Parliamentary debates: Thursday, 11 September 2025

Members, the House is resumed for the extended sitting. I call on Government order of the day No. 2.

I seek leave to present a legislative statement on Te Pire Whakahoki i a Kororipo Pā/Kororipo Pā Vesting Bill.

Leave has been sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is none. That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Te Pire Whakahoki i a Kororipo Pā/Kororipo Pā Vesting Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Māori Affairs Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 11 November 2025 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there’s been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

E te paepae manukura o Ngāti Rēhia, tēnā koutou. Me Ngāpuhi hoki, ko tēnei taku mihi atu ki a koutou, tēnā koutou. Tēnā koutou i tēnei rā mana nui.

Kororipo Pā, kia ora. Tihei mauri ora ki a tātou.

[To the leadership council of Ngāti Rēhia, greetings. And Ngāpuhi also, I hereby acknowledge you, greetings. Greetings to you on this auspicious day.

Kororipo Pā, hello. Vitality and wellbeing to us all.]

In August, Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Rēhia Trust and the Crown signed the Tuhinga Whakaae o te Tuku Tōmua o Kororipo Pā, which is the deed of on-account vesting of Kororipo Pā. The deed provides for the Crown vesting Kororipo Pā in Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Rēhia Trust and acknowledges Ngāti Rēhia Trust will hold the site as kaitiaki on behalf of all Ngāpuhi.

To members of Ngāti Rēhia and the wider Ngāpuhi whānau, including many who have travelled from the Far North to witness the first reading of this bill in person, and to those watching online or listening on their crystal sets back home, I extend a warm welcome. I acknowledge those, too, of te whare tapu o Ngāpuhi—the sacred house of Ngāpuhi, to whom Kororipo Pā is also held in great esteem.

For those who aren’t familiar with Kororipo Pā, it’s located on the banks of the Kerikeri River, in what is now the Kerikeri Basin historic precinct, an area rich in the history of Ngāti Rēhia and their Ngāpuhi whānau. At Kororipo Pā, you’re walking in the footsteps of the Chief Hongi Hika, the renowned and feared Ngāpuhi warrior, diplomat, and strategist. As with many pā, the site was chosen for its strategic significance. From Kororipo Pā, you can see and respond to both landward and seaward threats. Because of its location, it was a military stronghold where ngā hapū of Ngāpuhi would assemble before going to war. More than that, though, it was also a place where the rangatira of Ngāpuhi hapū would meet to discuss together the issues of the day, and when Europeans came to these shores, it became a place of learning and of trade between Ngāpuhi and missionaries and settlers.

As early interactions between Māori and Europeans progressed, there were often land transactions conducted between people with very different understandings of land holdings and led to many misunderstandings and disputes. Before the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi—the Treaty of Waitangi—Governor Hobson promised Māori and the Crown would inquire into these preTreaty land transactions and return any lands unjustly held. The British missionary James Kemp claimed he purchased Kororipo Pā as part of a larger land purchase in 1838. The Crown investigated this claim in a commission process that drew criticism and which was challenged both at the time and since. The Crown ultimately granted title to Kororipo Pā to Kemp in 1859. Ngāpuhi consistently challenged that decision, rejecting the sale, and have also challenged successive ownership transfers, including the transfer of the pā to the Crown on 24 May 1957.

In 1994, Ngāpuhi hapū, including rangatira Manga Tau, Mac Taylor, and Honē Mītai, met at Whitiora Marae to discuss Kororipo Pā, and Ngāti Rēhia were confirmed as kaitiaki of the site on behalf of Ngāpuhi. That led to Tuau Ahiroa Kemp lodging Wai 492 in the Waitangi Tribunal in 1995, on behalf of Ngāti Rēhia and Ngāpuhi, seeking the return of the pā. Two other Wai claims were later lodged with the same intent.

Ngāti Rēhia and your wider Ngāpuhi whānau, I acknowledge the efforts of so many people over many years to have the pā returned. The work has been a significant burden to you and your hapū and your iwi. I thank the Ngāti Rēhia team, under the guidance of Kipa Munro and Nora Rameka—kia ora, Kipa and Nora—for their work with me and the Minister of Conservation, my good friend Tama Potaka, on this process. I also want to acknowledge the initial work of Andrew Little and the previous Government, which started off this process.

The bill will vest Kororipo Pā in Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Rēhia Trust, the governance entity for Ngāti Rēhia, it will save historic reserve status in public assets, and it will remain on New Zealand’s tentative Unesco World Heritage List, reflecting its international importance. This will be the first redress provided to Ngāpuhi as part of the Treaty settlement process. Providing redress on account of a future comprehensive Treaty settlement is not the usual Crown approach. However, in 2022, the Crown agreed to progress this negotiation on an exceptional basis as a gesture of good faith.

I’m pleased that the Crown has recently recognised the mandate of Te Whakaaetanga Trust, a Bay of Islands hapū grouping, and to see the progress that other Ngāpuhi hapū groupings are making in seeking a mandate to progress the wider settlement. Ngā hapū of Ngāpuhi are organising, and I look forward to the day we’re able to work together to progress a Treaty settlement. As I said in the gathering this morning, Kororipo Pā is the place from where many consequential journeys began in our history, and let’s hope the return of the site, similarly, is the beginning of another very consequential journey for Ngāpuhi—the many hapū of Ngāpuhi—and also for the nation.

The select committee will hear and consider submissions. I look forward to helping to progress this bill through the House. Given the limited scope of the bill, I hope that a third reading can take place before the end of the year, and so that’s the intention there. It’s our hope and aspiration that we will soon be able to gather in the new year to celebrate the return of this important site to Ngāti Rēhia on behalf of the broader Ngāpuhi, and that this will signal the start. It is significant in its own right and a significant gesture and a significant place that is returned, but it is also the start of a broader discussion as well, and, on that basis, I commend this bill to the House. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. I te mea kāre au i whai wāhi ki roto i ngā mihimihi i tau ki runga i ōku whanaunga i te ata nei, ka tāpae ake i wēnei kupu ki runga i a rātou, me te tangi auē ki te hunga mate kua wehe atu ki te pō.

I a au e noho ana ki roto i te pōhiri i te ata nei, i hoki atu ōku mahara ki tō tātou pāpā, ki a Judah Heihei. I te hui mate o Tāmati Parāone me te totohe ka takoto te kaumātua ki hea. Me te kōrero a Judah Heihei ki ōku ake o Ngāti Te Ara, o Ngāti Kōpaki, “E, tōia mai te rangatira ki roto i a au, ki roto i a Ngāti Rēhia, ko reira takoto ai.”

Heoi anō ko te āhuatanga o tērā kōrero hei tohu whakamaumahara ake ki ngā whakapapa ki waenganui i a tātou. Kāre au i te wāwāhi a Ngāti Rēhia a Ngāti Rēhia, a Ngāpuhi a Ngāpuhi, kahore. Ka kī ake ahau ki a tātou katoa, me ngā whanaunga o te kāinga, tēnā koutou. Nau mai, haere mai.

Pikauria mai ngā mate huhua o te wā. Nā kua kōrero atu ahau i te āhuatanga o Judah, ā, me te tini o rātou kua ngaro atu ki te pō. Kotahi tonu te kōrero ki a rātou: haere mai, haere.

Ka whakahokia mai ngā rārangi kōrero ki a tātou. Kia mōhio mai koutou, e ngā whanaunga, kei te tautoko mātou i ngā mahi o tēnei pire, me ngā kōrero a te Minita ināia tata ake nei. Ko te āhuatanga o tēnei pire me te hiahia kia kōkiri ngā mahi a tēnei Whare kia tutuki rā anō tēnei kaupapa, me tō kōrero, e kara, e Kipa, ka tau atu anō tātou katoa ki tōna whakatutukitanga ki runga i tō tātou kāinga, ki Kororipo.

E mōhio ana koe, koutou, ki te āhuatanga o te hunga porotiki, ko tā mātou mahi he kuti i te rīpene, engari e mōhio ana au ko te nuinga o ngā mahi i oti i a koutou, i oti i ō koutou mātua, ō koutou tūpuna i roto i ngā tau. Nō reira e mihi atu ana ahau ki tērā whakaaro nui kia tatū tātou katoa, hei tōna tutukitanga, ki runga i te wā kāinga. Nō reira tēnā koutou.

Kua rongo atu ahau i te kōrero a te Minita, me te tautoko mō te āhuatanga o ngā kerēme whānui ki roto i a tāua, o Ngāpuhi. Me te kī atu ka whakaaro nui ake ahau ki wō tāua whanaunga ki roto o Ōtaua. Ka whai whakaaro nui anō au ki te tini o ngā hapū ki roto o Ngāpuhi e tiro atu ana ki wō rātou wāhi tapu, ki wō ratou pā kāinga, me te hiahia ki te kī atu ki a rātou anei he tohu o tētahi huarahi ka taea e tātou te kōkiri ngātahi. Nā koutou tērā mahi, nā Ngāti Rēhia me ōna kārangarangatanga maha te mahi nui hei tohu ki a Ngāpuhi whānui.

Āe, me anga whakamua tātou. Me kōkiri tahi tātou ki roto i ngā hiahia, kaua o ō tātou mātua tūpuna anake, engari mō ā tātou tamariki mokopuna.

Nō reira, i a au e pānui atu ana i te pire, āe, kua kite atu ahau i ngā kupu me ngā kōrero Māori o te horopaki kei roto i te pire. E tautoko atu ana ahau i tērā āhuatanga, me te tōtō nei i toku ngākau ki roto i ēnei mahi, nā te mea ka whakaaro ake ahau ki te tini o ngā tūpuna kāre i konei i tēnei wā tonu. Ka whakaaro ake ahau ki a Rei Kapa, ki a Te Huranga.

Āe mārika, ka noho tangi ahau, ka noho koreto ahau mō te āhuatanga ki wō tātou mātua tūpuna nā rātou kē tēnei mahi i whakarite mō ngā whakatupuranga ki konei, me ngā whakatupuranga ā taihoa ake nei.

Nō reira ā taihoa ake ka tukuna atu tēnei ki te Komiti Take Māori kia āta rangona ngā kōrero a tēnā, a tēnā e pā ana ki tēnei pire, me te hiahia kia hoki ora mai anō koutou ki roto i te pānuitanga tuarua, tuatoru ki roto i tēnei Whare hei te otinga o te tau.

Ka mutu, e ōku rangatira, i te mea ā te wiki e tū nei ko Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, i te mea anō ā te Rātapu ko taku rā whānau tēnā, ka kite atu anō tātou i a tātou ki te wā kāinga. Ko te inoi kia tae ora atu rā koutou ki raro i ngā manaakitanga o te Kaihanga ki tō tātou wā kāinga, huri huri noa.

E tautoko ana i tēnei pire.

[Because I did not have an opportunity during the formal greetings that were laid upon my relations this morning, I will offer these words to them, as I grieve for those who have passed into the night.

As I sat during the formal welcome this morning, my memories returned to our patriarch, Judah Heihei. At the funeral of Tāmati Parāone, the debate was about where this elder would lie in state. And Judah Heihei said to my people of Ngāti Te Ara and Ngāti Kōpaki, “Hey, convey this chief among my people, among Ngāti Rēhia, to lie in state there.”

However, the intention of that statement was a reminder of the genealogical connections between us. I am not causing division, Ngāti Rēhia is Ngāti Rēhia, Ngāpuhi is Ngāpuhi, not at all. I would say to all of us, and my relations from home, greetings. Welcome, welcome.

Bring with you the many recently deceased. Now, I have spoken a bit about Judah, and the many who have been lost to the night. There is but one thing to say to them: welcome, rest in peace.

Let the lines of discourse now return to us. You should know, my relatives, we support the actions of this bill, and the statements of the Minister immediately prior. The nature of this bill, and also the desire that the actions of this House continue until this initiative reaches its conclusion, and your statement, my friend, Kipa, we will all reach its resolution at our home, at Kororipo.

You, all of you, are aware the nature of politicians, what we do is cut ribbons, but I know that the majority of the work was done by you, it was done by your forebears and your ancestors over the years. Therefore, I acknowledge that important idea that all of us, upon its completion, all go home. And, therefore, I greet you.

I have heard the comments of the Minister, and I support the nature of the wide claims among our people, Ngāpuhi. I must say that I think fondly of our relatives in Ōtaua. I also think fondly of the many hapū within Ngāpuhi that look to their sites of significance, to their homelands, and I’d like to say to them here is a symbol of the pathway that we can all advance along together. You accomplished that, it was Ngāti Rehia and all its many affiliations that did the major work as a representation of all of Ngāpuhi.

Yes, we should face the future. We should progress together with the desires, not of our forebears and ancestors alone, but for our children and grandchildren.

Therefore, as I was reading the bill, yes, I have seen the words and Māori statements of the context within the bill. I support that aspect, and I draw my heart with me into this work, because I consider the many ancestors who are not here at this time. I think of Rei Kapa and Te Huranga.

Oh, yes, I continue to grieve, I continue to weep for the circumstances of our forebears and ancestors who actually did all of this to prepare for the current generations, and the generations of the near future.

And so, soon, this will be handed over the Māori Affairs Committee so that everyone’s statements can be clearly heard regarding this bill, and my desire is that you all return in good health for the second and third readings within this House at the end of the year.

Furthermore, noble leaders, because next week is Māori Language Week, and also because Sunday is my birthday, we will see each other again at home. I pray that you all arrive at our home healthy and well under the care of the Creator, everyone.

I commend this bill.]

Kia ora. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Kia ora to Ngāti Rēhia as kaitiaki of ngā hapu o Ngāpuhi.

The Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations said that the hapū wanted to expedite the settlement at Kororipo, and I said, “OK, I’ll go and talk to my other boss—apart from Chlöe—Hūhana Lyndon.” She said, “Well, we’ll see about that.” She got on the phone to the aunties and she said, “There’s complexities, but”—

Āe.

Āe. This is a parcel of land that is of great historic significance to Ngāpuhi. Today marks one part on a very long journey to get the rightful return of that land to its rightful owners. Even reading the history of the efforts to get acknowledgment that it was inconceivable that Hongi Hika would have ever parted with the sacred and tapu pā—over the course of nearly 200 years; reading that history gave me chest pains. In the 1930s, a judge acknowledged that it was not possible that it was ever the intention of the chief to part with the sacred site, and there seemed to be movement towards return and restoration. Then, enmities between judges and officials on the Pākehā side led to further delays and the land was not returned, and more years passed and decades passed.

This sense of a people languishing in intergenerational alienation from what they know is theirs—this is the story of tangata whenua Māori across the rohe and across our country. This story is no more strongly illustrated by the history of Kororipo Pā and the unrelenting efforts of iwi to have the pā returned to them.

If we are to have a nation that is genuinely founded in a principle of fairness and justice, we must address the issue of land alienation from tangata whenua Māori. This, today, is but one step further towards that correction of injustice. These settlements are deemed as full and final, but from the point of view of Te Pāti Kākāriki, if it is not full—and these settlements are always but a fraction of what has been lost—it cannot be final. The relationship with tangata whenua Māori that the Crown must maintain must be based on a principle of mutual respect, and that is an ongoing living relationship as embodied in our founding agreement, Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

We have a couple of specific questions about this settlement yet to ask: we’d like to understand why it is 4.4 acres, not the original 6 acres; why perhaps more land could not have been offered by the Crown. We’d like to understand why there is not guaranteed land access to the pā site. We’d like to understand why there is not the first right of refusal on the part of the iwi, should the Crown choose to dispose of the conservation land. These are things that would make the settlement stronger, in our view.

It has been a huge journey for Ngāti Rēhia and for Ngāpuhi to get this land rightfully returned. At those hearings in the 1930s, witnesses deemed Kororipo Pā to be the biggest and most important pā of the Ngāpuhi tribe. Finally, today, the bill returns the site; it is the beginning of that return to its rightful owners. So, Ngāti Rēhia, as kaitiaki of ngā hapu o Ngāpuhi, we as Te Pāti Kākāriki commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak on Te Pire Whakahoki i a Kororipo Pā/Kororipo Pā Vesting Bill. This bill gives effect to the deed of on-account vesting of Kororipo Pā signed between the Crown and Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Rēhia Trust on 1 August 2025. It provides for the vesting of Kororipo Pā Historic Reserve in the trust as part of a much-anticipated comprehensive Treaty settlement with wider Ngāpuhi. This vesting recognises historic and cultural significance of the site and returns it to mana whenua on an on-account basis ahead of that full settlement. It makes Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Rēhia Trust the administering body for the purpose of the Reserves Act, and that is appointed to control and manage Kororipo Pā. It’s putting safeguards in place that make sure the land is kept safe from financial things such as mortgages and being held as security.

On the site itself, I acknowledge members from Ngāti Rēhia today and wider Ngāpuhi. Thank you for coming here, travelling to hear us speak on this today. Kororipo Pā holds a longstanding place in New Zealand’s early history. The pā site sits at the head of the Kerikeri River, a beautiful location—I haven’t been there since I was about nine years old, but I do remember it being quite beautiful. It was chosen for its strategic importance, where Ngāpuhi could have a place of defence, decision making, and gathering. The Ngāpuhi rangatira would assemble to discuss important matters of the day, as well as prepare for war. It was the centre of political life in the North and still echoes today.

Kororipo Pā is the ground that was once a powerful centre for and of Ngāpuhi authority. The pā was not only a home but a launching place—the very site where tauā were assembled, provisioned, and sent out under the leadership of rangatira like Hongi Hika. From here, tauā travelled the length of the coast, carrying with them new forces of muskets. Historic accounts tell us that their reach extended deep into Tauranga Moana—where I am, and many other iwi, in my part of the world.

As I’ve sat here, I’ve thought about times I’ve spent with friends in places like Ruātoki and places on the Whakatāne River, hearing stories about some of those incursions. Ngāti Awa friends, Ngāti Rangi friends, who have told me of the way in which those times of upheaval and change shaped relationships between iwi in the area and across the country, and altered the balance of power across Te Moana-a-Toi. Today, I think about that, but I also acknowledge the mana that Kororipo Pā has, and the enduring legacy that these events that launched from this base have had on Northland, on the Bay of Plenty, on Tauranga, and Mauao.

The ownership was complicated. In 1838, missionary James Kemp claimed to have purchased the pā, the area. The title changed hands under the old claims process, which, as has been acknowledged by previous speakers, was not a centre of clarity and fairness, and carried, over the last couple of hundred years, a lot of grievances that have built up. The title was granted, revoked, reissued. It’s been a long time coming, but what is clear now is that the right decision for Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Rēhia Trust to be vested with this pā has been reached. I acknowledge the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations for his words, and I commend this bill to the House.

Tihei mauri ora. Ko te tī, ko te tā, ko te weu, ko te aka, ko te aka matua e here nei i a tātou. E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā karangatanga maha o Ngāti Rēhia, ka nui te mihi atu nā tēnei uri nō Te Popoto i Utakura. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

E kore e mimiti te mamae i riro whenua atu, otirā ngā wāhi tapu pērā tonu i te Kororipo. Riro whenua atu, hoki whenua mai. Ahakoa he iti, he tīmatanga tēnei. Mā konei ka tū rangatira anō te mana Māori, ka pūāwai te hapū me ngā uri whakatupu.

Heoi anō ko te whenua te waiū mō ngā uri whakatupu. Mā konei ka ora te iwi. Tēnei ka mihi, tēnei ka mihi, tēnei ka mihi ki a tātou katoa.

[Wellbeing and vitality to all. To all directions, the prime fibre, the vine, the principal vine that binds us all. To the authorities, the representatives, the many relatives of Ngāti Rēhia, many greetings of this descendant of Te Popoto i Utakura. Greetings and thanks to you, indeed to all of us.

The pain of land loss will never diminish, indeed the sacred sites like Kororipo. As land was lost, it will be returned. Despite being diminutive, this is a beginning. It is through this that the Māori authority will stand strong again, the hapū and future generations will flourish.

However, the land is what nourishes the future descendants. It is through this that the people will achieve wellbeing. I hereby greet and thank all of us.]

I stand on behalf of New Zealand First in support of Te Pire Whakahoki i a Kororipo Pā/Kororipo Pā Vesting Bill, and I bring warmest greetings from the Rt Hon Winston Peters and my colleague the Hon Shane Jones—Matua Shane to all those in the House who have joined us today from Ngāti Rēhia—on this significant day. The vesting bill facilitates the vesting of Kororipo Pā Historic Reserve—although relatively small in size, extremely large in importance, not just for Ngāti Rēhia but for the wider Ngāpuhi people—and it will be invested on account, as a step toward a future comprehensive Ngāpuhi Treaty settlement.

I’d like also to extend particular acknowledgment to Kipa Munro and Nora Rameka. Matua Shane wanted to make sure I sent greetings to you and acknowledged the work you’ve been doing in keeping the area in beautiful condition, mowing the lawns and taking care of it. He particularly wanted to acknowledge you for that, for your kaitiaki of this place.

This vesting bill puts on account for the future, fuller Ngāpuhi Treaty settlement, and that’s an important step to be taken. I’d just like to reflect back to more than 10 years ago now, when I first got involved in and observed Ngāpuhi politics. My whanaunga Rudy Taylor, upon meeting him up at Waitangi one time, for the very first time, embraced me and brought me into the clutches of Te Kotahitanga o Ngā Hapū Ngāpuhi, and from there I ventured around the North, learning about not just who I am but who my people are, as we traversed the Te Paparahi o Te Raki hearings and went to various hui around the North. I know that Rudy would be extremely pleased with this step towards this piece of land being vested.

One of Northland’s most historic sites is Kororipo Pā, and the return of it represents not only the restoration of a sacred space but also that step towards reconciliation. I want to quickly talk about a little bit of oral history that I’ve been told about, in terms of Kororipo meaning the swirling waters. When Hongi Hika got his warriors together, when the taua set out for their various war parties, they would get into their waka, preparing for their journeys, preparing for their voyages, and they would paddle about, getting into the right formation. They would circle around, and as they were circling around, they would be creating this swirling, and that—using the natural forces of taiao—would launch them off into the awa and out off into the sea.

It was also a very strategically placed piece of whenua, where rangatira would come, where they would hui, and it is rightful now that we begin this process of the return, because the pain of loss of land does not fade, especially when it’s land of such sacred importance as Te Kororipo. This is a small step that we are taking today, but it is a beginning. The land is a substance of generations yet to come. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā tātou e te Whare. E Nora and Kipa, tēnā tātou katoa—excuse my back.

Heoi anō, he mea anō tēnei. He aha te mea?

[Anyway, this is something else. What is this thing?]

It’s one thing to come to the House and deliver a speech, which is really well written here, which I’m not going to deliver in quite that way. It is because, when I was walking through, making my way to the House, I come through the door and I walk into the arms of every person that is now sitting up here, and it is quite a different thing. Well, it’s not different to me, actually—it’s not different to many Māori, and probably many in general—because when you walk into the arms of your people, you bring a different thing into this House.

When Kipa says in one of his readings that it is a special thing, that there is real mana in returning the sacred site to its people, that statement in itself tells it all, really, because it reminds us that, in fact, it is Ngāti Rēhia, Ngāpuhi nui tonu, that bring mana to this bill, to this discussion, to this first reading, and to this House, and they bring it with such grace. As I say, you walked in, open arms, crying—we’re crying up there, especially me. That’s one of my reputations, and everyone up there knows that, and it’s because, when tears fall, they fall since 1883. This isn’t just this morning, “Oh, boo-hoo”; these are tears and emotion and connection that began then, and to this day they still carry that.

When this House is making such a move—in my view, so it should. It is time. When we talk about a first reading, and then we’ll go to the second reading, and then we’ll go to a select committee, and all of that technicality will occur, but so it must—so it must. We owe this. This House and everyone in it owe that debt, and now it is time to pay that debt and to make right what we did wrong. I want to make those points in my brief five-minute speech.

When I think about Kororipo, I think about Nora, and the swirling waters and all that lovely kōrero, but let me tell you, when you’re addressing Nora, it’s not a swirling nice little cute thingy; it is a progressive tsunami coming your way, and so it should be—so it should be. Waitai Tua, names that I know—that’s what came to mind for me. I knew I was going to be standing in the House this morning. Don’t cry for me—I’m good; this is just me talking to you all—but it is definitely since 1883, and I would say since 1840, and I might even say since 1835, that these tears will fall from many, because so much was taken—was just taken away.

What is uplifting, though, can I also say, is that the likes of Alana and others—my cousin baby is sitting up here—Raniera. They’re young, they’re vibrant—maybe Babe not so much, but I love him nevertheless. The point being that there is a number of mokopuna rising, and ain’t that exciting? They are rising; they are fully equipped in their tikanga, in their reo. They are fully equipped in their belonging, so they can see Kororipo. When Peeni Henare, my nephew, referred to Reikapa, you know, gee, ka hoki mahara [the memories come back], and it’s a long time since even I have said that name.

Today is a very important day, because it’s a teaching moment for this House. Each time we go into these spaces to do with our sacred sites, our places of belonging, our Māori places, in this House, there’s another energy that’s brought to it, and we are better off every time it occurs. To all my whanaunga—excuse my back—I love you, I am here for you, and it is a special and important thing, and a privilege that I get to stand and speak in this House with love. Kia ora tātou. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Ka tū whakahirahira te rātā, ka hinga katoa te kākano, ka tupu anō, ā, ko ngā reo a mihi ki te hunga kua ngaro mai i a Nuku-te-apiapi ki a Nuku-te-mahara. Katoa rātou kua nunumi atu i tua o Pae Maumahara.

Hoki mai ki a tātou, ngā urupā kanohi o rātou kua ngaro i te tirohanga tangata, tātou e whakakīkī i ngā hū nui, koutou e kawe nei i ngā hū nui o Eru Pou mā, Cynthia Te Iwingaro mā, rātou katoa kua memene atu ki te pō.

Hoki mai ki a tātou, kāpiti rātou, kāpiti tātou e tuitui nei. Koutou o te whare tapu o Ngāpuhi, koutou o Ngāti Rēhia, haramai ki tēnei Whare Pāremata e tū nei. E kīia ana te kōrero, koutou o te puna taniwha, te puna tupua o Kororipo, nau mai ki te ana raiona o Te Upoko o Te Ika, me kī te whiore ki te pane o te motu, ā, ākuanei ka whakatinanahia ngā uaratanga ki roto ki te tuhinga whakaae o te tuku tōmua o Kororipo.

Me ngā tūpuna ki rō wai. Ki a mātou hoki o Te Awa Tupua mai i Pari-te-tai-tonga ki Te Matapihi, ko te kōrero “Kauaka e kōrero mō tō awa, engari kōrero ki tō awa”. Koiraka hoki te kīanga kōrero e whakamataara nei i te hinengaro whakaaro i tēnei wā. Kaua e kōrero mō Kororipo, engari kōrero atu ki Kororipo. Mā tēnā hoki e kitea ai te wānanga, e kitea ai te māramatanga hoki kei mua i te aroaro o te tangata.

Koutou ngā uri whakaheke a Ruatara me ērā o ngā tūpuna ki rō wai, nau mai, nau piki mai, nau kake mai ki tēnei wāhi, te whakarewatanga hoki i ēnei kōrero, i ēnei wānanga, i ēnei mānuka takoto. I tērā tau, ta’i noa te mō’io o te tangata nei, tō koutou taokete nei ki ngā kōrero e pā ana ki te hiahia, ki te wawata, ki te minamina o tēnā, o tēnā kia hoki te taitara o Kororipo ki roto i a koutou o Ngāti Rēhia, me te mea nei ko te matamomoe, ko te matakakā, ko te matauraura, engari ko te matakanohi o ngā tūpuna.

E kīia ana te kōrero kua roa te wā e noho ana a Te Papa Atawhai me tōna ingoa ki runga i te taitara o Kororipo, engari kāore e roa mā taku māhanga o Remuera nei, Pāora Metekōura, mātou katoa o te Whare e whakaae ana ki ēnei momo mahi, ka whakahoki i te taitara me tōna ingoa ki roto i a koutou o Ngāti Rēhia.

Taku matua a Tawa, rongo au ki ō kōrero ki te pōhiri, ki te whakatau i te rā nei, ko koutou hoki te hoiho. Nei ko koutou te hoiho, ko au te hīhō. Ehara koutou i te mātāika engari he matakanohi mō te whakarewatanga o ngā kerēme nui me ngā kerēme maha o Ngāpuhi.

Ko tāku ki a Metekōura, kia manawanui, kia manawaora ki te kawe hoki i tēnei tūāhuatanga hei tauira hoki mō ngā kerēme nui o Ngāpuhi Nui Tonu. Me kauaka e taka, e whara, e haere tōtiti, e haere kōtiti—haere tōtiti he pērā i ngā sausage rolls nei—engari kia kaua e haere kōtiti engari whāia kia tika, whāia kia mau, whāia kia ita, whāia kia ita tēnei tūāhuatanga.

Kua pūrena te kapu me te ngākau i te aroha, i te tautoko hoki i a koe, e Kipa, kourua tahi ko te whaea, Nora. Nā kōrua anō au i whakatau ki te tēneti i mua i te toa kōhatu i te taha o te ahurea me Kororipo.

Nā reira e mihi ana. Nō mātou te whiwhi, nā mātou te mihi kāmehameha ki ā koutou mahi rangatira, whakahirahira i te rā nei.

Me te mea nei te kāhui amokura, ko te kāhui amorangi kua kawe mai i te kāmeta pōhutukawa, koutou o te paepae Te Rau Kahikatea e whakapūoro nei i tō tātou Whare i tēnei wā.

Ko te Whare Pāremata te hāpai ō, ahakoa te pāti, ahakoa te kara, ahakoa te tae o tērā rōpū, o tērā rōpū, katoa mātou e tautoko ana i tēnei kaupapa.

Nā reira kāre au i te whakatōroa i ngā kōrero, kei te heke mai ngā hekena o te meneti nei, engari kāore e roa ko te kaupapa kōrero tuatahi tēnei. Ākuanei ka kawea atu ki te motu, engari kāore e kore, korekore rawa, haramai tēnei āhua. Tēnā tātou katoa.

[The rātā tree stands tall, all the seeds fall, and grow again, and the voices of greetings to those who have passed on from Nuku-te-apiapi to Nuku-te-mahara. All of those who have gone one to the threshold of memory.

Returning to us, the representative memorial of those who have been lost to humanity’s sight, those of us who fill their big shoes, and you who carry the big shoes of Eru Pou, Cynthia Te Iwingaro, and others, all of them who have gathered in the darkness.

Returning to us, they have assembled as we do and reaffirm our bonds. Those of you from the sacred hall of Ngāpuhi, those of you from Ngāti Rēhia, welcome to this House of Parliament that stands here. As the saying goes, you of the fountain of powerful and fearsome leadership of Kororipo, welcome to the lion’s den of Wellington, we could say the tail to the head of the nation, and soon the values within the deed of on-account vesting of Kororipo Pā will be implemented.

And also the mystical aquatic ancestors. To those of us from Te Awa Tupua from Pari-te-tai-tonga to Te Matapihi, the saying goes “Do not speak about your river, but instead speak to your river”. That is the saying that the erudite mind observes at this time. Do not speak about Kororipo, but instead speak to Kororipo. That will also enable the observance of the discussion and insights before us.

You, the descendants of Ruatara and other such mystical aquatic ancestors, welcome, welcome, welcome to this place, and also to the launch of these statements, these discussions, and these challenges. Last year, this guy, your brother-in-law, only knew one thing about the narratives relating to the desires, the dreams and aspirations of everyone that the title of Kororipo return to you of Ngāti Rēhia, and so the sleeping giant, the sharp eyes, the luminous eyes, but the eyes that reflect the ancestors.

As the saying goes, the Department of Conservation and its name have been on the title of Kororipo for a long time, but, before long, my twin from Remuera here—Paul Goldsmith—and all of us of the House will endorse these types of actions, to return the title and its name to you of Ngāti Rēhia.

My uncle, Tawa, I heard your comments at the formal welcome ceremony, the reception today, that you are the horse. Now, if you are the horse, I am the donkey. You are not cannon fodder, but instead a representative for the launch of the significant claims and many claims of Ngāpuhi.

What I would say to Goldsmith is to be resolute and strong of heart to continue this function as an example for the significant claims of Ngāpuhi the Great. Do not fall to infirmity nor injury, by sausage or by the wayside—by sausage like these sausage rolls—but instead to not deviate but pursue it with integrity, pursue it so it is firmly established, pursue it so that it lasts, pursue it so this endeavour endures.

My cup and heart overflow with compassion, and also with support for you, Kipa, both yourself and the matriarch, Nora. It was the two of you who received me in the tent in front of the rock shop beside the podium and Kororipo.

And so I thank you. The honour is ours, and the enormous thanks are ours for your noble and significant work today.

And also the company of executive and spiritual leadership who have brought here the pōhutukawa scarf, those of you of the Te Rau Kahikatea panel that brings music to our House at this time.

The House of Parliament are the workers behind the scenes, regardless of party, regardless of the flag, regardless of the colour of each and every party, we are all in support of this work.

And so I will not prolong the speeches, the seconds of this minute are falling, but it won’t be long, this is initial subject of discussion. Soon it will be put before the nation, but without a doubt—none at all—it will be awesome. Greetings to us all.]

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā karangatanga maha, tēnā koutou katoa.

Tēnā koutou i runga i te kaupapa whakahirahira o te ata nei, otirā ko te pānuitanga tuatahi o te Pire Whakahoki i a Kororipo Pā.

Ko Tokerau te tūtei ki te hauraro o te pūaha o Rākaumangamanga ki te rāwhiti e rere atu nei ki Te Kerei Mangōnui, te awa o ngā rangatira. E tū mai rā te pā o Kororipo.

[Thank you, Madam Speaker. To the authorities, the representatives, the many relatives, greetings to you all.

Greetings to you with regards to the significant work of the morning, indeed the first reading of the Kororipo Pā Vesting Bill.

Tokerau is the sentry to the north wind from the mouth of Rākaumangamanga in the east, Te Kerei Mangōnui is the river of the nobility. There stands Kororipo Pā.]

Kororipo Pā is not just a place; it is a taonga that has been handed down, rich with the past, the present, and the future of Ngāti Rēhia o Ngāpuhi. It is filled with mana and woven deeply into the identity with those who descend from this land. Te Pire Whakahoki i a Kororipo Pā/Kororipo Pā Vesting Bill is the product of decades of work, dialogue between Ngāti Rēhia and the Crown. It is not just symbolic; it is about taking some tangible steps to recognise the long-lasting and enduring relationship Ngāti Rēhia have with this whenua and righting a longstanding historical injustice.

The story of Kororipo Pā reflects the much broader story of Māori-Crown relations over the years, one that is difficult and filled with pain. Māori have been contesting the Crown’s title for this piece of land for more than decades. Despite numerous attempts to raise these concerns, rights have been consistently diminished through under-investment, exclusion from decision making, and a Crown process that has repeatedly failed to uphold a genuine partnership.

The Kororipo Pā Vesting Bill represents a significant milestone in the Crown’s movement to begin addressing these historical injustices. It gives legal effect to specific provisions contained in the deed of settlement on account of vesting Kororipo Pā as agreed to by the Crown and Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Rēhia Trust. Most notably, the bill vests the title of Kororipo Pā in Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Rēhia Trust and formally recognises that role as kaitiaki in law.

I want to be clear that this bill does not grant kaitiakitanga or mana whenua, for those have never been lost. What it does affirm in legislation is a responsibility that has always existed. For Ngāti Rēhia, this recognition is not only deserved; it is very much long overdue.

I rise today firmly believing that the passing of this bill is good and a necessary step for redress for Ngāpuhi. While I do not wish to draw attention away from Ngāti Rēhia or the broader aspirations of their hapū and iwi who have worked tirelessly over the years to bring us to this point in time, it is important that we state that this bill arrives amid an ongoing, strategic attack on Te Tiriti o Waitangi at the hands of this Government, one that has deeply damaged the relationship between the Crown and iwi across Aotearoa.

I’m sorry but I cannot speak today and ignore the fact that Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority, has been disestablished by this Government; the removal of section 7AA, the only Treaty-related cause, from the Oranga Tamariki Act; the introduction of the Treaty principles bill; and, most recently, changes to pay equity legislation, which we know will disproportionately affect Māori women. This Government cannot claim progress with one hand while stripping away hard-won gains with the other.

This bill is a good thing. It must not be misconstrued as evidence of a Government committing to advancing relationships to Māori. If anything, this bill stands as a testament to Ngāpuhi and the resilience, patience, and unwavering commitment of Ngāti Rēhia, who have pursued injustice through the decades of negotiation. Genuine partnership requires more than symbolic gestures. It demands listening, accountability, and real action, and to achieve this, far more work lies ahead.

Nō reira he mihi mahana ki a koutou. Nō reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, huihui mai tātou katoa.

[Therefore, I offer warm regards to you. And so greetings and thanks to you, indeed all of us gathered here.]

Thank you, Madam Speaker. E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e rau rangatira mā, tēnei te mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa.

