers who can’t afford to pay rates. So the mining doesn’t guarantee benefits and prosperity to the communities—neither, indeed, to the wider community.

The question of who makes the decisions as to whether these projects should go ahead or whether we have prospecting is a proposition put forward by the Minister, that the Minister should—he should be reminded that there are a lot of people working around this country to ensure that there might be a Green Minister in 18 months or 20 months. Is that, indeed, what the Minister is seeking? That is a realistic outcome. What we do in this House is to try to balance decision making by politicians and Ministers against the independence of quasi-Government organisations—or, indeed, it might be put out to an independent authority, where there’s total independent decision-making; semi-independent back, where a Minister has oversight of a Government organisation; or it could be the Minister, as is being proposed here.

What goes around comes around, and I’d suggest, and the Minister will know this, that to offer certainty, as he’s trying to do, for the mining sector, for the prospecting and hydrocarbon sector—they need a more robust and consistent process than the whims of a Minister. Because as I say, what goes around comes around. He may be aware of this, but not everyone is supportive of his proposals across the wider economy. I certainly understand and see the value of mining, but we are living in a world that is moving away from hydrocarbons. That reality must be taken on board.

Trying to give assurance to prospecting companies that the Minister of the day is very supportive—and we would certainly acknowledge that—and that that will continue beyond the next election is actually a falsehood. The Minister can no longer give an assurance beyond the next term because of the independence of this parliamentary system. Some people like it, some people don’t. But the question of ministerial decision-making does come with a lot of risks, and it is important that those risks are tabled in this House here today.

The Minister, I’m sure, will take a call, and I ask the question: has he considered a more independent process, to give more assurance to the mining sector that, in fact, the decisions made by him will, indeed, be enduring, or could they perhaps be overturned by a Minister with another set of objectives?

I thank the honourable member for that contribution. In my delivery this evening, I have not obfuscated the fact of a cardinal choice, a decision that was made to go for the Minister, who him- or herself will be accountable under this legislation. Potentially, his or her acts will be justiciable. That is how our system works. That politician, that Minister, is, yes, as the honourable member said, going to be able to exercise a certain level of discretion against criteria laid out—and I don’t want to belabour it, because I have referred incessantly to the criteria upon which she or he will make the decision. It is a choice that was taken by our Government. Yes, there were other choices, but we have decided, given where we are in the arc of our nation’s journey to secure affordable, secure, and sustainable energy sources, the decision we’ve made.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is the first time I’ve risen to take a call on this question, and I appreciate the Minister for Resources’ explanation of the arc of our nation’s journey towards our energy future. I’m thinking here about new clause 36A, “Section 89E amended (Decommissioning)”, as well, and, in particular, the ministerial discretion around decommissioning. If we look at the other forms of legislation that are out there at the moment, why are we rushing through, or having this messy process that we’ve had with this bill—where we’ve got an amendment upon an amendment for a bill—to try and complicate things even further?

My question to the Minister, really, is: why are we not seeing some greater consistency across Government bills? We have the Offshore Renewable Energy Bill, which has a very different regime for decommissioning, and I’m concerned. But the Minister could explain whether there is a reason why this is distinct, and why the decommissioning here is simply to give it ministerial discretion, rather than a more consistent decommissioning regime that allows for environmental concerns and that allows for other users to be taken into account. The Minister might like to respond directly and, hopefully, with a bit more clarity.

I think it is important that we have consistency in our legislation and that it makes sense that there are not too many bits that just jar, because we’ve already seen what happens when we have to amend an amendment to legislation, and it’s just poor process. So if the Minister could explain why we aren’t following a simple process, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to go to clause 44 of the Amendment Paper, on page 16, which is the exemption powers of the Minister, section 89ZZA, and that’s amended and replaced with “The Minister may, if they consider it appropriate and if satisfied that the criteria in section 89ZZB(1) are satisfied, exempt a permit holder or license holder from the obligation to carry out and meet the costs of any post-decommissioning work.”

Now, I think this strikes at the heart of the questions that we’re asking, these exemptions powers, these discretionary powers that the Minister is going to hold—the Minister of the day, whoever that is, is going to hold—under this legislation. I think what the committee would like—and certainly on this side of the committee we’d like to understand: “if they consider it appropriate and if satisfied”. This is quite unusual wording in a piece of legislation. Usually, it would be that a Minister would exercise discretion if a set of criteria set out in a different clause of the Act was satisfied. But this Act has quite a different and quite a unique turn of phrase in it: “if they consider it appropriate and if satisfied”.

I’d like the Minister to explain exactly how that will be exercised, what that means, how that is different than the criteria in section 89ZZB(1) being satisfied and fulfilled, what the appropriate test actually looks like—is it a subjective test? Are there some objective measures around it? How does the Minister consider that that will be exercised, and what are the policy discussions that have gone in to say that it needed to not just be that if the conditions in section 89ZZB(1) are satisfied, then the Minister can make this decision and come up with an exemption? Why is it that we’ve got that quite unusual wording in that clause?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Helpfully, my question is also on clause 44, but a different question, because what clause 44 does is replaces amended section 89ZZA(1) with what the Hon Dr Megan Woods has just read out. But the principal Act has another bit in it that is being deleted by this, which is it requires an “obligation to obtain and maintain a financial security under section 89ZV(1)(b)”. And if we look at 89ZV(1)(b)—that’s at clause 33—it amends 89ZV to, again, remove the phrase that talks about “obtain and maintain” a financial obligation.

So my question is: this deletion of having to obtain and maintain a financial security, is that something specific to this amendment of the amendment bill, or how is this explained in terms of the explanatory note and the other issues that the Minister has talked about? Is there somewhere else that has a requirement to obtain and maintain a financial security, or is it now just gone—no financial security is required?

I think the contributors are confusing two regimes. The regime that imposes the vast majority of the liability, in terms of environmental outcomes, is not this statute. What this statute does is it gives an elected politician, or the Crown warrant, within the guardrails of this Act, the ability to exercise some flexibility in terms of the final decommissioning obligations in this statute. It is wrong to suggest that it erodes liability imposed under other statutes. I have traversed why our Government has plonked for this particular approach. There, really, is nothing that I can usefully add, because it’s striking a wall of indifference.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think it is important in these sorts of instances, because what we are seeing here is that the further we get into this amendment, based on the Minister’s response, it’s a worrying trend of the extent of the executive power on the way that we’re able to move regulations, and the way that we’re looking at legislation and legislation-making power, which I think is a concern, not just simply for this particular bill but in terms of the way that our system works in general.

