Parliamentary debates: Tuesday, 7 October 2025

E te Atua kaha rawa, ka tuku whakamoemiti atu mātou, mō ngā karakia kua waihotia mai ki runga i a mātou. Ka waiho i ō mātou pānga whaiaro katoa ki te taha. Ka mihi mātou ki te Kīngi, me te inoi atu mō te ārahitanga i roto i ō mātou whakaaroarohanga, kia mōhio ai, kia whakaiti ai tā mātou whakahaere i ngā take o te Whare nei, mō te oranga, te maungārongo, me te aroha o Aotearoa. Amene.

[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 and humility, for the welfare, peace and compassion of New Zealand. Amen.]

I have received from the Electoral Commission a writ declaring Oriini Kaipara to be elected at the by-election for the Tāmaki Makaurau electoral district.

I have also received from the Electoral Commission a return declaring Michael John Davidson to be elected a member of Parliament to fill the list vacancy created by the resignation of Benjamin Doyle. Both those members have elected to be sworn in on a different day.

The Clerk has been informed of six petitions.

Petition of Olinda Woodroffe requesting that the House change the ‘Rules of conduct and client care for lawyers’ to include better protection of lawyers’ human rights, health, and wellbeing

petition of Trixie O’Dea requesting that the House urge the Government to ban retail sales of nitrous oxide outside of supplies to registered catering and beverage companies

petition of Tristyn Kristna requesting that the House urge the Government to continue to strengthen penalties for serious and repeated crimes while also increasing early intervention initiatives, rehabilitation programmes, and victim support

petition of Jasmine Nathan requesting that the House urge the Government to extend non-parole terms for serious offenders

petition of Ryan Donohue requesting that the House urge the Government to provide support for secondary caregivers in shared care situations

petition of David White requesting that the House urge the Government to take urgent action to establish a new nationwide adaptable programme for the prevention of family and sexual violence.

Those petitions are referred to the Petitions Committee. Ministers have delivered 19 papers for presentation.

2024/25 annual reports of:

City Rail Link Ltd

the Environmental Protection Authority

the External Reporting Board

the Gambling Commission

the Government Superannuation Fund Authority and Government Superannuation Fund

the Māori Purposes Fund Board

Mercury New Zealand

New Zealand Post

Predator Free 2050

Quotable Value

the Reserve Bank of New Zealand

Television New Zealand, and

Transpower New Zealand

the Ministry of Justice statement of intent for 2025-29

the Executive Board for the Elimination of Family Violence and Sexual Violence strategic intentions 2025-2028

the Treasury long-term insights briefing and 2025 long-term fiscal statement

Government response to the report of the Petitions Committee on the petition of Holly Brooker, and

report in relation to selected non-departmental appropriations, the economic growth portfolio, and Vote Business, Science and Innovation for the year ended 30 June 2025.

Those papers are published under the authority of the House. The Clerk has been informed of 16 select committee reports for presentation.

Reports of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee on the:

Review briefing on the 2023/24 annual review of the Institute of Environmental Science and Research Ltd

Review briefing on the 2023/24 annual review of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd

report of the Education and Workforce Committee on the Education and Training (Vocational Education and Training System) Amendment Bill

report of the Environment Committee on the report of the Controller and Auditor-General, How well four councils are responding to a changing climate

report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on the Anzac Day Amendment Bill

report of the Governance and Administration Committee on the Plain Language Act Repeal Bill

reports of the Justice Committee on the Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill and the Juries (Age of Excusal) Amendment Bill

reports of the Petitions Committee on the

briefing on the petition of Kylie Whellan: Urgently establish a children’s select committee

petition of Ava Birkinshaw Janes: make New Zealand Sign Language compulsory in all high schools

petition of councillor Sam Bennett: fix the State Highway 3 intersection at Bell Block

petition of Issie Mullen-Winiata: ensure equal KiwiSaver rights for under-18s

petition of John Clarkson: update the New Zealand Child Support system

petition of Roger Woolnough: allow mortgage interest deductibility for home buyers not landlord rentals, and

special report on the petition of Laura Ancell

report of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee on the Building and Construction (Small Stand-alone Dwellings) Amendment Bill.

The bills are set down for second reading. The report of the Controller and Auditor-General and the petitions are set down for consideration. The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of a bill.

Animal Welfare (Regulations for Management of Pigs) Amendment Bill, introduction.

The bill is set down for first reading.

I wish to make a ministerial statement on the Middle East. Two years ago today, Hamas mounted its heinous terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens as well as those from other nations caught in the wrong place on that day of infamy. This resulted in the worst massacre in Israel’s history. That event set off what must seem to most New Zealanders like yet another of the seemingly never-ending cycles of violence in that region.

We have strongly condemned the overwhelming nature of Israel’s military response as Palestinian civilians have paid a disproportionate price for the sins of Hamas. One of our primary concerns throughout has been the generational consequences of the level of suffering and violence we have witnessed these past two years. What hope of peace is there for children who have only known violence, socialised into a situation of insufferable conflict and hatred?

We confirmed, in New York, 10 days ago what we have said repeatedly at the United Nations, as elsewhere: first, a ceasefire needs to be negotiated so that the violence can stop; second, all hostages and any remains must be returned as part of that ceasefire; and, third, the Israeli Government must facilitate the unimpeded flow of vital aid. We also said that we desperately want diplomacy to succeed and that those countries with leverage were most likely to achieve the longed-for breakthrough. We are encouraged that the United States-led peace plan—supported by Muslim countries around the world, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt—represents a possible first step to achieving these goals.

While some New Zealanders wished we would recognise Palestinian Statehood in New York, the Government always saw recognition as a distraction from, or even complication to, achieving a ceasefire, the return of hostages and remains, and the unimpeded flow of aid. Our focus has never shifted from that. We continue to consider recognition as a matter of when, not if.

As we said in our national statement to the United Nations, very few New Zealanders can recall any period of sustained peace in the Middle East during their lifetimes. While we are furthest away from the conflict, we have acknowledged the strongly held views people have about it. Most New Zealanders were rightly appalled at scenes of violence and famine in Gaza. Understand that we have limited ability to influence the direction of the conflict, but we can provide aid to those suffering, which we have done and continue to do so, working through those agencies that can get the aid to where it is most needed.

Other New Zealanders have expressed the concern that by not recognising Palestinian Statehood, New Zealand’s international reputation will suffer. Well, we can report that we have not received criticism from partners or from other countries near to, or far from, the Middle East. Protest action that has followed our national statement in New York forms part of the democratic fabric of New Zealand, so long as it respects the laws of our country.

Now, three New Zealanders are being held by the Israeli Government and are awaiting deportation. These people have gone against their Government’s advice not to join the flotilla and attempt to reach Gaza by sea and are receiving ongoing consular assistance. That assistance will not stop, and we have asked for as much notice from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs about their deportation as is possible.

One irony here, that will not be lost on many New Zealanders, is that the very protesters and their supporters who believe we must break off diplomatic relations with Israel are receiving consular assistance precisely because we did not do that, and they wish to break off diplomatic relations with Israel nevertheless. Another irony is that three private individuals freely chose to place themselves in a dangerous situation but now expect their Government to bail them out. We will do exactly that, not least because the Government feels a sense of responsibility even for those who act utterly irresponsibly.

The violent targeting of politicians’ private homes by some protesters, however, is a disgrace. It has caused distress to our families and disturbed the peace of our neighbours. Means such as these corrupt the protesters’ ends, such as they are. We must call out those members of this House who collude and collaborate with the very protesters targeting politicians’ homes. Do they have no shame? Do they feel so morally righteous that you and your supporters are justified to break any law, any taboo, any political norm? We say shame on you.

We believe New Zealanders understand the limits of our ability to influence the direction of Middle East politics. We also believe they support our giving aid to those who need it. Finally, we believe that in New Zealand, the extremes on both sides of this never-ending conflict have fallen into a black hole of irrationality and senselessness. It’s time to wake up, look at the situation with eyes wide open, and gain a sense of perspective. Those extremists, including those in this House, are entitled to go off the deep end and preen hysterically and monomaniacally about a single conflict overseas while many others rage in other parts of the world. They are entitled to do that because we live in a free society.

For the New Zealand Government, it is time to refocus on our foreign policy priorities closer to home in the Pacific and Indo-Pacific, always dedicated to making New Zealanders safer and more prosperous. Every day spent on Gaza and Palestinian Statehood recognition or flotillas is a day not spent on that important work on behalf of all New Zealanders.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to start today by acknowledging the horrific act that took place two years ago, on 7 October 2023. A terrorist act was undertaken by Hamas, a group recognised around the world as a terrorist organisation. The New Zealand Labour Party condemns this attack and the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.

In the two years that have passed since, we have seen a horrifying humanitarian disaster in Gaza. The New Zealand Labour Party also condemns this unfolding genocide. The Prime Minister has had countless opportunities to show moral clarity on Palestine; each time, he has chosen delay, equivocation, or inaction. For many months, New Zealanders have been eagerly waiting for the Government to make the decision to recognise Palestine as a State. We heard on numerous occasions the push for a two-State solution from this Government. For many months, the Prime Minister has been lacking the courage to put his foot down, be a leader, and recognise the other State in this two-State—

The member knows that’s not an appropriate statement to make.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. The ministerial statement made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs also contained very inflammatory attacks on other members of the House. The Minister set the tone for the debate in his opening remarks.

Sorry, I’m not accepting that. The ministerial statement was circulated ahead of time, and there was no objection to it, and it did not specifically mention any member as the Hon Peeni Henare just has.

For many months, the Prime Minister has failed to recognise the other State in this two-State solution. This Government talks about process, about considering options, about waiting for the right time. But while the Prime Minister and his Government hesitates, countless innocents are being maimed and killed, and families are being driven from their homes.

New Zealanders expect their leaders to have courage—to take a stand. It is the belief of the Labour Party that this Government lacks that. New Zealand has a proud tradition of standing on the right side of history: opposing apartheid, leading the charge towards a nuclear-free world, opposing the catastrophic war in Iraq, and playing a significant role in establishing the rules-based international order in the aftermath of World War II. The Prime Minister has undermined that tradition. It is not leadership to watch atrocities unfold on our screens and say, “Let’s review it again in a month or a year.” It is not leadership to wait for coalition partners to stop squabbling before deciding to do nothing.

When history calls, a true leader will answer. On Palestine, the Prime Minister has let the call go unanswered. The decisiveness that has been demonstrated by other countries only reinforces that. This is not just a failure of policy or the choice between recognition and non-recognition; it is a failure of conviction, a failure of principle, and a failure of leadership. When the leadership fails, humanity takes actions into its own hands; the flotilla that has been intercepted in recent days is an example of this. Israel’s treatment of humanitarian flotillas has been heavy-handed and unlawful. The Government must stand up for its people and demand their safety without hesitation.

New Zealand deserves a leader who will stand with humanity and most of the international community and not one who will wobble indecisively. New Zealand’s reputation and moral authority has already suffered thanks to this Government, and that must stop.

Therefore, my question to the Minister: Does he agree with the hundreds and thousands of peaceful citizens in this country that the Government of New Zealand needs to take more action like sanctions in response to the unfolding genocide by the Government of Israel against innocent and defenceless Palestine civilians?

The, well—

Question.

There’s no question on a ministerial debate.

Yes, there is.

That’s the whole point.

Sorry? No, there’s not.

Point of order, Mr Speaker.

I’ll take advice

To help out, the Standing Orders were changed about three parliaments ago—

Oh, were they?

—so that a ministerial statement can be followed by questions. As the first Minister to face one of those questions, I can say that this is absolutely now an integral part of a ministerial statement process.

Well, I don’t recall, actually, a motion being put before the House. It was a statement.

Mr Speaker, it was a change of the Standing Orders, and a Minister is obliged to answer the questions.

I am correct. There is no question before the House, but there is a question and answer format, and members can ask questions and have answers to those questions in their five-minute call. At the moment, there’s no one seeking a call.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. Standing Order 365(1) says, “Following a ministerial statement, the leader of each party”—which, of course, is able to be delegated to other members—“or a member authorised by the leader, may—(a) comment on the ministerial statement: (b) ask questions [of] the Minister who made the ministerial statement, to elucidate more information about [that].”

That’s right. There’s no question about that, but someone hasn’t done that. You asked me if there’s no motion. The member’s got a minute and 12 seconds to go, and if he’s got a question he can ask it.

Yes. [Interruption]

He asked a question.

I’m sorry?

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ll ask my question again.

Ask your question again. Sorry.

To the Minister, does he agree with the hundreds of thousands of peaceful citizens in this country that the Government of New Zealand needs to take more action, like sanctions, in response to the unfolding genocide by the Government of Israel against innocent and defenceless Palestine civilians?

Now, what’s fascinating about that question is that there was a poll where 60 percent of New Zealanders did not express support for recognition. It was almost as though that majority is of no moment; 60 percent did not express it. And it was followed up by a Stuff poll that said 55:45 percent against recognition until it was distorted by people voting countless times. So to make the statement that New Zealanders in the majority are for recognition is demonstrably numerically wrong.

Further to the Minister, does the Minister agree that New Zealand was put on notice in 2024 by the International Court of Justice that it had a legal obligation to prevent genocide in Gaza, that is not necessary for a definitive determination on genocide to be made before action is taken, and what actions has the Government taken to prevent genocide in Gaza?

Point of order. Following on from the Leader of the Opposition, Standing Order 365(1)(b), that question does not elucidate anything to do with this ministerial statement. It traverses issues to do with the International Court of Justice, which was not referred to by the member.

I think, given that the ministerial statements have been coming now in the nature of a debate where questions can be asked, to suggest that in a debate or a ministerial statement about the Government position on Palestine there couldn’t be some reference to other views on it would be, I think, quite wrong. The question can stand.

The reality is, again, that is a misstatement of the actual facts here. But here’s the point, really. Helen Clark had nine years to recognise Palestine; she didn’t. Jacinda Ardern had five years to recognise Palestine; she didn’t. Mr Hipkins had a year to recognise Palestine and he didn’t. We are sick of people who are lions in Opposition and lambs in Government.

To the Minister, what does the Minister believe constitutes the New Zealand Government’s duty to prevent genocide under the genocide convention, and what actions has New Zealand not taken on the matter in Gaza?

The reality is, there has been no International Court of Justice ruling to that effect. Or does he think that we should just ignore the International Court of Justice and just come to our own interpretation, legally qualified or otherwise?

To the Minister, at the time the Minister made his speech to the UN General Assembly, was New Zealand aware or did New Zealand have any involvement in the peace plan proposed by the US President Donald Trump?

The truthful answer to that is no, accepting we did say at the end of the speech that we hoped that there was time for countries with influence to step up. And we are very much encouraged by all those Middle Eastern countries all the way to Indonesia, where the President made a superb speech—even though he had a different view, but a superb speech—at the United Nations, which showed that they believe there’s a chance now for peace to work. Why aren’t people here celebrating that?

To the Minister, is the expectation that the peace plan as proposed by the United States must be fully implemented before this Government will recognise Palestine as a State?

Well, again, the primary answer to the question began with the criteria from the Montevideo convention about recognition. That has not been satisfied. There are fundamental things here that other countries might have changed because of enormous pressure back home, but other countries—and New Zealand was one of them—asked this of them, “Oh, yes, so what happens tomorrow after you make that decision? What changes?” And so we would make this speech to the United Nations where all this recognition changed nothing until Trump, alongside Saudi Arabia and others, got together a peace plan, and we hope it works.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to address the humanity of every person who was killed by the terrorist violence on 7 October. I want to understand and recognise, and put in the middle of this House, their loved ones, the pain that they suffered as a result of that violence. And we must—all of us—condemn that violence. We must also—all of us—humanise every single person, every civilian who has been lost to violence and who has been lost to genocide. That is all it requires of us: to uphold the humanity of the death of ones that we love. Surely, that is something that we must continue to ask of every single MP in this House, for every single innocent civilian’s lost life in the genocide and the war that has been not just since 7 October but, in fact, for decades and decades and decades of oppression by Israel.

Having recognised that, I do want to pick up on the ministerial statement. Let us be clear that recognising Palestinian Statehood, the likes of which the Green Party put forward a motion to propose to do exactly that in 2021, was opposed by National and ACT MPs, is an important part of being very clear that Israel must not be rewarded for its genocide. The Minister, in his speech, spoke about not recognising Palestine in fear of rewarding the actions of Hamas, and yet straight after he did not recognise Palestine, the Israel officials were celebrating, as if it was a reward for their genocide. So that does not hold, Mr Peters.

It’s also about recognising that it’s not just about Palestinian Statehood. If we are truly interested in enduring peace, it means that we must properly afford their sovereignty and mana motuhake for them to come up with what they, as a people, believe is the best way forward for their State. That is what truly recognising Palestinian Statehood requires, not Western powers and the rest of the world imposing conditions on their lives, but that we must recognise their authority to choose their systems, to choose how they want to live on their own lands.

Of course, we wish that this Government, absolutely, had the courage to take one initial but important step to properly recognising Palestinian Statehood. The recognition was always going to be important in strengthening the hands of Palestinians, in truly being able to negotiate enduring peace for all—for all—not just for Palestinians. While we were not surprised, the Greens have been incredibly disappointed to not see this Government take every step that it can and use every lever with its full chest that it can—surely, as a responsibility of also this Government supposedly signing up to prevent genocide at the end of last year, alongside the UN. Surely, recognising Palestinian Statehood was one of the initial, first steps; the tools that are available to us to uphold humanity.