I whānau mai au ki Kaipara. Ko Maungatūroto tōku wāhi kāinga. Ko Ngā Puke te pāmu e noho ana ahau. Ko Grant McCallum ahau. Tino hūmārie ko ahau te mema Pāremata mō Te Taitokerau.

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

[To the authorities, the representatives, the many leaders, I hereby warmly greet you all.

I was born in Kaipara. Maungatūroto is my home. Ngā Puke is the farm where I live. I am Grant McCallum. I have very humbled to be the member of Parliament for Northland].

On 3 February this year, I attended, as the Northland MP, the initialling of the deed of on-account vesting in Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Rēhia Trust and the Crown of Kororipo Pā. It was one of those balmy Northland February days—no wind, sunny, and warm. Initialling on behalf of Ngāti Rēhia were Nora Rameka and Kipa Munro. The Hon Paul Goldsmith and the Hon Tama Potaka represented the Crown.

The significance of that occasion did not escape anyone. It was the latest important step in the vesting of Kororipo Pā in Ngāti Rēhia as its kaitiaki on behalf of Ngāpuhi. This was a journey that formally began on 13 February 1993 at the hui of Ngāpuhi that was called at Whitiroa Marae to discuss Kororipo Pā. At that hui, Ngāpuhi rangatira confirmed Ngāti Rēhia to be the hapū kaitiaki of the Kerikeri area and, therefore, of Kororipo Pā.

In preparation for this significant occasion, I met with Kipa and Nora in Kerikeri last Friday to ask them about Kororipo Pā and why it was so important to Ngāpuhi. The kōrero flowed. We discussed the pā, which is located strategically to command the junction of the Wairoa and Kerikeri rivers. It controlled the major route to the sea from inland Waimate, a heartland of Ngāpuhi. The pā, though small, had an impressive defensive position sited to capitalise on a peninsula shape of land, steep embankments, and turbulent waters, hence the name Kororipo, which means swirling waters.

Kororipo was the meeting place for all Ngāpuhi rangatira. They would meet to discuss important political issues and would assemble before going to war. Some of the greatest Ngāpuhi chiefs have used Kororipo Pā as their stronghold. Hongi Hika launched devastating raids against other tribes in the North Island after returning from Britain with muskets. Then there was Rewa, who was one of the most powerful rangatira, who succeeded Hongi Hika, and there were tales of Tāreha, a powerful rangatira of Ngāti Rēhia, large in both mana and size, often referred to as “Tāreha the Giant”—he was almost 7 foot tall.

It is a place where ocean meets the fresh water; where Māori meet Pākehā. Symbols of their meetings still exist today, with the Kororipo Pā overlooking the oldest house in New Zealand, Kemp House, and the oldest stone building in New Zealand, the Stone Store. In many ways, this significant day is more than just the vesting of Kororipo Pā in its kaitiaki, Ngāti Rēhia; it is also a reminder of the meeting of two peoples who have built so much together—two peoples who will continue to work together, because that is what Te Tai Tokerau and New Zealand need us all to do.

When I was discussing this significant day with Kipa, he said, “Grant, if I tug my ear, then you’re entering into challenging waters and you would be advised to desist.” I don’t think I’ve observed any ear tugging, Kipa. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare, otirā tēnā koutou e ōku whanaunga o Ngāti Rēhia, o ngā hapū o Ngāpuhi kei roto i te Whare Pāremata, tō tātou Whare, i tēnei rā. He rawe te kite i a koutou, he rawe kua tae mai tēnei rā. E mōhio ana ahau, kua roa, kua tino roa ngā hapū o Ngāpuhi, te hapū o Ngāti Rēhia, e whawhai ana mō te pā o Kororipo me ētahi atu o ngā take Tiriti.

Nō reira he rā nui tēnei. Ehara nō Ngāti Rēhia anake, engari mō ngā hapū o Ngāpuhi katoa. Nō reira he tino hōnore mōku te tū i tēnei rā i roto i tēnei Whare ki te tautoko i tēnei pire i runga anō i tō koutou whawhai, tō koutou mahi kaha kia tae ki tēnei rā.

Ka hoki aku mahara ki te tau 2019. Ko tētahi o ngā kaupapa i runga i Kororipo Pā i taua rā ko te whakanui i te kaupapa o Tūhono. Ko tērā kaupapa ko te tū hono a ngā iwi e rua, ngā iwi maha i roto i te Kerikeri kia tū kotahi, e honohono ana ngā iwi o tērā wāhi.

He kaupapa rangatira tērā. I hoatu tērā ingoa, o Tūhono, ki te kaupapa, nā Ngāti Rēhia i hoatu tērā ingoa.

Nō reira e te whaea, Whaea Nora, e te matua, Matua Kipa, i hoki ahau ki ngā pikitia o taua rā me te harikoa anō hoki. I taua rā i tū ahau ki te kōrero ohorere, and i kōrero ahau e pā ana ki tētahi kaupapa nui i runga i Kororipo Pā i ngā wā o mua. Kia mōhio tēnei Whare, kia mōhio hoki a Aotearoa whānui i tēnei kōrero: I te tau 1831 i hainatia tētahi reta ki te kīngi, ki a Kīngi Hōri. Nā, i huihui ngā rangatira o Ngāpuhi, i tuhi rātou i tētahi reta, i tonoa atu ki te kīngi. He aha te take? He aha ngā kaupapa i roto i taua reta? Well ko te ture kino, ko te tūkino a ngā Pākehā.

Nō reira i tuhi rātou ki te kīngi kia whakatikatika ōna ake tāngata i roto i te Kerikeri. Tērā pea ko tētahi atu take ko ngā tāngata Wīwī i hiahia ki te haere mai ki te whawhai ki a Aotearoa, ki a Ngāpuhi anō hoki. Nō reira i inoi atu rātou ki te kīngi māna e manaaki, e tiaki kia noho i runga i te rongo, me kī. Koirā te hiahia o ngā rangatira i taua wā.

Nō reira he reta tino nui tērā, and i hainatia i te pā o Kororipo i mua i te hainatanga o te Whakaputanga, i mua i te hainatanga o te Tiriti o Waitangi. Nō reira kia ako, kia mōhio a Aotearoa whānui ki tēnei hītori e pā ana ki tērā o ngā pā.

Nō reira, taku mihi whakamutunga anō ki te hapū o Ngāti Rēhia, me te tautoko a ngā hapū o Ngāpuhi, kia tae mai tēnei pire ki roto i te Whare i tēnei rā. E tautoko ana mātou, te rōpu Reipa, i tēnei pire. E mōhio ana ahau ka tonoa atu Komiti Whiriwhiri Take Māori, mā rātou e noho ki te whakarongo ki ngā tono e pā ana ki tēnei pire, and ko te hiahia ā tērā tau, pea, ka kite kua tutuki.

Nō reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora tātou katoa.

[Thank you, Madam Speaker, indeed greetings to all of my relatives of Ngāti Rēhia, of the hapū of Ngāpuhi within Parliament House, our House, today. It is great to see you; it is great that you have come here today. I am aware that the hapū of Ngāpuhi, the hapū of Ngāti Rēhia, have been fighting for a long time now for the fortress of Kororipo and various other Treaty issues.

And so this is a significant day. Not only for Ngāti Rēhia but also for the hapū of all of Ngāpuhi. It is a real honour for me to stand today in this House to support this bill in light of your struggle, and your powerful work to make it to this day.

My thoughts return to the year 2019. One of the events at Kororipo Pā that day was the celebration of the Tūhono initiative. That initiative was about two iwi, many iwi within Kerikeri standing together as one, the iwi of that place all connecting. That is a noble endeavour. That name, Tūhono, was given to the project, it was Ngāti Rēhia that gave that name.

And so, madam, Whaea Nora, and sir, Matua Kipa, I went back to the images of that day and I was very pleased. That day, I was surprised to stand and speak, and I spoke about one of the important events that happened at Kororipo Pā in former times. Let this House be aware, let wider Aotearoa be aware of this narrative: in 1831, a letter to the king, to King George was signed. Now, leaders of Ngāpuhi assembled and composed a letter which was sent to the king. For what purpose? What were the topics discussed in that letter. Well, it was abysmal legislation, and the abuse of the Pākehā.

And so they wrote to the king so that he may straighten out his own people in Kerikeri. Perhaps another topic was the French people who wished to come and fight against Aotearoa, against Ngāpuhi also. They requested that the King offer care and protection so that they may live in peace, I should say. That was the desire of the leadership of the time.

And so, my final acknowledgment is to the hapū of Ngāti Rēhia, with the support of the hapū of Ngāpuhi, that this bill came into the House today. We, the Labour Party, support this bill. We are aware that it will be sent to the Māori Affairs Committee, who will sit and hear the submissions regarding this bill, and the desire is that next year, perhaps, we will see it come to fruition.

And so greetings and thanks to us all.]

Ki ngā tāngata o Ngāpuhi, Ngāpuhi whānau nui, me Ngāti Rēhia, nau mai, haramai ki tō tātou Whare. Nō reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[To the people of Ngāpuhi, the great whānau of Ngāpuhi, and Ngāti Rēhia, welcome, welcome to our House. And so greetings and thanks to you, to all of us.]

I take this last call this morning in support of the Kororipo Pā Vesting Bill, a bill that marks a step forward in our journey towards honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi and restoring mana to the people of Ngāti Rēhia and the wider Ngāpuhi iwi. Kororipo Pā is not just a place; it is a taonga. It’s a site of immense cultural, historical, and spiritual significance. It was once a strategic stronghold, a centre of leadership, and a place where Ngāpuhi rangatira gathered to deliberate and define their future. It is woven into the whakapapa of the North.

This bill gives legal effect to the deed of on-account vesting signed between the Crown and Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Rēhia Trust. It transfers the fee simple estate of Kororipo Pā to the trust and, in doing so, it affirms the right of Ngāti Rēhia to be the kaitiaki of their whenua, and to guide their future in accordance with tikanga Māori.

To be clear, this is not the end of the journey; it is an on-account redress and perhaps the first step towards a comprehensive Treaty settlement with Ngāpuhi. But it is a meaningful step, one that acknowledges past wrongs and begins to restore the relationship between the Crown and tangata whenua. Importantly, the bill ensures that Kororipo Pā will continue to be protected. It will be a place where its shared history can be learnt, honoured, and reflected upon—and an interesting history it has, indeed.

Back in the day, it was closely associated with conflict, particularly in the early 19th century, but before that, Kororipo Pā was originally occupied by other hapū. In the 1770s, these hapū were displaced by Ngāpuhi, and particularly Ngai Tawake and Ngāti Rēhia, as part of the shifting tribal alliances and expansion. It became a strategic military base for Hongi Hika, as we’ve heard, particularly after his return from England in 1821, where he had acquired hundreds of muskets on his return journey via Sydney. Hongi Hika launched tauā, or war parties, that devastated tribes across the North Island, including in Hauraki, Waikato, Rotorua, Tauranga, East Cape, and Kaipara.

These campaigns were part of the Musket Wars, a period of intense intertribal warfare, fuelled by the introduction of firearms. Kororipo Pā was fortified with palisades, trenches, and natural defences like steep embankments and waterways. It served as a meeting place for Ngāpuhi rangatira, a site of strategic planning, and a launching point for military expeditions. Kororipo Pā was not only a site of military conflict and strategic planning but also a symbol of Ngāpuhi power and their unity during a transformative period of Māori history.

The ownership dispute over the whenua in question began back in 1838, when missionary James Kemp is said to have purchased it and its surrounding land. This transaction was later ratified by the Crown. However, by the 1930s, local Māori began to question the legitimacy of Kemp’s title. Concerns were raised about whether the land had indeed been properly acquired and whether Māori had truly consented to its alienation. Together, through a combination of historical land transfers, public giftings, and the designation as a historic reserve, Kororipo Pā is currently administered by the Department of Conservation.

This bill is about recognition, it is about restoration, it is about respect, it is about giving effect to the promises made under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and it is about ensuring that the stories of Kororipo Pā—its people, its battles, and its legacy—are told not just in history books but by those who carry its whakapapa. I’m very happy to commend this bill to the House.

The question is, That the Te Pire Whakahoki i a Kororipo Pā/Kororipo Pā Vesting Bill be considered by the Māori Affairs Committee.

Bill referred to the Māori Affairs Committee.

I move, That the Te Pire Whakahoki i a Kororipo Pā/Kororipo Pā Vesting Bill be reported to the House by 11 November 2025 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

I stand to speak to the motion put forward by the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations in terms of the shortened time frame for reporting back on 11 November. I want to engage with the Minister and understand the process to be undertaken here, as it is very short. May I address my people of the North, of Ngāti Rēhia, of Ngāi Tawake and Whangaroa—the whakapapa that sit here today.

I ask the question around the fast track of this—it is very fast. Within the whakapapa and the obligations that we have to each other, I am mindful of the many voices and the ability for us to kia horo te āta haere—may we move forward swiftly, but with careful hands. As honourable kāwanatanga, I support, absolutely, the return of Kororipo to Ngāti Rēhia as the entity that was organised and collaborated and led the work through the claims process, as well as out whakapapa in Te Kaikohe, Ngāi Tawake, and Whangaroa who brought forward the voices of our tūpuna.

But, Minister, I ask: what does that look like in terms of the shortened process? I welcome the ability for us to cut the ribbon and have a hāngī before Waitangi, but that is very fast. I’m wanting to understand, knowing that we all support this bill in the House, what does that look like? I will participate in the Māori Affairs Committee. It would be great for us to take the House to Kororipo to feel the wairua, to see the land, to meet the people, and experience those things which weigh heavy on our hearts. Can we do that in a truncated time frame like this? Kia ora.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. I rise to support the motion put forward here by the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations. In deliberations and discussions with not just the Minister but officials and, more importantly, the people who are in the gallery, and others, we support the motion for the truncated process, acknowledging, though, that it is up to the Māori Affairs Committee on where and when they choose to hold their select committee hearings. But I think that it is a good suggestion that, obviously, if there’s an opportunity to descend upon Kororipo Pā and the place at which they will be discussing and hearing those submissions, I’d fully support that, but, of course, I acknowledge that that is a decision for the committee to make when that time comes.

When these matters are negotiated, and negotiated carefully, are, and—as was mentioned at the pōwhiri this morning about the length of time it’s taken to get here—that was the reason why, on behalf of the Labour Party, I met with the Minister and looked to support this motion. It was not only because of the desire of the people to get this done but also because we know that for a large part of the bills of this nature, it is often the processes of the House that cause delay and cause other challenges for those who it impacts most.

I appreciate the comments made by my tuahine Hūhana Lyndon of the Green Party, and I do think that there are parts there that the Minister might want to consider. But I continue to stand in support of the discussions that the Minister and I had with regard to this matter, and support the motion.

The Hon Paul Goldsmith—oh, sorry. No, I’m sorry; I’ve just been advised that because there’s a motion on the Table, a member can speak only once. So, at that point, the question is that the motion be agreed to.

on behalf of the Minister of Health: I move, That, pursuant to section 4A of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, this House approve the Misuse of Drugs (Classification and Presumption of Supply) Order 2025 made under section 4 of that Act.

The Misuse of Drugs Act addresses the prevention of illicit possession, production, and import of drugs. The changes resulting from this order will impose stricter controls on 23 substances, increase the ability of Police and Customs to take preventative action, and allow harsher penalties for those caught making or supplying these drugs.

The planned changes have been approved by Cabinet, drafted as an Order in Council, tabled in Parliament, and considered by the Health Committee. On behalf of the Minister, I note the Health Committee has examined the Misuse of Drugs (Classification and Presumption of Supply) Order 2025 and recommends that it be approved.

The order will reclassify certain controlled drugs to higher-risk classes and introduce a classification for previously uncontrolled drugs. The amendments proposed in this order follow the recommendations of the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs established under the Act. The expert advisory committee is made up of experts who specialise in areas such as pharmacology, toxicology, psychology, public health, and border control. On behalf of the Minister, I’d like to use this opportunity to thank expert advisory committee members for their hard work and expertise. I also thank members of the Health Committee for their diligence around this important issue.

Peddlers of illicit drugs are a scourge on society and cause devastating harm to families and communities across the country. Increasing penalties supports law enforcement agencies to crack down on them to maintain law and order. The substances at the heart of this order are harmful, and it is time to act. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid considered to be far more potent than heroin and many times stronger than morphine, and analogues can often be even stronger still. Currently, some manufactured alterations of fentanyl are classified as class B and C controlled drugs. Their higher potency also makes them attractive to traffickers and users. While New Zealand has relatively low use of illicit opioids, their availability can cause significant public harm. The order seeks to reclassify three of these fentanyl-related substances as class A controlled drugs. The order will result in increased controls on a number of other substances, including synthetic cathinones, synthetic cannabinoids, amphetamine precursors, and novel benzodiazepines.

Peddlers of illicit drugs cause significant harm in our communities and inflict misery on our streets. We know how important it is to reduce drug-related harm, and ensuring there are stronger controls in place for these harmful substances is a step towards this goal. Providing Police and Customs with the search and seizure powers they need to disrupt the supply of harmful substances is an important part of a health response to reduce drug-related harm.

There has been an increase in the prevalence and misuse of most of these substances in New Zealand; none has any therapeutic use here. New Zealand is party to drug-related United Nations conventions. Classifying these substances will help us meet our international obligations. Māori and Pacific people are known to have higher rates of recreational drug use and are at a higher risk of drug-related harm. By imposing controls on these substances, access is restricted, reducing drug-related harm to these most vulnerable populations. The changes resulting from this order will ensure authorities have more tools in their tool belt to crack down on these harmful substances. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Labour supports this notice of motion because what we are doing today, really, is quite a procedural matter, yet it is an important matter to make sure that we are stifling, if you like, the supply of these harmful substances, which we know can do so much damage in our community.

It’s important that this is brought to the House today because of the fundamentals around access to justice and presumption of innocence. What this, effectively, does is change the assumptions around how much somebody is holding of these illicit substances in a strict liability way, which means it reverses a burden of proof, and that’s why it’s really important that this comes before the House and is not simply rubber-stamped. But, equally, it is also important that the law is nimble enough to be able to respond really quickly to the tweaks to the substances that the Minister has just referred to.

I’m particularly concerned about fentanyl. Anyone who has seen any documentaries about the damage that has done in the United States, and the tragic consequences for families, would agree that any type of fentanyl-type tweaked illicit substance should certainly be in the class A categorisation. That does mirror the views of the expert panel, and, therefore, there was no hesitation from the Health Committee to support that recommendation.

I do note that, recently, the Environmental Science and Research Ltd has reported that New Zealand is dealing with about 120 new synthetic drugs, and that the UN has reported around one new drug coming into existence per week between the years of 2009 and 2016. We are seeing the involvement of the dark web and technology as a way of proliferating these substances very quickly through societies, and we need our legal response to be equally as nimble, to counteract that.

I would just make a couple of cautionary comments, I guess. One of them is that it’s great to see we have an expert advisory committee truly made up of the experts. I think we need, as parliamentarians, to ensure that when we are enacting committees like this to be formed that we give due respect to their expertise and we do not allow those committees to become politicised. It is something that Labour is watching vigilantly, particularly in the health space. Secondly, I think it’s really important that we not only look at the issue of substance abuse from the supply side but, equally, the demand side and have the wrap-around support services available.

There are bigger questions, I think, around some of the provisions of the Misuse of Drugs Act, which will be for a much longer, probably cross-party discussion at some point, to see what we can do to keep people as safe as possible and reduce the harms around drugs. The law as it currently stands, debatably, does that in some respects and doesn’t in other respects. But when it comes to an Order in Council like this one, which is really procedural—it is simply adding to the list of substances and also reclassifying substances appropriately so that it sends the right message to those who would be peddling them; that it has the right penalties involved for those who are enabling them to cause a lot of harm in society. We have no hesitation in supporting that.

We’re really pleased that it’s gone through the select committee process as well. The right checks and balances have been there so that when we are looking at something like changing offences and assumptions in a strict liability way, we are very satisfied that has been done. We are also heartened by the involvement of an advisory committee that is truly made up of the experts. Therefore, we do commend this to the House.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I just want to preface this by noting that the Greens will not be supporting this today, and I would like to step through the logic for that.

As we heard from the Minister of State for Trade and Investment just before, about—I believe she was alluding to the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs. I was actually there, in 2019, in Vienna, having a really fascinating experience where we had world leader after world leader—the equivalent of the Minister of Health, overseas—get up at the podium and say, “We have more drugs, more harm from those drugs, more families torn apart, more people who are locked up in prisons. We have to keep doing more of what we’ve always done but do it harder.” Mr Speaker, I don’t know about you, but the way that I was raised taught me that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.

I just want to pick up on, particularly, the points that both the Minister and the Labour spokesperson Ingrid Leary just alluded to with regards to the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs. The expert advisory committee was an amendment made to the Misuse of Drugs Act to allow for the classification to be recommended by the expert advisory committee in, I believe, the early 2000s. The really important thing to understand about the way that the expert advisory committee operates—and their mandate—is that they can only recommend where a substance should be classified in relation to where other substances are currently classified within the Misuse of Drugs Act. In layman’s terms, that basically means that all the expert advisory committee can look at is the harm of substances that are currently classified and recommend the classification relative to those other classified substances. That is, the expert advisory committee is not empowered to make recommendations with regard to other health-based, evidence-based interventions to actually reduce drug harm. It is therefore self-referential.

This is underscored by successive reports that successive Governments have commissioned and then ignored because it is politically inconvenient, stretching all the way back to the Law Commission’s review back in 2011, which said that we need to bin the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 and create a health-based framework to actually reduce drug harm and target the causes not the symptoms. Then, of course, the former Government commissioned He Ara Oranga, which was the mental health and addiction inquiry, which said—wait for it—exactly the same thing. Then Turuki! Turuki!, the Safe and Effective Justice review, chaired by the late great Chester Borrows, who was, of course, a former policeman, a former National Party Minister of Police, who came around to the view, based on all of his experiences including with the failure of placing these issues within the framework of the criminal justice system. He recommended, again, that we need a health-based intervention.

We cannot in good conscience support this today, noting, as well, the inconsistencies that operate within the Misuse of Drugs Act. Again, just for those who may be following along at home, in the Misuse of Drugs Act, there are two levers by which you can introduce a substance for classification or for upwards classification and that you are then required to, inconsistently—with regard to down-classifying a substance or declassifying a substance. If you want to create new penalties associated to a substance, all you need is an Order in Council motion akin to what we have in the House today. That is something that can pass through this House in the blink of an eye without the requisite scrutiny. I know, of course, there’s a few more belts and braces with this specific instance here, but none the less, there are not the same democratic safeguards when it comes to introducing new massive penalties.

Here, we’re talking about reversing the burden of proof where somebody has to, effectively, prove their innocence as opposed to the Crown proving their guilt. That is a massive erosion of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act or the rights of New Zealanders. If you are instead to, for example, take a health-based intervention or an evidence-based intervention to try and declassify or down-classify a substance that is known to have, for example, proven therapeutic benefits the likes of, I don’t know, psilocybin or other trials that are currently existing out there in our communities undertaken by healthcare professionals, you need a whole Amendment Paper, which, as we know, takes months and months and months and comes up against massive political barriers.

I think it’s really important that we’re honest with ourselves in this House about how legislation like this, when empowered to push things through as quickly as is occurring here, actually creates perverse outcomes. All of this is to say that drugs, of course, can and do cause massive harm in our communities. The question for us as lawmakers—and, hopefully, as responsible lawmakers—should be: what should the public policy response that we want to actually meaningfully reduce that harm be? The evidence is clear: approaches like this only compound that harm and we can do so much better.

Just for the awareness of the House, the Business Committee has determined that each party is able to take a call, or not. If the parties are all done, I’ll move on.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Sorry, I thought we were up at number six, but our call. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. If only this Misuse of Drugs (Classification and Presumption of Supply) Order 2025 was as helpful as it suggests. I say that based on having worked in this sector, so I understand the harm. When you hear me, I’m not saying this stuff because I’m making it up; I say it because I’ve worked amongst it.

We do not—Te Pāti Māori, kore e whakaae ki tēnei whakaaro [do not agree with this idea]. We do not, and I’m just going to express why.

As many of us know, the Misuse of Drugs Act can be amended not just through legislation but also through Orders in Council. What this means in practice is that the Government does not need to introduce a bill and go through the usual parliamentary processes to update the Act; instead, with Cabinet’s approval, changes can be made quickly under the advice of the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs.

E te whānau, mēnā e mātakitaki mai ana, e rongo ana ki wāku kōrero, me āta whakatata mai.

[To the family, should they be watching and hearing my statements, come closer.]

To our whānau watching at home today, that is what is happening right now, in this moment. We, Te Pāti Māori, oppose the recommended amendments. The amendments will update the Act from Schedules 1 through to 5 by adding a number of new substances. Actually, I’m going to skip that bit, because it gets a little bit boring and technical, in my view.

Without context, these changes seem positive, and I imagine are well informed by the advisory group. Yet we oppose it, and we oppose it on—well, two things: we oppose it on principle, but we oppose it also on the fact that I know what the stakes are in this space. We oppose the amendments because drug use and the misuse of these substances is a health issue. Just to tautoko the previous speaker’s whakaaro: it’s a health issue, not a criminal one.

Te Pāti Māori justice policy states that we will overhaul the Misuse of Drugs Act so that drug use is treated as a health issue. A report back in 2022 laid it out in black and white: the Government’s current approach to drugs is leading to grossly inequitable outcomes for Māori. OK—leading to grossly inequitable outcomes for Māori. These are outcomes that are not just statistics but lived realities.

Here’s some numbers. Māori make up just 20 percent of the population, but account for nearly half of all convictions for drug possession—that’s 48 percent. Even more concerning, Māori make up over 61 percent of those sentenced to prison for these offences. This is a systemic failure, and it is not a new one.

Criminalising addiction does not reduce harm. Tātou mā, me āta whakarongo ki tēnei.

[Everyone, you should listen carefully to this.]

It does not reduce harm and if you think it does, you know nothing and you do not understand the reality of these things, as much as you might want to or you think your intentions are good. What it does do is make it harder for people—and Māori people, in particular—to access the services they need for help, support, and treatment. Criminalising what is, essentially, addiction incites intergenerational harm.

What are we actually trying to achieve with these amendments right now? We’re only further embedding the mass criminalisation of what is absolutely a health issue. Governments must build a system that acknowledges and treats what we’re discussing today as health and a social issue, not a crime.

Te Pāti Māori, we’ve got some great ideas; we’ve got some great policy. Our justice policy will do that. We really need to address this particular issue in a much more proactive but much more real-life understanding way, and I’m offering that, I guess. But Te Pāti Māori will not support this. We’d like to, but the intentions are off-track—or possibly on the fast track, which, of course, is off-track. But they failed to understand the lived reality for people—and particularly for Māori people—so we cannot support or commend.

I call on Government order of the day No. 1.

Madam Speaker.

Just one moment. Is this for the Chair or the committee? I’m about to declare the House in committee. I declare the House in committee for further consideration of the Appropriation (2025/26 Estimates) Bill.

I appreciate the early morning enthusiasm of the member, but we’ve just got to do a few other things before we can kick into it.

Members, the House is in committee for further consideration of the Appropriation (2025/26 Estimates) Bill. All Votes are available for debate, but only the Minister of Climate Change will be available today to speak to his portfolio.

The debate will be led by a call from the chairperson or member of the committee that considered the Estimates most closely related to the Minister’s portfolio. In leading off the debate, the chairperson should take care not to be overly political and should ensure that their call gives a fair reflection of the committee’s report on the Votes relevant to the portfolio.

At the end of the debate, questions will be put that the Votes stand part of the Schedules and on the provisions of the Appropriation (2025/26 Estimates) Bill. There is one hour and 41 minutes remaining in this debate. New Zealand National has 21 minutes remaining, New Zealand Labour has 32 minutes remaining, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand has 15 minutes remaining, ACT New Zealand has 15 minutes remaining, New Zealand First has 35 minutes remaining, and Te Pāti Māori has 20 minutes remaining.

The Estimates debate should be relevant to the Government’s current spending plans as contained in the Estimates of Appropriations. The question again is that the Votes contained in the Estimates of Appropriations for 2025-26 stand part of the Schedules. Members, the Minister of Climate Change is available to speak to that portfolio until the time for the debate has expired.

Yes, always very excited to talk about our Environment Committee work in relation to climate change. On the select committee, we looked at the funding for climate change. The funding related to climate change totals $2.316 billion, and this includes $2.046 billion for the allocation of New Zealand emissions units to the economy; $153 million for administering the emissions trading scheme; $46 million for policy advice, reporting, operations, and stewardship relating to climate change; over $15 million of funding for the Climate Change Commission; over $10 million to support equitable transitions and community climate action for Māori; and over $3 million to fund the Climate Change Chief Executives Board.

Look, during the select committee process, we looked at the second emissions reduction plan. This was released in December 2024 and it spans the period 2026-2030, and it includes targeted actions in key sectors, including agriculture, transport, energy and waste, which were all discussed. We were told that work had begun on 30 of the 36 total actions, and we heard that New Zealand is currently tracking towards meeting its first and second emissions budgets.

We also discussed reducing methane emissions. We heard about some very good innovations and technologies being developed to reduce emissions from livestock—for example, the New Zealand company Ruminant BioTech, which has developed bolus that releases a substance which counteracts the formation of methane. This was a very interesting discussion. We also spoke about waste management, carbon capture, utilisation, and storage.

So my question to the Minister of Climate Change is: what is the Government’s overarching plans to reduce our emissions and meet our climate change targets?

Thank you very much, Mr Chair, and thank you to the chair of the Environment Committee for those opening remarks. I acknowledge all members of that committee. I’m going to provide an overview in the five minutes that I have, and then I’m happy to take questions.

First and foremost, it is important to acknowledge and recognise that this Government is committed to meeting our climate change targets while driving economic growth. We believe that growing our economy, reducing our emissions, and building our resilience all go hand in hand, and when we act for climate and growth, we strengthen New Zealand’s position as a resilient and competitive nation in a low-emissions global economy.

The Government, last year, released our climate change strategy, which is an important document—a plan that sets the direction for cutting emissions and preparing for the impacts of climate change. Our focus ahead is putting that strategy into action. We are working on developing an enduring national adaptation framework, world-leading innovation to boost the economy, clean energy that is abundant and affordable, and credible markets in order to support the broader transition. The framework that we are looking to implement more broadly in adaptation acknowledges that we need to manage and understand the risks from natural hazards, including those that might change because of climate change.

We’re focusing on four key areas. The first of these, and most pressing, is information about the risks; access to information helps people make more informed decisions about where they build, live, buy, or invest. New Zealand’s current system for knowing about risks and deciding about what to do about them has developed over time, but this means that information can be hard to find or understand, so it’s hard for people to know how to prepare. There is some information out there—for example, people can look up their home on the Natural Hazards Portal or look at their local council’s flood maps—but we’ve heard from councils, banks, insurers, researchers, and individual homeowners that better information is needed.

This work underpins the framework and other reforms under way across Government. Our Government is continuing work on regulations to clarify council requirements when sharing natural hazard information in a land information memorandum, introducing changes this year. We’re also looking to improve access to priority data sets, such as updating the system that estimates the magnitude and frequency of high-intensity rainfall in New Zealand. This is used for assessing the impacts on flooding and, also, landslips. There will never be perfect information, but continuing to improve is essential for good decision-making.

Other areas of the framework that are being considered over the long term are: providing more clarity on roles and responsibilities, including the role of local government; providing options to guide investments in resilience so that people know what investment will happen in their area—for example, whether the council plans to build new flood protection schemes, and, also, importantly, the issue of cost sharing. We want the framework to be enduring so that people can have confidence in New Zealand’s approach and invest in our country, and we’re also working to build on the cross-party work of last year’s Finance and Expenditure Committee inquiry into climate adaptation. We’re also considering the recommendations of the independent reference group on adaptation.

We intend to introduce legislation to get the first building blocks of this system in place as soon as possible. The framework will complement other work to build on resilience that my colleagues are leading—for example, changes to our resource management system that support more broader councils to manage risks and natural hazards in new development and reforms to the science, information, technology, and emergency management systems.

An example of other areas of supporting resilience is our Māori Climate Platform. The establishment of the platform was a key action in the emissions reduction plan and part of our national adaptation plan. I have announced five initial projects; these projects are enabling Māori communities to lead climate resilience initiatives. One solar farm in Te Karaka, in the Tairāwhiti area, will power up to 200 homes and essential services, including a school, police base, fire service, healthcare centre, petrol station, and general store. This will keep critical services running during extreme weather events and provide long-term economic benefits to that community. The second stage of the Māori Climate Platform funding will be rolled out in the coming months.

In addition, the ministry’s joint work programme Pou Take Āhuarangi will deliver a marae risk and readiness stocktake; we have already undertaken that stocktake of over 1,000 marae in New Zealand, and, of those 1,000 marae that have been part of that stocktake, 145 of those marae had undertaken climate risk assessments, and this is a positive aspect.

In regard to the second emissions reduction plan, ERP2, I will now turn to emissions reductions. Our second emissions reduction plan is a blueprint for reducing emissions in the second half of this decade. The plan includes a market-led approach, harnessing the New Zealand emissions trading scheme to lower emissions, supported by targeted actions to key sectors to take efficient and effective action. We’ve begun working on a majority of actions within this plan, and, through these actions, we’ll increase New Zealand’s clean energy, also encourage world-leading innovation, and ensure that we have an efficient and competitive agricultural sector to boost sustainable investment.

One of the policies that is harnessing nature to remove emissions is through the afforestation of Crown land. The Government is actively exploring partnerships with the private sector to plant trees on Crown-owned land that is of low conservation value and low farming value. A request for information process has been run, and I hope to make decisions by the end of this year. We’ve also continued to progress the carbon removals framework; this will help ensure that we prioritise investment in effective, scientifically robust removal activities. We are currently tracking towards meeting our first and second emissions budgets and will continue to monitor progress closely. We will adapt, if needed, to ensure that we remain on track.

The New Zealand emissions trading scheme is our key tool for reducing emissions. Stable policy and adequate incentives will encourage businesses to invest in decarbonisation. Over the last month, we released the Government’s annual update to the New Zealand emissions trading scheme settings to ensure that the scheme can continue to play its role to help meet our targets. The feedback during the public consultation was very clear that these settings would better support the scheme to meet emissions reduction targets, providing confidence and certainty to that market.

Earlier this year, we also announced that we were strengthening the market governance of the emissions trading scheme. Again, in June, the Government introduced changes to limit whole-farm conversions to forestry, and these changes come into effect on 31 October. Both these new policy measures will support confidence in the credibility of the emissions trading scheme in the market. This Government will continue to work to meet our climate change targets, remove barriers, and also, importantly, open up new opportunities for our people, environment, and economy to thrive. With that, I will welcome questions.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. With that amount of talking from the Minister of Climate Change just now, I really hope that he is open to answering questions fulsomely. It was really interesting to hear him run through the number of initiatives that the Government has undertaken, because this debate obviously is about the Estimates, but this has a deep interrelationship with the emissions reduction plan (ERP) No. 2, in particular. So I think it is really worthwhile unpacking the component parts of that ERP and how, while I wish we could believe the comments that the Minister has made, unfortunately, they do not match with reality and the actions that the Government has decided to take.

If you look at the emissions reduction plan outlined by the Minister and that pamphlet that he was just waving around, it’s not worth the paper that it is written on. That is why the Government is currently being sued over it. Fully a third of that emissions reduction plan relies on carbon capture technology, which the Minister has said the Government will not be investing in and which the private owners, Todd Energy, have said is not economically feasible for them to invest in that technology, especially with the emissions trading scheme (ETS) settings as they are at the moment.

Notably, we’re coming today off the back of yet another failure of an ETS auction under this Minister and under this Government, to which I cheekily asked him in scrutiny week, I believe last year, about whether the most effective climate policy that we are seeing from this Government is their inability to provide that certainty for the market so that those units ultimately end up getting cancelled and those permissions to pollute end up being cancelled. That is to say that fully a third of that emissions reduction plan from this Government is economically unfeasible and not going to happen without investment, which the Minister has said the Government is not going to do. So that’s a third of the emissions reduction plan from this Government, which is simply not going to happen.

Then another third, the Waste Minimisation Fund, and another almost third is the reduction required from organics. Well, if we just take a second to dig below the surface on that, we know, based on all of the official estimates, that we need approximately $30 million allocated just as a baseline to organics to meet that 0.8 megatonne reduction. How on earth are we simultaneously, out of that same pot of money, going to get those reductions in waste minimisation? The Government seems to be double counting here. This is a question that I’d really like an answer to from the Minister, because at this point, 2.8 megatonnes of the 3.3 megatonnes in the second emissions budget (EB2) are economically unfeasible and the Government is refusing to invest in them, saying that they want market-led solutions. Not only does it not add up but it is a slap in the face to New Zealanders.