I wanted to draw the attention of the Minister to a specific area—and I know that other people have lots more to talk about in terms of decommissioning. But I wanted to draw the Minister’s attention to the Schedule. Now, in the amendments to the Schedule—and I’m looking at the new clause 45 that replaces clause 45, as an example—actually, I’m going to go with new clause 44 and new clause 45, which is in the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill, regarding tier 3 permits—

Which page are you specifically referring to?

I am looking at pages 18 and 19 of the new Amendment Paper 343, which is referring to pages 31 and 32 of the old Amendment Paper 214. On pages 18 and 19, we’re looking at clauses 44 and 45 in the Schedule, which was previously tier 3 permits. I’ll talk about financial securities if I get another opportunity, but I want to focus on these two first, because one of the first striking differences here is that rather than giving a specific date, as it has done in the previous amendment bill, what we have seen is a date that is now done by Order in Council. Granted, the original date has already passed, which was 30 June 2025, but I wanted to ask as my first question to the Minister why a concrete date hasn’t been given in this case and why, instead, we will be requiring an Order in Council for a new date. That’s my first question.

My second question is this: in the Schedule, in new clause 45, “Existing Tier 2 permits may become Tier 3 permits”, under the existing amendment bill, at new clause 45, it does mention that a Minister must consider different criteria. In this case, subclause (3) says that “The Minister must—(a) consider whether the permit satisfies the requirements of a Tier 3 permit as set out in section 2B(2A);”. However, there was no part in the previous Amendment Paper that had subclause (3)(b) mentioned at all, which determines “whether the permit area is an appropriate area.” This is a new clause that’s been added in this new Amendment Paper, which is different from the previous one. So my second question to the Minister is: what is the rationale for adding in this specific clause? Considering it doesn’t need to meet the criteria set out in section 2B(2A) because it’s a different subclause, what is, then, the Minister’s definition for “appropriate”?

Thank you. Going back to the Minister for Resources’ answer about my question around the deletion of “to obtain and maintain a financial security”, the Minister said that’s to do with different Acts. I’m quoting from the principal Act, the Crown Minerals Act. Then, we turn over the pages and we hear what our colleague has just spoken about in terms of financial securities at page 19 and that being a transitional provision. So, surely, the answer to my question, Minister, is that you are removing the need for a financial security under your amendment and that is what your change is. If it’s not—if it’s somewhere else in the legislation—could you point us to it? If the Minister is saying that it’s somewhere in some other legislation, I’m interested in that, as well, but to say that it’s not governed by the legislation is wrong. It is governed by the Crown Minerals Act. The Minister may want to say that his changes will mean that it’s not included in the Act, when this bill becomes an Act, but those are two different points, and so I’d like the Minister to clarify that point, please.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d now like to turn my attention to clause 40 on page 15 of the Amendment Paper. What clause 40, and I think 39 before it, if I’m not mistaken, do is they amend sections 89M and 89U of the Crown Minerals Act. They are the sections—89M and 89U—being repealed, and that, effectively, removes the liability for former permit and licence holders. This is a category that we haven’t talked about. We’ve talked about current operations, and what happens if there’s a transfer of those assets and the shareholdings change. But what we haven’t talked about is those former permit and licence holders and what risks this poses to the Crown.

What I’d like to know from the Minister is whether or not there was any economic modelling of the risk to the Crown in terms of potential costs? We know that there’s about a $2.5 billion decommissioning cost out there, in New Zealand, in terms of what these changes mean, in terms of that risk profile to the Crown and, therefore, the New Zealand taxpayer. And if that modelling doesn’t exist, why didn’t he ask for that?

Obviously, this legislation in no way negates the existence of an obligation enforceable against a permit holder to ensure that they’re held responsible for decommissioning outcomes, subject to the discretion exercised by the Minister. Now, I accept that it is a philosophical or institutional policy decision that our Government has taken which is at odds with the prosecutors in the Opposition, but it is what it is.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I’d just like to follow up on that answer that the Minister gave. Obviously, we hold very different views on this, but what I would like to know from the Minister is whether or not economic modelling was done around the risk profile to the Crown, and if it wasn’t, why he didn’t ask for that.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m interested in page 19, which is to do with the Schedule at clause 45, “Existing Tier 2 permits may become Tier 3 permits”, and I’m wondering if the Minister can explain why we have this provision. Wouldn’t it be better that tier 2 permits remained tier 2 permits and didn’t become tier 3 permits?

I’m just puzzling my way through the amendments, and in the original Act, it’s to section 89ZZA. Now, in the amendment bill, it was amended by clause 44. And now, in the amendment to the amendment bill, it is being amended yet again. In effect, it’s worth just ignoring what’s gone through in the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill and just going straight from the source legislation—the parent legislation, as it were—to the—

The principal legislation.

—the principal legislation; I knew there must be a lawyer’s term for that, thank you—to what’s sitting in the amendment bill. So, in the exemption part, the amended section 89ZZA is another one which gives the Minister exemption powers. It’s been there quite some time—well, it was inserted on 1 December 2023, so that’s quite interesting. But they say: “(1) The Minister may, if they consider it appropriate and if satisfied that the criteria in section 89ZZB(1)(a) or (b) are satisfied, exempt a permit holder or a licence holder from the obligation to pay all or part of any amount the person would otherwise be required to pay under section 89ZV(1)(a) or from the obligation to obtain and maintain a financial security under section 89ZV(1)(b).”

So that’s the section in the principal legislation. But by the time it’s amended: “(1) The Minister may, if they consider it appropriate and if satisfied that the criteria in section 89ZZB(1) are satisfied, exempt a permit holder or a licence holder from the obligation to carry out and meet the costs of any post-decommissioning work.” So, previously, as far as I can tell, because this is not legislation I’m especially familiar with, a permit holder or a licence holder would have posted a bond, they’d have had to pay something, they had to maintain a financial security, and the Minister could grant an exemption from that.

Now, that bit around actually paying some money upfront that the Minister can exempt people from is that the Minister can now exempt someone from actually carrying out and meeting the costs of any post-decommissioning work. So there’s a little bit of an analysis that’s needed here, because under the old section that’s sitting in the principal Act, the person would have been required to pay some money—presumably quite a lot, because this is expensive stuff—but now they, under the ministerial discretion, can be exempted from the obligation to carry out and meet any of the costs of the post-commissioning work. So there’s a shift there.

What I want to know, given that it’s been changed around like this, is the extent to which any modelling was done on this about the amounts of money that might be involved and what the costs might have been to the petroleum exploration companies or whoever is doing the work or whatever, or, alternatively, what the residual cost to the Crown might be. That’s the bit that really worries me. You see, the difficulty is that we know from the Tamarind experience that the cost to the Crown was quite extraordinary in terms of cleaning up the mess that was left behind.