Because any world that normalises over 20,000 - plus children’s lives being taken by the violence of Israel, any State—any country—that normalises the intentional killing of doctors and nurses and journalists and the winding back of the health system, surely, that needs to be part of our responsibility. Because a world that dehumanises their mokopuna is a world that dehumanises and puts our mokopuna at danger.

In light of that, how does the Government’s decision to defer recognition of Palestinian Statehood get the world any closer to the so-called two-State solution that his Government says that they support, or any kind of peaceful resolution to the conflict in Palestine?

The Green Party co-leader just said that they had a motion in 2021. What you didn’t tell the House is what happened to it. My question now is: what did Labour do with your motion? Why didn’t you tell the country? Why didn’t you tell the people listening around New Zealand, instead of thinking that we will just ignore the facts? The silence is deafening on that one question.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in support of the ministerial statement by the Rt Hon Winston Peters.

New Zealand’s decision not to recognise a Palestinian State at this time is the right one, and ACT supports it. Recognition should be based on clear, democratic principles, not just political pressure or symbolism. A State must have a legitimate, accountable Government; respect for the rule of law; and a commitment to peace. That’s not the case today, with the Palestinian territories divided and part of it controlled by Hamas—a terrorist organisation that rejects democracy and has committed horrific violence.

Today we also recognise the anniversary of the brutal and abhorrent 7 October attacks by Hamas on innocent Israeli citizens. ACT believes our foreign policy should reflect our values—freedom, democracy, and human rights—not reward those who oppose them. Peace, of course, will come only through direct negotiation between two democratic partners willing to co-exist, not through declarations that ignore reality.

We live in a world where democracy is in a state of peril. It is in a state of functional decline around the world. Some would say that I am being hyperbolic, that I am exaggerating, that these are my thoughts. This is not true, I assure you, Mr Speaker. The Freedom House index, an internationally recognised index, measures democratic process around the world. It has democracies in 19 years of consistent free fall, where now autocratic regimes are more plentiful than democracies that we support; more plentiful than countries that foster and use the democratic process. We are so damnably lucky in this country to have a democratic system here in New Zealand, and it must be preserved at all costs. It must be celebrated.

Violence is not the answer to the objective nature of debate. Emotions must be removed from the difficult situations so we all hear the debate in its entirety, and debated objectively, thus ensuring the best outcomes for all New Zealanders. The moment violence enters, democracy is lost from all of us. We must all stand against this moral decline wherever it happens and preserve this wonderful reality. These are core tenets to all of us. The freedom of speech, self-determination, and, above all things, property rights. To embrace these values, we become a country—[Interruption]—they laugh; I find that odd—of unlimited potential. The alternatives don’t bear thinking about and I want to thank the House for its time today. Democracy for everyone.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka.

Are you seeking leave?

Yes. I would like to seek leave from the House to speak to the Minister’s statement, on behalf of Te Pāti Māori.

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

We agree with the Minister of Foreign Affairs that Palestinians have paid a disproportionate price. We also lament for all of those families and all of those innocent civilians who have to endure through this violence. Specifically today, we’re noting the anniversary, and we lament for all of those families that have had to figure out how to move beyond this trauma that they’re watching politicians throughout the world debate and have very strong opinions on, right or wrong. But this didn’t start on 7 October 2023, and I think that we have to remind ourselves of what happened 75 years ago, when Palestinian land was taken, when houses were destroyed, and when people were displaced and, in fact, their self-determination—their mana motuhake—was denied.

We had an opportunity to show who we are, as the heart of a nation. We, personally, would have liked to have seen the Minister acknowledge the State of Palestine. For us, it was not only about acknowledging those who are disproportionately experiencing genocide but also it would have shown goodwill towards finding a peaceful solution. To imply that there hasn’t been anything before 7 October denies, as we heard earlier, the decades of occupation, apartheid, and human suffering. So, at the end of the day, this is our opportunity to show which side of history we are on when it comes to using our influence on the right side of humanity.

We have, every day, seen the occupation and what an open-air prison has reduced humans to. We see the bombing of refugee camps, we see the targeted killing of the media—we see the targeted killing of those who are trying to say the stories—we see children buried under rubble, and we see blockades denying food and water, and I guess that if we don’t accept that, then we are pretending, as human beings, that everything else that happened before 7 October and that continues to happen is OK, but it’s not. The fact is that if this was any other race than Palestinians, I’m not sure that we would be having this kind of debate, and that doesn’t sit well in our puku.

Our question has to be this. The flotilla’s goal was to deliver desperately needed aid, and the Minister has talked about the need for aid in his speech. What we have to say is that condemning the flotilla is then condemning any efforts that we’re trying to humanely do to get aid into a nation of people who are enduring the most inhumane suffering disproportionately—disproportionately. We acknowledge the three New Zealanders who were detained by Israel after being illegally intercepted in international waters, because they had the courage to actually do what this Government doesn’t. We have to show our mokopuna and our children that we were trying to do something about genocide, much more than this Government was prepared to do.

Our question, therefore, to the Minister is this: in the Minister’s statement, you said that there was little influence that we have in our Government, and so my question is: how would the Minister know how little influence we have when our Government has refused to take any action against Israel for the genocide that they are committing in Palestine?

There was a statement made there about genocide that is not authorised, supported, or precedented by any international court whatsoever, but they make the statement anyway, and, sadly, that’s been far too often the case on this very, very sad issue. I might say that in Myanmar, you’ve got millions and millions, and in Sudan, we’ve got 33 million starving—suffering. Is it because they’re black that you don’t care, or what? But, no, no, it’s always on this issue.

My next question is: in what way would recognising Palestinian Statehood complicate achieving a ceasefire?

Well, here’s the reality: there are clear guidelines out in the 1990s Montevideo Convention on recognition, which is not met. We’ve had decades and decades of political parties supporting this criteria when all of a sudden, despite Clark having the 90s to do that, despite Jacinda Ardern having five years to do that, and despite Mr Hipkins having one year to do that, they all of a sudden want to change the criteria. Now that doesn’t bespeak, surely, to the ethics and morality of their argument.

But here’s the point. You’ve got these Muslim countries: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt all seeking to work with the American-led peace plan to get a solution. I’ve never heard one word from these people saying, “And we hope they succeed”. Does that tell you something? The silence is deafening on the question of hypocrisy here.

My next question to the Minister is: how can it be true that we have little to no influence over the genocide in Gaza, yet our recognition of Palestine as a State could also distract from and complicate a ceasefire?

Isn’t it amazing: you’ve got countries like Saudi Arabia setting out criteria—which they’ve never accepted—that Hamas must go; they must lay down their arms and leave the country. You’ve got the Arab people next door to them—strictest rules possible because they know there’s no possible peace with Hamas still there. And here you’ve got sympathisers trying to make a defence today in this House.

My next question is: what actions is Aotearoa taking to ensure that aid reaches Gaza, and to ensure a ceasefire is achieved and not in line with the goals the Minister has just stated?

Well, I’m pleased to say that when we dealt with the United Nations food programme and this marvellous lady, Senator McCain’s widow, on their food programme—and many others as well—they were aware of a country called New Zealand, not one that’s just been made-up over here. And might I say, on the so-called aid programme, the flotilla was offered—by the Italian Government—a military ship to take all of their so-called aid on those boats and to make sure they got to the destination. Guess what? They refused it. They refused it because they’re virtue signallers—they are performative; they aren’t real.

My next question is: does he commend the flotilla for trying to deliver aid to Gaza when he has consistently called for the unimpeded flow of vital aids to Gaza?

Well, the flotilla, as a member of the Green Party found out a number of years ago, was never going to make it. They were told that. They were told that by the New Zealand Government, but they left anyway so that some people could perform and carry on and say things like this, “We are being starved.”, and the next announcement was “We’re on a hunger strike.” I mean, I expect the people over there to have the maturity to see through people like that.

My last question to the Minister: from the foreign affairs policy perspective for this Government, is what the USA and Israel want more important than what New Zealanders want to see in their foreign policy?

Well, look, you can’t argue with success and we’re hoping there is success with the American-led plan. It’s backed by farsighted people, people I’d recommend. If you’ve got a chance to listen to the President of Indonesia in his speech, it was something to listen to. There are countries—massive populations of Islamic or Muslim people—with a different view to what I’m hearing in this House. That’s the sad part about it. We might be a long way away, but there’s no reason for us to be blind to the facts.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I just want to raise a matter that has come up a number of times over the past few years in relation to debates on Israel and Palestine. That is this allegation of genocide, which is made repeatedly in this House by members of the Opposition, which I’m concerned might lead to violence against Jews in New Zealand. Members of the Jewish community have expressed to me their concern that continuing to use this term in the House does raise the fear they have that violence might be used against them. Mr Speaker, I’d like you to consider—I’m not intending to debate with other members—in upholding the reputation of this House, whether it denigrates this House to spread such damaging information as allegations of genocide against a people and a country. Mr Speaker, I’d like you to consider that.

What I can say, right now, is that there is a very big difference between making a claim and making an allegation. The other point I would make is that, throughout this debate, the point about freedom of speech has been made several times on both sides of the House, and it will continue to be that. Mr Peters, do wish to have a right of reply?

No, I think, with the questions I have answered from various members, that the debate has been sufficient. It is our genuine aspiration and hope that the peace process that has been entered into finally succeeds. That’s the Government’s position.

Members, I’ve received a letter from the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 the Government’s decision to not recognise a State of Palestine. This is a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility. However, the House has just spent a considerable period of time following the ministerial statement by the Rt Hon Winston Peters considering these matters. I therefore decline the application.

to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety

What recent announcements has she made on overhauling the Holidays Act?

The Government has agreed that patchwork fixes to the Holidays Act won’t do—what we need is a complete overhaul. The Holidays Act will be repealed and replaced with a simpler, more workable alternative: what will be known as the employment leave bill. The new legislation will be based on hours-based accrual, something I know businesses have been asking for for a long time now. Employers will finally have certainty with straightforward rules they can apply, and workers will be able to understand their entitlement. This is a win for workers, a win for businesses, and a win for the country.

What recent reports has she seen about the Government’s decision to reform the Holidays Act?

My announcement seems to have stumped some journalists, with one reporting that the announcement has “pulled off the unthinkable: an ACT MP unveiling a policy that has relatively broad appeal from businesses to (some parts of the) unions.” The Employers and Manufacturers Association said, “it’s great to finally see a Government follow through with a system based on simplicity”, and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions has “welcomed changes to the Holidays Act that will provide sick, bereavement and family violence leave from day one of employment, remove the unfairness for those returning from parental leave, increase casual loading, and provide for pay statements.”

How will the public benefit from the changes to the Holidays Act that have been announced?

All workers, businesses, and their families will benefit from leave payments being simpler and more predictable, with greater transparency and certainty. However, I do want to talk about one change in particular. The Government’s reforms recognise the unique challenges faced by families returning to work after parental leave. Parents returning from parental leave will now be better supported, with their annual leave paid out at the same rate regardless of when they take it. This change will ensure that new parents aren’t financially disadvantaged when taking time off to care for their families.

to the Prime Minister

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

Yes.

When he said, “If you want a job, you go where the jobs are. I encourage anyone to do what it takes to get a job.”, did he mean: “go to Australia”?

No, but I’d just say to that member, who raises that issue regularly, when Kiwis leave and go to Australia, what do they do? They go to oil and mining, they go to gas, and they do a bunch of things over there that he’s refused to create opportunities for here at home. That’s why we’re very happy to support quarrying, mining, and oil and gas. Reverse the decision.

When he launched a tourism campaign saying that “Everyone must go”, was he meaning that the New Zealanders who can’t find work under his leadership should just give up and go to Australia—

Hang on. The House will settle. When a question is being asked, there is no commentary from anyone. Please start again.

When he launched a marketing campaign claiming that “Everyone must go”, was he suggesting that everyone who can’t find work in New Zealand must go to Australia to find work, as jobs disappear in New Zealand and 200 New Zealanders a day, under his leadership, give up and leave the country?

Well, I mean, the member can play politics with it as much as he likes, but the reality is that the number of New Zealanders leaving New Zealand is the same as it was in the last year that he was Prime Minister. The reality is that he doesn’t want to do oil and gas, he doesn’t want to do mining, and he doesn’t want to do fast track to create jobs for New Zealanders, so he’s just playing petty politics. We care about fixing the joint that you crashed, and we’re fixing it.

Does he accept that there are 36,000 fewer jobs under his leadership than when he started as Prime Minister?

I accept that Government spending getting out of control, a tripling of the debt, a rapid rising of inflation that leads to high interest rates and put the economy into recession that ended up with people losing their jobs is a clear responsibility of his Government.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. It was a simple question as to whether he accepted that there were 36,000 fewer jobs under his leadership.

Yep, the Prime Minister might have another answer.

Well, I thank the member. As I’ve tried to explain before, when Governments increase spending by 84 percent, that takes inflation up to 7.5 percent and that leads to 12 or 13 interest rate rises, which then puts an economy into recession. The sad reality is that people lose their jobs. If you care about low- and middle-income working New Zealanders, which the Labour Party purportedly used to do, you’d actually run the economy instead of actually tripling the amount of debt and writing out $10 billion interest cheques for each and every year since you started.

Why did he say that those struggling for work should move to Christchurch, Dargaville, and Hawke’s Bay given that, in the Kaipara district, which includes Dargaville, there are 1,404 jobseeker recipients with 16 vacancies listed; Hawke’s Bay has 7,359 jobseekers with 569 vacancies listed; and Christchurch employers have been reporting over 500 applicants per job?

Isn’t this the difference between the Labour Party and this coalition Government, right? When unemployment was 3.5 percent, 60,000 more people went on jobseeker benefit, and their attitude is that you just let young people—18- to 19-year-olds—languish on welfare, and say, “Sorry, son, that’s your lot for the next 18 years.” Well, we care about 18- and 19-year-olds; we want them connected to work, we want them in education, and we want them in training, and we’re prepared to make the changes. But we’re not going to consign people, like the Labour Party do, to lifetimes on welfare. That’s unacceptable.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether the Prime Minister could now address the question that I asked him, which is why he told people to go to Christchurch, Dargaville, and Hawke’s Bay to find work when there isn’t work in those areas.

Well, would you like, Prime Minister, to make another couple of statements?

Yeah, 18- and 19-year-old young people in New Zealand go to different universities, polytechnics, or apprenticeship opportunities in towns that are different from where they’re raised. If you’re an 18- to 19-year-old, and you want to get connected to work, you go find a job even if it’s outside of your home town.

Does he accept any responsibility for the fact that there are 20,000 fewer jobs in construction today than when he became Prime Minister, given that construction employers have been citing Government decisions to cut, pause, or cancel projects as one of the major reasons for reducing the number of people they are employing?

Well, as I’ve said to the member before, what really impacts construction jobs is, actually, when you lose shape on economic management, that causes interest rates to go through the roof. It’s very difficult for developers to secure financing with higher interest rates because the economy’s been mismanaged because inflation went up because spending went up. This is a Government that’s working incredibly hard. We now have $237 billion worth of infrastructure projects in the pipeline; we have $125 billion of them funded; and this is a Government that’s accelerating $7 billion worth of infrastructure investment before Christmas. If the member actually cared about people getting jobs, he would support fast-track legislation, he would change his position on repealing the oil and gas ban, he would support the roads of national significance, and he would support Investment Boost to encourage our small businesses to embrace more technology and innovation.

If all of those things were so successful, why is it that capital hospital spending has halved under his leadership, with almost $800 million less being spent on upgrading our hospitals now than when he became Prime Minister?

Well, I’m actually very proud of the efforts that we’re taking in healthcare. This is a Government that spent $17 billion more in our first year—another 7 percent added in our last Budget. It’s got 2,100 more nurses. It’s got 600 more doctors. It has clarity on the five goals that we’re actually asking the health system to deliver, which was to deliver for patients—who are your customers—of New Zealand, and we’re making some good progress on that.

Why should New Zealanders believe anything that the Prime Minister has just said when he declared that 2025 was all about “growth, growth, growth”, and what he’s actually delivered is a shrinking economy, with New Zealand now 2.8 percent smaller per capita than when he became Prime Minister?

Because New Zealanders can see that we are treating Government money as if it’s our own and not wasting it like the last lot did. New Zealanders can see that inflation has gone from 7.5 percent to 2.7 percent. New Zealanders can see that, actually, interest rates are coming down. We had strong growth in Q4 and Q1. We’re growing again now. Growth is coming. Don’t worry about it. On unemployment, we’re going to create jobs for people.

to the Minister of Finance

What recent reports has she seen on the economy?

The road to recovery is not always smooth. As I said in the House a couple of weeks ago, forecasters were predicting a negative GDP result for the June quarter; they got a little more than expected: GDP was reported at negative 0.9 percent for the quarter, following positive growth of 0.9 percent in the previous quarter. I note that quarterly GDP data has, in recent years, been quite volatile and subject to significant revisions.

What was driving the GDP result for June?

Business investment fell 1 percent in the quarter across most categories. I am advised by Treasury that this likely reflects cautious investment behaviour on the part of New Zealand firms as US trade policy developments and financial market volatility took hold from the beginning of April. Manufacturing was down in the quarter. This is consistent with the BNZ - BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index, which dropped sharply in the month after the tariff announcements. Goods exports were also down in the quarter, mainly due to lower dairy volumes, following a very strong March quarter.

What else did these results show?