On top of that, the other 0.5 percent of megatonnes that are required through the EB2 that the Minister has been waving around, through ETS changes—and, again, I’d allude to the fact that we’re seeing the failure of those auctions time and again as a result of the lack of certainty in the stockpiling that we’ve seen from the commercial sector through agricultural emissions reduction.

Just on agricultural emissions reduction, I found it quite galling for the Minister to get up and talk about the investment that this Government is making in agricultural emissions reduction. Well, it turns out that the Minister announced a fund of approximately $400 million to “accelerate commercialisation of tools and technology to reduce on-farm emissions.” Well, guess what, guys! He reannounced the fund that already existed under the last Government and simultaneously managed to cut $48 million from it while reannouncing it.

What on earth is going on? You think you’re pulling the wool over New Zealanders’ eyes, because you’re also creating this cost of living crisis and simultaneously pouring oil, coal, and gas on the climate crisis, which will only compound that cost of living crisis.

My question for the Minister fundamentally is: will the Minister of Climate Change please stand up? Because out of the one side of your mouth, Minister, with your climate change hat on, you are going offshore and you are telling people that we are still holding to the same international negotiating positions that we did under the former Government; that is, the phase out of fossil fuels and fossil fuel subsidies. Yet out the other side of your mouth, here at home with your energy hat on, you are signing out $200 million in fossil fuel subsidies. How do you reconcile these things? You, for one, Minister, are frequently saying, as are many other Ministers of this Government and Cabinet—and, in fact, many members of this Parliament always talk about how we don’t want siloed thinking.

Minister, given all that I have outlined about how your emissions budget does not stack up, given what has been said about its economic feasibility by those private actors that you’ve said that you want to partner with, how are you going to make this happen?

Minister, thank you for your very broad-ranging opening speech, which I think gives a lot of scope to discuss climate change. In the Estimates debate earlier this year, your words were: “It is important to acknowledge that New Zealand is part of a Paris Agreement.”, and you acknowledged several times that, in actual fact, we were committed to the Paris Agreement, but, in recent days, both New Zealand First and ACT have expressed scepticism about the Paris Agreement. Minister, can you confirm that this Government is committed to meeting the Paris Agreement? I’m going to repeat your words from your opening speech: “The Government is committed to climate change targets.” In very simple language, please, Minister: is the Government committed to meeting the Paris Agreement?

Just before we take more calls, please make the comments through the Chair; so not directly to the Minister. I appreciate the passion in the Chamber.

I will repeat the question, Mr Chair. It’s a very straightforward question that shouldn’t take any thinking on the part of the Minister of Climate Change. The Minister said, in his opening speech, that the Government is committed to its climate change targets, yet in recent days, both New Zealand First and the ACT Party have expressed scepticism about the Paris Agreement and talked about withdrawing from it. Can the Minister, please, confirm that this Government is committed to meeting the Paris Agreement?

Unfortunately, it appears as though exactly what our concern was, which was that the Minister of Climate Change would open by reading off two sheets of paper, soaking up about 10 minutes of time, so that he could then sit himself down and not engage meaningfully whatsoever with the detail that we are asking him to share for the New Zealand public—because he has a responsibility to, because we have started to unpack the very nature of the document that he is saying is going to solve all of our problems. We can show the data, the facts, and the reality are so far-removed from the things that he is saying; yet he’s not willing to get up or defend or engage meaningfully whatsoever. I don’t get it.

Minister, your job is to be accountable to this House. Minister, your job is to be accountable to New Zealanders. Your job is to be accountable to the emissions budget, which you have put out there, which all of the data and the facts and the evidence shows is not worth the paper that it is written on.

Perhaps, Minister, if you would be so willing to maybe, charitably, engage in answering some questions, which, I might note, you’re actually required to per the tenancy—

Can you make the comments through the Chair, please. I have said that earlier.

Mr Chair, then—

Thank you.

—some questions for the Minister, which we hope that he deigns to engage with. New Zealand’s second emissions reduction plan is expecting emissions reductions in the waste sector across both the Waste Minimisation Fund and from organic waste management as separate initiatives. However, we know that the only new money that is allocated each year in the Waste Minimisation Fund is the $30 million per annum. This, coincidentally, is the absolute bare minimum needed to get emissions reductions from waste. How is the Government expecting to get emissions reductions from both of those initiatives when one of them requires the full quantum of the money that he has allocated to both? Is the Minister, and is the Government, double counting?

Thank you very much, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to answer some of those questions. For those who are watching at home, the limitations on the ability and the time that we have to speak is constrained. I have about 10 minutes of total time to respond to questions during this 90-minute period, so it is not for the sake of not answering; it is simply to acknowledge that.

In the context of the questions asked, on the opening statement of the climate change strategy that was produced, it notes very clearly that the coalition Government is committed to meeting its climate change targets. This is our climate strategy. That is the coalition Government’s strategy, and in order to respond to the question asked, again that remains the Government’s position. In the context of the questions asked, one of the members noted carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS), which is in regard to carbon capture related to, primarily, the gas sector. The Government is, and remains, committed to ensuring we have the regulatory framework in place to enable CCUS to occur in New Zealand. That has not changed, and work is currently under way in regard to that.

As the member should, hopefully, know, as a result of prior Government decision-making, we have a significant lack of supply of gas in this country. On the one hand, emissions reductions from gas, which was modelled in the emissions reduction plan, is one of the key pathways, but the reality is that New Zealand has significantly less gas than what we thought we had a number of years ago. By simple mathematics, if you’re going to have less gas, you’re going to have less emissions in that context. We’re still committed to the regulatory framework, and we’re working our way through that at the moment.

Another member also noted, and made comments in regard to, emissions trading scheme (ETS) option “failure”. With respect to those who understand how the ETS option operates, it is not accurate to describe it as a failure. When the market does not clear, it simply states that the amount of demand in the market is less than the amount of supply and that that demand can be satisfied through what is referred to as the secondary market. There are two ETS markets where you can buy units: one off the Government, and one off other people who hold those units. The reality is that where people want those units, they can purchase those through the secondary market, and that is what happened. The fact that the option does not clear and the Government doesn’t issue units is not a failure of the option; it’s just simply basic demand and supply.

In regard to the conversations and questions in regard to waste management in the emissions reduction plan, it remains one of the key pathways we have outlined in the strategy, and there remains active work under way in regard to delivering that. There are a lot of opportunities in regard to particularly methane capture, in terms of waste management, and also opportunity to use that methane for energy production as well. This is a Government that is committed to review all those options.

Tēnā koe e te Tiamana. I’ve got a couple of questions and comments about the Minister’s opening remarks and, also, around the independent report on climate adaptation with particular reference to whenua Māori.

First of all, the Minister of Climate Change spoke about the stocktake on marae. I find it interesting that the Government makes statements about engaging with Māori really quite easily, when, in fact, they seem to forget some of the actions that they’ve taken that actually isolate Māori and think that that’s not going to impact on the results of things like doing a stocktake on marae. Getting rid of the Māori Health Authority has impacted on all marae in the country. Downgrading the value of te reo Māori has done the same. My question to the Minister is: if he wants to engage with Māori, how is he going to do that given that Māori don’t trust this Government at all and the Government is going to be on the back foot in being able to do that work?

The other issue that I want to talk about is whenua Māori local adaptation decisions. In the independent report, it spoke about this issue. My question is: how is he going to empower Māori, iwi, hapū, and wānanga to actually do this work, again, given that this Government has made an absolute hash of a relationship with Māori? Kia ora.

Yeah, I do want to respond to those comments because I think they are without substance in the context of the allegations that were made. To make a comment and a gross generalisation that Māori do not trust this Government is simply not one which is based in any evidential fact or substance. The reality is, actually, in the area of climate change, and the relationship with iwi Māori, we have made significant positive steps forward in regard to the work in which we’re doing. There is a very close and active relationship between the Iwi Chairs Forum and myself, as the lead Minister of Climate Change, along with Marama Royal, who leads that on behalf of that, and we have an active programme in order to do that. That partnership has undertaken a stocktake of virtually all marae in this country in terms of the risk. Why? Because, actually, those communities are on the front line of climate change. They are feeling the impacts of climate change, and, as a Government, we have recognised that and are actually not just talking about it but taking action to deal with that.

Of those 1,000 marae, we have done 145 detailed risk assessments, and we are in the process of rolling out interventions. Meremere, up in the North, where I went across and helped as part of Government funding in terms of a new water supply for that rural and isolated community and other interventions—these are positive actions on the ground that do help communities. To make such statements, that Māori don’t trust this Government, I think, is simply—

Māori hate this Government.

Well, you know, you have to own the words which you say in this House. I’m very proud of the work that we’re doing, we have an active programme in regard to that, and the reality is that actions speak louder than words.

I find it very interesting that the Minister of Climate Change has not answered the question put by my colleague the Hon Deborah Russell with respect to committing to the Paris Agreement and affirming for this House and the general public that this Government continues to be committed to the Paris Agreement. I want to know from the Minister: what would be the international implications for us withdrawing our support for the Paris Agreement? I want to know from the Minister whether or not there would be any trade implications for us with respect to withdrawing our support for the Paris Agreement.

I also want to know whether or not the Minister has provided advice to the Prime Minister, given that he is at the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting now, or perhaps en route back, and whether or not that advice included anything with respect to climate change and the Paris Agreement. Has the Prime Minister gone there to reaffirm a commitment from Aotearoa New Zealand to the Paris Agreement, or has the Prime Minister gone there withdrawing support for the Paris Agreement?

Now, this is incredibly important, given that the number one challenge and issue cited by our Pacific regional neighbours is always climate change, so I’d like to know what advice that Minister has been providing to his Prime Minister. What messages is the Prime Minister giving on the international stage on the Paris Agreement? Again, I want to ask the same question that the Hon Deborah Russell has asked on a number of occasions, whether or not that Minister and this Government are committed to the Paris Agreement.

I want to be very clear and categoric that this Government is committed to its climate change targets and New Zealand’s climate change targets—that is, both our domestic targets and our international targets. Our international targets are in the context of the Paris Agreement, and they are clearly, as I’ve noted, coalition commitments in regard to this Government.

The member asked, “Why is this important?” Well, first and foremost, in the context of the multilateral system, the climate change agreement in the Paris Agreement is one of the few remaining multilateral agreements that is holding at this point. There is significant geopolitical tension and pressure out there, and New Zealand is committed in the context of that agreement.

I was in China last week. China remains strongly committed to that and will be coming out with their Nationally Determined Contribution targets in the next two months. Australia are strongly committed to that and will be coming out with their targets, as well, in the next six to eight weeks, and so it is important for New Zealand to play its part.

Yes—and particularly as a member has highlighted—the Pacific are at the front lines of climate change impact in our region. New Zealand does and should and continues to maintain a role to support our Pacific countries to ensure that they are able to have their voice heard at that international level. That’s why we supported Australia’s bid to host the United Nations Climate Change Conference next year.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, I want to ask a few questions around adaptation and resilience. The first thing, in terms of how we respond to that, is we don’t build the wrong things in the wrong places. I note—through you, Mr Chair—to the Minister of Climate Change that we’ve moved very recently to try and address some of the problems that occurred in Auckland, so that the Auckland Council was not compelled, effectively, to consent buildings in places which we know to be flood-prone.

My question, really, is: what is the Minister aware of in terms of how we can help councils around the country who also have situations where people may well want to develop new buildings, new housing, in areas which are hazard-prone, particularly flood-prone; and the Resource Management Act, we know, is not the most nimble beast in the world—how we are helping those councils to be able to respond to those issues so we are not building the wrong thing in the wrong place. If I might illustrate that, we know, going back in time, that the Christchurch council did not want a lot of houses built in the area which subsequently, after the Canterbury earthquakes, was devastated—what is now the red zone. The council tried to say no to that; they were overruled. So my question—through you, Mr Chair—to the Minister is: what are we doing to assist those councils to be more nimble, to make sure that we’re not building the wrong things in the wrong place?

On the flip side of that, I would also be very interested to know if the Minister is aware of councils which are maybe taking it too far. I mean, there’s a council not far from here which has, essentially, said that the entire district is potentially prone to inundation from climate change, up to a distance of a good couple of kilometres from the coast—I’m talking about the Kāpiti Coast District; that has got its citizens very concerned. It’s about getting the right balance there. I’m also aware of another situation where there are people who wish to deliberately flood areas by raising lake levels in the Canterbury region. So I’m very interested—through you, Mr Chair, to the Minister—in his observations around how we get the balance right.

I thank the member Andy Foster for those questions. There’s a reason that the first pillar of the Government’s climate change strategy, which we released last year, is ensuring that infrastructure is resilient and that our communities are well prepared to face the impacts of climate change. As I noted in my opening comments, the country is facing growing risks from natural hazards, such as floods and storms, and severe weather events, like we’ve seen in the Tasman area this year. Those impacts are not only devastating, they also come at a significant fiscal cost. The country has, in effect, incurred costs in the region of $50 billion over the last decade alone in order to fix infrastructure impacted by the impacts of these weather events. It is a significant fiscal cost, and we know that this is more than just a simple fiscal cost; it has societal, cultural, and other significant complications on those communities.

I hear the points that you’ve noted around councils and the way in which we absolutely believe that they should be using evidence-based data to make those decisions. We know there are inconsistencies there, and we want to work through that. That’s why the climate adaptation framework—the major part of it—is making sure that the data that’s being used is appropriate, evidence based, accurate, and consistent. Therefore, we should ensure we get that balance right around managing the risk.

The other issue with adaptation is that we’re seeing insurance premiums increase across New Zealand, and we know that that has an implication on the cost of living pressures that Kiwi households face. Making sure we have the appropriate information also deals, in effect, with one of the key drivers that cost of living is implicating in New Zealand households. That is another area of focus.

I don’t know if the Minister of Climate Change actually believes some of the things that he is saying right now. I mean, saying something does not make it true; saying something does not make it real. You need to put substance and actions behind your words, Minister.

I asked the Minister before, particularly, about the carbon capture technology by which the Government relies on for approximately a full third of its emissions reductions in the emission reduction plan. What he said, after I asked him what the Government was intending to do off the back of comments from the private sector, which the Minister has said he wants to partner with to make this happen—well, the private sector has said that it’s fully economically unfeasible to do this. The Minister’s response: “We’ll just deal with the regulatory environment.” No specification about what that actually means. He did not say that the Government will be investing in making this a reality. If we are to create the regulatory environment, well, the Minister must know that that means the price of emissions must go so, so much higher.

My question for the Minister off the back of that is: is the Minister intending to, if we are to take his words at face value, create the regulatory environment—to use his own terms—to create far higher pricing for emissions? That is my first question for the Minister, which we need his response to.

Then, in response to my questions about waste, by which it appears that the Government is completely double counting the money that it has set aside, $30 million for waste minimisation, also for organics emission reduction—that $30 million being the baseline required just for organics, which it is also simultaneously allocating to waste minimisation in general. Well, the Minister just said, “Oh, you know, it remains part of our strategy.” Absolutely no detail and completely ignoring the question and the reality and the facts and the evidence that he is double counting the money that is allocated here. Make it make sense.

Perhaps the most astounding of all of that—post the gaslighting—is that we have a Minister of Climate Change in this country recycling fossil fuel talking points. The Minister was talking about how, apparently, the reason that we have a gas shortage in this country is because of the offshore oil and gas ban, which came into effect in 2018. The Minister knows these facts. He knows that gas production peaked in this country 20 years ago. He must know that it started steadily declining year on year from 10 years ago. That is multiple years before the oil and gas ban came into effect.

Even if we were to have found a new gas well in 2018 when the ban came into effect, the average time it takes to go from exploration to production is 16 years. What that means is if the ban did not come into effect and we found it as early as 2018 when the ban did come into effect, then we would still be waiting 10 years from this point right now for that new gas to come online.

So will the Minister please be honest with New Zealanders. Will he please be honest about the opportunity cost that comes from this Government subsidising new fossil fuel production to the tune—

Not a subsidy.

—of $200 million of New Zealanders money and will he provide the facts and the information that offer the contrary view that it’s not a subsidy—as members from over on his side continue to heckle out—because all of the information that we have in the public is to the contrary. All of the information that we have in the public, from an independent King’s Counsel, shows that it is, in fact, a subsidy per the definition of the Agreement on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainability.

My baseline question for the Minister, basically, is, through the Chair: do you even believe what you’re saying? Will the Minister of Climate Change please stand up, because I cannot point to one thing that the Minister has done in his position of power as the Minister of Climate Change that has put us on a positive trajectory with regard to climate action.

My second question is, given that the Government has been dancing around and refusing to answer questions about its no additional warming work programme—and just for those who are uninitiated, no additional warming is a pseudo-scientific method that’s been shopped around by big agriculture internationally; has found nowhere to land in Governments across the rest of the world until they met these guys. Well, when is the Government going to make clear that it will reject that pseudo-science, which would see a far higher burden placed on households and other businesses across this country, if we are to meet our emissions targets, as the Minister says he’s committed to?

Thirdly: is the Minister committing to keeping the Climate Change Commission with all of the powers that it currently has into the future?

Hopefully the member will include my comments in the TikTok grabs that she’s recording at the moment for her social media, knowing that I only have two minutes to respond to all the questions left on this. I don’t want to waste the opportunity, I’ll use my two minutes on your response, because I know you’ll cut this part of my speech in your videos when you post them later on.

Minister Simmonds will be administering the waste management programme; she has prioritised organic waste solutions and will be continuing to make decisions around specific projects in this area. This Government—and please put this on your TikTok—is 100 percent committed to the Climate Change Commission, and the work this Government has done around appointing Dame Pasty Reddy to the leadership of that function conveys the important role that that entity plays and the independent advice that it provides to all Governments. That is an important part of the mix.

In regard to the other questions regarding landfill, we do have and we are progressing a wide range of policies and tools to achieve the abatement objectives in the emissions reduction plan.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I have a couple of questions for the Minister of Climate Change with regard to the impact of climate change and the adaptation work he’s mentioned and how that relates to the protection and improvement of biodiversity particularly. I have specific questions for the Minister, but I thought I’d start with just the fact that there are measurable impacts of climate change on the fishing industry—for example, two of the greatest threats to New Zealand’s marine environment are warming sea temperatures and the acidification of oceans. That threatens what is a $2.2 billion industry for New Zealand, which is fishing, and I know this Government has a goal to triple the revenue from this industry as well.

Given those two particular threats, which are of course leading to things like the decline of specific fish stocks, the availability of food—their migration patterns are being disrupted as a result as well, there are flow-on effects around the changes to ocean circulation patterns, and we know that climate change has intensified the strength of storms, of rainfall, and all of that leads to sediment erosion and therefore the reduction of water quality as well. Given all of those, my question to the Minister is: what within his adaptation plan deals with the protection and the improvement of ecosystems and biodiversity, in this case with a particular focus on the marine environment? I do have another question around wetlands as well.

I want to ask about methane. Back in the hearing on this, I asked a question about when the Minister was going to set a methane target. I said: “When do we think that we’ll have some clarity on which way the Government intends to go on this?”. The Minister replied: “I would expect that that decision would be made this year, in terms of timing. It goes back to the point around certainty in terms of where things are at, and it is important for us.”

Minister, in recent months, I’ve been talking with representatives from the agricultural sector—I’ve been talking with Federated Farmers, with Beef + Lamb New Zealand, with other producers—and the one thing they say they want now around methane is certainty. “Give us a target. Give us a goal, and we can work towards it”. Those are the words I’ve heard from people in the agricultural sector. “Targets can be tough”, they said, “But at least if we’ve got one, then we can work to it”. They’ve also asked for a target which provides some certainty over time; some certainty that it will not change from Government to Government. They want a target that will have broad agreement across this House.

I have a series of questions around the methane target. First of all, when will we have a decision on methane? A decision that, the Minister said, would be made this year.

The Government remains committed to making decisions in regard to setting the methane target this year. Cabinet has not made a decision on that at this point. However, while the member and I disagree on many things in this context, I would agree that the importance of having certainty in this conversation is an area that is an imperative, and we’ll be doing everything we can to ensure we get that outcome.

Earlier this week, I was at the Environmental Defence Society and the Climate Change & Business Conference, and there was a very telling and interesting comment made by Izzy Fenwick on a panel. Ms Fenwick was asked, “What was the risk to New Zealand if we didn’t meet our climate targets?” Interestingly, she said, “Climatically, the risk doesn’t really change.” The fact is: no matter what, we are going to be affected by climate change, and what New Zealand can do, itself, will change the results of climate change very little. New Zealand’s own efforts won’t make much difference to the actual impact of climate change. “But,” she said—and it was a very important “but”—“the risks to New Zealand, if we do not meet our climate goals, if we do not set realistic methane targets, if we do not get our emissions under control, if we do not meet the Paris Agreement, are economic and political.”

Our trade partners will walk away from us. It was in evidence presented from leading businesses figures that our trade will suffer, because, increasingly, customers in our markets are demanding that the food we produce is low emissions, low carbon, and low methane, that the food we produce can be certified to not be increasing climate change. Setting a realistic methane target is very, very important to us, for economic and for political reasons.

Is the Minister committed to maintaining New Zealand’s international competitive edge as world leaders in low-emissions food and fibre production? Does he see any risks if his Government weakens the methane target and moves it away from the target range that was agreed to by virtually all of this House—bar one party—in the Climate Change Response Act? Is the Minister committed to that 24 percent to 47 percent methane reduction range in the Climate Change Response Act?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will just reiterate the question that I asked the Minister of Climate Change earlier, with regard to the impact of climate change on biodiversity more broadly, but specifically on the impacts to our oceans and, therefore, our fish stock. I mentioned, previously, that our seafood industry brings in $2.2 billion worth of revenue for New Zealand. One of the top fish species that we export is hoki, and that is also one of the most threatened fish species when it comes to climate change and the impact that it has on both warming and acidification of oceans.

I refer to a report that was commissioned by Fisheries New Zealand which is about climate change, titled Climate Change and New Zealand’s Seafood Sector. It lays out quite clearly what the impacts of climate change are on our oceans and on our fish and it specifically speaks about the impact to hoki and says that increasing ocean temperatures is likely to cause a decline in the population of this particular fish species, and also speaks to the shifts in oceanic winds and the impact that currents might have on food availability and, therefore, the sustainability of the population.

My question to the Minister was: what, in his climate adaptation plan, has any regard to the improvement and the protection of biodiversity, given the impacts and the flow-on effects it then has in terms of our economy, because of the impact it has on the number and the take of the fish that we are able to grow here in New Zealand?

I also want to ask the Minister a similar question to do with salmon species. I know that New Zealand Fish & Game has been raising this for quite some time now, particularly with sea-run salmon that may be within rivers that lead to the ocean, but these are particular salmon that need to go to the ocean for cooler temperatures, and then that’s part of the migratory pattern, basically. But that’s been disrupted because when the ocean’s warm, and these fish need to stay cool, that then means that there’s an impact on them; the juvenile of the species struggle to grow, and what we’re seeing now is both a reduction in salmon populations more broadly and also the fact that the young salmon aren’t growing to the extent or the size that they should be growing to, and that impacts export of salmon, as well. One might ask why, given it’s an introduced species, we need to be worried about it.

But very quickly, if the Chair would indulge me, there’s a lovely story around salmon in New Zealand—

I’m happy to indulge you because the Minister has very little time left, so the more questions you can get in your speech, the quicker he can condense them and answer them; so yeah.

Sure, sure. The Minister can give me a very quick answer on the impacts of climate change on our ocean temperatures and what he’s doing about it.

One of the reasons that we need to protect salmon is that, back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, we actually received salmon eggs from a river in California. They had a dam put in place. Their salmon couldn’t survive. We got it here in New Zealand in the Rākaia River. There’s now been a link established with the Native Americans from that part of California, who are now wanting to take back salmon species from New Zealand to reintroduce to their habitat. That’s why we’ve got a number of reasons for protecting fish in New Zealand. It’s not just the economic argument; there’s also the cultural aspects of specific fish species.

I’ll leave it at that and hope the Minister responds to that. I’ll come back with a question on wetlands.

Without doubt there are significant impacts on aquaculture as a result of the impacts of climate change. In the Pacific particularly, you see the migration of fish species because of the warming temperatures moving from some countries to others, which has an implication in regard to food security. This is a real issue that is in play within our region.

In regard to our strategy, we have biodiversity as one of our five key pillars. That includes blue carbon and other initiatives that we can do to look to maximise the opportunity to use sequestration within the oceans.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, there’s a quite broad question to be asked here, which is quite simple in context, it is: where does the Minister see he is going to achieve gross cuts in greenhouse gas emissions?

We know the Government has a strategy of substantial offsetting to pine forestry; many have asked already and canvassed what the strategy is around the methane, but when you simply look across our emissions profile as a country, you can start doing the maths on where we are going to achieve the direct cuts in emissions. Is it in the transport sector, Minister? Clearly, if you’re expanding roads, if you’ve tanked the electric vehicle market, if you’re doing nothing about our $10 billion oil deficit, then how are we going to achieve gross cuts in the transport sector? What is your strategy?

Is it in the energy sector? Clearly, if you’ve intended to spend $200 million on subsidising gas—whatever you want to call it—and expanding coalmining in Rotowaro, clearly there’s not a clear pathway to those gross cuts in emissions from the energy sector.

In the agricultural space, we’ve now got 15,000 more dairy cows on the Canterbury Plains. That does mean more methane emissions. It is axiomatic that if there are more methane-emitting ruminant animals, there will be more methane emissions. Clearly, your plan is not to achieve gross cuts through farming and agriculture. Where is your plan, Minister? Give us the numbers. How will we achieve gross emissions cuts?

Two key areas: Electrify NZ, which will double the amount of renewable energy in this country, is a key area of focus. The second is co-investment with the private sector on solutions to reduce biogenic methane, such as animal genetics, which will reduce methane from cows by 10 to 20 percent and is already pretty much ready to roll out in the Waikato in the coming years.

This is my last question on methane, and I want to put together two things. We asked the Minister, repeatedly, whether or not his Government stood by its commitment to the Paris Agreement despite the scepticism expressed by the Deputy Prime Minister and the leader of the ACT Party—they’re the same person—and the scepticism expressed by the Foreign Affairs Minister, who is also the leader of the New Zealand First Party.

The Minister eventually made it quite clear that, yes, this Government is committed to the Paris Agreement. That’s a good thing. However, alongside this, we have had some disturbing work done on methane this year where the Government appointed an independent methane review panel. Of course, the reason one appoints an allegedly independent panel is to get the solution one wants. That particular panel came up with a concept of “no additional warming”. However, the Environmental Defence Society and other key environmental NGOs have said that the concept of “no additional warming” would undermine commitments under the Paris Agreement. How does the Minister make these two things stack up? When are we going to get a clear and explicit target around methane? Is the Minister going to reject this concept of “no additional warming”, given our commitments under the Paris Agreement?

Before we go on, can I just alert the committee to the fact that the Government, or National, has no time left.

Point of order. Kia ora, Madam Chair. What happened this morning was—what I saw—the Minister, in his first opening comments, took almost 10 minutes, which was half of the time left. It is within the rules; I understand that. [Interruption] I thought that points of order were heard in silence.

I did too.

They’re just heckling me and carrying on.

I remind members on my right that points of order are heard in silence. Thank you for your assistance.

This point of order needs a bit of context, because there are no Standing Orders around this. I understand it’s within the rules, but I’d say within the spirit of Estimates and within the spirit of transparency, it is frustrating, particularly as an Opposition wants to—

Sorry, the point of order is?

I am coming to that—

Can you come to it quickly?

—because I just want to give that context. I think we’d be willing to give up a little bit of time to the National Party. I know, for example, that the ACT Party has at least 15 minutes. I’m sure that New Zealand First has at least 30 minutes or more. Te Pāti Māori has a lot of time. I’m just wondering whether there’d be any leeway or consideration within the rules for us to offer some time so that the Minister can continue to be prosecuted on a really important issue of our time.

Point of order—new point of order.

Just a minute. I’m taking advice on this first point of order. Just for clarification, the whips can have this conversation, or the member could seek leave to allocate some of his party’s time to the Government to carry on this conversation if they so wish. For your information, Labour has 17 minutes remaining in this debate. It’s now 15 minutes

Point of order, Madam Chair. I seek leave for the Labour Party to give up five minutes of its time to the National Party—I don’t normally do a caveat—for the reason that answers be given to Labour Party MPs.

Sorry, I’m not sure I understand that.

We seek leave to give five minutes to the National Party, but we would assume, in kind, that they’ll answer our questions they haven’t been answered yet.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

The Minister spoke about electrification. Yes, electrification is clearly a huge opportunity for us. However, we have decades of under-investment in new renewable generation in this sector through a failure of the gentailers to invest new renewable generation. Without an intervention in the electricity market—which is currently paying a billion-dollar dividend while people shiver in their living rooms—how is the Government going to achieve this supposed electrification? Clearly, the current market system is not enabling the building of new generation, even though there are consents granted and even though there are plenty of places where we could be putting wind turbines.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I find it rather interesting that, when the Minister stood up to respond to my questions, he talked about what can be done but not what this Government is doing to address the issue of climate change and its impact on biodiversity, on ecosystems, and, specifically, on the issues I’ve raised to do with our marine environment. I would be really grateful if the Minister would tell us what is in his plan that will achieve the outcomes that I’m seeking through my questions; if, in fact, he thinks that there is something that this Government is doing to protect our marine environments?

The second point that I would like to raise along the same lines of marine environments, and the threats therein, is the fact that there are extensive knowledge gaps, and I would like the Minister to outline what work is under way through his climate adaptation programme or any other programme to fill some of those knowledge gaps—for example, while we know that the two greatest threats are ocean warming and ocean acidification, we don’t really know what specific impacts there are when it comes to heatwaves and our marine fish stocks. That’s a knowledge gap that needs to be plugged. We know that when pH levels shift and, therefore, the ocean acidification is worsened, that there are some impacts on marine life, but, again, we don’t know the extent to that or the specificity around it. I would like to know what steps this Government is taking—and the Minister, particularly—to plug those knowledge gaps, because without knowing what the details are, I would assume that it would be difficult for the Government to address them effectively.

The second point that I want to make is around wetland restoration, and I refer specifically to the Ministry for the Environment’s climate adaptation report that they have commissioned and published. It’s an independent climate adaptation report that points to New Zealand’s vulnerability in this space. It makes points around the fact that biodiversity is threatened as species’ habitats change or disappear, and it speaks to the need for greater integration of adaptation and mitigation if it’s across Government to protect the environment.

It makes a mention of wetland restoration, specifically. We know that there’s been a historical decline—for example, by 2008, only 10 percent of New Zealand’s original wetlands remained; 6 percent of the original swampland is all that we have left. Currently, only 0.9 percent of New Zealand’s land area is wetlands. Now, there are a number of NGOs that are undertaking work to restore our wetlands. There’s a distinct link between climate change and our wetlands, as well—for example, carbon emissions from wetlands that are drained is an issue.

Peatlands are especially vulnerable when they are drained. They release significant amounts of stored carbon into the atmosphere. In New Zealand, dried peatlands contribute to 6 percent of our carbon emissions. We also know that rewetting peatlands in peat areas could prevent the release of, I think it’s about 2 million tonnes of carbon that could be prevented from releasing. We also know, at the same time, that increasing flooding from sea-level rise also means that wetlands are at danger of being completely submerged and lost. There’s a huge risk there when it comes to the impact of climate change on wetlands. There’s a risk of drained wetlands, too, increasing our carbon emissions, and there’s a huge gain to be realised from restoration of wetlands and the rewetting of peatlands.

Particularly, given all of that and the fact that wetlands are a hotbed for biodiversity, and a number of different species—for example, whitebait, rare birds; all of those are at risk of decline and loss if we don’t act now. What is the Minister doing to ensure that we mitigate or we reduce the impact of climate change on wetlands, but, equally, what are the steps this Minister is taking to restore wetlands to contribute to our climate targets?

Firstly, thank you for the allocation of time. This Government is focused on nature-based solutions that address climate change. As the member has noted, restoring biodiversity is a key component of that, and we also need to investigate ways of harnessing nature to remove emissions from the atmosphere.

As I noted in my opening comments, we are progressing work around a carbon removals framework, and this includes components of wetlands and other aspects, including the blue carbon components within forestry. Our intent is to have a framework that is scientifically robust and that removal activities, agnostic to what they are, have the mechanism, and if they are able to be measured and independently verified and validated from a scientific basis, then you should be able to look to get credit for that as part of the broader model. So there is work under way.

One specific example of Government policy in this area is the work that we’re doing around afforestation on Crown land, which, obviously, includes native afforestation on Crown land. It is our view that that is one mechanism that we can unlock that will have an enduring biodiversity benefit to New Zealand as a result of more native afforestation on the low-conservation, low-production farmland that we have available in New Zealand.

Now that the Minister of Climate Change has some more time available to him, I’d like to redirect his attention to the issue of international risks. I’m going to quote some words from the hearing earlier this year—the Minister’s own words. He said: “The implications on international trade, you know, New Zealand has a reputation, and we have one of the best reputations in the world, as a primary sector exporter of red meat, dairy product, and other products. Why would we put that at risk?”

I would like to invite the Minister to address the political and economic risks to us of not setting a realistic methane target—a target that we can agree on across the House—and I invite the Minister to express what he thinks of the concept of no additional warming and whether that is going to affect the methane target that is being set by the Government.

Within the coalition agreements that the National Party have with ACT, we have committed to undertaking a scientific review in regard to methane—which we have undertaken—and we will be considering that alongside the Climate Change Commission’s advice in regard to the methane targets that will be considered later this year.

In regard to our broader commitments and the statements that I made, I stand by those statements that I made in prior hearings, in the context of the implications of how important New Zealand’s primary sector export economy is to our economy and ensuring that the products that we do export meet the requirements of customers overseas, which has a growing desire to ensure that they are sustainable in that context. In that mix, we are of the view that this is critically important in terms of our broader trade agreements and arrangements, and hence why we remain committed to these targets.

Madam Chair, I want to move to adaptation again, quoting the Minister of Climate Change from the hearing earlier this year. He said, “We’re now working as quickly as possible to introduce legislation to support an enduring national adaptation framework. This will help people make more informed decisions about how we adapt, provide greater certainty, support our economy, and ensure that we grow investment.” In his speech earlier today, he talked of some of the range of activities that are being undertaken around adaptation, getting better information about risks, better information about cross-sharing, some cross-party work on climate adaptation, some guidance for local government. However, we have still not seen the legislation around adaptation. Could the Minister please give an indication of when we might see the legislative framework for adaptation? [Member resumes seat and then stands to seek another call]

Well, Madam Chair—

The Hon Dr Deborah Russell.

Hi, I’m enjoying this so much! I do think this is very important around adaptation. The Minister referenced the select committee report on adaptation and said it was a way forward. To be honest, that select committee report pretty much just came up with exactly the same answers as the expert working group on adaptation. If we look at that select committee report, those are the solutions offered by the select committee. They are the very solutions offered by the expert working group on adaptation.

The Minister then commissioned a separate independent review on adaptation. What I want to understand from the Minister is how he intends to reconcile the findings from that independent review on adaptation—which is quite a short report, eventually, about 14 pages—with the findings of the select committee and, more importantly, with the findings of the expert working group on adaptation. It seems a shame to set up an independent group when there is already a perfectly good solution at hand with respect to work around adaptation.

The Government is progressing at pace in the context of designing the building blocks for a national adaptation framework. We remain committed to be able to say more about that later this year, and it remains our intent to continue to work with all political parties. I acknowledge the importance of certainty in regard to that topic area and—as and when we’re in a position to do so—we will continue to engage in that dialogue.

The Minister has made quite a large play around the use of carbon-capture technology. It underpins a large amount of the second emissions budget, and it is a key plank of the Government’s strategy around reducing carbon. However, earlier this year, Fletcher’s said that the proposal for a carbon capture technology unit at Kapuni was no longer going to work, and it couldn’t work because it was too expensive. Has the Government decided whether or not to put extra funding into that carbon capture technology that was supposed to take place at Kapuni?

The Government remains committed to put in place a regulatory regime in regard to carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS). It is an important aspect of New Zealand’s climate objective and energy security. Any CCUS-related risks—noting the comments that that member has noted that have been raised in the media—will be considered by Cabinet as part of the annual process that we undertake around adaptive management approaches, which is set out in the emissions reduction plan.

The Minister of Climate Change has said that New Zealand is on track to meet its first and its second emissions reduction plans, emissions reductions budgets, however, that’s not quite the case, actually. In fact, the Climate Change Commission has a monitoring report on emissions reductions. This monitoring report came out in July this year—after our hearings, of course, but nevertheless—and is something that has been referred to extensively by the Minister over the course of this debate.

What I want to understand, though, is how the Minister reconciles his claims that we are going to meet our emissions reductions plans, our emissions reductions budgets, given that the Climate Change Commission, in its monitoring report, has said that the first emissions budget is likely to be met due a combination of emissions reductions and changes to accounting methods. The second emissions budget can be met, but there are some areas of significant risk. Those areas of significant risk are around relying on reductions from carbon capture and storage, which may not be realised, and that the third emissions budget covering 2031 to 2035 requires further action urgently to be met.