So what I’m looking for is whether the Minister requested any advice in changing from the original section 89ZZA to this new section 89ZZA, where the change is from paying a sum of money to actually paying the cost of any post-commissioning work, and the Minister can exempt the person from doing that. What I’m looking for is just whether the Minister sought any advice on that, any modelling on it, any quantification of the numbers involved. The reason this is important is, of course, if the Minister issues an exemption, then the people who clean up the mess are the New Zealand taxpayers who end up paying the sums there. So I’m hoping that the Minister has requested some advice on that.

The advice taken was of a highly professional nature. It was within the bounds of proper conduct from our professional civil service. There is a clear pathway forward in each of these clauses, which shows that liabilities can still be imposed, costs can still be recovered. But the genius of the bill is that it ensconces a Minister, entrusted with the interests of the entire nation, to effect rational, flexible outcomes. And upon that note, here endeth the lesson.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 3 set out on Amendment Paper 343 be agreed to.

The amendments are agreed to; therefore, Part 3 as amended stands part.

The question is—on the Schedule, where there is no debate—that the Minister’s amendments to the Schedule set out on Amendment Paper 343 be agreed to.

The amendments are agreed to; therefore, the Schedule as amended stands part.

Members, we come now to our final debate: clause 2. This is the debate on the Minister for Resources’ amendment to clause 2, set out on Amendment Paper 343.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In clause 2, the commencement date, there’s a very interesting change that has happened between the Act; the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill that came to the House, went through select committee; and this Amendment Paper that landed. In clause 2, the commencement was the Act came into force on the day after Royal assent—“However, the following sections come into force on 1 July 2025”. Now, clearly, that date has been missed—and that’s not the subject of my question to the Minister—because the change in the Amendment Paper that we’ve got before us is: “However, the following sections come into force on a single date set by Order in Council:”.

So my question for the Minister is why we’ve gone from having a date defined in the statute that could have just been updated to reflect the passage of time that this legislation is now going through the House—why we’re now going to a statutory instrument in the form of an Order in Council? Why are we going to secondary legislation? This is atypical for the way to set commencement of legislation, and, obviously, a conscious decision that has been made by the Minister in bringing this Amendment Paper to the House.

Now, given that there hasn’t been any chance to look at this at any other point since now, it is quite a fundamental shift, and one, I think, that the House should debate and understand why it is—the date is immaterial to us. Obviously, the date has to shift. There’s been a huge delay with this legislation. It’s been knocking around for around seven or eight months while the Minister had his officials talking to the oil and gas industry. But what we don’t know is why it is we’re now using a statutory instrument, why it is we’re using secondary legislation in the form of an Order in Council, to set that date. Why aren’t we just defining that date in the Amendment Paper that we have before us?

Thank you, Mr Chair. Another change with the commencement clause is that clauses 44 and 45 of Part 6 of Schedule 1 also come into force on this single date, rather than the more generic 1 January date. Clauses 44 and 45 of the Schedule relate to pre-existing applications and existing tier 2 permits becoming tier 3 permits. I note that the Minister didn’t answer my question on that in Part 3 of the debate. But why is it that only clauses 44 and 45 of the Schedule need to come into force by Order in Council and not the other provisions in the Schedule?

Here was I, just going to get—

You were trying to get off from speaking on this bill!

Yeah. I do want to query something, and it just goes to this business that my colleague Megan Woods spoke about, and that is the Act coming into force using an Order in Council, which is what is set out here.

It’s highly unusual.

It is unusual. In the normal progress of this bill, we would normally expect that with the committee stage today—and we think we’ll be here debating this well until 10 o’clock, won’t we?

1 a.m.

Ha, ha! But we are going to keep on, and then it’s a members’ day tomorrow, so this bill is going to perhaps reappear for its third reading on Thursday of this week. Maybe it won’t make it for its third reading until the next sitting block, and, ordinarily, we would think that if something was going through the House and it was going to pass into law, it would simply go to the Governor-General a few days after that. That’s just a fairly regular process for the legislation that went through the House this week. We’d expect it to be signed off by the Governor-General within a week or two—no worries. So why an Order in Council?

What is the reason for delaying the start of this Act—that can be the only reason for it. The Act can’t come into effect any sooner than the Royal assent. It’s not law until the Royal assent is given, so why the potential delay? What’s going on, and is the Minister concerned that there is yet another problem sitting in here that he’s going to need to fix up at some stage? Is he just giving himself a little bit of time so that if absolutely necessary, something can be fixed?

Now, it can’t be recommitted to the House, but we’re just deeply concerned that the Minister is just kind of playing jiggery-pokery with the House here. I want to understand—

“Jiggery-pokery”—what does that mean?

Jiggery-pokery—it means jiggery-pokery. Careful what you’re opening yourself up to there, Mr McCallum.

The Minister has been very secretive, actually, about this Amendment Paper 343. He’s been very secretive about who he has consulted with. We don’t know who the officials met with. We don’t know who got to write this bill for him—because some of it just has the hallmarks of that. We don’t know and he won’t tell us who he consulted with.

This is particularly concerning when there’s a whole lot of ministerial exemptions in here, and now we’ve got something else which amounts to another bit of ministerial discretion. It’s ministerial discretion. I know what the regular process is around an Order in Council and Cabinet, and this, that, and the other. Nevertheless, the Minister is getting to choose exactly when this bill comes into force and when the regulations sitting in there start happening, and that is deeply worrying. I think that the Minister needs to explain to us that it’s not just a matter of “This is what the Government decided to do.” Why? Why has this Government decided to have yet more discretion over the starting date for when this bill comes into effect?

Thank you, Mr Chair. While we’re waiting for the Minister to respond to the questions around the commencement date changing from a solid date to Order in Council, I have a different question to ask the Minister which is not so much about what’s there but what isn’t there.

Now, one of the things we see in the existing legislation is that indeed the Act comes into force the day after Royal assent. That is clause 2, subclause (1). In subclause (2), it gives the concrete date of 1 July. It has been mentioned before that the 1 July date has already passed. That’s fine. However, between the Royal assent date and the 1 July date, there must be a period that requires some form of update or implementation in order to get us to that 1 July date; otherwise, everything in the existing amendment would say the day after Royal assent. It wouldn’t give a date which, presumably, at that stage, was three to six months into the future.

The question, then, is while there is Order in Council and there is the back-up date of 1 January 2026, subclause (2) mentions all of the clauses that are covered by the Order in Council. But in terms of the clauses that weren’t covered by the Order in Council, which, presumably, will still take effect the day after Royal assent, have any of those things been made inviable or has the viability been tested as a result of the delay of the introduction of this piece of legislation?