The results included some positive signs for the domestic economy. In particular, household consumption lifted again in the June quarter, which is a sign that monetary policy easing is starting to filter through. That transmission of monetary policy is continuing as mortgage holders move from floating and short-term fixed interest rates and fix at longer, lower rates, adding further impetus to demand. Commodity prices are continuing to support rural incomes, and the direct impact of higher US tariffs has been less than expected to date, notwithstanding the indirect effects of uncertainty.

What do more recent indicators show?

It is important to remember that the GDP figures we’re talking about present a backward-looking view of the economy. They are about the second quarter of the year, and we are now in the fourth quarter. More recent indicators of activity and demand have been mixed; however, the Reserve Bank now uses a model developed by the New York Fed that puts this recent data together to predict quarterly GDP, months ahead of the official Stats NZ release. It’s updated every Friday. It’s on the Reserve Bank’s website, if members wish to check it out. On the data available last Friday, it predicts GDP growth of between 0.6 percent and 0.7 percent in the September quarter. While the road has been a little rocky, the economy looks to have picked up again, with growth resuming in the second half of the year.

to the Prime Minister

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

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

Yes.

Does he take responsibility for the 36,000 fewer jobs and 10,000 more unemployed young people since he came into office and implemented his economic policies?

It’s a Government that takes creating new jobs very seriously. That’s why in the Budget we saw 240,000 new jobs will be created over the next four years and an economy that’s expected to grow about 2.7 percent, on average, each year for the next four.

Can the Prime Minister please clearly explain, for the 15,000 young people spending their days filling out job applications, why there are four job seekers for every single job ad; is it because young people should “get off the couch and stop playing PlayStation” or is it because his Government policies have increased unemployment?

We’re a Government that’s working incredibly hard to fix unemployment. The way that we do that is we get a grip on spending, which the previous Labour-Greens Government didn’t do; we make sure that we lower inflation, which the previous Labour-Greens Government didn’t do; we lower interest rates; we get our economy growing, and that creates jobs for people. What I’d also say to that member is that we have a different philosophy and a different set of expectations on 18- to 19-year-olds. We’re not going to write them off like a Labour-Greens Government did and let them languish on welfare. We don’t think that’s a good pathway forward.

Are families earning $66,000 combined struggling with the cost of living crisis?

Families that are below $66,000 will be exempted from this scheme. But any parental income of $66,000 or above, they will take responsibility for their 18- to 19-year-olds, to make sure they get connected to work, training, or education. Pretty simple.

Why would he make changes to a policy to make young job seekers dependent on their parents earning $66,000 combined?

Because we want young people to be dependent upon themselves, then their families, then their Government. We want young people to be dependent on finding work, study, or education.

How can he expect young people in regional Aotearoa to be in “jobs, education, or training”, as he says, when there are an average of four times as many job seekers for every job vacancy, and when polytechs are cutting courses, staff, and campuses across regional Aotearoa because of his Government’s cuts?

This is a Government that is actually making sure the mess that was Te Pūkenga—the $300 million that was wasted—the polytechnics are put back into regional New Zealand to connect people with work. We think young people working is a good thing. We don’t think it’s good enough just to sit there and say, “Young person, you’re on welfare for the next 18 years if you get on a jobseeker benefit under the age of 25.” We have to do something different. We have higher expectations and that’s what we’re making sure happens.

How exactly does he reconcile his statement to young people “The world doesn’t owe you a living.” with his $3 billion tax cut to landlords?

I disregard the characterisation of that question. I just say the first part of that is true.

Does he stand by his statement that benefit dependency is a “human tragedy”, and, if so, what is more of a tragedy: the Government upholding their duty of care and supporting young people when they’re doing it tough, or seeing our rangatahi sleeping on the streets?

In answer to the first leg of the question: absolutely yes.

How is it fair to scapegoat young people as being “lazy, sitting on the couch playing PlayStation” when there are far more job seekers than jobs in almost every region in the country, and when they are competing for those jobs with people more experienced than they are?

In answer to the first part of the question: I’ve never characterised young people as lazy. What I’ve said is: we want you, we care about you, we love you. We’re not like a Greens-Labour organisation that just says, “Stay on welfare for the next 18 years.” We want you connected to work, training, and employment so that you actually get a great future and can follow your dreams. That’s what it’s all about.

Does he understand that removing Work and Income support for young people and directing them to move away from their communities and people they love, without any guarantee of housing and support, into seasonal, short-term work will adversely impact on their wellbeing?

Well, there we have it, don’t we? “We don’t want young people working. We’re not prepared to work for anything. You stay on welfare; that’s good enough for you.” Well, I’m sorry; that’s not good enough for us in this Government. We care about young people. We want them connected to education, training, and work. That’s what this policy’s about. Lots of 18- to 19-year-olds move to go to polytechs, universities, or to take up apprenticeships in different towns. If you want that first job, you do anything to secure that first job so you can get your life started.

When was the last time support to relocate for jobs was updated?

You’d have to ask the Minister for Social Development and Employment that, but I’d just say that it’s not a big one to say to 18- to 19-year-olds, “If you can’t find a job in your home town and you can find one in another, move.”

What does he think would be more beneficial for rangatahi during an economic crisis they did not create: providing support during the highest period of unemployment since 2020, or stripping them of financial support while putting their parents into financial hardship?

Let’s be clear: the Labour-Greens Government had a 3.5 percent unemployment rate and still put 60,000 people on the jobseeker benefit. It’s because they don’t care about young people in New Zealand. They don’t care about getting them connected to education, training, or work. They just say, “You can languish on welfare for the next 18 years, and that’s better than doing a manual, hard-working job in a kiwi-packing factory or something else.” I’m sorry; we’re changing it. You may not like it, but it’s being changed.

Question No. 5—the Hon Barbara Edmonds. [Interruption]

Vinaka vakalevu, Mr Speaker.

Just wait for a moment. There are a lot of conversations going on while questions are being asked that should not be going on.

to the Minister of Finance

Is the negative 1.1 percent annual growth rate a result of her economic management; if not, why not?

No. The economy is recovering from a period of economic management in which the previous Government engaged in reckless increases to Government spending, which drove inflation sky high, which in turn required huge hikes in interest rates, and which then in turn caused a deep, protracted economic downturn. That is what the economy is now recovering from. I take responsibility for helping create better conditions for future economic growth, including supporting a reduction in inflation, lower interest rates, pro-growth reforms, and better management of the Government’s books.

How does New Zealand’s road to economic recovery in the June 2025 quarter, that saw a contraction of 0.9 percent, compare to Canada’s, who are more directly affected by US tariffs?

Well, these comparisons are interesting; however, I note that the member did not make those comparisons in the first quarter of the year when New Zealand’s growth rate was three times the rate of Australia’s.

Why do 43 percent of businesses have no confidence in her plan?

As is always the case with that member, I’d have to see the context of the statistic and what it’s actually referring to before I commented on it.

Does she agree with one business leader, who said, “Willis’ so-called growth agenda is spin without substance. She excels at bashing business for non-issues like butter prices, but has not shown any genuine thought leadership.”?

Well, no, I don’t agree with that comment. I’d note that her own leader believes that butter prices are such an issue that he has mentioned it countless times in this House. I’d also note that the same commentary which the member is selectively quoting from now implores the Opposition to do a much better job and notes that they pose a significant risk to the future of the New Zealand economy. So if the member wants to go blow for blow on mood of the boardroom, she’s welcome to do so, but it won’t reflect well on her, her leader, or her colleagues.

Does she agree with another business leader, who said, “It feels like she has chased headlines and cheap politics. She lost massive credibility over attacking Fonterra”?

I think it’s well known by members of this House that I am an unashamed Fonterra champion. New Zealand dairy farmers are driving the export recovery that this country needs. The work they have done over successive generations, despite the efforts of the last Government to tie them up in red tape, regulation, and farmer bashing, is extraordinary and will help drive New Zealand’s economic recovery. I’m on Fonterra’s side.

This is great!

Just wait again.

Who else does she blame for 36,000 fewer jobs, 2,700 company liquidations, the 200 Kiwis who leave every day, and a shrinking economy, given the Government has blamed the previous Government, US tariffs, merchants of misery, teenagers, and even John Key?

Well, the member would do well to listen to the answers I’ve given to questions in this House already today, in which I have acknowledged that a difficult economic recovery is taking place against a backdrop in which the previous Government allowed inflation to soar out of control for three years, which saw an extraordinary rise in interest rates, which in turn has led to recession. The responsibility for those policies lies in the past. My responsibility is to ensure that we are setting the conditions for future economic growth, and we are doing that by bringing inflation back into control, ensuring interest rates can drop, better managing the Government’s books, and pursuing pro-growth reforms. The member can sit opposite me and critique, but given the only policy she’s talked about so far is a higher target for inflation and more tax, I’d suggest she’s got more homework to do.

to the Minister of Foreign Affairs

What feedback, if any, has he received on the Government’s approach to the Middle East?

Over the last 10 days, since speaking to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, we’ve been pleased by the positive feedback we’ve received from a good number of New Zealanders. Our balanced, moderate, prudent position upholding New Zealand’s long tradition of an independent foreign policy has received praise from a diverse range of sources. New Zealanders agree with us that the Government should be acting carefully and in our national interest. They agreed that we should be calling out behaviour from both Hamas and Israel that undermines peace in the Middle East and the two-State solution. They agree that we should be doing our bit to alleviate the grave humanitarian situation in Gaza, and they agree that we should be supporting those efforts by countries with influence over the situation to use their leverage to try and bring about lasting peace.

How has New Zealand’s international reputation been impacted by the announcements in New York?

Shattered.

No, knackering is that member’s specialty. We have had conversations in recent times with leaders and foreign Ministers, with senior officials from dozens and dozens of countries both in the Middle East and closer to home. On the basis of those conversations, we are confident that New Zealand’s position on these issues is well known and well understood, and our international reputation as fair minded, pragmatic, prudent, and independent remains very much intact.

How does the New Zealand Government view the situation of the New Zealanders who sought to arrive in Gaza by sea?

New Zealand has a longstanding “do not travel” advisory in place for Gaza. The advisory explicitly warns New Zealanders that any attempt to enter Gaza by sea is in breach of Israeli Navy restrictions, including participation in flotillas to deliver aid. Those New Zealanders who flagrantly ignored those warnings did so at their own peril. It’s a bit rich for them, now, to turn around—with the support of members of this House—and demand New Zealand Government assistance. We, of course, expect any New Zealanders overseas to be treated in a manner consistent with international law and provide consular assistance to any New Zealanders abroad who asked for it. Having said that, these New Zealanders knowingly put themselves in that position and they will not be getting any special treatment from the New Zealand Government. And what an irony: standing outside my place shouting out “Bring them home!” when we told them not to go. Now there they are outside the door shouting out, “Bring them home!”

That’s right.

That’s right. It’s a circus.

How does the New Zealand Government view protesters gathering outside and even attacking the homes of politicians?

Unlike some members opposite, we absolutely deplore such actions. Politicians, their spouses, their children, their pets, and their neighbours should not be subject to intimidation, harassment, and violence from mobs and bludgers who disagree with Government policy. We live in a democracy where views can be aired freely and openly, and where protests can and do happen all the time in public places, but this should not extend to gathering outside and even violently attacking politicians’ homes. That’s why the Government is bringing legislation to this House to outlaw such intimidatory and harassing behaviour. That is why those members opposite, who have colluded and collaborated with protesters targeting politicians’ homes, should be utterly ashamed of their hypocritical selves.

to the Minister of Justice

What action is the Government taking to address demonstrations outside private residences?

The Government has recently introduced legislation that’ll make it a criminal offence to engage in targeted and disruptive demonstrations near residential premises. It targets a narrow range of behaviours where demonstrators cause an unreasonable disruption directed at a person regularly occupying a property. This bill, which Opposition parties oppose, is currently before the Justice Committee. I encourage them to reconsider their position.

Why is it necessary to protect someone’s quiet enjoyment and access to their—[Interruption]

OK, hold on. Wait on, sorry. We will just have the questions heard in silence.

No urgency from this Government.

I beg your pardon? Was that directed my way?

That’s the question. There’s the answer, over there.

Yes, that’s right. Make no comment when someone is called to ask a question.

Why is it necessary to protect someone’s quiet enjoyment and access to their private property?

Everybody should be able to enjoy their privacy at home and be free from unreasonable interference with it. We don’t think it’s acceptable for people to bang pots and pans all through the night or to create an environment of fear and intimidation for individuals, their families, and neighbours. Intimidation has no place in our democracy, and I call upon all members and all parties in Parliament, particularly the Greens but also Labour, to join the Government to defend that principle.

Will the new offence stop people demonstrating or expressing their views?

No. The new offence will not stop people from demonstrating or expressing their views. It strikes a balance between protecting all New Zealanders’ fundamental right to privacy and right to enjoy their own homes against the ability to protest. The Government upholds both of these values. I note that targeting and disrupting the homes of others, particularly elected officials, risks deterring them from taking stands on contentious issues in the first place. It risks stopping them from expressing their views, which, ultimately, weakens our democracy.

Will the proposed offences cover Opposition MPs inciting violence against Ministers?

That’s not something he can answer a question on.

He can, actually.

No, he can. Is it in the legislation? You’re quite right.

No, it’s not in this legislation. Any incitement of violence is already covered by legislation.

Supplementary.

Just wait. Right.

What recent commentary has he seen on the issue?

Well, I heard one comment from a parliamentarian this morning: “MPs’ homes should be safe places. No members of Parliament should have their people protesting outside their house.” Then I heard another member of Parliament saying, “It is appropriate to protest outside MPs’ houses.” The first was from the leader of the Labour Party, the second was from the justice spokesman of the Labour Party, but both of them voted against the bill. It appears that at least Duncan Webb is more consistent than his leader.

I’ll just make the point that there are times when some interjections actually start to diminish the points being made by Ministers to their answers. In that last question, there were examples of that. I would strongly suggest leaving it alone.

to the Minister for Energy

How much will last week’s energy package cut power bills for Kiwi families and businesses by next winter?

The Government knows that Kiwi families and businesses are feeling the pressure of high power bills. That’s why our energy package tackles the root causes: limited fuel supply, a shortage of back-up generation in dry years, and years of policy uncertainty. The issues add a risk premium of between $240 and $400 annually on Kiwis’ household power bills. Our plan addresses each of these issues and will put downward pressure on prices.

Does he agree with Auckland Business Chamber chief executive Simon Bridges, who said of the Government’s energy package: “Kiwi businesses and households have been crying out for bold action … they didn’t get it.”; if not, why not?

Well, we understand that all New Zealanders want stronger competition, and that is precisely what this package delivers. Under the Government’s package, the Electricity Authority will gain enforcement powers and new transparency obligations to prevent anti-competitive conduct. This will ensure that the market remains fair and competitive. To the comments made by some stakeholders: it is fair to acknowledge that this problem did not happen overnight, and it will not be fixed overnight either, but the intention of the package of interventions that we have announced will have a downward pressure on price over the coming years.

Does he agree with the Major Electricity Users Group chair, who said that “the package is lacking in strong action”, that there’s nothing in it that will make a difference to affordability and competition over the next decade, and that the risk of de-industrialisation and job losses will continue; if not, why not?

Well, what the Frontier Economics report did acknowledge is that our electricity market works generally well but that prices are too high and we have energy supply issues to solve. New Zealand is experiencing a renewable energy boom, which will bring prices down over time, but there is one barrier standing in our way: the energy system does not have enough back-up supply to keep the economy running when we can’t rely on hydro lakes and wind to generate electricity. That is what’s driving prices up and adding to the cost of living pressures for New Zealanders, and that is the problem that our package will resolve.

Does he agree with Christopher Luxon, who, when speaking to a question on whether this will reduce power prices for Kiwis, said, “Yeah, look, I don’t know. I mean, that will ultimately be, you know, determined by, you know, the electricity companies,”; if not, why not?

Well, I want to remind the MP that the Frontier report found that the high power prices that New Zealand Kiwi households and businesses face are as a result of decisions made by her party. The report specifically cited the ban on offshore exploration, the 100 percent renewable target, and Lake Onslow as to why we are short on investment in fuel and firming, and that has left us dangerously short of reliable back-up generation. This is a direct cost on Kiwi households and businesses that she may want to reflect on.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m not sure whether the Minister agrees that that will ultimately be determined by the electricity companies, as the Prime Minister said in the transcript that I read from. He did not address whether or not he agreed with the Prime Minister in his answer.

Well, that might your opinion. I think that the answer was, in the context of the question asked, quite a reasonable one. Does the Minister want to make any other comment?

No.

Does he agree with Rewiring Aotearoa, who said of the Government’s energy package: “The Government’s reforms are unlikely to bring down the cost of electricity for New Zealanders”; if not, why not?

I do not agree with that statement. What we have introduced, as a result of the package of interventions within our energy package, are solutions to the problems that are driving up power prices in this country. The solutions which we have identified will deal with those core problems: a lack of fuel, a lack of generation, and a lack of certainty around investment—those are the three core issues. Those are the issues that our package will address and resolve, and, as a result, that will have downward pressure on prices.

How many more businesses need to shut their doors, how many more people need to lose their jobs, and how much higher must household power bills soar before his Government will take action to deliver affordable energy for New Zealanders?

As I noted before in one of the responses to the questions, our plan will fix the problems in our energy system by securing affordable power, guaranteeing reliability, and restoring investor confidence. This is critical so that Kiwi families and businesses can rely on their lights staying on and their bills going down.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. In an interjection across the House, the Prime Minister claimed that he did not say, “Yeah, look, I don’t know, I mean that that will ultimately be, you know, determined by, you know, the electricity companies.” So I seek leave to table a transcript, prepared by my office, of an interview with Hamish McKay on The Country on 1 October of this year, which has a transcript of the Prime Minister saying that.