The Minister has said that we want to achieve our climate targets, that we are committed to the Paris Agreement, but it does seem that our progress towards actually meeting those targets is at significant risk.

In the context of any target, there is the amount of emissions that the economy produces. Projections and an update of those projections in regard to how much emissions the New Zealand economy is producing will be released later this year. That is an important consideration in the context of what the interrelationship is with the pathways for emissions reduction, and that will provide us with an updated position in terms of what the gap is across those targets. But we do remain on track in regard to both emissions budget one and emissions budget two at this point.

Members, the Labour Party’s time has expired. The Minister’s time has 50 seconds left. It looks like we have exhausted the debate. The time for this debate has now expired.

The question now is, That clauses 1 to 10 and Schedules 1 to 5 be agreed to.

Clauses 1 to 10 and Schedules 1 to 5 agreed to.

The committee has considered the Appropriation (2025/26 Estimates) Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

I seek leave to present a legislative statement—

The member doesn’t need to seek—well, the wording I’ve got here just says “I present a legislative statement.” Are you seeking leave? Is it already on the Table?

I present a legislative statement on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2025-26, Compliance Simplification, and Remedial Measures) Bill.

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

I move, That the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2025-26, Compliance Simplification, and Remedial Measures) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider this bill.

This bill is aimed at making New Zealand a better place. This Government’s top priority is growing the economy so that we can deliver more jobs, higher wages, and lower costs for New Zealanders. This bill aims to promote growth by welcoming talent, investment in our shores, and supporting companies trying to attract and retain talent. The bill also aims to minimise and eliminate compliance costs as far as possible and helps to make the Public Service more efficient by making better use of existing resources and freeing up time and resources for more demanding work.

I want to touch on some of the key measures in this bill, and I first want to mention the one which was brought to our attention by the private sector. Currently, new migrants are taxed on estimated overseas income, even if they don’t actually receive that income. The new law will change that so that they are only taxed on money that they actually earn. This will make it fairer and more attractive particularly for skilled migrants to move here and help keep talented New Zealanders in New Zealand and not leaving.

To get more technical on this issue, there was a report by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research examining why New Zealand struggled to retain entrepreneurial migrants. It found that illiquid equity investments held by migrants in foreign companies that are not controlled foreign companies are taxed under New Zealand’s foreign investment fund regime. Our FIF rules—which is the acronym for the foreign investment fund regime as more commonly referred to—usually assume that overseas assets are earning income at a rate of 5 percent per year. It, therefore, taxes deemed rather than actual income from equity investments. The bill, therefore, introduces a new calculation method to determine a person’s FIF income.

The new method would tax eligible FIF investments on a realisation basis; that is, on dividends derived and 70 percent of gains or losses on disposal, rather than on a deemed annual basis. In addition, a migrant who remains taxable in another country faces potentially double taxation when they sell that investment. That’s because investments held particularly in the US, for instance, are only taxed on dividends and when shares are realised, and a credit for our FIF tax may not be available against the US tax when that investment is sold. To address this, this bill has a proposal that allows a person subject to the two tax systems to apply the revenue account method even to shares acquired after they become a New Zealand tax resident.

The bill also makes it easier for overseas visitors working remotely, sometimes known as digital nomads, to stay longer in New Zealand before being taxed, encouraging them to spend more in our economy while they are here. We are also proposing that non-resident visitors earning income through remote work may be present in New Zealand for up to nine months in a given 18-month period before incurring New Zealand tax obligations, including becoming a New Zealand tax resident. This is provided that they are tax resident in another country and that they are in New Zealand lawfully for immigration purposes and do not undertake work for a New Zealand employer or client.

I now turn to a group of proposals in the bill which aim to reduce or eliminate compliance costs on New Zealand taxpayers. Joint ventures are one way for business people to collaborate and invest in projects together for mutual benefit. Joint ventures sometimes individually account for supplies made or received in the course of that venture in their own GST returns. However, it has emerged that this approach is not correct under the current rules. To avoid imposing compliance costs, we’re proposing to validate that existing operational practice to allow for joint ventures to account for supplies made or received in the course of the venture in their own GST returns. This is about easing compliance costs for those businesses.

A growing number of New Zealanders also have solar panels on their homes, generating electricity back for them to use, but sometimes having the ability to export excess electricity back into the grid. It’s new energy and it is a new income source which was not foreseen when the Income Tax Act in 2007 was passed. In many cases, the proceeds from the sale of excess electricity are likely to be taxable under the current legislation. We want to take a pragmatic approach to that. The compliance costs associated with these obligations are likely to be disproportionately higher compared to any tax revenue that is gained, also when you take into consideration the ability to claim deductions.We’re proposing an income tax exemption for income earned from the sale of excess electricity from a residential property into the electricity grid.

The bill also proposes changes benefiting FamilyBoost recipients by increases to the rebate percentages and income thresholds that could be made by Order in Council. Changes that would decrease the payment amount or the eligible population would still need to be made through primary legislation.

One of the Government’s priorities is getting tough on crime. IRD can currently disclose information about a person to the Police on request, but that information can quickly become outdated. This bill would allow IRD to disclose updated information to Police to maintain the accuracy of information held by the Police for the purposes of the proceeds of crime regime.

The information held by IRD can be useful to other agencies, too, in trying to deliver better, more efficient services. Information can be shared at present through an approved information-sharing agreement. This is best practice, but it’s also a long process and can hold up service delivery.

The bill also proposes to repeal two information requirements that are no longer required. These are section 17GB of the Tax Administration Act, which allows the commissioner to collect information for the purpose relating to the development of policy, and the additional disclosure requirements for trustees. These provisions are not necessary. The commissioner already has broad powers to collect information, including from trustees, under the Tax Administration Act 1994.

This bill says that New Zealand is open for business. We’re making it easier to do business, we’re making it easier to attract investment, and we’re also, importantly, creating the conditions for a stronger economy—one that delivers more opportunities, higher wages, and a lower cost of living. It gives me great pleasure to commend this bill to the House.

The Labour Party supports many of the measures in this bill. The measures around employee share schemes deferring taxation events is a good measure, and a sensible one, to support our start-ups. The measures around digital nomads are sensible, and they do look to enhance what is going on in New Zealand, in terms of attracting people to come and live and work here. The measures around electricity refunds are sensible. I suspect that most people who sell electricity back to the grid are not aware that they, technically, might need to pay tax on that, but technically, also, if they’re paying tax on it, they can claim expenses. It is better just to clear that one out right away. That’s a sensible move.

The measures around the foreign investment fund rules seem sensible, too. However, given that the Minister led with it, I’m bit a surprised to find there is no regulatory impact statement around that, and we’ll certainly be asking the officials for their understanding of how this measure will work and what returns it will have and whether there are any particular impacts of it. All of these things seem pretty sensible, and, in some cases, it does just do what it says on the tin: it will reduce compliance costs. In fact, sometimes it is just ensuring that the law reflects what people are probably doing already and what is kind of consistent with the general intent of the tax law, anyway. That’s probably particularly the case with GST on joint ventures. But there are some disturbing measures in this bill, and some quite worrying ones and, for this reason, we will not be supporting this bill.

I want to turn first to the repeal of section 17GB. Section 17GB enabled the Commissioner of Inland Revenue to collect information for the purpose of making better tax policy, in order to make our tax system better. There is, of course, a lot of information that the Commissioner of Inland Revenue can collect already, but she or he needs to do it for the purposes of assessing tax. There is another big role that the Inland Revenue Department has and that our officials have, and that is of forming good tax policy. In order to write good and effective tax policy, we need good information. Section 17GB enabled the commissioner to collect that information, and it’s going. Officials even said it is going against officials’ recommendations. Officials recommended keeping section 17GB but perhaps enhancing the protections around it, to make sure that information was used only for tax policy purposes. Now, of course, that was the case already, but there were ways of putting belts and braces into the law to ensure that that was the case. But, no, section 17GB is gone, even though officials wanted to keep it so they could make better tax policy.

Information collected about trusts is going. Now, again, the commissioner can, obviously, collect information to assess the tax on trusts, but the information that will no longer be collected is about who is settling assets on trusts—who is getting benefits from trusts. In other words, we are reducing the amount of information that is available to us about sometimes quite opaque entities, and we now no longer will be able to know how income and how assets are flowing through trusts. Here’s the thing: both those measures enabled us to track wealth in this country, and we know that both of those measures were opposed by taxpayers whose affairs might otherwise be subject to more scrutiny. These two measures lead to more opacity in the ownership and distribution of assets and income in this country. People are hiding what they own and what they earn.

Then, on top of that, we now have this new information-sharing rule. The new information-sharing rule will enable the Minister of Revenue to share information much more quickly in cases where people may have committed a crime. In other words, we’ve always had a system where we try to keep the tax system away from issues of criminality, because we just want people to pay their taxes; that is being removed. What is really disturbing is the entities with whom Inland Revenue can now share information. This includes New Zealand Police, the Accident Compensation Corporation, Kāinga Ora - Homes and Communities, Health New Zealand, the New Zealand Transport Agency, the National Emergency Management Agency, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, the Ministry for Ethnic Communities—what on earth is that doing in here? That is absolutely ridiculous. It is one rule for the rich and another rule for the poor. We oppose this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill is a prime example of how the Government is setting greater scrutiny and punishments for people doing it tough, on some of the lowest incomes in this country—lining up at Work and Income to get things like food grants—who are often scrutinised in undignified ways on every purchase that they make, with the Ministry of Social Development giving itself huge ability to collect information on people on the benefit, while, at the same time, bringing forward a bill that reduces the ability for our Government agencies to make informed decisions on taxation to address really serious issues in this country on wealth inequality.

We are the richest we have been in quite some time, as a country, and yet we have growing homelessness. We have a greater disparity between the haves and the have-nots, and this Government, instead of addressing those very same issues, is pushing forward a bill that will make it harder for Governments to have the information that they need to address how, for example, the rich hide their wealth in things like trusts. This will make it harder for the Government to make informed decisions on how we can tackle the reality that the wealthy few are accumulating an absurd amount of wealth at the expense of the rest of our communities.

Just not true.

I just heard somebody say it’s not true. I recommend that this member reads the legislation to be able to assert what it does. I would caution the member of actually saying that—well, the member is saying it’s not true; he may be new, but he may want to read Standing Orders a bit, anyway.

Going back to the bill. This bill is deeply problematic because, despite the technical bits around it, the core of this is a bill that cements this Government’s position of growing wealth inequality; perhaps that is a strategy of growth.

We also have concerns about other provisions of this bill which exempt digital nomads from potential tax obligations. This Government should be quite careful with how they choose to treat people they deem digital nomads. The reality is that, overseas, we have seen that policies that benefit the so-called digital nomads—people who enter here, often on visitor visas, with no purpose of trying to settle in our country and form part of our communities like many other migrant workers do. Those very same people—often on high incomes—end up contributing to gentrification in communities. We have seen unrest overseas because of Government decisions that have completely loosened rules in relationship to digital nomads, and this Government should be quite careful. They may be claiming that the money digital nomads spend is here, but often their incomes will go on paying for things like Airbnbs—that actually don’t create the wealth that we need for everyday people. The money that they will often be spending will also just be on things like allowing multiple-home owners to continue leasing these Airbnbs to those digital nomads. So we think this deserves a lot of scrutiny about the broader economic implications of the policy.

I think the Government should be quite cautious in relying on things like digital nomads to enable their socalled strategy of growth, because I can’t see how this bill—despite what the Minister of Revenue said in his initial remarks—actually addresses serious issues around our dwindling economy that is more and more reliant on things like speculators trading homes, instead of supporting our manufacturing industries, for example, that are struggling. I can’t see how this bill drives the cost of living down; all it does is make it easier for the wealthy few to hide their wealth and to face less scrutiny over the current tax settings. It really undermines the previous work that IRD and previous Governments have done to ascertain where the wealthy few have their wealth and how tax systems work, and it undermines the work to make informed, non-partisan recommendations and information on these very same settings.

Make no mistake: the Green Party cannot support this bill as it stands. We could be supporting some of the more technical components of this bill if they had come in a separate piece of legislation. But what this bill does is incredibly problematic, and it absolutely sends a message that the poor deserve a huge amount of scrutiny, whereas the rich can get a free pass.

Well, I think we’re pretty clear where things are heading in this country. We’ve just heard from the Green speaker Ricardo Menéndez March—and, to be fair, the Greens are at least honest: they want a wealth tax; they want a capital gains tax. What I think I heard, though, from Dr Deborah Russell was that she’s setting the groundwork for Labour to announce their wealth tax and capital gains tax policy.

Let me be clear: on this side of the House, we will be supporting this bill because we’re actually about growth and boosting the New Zealand economy. We’re actually about letting New Zealanders keep more of their own money, getting on with their lives, and building productive businesses, and, just being able to get on and contribute to society. Obviously, we’ll be supporting this bill—it’s a good bill. I also will have the pleasure of being on the Finance and Expenditure Committee, where we will go through this in great detail. Look, it was good to hear the Labour member say that there were a number of measures that I think we will get a lot of support for in the select committee to work through, so that’s good. I did want to call out a couple of things that I thought were good. Obviously, we have a totally different position from the Greens on digital nomads. We actually want to encourage people to come to New Zealand and to spend and invest their money, so it will be good to look at those changes, and the residential solar—I was really pleased when the Minister announced that. Obviously, Rewiring Aotearoa has been putting forward a number of policies to increase solar uptake, and they were very pleased to see this.

Again, I look forward to the discussions on all of the measures in this bill, which will affect some 11 Acts of Parliament. I commend it to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Look, I’ll take a short call on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2025-26, Compliance Simplification, and Remedial Measures) Bill—

Point of order.

Sorry, I apologise. I’ll hand over—

Sorry—no, carry on.

I’ll take a short call, Mr Speaker, just to support this bill, which is a very sensible one, to rebalance some of the settings in the taxation system. Some of the comments that were made earlier about digital nomads—I mean, this is a sensible contribution. People who add a lot to overseas economies already—the digital nomads—if they want to come and spend some time in New Zealand and contribute to our economy, it’s something we should support. We want these young, connected people who are engaged in the digital economy, which is growing rapidly around the world; this is a very sensible addition. We don’t believe that just adding more taxation is going to be the solution; we need to grow our economy. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support this scintillating Taxation (Annual Rates for 2025-26, Compliance Simplification, and Remedial Measures) Bill. It is a comprehensive bill that reflects the evolving needs of our tax system and the people it serves. Essentially, this bill is about streamlining the machinery of Government, removing outdated rules, simplifying compliance, and being fair to taxpayers. It’s about making the system work better for everyday New Zealanders, small business, migrants, and families.

New Zealand First has always stood for pragmatic, common-sense reform in the national interest, and we do also commend the bill addressing solar on rooftops. The bill proposes to introduce an income tax exemption, which is seldom heard from the other side of the House because we do know that they do quite like tax in any way that they can possibly inform it and in any way they can support it, so they have more room to spend on the policies that they like.

I do know also that Matua Shane Jones and New Zealand First look forward to the energy sector encouraging uptake through fair prices. I note with some sense of anticipation to the debate around section 17GB and the member that brought up opacity in the tax situation. We would also say that privacy is an important issue for many of our supporters, as well.

We look forward to the debate, and for the benefit of the member who said that I told him that he was wrong, I did not refer to him in particular; I said that the statement was incorrect. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka, otirā tēnā rā tātou e te Whare. E tū ana ahau ki te waha i ngā kōrero mā Te Pāti Māori i te rangi nei e pā ana ki tēnei o ngā pire, me te mea anō e kore mātou e whakaae ki tēnei pire. Heoi anō ko tā mātou mahi he tuwhera i ngā take ki te wāhi e kore ai mātou e whakaae ki tēnei o ngā pire.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker, indeed greetings to all in the House. I stand to give voice to the statements on behalf of the Māori Party today regarding this particular bill, and to say that we will never agree with this bill. However, what we would like to do is open up the issues in the area of this particular bill that we do not agree with.]

This bill sets the annual rates of income tax for 2025-26, along with a list of other tax changes, which raises a number of questions from Te Pāti Māori. We believe in Aotearoa hou, where all people can thrive and where our home is more than just a playground. We want to transform the tax system in Aotearoa for the 99 percent instead of the 1 percent. We want to remove income tax from earners making less than $30,000 per year. We want to start taxing wealth instead of incomes. We want to ease the cost of living crisis by removing GST from kai.

This bill reaffirms the status quo, where the hard-working people of Aotearoa subsidise the lavish lifestyles of the rich. This bill also repeals section 17GB of the Tax Administration Act 1994, which allows the commissioner to collect information “for a purpose relating to the development of policy for the improvement or reform of the tax system.”

Engari, there are some elements within the bill that Te Pāti Māori sees as a positive step. This bill introduces “an income tax exemption for income derived by an individual from the sale of excess electricity from a residential property to the network. Under the exemption, individuals would not need to pay tax on,”. It gives Parliament power to increase FamilyBoost payments by Order in Council. While there are some sensible amendments contained within the bill, we need tax justice in Aotearoa, not fringe changes on balance.

Nō reira, Te Pāti Māori opposes this bill because the tax system we see in Aotearoa today is a continuation of taxing workers and of refusing to tax wealth in the landholdings of the people. Nā reira e kore matou e whakaae ki tēnei o ngā pire. Tēnā rā tātou.

[Therefore, we will never agree to this particular bill. Thanks to us all.]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a privilege to take a call on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2025-26, Compliance Simplification, and Remedial Measures) Bill, but Labour will be opposing this bill.

The three main reasons that we oppose this bill are: firstly, it is easier for Government agencies to share information only if Ministers agree that it is needed to determine entitlement to Government assistance or it would help the detection and prosecution of crimes punished for more than two years, or to remove the financial benefit of crime; secondly, the ability of the commissioner to collect information for the purposes of informing tax policy will be repealed; and, thirdly, the disclosure of information about trusts will be repealed. In essence, if you’re on a benefit, you’re stuffed, but if you’ve got everything in a family trust, you’re sweet—and that pretty much sums up the National world view.

It will be much easier under this bill for Government agencies to share information if Ministers agree that it’s needed to determine the entitlement to Government assistance, and so your rights and your privacy are able to be eroded if you’re entitled to be receiving that sort of benefit from the Government. This can already be done through what’s called an approved information-sharing agreement—or AISA—and I’ve done quite a bit of work in the past on these. There’s the basic privacy principle that when you give your personal information, it can only be used for the purpose that you provided it for. What happens in situations such as these is that if someone has provided health information, it typically can’t be used by New Zealand Police, or if someone’s given information about their housing, it can’t be used by another agency without the explicit stipulation that it can be used for that reason.

So we get into this information sharing that the new rules enable Ministers to bypass the AISA process directly into these agencies. There’s a list of agencies that go through all of those key ones that hold personal information, which are Police, ACC, Kāinga Ora, Health, the New Zealand Transport Agency, the National Emergency Management Agency, the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. In other words, tax information can be used for policing purposes.

First of all, there are some deep concerns about whether that’s going to enable people to be forthcoming with providing that information, if it’s going to be used for police purposes. A lot of the work that has been done in the past shows that people are reluctant to give health information honestly to their health practitioner if it’s going to be used to potentially prosecute them down the line, and that impedes or stops people from using public services that they rightly need and are entitled to.

The regulatory impact statement—it’s good that there is one for this bill, because there is often not one—shows that the only consultation undertaken with respect to this measure was with the Privacy Commissioner. No communities, no social service providers, no health professionals, and no other people—not even tax experts—were taken in to look at whether this should be done or not; only the Privacy Commissioner. The only options examined were the status quo and the Minister’s option, and the new rules were created at the Minister’s direction, so common under this Government.

I think it’s important to note that the ability for the commissioner to collect information for the purposes of informing tax policy will be repealed. This was the rule that enabled information to be collected for the high-wealth individuals project—funny that—and many of the people involved were really unhappy about that process. Officials suggested that instead of repealing the rule, it could be retained with strengthened protections around information collected. They have also said that repealing the rule will reduce Inland Revenue’s ability to collect information solely for the purpose of policy development, which could affect the quality of future policy advice, but these guys don’t mind about that.

In a nutshell, rich people will get to hide all of their information and poor people will be subject to information being disclosed at the whim of Ministers, and this is a real concern. That is the primary reason.

Typically, Labour would support these types of taxation bills, but the fundamental flaw is that this is one step, again, in creating a divided New Zealand, creating one set of rules for those people opposite. When they say the economy has turned a corner, it has turned a corner for them, but not for the rest of us, and this law is another example of how there are two standards in New Zealand: one for those over there, and one for the rest of the Kiwis doing it tough under a cost of living crisis.

Thank you, Mr Chair. One of the little things in this bill that people may not be aware of is that we encourage people to take out solar systems—

Solar systems?

What’s the thing when you put it on your roof to track the sun?

Solar panels.

Solar? Solar system. It sounded funny out loud. They can earn a credit or a refund from the electricity company, and, technically, that creates a tax liability. With this bill, we think that’s too hard, there’s too much administration, and it’s nonsensical, so we’re removing it. It’s just a little thing, amongst many, to get New Zealand back on track.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. It’s interesting to hear the previous speaker talk about space. Obviously, he’s going to great measures to avoid tax if you have to go to space to do that!

As has been traversed and talked about in this first debate on this legislation—generally, we would support tax legislation if it is measured, if it is thoughtful, and if it is doing what is right to. I guess the words I would use is “to ensure that the tax system is pure and is doing what it does”, which is to gather revenue, which, then, Government can distribute to support society. As my colleague the Hon Dr Deborah Russell said in her speech, the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2025-26, Compliance Simplification, and Remedial Measures) Bill is something we can’t support. It’s something we can’t support, because it feels like it is an overreach. When tax legislation comes through this House, we have good people in the Labour Party who know about tax. We have tax lawyers, we have tax lecturers, and we have people who understand this. To listen and to unpack it with them to understand what it means, what the potential is that this bill has to do, is something that we need to then stop and pause and consider.

The tax system—and the IRD needs to be a separate organisation that does its one job: to gather tax, to gather revenue. When we suddenly start to have this overreach of Ministers being able to step in, when we look at things like Kāinga Ora, we look at things like ACC, we look at things like the New Zealand Police or the New Zealand Transport Agency having the potential of Ministers to allow access, I think it is cause for concern.

We want people to do what is right. We want people to pay tax, absolutely, but we also want to make sure that people, no matter where they are, what their circumstances are, what life throws at them or what life choices they make, can always be in a position where they can pay tax. The approved information-sharing agreements already exist. This bill allows Ministers to overstep that and I think that is dangerous and something that we need to be concerned about.

We need to make sure that if you are living in a Kāinga Ora house, that if you do have, potentially, fines through the transport agency—if you are in arrears, for example, that’s fair enough, but that should be something that’s dealt with, with Kāinga Ora; that should be something that if you have outstanding fines that are standing there with the transport agency, it is dealt with in that space. The tax system should do what it was designed to do, and that is to gather revenue. And that’s it.

Deborah Russell also spoke—and I was thoughtful as she was speaking—around trusts and who benefits from trusts and the importance of transparency and how this piece of legislation can undermine that. We need to be very careful; we need to be very thoughtful. As this piece of legislation leaves this House, heads to select committee for debate and discussion, we hope that the Government MPs and we hope that members of the public can engage and can really prosecute and unpack what actually is being done in this legislation.

One thing I do want to comment on which is good is around those who have solar panels, for example, or wind or other forms of energy that they create and feed back into the national grid. Now, of course we agree with that. Of course we agree that we want to incentivise people to be able to have renewable energy within their own homes and to be able to then put that back into the system to get a little bit of money for it. The fact that that is something that will not have to be paid through income tax—that is sensible, a sensible move.

We just came from the debate on climate change Estimates and the importance and the challenges we’re facing. We need to remove every single barrier we can to make sure that people have options and have the ability to ensure that they can heat their home, they can run their home with solar, for example, and then any excess can be then sent back into the national grid without the need to file a tax return or do information on that. That’s fair enough.

We can’t support this bill. There are some good bits in it, but there are some really bad bits in it, and we look forward to select committee taking it forward.

I just wanted to focus on one aspect of this omnibus taxation bill, and that is the fact that it’s going to encourage digital nomads. It’s going to make New Zealand a more attractive place for what they call a “workcation”. That’s important, given the global workforce is more digitalised and more mobile. This bill will enable a non-resident individual to visit and work in New Zealand for up to 275 days in any 18-month period without becoming subject to New Zealand income tax. It will help this Government drive the value of tourism. So I commend the bill.

The question is, That the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2025-26, Compliance Simplification, and Remedial Measures) Bill be referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

Bill referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

on behalf of the Minister of Defence: I move, That the Defence (Workforce) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee to consider the bill and I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by four months and one day after the bill receives its first reading.

This bill amends the Defence Act of 1990 and it improves when and how the Chief of Defence Force can backfill civilian roles if industrial action within the New Zealand Defence Forces puts at risk national security or the delivery of core defence outputs.

In an increasingly volatile world, we need a defence force that is deployable, combat capable, and interoperable with our international partners, ready and equipped to do whatever is asked of it. We also need common-sense legislation which will enable the women and men who make up the New Zealand Defence Force to do their job and to do it well.

The New Zealand Defence Force comprises hard-working and highly skilled military personnel and civilian staff. Each plays an important role in maintaining New Zealand’s defence and national security. This is why when civilian staff take industrial action, there can be very rapid and serious impacts on the readiness and outputs of the New Zealand Defence Force. Current legislative settings restrict when and how the Chief of Defence Force can backfill civilian roles, and this can put national security and the delivery of those core defence outputs at risk—for example, when civilian staff take industrial action, this could mean there’s no one available to guard munitions and weapons stores on military camps and bases. Other risks could include military personnel missing out on critical training, or aircraft going without the maintenance that is required before deployment. That’s why this bill is so important. It seeks to remove these risks if or when industrial action occurs within the Defence Force.

When civilian staff took industrial action last year, the Chief of Defence Force had to seek ministerial authorisation to redeploy military personnel to perform the duties of civilian staff taking industrial action. Fourteen days later, the Minister of Defence had to return to Parliament to seek a resolution to continue to redeploy military personnel to perform civilian tasks as industrial action was still ongoing. This event showed us just how vulnerable the management of the Defence Force could be when industrial action takes place.

The process also highlighted three issues. The first is that the ability of military personnel to perform core civilian duties is constrained if a direct threat to safety and health is absent—for example, some civilian staff are responsible for arranging logistics to support important New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) training activities. If these staff went on strike, it may not be possible to authorise military personnel to conduct this work, because health and safety thresholds would not be met, but a delay or cancellation to training could in fact result in personnel being less prepared for military operations, and put deployment timing and commitments at risk, and this suggests that the criteria to enable an authorisation is too limited.

The second issue relates to military personnel only being authorised to conduct the work of civilian staff taking industrial action for a maximum of 14 days. Should the Minister wish to extend this authorisation, they must seek a resolution from this House. This process is onerous when we consider that other employers can simply ask their own staff to cover the work of those taking industrial action, without an authorisation or a resolution from Parliament.

The third matter relates to the process. To seek a resolution from the House can result in sensitive information being shared in Parliament. This could prejudice national security and put members of the New Zealand Defence Force at risk. These challenges show that the Chief of Defence Force needs greater flexibility to manage the workforce when industrial action occurs within NZDF. To mitigate the risks presented by the existing process, I, on behalf of the Minister of Defence, propose to introduce a new process to authorise the armed forces to conduct the work of New Zealand Defence Force civilian staff who are taking industrial action. This would only apply when there are reasonable grounds to believe that an authorisation is needed to avoid prejudicing national security or the ability and/or readiness of the armed forces to perform specific operational duties that are integral to the core defence outputs.

The second part of these criteria may sound broad, but it is worded intentionally so that multiple tests must be met before the criteria can apply—for example, the “readiness” to be “prejudiced”: it must be shown that industrial action has an impact on personnel being ready and equipped for deployment or other operational activities. To fit the meaning of specific operational activities, the activity must be consistent with the Defence Act of 1990 or authorised by Government or by mechanisms such as the defence output plan.

The bill also makes procedural changes to ensure that authorisations can be efficient and effective. Rather than an authorisation lasting for 14 days, the Minister of Defence will be able to say how long an authorisation will last, and this would remove the requirement to have a parliamentary debate about whether the New Zealand Defence Force can deploy people within their own organisation for longer than 14 days.

It’s important to note that the intent of these changes is not to prevent industrial action in the defence force; these changes are intended to ensure that the industrial action has limited impact on the Defence Force, and the defence and security of New Zealand. Changes will, of course, continue to preserve the right of civilian staff to take industrial action. The authorisation of military personnel to cover civilian tasks when industrial action occurs is not taken lightly but, when required, it should be practical in its application. This is why the bill also increases the number of days the Minister of Defence may authorise the armed forces to conduct the work of Public Service employees outside of the New Zealand Defence Force, from 14 to 30 days. The bill enables the Chief of Defence Force to better manage their workforce. It ensures that the security of New Zealand and the safety of New Zealanders endures while civilian staff exercise their rights.

We face the most challenging strategic circumstances in New Zealand’s modern history and certainly the worst that anyone today working in politics or foreign affairs can remember. That’s why the practical changes contained in this amendment must be made.

The selfless and committed women and men of the New Zealand Defence Force deserve to have legislation that enables their readiness to deploy to and on behalf of New Zealand, and it’s critical we ensure that we can always protect New Zealand, New Zealanders, and our way of life. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I start my contribution on this bill by acknowledging all of the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel—men and women—who serve our country in different ways, overseas and here, domestically. They do a fantastic job representing New Zealand, and I want to acknowledge them from the outset.

I want to put it on the record for the Government, at this point in time, that Labour won’t be supporting this bill. I want to point out why, and I want to also look towards how we might be able to make sure that this bill can have broader consensus across the House, because we do think there are some smart things in here around process and the way that we might be able to look towards supporting the decision making when these decisions are made to deploy NZDF uniformed personnel into civilian roles.

I want to start by saying this: when the Minister was making cuts to the civilian roles in the Defence Force, we asked this House and the Minister, on numerous occasions, whether those cuts would have a meaningful impact on the role of our NZDF personnel to either deploy or to do their job. The Minister told this House, “No, it wouldn’t.”—“No, it wouldn’t.”—yet here we are, saying that there are challenges here because there is industrial action being taken, and, now, all of a sudden, the Government is trying to backfill those spaces to make sure that they can continue the very basics of their functions.

We’re the Labour Party. We stood up for those who work in the civilian roles—important civilian roles acknowledged by the Chief of Defence Force—important civilian roles that allow the NZDF personnel to do their jobs to their very best. The Government decided, at the time, to make significant cuts. Now, when we look across industrial action, we can’t simply look at the NZDF in isolation. There is industrial action being taken against this Government in so many sectors it’s not funny. That side of the House might laugh, but let’s have a good hard look at it: teachers, nurses, doctors, civilian roles in the NZDF, and the list goes on and on. We want to be very clear that when we make sure we decide to deploy the NZDF into these spaces, there are strong checks and balances.

The Minister pointed out that the Minister of Defence can come in here and make the statement without this Parliament debating the point. I don’t agree with that. I believe that that is an erosion of the democracy that this House stands for. Every party in this House should be able to debate those decisions and put on record, very clearly, what their position is. Now, there are some exceptions, and I’ll give it that. When we had the coronavirus and the one-in-100-year pandemic in this country, we were in Government then. We made the decision to utilise our NZDF personnel to support our quarantine activities and other activities to keep this country safe. All we got from the current Government is, “Well, the Labour Government killed the NZDF.” We know it was a challenging time, but, now, this Government’s prepared to change the law to say that uniformed personnel can fill the roles of the civilian workforce in the NZDF.

Now, I ask this House: is that right and is that fair? It isn’t. When there are checks and balances in place, they must continue to be upheld so that the public have faith in our democracy. What’s going to happen—I can see it—is the decision-making pyramid will get smaller and smaller and, before you know it, we’ll have too much power in the hands of too few. That’s the challenge when you erode democratic rights.

Now, I’ll say it again to the House: we’re prepared to work with the Government on some of the proposals in this bill because we do believe that some of them are common sense, but, ultimately, the Government must answer this question: why is the civilian workforce taking industrial action against this Government? Silence from the other side.

We know that the decisions made by this Government to make cuts across the public sector, which include the civilian workforce in the New Zealand Defence Force, would have an impact. That Government stood up every day in this House and said, “No, it won’t. Health services won’t be impacted.”—what’s happened? Longer wait times; “No, it won’t. The roles on the NZDF will be fine, and they’ll be able to undertake their roles safely.” Now we’re being told, “Hold on. We might have to change the law so we can deploy to backfill those roles.” Let’s work together to see if we can get broader consensus.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Let me also echo the comments by the Hon Peeni Henare to acknowledge our defence personnel. I’m probably not the only Māori in this Whare that has always had relations in all the various different armed forces, both before and also currently. When you think of them as whānau, think of them as workers, you always want the best for them. Also noting that many of them often move over to these civilian roles as well.

When I look at this legislation, I see a pattern of behaviour from this Government. I see a pattern of behaviour which is trampling on the rights of workers. I see this, and it was articulated by the Public Service Association (PSA), actually, where they say this is like strike-breaking legislation. There’s a strike happening, the Government doesn’t like it, so they bring somebody in. Imagine how awkward it is going to be in the smoko room on those days, because I can guarantee you that many of these workers, whether they’re uniformed or not, will have those relationships as well.

I do support what the PSA is saying: it is a pattern of behaviour; we are seeing that right across the country. We are seeing teachers on strike, we are seeing nurses on strike, hospitality workers on strike, because this Government is trampling on the rights of workers. I see this as just another step in that direction.

I say that because if you go through the regulatory impact statement, there was a suggestion that, actually, they should sit down with the workers—sit down with the workers, sit down with the unions, those that undertook the strike before—and actually have a conversation about how to best deal with the situation. When I talk to workers, they are always well aware of the health and safety implications of strike action. They will always try to do their best to make sure that our core services continue in the case of hospitals or in the case of our firefighters, as well. I would suspect that would be the same case with these workers.

It requires a Government to engage and it requires a Government to have good-faith practices. It requires a Government to actually understand that they need to work with workers, understand that what workers want is dignity, first of all, but also decent jobs.

The regulatory impact statement does make interesting reading. Previously, the legislation was: well, unless it’s a work and health and safety kind of issue—that’s when all this stuff kicks in. However, there was a difference of opinion that I could see in the regulatory impact statement, which shows that the Ministry of Defence did not recommend including the delivery of core outputs. When I heard the Minister talking earlier saying, “Well, actually there are national security implications”, I think the members opposite should spell out exactly what they mean by that; give us clear examples. He also talked about a readiness test—I was listening carefully. They should spell out exactly what that means as well and give us real-life examples that people can understand.

The other issue I see around the core delivery of outputs is: what is that? It could be anything that the Minister just dreams up. Maybe the photocopier is broken and it’s going to inhibit the delivery of a core output. Is that what we’re including? Is that one of the elements? That is not clear in this case.

I do not think that this bill is sufficient. I do not think it has really engaged widely in the way that it has. I am disappointed that we are going to be moving to a shortened select committee process. I see that within the pattern of behaviour of this Government; it’s that pattern of behaviour which concerns me. It’s a pattern of behaviour that should concern all of this House, because when people feel that they are disrespected in their jobs, they look elsewhere. When they feel that people don’t appreciate what they’re doing, they look elsewhere. What we need is for people to stay in this country to make it the best place that it can be.

I also make the other point as well about whether this Government is actually looking after defence personnel in the best way that they can. Why are all of these roles being done by civilian personnel? Is it because there’s not enough support in there for our defence personnel as well?

I do not commend this bill to the House. It is not thought out, it is a strike-breaking bill, and the Greens will not support this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party, and I too would like to firstly give a shout-out to the men and women who serve New Zealand. We know that times are really tough out there with the geopolitical situation, so, more than ever, we really appreciate you and the hard work that you do.

Look, I think it would be wrong of me not to just set the record straight. This bill is not intended to backfill any roles that the civilians may or may not play within the Defence Force. That is completely not true. What this bill does is something that, actually, the Minister can do at any point of time, anyway, when it comes to industrial action. It just makes that process slightly easier. That is all it is. For those that are sitting at home, I’m going to make this really simple. I’m going to tell you exactly what this bill does.

This bill, essentially, extends a time period from when a Minister can use those in uniform to do activities such as security. If we had security guards going on strike—we want them to still be able to go on strike; that is part of their rights, and they’re able to do that. We want to still encourage that, but we need to make sure that our bases are safe. Could we have security walk off and just leave our bases open? It blows my mind. This is actually enabling those employees to be able to actually strike and for our Defence Force to maintain safety.

Going from 14 days to 30 days is not a massive shift. For a Minister to have to come back into the House and reaffirm this isn’t a huge deal. We’re only extending this out by a fortnight, and there could be circumstances in which industrial action could go on for some time—we’re not sure; we’re just foreseeing this in the future. It’s a waste of this House’s time for a Minister to be coming back and forward over something that is, quite frankly, able to happen out there in the private sector already.