I think that is also a different question for the Minister to respond to—that with the delay of this bill’s third reading and, ostensibly, Royal assent, that original Royal assent date in other parts of the legislation may be affected. If so, are there any other sections that have been affected as a result?

A brief response: the Order in Council option is reflective of the fine balance of this whole statute. It enables commencement of all portions of the regime to take place contemporaneously. It is not unreasonable for that power to be exercised to reduce the prospect of people being bewildered as to when the operational portions of the Act all come into force together. The Order in Council enables us to achieve that outcome.

Thank you, Mr Chairman, and I thank the Minister for that explanation. But still, I’m perplexed why it is that the original Crown Minerals Amendment Bill that came to the House did have a bifurcated commencement regime in it, in that commencement: “(1) This Act comes into force on the day after Royal assent”; “(2) However, the following sections come into force on 1 July 2025”. So that had already separated out and had two different pathways for the commencement.

I absolutely accept from the Minister that there needs to be some staggering and different parts of the bill will need to come into force at different times. But we’re still, in this committee, not understanding why this Amendment Paper has opted for the Order in Council route—to go for a secondary legislation option—when the original bill that was brought to the House had a perfectly adequate way of achieving that bifurcation of making sure that there were different pathways for different parts of the Act because it made sense for them to come in at different times. So while the Minister gave, I thought, a persuasive contribution to the House on why different parts needed to come in at different times, he didn’t explain why it is that you need that mechanism of the Order in Council in the Amendment Paper that hasn’t been required in the original amendment Act.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to clause 2 set out on Amendment Paper 343 be agreed to.

The amendment is agreed to; therefore, clause 2 as amended stands part.

Madam Speaker, the committee has further considered the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill and reports it with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Local Government (Water Services) Bill.

Members, the House is in committee on the Local Government (Water Services) Bill. We start with debate on Part 1. Part 1 is the debate on clauses 3 to 6A “Preliminary provisions” and Schedule 1. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Colleagues, I just wish to make a statement in regards to a matter that I think is relevant to the timing. I, firstly, would like to acknowledge the officials from the Department of Internal Affairs that have supported the local government water reform over the last few years. In particular, I wish to acknowledge Michael Lovett, deputy secretary of policy and Te Tiriti, who has passed away today following a short battle with illness.

Michael started at the Department of Internal Affairs in August 2017 and built a strong relationship with the local government sector as a partnership director, then later becoming the deputy chief executive of the local government branch.

I wish to acknowledge Michael and thank him for his service to this portfolio, and I recognise the 20-year contribution he made to the New Zealand Public Service.

Aroha nui e te whānau.

Kia orana, Mr Chair, thank you. Can I firstly join the Minister of Local Government in acknowledging the passing of Michael, which is unfortunate to learn of this evening. On behalf of the Labour Party, we extend our condolences to his family and acknowledge the service to this country in what is important reform across a number of Governments in the past.

This is a hefty piece of legislation that, effectively, does complete the Government’s sort of final tranche of water reform. We on this side of the Chamber will be taking the opportunity to step through what is a fairly hefty bill that’s in front of us. There have been, out of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, 367 amendments, and there are a number of amendments contained in the Minister’s name. There are a number of amendments from members of the Opposition as well that we’ll work to look through.

But the reality is that this is a piece of legislation that is very significant but also has regulatory and legal complexities that come with it, and so our questions will be framed in that particular space. I understand that my colleagues in the Labour Party, when we get to the relevant part of the bill, will have a number of questions as they pertain to their local constituencies that they represent, so I will leave that over to them.

But I want to turn to clause 3, which is the first substantive part of Part 1, and this, fundamentally, is around the purposes. My question to the Minister is how the purposes as outlined in the bill, in clause 3, can in fact follow through to the remainder of the bill, particularly looking at where this is a piece of legislation that would seek to provide a framework for the local government sector around the area of flexibility.

I point out flexibility because the question for the Minister is how he is able to reconcile that statement in the purpose clause around flexibility but also, actually, sustainability—and in this context, the bill does identify that it’s “financial sustainability”. How is he able to reconcile those stated purposes with the fact that this is a bill that perhaps will remove a desire and incentive for what is regional scale and shared service models? Now, we’ll get to that later in the piece, but, fundamentally, first question for the Minister is how he reconciles, particularly, the flexibility and the financial sustainability component of clause 3 with the ability to deliver regional scale and shared service models.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Firstly, I would really like to take the time, too, to acknowledge Michael Lovett, his family and friends, and really thank the Minister for Local Government for taking that time to acknowledge Michael and his contribution—really, really sad to hear that tonight.

My contribution, first and foremost, at the outset, is also picking up on the purpose of the bill, particularly because we know that this bill is already live in the sense that we’ve already had the preliminary bills, and we know that councils are already in the process of various consultation measures that they are undertaking to be set up to actually put in place this now primary bill, which will set out how those potential water entities will be operated, how they’ll be set up. And it has really clear, very significant consequences for our communities, particularly with local government elections this year, and, particularly, it has consequences for our environment. So we’re really keen to be looking at so many aspects of the bill ahead, which we think could be clearly improved on, and to hear from the Minister about questions, particularly about how these clauses then have implications and consequences for our communities and for the environment.

The first aspect that I wanted to pick up on is actually outlined in a number of amendments that I’m proposing to the purposes in clause 3 in Part 1. The first is: the bill sets out really clearly in clause 3(b)(i), in Part 5, that the purpose is to “enable effective and proportionate economic regulation of water services and water quality regulation”. What I’m proposing is replacing those words with “enable effective water quality regulation and proportionate economic regulation of water services”. Why I think it needs to be in that order is because it needs to place water quality and the actual water service outcomes as that primary purpose over the economic regulation, which we know is also central to this bill. But the way that it has it—and the purpose emphasises that—is economic regulation over that of the actual outcomes for our communities’ drinking water in particular but also for the environment. I’d really like to hear from the Minister if he would consider that amendment.

The second amendment I have on that clause is just further below that, at clause 3(b)(ii). Currently, it talks about, basically, empowering the Minister of Local Government with powers to act when a water service provider is facing a problem or a potential problem. The rationale with what I’m proposing is to change this to actually say: “provide the Minister of Local Government with powers to intervene on behalf of communities when a water service provider is facing a problem”. Now, the reason I think that this would be appropriate is it actually amends this so that it’s talking about actual problems that communities are facing—and they’re real problems that are identified, not just potential ones—and, surely, if ministerial intervention is warranted, then, surely, the power to act should be granted to the Minister when they actually hear very real concerns from the community, and the community is facing that problem. I’d really like to hear if the Minister would consider that.