It’s publicly available.

No, my office prepared the transcript.

What, they wrote the transcript?

They went through, they listened diligently, and they transcribed it, Mr Speaker. [Interruption] I seek leave to table that transcript.

Leave is sought. Is there any objection?

Yes! [Interruption]

We’re 12 months early for this sort of behaviour. I know it’s the first day back after a long break, but let’s keep it as seemly as we can.

to the Prime Minister

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

Yes.

What evidence does he have that whānau earning just over $65,000 a year can afford to support an 18- or 19-year-old, when two parents on minimum wage already exceed that threshold by $33,000, with no allowance for rent, other tamariki, or the rising cost of living?

They can support their young person by encouraging them to get connected to employment, training, or work.

What measures, if any, will the Prime Minister put in place to stop the 4,300 young people expected to lose jobseeker support next year from falling into poverty, homelessness, or leaving Aotearoa entirely?

We’re making sure they’ll get a job.

What does the Prime Minister say to Carlos, an 18-year-old building apprentice in Whanganui who has applied for 22 jobs and is now moving to Australia?

Well, I’d say to Carlos: actually, this is a Government that’s doing everything we can to try and create employment and opportunities for Carlos. That’s why we’ve got fast track—which that member and Labour oppose—and that’s why we’re opening up mining and oil and gas. Because there are opportunities for young people in those sectors in Australia but not here in New Zealand, because the Opposition opposes those.

How can the Prime Minister justify cutting jobseeker access for our rangatahi when it is the Government, not our young people, that created the conditions of poverty and unemployment that they are now being punished for?

Well, at just over 5 percent, our unemployment rate is actually below what it has been, on average, over the last 15 years or so. I appreciate it’s ticked up a little bit but there are opportunities for young New Zealanders to get connected to jobs, education, or training. I’m sorry, we just don’t buy the Opposition’s line that “Actually, we’re going to consign 18- and 19-year-olds to welfare, and they’re forecasted to be on it for 18 years.” It’s just not good. We care about those young people; we don’t want them languishing on welfare.

to the Minister for Social Development and Employment

How is the Government encouraging young New Zealanders into work and away from welfare dependency?

Our Government is taking action to help young New Zealanders build independent and successful lives. We’re also introducing $1,000 bonus payment from October next year for a young person aged 18 to 24 who has worked with a community job coach, moved into employment, and stayed in a job for at least 12 months. These changes are about fairness, opportunity, and personal responsibility. We want every young person in New Zealand to be learning, training, or working—not on welfare. This is a Government that believes in young people’s potential and will back them.

Why is the Government focused on reducing welfare dependency and setting clear expectations for young people?

Because getting stuck on the benefit at such a young age can have lifelong impacts. Evidence shows us that if a young person goes on to welfare before the age of 25, they can spend, on average, another 18 years on benefit over their lifetime. That’s not good enough for them, for their families, or for New Zealand. Our message is simple: work, training, or education should always come before welfare. This is about aspiration, setting clear expectations, giving young people structure and purpose, and helping them take the first step towards independence.

How does the Parental Assistance Test ensure fairness for young people, families, and taxpayers?

The Parental Assistance Test ensures that support goes where it’s needed most. This test will consist of two parts: a parental income test and a parental support gap test. The parental income test will determine if a young person’s parents earn above an income, limited to financially support them—this is currently $65,529. The parental support gap test will determine if a young person can reasonably be expected to rely on their parents for support. This would need to be verified through a third party—for example, through evidence from a doctor, counsellor, or other agency. This balances compassion with fairness, recognising that most parents want the best for their children, and that supporting them through education, training, or work is a big part of that.

What is the purpose of the new $1,000 bonus payment, and how will it support young people to stay in work?

The $1,000 bonus payment recognises and rewards young people who take responsibility for their futures. It applies to 18- to 24-year-olds who have been on benefit for at least 12 months, are working with a community job coach, have found a job, and stayed in work, and off benefit, for at least 12 months. This payment sends a clear message: if you commit to work and stick with it, we’ll back you. It’s about celebrating success, encouraging persistence, and showing that work truly does pay. Every young person who moves away from dependency and into work is a win for them, and it’s a win for their community, for taxpayers, and for New Zealand.

to the Minister for Infrastructure

Does he agree with the Acting Minister for Economic Growth that the Government’s job is “generating jobs and higher living standards for New Zealanders”?

on behalf of the Minister for Infrastructure: This is another attempt from that member to misrepresent a Minister. The full quote from my colleague Chris Bishop was: “At the end of the day, the Government’s job is to implement good public policy and good fiscal policy, and allow growth in the economy to return, generating jobs and higher living standards for New Zealanders.” That statement is clear that the Government’s job is to create the environment for growth, which, in turn, generates jobs and higher living standards. So I agree with the full statement in that context. I’m afraid this question highlights the importance of the work being done by my colleague Erica Stanford on structured literacy.

How many construction jobs were lost when the Government cancelled 3,500 Kāinga Ora homes?

She’s as bad at maths as she is at structured literacy. Kāinga Ora has delivered more new-build homes in the last 23 months under our Government than the entire three years under the last Labour Government. Those are the facts.

Does she accept that cutting almost $1 billion of Kāinga Ora’s building spend has contributed to the 20,000 jobs lost in the construction sector; if not, why not?

You cannot cancel projects that didn’t have funds. Let me step you through the numbers: in the last 23 months under this Government, we have delivered over 7,000 new-build social homes. By comparison, under the entire past three years under the last Labour Government, only 6,000 homes were delivered, so I’ll take our record over your record any day.

Was Kāinga Ora wrong when they advised that $1 billion of building spend supports approximately 5,200 Kiwi jobs?

There are a range of estimates used to identify the jobs associated with infrastructure investment, including that by the Infrastructure Commission, which is why I am so pleased to be able to be the Finance Minister in a Government that is supporting more than $7 billion worth of infrastructure projects commencing before Christmas and why I’m also pleased to recognise a new fact for the member, which is that it’s not just the Government that invests in infrastructure. In fact, the bulk of infrastructure investment occurs with the private sector. When we ask the private sector what stops them making those investments, they highlight two key factors: (1) high interest rates—that’s why it’s important we bring them down—and (2) consenting issues, which is why we have introduced the fast-track Act, which is already working to get major infrastructure developments off the ground. That member should stop opposing it.

Why did she go ahead and cut almost $1 billion of funding—

Sorry, stop for a minute. Conversations across the House can’t persist while a question is being asked.

Why did she go ahead and cut almost $1 billion of funding for building homes when Kāinga Ora warned her in March last year that restrictions to their building ability would lead to a significant drop in building activity in New Zealand?

I’m grateful to the advice from my colleague Minister Stanford, who advises that some children require repeated instruction in order to grasp concepts. You can’t cancel projects that didn’t have funding. Kāinga Ora has delivered more new-build homes under this Government than were delivered under the past three years of the last Labour Government. Those are the facts. If you would like, I’m sure, on behalf of the Minister, we could offer you a full briefing.

Does she now regret slashing infrastructure projects when we can all see it has directly contributed to 20,000 job losses in the construction sector?

This is getting worse and worse because, actually, here are the facts, which are these: in each of the Budgets we have delivered, we have added more infrastructure investment on top of the infrastructure investment that was already there. We have increased the amount of public investment in infrastructure. If that member is so wrong-headed to think that every single construction job in New Zealand is dependent on public infrastructure, then perhaps she needs to get a little bit more reading done, because, as is actually the case, the construction sector relies heavily on private sector development—things like housing development, which tends to be funded also by the private sector, Member Andersen, and things like the Auckland Port development, which is being funded by that organisation. If the member is still acting under the belief that the only people who can build homes is the Government, then I’d suggest to her that she look up KiwiBuild—a very sorry chapter in New Zealand’s political history.

to the Minister for Building and Construction

What recent announcements has the Government made about the earthquake-prone building system?

Last week, the Government announced what we considered to be a risk-based, balanced system for earthquake-prone buildings that keeps life safety at its heart while saving $8.2 billion. The current system has the best of intentions but has placed a heavy financial burden on property owners, leaving 5,800 buildings currently still awaiting either remediation or demolition. We’re replacing the new building standard or NBS rating, used to decide whether a property is earthquake-prone, focusing therefore on the greatest risk to life in medium- and high-risk seismic zones.

What will these changes mean for Kiwis in regions with a low seismic risk?

New Zealand’s known as the Shaky Isles for a good reason, but the latest science does indicate that seismic risk varies greatly across the country. That’s why the Government’s removing Auckland, Northland, and the Chatham Islands from the earthquake-prone building system. For Auckland, the savings will be monumental, with more than 1,300 buildings currently classified as earthquake-prone and an estimated $4.5 billion price tag for council, ratepayers, and owners. Under the new approach, that cost will fall to zero.

What does this change mean for regional and rural New Zealanders?

A very astute question from my colleague and friend, the member for Wairarapa. It’s areas like that which he represents, with their beautiful older buildings, that have faced loss of premises for businesses, civic centres, places of worship, etc. Under the new system, unreinforced masonry or brick buildings under three storeys in small and rural towns will no longer require mandatory remediation or warning notices, as the risk from falling facades is lower in towns with fewer people. These buildings, however, will remain on the register until their facades are secured. The change will save regional and rural Kiwis around $1.8 billion and will breathe life back into communities, with those funds available to be deployed for other purposes where the money otherwise simply would not be available. Dannevirke, Pahiatua, and Woodville will save, respectively, $68 million, $29 million, and $22 million.

What feedback has the Minister received on this announcement?

I’ve been very heartened by the feedback. Can I start with in this House, in terms of Government and Opposition parties alike, I’ve been pleased with the bipartisan approach that’s been adopted thus far, acknowledging, of course, we will work through the details carefully. Out in the real world, Tararua District Mayor Tracy Collis says that the changes indicate the survival of rural New Zealand. Nigel Bowen, Mayor of Timaru, which stands to save $255 million, says it’s a “game-changer” for the district. Wellington’s mayor said it removes a billion-dollar burden that left buildings empty, while Auckland’s mayor says it will drive redeployment of funds and redevelopment into more affordable housing. The Property Council, meanwhile, describes the policy as a long-awaited reset, addressing issues that had paralysed investment.

What costs has New Zealand incurred in the nine years since the earthquake-prone building rules came into place, and was ACT right, in hindsight, to be the only party opposed to the 2016 bill?

It’s difficult to quantify the cost exactly, not least of all because the opportunity cost and the chilling effect of regulations that were well intended, admittedly, but have proven difficult to implement in the intervening eight years, have meant a focus on those particular risks, as opposed to other risks in the built environment. In relation to political parties’ positions, I think, as I’ve acknowledged, the intent of all parties at the time following the tragedy that was the Canterbury earthquakes was right, but lived experience has indicated in the intervening period that it has been appropriate first to pause the enforcement of the current rules, as we’ve legislated, but also to take another look, which is what we’re pleased now to have done.

That concludes oral questions. We’ll take half a minute for members who need to go to other business to leave the house quietly and without conversation on the way.

I present a legislative statement on the Hauraki Gulf / Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Bill.

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

I move, That the Hauraki Gulf / Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Bill be now read a third time.

Tuatahi me mihi ka tika ki te ariki o Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Tumu Te Heuheu Tūkino VIII, i haere ki tua o pāmamao ki te whare kōiwi ki Tongariro, tae atu rā ki ōna hoa, kapiti rātou, kapiti tātou e hui tahi nei. Me te mīharo hoki o tōna ngākau ki ngā wai, me ngā moana, me ngā roto o Te Puku o Te Ika, tae noa ki te taiao e tū nei ki mua i a tātou. Tapuae ō nuku, tapuae ariki, tapuae ō tai, ka rere tōtika aku titiro ki ngā motu, ngā poitō o te kupenga o Taramainuku.

Ko Te Hauturu-a-Toi, ko Te Kawau Tūmaro o Toi, ko Aotea, ko Repanga, ko Ahuahu, ko Te Ruamāhua, tae atu ki Wanganui, ki Rangipukea, ki Motukāwau, ki Rātāroa, ki Pakatoa, ki Kāramuramu, ki Pākihi, ki Te Pounui a Peretū, ā, ki te Waiheke a Kahumatamomoe, Te Ārai Roa, ā, ki te Noises e kōrerotia nei, ko Motuhoropapa, ko Ōtata me ngā motu tautoko, tae atu ki te Motutapu a Taikehu, ā, ki Ngā Pona-Toru-a-Peretū ki te Rangi i totongia ai te ihu a Tamatekapua, rere atu ki roto o Tiritirimātangi, Moturoa, Motukorea, Te Motu-a-Ihenga, me ngā motu katoa, ngā poitō o te kupenga a Toitehuatahi, a Taramainuku.

Ki ngā whenua taurikura e tū āwhiowhio nei i te pātaka kai a Tīkapa Moana, te moana nui a Toitehuatahi. Toitehuatahi i hoea mai i tōna waka o Te Paepae-ki-Rarotonga ki ēnei motu. Ka whai mai ko ngā waka katoa o te hekenga nui, arā, ko Te Arawa tērā, o Tainui tērā, me ērā o ngā kātū waka i uru atu ki te awa nui o Peretū, ki ngā tai e rua ki Maraetai, ki ērā o ngā wāhi moana katoa, me ngā whenua e tū paripari mai i te moana nui, i te pātaka kai. Ā, ko Mahurangi tērā, ā, ko Tāmaki-makau-rau tērā, ā, ko ngā wāhi pērā i a te Tauranga waka a Manawātere, tae atu ki Te Tara-o-te-Ika, ā, me tērā motu rongonui, a Ahuahu.

Katoa ēnei wāhi, he wāhi ātaahua, he wāhi taurikura, he wāhi whakawehi, whakaihi, whakawana, whakamīharo hoki i te ngākau a tēnā, a tēnā, whakatūwhera hoki i te wheako o te tangata.

[Firstly, it is right that I acknowledge the paramount chief of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Tumu Te Heuheu Tūkino VIII, who has departed to beyond, to the burial place on Tongariro, and also to his companions. They are bound in death; we are bound together here in this gathering. He had an amazing dedication to the waters, the seas, and the lakes of the Central North Island, extending to the environment that stands here in front of us. Footprints upon the earth, sacred footprints, footprints upon the sea, my gaze flows directly to the islands, the floats of the net of Taramainuku.

Little Barrier Island, Kawau Island, Great Barrier Island, Cuvier Island, Great Mercury Island, the Alderman Islands, on to Whanganui Island, Rangipukea, Motukāwau, Rātāroa, Pakatoa, Kāramuramu, Pākihi, Pōnui Island, and to Waiheke Island and to the islands known as the Noises, Motuhoropapa, Ōtata and their surrounding islands, on to Motutapu of Taikehu, and to the peaks of Rangitoto Island, then gliding towards Tiritiri Matangi Island, Moturoa, Motukorea, Te Motu-a-Ihenga, and all the islands, the floats of the net of Toitehuatahi, of Taramainuku.

To the fertile lands that stand encircling the great storehouse of food of Tīkapa Moana, the great ocean of Toitehuatahi. Toitehuatahi voyaged in his canoe Te Paepae-ki-Rarotonga to these islands. Then followed all the canoes of the great migration—Te Arawa, Tainui, and the other ancestral canoes that entered the great channel of Peretū to the Maraetai strait, and to all the coastal places and lands rising along the shores of the great ocean, the food store. There is Mahurangi, there is Tāmaki-makau-rau, and places such as the landing place of the canoe of Manawātere, reaching to Coromandel Peninsula and the well-known island, Great Mercury.

All of these places are beautiful, abundant, awe-inspiring, uplifting, stirring, humbling to the hearts of all people, and they open up the human experience.]

I just wanted to acknowledge a variety of places, waterways, oceans, islands—what we call motu—that adorn and populate the spectacular pātaka kai or food basket of Tīkapa Moana and the great ocean of Toitehuatahi who came to these islands on his waka Te Paepae-ki-Rarotonga many, many moons ago.

The purpose of this bill is to contribute to the restoration of the health, the mauri, the wellbeing of the Hauraki Gulf and to acknowledge customary rights within various areas. It provides modern marine protection tools that reflect the needs of both the taiao—the environment—and the people.

Tīkapa Moana, or the gulf, is an iconic, a majestic, an epic place. A place of enormous significance both to the customary realm but also to the current and the future realms of our great country Aotearoa New Zealand, and particularly those living in those wondrous places like Orakei and Mahurangi and Tāmaki Makaurau, and out on the Coromandel Peninsula, and through the Firth of Thames.

Te Raki Paewhenua.

And Te Raki Paewhenua.

Mahurangi.

Name any name. It is surrounded by many electorates. Many electorates: Te Tai Tokerau and Hauraki-Waikato, but also Northland, East Coast Bays, Whangaparāoa, Tāmaki, Auckland Central, Epsom, Upper Harbour—apparently, but also through the Tāmaki River out through Panmure and Ōtāhuhu and other places. It is the home to many beautiful beaches: Waiarohe, Bucklands, out at Te Naupata, all the beaches, Te Whanganui-A-Hei out there at Mautohe in Cathedral Cove. All those wondrous and splendid places that many of us, including those in the pews, call home or a great place that we have lived in our lives.

This is a great day. It’s a beautiful day. It’s an epic day for me to stand on behalf of the moana, on behalf of the Government, and on behalf of many millions of New Zealanders to progress this bill into legislation.