I think, as a new MP, I was actually quite amazed that this is something that the Minister needed to do, because I would have thought that we would want to enable any of our civilians doing jobs within the Defence Force to be able to strike a lot easier.

Now, to those across the House that said that we should be listening to those employees, I 100 percent agree. That’s why this is going to the select committee. It’s coming to a good select committee, and I really do hope that we get good engagement. I’m going to commend this bill to the House, and I look forward to hearing more about it when it comes to our great select committee.

It is a great honour to speak on this bill, on behalf of New Zealand First, and I would like to join colleagues across the House in acknowledging the work of our armed services and the role they play in keeping us safe and in being prepared, actually, to walk into what, for many of us, would be unimaginable danger.

New Zealand First has always been a major supporter of our military. We’re very proud of the investment that the coalition is putting into our armed forces and our military at the moment in this greatly upheaved geopolitical environment, and, of course, we’ve got a fine track record of supporting our military. We were very honoured to have, in our last term in Parliament, the Hon Ron Mark as defence Minister and veterans Minister, and anyone who knows Ron or was around him in that time will know that no one was prouder to serve in that role than Ron; so a shout-out to Ron. The fact that we’ve got the P-8 Poseidons and the Hercules coming through now is a direct result of his advocacy.

This bill, as Laura McClure has just pointed out, is actually quite a minor tweak to a provision that is already in legislation, in terms of just making a 30-day provision rather than a 14-day provision. It’s a very common-sense amendment to what there is already the ability to do. This is not undermining workers’ rights—we do support their right to take industrial action—but we cannot, under any circumstances, be enfeebling our military or encroaching on their ability to serve or to execute critical tasks that they do. I might add that it’s not only military or offensive operations; often it is in state of emergency and severe weather events like Cyclone Gabrielle. As the Hon Peeni Henare referenced, during COVID they were called into action.

Having any encroachment on the ability of our armed forces or our military to execute their responsibilities—this bill takes away some of the uncertainty or the narrowness of the current provisions when there is lawful industrial action being undertaken by the civil staff who play such an important role in supporting our military. New Zealand First will be supporting this bill. We’re fully in support, so we commend the Minister for bringing it forward and commend it to the House. Thank you.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. I think it’s one thing to open with a speech—not mine; what I was listening to—as if people don’t quite get it. You know, it’s like “So I’m going to clarify something.” There’s something, I think, arrogant about that and assuming that people don’t actually get what’s going on. People do get that, because they don’t trust what’s going on. So when people think about “Gee, should I really listen?”, the reason they don’t, unfortunately, is because too many of our people, Māori included, just do not trust anything that’s coming out from those to my left in the House. So don’t be surprised, shocked, and cry-baby about the fact that people do not trust, they do not listen, and they can’t take you seriously. That’s the point that I want to make as I open up our position, as Te Pāti Māori, and say we will not be supporting this.

What we do recognise, and I tautoko the kōrero a Hon Peeni Henare; e mihi ana ki wā tātou whanaunga i roto i te New Zealand Defence Force [I support the statement of Peeni Hēnare; I acknowledge our relatives in the New Zealand Defence Force].

Māori women, Māori men, all women and men in that special and important Defence Force.

In fact, what it seems to me is—and, again, noting some other comments from my immediate right, here—what is this going to be like in the smoko room? You know, how is this going to go? You’ve got our Defence Force team, and then you’ve got them working and taking the space of our civilian work—that’s not a good, smart, or safe way, I think, to treat people.

Just picking up again that this is already something that can happen in an extension of time. The reason, again, that I want to affirm is that the people don’t get those points, and nor do they even probably care about them, because they don’t trust, overall, the approach that this Government is taking, and they fear what this Government is doing. You would have and you would have seen that, obviously, when 100,000 people came and walked on this Parliament and just said, “You’re screwing up, change what you’re doing.”—which, of course, you haven’t taken a bit of notice of.

So back to this particular issue. Last year, the members of the Public Service Association (PSA)—that’s right, that’s right. The ACT Party was the only one that agreed to that one, and the rest of you woke up and did a good thing and voted against it.

Last year, members of the PSA working within the Defence Force were offered a 0 percent pay increase. The only way they were able to improve that situation was through strike action. That right to strike is what allowed progress to be made—OK? That’s how it happened, so that they could actually make that happen. But this bill threatens to remove that power. It’s that—

No, it doesn’t—no it doesn’t. That’s not true.

It is absolutely true, and you can’t be trusted with telling the truth, so I’m just going to carry on. This bill threatens to remove that power. If the armed forces are legally enabled to take over the roles of striking staff, then the impact of striking is, effectively, neutralised. The strike becomes symbolic, without consequence or leverage. This undermines the very purpose of industrial action.

No workplace can improve if workers are stripped of meaningful avenues to advocate for their rights, and this bill isn’t just an attack on the New Zealand Defence Force civilian staff; it’s a gateway for wider attacks on our nurses, our teachers, our firefighters. [Interruption] I know that there’s a little bit of cry-baby over here to the left of me, but, again, what you’re not recognising is that even if your points that you are attempting to make by squealing right now—they might even be relevant. But here’s the thing that you’re not getting: people do not trust much of anything that you are doing right now—all right? They don’t trust you, and so why on earth would they even bother listening? They cannot take you seriously and, obviously, we do not take you seriously.

The party has no interest in this, and we will not be supporting it. Tēnā koe e te Pīka.

You want to talk about trust? Let me tell you who I trust. I trust the 12,000 Kiwis this morning that got out of bed, put on their uniform, and went to serve in our Defence Force, willing to do whatever it is that their country asks of them. Don’t tell me on the other side—and we hear it from Labour and we hear it from Green and we hear it from Te Pāti Māori about employment conditions and workplace relations. These people are not employees; they are service people. They serve. They do what their country asks. The illiteracy of what our Defence Force is and does and who they are, on the other side of the House, is shocking. People that think that suddenly we’re going to have issues in the smoko room wouldn’t know what one looks like on the inside of the base. The gallant members on this side of the House know exactly what that’s like.

You want to ask about readiness? Let me explain to them, Mr Tuiono, what readiness is. It is the people that sit at home through Christmas, through weekends on rosters to respond to national contingencies, to search and rescue, and to a whole range of things. It’s medics, it’s technicians, it’s soldiers, it’s sailors, and it’s air crew—people waiting to serve this country—and we should be supporting them. That means that if a civilian workforce wants to do what they’re legally entitled to do and take industrial action, which does not change—anyone that says that would be lying. If they want to take that action, we should be supporting them by allowing them to go and do jobs that they already do. There are already military personnel—

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I was just wanting to clarify whether, with the hand action, the member was referring to a liar or anyone lying, and I hope it wasn’t me. I wanted to make that point.

It was a general enough clause to not be specifically accusing anyone in particular of lying, but the member will be careful.

There are military personnel guarding military bases today. It seems outrageous that we had to come to Parliament to ask them to do that. There are military personnel servicing aircraft, and yet we had to come to Parliament to ask if more could service aircrafts.

This is a common-sense bill. It is something that I would have thought was in the national interest and that every party could unite on. I cannot believe the fundamental attempt at politics on the other side. There is no understanding of what a defence force does. There is no respect for them; there is no support for them, but that’s what this party is all about.

This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. today.

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.

Today, the House will adjourn until Tuesday, 16 September. That week, we will consider the first readings of the Local Government (Auckland Council) (Transport Governance) Amendment Bill and the Retail Payment System (Ban on Merchant Surcharges) Amendment Bill, as well as make progress on the Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill and the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme—Forestry Conversion) Amendment Bill.

I thank the Acting Leader of the House for that statement. Given there was no commitment to a members’ day next Wednesday, can the House take it that the Government intends to move urgency?

Mr Speaker, I am pleased to say that it’s great to see the member’s excited about the progress of the House next week. He’ll have to wait and see.

No petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation. A paper has been delivered for presentation.

The 2025 annual report for KiwiSaver.

That paper is published under the authority of the House. Nine select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

Reports of the Education and Workforce Committee on the

Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2)

petition of Carlo Jaminola

reports of the Environment Committee on the

petition of Alex Johnston

report of the Controller and Auditor-General, Assessing New Zealand’s climate change response with ClimateScanner

review briefing on the 2023-24 annual review of the Climate Change Chief Executives Board

report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Monetary Policy Statement, August 2025

report of the Māori Affairs Committee on the briefing on the Māori Trustee

reports of the Social Services and Community Committee on the

petition of Safeguarding Children: Amend the Children’s Act 2014 to protect children from abuse

review briefing on the 2023-24 annual review of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Board.

The bill is set down for second reading. The briefings are set down for consideration. The reports of the Controller and Auditor-General and Reserve Bank are set down for consideration.

The Clerk’s been informed of the introduction of a bill.

Drug Overdose (Assistance Protection) Legislation Bill, introduction.

That bill is set down for first reading.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. Due to travel arrangements, I’m asking the House’s permission to have question No. 9 moved up to at least question No. 4 on today’s Order Paper.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

to the Minister for Women

Does she stand by all her statements and actions regarding pay equity?

on behalf of the Minister for Women: Yes, in the context in which they were made.

Why does she claim that she is satisfied that the Government’s pay equity changes are fair, when, as NZEI put it, the Government gave their plan a little project name, Project 10, while workers kept working on claims in good faith?

I thank the member for her question. On behalf of the Minister, the substance of fairness about the pay equity system is about the actual system in place, not the title of any particular Cabinet-related documents that happened before the system was established.

Why were 180,000 hard-working Kiwis—predominantly women—and organisations encouraged to keep investing time, money, and hope into pay equity claims, when the Government were already on a pathway to cancelling them?

It is really important that we have a pay equity system that works. That is what this Government has established. We do have a pay equity system. It is also possible for anybody to take a claim. I’m very heartened by the fact that in the news this week, I believe, there were union members who suggested that they were going to, quite soon, take a claim under the new system to see how it works.

Has the Minister received advice on the amount of resources and funding that continued to be invested while the Government’s Project 10 plan was under way?

As I have suggested earlier, the pay equity system remains. There is a system for people to use for any claims between unions and employers. Information that was gathered and information that could be used for a claim can still be used, if it is valid, for a claim under the current system—and I note that must be the case for some of the people who are looking to take a claim quite soon under the new system.

Why does she claim she’s satisfied that the Government’s pay equity changes are fair, when 62 percent of Rural Women New Zealand members surveyed said the new pay equity claim threshold is not fair?

The system is fair because it is looking to create instances of finding genuine sex-based undervaluation. It is a fair system when the system does what it says it does.

Were the 75 percent of Rural Women New Zealand members surveyed wrong when they expressed concerns that these changes will impact the sustainability of essential rural services, such as healthcare and education?

On behalf of the Minister, I acknowledge and accept there will be a range of differing opinion. There is not one cohesive thought on pay equity across the country; however, it is also the case that the Minister for Women has a good relationship with a number of stakeholders that she draws on for advice. It is also the case that this Government is committed to a pay equity scheme. I’m also heartened by the fact that there are union members who are going to use the new system.

Are New Zealand’s workers wrong when 84 percent of them choose not to join a union?

That’s quite outside the question.

How can anyone trust this Government when it betrays—

No, start that one again too. You can’t have a Minister answering for the whole Government; that’s not reasonable.

How can anyone trust this Minister, when she betrays workers by letting them invest time—

No, you can’t use language like that. Sorry, I’ve been asked to be very pedantic about answers and everything else; I have to do the same with questions. You can’t make an accusation like that.

How can anyone trust this Minister when workers and organisations were expected to invest time, energy, and money into claims, when they had already decided to cancel them?

The fact of the matter is that people can take a claim. People are looking to do a claim using information that they already had access to, using resources that they already had access to. This Government is committed to a pay equity system. I’m very heartened by the fact that people are looking to take claims under the new system.

to the Minister for Energy

Has Cabinet considered the recommendations of the Frontier Economics review of the electricity market; if so, will the recommendations involve Government intervention in the electricity market?

No. The Government will make announcements on the Frontier report and the Government’s response to it when it has been fully considered, and in due course.

Who was right: the Associate Minister for Energy, who said, in relation to the energy sector, that “Now is the time for urgency and bold ideas.”; or the Minister for Energy, who said, “small, surgical interventions will make a big difference and drive real results for Kiwi households and businesses”?

Both are, obviously, right. The context which I noted was that we would be looking to make surgical interventions into the energy market. What I failed to note is I’m also a registered paramedic.

Can he commit that any reform of the electricity market will deliver lower energy bills for households, businesses, and industry; and, if not, why not?

Well, as I noted in the response to my primary answer, the Government will announce its response to the energy market review in due course. However, my main priority as Minister for Energy is to ensure that we have both energy security and energy affordability, and I expect the recommendations that we will be making will deal with both of those aspects.

Will he consider the renationalisation of the gentailers, as proposed by his associate energy Minister; or does he agree with the Deputy Prime Minister, who said this would damage investor confidence?

The member is just going to need to be patient. As I said, the Government will announce its response to the energy market review in due course.

Does he think that it gives the energy sector confidence when the energy Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, and the associate energy Minister all appear to be publicly at odds over the best way to move forward on electricity market reform?

I don’t agree with the premise of that question. What is clear is that, on this side of the House, we are committed to ensuring New Zealand has energy security and we have affordable energy for New Zealanders. The reality of what we are dealing with is a result of decisions made by prior Governments that have put us in this position, and we will not stand by and not take the necessary action to get us back on track.

In line with the House’s agreement earlier, I think we now take question No. 9 in the name of the Hon Peeni Henare.

to the Minister of Foreign Affairs

Will the Government implement sanctions against Israel for its unlawful occupation of the Palestinian Territory as called for by UN resolution 10/24, which New Zealand voted for?

We already have. The resolution called on States to implement sanctions, including travel bans, against people engaged in illegal and violent settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territory. That is precisely what we have done. Over the past 18 months, the New Zealand Government has imposed travel bans on two Israeli Ministers as well as 35 extremist settlers. We’ve made it clear that these people are not welcome in New Zealand, because they have actively undermined the two-State solution by illegally settling in the West Bank, perpetrated or advocated violence, and displaced Palestinian civilians from their homes.

Does he accept the International Court of Justice finding that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is in breach of the provision on apartheid in the convention on the elimination of racial discrimination?

That is a misinterpretation of the International Court’s finding.

Why is New Zealand yet to join Australia, our only formal international ally, in recognising Palestine as a State?

Because we are a very proud democracy with advances in the democratic system way beyond Australia’s, going back two centuries, and we make our own decisions carefully and quietly after we have heard all the evidence, which we will have the best chance to have when we get to New York. Only fools test the water with both feet.

Does he agree with the United Nations that Palestinian people have a right to self-determination—an inalienable right that cannot be subject to conditions of the occupying powers?

That is a pronouncement from the United Nations that we have always agreed with.

What is his message to the thousands of people expected to march across the Auckland Harbour Bridge on Saturday in protest of this Government’s unwillingness to speak out against the unfolding genocide in Gaza?

Well, that’d be a totally wasted blockage of people’s transport and time on Saturday, if that is what the purpose of the march is. However, I know they have a penchant for display rather than any hard, serious work, whereas this Government has found enormous amounts of funds for the Palestinian people and made every effort we can to help through other organisations as well, like the Red Cross, rather than just all talk and virtue signalling.

to the Minister for Economic Growth

What recent announcements has she made on supermarket competition?

I recently announced steps to remove barriers that prevent competitor supermarkets from launching or expanding here. Among these changes is the creation of an express lane for new supermarkets, to boost competition and deliver better deals for Kiwi shoppers. This is just one of many things the Government is doing to address the lack of competition in our grocery market. This is good news for Kiwi shoppers, who are paying higher prices and have less choice than they would have if there was more competition.

What is the express lane for new supermarkets?

The express lane addresses widespread frustration with restrictive zoning, slow consenting, and cumbersome regulations that prevent potential competitors from opening the doors of a new supermarket. As part of the express lane, legislation will soon be introduced to amend the Fast-track Approvals Act, to make it clear that new supermarkets that would improve grocery competition will qualify as fast-track referrable projects, and I urge members of this House who want a better deal for shoppers to support that legislation. Building consenting processes for new supermarkets will also be streamlined by selecting a single building consent authority to standardise decisions for grocery developments, and Building Act regulations will be amended to allow pre-approved, MultiProof building plans for multiple grocery developments.

What else is the Government doing for supermarket competition?

The Government’s focus is on regulatory, enforcement, and structural areas. The Overseas Investment Act is being improved, and new guidance has been published to support grocery investments. The Commerce Act will be amended to better combat predatory pricing, and we are actively looking at options around the importation of food into the country. The Government is determined to enable stronger competition in the supermarket sector. Potential competitors have told us that the changes we are making will help them to do that. For example, Costco has confirmed that the express lane will assist with their future expansion plans, which is great news for shoppers.

What structural work is under way?

Some responses to our request for information argued that the only way to truly improve supermarket competition is for the Government to forcibly break up Foodstuffs and/or Woolworths, because they hold entrenched market positions and market power. That would be a significant intervention, with costs and risks that need to be rigorously weighed against the potential benefits to shoppers. The Government has commissioned a cost-benefit analysis on specific options for restructuring the duopoly. We also remain open to potential market-led solutions that may be put forward by the major incumbents.

to the Minister of Health

Has he been involved in collective agreement negotiations with doctors and nurses; if so, how?

on behalf of the Minister of Health: On behalf of the Minister of Health—and a very good guy he is—no, I have not been involved. However, I have written to two of the parties in the senior doctors’ negotiations after they had had meditation—sorry, mediation; although meditation might help at this point—facilitated bargaining, and an Employment Relations Authority recommendation, suggesting that they might like to go to binding arbitration.

Why did he directly intervene in senior doctors’ bargaining to argue for binding arbitration, and has his intervention delayed a settlement?

In answer to the first part of the question: as I just said, mediation, facilitated bargaining, and a recommendation by the Employment Relation Authority and still no agreement and still patients missing out on procedures that they desperately need. In that circumstance, I decided to propose a better solution so that they could get back in the operating theatres and back in the clinics and the hospitals to serve the patients. Has that delayed the progress? No, I don’t believe it has.

Why did he agree to an Order in Council changing employer responsibilities and the bargaining team during the New Zealand Nurses Organisation bargaining, and could this action have delayed a settlement?

First of all, I did it because my underlying driver—this is on behalf of the Minister of Health—in everything I do is to improve outcomes for patients, because, for too long, too much money has been poured in for the results that we’ve got. We need to ensure that when we put more taxpayer money into healthcare—as this Government has: $2 billion more than when we were elected to now; $2 billion more—we need to make sure we’re getting results for that. I responded to the circumstances, motivated by care for the patients.

Did he or his office direct Health New Zealand to withhold official information related to safe staffing levels sought by the nurse’s union in relation to their pay claim?

On behalf of the Minister of Health, I am not in a position to address that question. That is a question about a specific action that would only be known by the Minister. However, based on everything that I know of Simeon Brown, that sounds very unlikely.

Why did he display a provocative sign in his parliamentary office to striking nurses, and does he accept that that behaviour would make a settlement less likely?

On behalf of the Minister of Health, it is the member’s characterisation that it was provocative. However, I would say that alerting people to the welfare of patients is actually the core job of the Minister of Health. When I hear that that could somehow delay a settlement, let’s just consider for a moment what this Labour member is suggesting. They’re suggesting that because the Minister of Health put a sign advocating for the rights of patients on his own electorate office door, nurses would strike for longer and deny patients more care. I mean, I think the public can make up their mind for themselves. That’s an absurd proposition from the Labour Party.

to the Minister of Education

What recent announcement has she made on the secondary school curriculum?

Today, I announced the senior secondary subject list, for years 11 to 13 students, in both the New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa. We have introduced dynamic, innovative new subjects that will engage and inspire learners as part of what we are continuing to focus on, which is raising achievement and closing the equity gap. These new subjects will be phased in from 2028, starting with year 11, to create a modern curriculum which recognises the growing importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects, as well as other relevant learning areas. To give students more choice, we’re also introducing new strengthened, industry-led subjects which will be tertiary aligned so students are best prepared for future study, training, and employment.

What are some of the new subjects?

Well, we’re introducing a range of exciting new subjects across the curriculum. In the area of STEM, students will be able to take subjects like further maths, statistics and data science, and electronics and mechatronics. We’re also introducing music technology; civics, politics, and philosophy; media, journalism, and communications; Pacific studies; and te mātai i te ao Māori. In Te Marautanga, we’ve created nine new subject areas, including tātai arorangi, te ao Māori, and te ao whakairo, as well as—for the first time ever—curriculum provision in te reo Māori at years 12 and 13, right across the subject areas, which should have been done much earlier. Thank you to Rawiri Wright, from Te Rūnanga Nui, for advocating for the inclusion of te ao Māori.

What are some of the new industry-led subjects?

Well, to engage students through more choice, we’re also introducing new strengthened, industry-led subjects. Whether a young person wants to be a master builder, an automotive engineer, a teacher, or a lawyer, the curriculum should set them up for success, not split them into separate lanes. These subjects include primary industry, health and wellbeing services, outdoor education, automotive engineering, building and construction, infrastructure engineering, mechanical engineering, tourism and hospitality, and more. We are proposing an integrated system where all subjects, whether they’re ministry-led or industry-led, are equal in status, and these subjects will be industry-led and tertiary aligned. Excitingly, students taking these industry-led subjects will likely exit high school with both a secondary qualification and a tertiary qualification at level 2 or 3.

What feedback has she seen on the announcement?

One teacher remarked that it’s great to see philosophy as a subject, stating that, previously, they had to piece together unrelated standards from other subjects to try and offer it. BusinessNZ CEO, Katherine Rich, said the inclusion of future-focused subject areas in NCEA reform is a positive step forward, preparing New Zealanders for a rapidly changing world of work. We want our students to have access to innovative, dynamic subjects that give every student the skills and confidence to thrive in their chosen field.

to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety

Does she stand by her comments about the new appointments to the Employment Relations Authority; if so, why?

I stand by my comments, in the context in which they were made—though I accept that my statements could have been clearer—that I make my appointments based on merit and I respect the independence of the authority. In particular, I stand by my comment that I’m really pleased with the progress we’re making to better balance a mix of public and private experience among members to better reflect New Zealand’s employment landscape.

Does she think it is appropriate for a Government Minister to try and influence the judiciary?

No.

Does she believe that businesses’ bottom lines matter more than working people’s right to awards?

No.

Was she warned, prior to making her comments to BusinessDesk, that they could be seen as politicising the judiciary?

No.

Does she believe that, in the modern workplace, people should be nimble and agile and able to change track when a strategy is not working?

Yes.

Has she accepted—[Interruption]

Just wait for a moment. Questions are heard in silence.

Has she accepted the advice from the Auditor-General of the need for “careful use of language when speaking of the judiciary”; and, if so, will she desist from similar comments in the future?

I don’t believe the Auditor-General has reached out to me.

to the Minister for the Environment

Does she stand by all her statements and actions?

Yes, in the context they were given.

Does she stand by her statement from Tuesday, 9 September, in response to whether she sees her role in the fast-track process as advocating for the environment, that “Yes, I do get opportunity; I do bring environmental matters in my comments to the Minister,”?

Yes, there is a legal process, and I am involved in that legal process in giving comments—yes.

Why, then, do her only publicly available comments on fast-track applications state that she is choosing not to provide any comment; and does she consider this as advocating for the environment?

The timing of the information that goes up will dictate when my comments are put on to the application, but I can assure the member that I have made comments.

What were her comments, then, on Waihi North’s silver and gold mining open-pit and underground mine extension from OceanaGold, where the Department of Conservation warned in their comments that the project could cause “irreversible harm to high-value conservation areas and species.”?

Well, as I’ve said, the comments come up as the application is made public, and where comments are being made by other entities such as local authorities, the Department of Conservation, or other departments, I don’t go and re-comment the sorts of comments they are making.

How, then, can New Zealanders be assured that the fast-track process won’t see developers sidestepping critical environmental protections, when she chooses to be silent on even her basic responsibility as the Minister for the Environment to advocate for the environment?

As I have said, where comments are necessary from me, I make comments that are relevant to those applications.

Will she commit to advocating for the 16 water conservation orders that protect the outstanding and intrinsic values of some of our most valued water bodies—places like the Te Waikoropupū aquifer—so that they might have a chance at retaining some level of protection from fast-track projects?

As the member knows, we are working through water conservation orders and other freshwater matters in the context of what is a very comprehensive replacement regime for the Resource Management Act. No decisions have been made yet, but we are certainly working through these processes.

to the Minister for Tourism and Hospitality

What recent reports has she seen on tourism in New Zealand?

Yesterday, international travel statistics were released for July. They showed 126,700 overseas visitor arrivals from Australia. This is the highest record month of arrivals of visitors from Australia. These visitors show our “Everyone Must Go” campaign targeting Australians was a huge success. These additional visitors help support local businesses, create more jobs, and strengthen our economy. Tourism is a crucial part of our Government’s Going For Growth agenda.

What recent announcements has she seen that will benefit tourism across New Zealand?

Yesterday, I was delighted to see Qantas and Jetstar announce their biggest expansion plans for their New Zealand and trans-Tasman services. This will add a total of 660,000 seats a year and will bring more supply, which generally means lower prices for flights, and will encourage more Australians to cross the Ditch. This announcement, alongside July’s highest visitor levels of Australians, will be extremely beneficial to achieving our goal to double the value of tourism exports by 2034. This positive announcement shows that creating the right environment and conditions for business to invest in leads to economic growth. I want all airlines to know that they are being welcomed by our Government and we are very open to having more airline capacity into New Zealand.

How has the Government supported yesterday’s announcement from Qantas and Jetstar?

Our Government has a clear plan for tourism growth with a 10-year tourism growth road map. Aviation connectivity is a key work stream within our road map, and I’m working closely with my colleagues and the industry to ensure the settings for aviation are fit for purpose and enable connectivity not just now but for the future. Yesterday’s announcement is a great step in the right direction. While these are commercial decisions from Qantas and Jetstar, it shows commitment to both international and domestic routes. Our Government has a clear priority to unleash economic growth, and tourism is a crucial part of it.

How will more international visitors support economic growth?

By investing in tourism, we are creating opportunities for growth, as tourism supports almost one in 10 jobs in New Zealand and contributes $44 billion to the economy. Every time a tourist comes to New Zealand and spends money in a shop, buys dinner in a cafe, and stays in one of our accommodation facilities, it’s good for jobs, it’s good for growth, and it’s good for local communities and the incomes of New Zealanders. When tourism grows, it lifts our economy, creates jobs, lifts wages, and helps Kiwis with the cost of living. Our message is clear: New Zealand is open for business, and we welcome anyone from anywhere at any time.

to the Minister for Hunting and Fishing

What recent announcements has the Minister made in his hunting and fishing portfolio?

During the recess, I was very pleased to announce that from the 2025-26 angling season, which opens on 1 October, both adults on a family fishing licence will be able to now fish independently and have voting rights in Fish & Game elections. This is a common-sense change to modernise a historical anomaly which prevented the second adult on a licence—more often than not a woman—from fishing on their own. This is a really good announcement to encourage more women into fly-fishing. I’d like to thank groups like Women on The Fly New Zealand for advocating for this change for many years, as well as Fish & Game patron Dame Lynda Topp for giving me a few fly-fishing tips on the beautiful mid-Canterbury Rakaia River.

What other changes can anglers expect for the 2025-26 season?

More good news: alongside these common-sense changes to the family licence, I am pleased to officially confirm that there will be no price increases to Fish & Game angling licences for the first time in five seasons. Kiwis are doing it tough, and the last thing they need is another financial burden hitting their wallets when all they’re trying to do is put food on the table for their families.

How else can New Zealanders get involved in hunting and fishing?

As the House will have heard me say many times before, hunters are one of our best conservation assets. Currently under way is the National Wild Goat Hunting Competition, which is a partnership between the Department of Conservation and the New Zealand Deerstalkers Association. This is a great way for hunters and landowners to reduce the numbers of wild goats, which do serious damage to farms and the natural environment. I’m very pleased to inform the House that I myself have done my part, having taken out three wild goats already, and I’m sure all my fellow conservationists across the House will be taking out a few more old goats before the end of November.

You shouldn’t tempt people like me!

to the Minister for Children

What immediate action, if any, is she taking in response to reports that there were 4,000 cases of tamariki and young people being held in police cells in the past 12 months, some for up to eight nights?

on behalf of the Minister for Children: I’ve not had to take any immediate action based on media reports, because this is something that I was already aware of. Police and Oranga Tamariki and the courts are working closely together to address this. The reality is that when a young person commits a serious crime, they do get arrested and taken into police custody, and then every effort is made to get them in front of the Youth Court so they can be moved to an alternative placement. Just the other week, the Minister visited Counties Manukau Police Station to see for herself where young people are held when they are in custody, and I want to take this opportunity to thank the staff there for their professionalism and their dedication to these young people. I do also think it is important to acknowledge that the safety of the community and of victims must also be of highest priority.

I’m sure subsequent answers will be a little briefer.

Can the Minister confirm how many of those tamariki and young people held in police cells for longer than one night were Māori?

Oranga Tamariki don’t do ancestry.com to figure out exactly what bloodlines people are. What they do do is take those children that have committed crimes and try to keep them in a safe space, and the priority is to make sure that they are kept safe.

How is the Minister working with Oranga Tamariki to urgently increase capacity in viable placements, given that the number of cases of tamariki kept in police cells overnight has increased in two years from 42 to 418?

On behalf of the Minister, Budget 2025 saw a $33 million investment in safety and quality improvements to the facilities at youth justice residences, as well as greater investment in transitional support for young serious offenders. I believe this investment will reduce the number of young people being held in police custody for extended periods of time.

Does the Minister support the Children’s Commissioner’s call to end the practice of detaining tamariki in police cells; and, if not, why not?

On behalf of the Minister for Children, I have discussed this matter with the Children’s Commissioner in our regular meetings and on a number of occasions. We are both on the same page, which is that no one wants to see young people spend more time in custody than they need to.

What specific measures, if any, is the Minister taking to prevent placement shortages becoming an excuse for locking children in cells?

On behalf of the Minister for Children, it’s unfortunate that the Government, through their agencies, is having to pick up the pieces when children have gone out there and committed crime. At the end of the day, we want to make sure that they are safe, and that means that when they do go into police custody, it’s because they have committed a serious crime. Their safety will always be paramount when it comes to this Government and their actions with children.

Can the Minister please tell the House what reports she has seen on youth crime statistics?

What we’re seeing in youth crime statistics is that those rates are starting to come down. There is a difference that is occurring, and, as I have mentioned before, actually doing wraparound services with these kids and making sure that their safety is paramount is also exceptional to making sure that those rates come down. We are seeing slight improvements.

Is the Minister committed to introducing safer alternatives, including community-based and iwi initiatives, to adequately care for these tamariki, following warnings from the Children’s Commissioner that these cells expose tamariki to self-harm risk?

I think what’s really important for everybody to know is that when our children are detained, they are being looked upon. We have Oranga Tamariki go into the cells at least once a day to check on the children and make sure that they’re OK. They are not kept with adults. There is a lot of work that’s being done to ensure the safety of these children. They are in cells because they have committed a crime, and the moment we get a placement for them, they are moved. I believe that it’s around 48 hours that children, on average, are kept—I need to be corrected on that if I’ve got that slightly wrong, on behalf of the Minister. However, what we do know is that in order to keep the children safe and in order to keep victims of our community safe, we will do the best we can by these children and make sure that they are cared for when they are detained.

Will any of the funding appropriated in Budget 2025 help address the issue of children being kept overnight in police cells?

Yes. The root cause of the issue of children and young people being arrested, whereby they are then held in police cells, is due to youth offending. Reducing the number of serious and persistent young offenders is a priority. Through Budget 2025, we are investing $21 million into safety improvements in youth justice facilities, $41 million into professionalisation of the residential workforce, $15 million for young serious offenders legislation, and $31 million into military-style academies.

to the Minister for Vocational Education

Does she stand by her statement that there is “more concern that we need to be focused on around the actual completions of apprentices”?

Yes, it is absolutely important that as many apprentices as possible are completing their apprenticeships.

Has the completion of apprenticeships decreased again since 2023 under her watch; if so, by how much?

Yes, what has occurred is that there had been a very large intake of apprentices over the 2021-22 period, when Apprenticeship Boost was in full swing. During that time, many of those additional learners withdrew, and we saw a significant decline in credit achievements during that time, going down from 85 percent credit achievements in 2019 to 77 percent in 2020, to 67 percent in 2021, and to 69 percent in 2022. Those large numbers brought about reductions in the completion-of-credit rates, and that is, of course, flowing through.

Is it correct that her cuts to the vocational education sector have made apprenticeship completion rates worse?

What has impacted on the apprenticeship completion rate—recognising that most apprentices take around three to five years. What is showing the impact is the additional numbers taken in that did not complete sufficient credits, many of whom withdrew.

What advice, if any, has she received on the increased number of young people not engaged in education, employment, or training since 2023?

Across a range of areas, there has been advice on the increase in NEETs—those people under 25 not in employment, education, or training. That is why we are so focused on ensuring that we have additional youth guarantee places which pick up on young people under 25 who have had low prior achievement. It is why we are focused on ensuring that foundation education is available and accessible to those young people.

How do more young people not in education, employment, or training; fewer enrolments in apprenticeships; and fewer apprenticeship completions contribute to ensuring that New Zealand has the workforce it needs?

We are very focused on ensuring that our young people have access to further training so that they are well prepared to be able to go into employment. There is no doubt that the current financial situation, which we inherited from the previous Government, left us in a situation where we were having to battle high inflation and high interest rates, which has resulted in higher unemployment than any of us would like, but it is equally important that we have sufficient education and training available to ensure those young people are well skilled and well able to enter the workforce as the economy improves.

I understand it is the Government’s intention to introduce an imprest supply bill.

Imprest Supply (Second for 2025/26) Bill, introduction.

I move, That the Imprest Supply (Second for 2025/26) Bill be now read a first time.

The bill is set down for second reading immediately.

I move, That the Appropriation (2025/26 Estimates) Bill be now read a third time and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2025/26) Bill be now read a second time.

I would like to offer a few more remarks about that if I could.

Absolutely—you’re more than welcome to.

Thank you. Members, we have two bills under consideration here, and both of them are very important to our public finance system. In that system, we have appropriation bills, and we have imprest supply bills. Together, they ensure that when the Government spends money, we spend that money lawfully and with the authorisation of Parliament. These bills allow us to incur expenses and capital expenditure during the year with the authority of Parliament, which is, obviously, a very important constitutional principle. The Public Finance Act makes clear that the Government can’t incur expenses or commit capital expenditure without that authority.

In terms of the two bills under consideration, the Estimates bill is the one right at the centre of the public finance system. It’s the vehicle that sets out the details of our Budget, but the point about that is that the Budget is typically delivered in May, before the next financial year kicks off on 1 July. Obviously, we’re here in September, and we’ve already had a lengthy Estimates debate, and we’re now considering the third reading of the Estimates bill. What has happened between May and September to ensure that the Government can lawfully spend money? Well, to bridge that gap, that’s why we have imprest supply bills. We’ve already passed the first one in June, before the new financial year started. That provided interim financial authority for the three months of the 2025-26 financial year. Now, we’re considering the second imprest supply bill, which seeks interim parliamentary authority for expenditure decisions made, or that could be made, by the Government through to the end of the financial year, additional to the amounts in the Estimates bill.

The second imprest supply bill provides for operating or capital spending decisions throughout the year, including pre-commitments against future Budget allowances and expenditure incurred against the between-Budget contingency, for example. It also covers fiscally neutral adjustments that increase one appropriation but decrease another, confirmation of expense transfers, increases in demand-driven appropriations, and draw-downs of existing tagged contingencies, and it makes provision for risks that may materialise. Those are matters covered in the risks to the fiscal forecasts outlined, transparently, in the Budget update.

For the House’s information, the total amount of authority requested in this imprest supply bill is $59 billion. That’s made up of $16 billion of expenses, $42 billion of capital expenditure, and $1 billion of capital injections. I want to point out that that number of capital, $42 billion, includes a provision for the potential—and I just want to note that it’s only potential—one-off transfer of around $30 billion of school property assets from the Ministry of Education to the newly formed New Zealand School Property Agency, which has been charged with the responsibility for managing and administering school property. If you exclude the provision for that potential one-off transfer, the amount requested is similar to the amount sought in the last three years’ imprest supply bills. I can reassure the House that the full amount will almost certainly not be required, because Treasury reporting indicates that actual expenses charged against imprest supply Acts are consistently lower than the authority provided by those pieces of legislation. In that sense, imprest supply is a safety net to allow spending to occur without having to have recourse to Parliament.