Then, thirdly, still on this purpose clause, clause 3, I’m proposing to add a further part to the purpose clause. The point of this amendment is that the purpose itself is so important in actually delivering these clear outcomes that this bill seeks to achieve, and what it’s really missing is reference to not only environmental sustainability but, particularly, equitable access to water services. So I’m proposing that we insert a clause 3(c) under clause 3 that says: “to ensure the environmental sustainability and equitable access to water services by water service providers”. This is particularly important, because we know what we’re seeing—although councils are really doing their best to work together and pull together, there are inevitably these councils that are, essentially, being left out, and what that means in reality is communities are being left out when it comes to actual improvement of water, which they so badly need.

It’s really concerning that there is nothing here in these purpose clauses about equitable access to water services, particularly when we know guaranteeing access to water is a human right, and particularly here in Aotearoa New Zealand, we want it to be really clear that no matter where you go in the country, you can have access to safe, clean drinking water, which we know has, unfortunately, not been the case.

We think that there should be a really clear, upfront purpose clause that speaks to that environmental sustainability and the equitable access to water services of communities, and I’d really like to hear from the Minister what considerations he’s had around this, and why they are not currently in the purpose clause. Thank you.

Thank you very much, members, for those questions. In regards to the points raised by Lan Pham in regards to the two amendments being proposed, the member will be no doubt aware of the water-quality regulator that is in place, which does have, within its remit, water-quality regulation in the setting of the appropriate standards, including environmental standards in that context. That is the entity which executes a wide range of the elements which the member was referring to, and it is where it is appropriately placed. It is an area that is important as part of the overarching package of the way in which water services are delivered.

In regards to the questions on clause 3, in the context of the definitions and the interplay that was noted between flexibility and financial sustainability, the premise of the overarching legislation recognises that water services entities that will be created as a result of this need to be financially sustainable, and the mechanism in regards to how entities are structured is a decision for local councils. So there is no context or no blockage, as the member was implying, around not being able to establish regionalised entities—actually, quite the opposite. You are seeing groupings of councils take that action, so that is within the provisions of the clause.

A large number of amendments made by the Finance and Expenditure Committee actually improved and enhanced the definition clauses of this bill. As Minister for this legislation, the fact that there are over 300 amendments signals clearly that the select committee process played an integral part in improving the bill. It was very much the case, from my perspective, of ensuring that we took on board the feedback from the select committee to enhance the bill so that it was a much better bill as a result, and I do believe we have got to that point.

Thank you, Mr Chair. So on Part 1, we’ve already traversed a little bit the purpose clause in clause 3, and I want to focus on the type of council that we’re talking about and how it relates to the interpretation section. So this is at clause 3(a)(i): “providing for territorial authorities responsibility for providing water services”. I, of course, understand that some territorial authorities are unitary authorities so include that regional council role as well. But then I’m interested in the definitions and how this all links together with a “water service provider”, which includes—so this is in the definitions section, so I’m on page 34 of the bill—at (c), “a regional council that has not transferred all of its responsibility for providing water services”. Then water services is defined on the next page as meaning “any or all of the following: (a) water supply services: (b) stormwater services: (c) wastewater services”.

So I’m wondering if the Minister can comment on the role that regional councils have in this scheme when they’re not a unitary authority—when they’re a normal regional council—and whether they should be then included in the purpose clause if there is an element of them providing water services rather than regulating those water services or requiring permissions to take water or to get consent for stormwater or waste-water discharges.

Then, just while I’ve got your attention, on page 36, the definition of “watercourse” is there: “includes a river, stream, passage, and channel”. But this has been deleted by the select committee: “along which water flows, whether continuously or intermittently”. Then, “along which water flows continuously” is repeated. So the point of this change is that “intermittently” has been removed from the definition of “watercourse” for this bill, and I’m wondering why that is. Obviously, there are a lot of watercourses that can be dry at different times of the year, and these are areas where you might have stormwater overflows and the like.

So two questions there. One, why are we getting rid of intermittent watercourses from the definition? And two, how are regional councils seen, given the purpose and those definitions that I read out?

Thank you, Mr Chair. This is a big bill, so we’re going to try and stick very closely to the sections so that we’re also able to indicate to the person in the chair which area we’re on. I’m going to start with clause 3, on the purposes. I appreciated what the Minister mentioned before in terms of what is stated in clause 3(b)(i), which has the inclusion of the term “water quality regulation”. However, I want to look at the broader context of this, I think, starting with clause 3(a).

Now, the reason that I would encourage the Minister to consider my colleague Lan Pham’s amendment, particularly when it comes to water quality but also in terms of environmental sustainability, is—for context, I was born in a city of 15 million people, a small, medium-sized city in China. Growing up, we were not able to drink tap water as a result of severe water pollution in my home city. The only thing we had available to us was bottled water—filtered water, even at that stage, wasn’t a thing. It was a shock and a surprise upon arriving, when my family migrated to Aotearoa New Zealand, when I saw people drinking straight out of the tap. I remember my 10-year-old self being highly fearful that they were going to get sick, because this is what I’d been told growing up.

I think back to that and think about what we are seeing nowadays in terms of our freshwater quality, most recently in Gore with the level of nitrates, and I did think, “How can a country with a low population not manage our water-quality system?” I think this is really crucial to the crux of the purpose of this bill, and I do want to ask the Minister, in this case, even if the Minister thinks that there is enough protection around environmental protection and water quality in clause 3(a), does “accountable manner” accurately capture and encompass water quality in a way that ensures that everyone in Aotearoa New Zealand can have water from the tap by right?

For example, when we were looking at the framing of “accountable manner”—and I do apologise; I was not part of the select committee process—does “accountable manner” address the issue that, for example, we’ve recently seen in Gore and the level of nitrates? When we are looking at clause 3(b), when we are looking at water quality regulation, it’s specified that clause 3(b) is only in reference to Part 5, amendments to other bills. Does it also mean that Parts 1 to 4 are exempted from having to have a degree of water-quality regulation?

I understand, also, the Minister mentioned before that Part 5 is probably where it’s most relevant, but even looking at a cursory reading of Part 5, it covers amendment bills like the Income Tax Act and the Commerce Act. I actually think that if we’re really serious about water-quality regulations, we do need to see that term in subclause (a) as well as subclause (b). That’s my second question.