I want to acknowledge the many people who have been working on this bill and relevant matters over many, many years. Some of them are here today. Members of the Hauraki Gulf Forum, Nicola and others; former members of the Hauraki Gulf Forum, Alex Rogers and others; members of the nation, the Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki nation, past, present, and future; Billy Brown; and, of course, the matua himself, gone but not forgotten; the man, the myth, the legend, James Brown: a man who, alongside his Ngāi Tai relatives, Laurie, Honey and others—Lucy—who enabled me to experience but also feel the wairua and the tupuna that live within the waters of the Hauraki Gulf.

There are others; I can’t name them all, but I wanted to pay tribute to people like Nikki Kaye, people like Rob Fenwick and others who flew the flag not only for the Hauraki Gulf but for the environment over many, many years. I should not go without saying there are a number of organisations: the Motutapu Restoration Trust, Live Ocean Trust—Jono Ridler swum from Aotea, 100 kilometres into town, a whanaunga; Moana and Donna Tamaariki and others from up on Boot Hill and throughout the Tamaki Isthmus. Those with that aspiration to elevate the protection of the Hauraki Gulf legacy, but also who are willing to actually progress, sometimes in a pragmatic way, but always in a deliberate and intentional way to ensure that the gulf is given more support. It’s given more manaaki and tiaki—it’s given more aroha by members of Parliament, but importantly by two—nay—five and a half million Aotearoa New Zealanders who get to enjoy this wonderful place.

There is no doubt that the gulf is in trouble. Sedimentation, pollution, kina barrens, and a whole range of other initiatives. But when things are in trouble, warriors turn up. There are warriors in many shapes and forms: Neal and Annette Plowman of the NEXT Foundation, who are proposing to invest again in the health and wellbeing of the gulf. It didn’t just stop at Rātāroa, it didn’t just stop at Motuhurakina or Pakatoa, but it goes into the wai and into the waters to remove the kina that are contributing to serious degradation of our sea floor.

There are a number of efforts that have been taken in the past. Sometimes they’ve been successful, sometimes they haven’t been, but there’s a serious and significant intention to make sure that this special place is further supported. There are 19 marine protection areas that have been created and there is further investment of putea, time, effort, and energy that will be announced in short course.

Some changes have been made; some of them practical, some of them pragmatic. For example, removing the ability for the bill to regulate customary non-commercial fishing, something that other parties were willing to preserve. But I, as a Māori, am not willing to enable the department or others to dictate to iwi and Māori what customary rights happen to be.

The bill represents the culmination of more than a decade of mahi—of decades of mahi—and mana whenua in and around Tīkapa Moana have been absolutely instrumental in giving their time, their generous advice, and guidance on how to do this in an enduring way, in a sustainable way, in a way that will give light and hope not only for the Hauraki Gulf but also for other places like Te Manukanuka a Hoturoa, the Manukau Harbour.

This is a start. It’s a great start. It’s a beautiful start. It’s a positive start for the future of Te Pataka kai o Tikapa Moana Te Moananui ā Toi. I thank my colleagues and of course, young Catherine Wedd here in the select committee.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to begin my contribution with the words of a global icon, who dedicated so much of her life to conservation and who passed away just last week: Dame Jane Goodall. She said,“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. You have the power to make a difference.” I want to begin by acknowledging all those who chose to use their power to make a positive difference. I want to particularly acknowledge mana whenua, whānau, hapū, and iwi, whose enduring connection, leadership, and kaitiakitanga remain central to the health and the mauri and the future of the gulf. Their wisdom and commitment to enhancing the health of these waters have guided us to this point and will continue to shape the path ahead.

I also want to acknowledge the many people over the many years whose passion, dedication, and vision has led us to this point today—that is environmental advocates, scientists, past and present members of the Hauraki Gulf Forum, those involved in the Sea Change - Tai Timu Tai Pari, local government leaders, community members, public servants, members of the ministerial advisory committee, and my own colleagues, the Hon Willow-Jean Prime, who was the conservation Minister who introduced this bill to this House, and also our previous Minister of Conservation and Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, who worked on this bill.

Finally, I acknowledge everyone who has played a role along the way, some of whom are here with us today in the gallery, some of whom are no longer with us today. I thank them all for their time, their expertise, their vision, and their hope towards advancing protection and the restoration of this taonga.

As an Aucklander, and a member of Parliament based in Tāmaki-makau-rau, I know how important the gulf is to us. In fact, so much of the Kiwi experience of growing up is linked to the ocean: trips to the beach, fishing, swimming, diving. Te taiao—the environment—is, in fact, an integral part of the New Zealand identity and plays a crucial role in Kiwi culture. Our oceans are essential to our way of life.

Tangata whenua have a long, enduring relationship with Tīkapa Moana, Te Moana-a-Toi and, through mātauranga passed down over centuries, have developed a deep understanding of its ebbs and flows. The ocean is also essential as a traditional source of food, and a vital part of our economy. In fact, New Zealand’s clean and green image is a key driver of the value of our goods and services in the international marketplace. For all these reasons and more, the onus is on us, collectively, to protect te taiao, including our oceans. Yet successive State of our Gulf reports tell us that this is an ecosystem that is on the brink of collapse. Overfishing, habitat loss, pollution, sedimentation, and the effects of poorly planned urban development have led to what we see today in the gulf: a 57 percent decline in key fish stocks in the Hauraki Gulf, a 67 percent decline in seabirds, and a 97 percent decline in whales and dolphins. In fact, crayfish and scallop populations are now functionally extinct in parts of the gulf. We’ve known for some time now that sustained action is needed to prevent the ongoing decline, and that marine protection plays a key role in this.

With all of that work, over so many years, by so many people, we’ve come to today, where we debate for the final time a bill that will create 12 new high protection areas (HPAs), five new seafloor protection areas, and will extend to marine reserves in this area. It introduces two entirely new types of marine protection: the seafloor protection areas will restrict activities that impact the seafloor, and the HPAs—the 12 HPAs created by this bill—are meant to enable protection of biodiversity while allowing for the customary practices of tangata whenua. These areas were meant to be no-take zones. The HPAs were meant to provide crucial protection to some of the gulf’s most biologically important ecosystems. But sadly, despite the Environment Committee unanimously recommending to this House that the bill be passed with no substantive change, at the eleventh hour, because of some active lobbying of the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, we saw this Government cave to that pressure, and they have chosen to water-down the protections in the original bill.

While this bill is a step in the right direction, it is no thanks to the current Government, even though the Minister responsible—Minister Potaka—has, in the past, continuously tried to take credit for it. All he and his Government have contributed to, with regard to this bill, is the considerable delay of its passage—

Should have done it yourself, then.

We introduced the bill. We shepherded it through to this point, and what has this Government done? Delayed it to this point. Delayed it to this point, passed eleventh-hour amendments that enable some commercial ring-net fishing in two of the high protection areas, which weakens the intent of this bill and has alarmed environmentalists and recreational fishers alike.

In fact, the New Zealand Sport Fishing Council and the environmental group LegaSea wrote to Ministers Potaka and Jones, and they, basically, alluded to the fact, and said, that their behaviour—both those Ministers—is, quite frankly, embarrassing, that they are deeply disappointed in their lack of judgment, in permitting gillnetting within two of the HPAs in the gulf, and then went on to say that their lack of common sense and good judgment will be remembered.

Experts have also talked about the amendments that have weakened the protections in this bill and have rightly questioned whether adequate economic or ecological analysis has been carried out. It was quite clear during the committee stage that it had not, and that the Minister had no clear rationale for the changes that were made. All they have done is to also remove all reference to whānau and hapū in this bill, although both play a significant role in the restoration work of the gulf, and, again, they have been sidelined, although they have led much of that restoration as well.

So given that more than 30,000 people signed an open letter to the Prime Minister, urging this Government to reverse this particular change which allows ring-net fishing in the high protection areas, and more than 5,000 emails were sent by concerned members of the public to the relevant Ministers, and they—this Government—have chosen not to make those changes, Labour, in Government, will reverse the change that allows ring-net fishing in those HPAs. It was clear the Minister could provide no clear rationale for it. His own Cabinet paper stated, quite clearly, that that fishing could occur elsewhere in the gulf, but he chose to ignore that, sadly.

That is not true.

Read the Cabinet paper—it is true; and we’ve traversed this at the committee stage quite extensively as well.

But sadly, as we’ve mentioned many times on the side of the House, all this Government chose to do, when they had the power to make the right changes, to make positive changes, to make changes that would continue or further the intent that many members on the side of the House and many members of Auckland hold—and I would say across New Zealand hold—and the intent to protect the health and the mauri of the gulf, this Government has chosen not to do it.

So I want to end on a word of hope, despite all of the watering-down that we’ve seen by this Government. I end with a message of hope, again, by Jane Goodall, and she said, “I’m about to leave the world with all the mess, whereas young people have to grow up into it. If they succumb to the doom and gloom that’s the end. If you don’t hope you sink into apathy; hope is a crucial way to get through this.”

Thank you to everyone who worked collaboratively for us to get to this point today, because, in doing so, you give us and generations to come hope—hope that change is indeed possible, and we need that hope because there is so much more work that we need to do to protect our oceans.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Today is a big day. It is a huge step forward, and I know that it is something that the many who are represented in the gallery have been waiting for for such a long time. It has been years and years and years in the making to get through the Sea Change process and then to see that then represented in Government legislation and, then, of course, the raru that was addressed by the previous speaker, which I will get to shortly.

I have the immense privilege of being the MP for Auckland Central, and anybody that has the opportunity to spend a little bit of time with me talking about that privilege will know that I am a punisher when it comes to outlining exactly what that means in terms of what I take as my responsibility to represent Tīkapa Moana, our Hauraki Gulf—namely, particularly, my constituents on Aotea Great Barrier Island and also on Waiheke Island but then, of course, those in the city centre and surrounding suburbs.

Before I get into the substance of my speech, I did just want to make some acknowledgments. Here, I do think I need to note that this will take a little bit of time, but I think it is important to put on the public record the OG kaitiaki of Tīkapa Moana. That is mana whenua. This is those who are listed in the Sea Change report. The mana whenua of Hauraki, Tāmaki-makau-rau, and Mahurangi includes Ngāti Whātua, its hapū Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, and Te Uri-o-Hau, whose combined rohe extends from the Kaipara Harbour to Mahurangi and into central Auckland. The combined rohe of Te Kawerau ā Maki, Ngāti Te Ata Waiohua, Ngāti Tamaoho, Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki, Te Ahiwaru, and Te Ākitai Waiohua extends from the Waikato river-mouth to the western beaches north of Auckland and across the Auckland isthmus and the inner gulf islands and back to the northern coastline.

The rohe of Ngātiwai and its two hapū, Ngāti Manuhiri and Ngāti Rehua, extends from around Whangārei in the north and Aotea Great Barrier, Te Hauturu-o-Toi / Little Barrier Island, and back to Warkworth. The Marutūahu confederation consists of Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Tamaterā, Ngāti Pāoa, Ngāti Whanaunga and aligns Te Patukirikiri. The Marutūahu rohe is almost the same area as the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, although it extends south towards Tauranga.

Waikato-Tainui has interest in Tāmaki-makau-rau, of course. Ngāi Tai also has lands in Hauraki, along with Ngāti Hako, Ngāti Hei, Ngāti Porou ki Hauraki, Ngāti Pukenga, Ngāti Rāhiri Tumutumu, and Ngāti Tara Tokanui. This list may not be complete, and many of these iwi, of course, have multiple hapū within these ancestral lands, but it is important to acknowledge them and to lay that down on the record today.

I also want to acknowledge members of the Ngāti Manuhiri Settlement Trust. I want to acknowledge Geoff Keey and Bianca Ranson, not only members of my local board on Waiheke but also from Forest and Bird; Citizen Scientist Shaun Lee; Sue and the Neureuter family from The Noises; Mandy Kupenga from Heal the Hauraki; Katina, obviously the CE now of the Hauraki Gulf Forum. I acknowledge there is a number of people here who have changed a lot of seats in the process that it’s taken to get us to this point now: Nicola MacDonald, Warren Maher, and Moana Tamaariki-Pohie, and, of course, your sister Donna. I also want to acknowledge Alex Rogers, and Frances Dickinson from Benthics Below. I note there are so many other people, and this is always the danger of starting to acknowledge people who may be left off this list, but, of course, their wairua is carried in the steps that we are marking out today.

As I acknowledged in my opening remarks, it’s taken a long time—a heck of a long time—to get here. Even the process that was landed at in 2017, in that Sea Change report, required a heck of a lot of compromise, collaboration, and work to get to that point. As many mana whenua and activists and advocates made the point, even when that finally ended up manifesting in the legislation of Government, even that was whistled down. Unfortunately, we do have to acknowledge, today, that while we are making steps, finally, towards greater protection in Tīkapa Moana, what we have is still watered down even yet from that point of the initial Government legislation.

Just to take a step back and to reflect on the very core purpose ostensibly of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act, which is 20-odd years old now at this point, what that did was establish an entity that has the power to report on the health of the Hauraki every three years yet did not meaningfully give that entity the teeth to enforce the protections that communities so desperately wanted and deserved for our ocean, for our moana. What that meant, in reality, is that, every three years, we were presented with yet another report which documented the decline of Tīkapa Moana, of the Hauraki Gulf. It was maddening to watch as politicians received these reports, said that things were getting worse, and then denied their own power to do anything about improving that situation. Again, I acknowledge that while we’ve ended up with a whittled-down process here, none the less, we are making progress.

In the meantime, as successive Governments and politicians did unfortunately sit on their hands, I also want to acknowledge that there was immense work that was undertaken locally by community, by mana whenua, and by conservationists to actually start to do some pretty awesome and innovative things, the likes of rāhui, which then ended up being formally recognised by Governments. Particularly here, I can recognise—in my term and in my time, having the privilege to represent Auckland Central—that on Waiheke this looks like Ngāti Pāoa and the community coming together and, on Aotea, it of course looks like Ngāti Rehua Ngātiwai ki Aotea.

Any kōrero about Tīkapa Moana, the Hauraki Gulf, today would be lacking if we did not mention the severe threat that is posed to the health of our moana by Caulerpa brachypus, an invasive seaweed that is decimating our ocean and the biodiversity within it and posing threats akin to, if not worse than, kina barrens. Here, I would implore this House to treat biodiversity threats and threats to our biology across this country the same, if they are occurring underneath our seas and underneath the glistening waters, as we do the threats that are posed to the likes of our agricultural livestock. Here, I would just make the comparison that we have seen, when we have seen threats to our livestock, and we have seen Governments pour in close to a billion dollars to try and prevent the spread of Mycoplasma bovis but nowhere near the equivalent when it comes to eradicating the threat that is Caulerpa brachypus.

It would also be remiss of me not to acknowledge, unfortunately, the carve-outs that we have today. While we have ended up with a situation that is far better than the status quo, and we can and should celebrate the consensus that this House has come to with increasing protection to 6 percent, it is nowhere near the 30 percent that is necessary, that scientists tell us is necessary, but more so that our communities so desperately want, nor does it even touch the sides on the need to ban bottom trawling, for which we have so much evidence and which research tells us releases immense amounts of carbon and poses serious risks, therefore, for us with regard to climate changing emissions.

The amendment bill that was dropped at the eleventh hour, as Priyanca Radhakrishnan puts it so aptly to this Chamber, these were carve-outs for ring-net fishers, which Ministers justified as supposedly allowing for cheaper or more affordable fish for whānau in South Auckland. We interrogated this abject ridiculousness at the committee of the whole House stage, and the Minister could not provide us with any evidence whatsoever for those fundamentally baseless assertions, nor was the Minister willing to engage in the many amendments that we put forward as members of the Opposition to try and actually work with—if we were to take in good faith—the rationale from the Minister to protect high-protected areas: to do what it says on the tin. You’re kind of undermining those so-called high-protected areas if you are providing for, explicitly in legislation, carve-outs. That sets a seriously dangerous precedent. We did not need New Zealand First’s support to pass this legislation. We could have passed it in its original format with members of the Opposition. None the less, we must celebrate today, and I want to mihi to everybody who is in the gallery and to everybody who has fought for us to get here.

I’m proud to stand here as an ACT member of Parliament, as an Aucklander, somebody who did my PADI diving ticket in the Hauraki Gulf, sailed there for decades and decades, and have fished and dived, that today—this House is going to pass legislation to restore hope for all of those who love the Hauraki Gulf and want to see a return to abundance.

I want to acknowledge all of those environmental groups and individuals who helped me understand all the work that had gone on through the Sea Change process and what could be improved about this legislation, but in the end, what we must take away so we can make those first steps toward restoring the Hauraki Gulf.

Some of the members who’ve spoken before me have talked about the problems with the gulf that I’ve seen with my own eyes, having grown up and lived around this beautiful harbour and this coastline, which actually stretches from southern Northland, from north of Kawau Bay in Auckland, right down to the east coast of the Coromandel, past Tairua and Whangamatā.

What have we seen? A decline in seabirds and whales and dolphins in these areas. Crayfish and scallops have become functionally extinct. Reefs and rocky structures have been stripped by overfishing, by scallop dredging and other harmful practices, and then they become infested with the scourge of kina, a species that some people value and actually like to eat. They are a native species, but when nature goes rogue and kina do not have the natural predators and controls that they need, they destroy reefs. They turn reefs into kina barrens by eating all of the kelp and seaweed, leaving no ecosystem to sustain life.