The final part of the network of finance bills is the Supplementary Estimates bill. It tidies everything up for the year and ensures that all expenditure incurred under those interim authorities is properly appropriated by Parliament and made transparent and that that occurs before the end of the financial year. That will be introduced at the next Budget, but that’s an issue for next year.

Today, really, the main event is the final reading of the Appropriation (2025/26 Estimates) Bill, which sees our Budget becoming law. Let me remind the House what our Budget was all about. Our Budget was all about delivering Kiwis the jobs, incomes, and opportunities that they seek, and raising productivity to lift incomes and to drive long-term economic growth—all of the things required to create jobs and address the cost of living and lift incomes. New Zealand needs business, and some of them, my Green Party friends who are rather noisy today, we would like to see be profitable, even though that upsets your leader very much.

We want businesses, big and small, to invest in machinery, tools, technology, equipment, vehicles, industrial buildings, and other capital assets, because when they do that, they are better able to provide jobs and better incomes for the people who work in those businesses. How do we make that happen? How do we encourage businesses to make more of those investments in their own growth and the incomes of their workers? Well, that is why this Budget introduced, as a centrepiece, the Investment Boost initiative. Investment Boost is a tax incentive to increase capital investment in New Zealand. I don’t mind telling members that when I was in Australia last week, the Investment Boost policy was raised with me by a number of Australian business leaders who said, “That’s exactly what we want.” I said to them, “Well, don’t worry. If you don’t have it in Australia yet, come and set up business in New Zealand. We would welcome you. If you want to create some jobs in our economy and if you want to ensure that workers have more opportunities, we would welcome you to our country.”

The way that Investment Boost works is it allows a business to immediately deduct 20 percent of the cost of a new asset from its taxable income on top of depreciation. The advice that we’ve had about all of this is that more investment opportunities will, therefore, stack up financially and it is likely that, over time, more investment will be made. That makes a difference to the level of activity in our economy, which will increase as a consequence. The advice that we have received is that it will lead to a higher rate of wage growth than would otherwise be the case, meaning that this truly is a tax policy for the workers. I want to note and acknowledge, in the spirit of bipartisanship that does sometimes break out in this House, that actually both Deborah Russell, the Labour Party revenue spokesperson, and Barbara Edmonds, their finance spokesperson, have made comments praising this Investment Boost policy, noting that it is indeed a sensible and sound initiative, which it very much is.

I am proud of my Cabinet colleagues, who have made this long-term reform possible, not simply by saying to New Zealanders, “Don’t worry, we’ll just throw more debt at that.” What, in fact, the Ministers went off and did was find savings and find other areas across their portfolios that meant that we were able to ensure that this tax policy was possible. That is how it was funded.

What this Budget also does, of course—and it has been of recent discussion—is it enhances the role of KiwiSaver, which is very important. The way that it does that is it increases, in a gradual, phased process, contributions from employers and employees with a matching contribution regime from 6 to 8 percent progressively, over time, and it brings 16- and 17-year-olds into the KiwiSaver scheme, making sure they can get those matching contributions.

The Budget, of course, goes further than that. It makes investments in the things that are required to make this a faster-growing and better economy. In particular, I want to highlight, in the minute and a half left for me, the significant investment that it makes in education. I believe that when you look at the future productivity of an economy, you have to worry about your education system and whether it is delivering kids with the numeracy and literacy skills needed to contribute. The sad fact is that under the last Government, despite their great relationships with the teacher unions, actually, the results for too many kids were going backwards fast. We now have an education Minister who’s fixing it. This Budget has the biggest package of support for learning support in our schools that any Government has delivered. Why? We recognise that some kids have additional learning, physical, or behavioural needs that mean that they need a bit more support. Now, those kids have immense potential to contribute to their families, communities, and our economy. In fact, some of them, I bet, will go on to be the next Peter Beck, but what they need is a little bit of help to get there.

This Budget ensures that we make that investment up front. It’s a really good example that the reforms this Government’s making won’t all deliver tomorrow, but they are very important for delivering the economy that we need for the longer run. As any kid getting learning support as a result will attest, this is a Budget for the people. This is a Budget for workers. This is a Budget that strengthens the foundations for New Zealand.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think we’d have to go back a long time to see a Minister of Finance less enthusiastic about her own Budget than we just saw in that contribution from Nicola Willis. Watching the clock, because that’s about all there was to do during that contribution, it took nearly five minutes for the Minister of Finance to stop reading off what the process that we were undertaking was all about and get to the substance. This is the final reading of the Budget—this is the final set piece of a Budget—where one would expect Ministers of Finance would come in proud of a Budget that they had delivered and would be excited about what their Budget, which they’d brought to this House in May, was delivering for New Zealanders. But it is no wonder we saw that lacklustre contribution from Nicola Willis.

She called her Budget the “Growth Budget”—and what growth are we talking about? Well, we can certainly talk about growing unemployment; we can talk about the tens of thousands of New Zealanders who have lost their jobs. We can talk about the growing queues of New Zealanders who are giving up on this Government and leaving New Zealand. Yesterday, we had figures out showing record numbers of New Zealanders are giving up on this Government and looking for the nearest exit. We certainly can point to growing homelessness, and this Government should hang its head in shame for what is happening under its watch. We have never seen more people living on our streets, and what we have is a Government gloating that they’ve cut spending on motels, all the while they have fellow New Zealanders who are sleeping rough, who are living on the streets. That is the reality.

We certainly have growing grocery prices under this Government. This Government says it’s created a fast track for supermarkets, but what is it doing around the fact that New Zealanders are paying more for their groceries than Australians? We’ve seen the kinds of premiums that New Zealanders are paying, and what are we hearing from the Government? “We’re creating a fast-track process.”—well, where are they? This is a Government that has been in Government for nearly two years, and things are getting worse, not better, and New Zealanders are seeing that. New Zealanders see that they were promised the earth, and they are going backwards under this Government. Things are getting worse. There is a growing gap between rich and poor, and there certainly is a growing gap between the wages of men and women.

Let us not forget that this was a Budget that was delivered on the back of women’s pay. This was a Budget that robbed billions of dollars that was set aside for hard-working women workers in pay equity. The Government was planning it all along, and not only did they ruthlessly cut that money, but they didn’t even bother to tell those groups that were investing time and resource into preparing those claims that there was no point—“We’re ripping that money away to pay for tax cuts for landlords and tobacco companies and a Budget that’s being delivered on your back.” They didn’t even have the courtesy of doing that.

Then Nicola Willis stands up and says it is a Budget with tax policy for the workers and for growth. The centrepiece of this is Investment Boost. Now, accelerated depreciation is not a new concept, and it’s not something that Labour will disagree with necessarily, but when it’s your only idea and is going to deliver 1 percent growth in GDP over 20 years, I think you’d better find something else to crow about—not you, Mr Speaker; I suggest the Government finds something else to crow about. The Budget for workers that is delivering 1.5 percent wage growth over 20 years—that’s what this mean little document that is Budget 2025 is delivering for working New Zealanders. What are we seeing in terms of the lifting of incomes? We certainly are not seeing that.

Of grave concern to us is the tens of thousands of New Zealanders who have lost their jobs under the watch of this Government. Thirty-six thousand jobs have been lost—19,000 of them in construction—and the Government needs to take ownership of that. Kiwi families are doing it tough. They are losing their jobs, and what do they get from this Government? Well, from the Minister of Finance, they get told not to take it personally. It’s very hard not to take it personally when you cannot pay your mortgage, you cannot pay your rent, and you cannot feed your family. To have a Minister of Finance glibly say, “Oh, don’t take it personally.”, shows how out of touch this Government is and how it has given up on the interests of ordinary New Zealanders and the struggles they are facing.

We also see the number of businesses that have gone into liquidation: 2,700 businesses, in the last year alone, have gone into liquidation. This is roughly a doubling from the 2023 figure. There’s not enough time in this contribution to go through and list all those businesses, but, in the last few weeks alone, we’ve seen Smiths City, Sealord’s Nelson factory, and, this week, 85 Auckland staff have lost their jobs after a big Auckland traffic management company has gone into liquidation. I feel for each of those workers individually who are going through that. They deserve better than a Government that tells them not to take it personally. That simply is not acceptable.

It is no wonder that people are giving up on this Government and leaving New Zealand. What we’ve seen is that we’ve got people that are waiting longer to see the GP. We’re seeing more people living on the streets. We’re seeing people that are losing their homes. A Government needs to look after jobs, it needs to make sure that its population is housed, and it needs to make sure it’s got a health system that is fit for purpose, and that is not something that Budget 2025 is, in any way, shape, or form, delivering for New Zealanders. Even more concerningly, from the “But wait, there’s more” files, we know that the advice that was delivered to Government alongside this Budget was: “We’ve only just begun.” The kinds of cuts that we’ve seen that underlie Budget 2025—the cuts to public services—are not over. They’re far from over.

After that advice was delivered to Government, we must admit that $12 billion was taken from pay equity—money that was destined for the pockets of hard-working women in New Zealand. What we’re seeing is the stopping of things like inflation adjustment of Working for Families, and I’d like to hear if that is something that the Government has on the go, because I can tell you what that will mean for New Zealand families. Over 300,000 households in New Zealand will face a cut to their incomes if that is what the Government decides to do. Or is it going to take its scalpel to health yet again? We know that National Governments have form in this area. Is it going to be education?

We’ve already seen it in terms of housing. I know that Government members of Parliament sitting on the backbenches are going to have a progression of people showing up at their electorate offices who suddenly find themselves having their accommodation supplement cut—cut from a move put in place by a Bolger National Government to give a bit of relief to families in terms of the accommodation supplement. If you have a boarder, this Government is going to cut your accommodation supplement; if you have two boarders, this Government is going to cut your accommodation supplement. The Bolger National Government put in place the ability to have two boarders for a reason, but this is a Government that has no idea of the reality of working people.

It is not putting people’s jobs at the forefront. We are seeing mass layoffs. It certainly is not putting New Zealanders’ health first, and we are seeing far too many of our fellow New Zealanders living on the street. It is a Government with no plan, it is a Government with no heart, and it is a Government under which the lives of ordinary New Zealanders are getting worse, not better.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to table official data that shows that New Zealand’s gender pay gap has narrowed to its lowest level on record.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? [Interruption] There are far too many people taking at the moment. Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection?

It’s public.

Just say “Yes”.

Yes—object.

Right.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I’m glad the Minister of Finance tabled that data, or attempted to, because the reality is that is the result of actions taken by previous Governments, and we have yet to see the stagnation in women’s pay caused by this Government’s actions in cancelling all of those pay equity settlements.

Look, the reality is that almost every single thing the Government Ministers and Government backbenchers say now is the opposite of reality. They come out and they say that their actions are somehow helping the economy, that when the Reserve Bank drops interest rates, that’s a sign that the economy is recovering. News flash: Reserve Bank drops interest rates when the economy is tanking. That is pretty frickin’ obvious to anyone who’s ever studied economics, which, obviously, the Minister of Finance has not. I don’t blame her. She’s obviously been poorly advised by some neoliberal hacks—the ones who probably told her that she could get some second-hand Toyota Corolla ferries and, therefore, it would be worthwhile to cancel the amazingly good deal that we had with the Hyundai shipyard. Look, I don’t blame her. How would she have the ability to—

Point of order, Mr Speaker. Like all Governments, we are fortunate to be advised by public servants who remain neutral and cannot defend themselves in this House. I just invite you to consider whether having members of a House use epithets like “neoliberal hacks” to describe the finance Minister’s advisers is actually helpful.

Well, unfortunately, it is a debate and becomes a debatable point, but I’m sure that there’d be very few in this House who would label the Public Service in that way.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. May I continue? Just to clarify for the benefit of Mr Seymour, I wasn’t referring to public servants; I was referring to other people who advise the people in Government. It’s evident, in everything they say, that they fundamentally do not understand the real economy. The real economy is about natural resources and people, and we as a country can invest in our people.

Here’s an example: they’ll come out and say that paying essential workers who do some of the most important and difficult and valuable work in our society—like nurses, like teachers, like early childhood educators, like caregivers—a fair wage is unaffordable. That’s what these people believe—that that’s unaffordable but that giving tax breaks to rent seekers who own rental properties is somehow affordable. Somehow, it’s affordable to give money to those who already have the most but not to pay people doing the valuable work in our society.

It is unaffordable to them to properly look after the environment. In this Budget, they’ve cut $650 million from environmental protection—never mind that that’s one of the most critical, essential bits of infrastructure that we need to live good lives. It’s something that New Zealanders love. We love our natural environment, and we rely on it to live well. Our economy entirely depends on having a sustainable, natural environment and natural resources.

They’ve cut $650 million, but they’re spending $750 million on one highway interchange at Melling. Are you joking? These people pretend like they understand value for money and economic benefits. It’s such a joke—$750 million for a highway interchange, one interchange. What benefit is that actually going to deliver to our urban transport system? Look at them—look at them. They don’t understand a single thing about transport productivity. Transportation is an area where this country could actually improve productivity, because we are spending an absolute fortune as a percentage of our GDP just on getting around and the majority of our urban trips are short distances.

Tell us about the Mount Vic Tunnel.

And yet—oh, the Mount Vic Tunnel. What a beautiful example. I’m so glad the Minister of Finance asked about that, because she should know very well—and if she doesn’t, I would say it demonstrates how ignorant she is—that the benefit-cost ratio of the Mount Vic Tunnel is 0.2 at best, and that means the cost of the project massively outweighs the economic benefits. They can’t understand. If we went to other countries, they understand urban—[Interruption]

What do your voters in your electorate think?

Oh yeah, says the MP for Rongotai to the list MP who didn’t win a seat and who has never won a seat. Look, I respect list MPs, but it’s pretty rich coming from the National Party—

Look at the three people round you!

—that the Minister of Finance—

Looking this way would be good. The rest of the speech will be heard in silence.

Oh, no!

Don’t push me.

I digress. Look, the reality is that the cuts they’re so proud of to public investment and public services mean a reduction in front-line public services and a reduction in wellbeing for New Zealanders. They pretend that somehow letting the richest get richer and cutting environmental protection is going to improve wellbeing for all New Zealanders. New Zealanders aren’t stupid. We can see homelessness increasing. We can see small businesses collapsing.

I was speaking to a small-business owner in my electorate of Rongotai yesterday. I’m sure he’d love to tell the Minister of Finance in person how he realises that the Investment Boost does not benefit small businesses like his. He’s running an awesome, delicious restaurant—fantastic food—but he’s had to massively reduce his operations in Wellington. We’ve had a scale of job losses in Wellington that he says, in 30 years of doing business, he has never seen, and that is a direct result of Government decisions—this Government—and the cuts that they’ve made to public services. He realises that if you lay off a bunch of people, you end up paying more to consultants to come in and do the work. It’s all pretty short-term and extremely irresponsible. The fact that that party campaigns on a brand of being caring about cost effectiveness, caring about economic growth, and caring about workers or people out there in the street is such a joke—it’s such a joke.

I feel really bad for the people who go and present to select committee right now. I spoke to someone who said she presented to select committee for the first time ever yesterday. She’s a qualified early childhood educator, she’s doing her PhD, and she’s highly involved in the kindergarten association here, Whānau Manaaki, in Pōneke, in Wellington. She knows a lot, and she went and presented to select committee on the proposed changes to early childhood regulation. Here you have really hard-working, well-meaning, educated people who look at the research and just want the best for our kids. They want the best for our kids. Ultimately, the biggest investment we can make in the future of New Zealand is in their education and wellbeing. What’s the point? These people put all this effort in, and they’re kind of nervous to present to the select committee, but the reality is that the Government members on that select committee will probably not be listening. If they are listening, they’re probably not capable of understanding, and they certainly won’t be influencing the person who is ideologically pursuing changes that will benefit people who own for-profit early childhood centres who want to run little baby and kid farms to make money—not employ qualified teachers and not invest in wellbeing—and potentially leave our kids in a position where they’ll be exposed to a lack of safety.

Most countries in the world have figured this out, and they invest in things for public good. That’s why we do it together. They invest in public education, and they invest in infrastructure that’s actually going to improve productivity and reduce pollution and reduce household costs and business costs. They don’t do it just because they have some silly, blind ideology. Sadly, the people who are currently governing us are extremely wrong about most things.

Luckily, there is an alternative. There is a fantastic alternative, because the Green Party sat down and presented their own Green Budget, which has been costed. We are going around the country and talking about this with a lot of people who have never voted Green before, and what are they glad to see? They’re glad to see somebody doing some actual work and showing some vision about what we could be as a country—not a country of property investors who are somehow making lots of money out of increasing rents, but a country, actually, that is investing in real wellbeing, looking after our nature, looking after our water or wai, looking after our oceans, and sharing in the benefits of the things that we invest in together. Investing in our young people is one of the best investments we can make, which is why we showed we could have free, universal, high-quality early childhood education. The economic benefits of that, I absolutely promise you, far outweigh the economic benefits of one highway interchange. We could be doing things like ensuring that we have high-quality, energy-efficient public housing and also iwi and community housing providers who are ensuring that we have homes.

Instead, this Government, of course, wants to build more prisons. They’ve got plenty of money for prisons, for war, for military helicopters, and for tobacco companies who will put more cost on our health system. They have plenty of money for landlords. We have an alternative, and that is that, when we work together, we can actually look at the things that we care about most, the things that are the most important to New Zealanders. That’s what the Green Party has proposed.

I rise on behalf of ACT in support of this Appropriation (2025/26 Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2025/26) Bill. We’ve seen a spirited debate so far, but I would like to take just a moment to acknowledge the very strong feelings many New Zealanders have today after the passing of Charlie Kirk. To see somebody who was not elected lose their life because of violence when they were trying to promote the freedom to speak without violence is a bitter irony, but one that I hope will help people understand the difference between free speech and the right to receive ideas freely, on the one hand, and physically preventing them from doing so, on the other, particularly at the point of a gun. It’s a great shame that the House was not able to unite in condemning political violence earlier, because some parties refused to have such a motion put before the House.

I turn now to this debate, where we do enjoy free speech. I have to say that the contribution of our Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, was exactly how you’d want a finance Minister’s contribution to be: sound, taking responsibility for the nation’s finances firmly, and ensuring that the amount of money taken by the Government slowly shrinks as a proportion of the economy, leaving more for the firms, for the farms, for the families, and for all those people who do the hard work to earn the money in this country, and leaving more for them so that they have a bit more money left at the end of the week.

Then, we had a contribution from Megan Woods, which made me think of an old rock band that had quit touring—in fact, they’d retired—but then all the revenue from the record sales dried up, and they thought, “Hey, let’s go out on tour.” The songs were old and familiar, but the voice was just a little bit tired, leading me to wonder, “Why are you still on the stage?” Of course, it’s because she didn’t have another source of revenue. She said that a 1.5 percent increase in income was somehow not worth anything. Well, let me just put in context what the 1.5 percent increase in income forecast from this Government’s Investment Boost means for a family that is, say, earning $80,000—around the median for one earner. It means that they’re going to be about $1,200 a year, or $24 a week, better off. You might say, “Well, that’s forecast over 20 years.”, but that is real growth in income that comes from doing policy smarter and that means that people have more money left at the end of the week—$24 a week for a median earner. I think that is pretty impressive when you don’t have any easy choices, but we’ve made a choice in Investment Boost that means that people will be investing more in the capital equipment that raises productivity and, therefore, raises wages.

Then, we heard a contribution from Julie Anne Genter, for which there are so many things that could be said but I won’t say them, except to pick up on her commentary about talking to one business owner who said that Investment Boost would not help their business. Now, think about that for a moment; it sounded like the business was a restaurateur. Well, in actual fact, restaurants need capital expenditure. Investment Boost means they can write off 20 percent of the cost of a new industrial dishwasher or industrial oven or any other equipment that a restaurant might have. They can write off 20 percent straight away and pay less tax, which means that they can afford to invest more and do a better job and get more revenue and pay their staff more—all of the things that need to happen in order for economic growth and wage growth to occur.

In just surveying the contributions from the other side, they’ve taken just one topic that the Minister of Finance mentioned, and they’ve tried to belittle wage growth and then shown no understanding of how it happens when this Government is actually taking steps to fix what matters, get more investment, and make it easier for New Zealanders to take home more money from higher-paying jobs. That’s what we want, and that’s what this Government and this Budget is actually doing through Investment Boost alone.

This Budget will also see the completion of a promise to deliver 100 percent mortgage interest deductibility on rental accommodation. Now, the other side continually say that the Government has “given” $3 billion to landlords. I think what they’re trying to say is that the Government will take less tax from landlords. If they wanted to be really accurate, they would say, “They’re reducing the tax on property that is rented out where one person allows another person to live in property they own in return for a rental.” You see, the thing is it’s actually normal to deduct interest expense from your bottom line when you calculate your taxes. All this Government’s done is make the business of rental accommodation the same as the rest of the economy. There’s nothing unusual about that. What’s been the effect of it for real people? Well, the effect for real people is that, for the first time in a very long time, rents have come down, because when you tax something less, generally, it gets cheaper. None of this is complicated. I’m proud that, for renters and landlords alike, this Government has aligned normal tax policy with everything else so that people can get on and pay less tax.

There’s something else about this that I think is important. Too often, we hear that landlords and tenants are somehow enemies to be set against each other with more and more restrictive rules and taxes on landlords to punish them. Actually, landlords and tenants both want the same thing: to get on, to have more affordability, and to enjoy their life. Generally speaking, that’s what most people, most of the time, are trying to do. By reducing taxes—actually, just restoring normal tax rules so that they pay less tax—we have allowed landlords and tenants alike to do that.

This Budget continues a massive increase in funding to Pharmac. We’ve never had more spending on medicines. We have gone from $1.1 billion a few years ago to $1.7 billion. This is a Government that has increased the amount of money on medicines by over 50 percent, and every day, I hear from people who are worried about medicines and who believe this access is taking us towards having a First World supply of medicines.

There’s a major investment in school attendance, because the one number that really matters today—if I was to have to pick one number today that will tell us where New Zealand will be in 20 years, 30 years, 40 years—is the number of children that actually went to school. No matter what your culture is or your background or your time in history, how much knowledge is passed from one generation to the next determines your future, because an educated population can solve and overcome any problem but an uneducated population can squander great prosperity. The number one indicator of how much knowledge is being passed from one generation to the next today is how many children went to school. That’s why we have dramatically increased the amount of funding for attendance services and retooled the whole attendance service to get greater value. By next year, every school will have an attendance action plan under the stepped response scheme. This is the kind of practical difference that we make to New Zealand so that we can be a more prosperous country in the future.

Independent schools will be funded just a little bit more after being neglected for so long. I see members on the other side wrinkling up their noses as if those children—whose parents pay their tax and choose to send them to a better school so they can reach their potential—somehow should be left behind and neglected and as if helping them is, somehow, a great sin. Well, actually, they get a tiny fraction of what they would get in a State school and what their parents pay in taxes. What we’ve done with that small increase for independent schools can only be fair.

I could say a lot more about this Budget, but the bottom line is that we are responsibly managing the Government’s finances in order that we can see more for everybody else, with lower inflation, lower interest rates, and higher wages so that this country can keep the promise of New Zealand to all New Zealanders. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Well, firstly, I should acknowledge the architect of this largely misunderstood and misrepresented piece of legislation, that being our finance Minister, and acknowledge also those of us who have sought to provide assistance, because, at one level, we are endeavouring to maintain the confidence of the people throughout the world who fund the deficit that we have inherited; on the other side, we’re dealing with the fact that there are a range of Kiwi businesses and Kiwi households for whom—because of the COVID overhang, because of the legacy of excessive red tape, and because of the splurge of expenditure—all those fiscal chickens have come home to roost. For those who have unfairly criticised our Minister, they overlook the fact that unless we maintain a certain level of credibility in the eyes of the people who buy the bonds issued by Treasury on behalf of the Kiwis who rely on these ongoing publicly funded services, we are not going to be able to meet the costs associated with the quality of life that we take for granted as being citizens of our nation and endeavouring to keep a First World quality of existence.

I want to pick on a couple of things where we did make some difficult but valuable decisions. Let me look no further than the vexed area of oil and gas. I only raised that because within this Budget was an attempt to stabilise our energy sector—a sector, sadly, that has had gallons of red ink poured over it by the last regime; a sector that, sadly, spent a lot of money on policy seances such as the Onslow project, which may or may not have potential, but sadly was never ever legislated. This Budget took a hard decision and took $200 million in contingency to accelerate the delivery—accelerate the delivery—of fresh streams of energy. Now, people might say, “Oh well, that’s not a heck of a lot of money.” At a time when we are deliberately running a fiscal consolidation strategy—once again to ensure that we maintain credibility with the sources of international capital that we rely upon to fund the Government’s activities—we are about to make further decisions, but those decisions are only relatable in the sense that we made a pragmatic decision and secured some money, and, now, we’re going to work in the short term and the medium term with investors who are willing to take a risk.

Sadly, they’re taking a risk in the face of threats and intimidation of a political character from the Opposition spokeswoman Megan Woods, who stood in this House promising in a very, very reckless way to overturn our legislation, which negated the ban which drove the oil and gas industry to the margins of our economy. I’m deeply concerned, for the future of our investment reputation, that a senior member of the Labour Party can stand and indiscriminately intimidate, undermine, and taint the good reputation of our nation State, because without gas and without coal, we will not have a feasible or a viable energy system. Unlike that particular politician, we, on our side of the House, were willing to make a hard decision. We were willing to ride to the rescue of the Taranaki economy. We were willing to provide some level of reassurance to the men and women who, this very day, depend on those jobs for the solvency of their households, and to the businesses that are threatening to close because they don’t see a future.

At one level, the fiscal trajectory we’re on is one of consolidation, because we cannot rely on, because we don’t command, monetary policy in this House—that’s with the Reserve Bank—we can’t rely purely on monetary policy to come and rescue the day, and we cannot be profligate, as the Minister of Finance is wont to remind the Matua from time to time, on matters of fiscal allocations. Let’s just go a little bit further: this particular Budget has got to be seen with the backdrop of an ongoing campaign to reduce red tape, to reduce unnecessarily cumbersome rules and intrusive regulations. It is not the easiest of tasks. Why? Because you have to change culture. We have to change the culture of the people administering the Resource Management Act and other pieces of legislation, including the Wildlife Act, which I hope to see the rear end of before I leave this place permanently, and also other pieces of legislation that govern the pace at which investors, users, and other risk takers seek to develop outcomes by using our natural resources.

We should celebrate the fact that this side of the House is willing to roll back that creep of regulatory nullifying activities. It’s not for the fainthearted, which is why I am very happy that, on the back of the $200 million, we are also advancing some work that reopens the coal mines of New Zealand in the area of Waikato. In fact, I’m meeting with the CEO of Genesis this afternoon, and without us having that as a back-up plan, what will happen if the coal from Indonesia is blocked? I’ll tell you what will happen: the lights will go out. Therefore, we need a strategic reserve, and we need something with more certainty than what happened over the last two or three years with a lot of policy ink spilt but with no certainty and with no clear direction on energy policy. Now, I’m only warbling on about that because I can think of nothing, at this stage, that is more important than securing certainty and a clear sense of direction. I look forward to working with my senior colleague the Minister for Energy to articulate it, but it’s very difficult to have a lucid exposition from this side of the House whilst it’s being thwarted with these reckless, cavalier threats coming from Labour. Quite frankly, it’s a bleak day when the major parties, or the pro-development parties, of this Parliament are unable to join forces.

Of course, housing remains a key feature of what we’ve funded, but housing can only happen if the legislative processes deliver those outcomes. It should come as no surprise how blown away I was as to why on earth a project in Auckland is teetering because the panel under the fast-track legislation is contemplating turning a housing project down. If any area needs housing, it is Auckland. If we need housing now, it is absolutely beyond debate. I look forward to a sensible set of outcomes for those who are pursuing housing, because our Budget is a pro-housing Budget. Our Budget also wants to put the asset of people who are occupying State houses to observe obligations and duties, rather than to feed apocryphal stories to the Green Party, when they come into this House as a proxy for people who refuse to abide by levels of social responsibility, which you and I as taxpayers should expect them to do, if not on a consistent basis, certainly for the majority of the time.

It’s a Budget that lies between the poles of fiscal responsibility to maintain confidence with the international capital markets and those who need assistance as we move through the transition of coming from the COVID fiscal overhang and then moving into a position, over the next 12 months, where the green shoots come through. Evidence of our deregulatory zest bears fruit, and we have something that is practical, measurable, and, hopefully, electable. Thank you very much.

Madam Speaker, tēnā koe, a tēnā tātou. Ka tū au ki te kōrero ki ngā kōrero mai i Te Pāti Māori [I stand to convey the statements from Te Pāti Māori] on the third reading of the Appropriation (2025/26 Estimates) Bill and the second reading of the Imprest Supply (Second for 2025/26) Bill.

For nearly 200 years, we’ve lived with the reality that no Government will ever adequately fund Māori aspiration, and yet despite that, or perhaps because of it, we’ve built something extraordinary. We have not only survived under these conditions; we have thrived. Our economic platform stands as a testament to Māori intelligence and foresight. In just five years, Māori entities have grown their contribution to Aotearoa’s GDP from $17 billion in 2018 to $32 billion in 2023, increasing our share from 6.5 percent to 8.9 percent. These are good things, and I want to direct our particular discussion in that way.

Our collective Māori asset base has surged from $69 billion to $126 billion, an 83 percent increase. Of that total, Māori businesses and employers hold $66 billion in assets, self-employed Māori control $19 billion, and Māori trusts and corporations and other collectives manage $41 billion. This is Māori excellence in motion, evolving every single day.

Kei te huri taku kōrero ki tō tātou kuīni, ko Te Arikinui Kuīni Nga wai hono i te po.

[My speech now turns to our Queen, the Monarch Queen Nga wai hono i te po.]

I want to turn mind to our Queen Nga wai hono i te po and her speech, and I’m going to refer to that now. Her first address to the nation, a year after the passing of her pāpā—our Kīngi—was more than a speech; it was a challenge to us all, a call to reimagine what it means to be Māori. She reminded us that despite our current experiences under this Government, our identity does not depend on opposition or struggle. It lives in how we care for te taiao, in how we learn our history, in choosing to be known by our Māori names, and in walking through this world as Māori every day—not just in protest, against the waves of resistance from politicians, political ideologies, or whoever governs at the time. She called on us to stop letting external forces define our limitations and to walk a new path. That path begins with vision, an economic summit to forge new Māori opportunities and a capital fund, seeded by Māori entities, and to uplift our people and all who choose to live on whenua Māori. Her words echo in my stand today.

The path forward for Māori will not be carved out by this Budget or any Budget; it will be shaped by us, so, yes, we oppose this Budget. We oppose the $110 million cut to Māori development. We oppose the fact that Māori development receives just 0.27 percent of the total Budget while Māori make up over 20 percent of the population. We oppose that the last two Budgets represent a $757 million reduction in Māori funding and that the total education budget for 2025 is $23.7 billion but that Māori-medium education receives just over $100 million—only 0.42 percent of the total. It’s not a good look.

We do not oppose from a place of despair; we oppose from a place of conviction, guided by leadership and strengthened by the legacy of the Kīngitanga movement that has guided us since its founding in 1858. I stand, today, grounded in the knowledge that our Arikinui—our Queen—is leading us into a new frontier of health and wealth, not just for us but for all who call this whenua home. This Budget will not build a strong future for Māori. It never could. Only we can do that, and we will.

As we always intended, we signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi to walk forward together but also in our own right as a people. We will move forward into a future where, in the words of my colleague Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, our mokopuna will walk hand in hand with yours, where both will understand and respect the importance of one another to this whenua. This future requires a movement. Te Arikinui, Nga wai hono i te po, has called on us to not be weighed down by the immense work ahead but to leave those burdens to her so we may walk forward unencumbered. I stand here confident in the strength, skill, and expertise of our people. Alongside our growing economic power, the nature of Māori working is transforming, and our whānau are moving into higher-skilled roles in record numbers. Today, 46 percent of Māori workers hold high-skilled jobs, compared to just 37 percent in 2018. Our people are as capable and resilient as ever.

Under the guidance of te Arikinui, we are ready to shape and realise her vision—I most certainly am—here within these walls of this House. Pass this Budget without our support, but do so knowing that Māori will continue to grow our economic platforms and nurture our identities, untouched by the resistance of this House. Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou.

Madam Speaker, it’s a pleasure to speak in this debate and to acknowledge my colleague David Seymour for restoring the decorum of this place. I think it was getting a bit out of control beforehand. Thank you to him.

I just want to talk through the economic reality that this country is facing. We’re in a long COVID hangover and a long Labour Government hangover. For the public at home tuning in, here are some facts and figures for you. We’ve got one of the largest structural deficits in the developed world. We’ve got skyrocketing Government debt—currently sitting at about $283 billion and growing at $75 million a day. We’ve come out of the deepest recession since 1991, and we’ve got declining labour productivity growth and one of the slowest growth rates that we had in the last year.

Now, this is the result of a long hangover from the previous Labour Government—

Yes, six years.

Six years, as my colleague Nancy Lu pointed out—and from the COVID era. Now, what does this all mean? Well, all this means is that it’s all about economic growth. Our only viable option for New Zealand’s future is to ensure higher wages, better jobs, and a viable fiscal foundation for our future.

Now, there is another option that I hear from the other side, and that option involves $88 billion of extra taxes—higher taxes left, right, and centre. There you go. There’s an Opposition member holding up the book outlining $88 billion of extra tax revenue. They’ll want to tax more, spend more, and borrow more for our future. That’s what a finance Minister Chlöe Swarbrick would want to do. In my view, the Opposition has no ideas and no policy to stand on.

That brings me to this Budget. This Budget, as we all know, was focused on economic growth. I want to touch on three key areas that I think are of significant benefit in terms of delivering that economic growth. The first is savings and investment. I’ve got all my colleagues here; we’ve all talked in our own communities and heard the great benefits that Investment Boost will have not only for over 10,000 businesses in my community of Northcote but for over 600,000 businesses right across and up and down New Zealand.

Then we’ve got the KiwiSaver policy of lifting that KiwiSaver contribution. That is key for New Zealand’s future investment potential. Also, another thing that I’m really proud about is Invest New Zealand. Invest New Zealand’s just been established under this Government by this Budget, and we’ve just hired the CEO of Invest New Zealand. He’s been talking about the importance of foreign direct investment for New Zealand’s future growth and productivity.

Next, let me come to education. This Budget was great for education. As is known right across this House, this country’s got no future unless we’ve got a great education system. Under the leadership of Erica Stanford, our Minister, we had some significant wins in this Budget for education—the biggest package of learning support in a generation. For my area in Northcote, there are some fantastic wins for learning support coordinators that have just been announced for many of our local schools. I do want to highlight them because they’re great local schools. The Ministry of Education just went to one the other day—Beach Haven Primary. They’re getting a new learning support coordinator from this Budget. Birkdale Intermediate, Glenfield Intermediate, Birkdale North School, Birkdale Primary, Chelsea Primary, Glenfield Primary, Kauri Park Primary, Marlborough Primary, St Mary’s School, Sunnybrae, Verran Primary, and Windy Ridge—these are all schools in my local community that are going to be better off in terms of their learning-support needs.

Under this Government and this Budget, we’re going back to basics in education. I’ve heard from principals, board of trustee members, and parents up and down our community of their backing of this Government’s approach to getting back to basics. We’ve announced a new curriculum. NCEA is gone—“gone-burger”—and we’re putting in place a new foundational education qualification, which is excellent news.

Also, I want to talk about something that’s happened in the early childhood education space. It’s not well known, but they got an operational funding boost under this Budget, and that’ll enable them to do what they really do well, which is helping to make sure kids, at an early stage, get the support and learning that they need.

Now, let’s talk about the third area. Camilla Belich, in Northcote Point, wants to talk about the third area, which is infrastructure development. We’ve just had an announcement recently that, over the next six months, over $7 billion of infrastructure development is hitting the ground and hitting the pavements. I do want to highlight some of the great things that are happening in Auckland, because, as you know, you can’t hold the Treasury benches without winning Auckland and maintaining Auckland.

There’s some great stuff happening in Auckland: the Kidz First and McIndoe buildings recladding at Middlemore Hospital, the linear accelerator’s replacement at Auckland City Hospital. There’s the State Highway 22 corridor upgrade happening at Drury, and there are many more projects in terms of education, school upgrades—actually, in my colleague’s electorate of Upper Harbour, you’re getting some great wins in your local neck of the woods as well. There’s some fantastic foundation in terms of the infrastructure growth that we’re seeing as a result of this Budget.

Really what I want to talk about, and spend the last few minutes of my contribution on, is beyond policy, because I think policy in the Budget has been important, but how do we actually get a high-income, high-wage society in New Zealand? What determines that kind of growth? I think, if you could look across the world at all the successful countries, it’s not Governments that determine growth.

It is! No, it’s actually public investment.

It’s actually hard-working people. It’s hard-working people that go out there. I’m getting a lecture from a member who said at the start that we don’t understand the real economy. I don’t think New Zealanders would agree that a Green MP understands the real economy any more than this coalition Government. It is hard-working Kiwis that go out there, that take the risks, and that actually work hard to get ahead.