My final question to the Minister is subclause (b)(ii), which does talk about the Minister of Local Government or the Minister of the day having powers to act when a water service provider is facing a problem or potential problem. I also support my colleague Lan Pham’s amendment on this. But what we are not seeing, at least in the purpose section—and this, I’m sure, may come up later on, but if the Minister wouldn’t mind speaking to it—is what problem, or potential problem, is the Minister seeing? Again, using Gore and the nitrates example, is that sufficient enough to see it as a problem that requires a ministerial intervention? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, I’ve only had a chance to see our colleague Lan Pham’s tabled amendment’s today, and the Labour Party will be supporting all three of those tabled amendments as they relate to clause 3 because we do believe that the role of environmental sustainability needs to be not just included but given a little bit of shining light in that space, as does the quality of water as a primary purpose in achieving the outcome of this legislation.

The one that I do want to speak on briefly is the tabled amendment that relates to the role in which the Minister of Local Government would be able to exercise the powers that they would have for the purpose of intervention. I want to thank Lan Pham for what is a very sensible amendment, because it, basically, I think, is framed in a way of supporting local decision makers and local democracy. So the Minister would still have powers of intervention and the ability, therefore, to intervene when it comes to the purpose, but only in circumstances where there were actual and real problems that had been identified—not “what ifs”, “what might be’s”, hypotheticals, but actual rational thinking around intervention. I think that is a very sensible amendment. So the Labour Party will be supporting that amendment through this process.

The Minister has touched on the fact that there were more than 360 amendments, and he says that that’s, you know, a responsive select committee. I think it also lends itself to the argument that this was a bad piece of legislation that the Government introduced and it required extra effort on the part of the select committee, those that submitted. Let’s not forget about the fact, Minister, that this was a bill that did require additional time from the Business Committee to progress some of the changes that they wanted to, given the time constraints. This really is part of this Government’s “national water done bad” approach to water reform in this country.

The question that I have for the Minister is still on clause 3, although it takes a different particular tack, and it is around the evidence to support the claim that has been confirmed by the Minister that, in actual fact, this particular framework that is, essentially, established under this bill will be more cost-effective than what was the previous reform model. We hear a lot about the cost of infrastructure and, in particular, water infrastructure, ageing water infrastructure, that councils around the country are facing. The Government doesn’t seem to want to accept the fact that the figure of around $185 billion over a 30-year horizon in this particular space—those are real issues that need to be thought through.

My question to the Minister—and I do acknowledge his previous response to my other question about flexibility and financial sustainability, but, Minister, I’m interested to understand what actual evidence exists to support that claim that the framework will, in fact, be more cost effective than the previous reform model that was on the cards.

Thanks, Mr Chair. I’ll come back with some responses to prior questions, starting with the Hon Rachel Brooking’s questions in regards to regional councils’ role in water services. The member is correct in the context of unitary councils, which obviously include components of regional council responsibilities with them.

Basically, this bill enables regional councils to transfer some of those water responsibilities. It’s not part of this part, but it is part of a part that we will come to soon, so I won’t go too much more into it. But a good example in that context is Greater Wellington Regional Council, who currently provide bulk water supply, as one of the examples.

The other question asked by the member was in regards to why the definition has been removed in regards to watercourse. It is primarily to make a distinction between the overland flow paths, which have stormwater and the sea, and the watercourses that have water in them all the time. That’s the reason why the change was made, in that regard.

There were a number of questions in regards to intervention powers by the Minister. I mean, I think the reality is that intervention is done as a last resort. The last time that we’ve seen that is in Wellington’s instance, and I think there was plenty of evidence to support the deployment of that, and it’s actually been a positive outcome, in the context of the work there. But the threshold is high before that’s considered—I think it’s in the right place.

Clause 3(b)(ii): I don’t believe there’s sufficient basis for any changes from where the select committee has reached in those aspects. I’ve noted already around clause 3 in my prior response around the aspects around water quality. We’ve actually got a separate water-quality regulator, which shows the importance of water quality and the environmental impacts. It is that important; hence we’ve got a separate regulated entity, and I think having a separate independent regulated entity is also important.

The other element the regional councils play is, sometimes, in some instances, such as Auckland Council, they act as an enforcement agency for some of the consents of water care—so there is an interplay between the levels of local government and these entities, and I think that is just an acknowledgment of the question asked.

Hey, thank you—that was a bit informal, wasn’t it? Thank you for those answers. I look forward to the part where we discuss the empowering role of regional councils. On the overflow paths—I thank the Minister for his answer about the watercourses removing intermittently—I wonder, though, if there are intermittent watercourses that aren’t overflow paths that would still relate to stormwater.

I wanted to move on to clause 6, and that is “Act binds the Crown”, but then there’s an exception from that, which is to say that the Crown is exempt from paying those development contributions. That specific section—section 109—comes up later in the bill. It doesn’t apply to Kāinga Ora, but it does seem to apply to every other Crown thing that might happen that might require some sort of development contribution—perhaps hospitals, or perhaps universities. These are things that I think about in my part of the world. Maybe the Minister could comment on what exempting them will mean for the councils that have these water organisations that might be requiring development contributions, or we can deal with that later on as well.

Then, at clause 6A, the Treaty clause has been moved by the select committee to the front of the Act, and the commentary of the select committee is that the wording aligns with legislation such as the Fast-track Approvals Act 2024. To that, I would say that is probably not the best piece of legislation to be looking for good Treaty clauses, and all it is is “All persons must act consistently with Treaty settlement obligations”. Does this Government see that there is no place for any Treaty obligations under this bill for non-settled iwi, noting, of course, that we have large parts of the country that do have real water services problems having no settlement? Of course I’m thinking of Northland as the obvious case in point.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I wanted to move on slightly just to clause 9, but it’s really to do with the entirety of Subpart 1 in terms of responsibility for providing water services. There’s a number of clauses—

Just to confirm, clause 9 is in Part 2. This is the debate for Part 1.

Oh, sorry. You’re right. I’ve moved on to Part 2—sorry. My apologies.

Thank you, Mr Chair, I want to pick up on clause 4, which is the definitions. There are a number of changes that have been made to the definitions. One of the interesting ones is, basically, removing a definition of “infrastructure”. What was originally in the bill was a very broad—well, it was infrastructure. It wasn’t traffic corridor infrastructure, it wasn’t water service infrastructure; it was just infrastructure. My sort of take from what now lies within this clause is a new definition which largely expands the definition of “water services infrastructure”. So I do think it is very important, given that’s what this is largely about. When one compares what was in the former, now struck out, definition for “infrastructure”, it is very similar. The only point of difference is that the previous definition for “infrastructure” excluded the conveyance of water. So my question to the Minister of Local Government is whether he is comfortable, on the advice that he has received, that that definition of infrastructure for water services, which is very vital to this bill and what it seeks to achieve, has been drafted in a way that, basically, covers all aspects. No issue with removing the “infrastructure” in isolation as a definition and inserting it somewhere else, but just interested in the Minister’s thoughts around that one.