This bill starts the process of healing the gulf, but there is much, much more work to be done in order to realise the aspirations of all of those people who form part of the Sea Change organisation, the regional councils, recreational fishers, commercial fishers, iwi and, of course, all of those people who live on islands around the gulf, like Rakino, like Kawau, and like the Noises, and Waiheke, of course.

There are around 2 million - odd people who live in the area around where the Hauraki Gulf marine protected areas are going to be established, in Auckland, Waikato, and the Bay of Plenty. What we heard from them—from conservation groups, recreational fishers, iwi—is that they want to see a return to abundance. All of them had a different view—not entirely different, not widely different on how to achieve that, but there were some differences. Recreational fishers of course were keen to see their access to various seamounts and reefs and coastal areas—that they continue to have that access. But, of course, here are the tough trade-offs: to continue to fish right over those places, those rocky reefs and other places which have been smashed and wiped out, they’re never going to recover. Fishers will only ever be fighting for scraps.

Then when we heard from the commercial fishers, particularly those operators of smaller vessels which aren’t able to operate in the open waters and the big swells outside the Hauraki Gulf, they wanted an opportunity to continue their trade, because for many of us, we don’t get out fishing on the weekend, we don’t own boats, and we get our fish from the supermarket. So it makes sense that local commercial vessels can continue to fish in a sustainable way under the fisheries regulations and supply the people with good quality and affordable food.

We heard from iwi keen to have access to their customary rights retained and maintained, and also quite prepared to answer the concerns of groups who said, “We worry that allowing iwi mana whenua groups with customary rights to have access to carry out fishing practices in the Hauraki Gulf in some of these protected areas will undermine the protection status and create a two-tier society.” What was really interesting when I asked iwi representatives, “What do you have to say to that?”—because we did have a large number of submissions at select committee about this matter and people were still expressing concerns to me about this at public meetings—what I was heartened by was the iwi representatives who said, “Look, when we have a group come to us for a hui, for a tangi, it’s wonderful to be able to say there’s a crayfish on the table that we obtained from an area where our people have lived for over a thousand years. But it’s just one, because that’s all that we can legitimately and honestly take if we really want to protect the environment. The rest of them, we get shipped up from our mates in Kaikōura in a styrofoam box and they taste just as good, but our mana is protected and enhanced by being able to put one on the table that we’ve collected ourselves.” I thought, I hadn’t heard that before. I hadn’t heard that story. I don’t think a lot of Kiwis who are concerned about that had heard that story. That’s why I’m relaying it here today, because there will still be people concerned about that as we go into the implementation stage of the protections.

I just want to talk about these protected areas, a number of different types of protected areas. This is a development from marine reserves, which are no take for scientific purposes, like Goat Island, where I did some diving for my PADI diving course that I’ve already mentioned, and course, Cathedral Cove in the Coromandel, marine reserves that are, essentially, 100 percent protected: you can’t do anything. You actually can’t even kill Caulerpa or treat pests and other invasive species in a marine reserve. You’re not allowed to do anything. That doesn’t seem to make much sense when we’re thinking about how we increase protection and improve the abundance of the Hauraki Gulf. So the high protection areas and the seafloor protection areas allow for the kind of more active management, more active involvement, and actually restoring the environment and—dare I say as an engineer—engineering its recovery that you can’t do in a marine reserve.

I think that is a really good improvement. I think it points the way for how New Zealanders feel about their environment and they actually want to get involved in enhancing and protecting it and not just having to leave it to nature to heal itself, because quite often it’s degraded to a point where it can’t heal itself without human helping hands. That’s why I’m proud of the provisions of this bill that allow for much more active management of these areas that need restoration.

Now, the bill sets some time frames: 25 years will be the milestone where the first comprehensive assessment of biodiversity and improvement in the gulf will be carried out. But I’m proud that the select committee that I sat on also set some other markers, which, to his credit, the Minister has taken up, so that every five years there will be additional periodical reviews available should the Department of Conservation and the Minister consider it necessary. I personally think it is necessary, and, speaking on behalf of ACT, I would say you can’t manage what you don’t measure. It’s very important that as soon as is practical, we establish a biodiversity baseline for these places we intend to protect in the gulf and that there is regular monitoring and reporting back, so all of those who doubt whether this is going to work can actually have their fears and concerns addressed. If it turns out there’s more we could be doing, we can then do more. If there’s things we need to change about the way we are managing these highly protected areas and seafloor protected areas, then we can change and adapt our management approach. That sounds entirely practical to the ACT Party.

What do I expect to see? Well, I don’t go diving as much as I used to, and these days I find it absolutely freezing, even in summer, but when I do go diving in the gulf again—and I’d like to say I’ll still be diving in 20 or 25 years’ time—I would expect to see these marine protected areas on the seafloor and in those areas above these reefs and rocky structures teeming with life, with kelp, with coral, all types of fishes, with scallops hopping around on sandy seafloors, and with crayfish peeking out from their rocky hollows tempting me—but that’s all I’ll be doing, because I won’t be able to take them because we’ve protected the places where they live so that when they might unfortunately wander out of the marine protected area, then we can snaffle them up. That is what we expect: abundance; that these structures, these protected areas, will actually allow the gulf to be restored to a place where if we do want to go for a fish, if we want to go and catch a crayfish or collect some scallops outside these areas, they’ll be available to all of us. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of this bill. This is an important bill and it is a real pleasure that today in the House we can all sing in unison about how important it is, the Hauraki Gulf / Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Bill today now in its third and final reading.

I begin my contribution—I live up in the Mahurangi region and we had a well-known kaumātua in the area who was the guardian and the originator of the first marine protection area. His name is Laly Haddon, and I’d like to begin my contribution today by acknowledging the work he did and, therefore, the legacy. It was in 1975 that Cape Rodney-Okakari Point was set up as a marine reserve, so this year we celebrate 50 years of this marine reserve, and I would be very pleased to receive an invitation from Ngāti Manuhiri as they conduct the celebrations in November. I’ll turn up anyway.

But yes, it’ll be a really great occasion that we celebrate the legacy of Laly Haddon. He’s a very important kaumātua in our region. I’d like to begin with his quote that we all have to protect it and to be the kaitiaki. We all have to be the guardians of it, because the pressures are here. Now, he said that over 50 years ago, and those pressures have now mounted to such a great level, but it is good that we have this particular bill in front of the House in its third and final reading today.

This bill is all about the restoration and the health, the mauri of the Hauraki Gulf, and members who have already spoken have traversed the many ways that this bill will protect the area, so I will be taking a short call today. It’ll expand the protected area from currently 6.7 percent to over 18 percent of the gulf. I think that’s a great increase, and it will mark a significant step forward in creating a really robust network of marine reserves, high protection areas, and seafloor protection areas.

The two new marine reserves, the extensions to Cape Rodney-Okakari Point and to Whanga-nui-a-Hei Cathedral Cove will be managed under the Marine Reserves Act 1971. That is, as has been mentioned, a strictly no-take area. Five seafloor protection areas to restore benthic habitats by protecting harmful practices; 12 high-protection areas to enhance biodiversity.

The Government has already noted, and I note Matua Shane, Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, the Hon Shane Jones, has already taken steps to help protect the Hauraki Gulf and restore its mauri by having special permits available to go and smash up the kina. While people might talk about how some like to eat the kina, these kina barrens are really very small. There’s not much meat inside them, so you don’t really want to have them for a feed, unless they grow bigger, but we need to really smash them up. So that has been done, and $15 million has already been put forward to deal with Caulerpa, which is that exotic invasive species which is causing a great concern right around the gulf and also up into Northland and down into the top of the Coromandel as well. So we have already taken practical steps to not just demonstrate but actually do something practical to deal with some of the issues facing the Hauraki Gulf.

Today, I’d like to mention a couple of beaches. Yes, I’m in the Mahurangi and I want to speak a little bit more about that in just a moment, but today I’d like to mention Orakei Basin, Hobson Bay, Judges Bay, Herne Bay, Home Bay, Island Bay, Milford Beach, and Milford Beach South. Now, why have I mentioned those? Today, eight of those beaches are currently closed due to waste-water overflows. So we have a problem with Watercare and the waste-water overflows that are going into the Hauraki Gulf. If I just go back a few months to 11 May, 64 beaches were either black or red flagged for waste contamination. Now, if we want to protect the gulf, and all in this House want to do that, we need to call out what Watercare is doing, because they are spilling into our beautiful harbour.

Not acceptable.

Absolutely, totally unacceptable. Watercare has a comprehensive waste-water discharge permit. In 2022, the Auckland Council approved an alternative discharge frequency—ADF, it’s titled. That was a new consent. Now, what that did is it provided for the number of discharges into the Mahurangi River. They were normally around two per annum and they’re now up to 200 discharges that Watercare can make into the Mahurangi River. That flows out into the ocean, into the harbour, the Mahurangi Harbour, and so far just this year alone, the Mahurangi oyster farmers have had closures for 158 days due to sewage contamination being spilled by Watercare—a total of 4 million litres of sewage contamination being spilled into the Mahurangi River. That’s outrageous. The most recent spill was 50 cubic metres on 24 September. That was after they made the temporary fix of the pipe that was spilling.

So we have a long way to go if we want to ensure our gulf is cleaned up. We need to take a look, and Watercare absolutely must take a look at their practices, because the degradation of the water quality due to Watercare’s infrastructure failures is unacceptable and totally objectionable, and it’s happening all around the Hauraki Gulf. Every member of Parliament who resides around the Hauraki Gulf needs to take this issue up with Watercare. That way we can eliminate some of the spills of sewage that are contaminating our beautiful water. We all have a job to play in this.

So I’d like to finish, once again, and remind the House of the words of Laly Haddon, that we all have to protect it to be the kaitiaki. We all have to be the guardian of it, because the pressures are here. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka, otirā tēnā rā tātou e te Whare.

Uea te pou o tōku whare kia tū tangatanga,

He kapua whakairi nāku nā runga mai o Taupiri,

Taku kiri ka tōkia e te anumātao,

E te iwi, whītiki, whītiki,

Ngā tai ngunguru nei,

Whakarewa, whakarongo mai rā.

[Loosen the post of my house,

My cloud hangs above Taupiri,

My skin is moistened by the cold,

O people, be ready, be prepared,

The surging tides are roaring,

Rise up, listen.]

Ka huri atu ngā whakaaro ki tō tātou nei arikinui, Kuini Nga wai hono i te po. Me te mea anō ka tatū ko te poukai ki Waahi Pā hei apōpō. Koinei tētehi o ngā, ko te take i kawea mai au i tērā kaupapa ki konei nā te mea ko au te mema o Hauraki-Waikato. Nō reira anei ko ngā kaupapa nui kua whakawhārikihia i waenganui o tātou, o ngā hapū me ngā whānau puta noa o te waka o te Tainui, puta noa i te iwi o Waikato. Mōkau ki runga, Tamaki ki raro, Pare Hauraki, Pare Waikato, ko Te Kaokaoroa o Pātetere ki te Nehenehenui.

Koinei tētehi o ngā pire e kaha, tētahi o ngā wāhi hoki, ngā mana whenua, i roto i tōku ake takiwā, i roto i tōku ake rohe o Hauraki-Waikato. Me te mea anō hoki e kaha tautoko ana mātou i ngā hapū me ngā mana whenua puta noa o Hauraki.

[I turn my thoughts to our paramount chieftainess, Queen Nga wai hono i te po. Also, the poukai will be held at Waahi Pā tomorrow. The reason I have brought this event to your attention is because I am the member for Hauraki-Waikato; therefore, these are the important issues that I bring before you, those of the subtribes and families throughout Tainui and the Waikato tribe. Mōkau is above, Tāmaki is below. The boundaries of Hauraki, the boundaries of Waikato, to Te Kaokaoroa o Pātetere to Te Nehenehenui.

This is one of the bills that is strong, and also one of the areas, the tribal lands, in my own area, in my own region of Hauraki-Waikato. Furthermore, we strongly support the subtribes and people with authority over the lands of Hauraki.]

The purpose of this bill is to contribute to the restoration of the health and mauri of the Hauraki Gulf / Tīkapa Moana. The bill intends to do this by introducing high protection areas and seafloor protection areas.

In the early stages of this bill, Te Pāti Māori took particular note of the discussions and concerns raised through the Hauraki Gulf Forum, a statutory board responsible for promoting conservation management on the moana. Te Pāti Māori continues to share concerns raised by the forum’s co-chair Nicola MacDonald, who noted—I quote—“Years of collaboration with successive Governments with iwi, communities, and industries have been undermined.”

Ki te taha o ngā take kerēme, arā [In relation to the claims issues, that is], regarding existing Treaty settlement arrangements during the committee of the whole House indicated that Te Ohu Kaimoana were “broadly” in support of the bill’s direction of travel. However, it is difficult to understand what broad support can be given to a bill which, in their own words, “prohibits … and inappropriately imperils [those] customary rights … affirmed to Iwi/Māori, (and … poses a [significant] threat … to customary rights recognition and protection [across] all Aotearoa).”

The Hauraki Māori Trust Board iwi management plan and other tools should be brought to bear upon any discussions regarding restoration of Hauraki / Tīkapa Moana, including tools set out under the Fisheries Act. These are existing statutory tools and arrangements which, for the most part, only seem to matter to iwi when, in fact, the tool is provided to support central, regional, and local authorities in understanding the role and position of mana whenua on environmental management.

We acknowledge that other iwi of Hauraki / Tīkapa Moana support the elements of this bill. During the committee of the whole House, Te Pāti Māori tabled amendments aimed at ensuring that there is a mandatory consultation process when giving permits, ensuring that the process requires consultation with mana whenua. Te Pāti Māori knows for a fact that whānau who go for a dive or fish to gather kai or kai moana for kai for tangihanga—they will be the ones who will be criminalised and fined, rather than the big corporate commercial fishing companies who exploit our taonga and kai.

Our amendments were designed to ensure that mana whenua have input into these applications for permits to undergo fishing and diving throughout the moana, and there is a need to ensure that the new breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi do not occur against iwi of Hauraki and Tīkapa Moana. Without these amendments, how can Parliament guarantee a sustainable management of the moana that is consistent with tikanga and kaitiakitanga?

We support the Hauraki Māori Trust Board’s statement that placing further limitations on the exercise of tino rangatiratanga by Hauraki / Tīkapa Moana iwi over their taonga and territories—which has never been extinguished or annihilated—is counter-productive to achieving the purpose of this bill. Te Pāti Māori supports aspiration to the protection and restoration of Hauraki / Tīkapa Moana. Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I want to reflect that there’s this absolutely magic feeling when bills pass through this Chamber. It’s been a rare occurrence under this Government, unfortunately. Mostly, it’s the magic we feel when we have things like iwi settlement bills, but also times like when my colleague Teanau Tuiono’s Citizenship (Western Samoa) (Restoration) Amendment Bill passed, because they’re pieces of legislation that actually move us forward as a country. It feels magic when truly good things happen in this Chamber.

We could have had that today because this is a bill that is borne from the grassroots, from a response to all the signs that Tīkapa Moana Hauraki Gulf was and is in ecological freefall. Community and iwi and hapū actually took action over years and years, and partnered with local government to eventually get to this place. I want to join, first and foremost, my colleagues in acknowledging all of those who contributed in so many ways to this bill passing today, and to the many iwi and hapū who hold mana whenua across Tīkapa Moana, and to every individual and collective who actually submitted on or was part of the process in getting to today. I’m so glad that my co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick actually took the time to spell out who those people are and who holds mana whenua and how they’re connected to today.

It was an absolute pleasure for myself as a very new MP at the time to be on the Environment Committee for the public hearings on this bill. It was chaired by the then chair David MacLeod. I want to do a big thankyou to all of those who took the time to actually speak in person to their submission, because it was there that we heard, time and time again, of simultaneously the love for the gulf but also the immense loss that people have seen in their lifetimes. Māori, Pākehā, tauiwi—we had conservationists, fishers, tourism operators, local government, families, anyone you can imagine who has been captivated by a love of the gulf, its seabirds, its dolphins, its whales, its seals, its kingfish, its kahawai. We heard so many stories of people’s direct experiences of the species and the diversity of the ecosystems present in the gulf, far from the mud-stained bottom that some had so inaccurately described it as.

So, yeah, there’s a bit of disappointment today, but what is really clear, despite that disappointment, is that what we have here is a dedication and magic of community actually coming together to make real change. The outline of that was in Sea Change – Tai Timu Tai Pari. It’s literally in the name. It’s that hard work, hard conversations, and consensus in wanting to actually make real change and gift something real and meaningful to younger and future generations, and that magic remains. It can’t be taken away no matter how reckless some of these last-minute changes have been to actually threaten all of that mahi.

There’s been a lot of talk about compromise, with this bill, and I do want to challenge that because, quite frankly, it’s a load of fishmeal. When you have an ocean, any part of ocean that is 99 percent exploited, compromise does not look like protecting 6 percent and still allowing commercial fishing in the high-protection areas. It’s pitiful and insulting to the community process that actually spawned this. Barely protecting 6 percent, and allowing commercial fishing and exploitation, is not compromise; it is simply compromised. We know that those clear ecological outcomes where we’re trying to get to are going to be threatened by these changes which have come in.

We know that we can protect 30 percent of our oceans. We know we can ban bottom trawling. These are key ways that we can actually achieve the visions that were set out in this. Thank you.

Today is a significant win for the environment and the Hauraki Gulf. As we all agree across this House, it’s a very precious area that needs protecting for our future generations, and it does show a commitment by our Government to conservation.