I want to focus on a couple of local examples in Northcote. One of those is a place called The Gelato Workshop. For those of you who don’t know, we’ve had pretty miserable, wintry, cold weather in Auckland, but we have this place called The Gelato Workshop, owned by two Kiwi Indians in my community. They bought the business at the height of COVID, and they’ve now expanded their business. They’ve got about eight stores across Auckland—from Whangaparāoa to Ellerslie, Glenfield, and Birkenhead—and they’ve done really well. What’s got them to be successful? It’s, ultimately, their own hard work and innovation that has got them to that level. I want to congratulate the hard-working people at The Gelato Workshop for the work that they do.

Next, I want to talk about BFM Global. We actually took the Prime Minister to BFM Global, which is a company based in the heart of Beach Haven. They do fixtures for industrial manufacturing. It’s really niche, but they are a global leader in this, and they sell products all across the world to the major manufacturers. It was just so fascinating to see the Prime Minister really excited about their opportunities and what they’re doing in the innovation space.

The third company I want to talk about is Allproof Industries, which was set up by a former plumber who just decided to go into plumbing manufacturing. Now, they’re so advanced that they export all across Australasia and they’re doing so well.

I think that is what growth looks like in New Zealand. What we need is more hard-working Kiwis that go out there day in, day out to innovate, to think outside the box, and to think, “How am I going to beat the world in this particular segment or category?” I think the Government’s role is to have sound policy, set the rules, and get out of the way so that these businesses can get on and create better lives. That’s what this Budget is about, and that’s why I commend this bill to the House.

It’s a worrying time for New Zealand. I want to check some of the numbers here. There have been 10,000 jobs lost in the last three months. In the last year, 2,700 businesses have gone into liquidation. I’ve talked about some of them already—Smiths City; Sealord in Nelson; a traffic management firm in Auckland. That means fewer road cones, but it actually also means 85 fewer jobs. Of course, those fewer road cones are a sign that work is not going on. The number of people on jobseeker support is up to 216,000. That’s a lot of people out of work.

In the latest Monetary Policy Statement from the Reserve Bank, there was a discussion about labour force, about spare capacity in the New Zealand economy. It says, “A broad range of indicators suggest that significant spare capacity in the New Zealand economy persists.” It’s called spare capacity, but what that means is there are people who do not have jobs. It means there are people who are in work but do not have enough hours of work—they simply do not have enough hours of work; they simply do not have enough work to pay the bills. It not only means that; it also means, according to the Reserve Bank, that firms are not using their capital equipment to its full value—so there’s underutilisation of capital. The monetary policy committee noted that, while credit is generally available—banks are happy to lend—growth in business lending is slow. The economy is very, very uncertain.

Now, let’s stop to think about what Government’s job is. We had a view from the previous speaker that Government’s job is to make some policy and then get out of the way, but, actually, I think it was quite a sterile vision of what Government’s job is. Government’s job is actually to make life good for New Zealanders, not just in terms of the economy, but to really and genuinely try to structure our economy and our society in such a way that New Zealanders can do well.

If we go back to that famous quote on what New Zealanders want—“someone to love, somewhere to live, somewhere to work, something to hope for”—it’s actually a misquote, which is quite interesting. George Andrews, writing in The Spinoff about four or five years ago, gave the original quote, and he knows it because he was the one who conducted the interview in which it was said. These were former Prime Minister Norm Kirk’s words: “Basically, there are four things that matter to people: they have to have somewhere to live, they have to have food to eat, they have to have clothing to wear, and they have to have something to hope for.”

Let’s think about that. Somewhere to live: homelessness is up. There are more homeless people living on our streets, and that’s because this Government has cut down on emergency housing and has started to kick people out of Kāinga Ora. Not only that but they have also brought the construction of new Kāinga Ora homes to a screeching halt. There is great need for housing out there, but that Government has stopped building homes.

Let’s think about food to eat. The cost of living is up. In fact, we’ve just found out that it costs about $25,000 a year to feed a family of four people. That’s a lot of money. More disturbingly, in April this year, some research came out from Consumer New Zealand, reported by Radio New Zealand, that a third of New Zealanders have needed help with food in the last year. One third of New Zealanders have needed help with food. In a rich nation, a food producing nation, one third of New Zealanders have needed help with food.

In terms of clothing to wear, we know that there are kids who are living in poverty, and, in fact, that Government has changed the settings on the poverty indicators. That Government is putting more people into poverty. There are kids who don’t have shoes to wear to school. The Government talks about the importance of education—they’re quite right: education is important; but there are kids who stay home from school because they do not have shoes to wear, because they do not have a lunch to eat, and because they do not have period products to use. We need to fix that.

We need something to hope for and to trust that it will get better. Now, there’s been a great deal of talk of green shoots in the economy, but where are they? We’re not actually seeing them. I want to talk about a very, very obvious indicator of that, something that shows that those green shoots that people are very uncertain about are going to be very hard to come by. There’s another stat that I haven’t quoted yet, and it’s quite an important one: 19,000 jobs lost in construction. Let’s pick that apart. The reason that jobs have been lost in construction is that that Government stopped construction. That Government called to a halt the projects that were under way. That Government created huge uncertainty in the construction sector, and so, quite reasonably, people have voted with their feet—they’ve left the industry, they’ve left New Zealand, and 19,000 jobs have been lost.

Here’s the problem with that: they talk about economics and how it works, but have they not heard of the multiplier effect? It’s the simple thought that a person who has a job spends that money in the local neighbourhood—they buy the groceries, they buy the clothes, and they buy from local businesses. It pumps the money back into the economy. Those local retailers employ other people. Money spent going into jobs is money that circulates around the economy, and when that Government called a halt to construction, they caused a permanent decline in New Zealand’s production GDP.

There’s a graph that’s sitting in the Monetary Policy Statement; it’s been there all this year, in the—what was it?—August quarter Monetary Policy Statement. I’m going to direct you to—I can’t see the page number—chapter 2 of it and a graph which shows production GDP. It was going up; there was a dip for COVID, but it’s going up fairly steadily, and then after that Government came to office, there is a dip in production GDP. Not only is it a dip, but it is a permanent dip—it has carried on. Production GDP is now permanently below where it was going, thanks to the way that that Government behaved when it came into office.

This Government has not given people hope. They’ve come up with a couple of measures in the Budget, and they said, “Well, we’ll have this partial expensing.” It’s probably a good move to try to get investment going in business, but they’re not collecting the data on it, so we’re not going to know whether it’s actually having the effect they’ve promised or not.

The other major move in the Budget was to cut women’s pay equity claims. Now, not only is that a shame for the women—and for the men—who work in those industries, whose future potential was just gone, and who could no longer think that they might at least get paid fairly, but let’s go back to that idea that people who have money spend it in the local economy, that it holds up jobs elsewhere, and that it holds up local businesses. Cutting pay equity was a very, very short-sighted move on the part of that Government.

When I think about this Budget, what I see is an empty gap. There seems to be no vision for New Zealand in this Budget. Now, under the last Labour Government, we had a vision for New Zealand that was about fair pay for workers, that was about working on child poverty, and that was about considering New Zealanders’ wellbeing. That Government is cutting the wellbeing indicators in the Government financial statement, it has cut the focus on child poverty, it has cut fair pay agreements, and it has cut all the measures that might help to make life better for ordinary New Zealanders. In fact, all they seem to want to do is to try to scold people into happiness. We need a change. We need a step change. We need to think about the future of New Zealanders.

When we are next in Government, those fair pay agreements will be back, and the reason they will be back is because they make wages better, and it goes right through the economy. Pay equity will be back; we will work to ensure that women are paid fairly. When we are in Government, we will have hope for New Zealand.

Hasn’t Budget 2025 got a very long tail? Aren’t we pleased about that, because we’ve got a lot of good things to talk about. Here we are, four months after Budget 2025 was delivered by our fantastic Minister for Economic Growth, our Minister of Finance, the Hon Nicola Willis. She did a superb job. Not every finance Minister has to pull together Cabinet Ministers and Ministers outside Cabinet, but for the first time—or the second time, I suppose; it was her Budget—she mastered it again. That was pulling together winners from three parties for this Budget and putting a Budget together that struck a beautiful balance—a beautiful balance—between responsible fiscal discipline and investing in our public services, whether that’s health, whether that’s education, and whether that’s law and order. We struck that balance, and we know it because everyone said, “Is this Budget going to be criticised? How are they going to do it?”, and it came off pretty well.

In fact, I will say that the Investment Boost policy is one initiative that has probably captured the imaginations of New Zealanders and small businesses more so than any other initiative I can remember in and around this building over the last quarter of a century—Investment Boost. When all of us are getting around electorates around New Zealand and visiting accountants, visiting small businesses, visiting shopkeepers, and visiting farmers, they will tell you that that’s been a really, really good announcement that they’ve acted upon. And Fieldays—remember Fieldays? On top of depreciation and on top of the ute tax, the farmers were beside themselves that they could get 20 percent off their taxable income to put on assets. All the stallholders at Fieldays—and correct me if I’m wrong, guys—said, “This is the best decade, if not longer, we’ve had at Fieldays.”

I don’t know what the Federated Farmers political opinion poll said about this Government, but, man, there was a lot of confidence in this Government. Farmer prices, particularly dairy, are at an all-time high, and the forecast for this coming season at $10.15 even tops that. Fieldays is always a good indicator of how people are feeling on the ground. People were, I would say, queuing up at the National Party stall and saying, “Thank you for all the things you are doing. Thank you for not making us villains. Thank you for not actively working against us. Thank you for backing us.” As Dan Bidois said, over 600,000 businesses in New Zealand, most of them small and medium sized enterprises, really, really appreciated this Budget. Investment Boost was a winner.

Can you imagine the other side if they had to pull together a Budget—can you imagine that?—Labour, Te Pāti Māori, and the Greens? Now, the Greens have been waving around their alternative budget, haven’t they? They’ve been waving it around—[Hernandez holds up Green Budget booklet]—there you go, over there. They’ve been waving it around, but, jeez, it makes for heavy reading—heavy, heavy reading: $88.8 billion worth of additional taxes and lifting core Crown net debt to nearly 55 percent of GDP by the end of this decade. They stood up before and said that this will enable everyone to get most things for free. Oh, holy smoke, it won’t be free—it won’t be free. That is the alternative budget because Labour haven’t got any policy—Labour haven’t got any policy. These guys will be saying, “We want our alternative budget. We want to saddle New Zealanders with all this debt and all these taxes—inheritance tax, wealth tax, whatever you want; tax, tax, tax.” It’s the “Axis of taxes”—it’s the “Axis of taxes”. It’s a very stark alternative.

OK, well, let’s give Labour the benefit of the doubt. Let’s pull out the latest Treasury insights report as to how they managed the COVID-19 economic response and how they worked so effectively with Treasury and listened to Treasury advice. Have you read that insights report? It is damning. Treasury are normally pretty conservative in their opinions, but they said that the Labour Government, last time, spent too much and for too long—spent too much and for too long. Even when the economic situation wasn’t as bad as Treasury had forecast, they kept spending. They ploughed the investment in. Even post-COVID, their spending and their borrowing and their taxing just continued to accelerate. That’s the best thing that we can see from the Labour Party. Read that Treasury insights report from last month as to how they handled COVID.

Actually, the best indicator is this: they never mention Grant Robertson; they never mention Jacinda Ardern—only at valedictory speeches. I actually think that that is very telling of how they’re trying to run away from their legacy, whereas we’re over here, celebrating our past leaders—whether it’s Bill English, whether it’s John Key, whoever it is. We celebrate—

Steven Joyce.

Steven Joyce. We celebrate our members.

Can you celebrate the appropriations bill we’re debating?

They don’t mention their past leaders, because they know the hole they got us in that we’re now trying to dig out of.

KiwiSaver—wow. The late, great Michael Cullen—if only we could bring Sir Michael back and maybe even Helen Clark, because they ran surpluses and they were relatively responsible, so when the John Key Government came in and there were the Christchurch earthquakes and everything else and the global financial crisis, there was some money in the tin to deal with this.

Moving forward, Mr Brewer.

KiwiSaver. Let’s get on to the KiwiSaver. Wasn’t it good that we decided to lift the default rate, gradually and sustainably, for small business, over the next two financial years, from 3 percent to 4 percent for employers and employees. I actually think that that’s what Sir Michael Cullen talked about—that he wanted that default rate lifted over time. He also wanted 16- and 17-year-olds to be enabled into the system, and now they are. They’re now eligible for that Government contribution and for that employer contribution. We also got rid of the Government contribution for those earning over $180,000. Why wouldn’t they do that? Why wouldn’t they back 16- and 17-year-olds as well to get into the KiwiSaver scheme? The Green Party, Te Pāti Māori, and Labour queued up in 2006 when Michael Cullen passed the KiwiSaver Act—they queued up—in support, and yet they voted against those KiwiSaver changes that the very architect wanted. They should be ashamed of themselves. The Green Party call themselves the party of the “youff”—double F, “youff”—and yet they didn’t back 16- and 17-year-olds into getting the Government contribution and getting the employer contribution.

Finally, I want to talk about learning support. It’s the biggest investment in learning support in a generation, as the Minister of Finance said—in fact, ever. That means that it’s now going to be demand led. Any child with higher needs will finally get the support they need. We all saw that across every electorate, learning-support coordinators are coming to a school near you. That is a fantastic, fantastic addition.

If we want to talk about Upper Harbour, well, there’s a lot of investment there. We’ve pulled the lever on the dedicated busway—the Upper Harbour State Highway 16 busway. There’s a bus interchange being built at Westgate at the moment. Also, there’s sod being turned on a school at Westgate—a brand new, 600-pupil primary school at Westgate. There’s also a whole new 10-classroom block at Scott Point School. Get this: Massey High School are getting another eight classrooms. Lincoln Heights School is getting another six classrooms. The investment in Upper Harbour is seriously solid. The investment in the New Zealand economy and the investment in Kiwis and in small businesses, from this Government backing New Zealanders, is phenomenal. I commend this third reading with accolades and adulation. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to acknowledge all the people around this country for whom times are tough, who are facing and hearing the propaganda spewing from the Government benches and the overheated optimism, which isn’t actually according with the lived reality of what’s happening in the economy right now, where we’re living through the worst economic conditions that we’ve seen in recent memory, with the annual growth rate as bad as it was during the great financial crisis and with unemployment as high as it was during the great COVID crisis. No wonder, because, while the Government claims to stand for jobs and growth, what they actually have done to the economy shows—and what the statistics actually show—anything but that.

We’ve seen—and it’s been well canvassed by the comrades in the Labour benches—is 19,000 jobs lost in the construction sector, and we’ve seen 10,000 jobs lost in the public sector. We’ve seen that this Government has presided over the hollowing out and deindustrialisation of not only middle New Zealand but regional New Zealand and the people that rely on these services. We’ve seen recently 142 jobs about to go at the sawmill in Nelson. We’ve seen thousands of jobs go in regional New Zealand from the sawmills that keep closing. We’ve seen 600 jobs go at the meatworks over at Ashburton and, within my colleague the Hon James Meager’s electorate, in Timaru. We’ve seen that tens of thousands of New Zealanders—the best and brightest—are leaving; 75,000 have left.

Look, I’m hearing heckles from this Government that I should cheer up. This accords with what the Acting Prime Minister said yesterday—that New Zealanders doing it tough should just actually put a smile on their face. He said, “Just putting a smile on it can actually in itself improve the circumstances. One of the things that people who have struggled through this winter, through this recession, need is some positivity and some positive leadership. Because, actually, things are getting better.” That’s not what people are feeling. Look, that is what we’re getting from this Government. We’re getting thoughts and prayers. We’re getting platitudes and culture wars. We’re hearing the finance Minister saying that all of the New Zealanders in this record-high unemployment economy who’ve lost their jobs shouldn’t take it personally.

What they’re trying to do—by repeatedly invoking the mantra of economic growth and jobs in their speeches but not actually backing it up with policy—is they’re trying to “meme-ify” economic growth into existence. They’re doing a vibes-based approach and saying, “Oh, if we talk up growth and if we talk up jobs, it will happen.” In reality, that’s not actually what’s happening. What we’ve seen is a fundamentally distracted Government that is too busy fighting culture wars to actually deliver what New Zealanders need.

We’ve seen the foreign Minister busying himself with minor things like the tikanga role at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We’ve seen him do that at the same time that New Zealand got slapped with 10 percent and then 15 percent tariff rates—despite their efforts to suck up to America and despite their efforts to sell out this country by installing an FBI headquarters here in Wellington. We’ve seen Ministers at the bench over there get distracted with changing the language on passports rather than focusing on the economic growth that they claim to actually stand up for. Well, I have a news flash for this Government: sucking up to rich foreigners and fighting culture wars isn’t actually an economic development strategy.

What we’ve also seen from this Government—[Knocks over water] Oh, shit! Sorry, my water spilled over. Apologies, Madam Speaker. What we’ve seen from this Government is a desire to blame the Opposition and actually attack the Opposition rather than present real and genuine ideas. In the Budget debate, the Prime Minister mentioned the Green Party or the Green Budget seven times; David Seymour mentioned the Green Party five times; and Shane Jones mentioned the Green Party seven times—

What about me?

—during this appropriation debate—I’m coming to you, Mr Brewer. Over this appropriation debate, we’ve seen Mr Seymour mention the Greens three times, we’ve seen Mr Jones mention the Greens two times, we’ve seen Dan Bidois mention the Greens three times, and we’ve seen Mr Brewer mention the Greens four times. Do you know what else was interesting about those speeches? They mentioned the finance Minister several times, but only in one speech—Mr Bidois’ speech—was the Prime Minister mentioned. We’re seeing the factions lining up in the National Party. They’re seeing the poll ratings go—they’re lining up the leadership changes. Mr Bidois is obviously a Luxon loyalist, but, alas for him, they’re all “Willisites”; they’re all backing the finance Minister.

The fact of the matter is that this Government’s economic strategy, which is epitomised in this Budget, is a combination of austerity politics, slash-and-burn cuts, handouts to their mates in big fossil and big tobacco, and the prioritisation of the short-term extractive economy, funded at the expense of working people, particularly working women, who they stripped rights from right in the dead of the night without any consultation. Not only is it damaging to working people, but it’s been deeply damaging to our nature and climate.

What is the Government the actually doing? What the Government is actually doing is harming the long-term basis of our productive economy, which is, fundamentally, nature and our planet, because you cannot have an economy on a dead planet. It’s also harming the other things that make up long-term productivity: innovation, a diversified economy, and investing in productive capital, particularly human capital.

What has the Government done instead of that? Well, what was particularly telling when they first came into office was their replacing of the Productivity Commission with the Ministry of Regulation. That really tells people how much they care about the so-called productivity that really, fundamentally, drives economic growth.

We’ve seen this Government undertake slash-and-burn cuts to science and tertiary funding, which undermines innovation and is leading to our best and brightest fleeing this country due to a lack of opportunities. In Otago alone, in Dunedin, we’ve seen 50 out of 140 doctoral scholarships lost thanks to this Government’s chronic underfunding of the tertiary sector. We’ve seen this Government strip away funding from working people through their changes to pay equity.

It’s damaging our nature and climate. We’ve seen $650 million worth of cuts to environmental funding and monitoring over this Budget. It’s having really dark consequences, according to the latest environmental report. We’ve seen indigenous biodiversity declining at an alarming rate. We’ve seen the highest levels of species extinction rates in the world. At the same time, this Government keeps promoting and keeps trying to greenwash their policies, when, in reality, their changes to the policy settings of the previous Government have been deeply regressive. Electric vehicle uptake has crashed thanks to the changes to the feebate scheme.

We’ve seen this Government’s changes to the waste sector and the deprioritisation of the circular economy lead to the dropping of critical things that will actually reduce the waste. New Zealanders care about reducing waste; New Zealanders care about our environment. We’ve heard the previous members praising John Key, but John Key actually invested in cycleways. John Key invested in environmental protection. That was a smarter, more reasonable National Party, one that was not enthralled to extremists in their flanks in the same way that this Government is.

In conclusion—with 50 seconds left of my time—I want to build on what my colleague Julie Anne Genter has already said: there is an alternative that’s being presented, in the left. Look, we’ve already had free advertising from members opposite about the Green Budget, so I’ll spin it again. [Holds up a Green Budget booklet] In reality, we can actually have lower taxes for 90 percent of working people if we rebalance the economy so that the 311 richest families, who hold the same level of wealth as the bottom 50 percent—it’s outrageous that economic inequality is such that nearly one in three people are having to go to food banks. Help is on its way. The election is next year, and we will change the Government. Kia ora.

Help is indeed on its way, and I’m proud to be part of the team that is delivering that help, and I’m proud to speak also on this Appropriation (2025/26 Estimates) Bill.

Before I get into the mighty meat of what we’ve got to talk about, I think it’s important to provide some context-setting to what was said. We had one of the previous speakers pointing the finger at us and saying, “Under your watch—under your watch.” Not you, of course, Madam Speaker, but under our watch—and what they failed to realise is that they were in Government for six years and did a whole lot of stuff that set in force momentum.

I want to give you an example. When I was about four years old, I used to watch my mum drive a car, and it was one of those stick shifts, but it was all up in the dashboard, and she’d pull off the handbrake and set it into reverse and go down the hill. At four years old, I thought, “I can do that.”, so when she wasn’t looking, I got into the car, and I adjusted the handbrake and put it into neutral, and the car started rolling back down the hill. Of course, she started freaking out. I don’t know what I was doing; I thought I was on to something pretty special. She had to jump in the car and, essentially, save it before I rolled out on to the main road.

That’s a little bit like what this Government’s had to do. It’s had to jump into a moving car going downhill and try and get the handbrake on. The only difference is that that Government wasn’t a four-year-old who didn’t know better. It did stuff that it should’ve known better. That provides a context of a car going downhill in the wrong direction. We’ve come in two years ago—this being our second Budget—to try and not only correct some of that behaviour but implement and introduce some new initiatives that will get New Zealand in the right direction.

We’ve talked a lot about productivity. We’ve talked a lot about economic growth. We’ve talked a lot about education, and, of course, we’re delivering on that in terms of literacy and numeracy, and learning support—some of the biggest investments in a generation, as some of the previous speakers have talked about. Of course, with tourism, we’re bringing back international students, because we want them at levels that were pre-COVID again, because we know how important tourism and international students are to the economy.

One of the things I heard a lot this week from one of the co-leaders of the Greens is the $200 million co-investment we’ve been making in oil and gas, and she keeps referring to it as a subsidy. Our Minister Responsible for RMA Reform tried to educate and enlighten her and break it down, but she still didn’t get it, so I’m going to try again. Say someone’s buying a $10 gift from the shop, and someone says, “I’ll pay $3 of that, and then you only have to pay $7.” That’s a subsidising effect on that gift. A co-investment is when you put an investment in alongside another investment, and you share in the reward. That is a co-investment, ladies and gentlemen, and that’s what we’re doing as part our reinvestment into oil and gas to try and keep the lights on in this country.

Our previous speaker, Mr Cameron Brewer from Upper Harbour, talked about Investment Boost and the uptake that’s had. Some of the Opposition will criticise that and say, “Oh, that’s only 1 percent over five or 10 or 15 years.” It’s a step in the right direction. It’s another lever of many multiplying effects that we’re doing, and it’s had a dramatic impact in terms of investors, farmers, and businesses employing or making investment in capital and, sometimes, new builds, fleets, tractors—stuff that improves the productivity of their business and, therefore, their employment and the employee and wages, and it has a corresponding effect. Cause and effect is something that we’re very cognisant of—when you contribute towards productivity, it has an impact at the receiving end, and that, in turn, supports our economy.

What about KiwiSaver? As was mentioned, 16- to 17-year-olds can now get employer and Government contributions, which is fantastic. We’ve got our young people who started work, often at 15 in fast food joints or working for their mum and dad or at takeaway shops or at the local Subway or wherever. Now their employer can contribute alongside them—kind of like a co-investment, if you will, a co-investment along with the Government contribution—and they can start putting that towards a nest egg for their first home, or, of course, later on in life, their retirement, so they can retire with dignity. We’re all about reinforcing the good thing that is KiwiSaver.

Some of the other good stuff that’s been happening out of this Budget, of course, are, on the one hand, that we’ve had the economic restraint—I think over the last two Budgets we’ve saved $6 billion to $7 billion last year and $6 billion to $7 billion this year. It’s not just about spending money but it’s about restraining and refraining on the things that we’re spending on and reprioritising. It’s not just about producing more expenditure, but what are the things that we’re spending that we could reprioritise and get a better outcome for? We’ve reinvested a lot of that in the front line, through our nurses and through our police, and we’re starting to see that impact, bearing in mind that we’ve only been in here barely 24 months and with a car going backwards downhill, it takes time to turn that around. There is good news: the trend lines are starting to emerge and appear.

Let me begin with health. Budget 2025 delivers a $5.5 billion increase in funding for hospital and specialist services, primary care, and public health. This includes over $1 billion for health infrastructure such as the redevelopment of Nelson Hospital, upgrades to Auckland facilities, and a much-needed overhaul of Wellington’s emergency department. Infrastructure alone doesn’t heal people; workforce does. That’s why our Budget also funds urgent care expansion, aged-care transitions, and mental health reform. Shifting 111 mental distress calls from a criminal justice response to a health response. I know first-hand that’s been really well received from the local police, where their job has had scope creep, and they’re having to deal more and more with stuff beyond their control. This enables them to focus on some of that core business.

What about the Waikato medical school? I have to acknowledge our coalition partners here that supported it as well, because this is not only great for Hamilton and the Waikato but for “New Zealand Inc.”, in terms of doctors. I’ve shared previously how this nearly happened in 1950 in Hamilton but then they realised they didn’t have a university, so it became the start of Waikato university.

Still don’t.

We do—we do. Thank you for that slight constructive criticism. It’s going well, and this medical school will only add to it.

The new model of medical education is graduate entry. Often, on the American sitcoms, we’ll hear, “I’m going to grad school.” We don’t hear that a lot in New Zealand, because we’re very immature in terms of graduate schools, but at Waikato, now we’ve got a grad school in nursing, grad school in midwifery, grad school in pharmacology, and soon, a grad school in doctor and GP training. What does that mean? Instead of your traditional six-year degree that 18-year-olds will engage in, it means that someone wanting to go back to work after they’ve done a Bachelor of Arts or a BSocSci at 25 or 30 or 35 might say, “I want a change of course in life.” and do a medical degree and be a GP and contribute to the welfare of New Zealand, and that’s a pretty special thing.

In fact, it’s a good thing in terms of competition. I heard Pro Vice-Chancellor Lane talk at a public meeting about the benefits of the medical school recently. He said that one of the interesting skills you can appreciate when you’re doing med school is you’ve got to work on cadavers—i.e., dead people. You cut them up, and you learn—that sort of thing—but the trouble with doing that with students is you can only do so much work on a cadaver, as you’d appreciate. If you go home that night and you think, “Oh, what was that issue? What was that thing that I was trying to learn about the lymphatic system?” Well, the good thing is that with this investment in the Waikato medical school, they’re investing in new technology—

Are you volunteering? I don’t know if science needs this donation.

—virtual reality where they can actually work on a cadaver with new technology. This is all the stuff you could have had but you missed out on, Ayesha Verrall.

Anyway, these students can now have this technology at home and get better education at scale. What has it done? Now, some of the other medical schools are starting to say, “Oh, we’d better invest in that technology, too.”, so there’s a little bit of competition, which is good for “New Zealand Inc”. Finally, I want to touch on the broader themes of this Appropriation Bill. This Budget’s not flashy; it’s not filled with election year giveaways. It’s a Budget of discipline—

What did you get for the Waikato medical school?

—direction, and delivery. How did we get the medical school? Thank you for asking. Well, the Crown’s only investing $82 million, and the university and the philanthropic sector is investing $150 million. Have you got any other medical school propositions that meet that dollar for dollar? It’s an absolute no-brainer, and it will change the GP space in this country and support rural health—another missed opportunity from the last Government, but don’t worry, we’re delivering it, with spades in the ground in December. So thank you.

Back on to the Appropriation Bill. I support it because it invests in those things which matter—health, education, and all those good things. Hamilton and Waikato are only a small part of it. “New Zealand Inc.” is going to benefit, so I’m very pleased with these wonderful things that we’re contributing to. I’m proud of our coalition partners. I’m proud of our Minister of Finance and her associates. This is a great example of a coalition Government working and delivering for New Zealand.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to take a call in this debate on the Appropriation (2025/26) Estimates Bill and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2025/26) Bill.

It’s been a really interesting afternoon listening to the different contributions across the House. I know the Green members are going to get excited because I am going to talk about them just briefly, for a moment. Firstly, I just do want to acknowledge that New Zealanders have done it tough over the last few years. We, on this side, recognise that, and that is why the finance Minister worked with her Cabinet colleagues and her other friends and colleagues across the coalition to pull this Budget together. We are realistic, and we do acknowledge that it’s been very hard times for New Zealanders. Inflation was running high—and I’m going to come to that again in a moment.

Look, the Greens had some very interesting contributions this afternoon. What I started to hear from them was something that we tackled when we came in. They’re, again, trying to pit different groups of New Zealanders against each other—whether it’s landlords versus tenants, employees versus employers, or farmers versus townies. We, again, started to hear about that. It also appears that the Green Party think that business and entrepreneurs and employers actually don’t create wealth in the economy—that it’s all done by Government. Well, that is just not true. Governments can only tax what people earn, and if people and businesses aren’t creating wealth and prosperity, then there’s nothing for a Government to take. The other interesting contribution from Julie Anne Genter was that she’s against roads. Well, I’m not sure what I’m going to drive my electric car on if we’re not building more roads. Again, one of the important things that this Government has actually tried to speed up is the investment in infrastructure. I know fast track is actually going to deliver more renewable energy projects. Rather than just talking about them, we’re getting on with them. Again, that is, actually, the difference between this Government and what we’re hearing across the other side of the House.

I do want to acknowledge Dr Deborah Russell, because she is actually very sound on tax measures—well, tax law. When we work through very detailed propositions in the Finance and Expenditure Committee, she is often the one who knows the details, but her speech today wasn’t inspiring.

It’s not supposed to be.

No, it was actually very depressing. It was like she had amnesia about what had happened over the time she was in Government and her party was in Government driving up inflation, interest rates, and actually hitting Kiwis in their back pocket. She didn’t actually talk about where New Zealand can go or offer any hope for the future.

That’s what we are trying to do: offer hope through the future with this Budget. I just picked up the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update 2025, which is obviously issued at the time the Budget’s handed down, and there’s just a couple of great graphs in here. They say the economy is going to recover, following a sharp contraction in 2024, and we are starting to see a glimmers of growth. Lower interest rates will take time to filter through the economy, and that is a very important point that the Treasury makes in this document. We are seeing sustained cuts by the Reserve Bank to interest rates that obviously flow on to commercial banks and their mortgage rates. That is slowly flowing through to Kiwis, so they are going to be seeing more money in their back pocket. That, obviously—tagged to some of the other cost of living measures that we have put forward in this Budget—is slowly starting to help Kiwis.

There is another thing that I loved in here. It says that an export-led recovery is emerging, supported by higher export commodity prices. We are seeing some amazing recovery in our rural sector.

Backbone.

Yeah, rural backbone—that’s a good way of putting it. They’re getting really incredible dairy prices in the world dairy market, which is great, and there’s even a beef and sheep recovery, which is amazing. You know, I’m from down south; I know the province of Southland is really seeing some growth. Look, again, we accept that the growth isn’t uniform across New Zealand. It’s going to take time to undo the damage, but we are seeing that.

The other great thing is we are seeing some tourist strength again in this document. That is what we are seeing. We are seeing tourist numbers starting to recover strongly. We saw the great announcement in the last 24 hours of more flights coming to New Zealand. Really, we are now starting to see some of the things that were talked about in this document many, many months ago.

The other thing I just want to touch on is that we have invested in the things that matter for Kiwis in this Budget: justice, policing, and, really, the whole criminal justice system. Kiwis wanted to make sure that they are safe and that they feel safe and that criminals are being prosecuted, people are being locked up, and there are more cops on the street. Well, that’s what we delivered in this Budget. Look, we make no excuse that we actually do need, unfortunately, to increase some of our prison capacity, but New Zealanders need to feel safe, and we need to make sure we have that capacity backed up by our investment in policing. Again, we are seeing some early signs that crime rates are reducing, which is really great, and we want to see that trend continue.

The other big area of investment is, obviously, education. I know the Minister, in her speech, outlined the amazing efforts we are doing to invest in education. It’s, actually, in a number of areas: it’s obviously front-line investing in teachers and the resources they need, but it’s also in the infrastructure—the school classrooms they need and, actually, building the facilities—that we can make sure our children get a good education in. We’re doing it in a fiscally responsible way. I know this House would have heard, many times, how we’ve standardised the building programme around schools, lowering the cost, and we’re actually delivering new classrooms.

Then we’ve got innovations in education, like charter schools. Again, the Associate Minister is here this afternoon. I know he’s very, very proud of that programme, because we don’t think the State can just deliver an education system that’s right for all children and we actually want to allow people who have entrepreneurial schools, skills, and education to deliver for our kids.

We talked a bit this afternoon about economic growth, and that’s really what we do need to be focused on as a Government. Investment Boost: again, the Minister referred to that, and it’s good to hear she’s getting some feedback from the Aussies on there being such a policy, because it actually does encourage businesses to invest upfront and just get on with buying the capital and the plant they need and to just get on and grow their business. That’s what we really need, because we need more jobs. Again, we acknowledge that there’s weakness in the labour market, but policies like this are actually going to build to employing more Kiwis for the long term in actually sustainable jobs.

Then another big area, again, is health. We know Kiwis are concerned about our healthcare system. We saw that it was being not properly invested in but, more concerningly, actually not properly managed with targets and outcomes for what we want to see in our health system. Also earlier, the Associate Minister mentioned our record investment in Pharmac. Again, that’s an area I’m very proud of that this Government has actually got on with doing, including some of the cultural change and other change we’re doing with Pharmac. Next week, excitingly, we’re going to have our new CEO for Pharmac here in New Zealand—the first time a person has been appointed as the Pharmac CEO from outside the organisation. I look forward to her bringing some new ideas and thinking and making sure Kiwis get the innovative medicines they need.

Look, I’m very proud to be on this side of the House. We are realistic about what we can do and deliver, but we are upfront about it. We’re not trying to claim we’re going to be building things and then not delivering them. We’re actually getting on with investing in what Kiwis need, want, and expect, and doing it in a fiscally responsible way. Yes, there are three parties in this Government, and we probably all would have done things slightly different, but the good thing is that Cabinet came together, supported each other, and delivered a Budget that will actually deliver for the future of New Zealand.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s often said that Budgets are moral documents. They represent the ethical choices and the values of the Government of the day. This Government has made choices that leave most New Zealanders worse off than when they took office. They were elected because a large part of their 2023 election campaign—and, arguably, their Budget has also claimed to back this up—claimed to focus on addressing cost of living increases for New Zealanders. The Prime Minister promised people would be better off by $250 a fortnight. Today, they can’t show us one family who has benefited from the full entitlement that was promised willy-nilly by the Prime Minister on the campaign trail.

Instead, what have we seen? Instead, we’ve seen the cost of living continue to rise under their watch, and, in fact, I would argue that it has worsened directly as a result of decisions that this Government has made—a lot of those outlined in their Budget this year. Rent, power, and food costs are going up for most people, and wages are not keeping up. There are two ways of addressing cost of living: either they could put in place decisions that would reduce the cost of things, like food, rent, power, transport—but direct results of their decisions have led to the increase in all of this, and we’ve seen that this year.

Job losses: if we look at just the construction sector—just the construction sector has 19,000 fewer people working in it since this Government took office. Now, what they could have done through the Budget was invest in job creation. Instead, what have we seen? Cancelled infrastructure projects and cancelled housing development projects. Just in the Maungakiekie electorate alone, there have been 11 Kāinga Ora housing projects that have been cancelled. That is hundreds of houses that will no longer be built. That is people who otherwise would have been in construction jobs no longer in those jobs, and we’re seeing homelessness increase at unprecedented rates this year as a result of decisions made by this Government.

We’ve also seen there is a report—the Fairer Futures report—that was put out not too long ago that talks about the specific decisions that this Government has made that have directly led to the increasing cost of living for many people. It also focused on disabled people, but in keeping with the changes that they’ve made, it impacts everyone—the cutting of free prescriptions, for example; free lunches in schools; the cutting of transport subsidies that were otherwise free or half-price for those under the age of 25; and, as I have mentioned, the cutting of infrastructure projects that has led to job losses. All of this put together, in context, has meant that people are worse off, and they are starting to see it as well.