I want to also look at clause 5, which relates to Schedule 1, which I understand we are debating as part of this part. This is around the “Transitional, savings, and related provisions” piece. The question to the Minister is: what does he foresee as the level of support that would be made available to councils who are in a process of navigating what could be complex transitional processes as part of this, especially those that might be some way through some form of reform process? Now, there are many councils around the country who are already on some particular path to water reform. I reflect that my own constituency of Palmerston North is certainly in that particular boat. What sort of level of support is available to councils who are part way through some form of reform? Now, I appreciate that local authorities are expected to deliver a water services delivery plan by—well, within the first week of September or thereabouts. But that’s what the question relates to.

Specifically on Schedule 1, this is a level of more detail that relates to various individuals that might be impacted and the like. The question for the Minister is: when it comes to smaller or rural councils—and we have many of those around Aotearoa New Zealand—what is the justification in what appears to be a lack of flexibility in transitional arrangements for smaller or rural councils? So, on the one hand, the Government is saying that there must be some provisions related to a transitional phase—OK, we understand that. But why is it that there is a lack of flexibility when it might come to the arrangements for smaller or rural councils in that particular space? But also, why is there no capacity to provide any review opportunity? You know, this is a huge piece of work, and we fundamentally have issues with the Government’s approach to this. But, none the less, has the Minister considered some review mechanism at some point that might look at, as part of that transitional approach, where there is a provision for ensuring that, yes, there is some form of continuity around service, whether that’s waste water, stormwater, or drinking water delivery? But why is there no opportunity to have any sort of mechanism to review what the impact would be on communities as part of the Government’s reform approach?

Thanks very much for those questions. With regard to the question from the Hon Rachel Brooking, in regard to Treaty clauses, there was quite comprehensive engagement with iwi, in regards to this bill, through the select committee process. The reality is—the question around iwi that have not undertaken settlement—the Treaty settlement obligations apply when the settlement is made; therefore, as and when those iwi enter into agreements, that will be covered off through that. There are also requirements around the entities and how they must interact with and meet obligations in regards to that, and councils themselves already have those obligations.

In regards to the points around rural councils and a review mechanism, as part of the water services delivery plans, those plans include reasonably comprehensive milestones in terms of points. As you would expect with any long-term capital plan, there will be regular points of reassessment of that. There’s no difference between a small rural or semi-urban council and a large rural or large urban one. It’s not one size fits all; their plans will be appropriate to their needs and requirements.

In regards to clause 6A, which is around functions and duties and powers within the Act, the select committee did expand the scope of the requirements in response to submissions. You can see enhancements of that clause, which is positive.

The other question, I believe, in regards to clause 4, the interpretations, which is the definitions section, I think the key element there to highlight is that the definition element within that, for example, deals with the Watercare entity and ensuring that the definition of “water service provider” and “water organisation” clearly incorporates that Auckland water organisation, which is the primary purpose of that clause 4.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I have two questions for the Minister regarding clause 4 of Part 1. I know the Minister has touched on Treaty settlements, but we do see a conflation between Te Tiriti obligations and Treaty settlements, because not all hapū and iwi would have those kinds of Treaty settlements. Treaty settlements are very separate and have been well covered in the definition and certain parts of this bill. What I’m more interested in is the broader Te Tiriti obligations, understanding that there aren’t any specific Te Tiriti clauses within Part 1 of this bill, neither under clause 3 nor, as far as I can see, under clause 4. However, I do note that, for example, under the definition of “shareholder”, it has been suggested that iwi and hapū, potentially, are able to join by agreement of the territorial authority to actually enter as a shareholder. That was suggested as an inclusion into the definition of “shareholder”. However, that wasn’t included with the reasoning that “any other body that is permitted to hold shares under an exemption granted under section 57”—not to preclude other things that could be covered under section 57.

Can I just check with the Minister that under the definition of “shareholder”, should hapū or iwi want to be shareholders alongside the territorial authority, how would that work in terms of getting that exemption through either a Minister or through any other avenues? That’s my first question.

My second question is around the removed definition of “infrastructure”. It is also kind of peculiar that there was no indication that such a definition should be removed, especially since that the recommendation by the department was to amend the definition to include other aspects. I want to check with the Minister on what the rationale is to remove the definition for “infrastructure” here. Is it covered in another section? Those are my two questions for the Minister.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I didn’t have the joy of sitting through all of the debate and the submissions in the Finance and Expenditure Committee, but I have a number of questions.

I’d like to start with clause 4 and the focus on stormwater. I’ve got some questions that I would like you to answer about “stormwater service zone”, first of all, and where you’re talking about a geographic area with one or more urban areas, how does that relate to smaller settlements? I went to a meeting of Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, talking about resilience in Pōrangahau, and they are very concerned about how the stormwater and the dangers of flooding will affect that small rural community. They probably wouldn’t think of themselves as an urban community, but would they be included in that urban area?

Another question I had about the stormwater services—and I would thank my colleague Rachel Brooking for mentioning intermittent streams. I think they might also sometimes be referred to as “ephemeral”—ones that run in the winter but not the summer. I’m not sure whether you think that’s exactly the same or not.

My third question for the moment about stormwater is about why you’re excluding the transport corridors. There has been a lot of work done by urban design organisations, by Biophilic Cities Network, and so on, about permeable surfaces. Those permeable surfaces might well fit within the transport corridor. Often, people think the transport corridor is just kerb to kerb, but quite often, technically, in district plans, it’s wider than that. The potential is for using—where you don’t have houses that will be damaged—where you’ve got excellent run off from the tarmac on to potential areas that could absorb water if they were well designed with planting, with the right kinds of surfaces. Often, you have car parks, either adjacent to or within a transport corridor, and, all too often, the cheapest, non-permeable surface is chosen rather than something that could actually cope with the increasing intensity of rainfall.

Again, from my experience, the unplanted clay soils in and around our urban areas, or some of our urban areas, if they’re not planted up, if they do not have permeable design criteria in their construction, it actually makes it worse and it runs off faster. The opportunity is also not just potential for reducing the risk of flooding but potential for being able to use that water for the local communities, whether it’s a community garden, whether it’s for emergency water—those sorts of issues. I would like some answers to the Minister’s thinking on that.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Thanks. I’ll just answer the last remaining questions. The question in regards to the Treaty obligations and shareholder questions I raised before, the councils have obligations to support the Crown in meeting its Treaty obligations under sections of the Local Government Act, so that’s where those components of coverage apply, and they obviously continue to apply as well. The question around shareholders and around iwi, shareholders of these entities can only be local authorities, consumer trusts, or a cooperative company, which is, basically, another mechanism around consumer ownership. The mechanism in which this has been proposed is not something that is possible under the arrangement, because the premise being that these are owned is outlined by the entities that I’ve described. In regards to the other question, I have answered the point around clause 4, subclause (3). The other element that was raised in regards to the exclusions around stormwater as well is relevant to the points I raised around the overland flow paths before.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I thank the Minister of Local Government for that. I was hoping to hear from the Minister a response to the issue around the “infrastructure” definition.