I would just like to acknowledge our Minister of Conservation, Tama Potaka, for progressing this here today. But I’d also like to acknowledge some people who haven’t been acknowledged here today: Ngāti Pāoa and Herearoha Skipper, thank you for your mahi on this journey; also, to the Environmental Defence Society and Raewyn Peart.

Everyone can be proud of the huge environmental achievement where we see this bill delivering the highest ever level of protection for the Hauraki Gulf, nearly tripling the protected area in the Hauraki Gulf, establishing high-protection areas for 800 square kilometres of the gulf. This bill is a win for our environment and the Hauraki Gulf. I commend it to the House.

Mr Speaker, thank you. I wanted to try and do what we often don’t do in these debates and that is actually reflect the consensus of the room and talk a little bit about this in an actual debating style, so deal with some of the things that have been raised. The first is that I’ve heard a lot from this House about abundance. It’s going to become a bit of a catchphrase, I suggest, because there’s a very famous book out about that. But at the core of that book is the idea that we stop talking in terms of scarcity and provide to our communities what they need.

My community is the one in Mount Albert, so it has a shoreline, but a lot of it is actually quite landbound. I grew up in Freemans Bay and my parents, they weren’t rich, so they didn’t have a boat, was the way that we saw it. But we used the ferries and we went out to islands like Rākino and Motutapu, and they were a big part of our lives. As my children grew up in Auckland, I took them up to Goat Island rather a lot and they swam in these beautiful waters with these blue maomao and it was an incredible experience for them. They also went to Tāwharanui, which was another marine reserve, and they actually got to see fish life in that form.

But I know—and it’s been one of the privileges of being an MP—how much erosion there has been of what they could have experienced. It has not been over a few minutes; it’s been actually over 100 years or more that it has been eroded. I saw a report from the Ministry for Primary Industries which talked about the erosion between 1769 and 1950, and people were calling and calling out for some more protection of this area so that it could actually give to its people, the people of Auckland, what was necessary. That was very, very prescient and it was there right back then and we were ignoring the signs.

So we have a situation where we know that the gulf was lined with mussels. We know that they fed the fish in that gulf. We allowed that erosion to happen because as governors in this country, we didn’t take note of what that environment needed and what was a priority for our community. That is really something that I hope a little step has been taken towards changing the mentality of, and that we’re looking more for a view of our role as providing abundance rather than scarcity to the things that actually matter in our society. What matters to our people in Auckland is that the Hauraki Gulf actually meets the needs of people there.

Now, I am absolutely impressed by the work of the Hauraki Gulf Forum in this setting because what I have seen happen is people take this issue and come together as community members and collaborate in an incredible way, really. It’s something that really makes me realise that it’s not really where Parliament sits but it’s where the community sits that will make a difference long term. Because people got together and they created a movement and they created collaboration. It was one based on a partnership and the Treaty. It was one that responded to the needs of the diverse people in Auckland and the tangata whenua in the Hauraki Gulf.

I had the privilege of going to Ōrākei Marae and it was a discussion about the re-seeding of the inner harbour with, potentially, some mussel beds. I hope that experiment is tried because it would be an incredible thing. One of the things that was sad about it was that people talked about how what they really like to do would be to be able to fish for their families in that harbour. Yet even when we were talking about re-seeding some of those areas with mussel beds, there was no hope on the horizon that they would be able to eat the mussels because of the pollutants in the water. Those mussels will act as a filter. It’ll be the start of a process, if it happens, but we’re a long way off from what we need, which is to actually rebuild this environment to one that’s teeming with fish, to one that looks a little bit like Goat Island and actually is a place of abundance for our population to the point where that’s possible.

I am sad to see some of the amendments to this legislation come in late. They don’t look very rational. They look like they may set us back again in those processes. I had to look up what ring-net fishing was and I was worried about what I saw in terms of catching a particular amount of fish and a particular type of fish and that it might not be a very good move. I’ve had, again, the privilege in this job of going to the Noises and seeing the kina barrens and what they look like when that happens. I know how vital it is that we take these very practical steps to protect this area if we’re going to rebuild it.

I promised that I would talk about other people’s points, and I’d like to just comment on the point about the effluent going into the Mahurangi Harbour. I was lucky enough to have a bach at Scotts Landing, which is a very beautiful part of the Mahurangi Harbour. This was a decade or so ago. People were already talking about the effluent in that area and the problems with that effluent and the risk it put to our oyster farmers a very long time ago. It’s not like it’s just happened. There was already overflow from Warkworth and we didn’t do enough about it. It’s not about apportioning blame, but those are the kinds of things that could upset this plan.

We’re creating a plan for protecting this area and we’re going to have to put our money where our mouth is, and I don’t know whether I accept that it’s all on Watercare. I think we stretch these services to the point of breaking and then we blame the organisations when things break. If we’re going to have industries like oysters in that area, which bring fish which would allow a lot of the things we are wanting, we’re going to have to accept that Government’s got a role there, that we need to look after those places, that we need to know the effluent’s going in because we’ve pushed and pushed and pushed on people’s resources. We need to sometimes step up and foster an industry like that, make sure that people can, in a place of certainty, develop an industry like oysters which gives so much to the harbour and to the people of New Zealand.

So I take the point that the member who raised that issue is totally genuine about it, but I’d like to see this particular piece of legislation be one that fosters a real interest in Government getting in, boots and all, and looking after places like the Hauraki Gulf, looking at the connected issues of things like effluent coming into the sea.

Now, I’d like to just talk for a minute about the area around where I’m privileged to represent, and that’s the Mount Albert area. We have, of course, a line which goes through Point Chevalier and through Westmere. These are quite delicate environments that I have learnt a lot more about. They have things like dotterels in them. They’ve changed over time, but they’ve also had the issues of effluent. There has been a lot of sand brought in to make the beaches actually places where people can recreate, which is a fantastic thing, and it’s worked well. But these are also areas which are really high demand in Auckland and they’ve got more use than they ever have had and they’re really important.

Recently, we’ve had a real dispute go on about the use of helicopters by private people in those areas and the impact that somebody using a helicopter for their personal use has on things like the beaches in the Waitematā Harbour and the quiet enjoyment of those areas by everybody. The commons, I call them. They’re the commons in the skies. I think this is another area where we need to connect the dots. We’re protecting this harbour. Hopefully we’re doing it really well. I might have misgivings about some of the pieces that are missing in this, but what I’m most worried about is when we join all the dots. We are going to have an Auckland that is growing. My area is going to grow more than most because a lot of the building is going to happen in those areas. It’s going to be really important to the children of Mount Albert that they can go to the beach—

The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a great privilege to rise to speak in the third reading of the Hauraki Gulf / Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Bill. As co-chair of the Bluegreens, I know there are many people involved in our organisation who’ve fought very hard for this. I first want to acknowledge all the people up here in the gallery, who have worked tirelessly over many years to achieve what so many in Auckland want, and that is to protect and enhance our beautiful gulf, the Hauraki Gulf. I’d like to acknowledge all the relevant iwi who take residence in Tāmaki-makau-rau.

I’d particularly also like to acknowledge three people who’ve worked very hard within the Bluegreens: one of the co-founders, Sir Rob Fenwick, somebody who committed so much of his life to these sorts of causes, a truly remarkable New Zealander; the Hon Nikki Kaye, a former member of Parliament for Auckland Central and a much-loved member of Parliament for Auckland Central, who was very dedicated to the health and wellbeing of the Hauraki Gulf; and I’d also like to acknowledge a good friend of mine who has been involved for a long time with the Bluegreens: Chris Severne. Chris worked really hard for this cause, and I think he did a great job. One final acknowledgment is for our great Minister of Conservation, the Hon Tama Potaka, for finally passing this bill. Thank you, Tama—what you have done is much appreciated. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a real pleasure to stand and take a call in the House this afternoon on the Hauraki Gulf / Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Bill. I take this call as Labour’s spokesperson for oceans and fisheries, and it is a real pleasure to be able to see the passage of a bill that protects the health of our oceans.

Can I begin first of all by acknowledging all of those who have worked so hard to get us to this point over such a long period of time. Many of those people are sitting in the gallery today, and I acknowledge that many of you will be watching online, participating in this debate from your homes and from your offices, and watching the debate and listening to it on the radio. This has been a labour of love for many, many people from across the political divide for many, many years. In particular, can I acknowledge the work of the Hauraki Gulf Forum, who have led the way on behalf of the people of Tāmaki-makau-rau to get us here today.

Can I also acknowledge the process, which other speakers have mentioned, and which took a good 10 years or so: the Sea Change plan. That actually set the wheels in motion to, again, get us to this point, alongside many local government leaders, community members, public servants, and of course—and, I’d say, most importantly—mana whenua: whānau, hapū, and iwi, who understand the Hauraki Gulf like no others do. For your leadership on this, we thank you for everything you have done to get us to this point.

Also, just a personal thanks: it’s always a little bit dangerous to mention people by name, and we’ve been advised not to do that, but I do want to pay a particular tribute to Bianca Ranson, who showed me around Waiheke Island. I took on this portfolio recently, so thank you very much for spending the day with me, as a new portfolio holder, and for briefing me and for all of your work, both as a local board member and on behalf of Forest & Bird—thank you, Bianca.

Many speakers have already mentioned why this bill is so good. What it does is create high protection areas across the Hauraki Gulf, which, as a society, we need to do more of. We need to do more to protect the health of our oceans.

For too long, we’ve looked at our oceans and have often only seen what’s on the surface. We see a beautiful blue sea—and, in Nelson, I know this very well—but we don’t always look at the health of the ocean or at what is happening underneath: what is happening on the seafloor of our ocean and what is happening to the fisheries. It takes real leadership to get us to a point where we can introduce a law like this that sets apart large parts of the Hauraki Gulf to be protected from commercial fishing, and that is a good thing.

We will see the health of the ocean improve, and I’m looking forward to having visits in future years where we can actually point to real examples of where we are seeing fishery stocks grow back again in abundance. It is our kai, but it is more than just our kai—the health of the ocean and how every species interacts with each other is very, very important. It’s all of the coral and it’s all of the sea grass and it’s all of the fishery stocks and everything that interacts together—it’s how it all works together that actually builds the health of our ocean, which, in these days, is just so very important for climate change, for environmental protection, and to ensure that we can have a sustainable ocean for future generations.

But can I just make one final comment in my final minute about what does disappoint me so much about this bill. This is a day to celebrate, and the focus today should be on the hard work and the celebration, but, at the eleventh hour, after the Environment Committee reported back unanimously, changes were made. Now, those changes actually stipulated in the Minister of Conservation’s very own words, in his own Cabinet paper, that the ring-net fishers, who will still be able to fish in two of the high protection areas, could have fished in other parts, with minimal impact on them. Despite the Minister’s own Cabinet paper saying that, unfortunately, the Government has chosen to proceed with amendments that will undermine and weaken this bill. They promised to accelerate it; instead, it has sat here on the Order Paper for two years while eleventh hour changes were made.

We in the Labour Party are very clear today that we will pass this bill, and we will vote for it. But we will repeal those changes because they were the wrong thing to do—and we will continue to say that—so that we can protect the Hauraki Gulf for generations and years to come. Kia ora.

It’s a good day in the House. It’s a small step for Parliament but a big step for Tīkapa Moana. I’d also like to acknowledge the Minister, the dark knight of Hamilton West, Minister Potaka, for bringing this bill to fruition. It sat still for too long, and, finally, we are advancing it.

I’d also like to acknowledge Ngāti Pāoa. My wife affiliates with Ngāti Pāoa and Ngāti Maniapoto, so I make a special acknowledgment there. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Like the other speakers, I’m very happy to be speaking today. Normally, Mr Speaker, I would look at you, but I might just look at the gallery for a bit today, because, of course, I want to acknowledge that there are so many people in the gallery at the moment who have done so much work on this issue for so long. Of course, there have been people who have worked on this issue who are no longer with us, and there are people who have worked on this issue for so long who can’t be with us today. Thank you to everybody who cares so deeply about this environment and has worked so hard to work with others to find compromises. There are a lot of compromises, and I want to talk a little bit about those.

You may wonder why the member of Parliament for Dunedin is speaking on this particular bill, so to explain myself a little bit: of course, I’ve been very lucky to grow up in the beautiful city of Ōtepoti, and I’m so pleased to represent it, but when I was a child, we used to go on long trips, up to the North Island, and go and visit my great aunt, who was a Brown Joe at Mission Bay, so of course, there, I got to see the beautiful gulf. Then, we would sometimes go further north as well, because my grandfather had started Mahurangi College, and my father lived in Warkworth for a time, and so I have many friends who live up in the North as well.

I do understand what an important part of Auckland and the North—both north and south of Auckland—this space is, and how important it’s been to many people, particularly mana whenua, for, obviously, hundreds of years, in terms of the provision of mahinga kai, and that has continued through.

Obviously, we have other recreational users and, also, commercial users of the space. But we know, as my colleague Helen White was saying before, that there are so many different influences on the gulf that have led to its degradation. We know we’ve heard about wastewater flowing into the gulf. We’ve also heard about our sedimentation. We know that’s an issue in both rural and urban environments, when we don’t control the sediment, we don’t stop it from flowing into our rivers and then into the moana. We know what that sedimentation does: it stops the plant life in our oceans, and that plant life is so important as nurseries for our juvenile fish and other species, so we know that’s a problem as well. We know, in the gulf, we’ve heard about the kina barrens and the problems that they are. We’ve also heard about the Caulerpa and other different pest species that are there. We also know of overfishing, and we know of bottom trawling as well.

Before I was the member for Dunedin, I was a list member, and in April 2023, I was lucky to become the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, and this meant that I learned a lot more about the gulf and also about bottom trawling. I did know that there was this Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act from 2000, that there were State of the Gulf reports, and I did know about the Sea Change report and Revitalising the Gulf, because these are things that we discussed at the Environment Committee. But how we put into effect these plans was always an interesting issue.

Before I was the Minister—and I need to acknowledge at least two different Ministers for Oceans and Fisheries before me and all the conservation Ministers, as well, from different parties, who looked at this issue of, well, how do we protect the gulf? But let this mahinga kai issue—let people be able to still take the food that they need to eat. How do we do that with our different legislative instruments that we’ve got at the moment?

I’ve got here the regulatory impact statement from 2022. There was this question of, do we need bespoke legislation to implement what Sea Change was asking for, or can we use the existing Marine Reserves Act legislation or the existing Resource Management Act legislation? The answer was no, we can’t use either of those different tools, and that is, in part, because the Marine Reserves Act 1971 is very much about protection and being very, very focused on that protection only, and these reports had identified that there needed to be more than protection. There needed to be some use, but also a whole lot of different activities as well. And there were difficulties with the Resource Management Act because that would have involved a great number of regional councils working together for one plan, so the idea was: well, we’ll have this bespoke legislation.

I’d remind the House that a similar process was running down closer to my home with the South-East Marine Protection Forum. Whilst that wasn’t necessarily requiring special legislation, there were a lot of ministerial decisions that needed to be made to protect those areas in the south-east of the South Island and, again, to come to special arrangements with Kāi Tahu, in particular, about how these areas would be managed. I want to remind the House, while the Minister is here, that, as far as I am aware, the Gazette notices to finalise that South-East Marine Protection areas has not yet been undertaken, and, and I hope that it is very soon. Because we know that protecting these marine areas works; we know that the fish will come back, and that is remarkable, given how degraded the environments are. But we know this will happen, if we have some protections.

This legislation, of course, when it was announced in 2023, when I was lucky to be the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, with the then Minister of Conservation, Willow-Jean Prime, was also announced with a fisheries plan for the gulf. That fisheries plan was looking at excluding from bottom trawling 74 percent to 89 percent of the gulf. Of course, we were near an election in 2023, and so we managed to introduce this bill in 2023 and also make some Fisheries Act changes to different plans and have some spatial planning go on, but also to start consultation on these areas of the gulf that would be excluded from bottom trawling, because we’ve heard from other speeches the impact that bottom trawling has. In May of this year, the current Minister for Oceans and Fisheries shelved those plans, and I want the other side of the House to really think about that, because we’ve heard in a number of these speeches and we see from all these reports that the Hauraki Gulf is protecting bits of the Hauraki Gulf. Whilst it will make an improvement and it is a good, important thing to do, more needs to be done.

We have to protect it from sedimentation, whether that’s from urban environments, rural environments, or it’s from the bottom trawling in the area as well. That work needs to happen, and this Government seems to be washing the hands of those other pieces of work. That’s something that concerns me greatly and I will continue to raise, and it will, of course, be relevant to Resource Management Act reforms as well, where we’ve seen the history of this Government, all the changes to date—no, not all of the changes; there were some, recently, that that were bringing over some bits of the Natural and Built Environment Act, but most of the changes have been to enable more pollution. That hurts all of us, and that will hurt the gulf, so we will keep saying no to sediment pollution.

I want to also acknowledge, in my last 25 seconds, the select committee and everybody who was involved in that select committee process, all the local councils, all the scientists—of course, we’ve all talked about mana whenua before—but all the advocates who really care about this space. Thank you so much for taking the time, and thank you so much for getting back up again and again and again, even when you thought that we’d agreed on everything and yet—

The member’s time has expired.

This has been a decade in the making—in fact, I would argue, at least 25 years in the making, when you reflect back on the landmark legislation that was the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act 2000, which among other things created the Hauraki Gulf Forum, of course affectionately known as the “Guardians of the Gulf”. I want to acknowledge all their advocacy and their many reports that have got us here. This is a major win for the environment, a major win for Auckland, and it’s this Government that’s delivering the highest ever level of protection for the Hauraki Gulf. I commend the bill.