It is no wonder, then, that over 73,000 people have left New Zealand in the year to July 2025—73,000 people—a record high of New Zealanders fleeing New Zealand for other shores for pay and better conditions. It is also no wonder that we are seeing strikes. Teachers are striking, and nurses are striking. Doctors saying that increases aren’t keeping up with cost of living increases, even for them. People are choosing to skip doctors visits because they can no longer afford the fact that GP costs have increased. Is any of this addressed in this Government’s Budget? I would argue that it’s not.

Instead, what have we seen in the Budget? We’ve seen money—millions—that has gone to offshore oil and gas companies. We’ve seen millions go to overseas speculators, while, at the same time, the Government has also cut the first-home grant scheme—that was completely cut. What are this Government’s choices and what are the values that are reflected in this Government’s Budget? No support for those who need to be helped into their first homes. Instead, there’s support for overseas speculators—fine—for foreign investors who want to come and buy houses in New Zealand. Fine. “But we won’t help those who need to be housed here. We won’t build Kāinga Ora houses.”

Quite recently, the housing Minister came out and confirmed that this Government has built 45 public homes—45 homes, at a time when, over a period of a few months in Auckland alone, homelessness increased by 90 percent. There’s been a 90 percent increase in homelessness in Auckland but only 45 public homes that this Government has built.

When the previous speaker, Todd Stephenson, said that this Government is investing in the things that matter to New Zealanders, I would argue that they’re not. New Zealanders need jobs to be able to afford the increasing cost of living that we’re seeing under this Government; New Zealanders need homes that they can live in that are warm, dry, and affordable; and New Zealanders need to be able to access healthcare when they need it, in a way that is affordable. On all those fronts, this Government is failing.

Let’s talk about pay equity, because when we’re talking about cost of living increasing and people needing to be able to afford to live—rent, power, and food—we also need people to have jobs that pay them decent wages. That is what the pay equity issue was about. Instead, we saw, just before the Budget this year with no heads-up to New Zealanders, legislation that was introduced and pushed through this Parliament and that gave New Zealanders no opportunity to have their say, and yet it was legislation that impacted about 180,000 people—mostly women; all of them underpaid—not because the jobs they do are not valuable, because they are. These are women, largely, who work as teachers, nurses, and Plunket nurses. They work in our mental health facilities; they work in our disability facilities; they do work that is incredibly difficult and crucial to the running of our society and our economy. What does this Government do? They kneecap them. They have taken money pretty much out of the pockets of the women who need it the most. For once, David Seymour said something that was illuminating. He said that Brooke van Velden, the Minister in charge of that change, singlehandedly saved the Budget, so this is a Budget that, firstly, does not make life better for New Zealanders and is also balanced on the backs of women who work the hardest and are the lowest paid in New Zealand.

Very quickly, let me look at also what they’re doing in disability. Under the fiscal risks for 202526 and the outyears, the Budget notes that Disability Support Services is likely to face significant operating pressures to maintain the delivery of existing services. Yet, just last week, we had an announcement from the Minister responsible, who said, to much fanfare, that she will be bringing flexibility back—the very flexibility that this Government cut 17 months ago, which, over this period of time, disabled people have been struggling to cope with as a result of. She’s bringing flexibility back, but there’s been no significant increase in the funding for disability services in this Budget. What does that mean? That means the tools that this Government has said that they’re going to introduce shortly will lead to smaller packages and smaller-funding budgets for disabled people, less support for disabled people—within which they will have all the flexibility they can get, but what is the use? If you have $10 to spend on supporting your health and your disability and you are then told that, within that $10, you can then spend it how you like. That is of no use to disabled people. Yet this is a Budget that did not significantly increase funding for disability communities.

Finally, with the environment, they are cutting of Jobs 4 Nature—that is 14,000 jobs in the environment sector gone. Through this Budget, there was the disestablishment of Predator Free Ltd—again, with no heads-up and no consultation. That’s gone under this Government through Budget 2025.

All of that is incredibly short-sighted. This is not a Government that is working either for the people of New Zealand or the environment. All of the decisions they’re making are just going to make life harder, to make life tougher, for those who are doing it the hardest in New Zealand. It will strip the environment in the name of economic growth and recovery. This is a Government that is weak, that is out of touch, and that is taking us backwards. Nothing that they are doing will see any of us better off, and yet, we hear members opposite stand up and say they support this Budget, because they think they are investing in what matters. They’re investing in their mates and not in New Zealand, and we don’t support it.

My goodness gracious me! Listen to that last contribution. What a negative, negative story on an afternoon of a Thursday. I am very, very proud of what I refer to as a wonderful Budget by this Government—a wonderful Budget, a Budget that covers off a huge amount of aspects that are beneficial for our country. I’ll let you into a little secret: I’m a proud member of the National Party. You might not know that, but the foundation of the National Party is built on the values of ambition and success and lower taxes and reward for hard work and equal opportunity for all of it, at its core. I tell you what, when I read this Budget, I thought, “You could not get much closer to the underlying values of our party.” That is why it is an honour and a pleasure to rise to speak as a Minister for this Government—a Government that is delivering for Kiwis at the heart of everything that we do.

I tell you what: gee, does time not go fast in this place! Do you know that today is day 654 of this Government—654, maybe, give or take one or two. Time flies, and when you reflect on what we have delivered in that period of time—this is a Government that is getting inflation under control, we’ve got interest rates back down into band, we’ve got growth positive, we are really getting a handle on dealing with the cost of living crisis that we inherited, and we are getting this place back on track, which is great. I tell you what, with the two Budgets that have been delivered by this Government, and everything else that the Government is doing, this Government’s number one priority is ensuring that we are dealing with the cost of living—that crisis that we inherited.

Let’s talk about a few components of Budget 2025 and what it has delivered and, in particular, the areas that are relevant for the portfolio aspects that I have responsibility for. I know that tax and revenue is an area close to everyone’s heart in this place, but as the Minister of Revenue, the single biggest thing that I am most proud about in this wonderful Budget is Investment Boost. I tell you what: Investment Boost—doesn’t it just roll off the tongue—is absolutely stunning. We heard from Cameron Brewer before. Cameron was telling us about the Fieldays and the mood and the vibe on the ground as a result of that Investment Boost policy; it was awesome. It was gangbusters out there, wasn’t it, Cameron Brewer?

Amazing.

I tell you what, the farmers liked it. Investment Boost is a very sensible policy. Why? Because it gives that injection of activity, that injection of energy, that injection of confidence in the arm of our hard-working farmers who are the backbone of our country, and it gives them the confidence that they were so badly crying out for to get on and invest in their businesses. As a result, our economy is now getting paid the dividends of their hard work, and that is something we should all be very, very proud of. As we know, that economic growth, and that boost in the arm coming from our primary sector particularly, is all going to be very helpful in terms of raising those living standards. Importantly, we want to see more higher-paying jobs, which, of course, as we all understand on this side of the House—maybe not everyone in this House—are what we need to pay for those public services, don’t we, right? It is important, but we know New Zealand’s got a good growth trajectory.

I want to acknowledge our superstar Minister of Finance, the Hon Nicola Willis. I tell you what, a rockstar in terms of that role. But she led us into a little bit of economic analysis this week. Do you remember that little statement from Westpac—you know, that Australian bank which has got, obviously, a good presence here in New Zealand. It turns out, as a result of the hard work on this side of the House, that New Zealand’s growth is actually going to be greater than on the other side of the ditch. Economic growth in New Zealand’s going to be higher than in Australia. I tell you what, we should be pretty proud of that. We’re starting from a lower base because of we know why—but as a result of the actions, as a result of the hard work and the hard-working New Zealanders and Kiwis, we’re going to see increased economic growth on this side of the Tasman, higher than the other side by about 1 percent, actually, Cameron Brewer, which is not nothing to be scoffed at in the context of that.

Let’s get back into that Investment Boost, because there are a lot of people sitting at home going, “I’ll tell you what, that Investment Boost, maybe I haven’t got all the detail on that.” Well, let’s just go through the detail again, just to remind them. Immediately, you can deduct 20 percent of the cost of a new asset on top of the depreciation. That means, in real simple terms, that you are able to get a much lower tax bill in the year of the purchase of that asset.

I tell you what, I was talking to someone—it might have been Tim Costley when we were cooking burgers in his electorate at Burger Wisconsin. I don’t endorse any products, of course, but we were in that neck of the woods. The lady who owned that store said, “Does that apply if I want to buy a new cooker?” I tell you what: we said, “It sure does—absolutely it does.” Funnily enough, do you know what? It applies to everything. If you want to build a new hydro dam—and on this side of the House, we want to see more renewable energy; we want to see more energy full stop—you can apply that to building a new hydro dam. I don’t know if anyone’s in the market for a new hydro dam, but I tell you what: if you are—we’ve got a couple in the House—this policy applies to that. That’s just a little bit of an insight.

When we thought about the design of that policy, the number one principle was that it’s got to really put a shot in the arm around economic growth, tick; it’s got to be simple, tick; and it’s actually got to achieve the outcome which is what we want to do to rise those living standards, get higher wages, and get that economic growth. I tell you what: what a beautiful policy that is. I’m looking forward to seeing that continue to grow in popularity as we go around for our farmers, our tradies, our business owners, and, actually, anyone considering investment. There will be more money, as a result of that, for manufacturing and, of course, those people that provide all of that equipment that feeds into our economy. Of course, when you can get and upgrade that equipment, as we all know, that means higher productivity. I tell you what: that is another area of major focus, all unlocked by this wonderful Budget that has been released this year.

The challenge is that I haven’t got another 30 minutes, but I’m going to have to cut it back a little bit for the two that we’ve got. Cameron Brewer, again—I’m sorry, I’ve mentioned your name about four times in this speech, but it’s only because you’re sitting right next to me—you talked about KiwiSaver, didn’t you? You raved about that. I tell you what: we should be very proud of the changes in this Budget, of increasing the contribution rates up to 3.5 percent by 1 April 2026 and then up to 4 percent by 1 April 2028.

That is not all, folks—that is not all. We also ensured that those 16- and 17-year-olds that are out there in the workforce—those young people that are coming in and that are wanting to work—are now eligible for KiwiSaver, and so they should be. Shame on all of those on the other side that didn’t support that. Isn’t that awful. On this side of the House, we support young people; we support the youth; we support them. I tell you what, if you work, you deserve to be able to get a KiwiSaver contribution. As a result of the changes that we have made, we’re going to incentivise young people to get into that scheme. As we know, if you start investing early, then you’re going to get the benefit and the dividends when you’re a little bit older. That’s good, common-sense financial literacy. On this side of the House, we understand that. A couple of the heads are down at the other side. They’re still trying to work out what I just said then, but I tell you what: we’ll do a one-on-one session maybe next week to cover off the detail.

Lastly, we can never forget, on this side of the House, our SuperGold card holder population—our retirees. We are big fans here. Here are changes there that we made: we’ve obviously increased the thresholds for that rebate. We’ve got a number of people that are now going to be eligible for that. I acknowledge the Hon Casey Costello for her work on that policy. It was a great little bit of teamwork across the board. Of course, that was one of the aspects in the coalition agreement between the National Party and New Zealand First, so well done there. We’ve also got the rates rebate scheme and a whole range of other wonderful interventions that drive economic growth, that drive prosperity, that raise the living standards of New Zealanders, and that raise incomes. I tell you what: that’s a great Budget, and we’re very proud of it.

Madam Speaker, thank you. I want to kick off by actually responding, as we should do more in these debates—these should be real debates—to my friend who just stood up and talked about how he valued the reward of hard work. I do, too; absolutely I do. I think that I can say that from a place of experience, having spent most of my career, for well over 25 years, working in employment law, and that was because I value hard work.

I see work as one of the most essential parts of how we can make people’s lives better. If we have well-paid work and if we have decent work, then we have a lot of people who can do things for themselves and their families and who feel empowered. That is an absolutely rock-solid commitment of the Labour Party. While the Labour Party was in Government, we saw record employment in this country, and I saw the result of that in some really fundamental ways. We saw people who had been unemployed for generations—one generation after another—back in work. We saw training programmes that brought people into the workforce in those circumstances, and it was so, so important. That is game-changing stuff.

Unfortunately, what we saw when the Government changed was a tanking of this economy on the backs of workers. One of the first things that I saw happen, when I was in this situation—one of the first things—was a change in the Reserve Bank Governor’s mandate. They were no longer allowed to look at maximising sustainable employment. That was not supposed to be one of the criteria. There was such a focus on other things that I was worried, and then we saw work actually pulled away all over the place.

People had been promised tax cuts and relief from the cost of living crisis, and all that was being promised while the very same people who were struggling lost their jobs. In my area, in Mt Albert, I have talked to many people who have lost their jobs in those circumstances, but there aren’t even—

The streets of Epsom begged not to be put into Mt Albert.

They might be a bit more insulated in Epsom. That might be because of the ridiculous prices of the houses, but it’s not so insulated if you get around Mt Albert.

There are a lot of people who are hurting as a result of losing their jobs and are despairing, and some of the people who are most despairing are our youth. People who are young are the ones who are the first to not get jobs in an economy that’s tanking. They lose out because they haven’t got a lot of experience. They lose out, and what has the response of this Government been to that? “We’re going to make the parents pay.”, is one. Two: “It’s your fault. Get off the couch.” That has been the response of this Government—it has been to blame those very people. Those are the kids who went through COVID. Those are the kids who’ve had a damned hard time and need to connect through work, and it’s extremely important that this Government’s policies actually make that happen. What we are seeing is skyrocketing unemployment in those groups. It’s affecting our youngest, with over 20 percent, in many cases, of our people being unemployed. It’s affecting them in the cities, it’s affecting them in the rural areas, and we will pay the price for many years.

Of course, the ones who are able to move to Australia do, don’t they? That’s what we’ve also seen—an absolute exodus to Australia. Record numbers of people are going to Australia, and will they come back? I have been in that situation myself. The other day, my daughter, who had been in England for three years, said that she was going to come home. She looked and she looked and she looked for a job. She got one in Sydney, and that’s where she is. That’s where she is today. She spent only two weeks in New Zealand, even though I’d dearly love her to come back, because there isn’t the work here, and it’s at very, very many levels. People are missing out—we are missing out on our best and our brightest. We are missing out on the growth of our workforce, because this Government chose to tank the economy so they can bring down interest rates. That is the logic. For the benefit of people who do not understand this crazy logic, the crazy logic is that if you create unemployment, wages will go down, and there will be less demand and you will have lower interest rates. Well, that’s a hell of a price to pay. That’s a very big price and that’s a valuable price to pay because it’s very, very important that the money that goes around in our community goes through everyone, and that’s through high-paid work or even reasonably paid work. I’ve bargained for reasonably paid work, but we need work to pay well. Instead, we have frittered it away.

We have given huge tax cuts to landlords. At a time when housing was already too expensive, we decided to incentivise private landlords—that’s what we did with the money. What we did was we also took that money out of the kitty that was supposed to pay for pay equity. Who’s on the hook again? The lowest-paid workers in New Zealand are the ones who missed out. We raided the kitty that was to pay for pay equity for our lowest-paid workers. That is an absolute shame.

Now, I was out this week in my community at my local Plunket. I remember turning up to my Plunket when I had my first son, Max, and Max was born and was immediately in intensive care. I had my first child, and I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was no expert, and Plunket got me through that. It wasn’t easy. It was a time when I just really had lost my confidence, and I had a baby that just screamed all the time and was in quite a lot of difficulty, and it was the Plunket nurses who got me through. Those nurses are worth their weight in gold, and yet, this week, they have had to file another claim for pay equity because they got knocked off the list. What have I heard this Government say about those kinds of workers this year? I have heard them disparaged. I have heard the Minister talking about how the comparators were just so unfair and so crazy, and saying that librarians were being compared to traffic engineers. That is a totally misleading statement in terms of why those people were—there’s no explanation that comes with it. Why was that the comparator, and was it a just comparator? That needs unpacking.

Actually, saying that sort of thing is inflammatory, and it leads people to misunderstand what was a genuinely sensible comparison in those situations, because our hospice nurses and our Plunket nurses are of value to the Labour Party; they are of value to our communities, and they are a valuable resource for people like me as a young mother. They probably stop a lot of extra cost coming through the system, because, actually, if I couldn’t have got that help at that point, I was probably in a situation where it would have escalated into the health system. They are the important people in our community who do jobs that require judgment and sensitivity and require intelligence. When we bring out a comparator and make disparaging remarks like that, all we are doing is perpetuating a myth that that work is not valuable, when it absolutely is.

For people who suggest that this was a fair and reasonable Budget, I say that was the least fair and reasonable thing you could do to more than half the population of New Zealand. It was an attack on women who had been underpaid and underpaid and underpaid for many, many years. It was an absolute attack, and why this Government has got to the point where it is so unpopular—it is so unpopular—is because it has not listened; it has been insensitive to a whole lot of people who were already struggling; and it has prioritised wealthy people over ordinary New Zealanders who work hard.

I’m going back to the beginning of the speech: hard work should be rewarded. Do those nurses not work extremely hard? They do—absolutely. They work hard, and, so far, they have absolutely not been rewarded. We had a plan in place to do that. This Government scrapped it under this Budget.

Look, it’s time for a little bit more positivity on this side of the House, looking at the growth Budget and how we are investing in the future of New Zealand, investing in things that matter: investing in education; investing in health, police, and defence; investing in our hard-working Kiwi families; investing in our hard-working businesses, the rural sector, and provincial New Zealand, by cutting that red tape; and investing, most importantly, in our children, in the future of this country.

We are making a record investment in education. We are focused on lifting performance in education, ensuring every one of our Kiwi kids gets the chance to get ahead and reach their full potential. We want to lift kids up over the bar, and this is how we create equality across New Zealand, by getting higher performance in education. That is why this Budget sees the largest investment in learning support that we have seen in a generation, an investment of $646 million to support kids with additional learning needs. Key investments include a substantial annual increase to teacher-aide hours, building up to over 2 million additional teacher-aide hours per year from 2028; learning support coordinators for all schools from years 1 to 8; expanding early intervention services from early learning through to the end of year 1. Every child who requires the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme will receive it. It is this kind of investment in our children, in our future, that makes a difference.

Early intervention is important so that we can identify those kids early and give the support that they need. Some kids learn differently—kids with dyslexia, ADHD, those neurodiverse kids that actually have superpowers in many ways—and they should not be held back. If we can provide that learning support early, they have that potential to have their abilities realised and to reach their full potential. I have 61 schools across my electorate, and I’ve heard from the teachers, who are struggling, that we need to do more. This additional learning support will mean that they can focus on teaching in the classroom, teaching the basics brilliantly—reading, writing, maths—and delivering in education so that we can create equality. I know kids with learning difficulties have huge potential to contribute to New Zealand; they just need the kick-start to do it, and our record investment in learning support will mean every child has the opportunity to reach their full potential.

Also, it has been great to see the huge record investments in health: $5.5 billion for hospitals and specialist services, primary care, and community and public health; $1 billion for health infrastructure. I would just like to acknowledge the investment in Hawke’s Bay healthcare, with our Hawke’s Bay Hospital getting over $100 million to upgrade our radiology department, an investment in our cancer linear accelerator treatment machine, and a 28-bed in-patient unit. This is a significant investment in Hawke’s Bay. Our Hawke’s Bay Hospital has been calling out for investment, and our Government is delivering to improve the healthcare outcomes of patients and people in Hawke’s Bay.

Speaking of investment, let’s talk about Investment Boost, which has been talked about a lot in this debate today. It’s a new tax incentive encouraging business investment to lift wages and to grow our economy. Investment Boost is encouraging businesses to invest and to go for growth. Of course, this is fantastic for an export and trade region like Hawke’s Bay, where our apple industry, for example, is growing. This year, we have met $1 billion worth of exports for the first time ever, because, finally, our apple industry has a Government that backs them, that supports them, and that’s cutting the red tape and letting the growers get on with growing and growing our economy.

Not so long ago, I was grabbing a coffee, and I was speaking to the cafe owner, and he was telling me about the great Investment Boost package, which was motivating him to actually invest in another cafe, because he was going to be able to use the Investment Boost to invest in the machinery and all of the things that he needed to set up that cafe. Of course, this means 10 extra jobs, and it means supporting other local businesses, and it is growing our businesses and our economy across Hawke’s Bay. That’s why Investment Boost is so good; it is encouraging investment.

We’ve already touched on the Fieldays; of course, I was up there as well, and it was so good to see that farmer confidence back. Farmers felt confident again. They were loving the Investment Boost. The rural businesses were loving the Investment Boost. This is the type of logic and common-sense approach that grows our economy, because, of course, agriculture and our primary sector are the backbone of this economy.

Look, I’d also like to touch on the cyclone recovery investment that we saw in this Budget, because we saw $219 million contributing to the Hawke’s Bay area, where, of course, we were devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle and we still have a lot of rebuilding to do and we still have a lot of investment in our roading and our infrastructure that is required. I would just like to acknowledge the Puketapu community, where I was just a couple of weeks ago, opening the Moteo-Puketapu Bridge after 2½ years. This is really significant for that community, where we’re providing connection again, because infrastructure isn’t just bricks and mortar; it is about connecting our communities, and infrastructure plays a really, really large role in connection, getting the wheels moving in our economy.

Of course, we have invested in our 17 roads of national significance, and I would just like to acknowledge, also, the very first road of national significance to be starting, the Hawke’s Bay four-lane expressway—over $600 million was just recently committed to that project. This is really exciting for our region. It means over 300 jobs, and it’s starting in November. That is super exciting for Hawke’s Bay.

Let’s now talk about law and order, because our Government came in with a very big focus on restoring law and order, and this Budget sees a real commitment to that. Remember, for six years under Labour, it was a very common theme: every day, we were seeing ram raids, we were seeing rising crime, and we were seeing very unsafe communities.

Gang patches.

And gang patches—gang patches everywhere. Actually, I’m from Hawke’s Bay; we have one of the highest rates of gang membership in this country, and so cracking down on crime was really, really important. Of course, some of the laws that we’ve brought in to ban gang patches have made a real difference, as well as the investment in our front-line police officers—$1.1 billion of additional investment to support front-line police in this Budget—and initiatives to respond to child and youth offending and tackling organised crime.

I was just out with our police in Hawke’s Bay, the other day, where we have a gang disruption unit—over 20 extra police officers making a real difference to making our community safer and ensuring that we restore law and order in Hawke’s Bay, because this really makes a difference in our communities, when people feel safe. We’ve really seen some progress in Hawke’s Bay when it comes to making our communities safer and ensuring that we are cracking down on the gangs. We have more police on the beat, and we are focusing on ensuring our children, our grandparents, and our families are safe in New Zealand.

Madam Speaker!

This is an amazing Budget that is going for growth.

The member’s time has expired.

Thank you very much, and thanks for your support. Look, it’s quite clear to anybody that’s been watching this debate that the National Party MPs have been told what to say. They’ve all said the same thing. It all meets the same pattern, and it is actually quite clear why. They’ve looked at the situation: polling isn’t going well, New Zealanders have clicked on to the fact that the health system is in a shambles; the economy is going nowhere like they said it would; they borrowed for tax cuts; the education system is a mess, where they don’t value teachers; they don’t value the health sector. There are two quite telling things: they were all told to say that they were proud and they were all told to give glowing praise to Nicola Willis, and they were all told to stay well clear of Christopher Luxon.

Not one person has mentioned the Prime Minister, and that’s extraordinary. That is extraordinary. We have a debate about the Budget, and not one National Party MP has mentioned the Prime Minister. Now, normally, if things were going well, they would be full of praise, but what this says to New Zealanders is that even uttering the name Christopher Luxon affects their polling. They do not want to be associated with this absolute dud of a Prime Minister. They just want to ignore the fact that he is their leader, and they’ll talk about everything else.

There’s also something quite telling that none of them has mentioned. That’s housing. I wonder why. It actually doesn’t take much thought to figure out why. It’s because they have presided over the largest and fastest increase in homelessness in our country’s history. What a record! They haven’t even been in Government for two years, and they have contributed to the largest and the fastest increase in homelessness in this country. This is all linked to what it is that we are debating today. Nicola Willis could not make her Budget add up; they went on tax cuts that they could not afford and that left billion-dollar holes in their Budget, and they had to find the money somewhere. Why? Because they gave a $2.9 billion tax cut to landlords.

This is directly linked to housing. As it stood, the policy was that, if an investor built a home, they could deduct their interest, but, if they purchased an existing home, they could not. What that led to was investment being driven towards new builds—exactly what we need in this country—and, for the first time in a very long time, we saw the proportion of first-home buyers entering the market starting to increase. This lot didn’t like it, because their mates wanted to be able to deduct interest on existing homes. Of course, it’s easier to buy an existing home than it is to build a home, so they changed it. Is it any surprise? Is it any surprise, really, when we see Carl Bates has got an interest in 25 properties? Of course it’s not a surprise. Of course it isn’t. They are the party of and for landlords. They are not the party for those that are struggling to buy their first home. As soon as they made that change, we saw investment in new builds essentially fall off a cliff and go straight back into existing properties. The proportion of first-home buyers has dropped, and if you look at the figures for bank lending, it is going to investors, and it is not going to first-home buyers.

Then, once they looked after their landlord mates, they cut Kāinga Ora off at the knees. We had a record level of house builds at a time when we most desperately needed it, and they have stopped the expansion of Kāinga Ora homes, and they have stopped the money going to Kāinga Ora. The only way that they are funding new houses is by selling houses, and there will be no increase whatsoever in the number of State houses in this country. They are selling houses in places like Invercargill without any plans whatsoever to build more houses. The number of State houses are going down in places, and, as long as this Government’s in, they will never be replaced. The money that they’ve put into community housing providers is a fraction of what they were receiving under the previous Government. What this equates to is very little houses being built by comparison to what has happened.

Now, let’s look at what this Government promised New Zealanders they would do. Tama Potaka said that this Government would build more houses than the previous Government. That was his promise. That is a lofty ambition given that the previous Government built a record number of State and community houses—the most since the 1950s—but that was his promise. Nicola Willis signed a pledge that said that there would be a net 1,000 increase of community housing in Auckland every year. Have they done that? No way near. They funded 750 houses this financial year for the whole country, 750 houses next financial year for the whole country, and an additional 550 for Auckland. It doesn’t add up to 1,000, and it certainly doesn’t add up to the level of investment that was happening under the previous Government. They have cut social housing off at the knees.

The most egregious thing is that in order to fill the holes in Nicola Willis’ Budget, they have stopped those in the most genuine need, the most vulnerable people in this country, from entering into emergency housing. Why does this relate to this debate? Well, it is quite clear. Before the Budget, the Government issued a press release, in extremely bad taste, celebrating the fact that they had saved a billion dollars by keeping people on the street. They celebrated that they were able to make their Budget add up because more people are sleeping in tents and in garages and in parks and on the street. There is a 90 percent increase of people sleeping rough in Auckland, 24 percent in Wellington, 34 percent in Tauranga, and we could go on.

Jan Tinetti and I were in Rotorua recently. We had a 15-minute gap, so we went for a walk around the block in the CBD—just a walk around a block of shops. We counted eight homeless people on the street. This is what they are celebrating in this Budget. No wonder they are not talking about housing. Why would they? Are they proud of housing? They’ve claimed to be proud of everything else. Are you proud of people sleeping on the street? Silence. Of course it’s silence; but that is their record. That is exactly what this Budget, which we are debating today, amounts to: people in the most vulnerable positions unable to get help.

I have asked both the Minister of Housing and the Associate Minister of Housing on numerous occasions about this in question time. They dismiss it. Just yesterday, Tama Potaka claimed, in this House, that reports of increased homelessness are hearsay. How arrogant can you get, when those reports are coming from those on the front line? Now, I said three statistics earlier in this speech—a 24 percent increase in Wellington, 34 percent in Tauranga, and 90 percent increase in Auckland—and the Minister says it’s hearsay. Well, here’s the thing: every single one of those, each of those three stats, is in the Minister’s own homelessness insights report issued in June this year. That’s the ministry’s own data. The Minister is so arrogant that he dismisses his own figures as hearsay because it doesn’t add up to this rhetoric that we’ve been hearing all day. It is fact. They are deliberately keeping people out of emergency housing to make their Budget add up. They changed the entry criteria to the extent where women and children escaping domestic violence could not get in, because they were deemed to have contributed to their own circumstances. It is heartless; it is disgusting.

When we pressured the Minister on this, he said, “It is not happening.”, and then he quietly went and told the Ministry of Social Development to make sure it doesn’t happen, admitting that it was. He just didn’t want to say so publicly. If they are willing to accept that the changes that they made led to women and children escaping domestic violence not being let in, maybe they should take a breath and recognise that their quest to squeeze out any possible amount of money to make Nicola Willis’ Budget add up has gone too far. They cannot admit that. They have made one announcement to try and address homelessness—300 places. The problem with that is that homelessness is increasing beyond that. It is a drop of water into an empty bucket. Homelessness will continue to increase, and it is down to every single one of them, and when we are about to vote on this, they are voting for exactly that. Shame on every one of them.

I’m proud of this Budget, I’m proud of this team around us, and I’m proud of our Prime Minister. We don’t operate as a team where you have to get told what to say and where you have to get told what to believe. I like Christopher Luxon as a Prime Minister and as a leader because he backs his team. He’s the kind of guy that would show up on the night of a by-election and actually stand with his team. That’s the kind of leader he is—not the kind that would just run and flee. He’s with us through it all. I don’t have to be prompted to say that. I don’t have to be prompted to say how proud I am of the Hon Nicola Willis and what she’s done as finance Minister in bringing this Budget to the House—and in difficult times. What I’d like to hear the Labour Party say is that they are proud of their legacy. I’d like to hear them own up to the high levels of inflation, the massive amounts of debt, and what there was to show for it. I’d like to hear them show a bit of pride and actually stand here and talk about that. To see them front up to something like a COVID inquiry—that would be nice—but they won’t front up to that either, will they?

That’s what the context of this Budget is. When it comes to setting one, we have to work with some big numbers, some numbers like the $9 billion that we spend every year just on the interest on the debt that they racked up. Before we can go and pay for a doctor, in this Budget, or a nurse or a social worker or a police officer, first we have to pay just the interest on their debt, and that number is more than we spend on our entire defence force, more than we spend in this Budget or any Budget on actually protecting our national sovereignty and security. In fact, it’s more than we spend on our defence force and our police force combined. It’s more than we spend on our defence force and our police force and our customs, and then add in our corrections. That is the issue. This is why Budgets take balance, because that is what we inherited. That is the system. You don’t hear any pride from the other side. You don’t hear anyone willing to stand up and acknowledge the truth about the situation that we inherited.

Often, I think, with Budgets, we focus on some really big numbers. We talk about how there’s $2 billion for defence on new helicopters—we can talk about them in a moment; I might geek out a bit, so I’ll try and hold myself back. We can talk about $16.68 billion for health. I think sometimes these numbers feel so big that it’s hard to understand at the personal level what they mean. How does that make my life different?

Health’s a good example. We could talk about the billion dollars in health infrastructure funding. I think about the emergency department in Wellington Regional Hospital that’s getting revamped over the next four years, funded in this Budget. That makes a meaningful difference. When you add 34 more beds to the emergency department and you add another 34 consulting spaces for outpatients—an almost doubling in the capacity there—that’s what it means. What it means is that people spend less time sitting in that waiting room.

Our target—because we brought back health targets—is that you should be seen within six hours within the emergency department (ED). That doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. That doesn’t seem outrageous, but, in 2018, the last Government got rid of all those targets, and from 2019 onwards—if you look at the figures—wait times got longer and longer and longer. Instead of 87 percent of people being through in six hours, it dropped down into the 60s—the low 60s. Well, we brought those targets back. It’s back to 74 percent. It’s this kind of combination where you have a target and then you go and fund and resource it. That’s what the health infrastructure fund for a new emergency department in Wellington adds to it, which increases the flow of patients coming through, and that means less time. I think of my daughter with a broken arm, sitting in the ED. That means less time for people like that, whatever their condition, sitting in that waiting room.

When you couple that with the investment in this Budget in things like after-hours care and urgent care, and a new day service in the Hutt—we see protecting and saving the after-hours in Kenepuru. In fact, across the lower North Island, there is a significant amount of new after-hours and urgent care services funded directly in this Budget. That makes a difference to people on the ground because they can go there and they can avoid the emergency department altogether now, when there’s somewhere to go in the middle of the night. Think of Palmerston North with a new 24/7 service. I think of Levin with a new daytime service. That means they don’t have to make the trip to Palmerston North Hospital or to Wellington Regional Hospital, to sit in their emergency departments. Not only are we building a new emergency department in Wellington, but there will be shorter waits and better levels of care.

There are more nurses than there were two years ago, at the election. There are more doctors. We’ve increased the funding for GPs. That capitation—the amount that they get per patient that’s enrolled—makes a difference. We had a great speech from Ryan Hamilton before, waxing lyrical about the new medical school. I can’t believe that people would be opposing this. Why wouldn’t we want to train more doctors and, particularly, doctors for provinces?

Helicopters.

But this isn’t just—helicopters are coming. I did want to acknowledge education, because education is another area of concern, I think, for parents like me. We’ve heard a little bit about the learning support coordinators, but I wanted to read an email that I received that was sent to the Minister, the Hon Erica Stanford—a copy was sent to me—from a local school.

Willow-Jean’s email?

No, no, no. These principals know how to reply to email, so that’s quite a difference. “I would like to thank you”—this is to the Minister—“for the recent allocation of a learning support coordinator to our school. This will make a significant difference”—this is the principal—“to our learners, staff, and whānau.” It’s quite a long email—I won’t read the whole thing, in view of the time—but he says, “Thank you for your support, for the work you’re doing, that you and your staff are doing, for education, and for listening to the voices of school leaders.” That’s what it is.

I think of every school I’ve been to, in Horowhenua and Kāpiti and then northern Porirua and the Whitby area, and they all tell me one thing. They say it’s about learning support. We need more support in the classrooms. These learning support coordinators are qualified teachers; they are the experts in navigating the system to help the neurodiverse, to help those students with extra learning needs to navigate that process and to bring it in. Teachers have told me that that’s a game-changer. Some have said, “Look, we would rather have more support in the classroom, a learning support coordinator in the school, more teacher-aide hours and ed-psych, a speech therapist—we’d rather have that than a pay rise.”, and that’s what got delivered in this Budget.

When you hear about the up to 2.8 million hours of teacher-aides and other support for learning support—that’s cool; that’s a phenomenal number from the 700,000 hours of teacher-aides there are now. It’s four times as big. Actually, what it means is that your child at school gets the help that they need. They get those extra learning needs picked up earlier so that it makes a difference and so that they get better outcomes. It’s not about throwing money around and who can boast that they spent the most money—even if it was us. What it’s about is making sure kids are leaving school with the best chance in life. That’s what this is all about.

Now, I don’t want to aggravate the Greens by talking about the new expressway to Levin that is funded during this.

Yes, let’s go!

Suze Redmayne is a huge fan of this. She has been fighting hard alongside me to make sure this road gets built properly with the right design. It is a fantastic thing. Ignore what we heard earlier from Julie Anne Genter. Every other Kiwi, including those in the Rongotai electorate, actually wants new roads—quality roads that save lives, that get people there fast, that help us lift productivity, and that get this country moving. It is a fantastic road. I can’t wait to be part of the sod-turning very soon, as construction really swings into gear.

I have to geek out on the helicopters, because defence, finally, for the first time ever, is on a pathway to 2 percent of GDP. There’s $12 billion of new spending that’s been announced. The $2 billion that the Minister announced just the other week—she had the model helicopter in here; I saw a few people flying it around. I confess, I flew it around in the corridor. The Speaker wanted it. I saw Minister Goldsmith getting stuck in next to it. It was fantastic. These are world-class. This is exactly the right decision that our navy needs, in this case, but also aircraft for the air force. It puts us on par with Australians, with Americans, with South Korea, with India, and with a number of countries. It is a fantastic investment, and it’s good just to see a Government that believes in the defence force, especially after what we heard in this morning’s debate, with Opposition parties showing a complete disregard and disrespect for our defence force, I thought.

Fundamentally, more than anything else, the thing that motivates us, I think, on this side of the House, is making life better for Kiwis. It is tackling the cost of living. Whether it’s Investment Boost—and of all my examples of people, I’ll just give you one to finish, because I’m running out of time. It was Kelly. I met her in her business the other day. I said, “Have you heard about this thing called Investment Boost?” She said, “I’ve already bought a new car for one of my staff because of it. The numbers didn’t add up, but you brought in this policy, and they did. It’s been a game-changer for our business.” It’s about helping Kiwis. I’m proud of this, I’m proud of our leader, I’m proud of the Budget, and I commend it to the House.

The Imprest Supply (Second for 2025/26) Bill is set down for third reading immediately.

on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Imprest Supply (Second for 2025/26) Bill be now read a third time.

I’ve just been informed that in the previous vote that we just had, for the voting numbers, the Ayes were 68 and the Noes were 54. It doesn’t change the result, but it just makes sure that it has been counted correctly. Thank you.

I’m sure members won’t mind getting one minute and 50 seconds of extra value out of their free time, so the House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 16 September 2025.

The House adjourned at 5.53 p.m.