Oh.

You want to get up?

“Infrastructure” was replaced with “water services infrastructure”.

Thank you, Mr Chair, and thank you to the Minister for that. I guess the related point to that question—and Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan talked about the removal of “infrastructure”. I didn’t pick up on the concerns around whether it was adequately removed or not. But the follow-up question was the issue around water conveyance, which was not in the original definition of “infrastructure” but now is in the “water services infrastructure” piece. So I’d be interested in in the Minister’s response around that.

The other point around definitions—and there are a lot of definitions in here, and a lot of them have had significant and substantive change. The only other one that, at this stage, I do want to touch on is reference to the definition of a “district plan”. My colleague Celia Wade-Brown just referred to a district plan. As part of the “Interpretation”, clause 4, there is a change in that the district plan has been modified, as a definition, to be a term that is defined in section 43AA of the Resource Management Act (RMA). What was there was that it was an authority’s district plan prepared under the RMA. It might be semantics, but semantics matter. So my question to the Minister is: are there specific changes envisaged here that a council, in the preparation of a district plan, which is a completely different process to actually having a district plan—where is the interplay with that? Is this a specific move to redefine the relevance of a district plan, whereas all the work, or some of the work, that may have gone into the preparation aspects is now being not part of the consideration? So that’s a question for the Minister there.

The other one is: looking at all of those interpretation facets, is the Minister concerned that there could potentially be a risk around inconsistent approaches to the definitions in different councils, or is that something that he doesn’t see as an issue, or, if so, he accepts that there is a possibility for inconsistency—that that doesn’t matter; and if so, why?

Thank you, Mr Chair. I asked a question earlier about development contributions and I don’t think the Minister answered it.

Could you say that again?

I asked a question before about development contributions, which I don’t think the Minister answered. We have at, I think, clause 6: “section 109 partially exempts the Crown from making development contributions”, and you go to that section, and it says there’s an exemption for Kāinga Ora. What analysis and thought has gone into the sorts of development contributions that the Crown might be not paying by this exemption?

Just in regards to that question by the Hon Rachel Brooking, the provisions within the Local Government Act 2002—this basically preserves the status quo in regards to those aspects. The development contribution will obviously be replaced by development levies, which is the work under way at the moment, but the Local Government Act clause, as I’ve noted, deals with the aspect that’s been raised. So that covers that point.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I would like to actually move to clause 5 of Part 1, which is around Schedule 1. I think there are actually a lot of really important questions for the Minister around transitional savings and related provisions, but I want to start by asking the Minister, hopefully, a really simple and straightforward question, which is around Part 1 of Schedule 1, clause 1, “Identification of affected employees” and a transfer of any from one service provider to another water service provider. I just want to check with the Minister, in those kinds of cases, what sorts of precautions, if any, have been put in place around collective agreements? Are there any water service employees that are part of collective agreements that may be affected by this? And how would one, then, untangle themselves from this as part of the transitional measures? I just want to start by asking the Minister that question.

I can keep asking the Minister questions. I’m guessing the Minister is still waiting to get some advice on that. I think, in terms of other transitional measures, and there are still quite a lot, if we’re looking at clause 6, when it comes to “water services annual report”—actually, Mr Chair, may I ask a point of clarification?

Sure.

What I’m mentioning, in terms of clause 1 and clause 2, is related to Part 1, but when we’re looking at Schedule 1—Part 1, for example—clause 5 refers to Part 4 of the bill. Would it be more appropriate to have those discussions of Schedule 1, even though they’re in Part 1, when we get to Part 4? Would that be appropriate? I’m seeing nods from the Minister.

I mean, this debate includes Schedule 1. Let me read it out—

Yes—this debate includes Schedule 1, which is in Part 1, but within Schedule 1, it makes references to Part 4. For example, in clause 5 of Schedule 1, it says, “Despite Part 4 coming into force sooner,”. The question would be: would it be OK to have the debate on Schedule 1, on Part 4—that refers to Part 4—when Part 4 comes up?

No, the debate on Schedule 1 is now.

OK. In that case, my question to the Minister, for clause 6, “first water services annual report”, regardless of what happens in Part 4—we might discuss Part 4 around that—I wondered, with the dates that have been provided, are there any sorts of precautions or any thoughts that the Minister may have around the provisions of that water services report and what those transitional measures would entail?

Thank you, Mr Chair, and thank you for the clarification around Schedule 1 in its entirety. That does open up, actually, quite a number of points and a number of questions that I’ll now sort of commence on the pathway.

Tangi, you’re a lawyer; you know how it works.

No lawyer, no lawyer, no lawyer here. Feel free to take a call and share your thoughts with the committee.

The interesting thing is that this actually spends a little bit of time identifying what would happen to employees who are, effectively, part of a transfer as part of this process. That is quite a significant implication for people in the community when we think about—regardless of the option that councils might choose to head down, and there will be there will be a number of different options that some do take—that there will be, as outlined in clause 1(2)(b) of Schedule 1, a number of employees who basically will cease, in terms of their employment with a provider, as a result of the transfer.

So as I understand, it’s a circumstance where the water services are being transferred across to a water service provider. As a result of that, it means that there will be some employees who will be retained as part of that transfer process, and there will be some that are not retained. For those whose employment will cease as a result of the transfer under clause 1(2)(b) of Schedule 1, there are some following criteria that actually identify, for those who do receive an offer of employment, what happens in certain circumstances. Now, the interesting thing around that is there is this reference that where the offer for employment is for, substantially, the same position as the position the employee held at the previous provider prior to the transfer, that, basically, there would be no entitlement to any additional benefit. OK, I understand that. But my question for the Minister is: what specifically guides the criteria outlined in clause 1(3)(a), (b), and (c) of Schedule 1? I’m happy to yield my time for the Minister.

So the provisions within the Local Government Act deal with the rights protections in regards to collective contracts, and those apply irrespective of where these individuals will transfer to. It’s obviously acknowledged that a large number of local government employees are under these type of arrangements and the mechanisms I’ve outlined. To the question that the member’s asking—what over-pins that—well, the provisions from the Local Government Act over-pin it.