I present a legislative statement on the Animal Welfare (Regulations for Management of Pigs) Amendment Bill.

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

I move, That the Animal Welfare (Regulations for Management of Pigs) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Primary Production Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported back to the House by 9 February 2026.

This bill aims to provide certainty and a pathway forward for our pig farming sector to deliver world-leading animal welfare outcomes and be viable economically. Pig farmers that I have spoken to have struggled with the uncertainty of what rules they need to farm under, asking: will the rules be practical and affordable, and will they have the time available to transition their operations to meet them? For many, this uncertainty has hindered their succession and investment plans. By giving the sector certainty, we enable them to look forward and plan for a future with higher animal welfare standards.

In November 2020, the High Court ruled that regulations 26 and 27 of the Animal Welfare (Care and Procedures) Regulations 2018 and the associated minimum standards in the Code of Welfare: Pigs 2018 were unlawful and invalid. These regulations permitted the confinement of sows in farrowing crates for up to 33 days and in mating stalls for up to one week. While the court did not ban these practices, it directed the then Minister to consider recommending new regulations to phase out their use. In response, the Cabinet at the time extended the existing regulations for five years out of the possible 15 years the Act provides for, to allow time for review, consultation, and transition.

The current regulations will expire on 18 December this year. The Animal Welfare Act does not permit an extension, and, unfortunately, that entire transition time was used when the industry had no idea what it was precisely supposed to transition towards. Without legislative action, there will be gaps in the law, gaps in particular about the requirements for how piglets and sows are managed during their most vulnerable stages of life. The bill I present today addresses these gaps, delivers much needed clarity and certainty about what is the minimum required, and sets a pathway for strengthened animal welfare outcomes for pigs. These changes may not be agreed by all parties, but they are necessary. The Government has worked hard to strike a balance between ensuring high standards of animal welfare and supporting farmers to implement practical, science-based changes.

The Animal Welfare Act requires that those in charge of animals ensure the physical health and behavioural needs of those animals are met. In bringing these proposals forward, I am required to ensure that the changes are in accordance with good practice and scientific knowledge. In developing this bill, I have considered advice at different times from the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, New Zealand Pork, and officials from the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI). I’ve also considered the views of nearly 4,500 people and groups such as SPCA and the New Zealand Veterinary Association (NZVA), who made submissions during the public consultation process.

On some issues, there has been broad consensus—for example, the proposal to limit the use of mating stalls to a maximum of three hours is supported by the NZVA, the SPCA, New Zealand Pork, and MPI. There is agreement that this proposal reflects good practice, scientific evidence, and meets the purposes of the Act. On other matters, views have been more divided, particularly over the contentious issue of farrowing crates. With the regulation set to expire at the end of this year, the decision is needed now. New Zealand Pork, MPI, and NZVA advised that confinement for no more than three days before and four days after farrowing, combined with the provision of manipulable and deformable materials during farrowing, meets the needs of the sow while also minimising piglet mortality. I acknowledge that these proposals will not be welcomed by all those with an interest in animal welfare. The proposed changes in this bill significantly strengthen animal welfare, are pragmatic, reflect available technologies, and have been informed by expert advice on the current science and good practice.

The bill proposes three key changes. Firstly, regulation 25, which sets space requirements for grower pigs: this bill increases the k-value used to calculate minimum lying space from 0.03 to 0.034, a 13.3 percent increase. This allows pigs to lie comfortably, move freely, avoid other pigs, and avoid dunging where they sleep. It also reduces the incidence of tail biting and improves overall welfare.

Secondly, to regulation 26 and farrowing crates: the use of farrowing crates is one of the most contested issues in animal welfare. People in support of their use highlight lower piglet mortality due to crushing, and improved safety for farm workers while assisting sows and their piglets. Others, opposed to their use, are concerned about how they restrict sows from expressing normal behaviours. The bill limits the use of farrowing crates to a maximum of seven days—three days before and four days after farrowing. Additionally, all farrowing sows must be provided with manipulable and deformable materials, not just those in facilities built after 2010, as is the current case. Provision of these materials is an important addition to farrowing practices, as this enables the sows to have the opportunity to perform normal behaviours, as required by the Act. Combined, these two changes to regulation 26 support natural behaviours and reduce sow stress. The new confinement period, totalling seven days, is a significant reduction from the current 33-day setting, and will be amongst the lowest in the world, with most countries we currently import pork from allowing their use for 33 days. Restricting to four days after birth focuses the use of farrowing crates to when piglets are at their most vulnerable. The bill also reduces confinement for nurse sows to a single period of no more than 36 hours, down from the current maximum of seven days.

Thirdly, regarding regulation 27, which sets the requirements for the use of mating stalls: currently, sows may be confined in mating stalls for up to one week per reproductive cycle. This restricts their ability to express normal behaviours such as social interaction and free movement. This bill reduces this time to three hours at a time, with a mandatory three-hour break before re-confinement.

This package of reforms will come at a cost to farmers. New Zealand’s pork industry is small in comparison to other livestock production sectors. There are fewer than 80 farms, with around 45 indoor piggeries. Yet in my conversations with New Zealand Pork and pig farmers, they’ve expressed their commitment to progressive change. These changes will place New Zealand pig farmers amongst other countries with globally leading welfare standards, without the subsidies that are often present in those other countries.

This bill provides a 10-year transition period. This aligns with international norms for changes of this scale and gives farmers time to plan, finance, and implement infrastructure changes. Not all of these changes will take 10 years to implement, and I expect the sector to move faster where it can. However, I believe we must acknowledge that, together, these changes are significant for farmers. They will require significant financial investments and much effort in the way of planning, gaining consents, and changes to farm infrastructure and on-farm practices. These new requirements will therefore take effect from 19 December 2035.

In conclusion, this bill is the product of an extensive consultation process and science-based policy-making, and it reflects the expectations of consumers and the high expectations that New Zealanders have about the way we treat animals in this country. It supports farmers for a practical transition while ensuring animal welfare standards continue to improve. I urge all members of this House to support the bill. It ensures New Zealand remains a leader in animal welfare, provides clarity for farmers, and strengthens public confidence in our food production systems. This Government is backing farmers, restoring balance, and making sure our regulations reflect both compassion and practicality. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Now that we’ve heard nearly 10 minutes of spin, let’s put some facts on the record today about why this bill is such a shocker and a terrible indictment on this House, on this Government’s lack of commitment to animal welfare. Let’s get some facts on the table.

Farrowing crates are terrible for pigs and their piglets. They cause significant animal welfare issues for sows and piglets. It leads to an increased risk of stillbirth, reduced growth rates, poorer maternal attention, and increased risk of mismothering—which is savaging of a piglet. Also, for sows, their use is associated with restriction of the expression of their normal behaviour, including basic things like turning around, walking, resting comfortably, and creating separate functional areas. It is an indictment on this House that farrowing crates, under this legislation, will be permitted to continue to be used in this industry.

I’m just going to go back over some of the history. In 2018, the then Minister of Agriculture issued regulations and minimum standards, which allowed farrowing crates. There was a judicial review following that, which found it was a breach of the Animal Welfare Act. Following that, the Labour Government put in place regulations to phase out farrowing crates by 18 December 2025.

The Minister has talked about consultation as if it was something he did; Labour did it in 2022. He’s then talked about some changes that he’s making under the Act. I’m going to talk about what was actually in that consultation versus what’s been put forward today. If we talk about farrowing, under the public consultation, which was due to come into force in 2025, it was either a ban on farrowing crates and a requirement for larger pens, or up to 72 hours in a crate, and only after farrowing and only after nest building is complete—and in a five-minute speech, I don’t have time to get into the detail of why this matters—but not seven days. The advice I’ve received from experts is that seven days will continue to put these animals at significant risk.

The Minister’s proposals, funnily enough, match the proposals from NZ Pork, who he has just admitted to having targeted consultation with. Yet the SPCA have written to the Ministry for Primary Industries, asking for consultation; they’ve written to the Minister, asking for consultation. Nothing targeted under your watch, Minister. They were consulted in 2022, but a failure to consult the SPCA over this legislation that was landed on this House this week is, again, an indictment on this House, Minister.

He’s talked a bit about space for grower pigs. It’s correct. He’s going to increase the minimum spacing requirements by 13.3 percent—the exact proposal from New Zealand Pork. Yet what Labour was proposing was either a 56 percent or 140 percent increase in space; not 13.3 percent.

I appreciate that there actually is a risk here because, in the last two years, since this Minister’s done nothing about this, we’ve gotten to December, and we now have a legal risk presenting itself. Here’s my genuine olive branch: I will happily work with the Minister to extend what is currently in law by one or two years so we can get this right, but not reduce standards from what was consulted on in 2022 by such a massive reduction, and definitely not 10 years before we get minimal improvements in animal welfare for pigs—tiny improvements that the Minister is trying to stand up and claim as being a good thing. They are tiny improvements.

If you read comments from people like the Animal Law Association, if you read comments from reputable animal welfare organisations like the SPCA, they need—

They’re not reputable.

They’re not reputable? You heard it from a National Party member today, saying that SPCA are not reputable. OK, I’ll remember that—I’ll remember that when they go out collecting for them in their nice suits every year, have not—

No, Animal Law, actually—Animal Law.

The Animal Law Association, who won a court case, and given that the Minister’s allowing this to run till February—we’ve got between December and February for another court case. So that’s going to be really interesting, Minister. Labour will not be supporting this bill.

Fundamentally, for those members of the public watching, you need to understand that this bill means 10 more years of misery for mother pigs and piglets—10 more years. That’s the fundamental thing that this bill does: it delays the legislated action to bring an end to the cruel use of farrowing crates by 10 years.

Now, if anyone was in any doubt as to the essential animal cruelty of this Government, this bill proves the point. While there are cows wallowing up to their udders in mud in Southland and while they plan to bring back live animal exports, now they’re also delaying action on pig welfare by a decade—a full decade—and then, only then, after 10 years, they intend to increase the space available to a mother pig by 13 percent.

Guess who liked the idea of that! The pork industry. Guess who advised against that! The National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, the very advisers to the Minister. He’s called the Minister of animal welfare, but, in fact, this legislation proves he should rightly be called the “Minister of animal cruelty”, because it is undeniable: the evidence from animal welfare experts across the world is that keeping pigs like this is inhumane, fundamentally.

Animals want to nest and care for their young and their piglets. What a farrowing crate does—well, you lock a mother pig into a cage and stop it from being able to turn around, from being able to build a nest, from being able to care for its young, and you cause it stress. You cause harm to the pig. The maternal nesting behaviours are fundamentally disallowed. It is associated with pressure sores, teat cuts, lameness, frustration, boredom, pain, and distress caused by the prolonged confinement.

Just to be clear, the changes the Minister is talking about, about restrictions of a few days, that is not coming into effect under this bill for 10 years. So the current status quo, which is: five days before giving birth, the pigs can be in these crates, then another four weeks afterwards—four weeks and five days like this. That’s what this bill is locking in. It’s utterly unnecessary, because half of New Zealand pig farmers are already doing it like this, letting the pigs live a natural existence where they get to nurse their young and express their natural behaviours. Why? I see the sadness on your faces over there, National members, and you should rightly be sad. It is utterly unnecessary for this to be extended. It goes against the will of the New Zealand public, who were consulted extensively about their views of caging these animals like this, and their views were very clearly that it was not acceptable to them.

This Government goes against the will of the people, it goes against the welfare of the animals, it is fundamentally cruel. What is more, to those pig farmers who have done the right thing over recent decades and got rid of these farrowing crates, how much are you let down by your industry and them lobbying for this extension of 10 years? How much are you failed by that industry? Furthermore, it is as if the pork industry doesn’t realise that politics is cyclic. The tide turns, and do you think, honestly, that this bill is going to hold the line for 10 years when there’s a change of Government? Do not waste your money investing in this ridiculous 13 percent increase in the size. Move towards free farrowing. It is happening all over the world, in the likes of Sweden, in the likes of Norway, right here in New Zealand. It is the way to go—move towards free farrowing. That is the only certain future for this industry. Don’t be fooled by this ridiculous in-between step to a fractionally less cruel method of farming, in 10 years’ time.

This bill has no future under a Green Government. We will stand for animal welfare. Like my colleague who just spoke, Rachel Boyack, we understand there needs to be some transition period, but that must be a transition to free farrowing. We fiercely oppose this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand to speak on the Animal Welfare (Regulations for Management of Pigs) Amendment Bill and I just want to point out that, actually, we’ve lost a large number of our pork producers over the last three or four decades. This bill seeks to establish clear, robust standards, setting minimum space requirements, improving the living environment, minimising the use of systems such as farrowing crates and gestation stalls, but over a period of time, because we’ve already lost a large number of our pork producers and the last thing we want to do is lose a large number more. They’re already struggling.

The bill recognised that achieving these improvements will require considerable adjustment from our farmers, many of whom have invested heavily in their current systems, and the bill also introduces a sensible transition period, allowing stakeholders time to adapt, plan, and invest in the necessary infrastructure. This transition will not occur overnight; instead it will be managed over a defined period, providing certainty, enabling farmers to secure resources and support the need for compliance.

So I look forward to seeing this come before the Primary Production Committee. I commend the bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Animal Welfare (Regulations for Management of Pigs) Amendment Bill. It’s probably not a topic that I have direct knowledge of, but, obviously, as a consumer, it’s something that I’ll probably see on my Christmas table with a lot of delight. This has come from a period of time, from the High Court decision in 2020, with that transitional period of five years, and, now, we see ourselves here today to support this bill into select committee, where, I think, by hearing from stakeholders and people in the farming community, we’ll find a way forward.

The one thing we would like to highlight is that we can’t destroy this industry. This industry is as important as any other industry, and we are all talking about a cost of living crisis at the moment. We talk about products and the cost of products when we walk into our supermarkets. There needs to be a balance, and it needs to be realistic. We, at the moment, in New Zealand import 60 percent of all our pork products from Canada or from the US or from over in Europe. While that may be an option, sometimes those standards in those countries aren’t as high as those we are going to implement here today, so there needs to be some consistency around the regulations we’re putting on our industry people and the regulations of the importers of products into this country. I think that question has just as much appetite to be answered through the select committee as the rest of this bill as we go forward.

As we’ve seen, across the floor, around the farrowing crates, yes, that is an issue, but it’s also an issue if they’re not used and young piglets are squashed. This is the other thing: since we aren’t experts, we actually need to go delicately through this in select committee to actually understand what the right balance is going forward. The confinement and the increased space requirements are a step forward—something I think, through select committee, can be discussed. It’s giving welfare to the pigs in the way that they’re produced, and it’s also giving some certainty to the actual farmers. On that, I commend the bill to the House and look forward to the select committee process.

I commend the Animal Welfare (Regulations for Management of Pigs) Amendment Bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. This is a lost opportunity, I’d suggest. Just briefly to go back through history, the Animal Welfare Act was passed in 1999 by a visionary Government, a National Government actually, that saw the importance of animal welfare moving forward. The National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, which is an independent committee, came up with a code of practice, a code of welfare, for pigs in 2010, again under a National-led Government. Then we got into Government. We had technical issues. At that time, of course, there was a very clear steer to the pork industry that they had to make progress on these mating stalls and farrowing crates. In fact, it’s always been a contentious issue because that’s the way things have been done. Well, it has actually, for about 40 percent of the industry, 40 to 50 percent of the industry; not for all of it, for about half the industry here. Of course, as has been said before, about 60 percent of the pork we consume comes from offshore. That’s good trade. We like trade because we sell a whole lot of products offshore.

If I can just come back, because I think the animal welfare, the specific technical, challenging issues have been raised by my colleague Rachel Boyack. I have to say the history of this is really, really important. If Labour can be accused of anything, it’s probably that it’s been too generous to the pork industry. In fact, we gave them every opportunity to make progress here and to move ahead. But they dug in. They dug in and hoped that there’d be a change of Government and they’d lobby the incoming Government and get what they wanted. Well, that’s exactly what this piece of legislation is.

The challenge for animal protein is across the globe, and unless we can show the highest standards of animal welfare, caring for animals while utilising them for the production of protein, we’re going to come under increasing pressure and pushback from alternative proteins. People will say, “Oh that’s not, you know—they can’t do that”. That is the direction of travel, and unless the industries—the dairy industry has to tidy up its bobby calf issue. If they didn’t, there’d be pushback on dairy. They’ve taken that on board. The pork industry has to take on board the one of farrowing crates and mating stalls. In fact, about half the industry—or 40 to 45 percent of the industry—is already ahead of that game in New Zealand.

What I’d say to the pork industry is don’t bully those people who have outdoor systems or block them from access to processing their animals. Within the industry, there’s a division, and that division is not healthy. Those who want to move ahead, show and tell the story of high animal welfare standards, outdoor systems while looking after, taking the young ones inside. So it’s not all outdoor. There are very few people who do that, but it’s actually progression in an industry in an area where there’s increasing scrutiny on animal welfare.

What I’d say to this Government and to the Minister is that you’ve done the pork industry a disservice. Proposing this legislation might be giving them what they’re asking for, but it’s denying the reality of the direction of travel internationally. The bizarre contradiction is that the pork industry has been lobbying the Government to say, “Don’t allow the importation of pork from lower-standard countries because we have higher standards.” Well, we’re moving to truly higher standards. This is going to dumb it down. The opportunity to tell the story to consumers that we indeed do have the highest standards of animal welfare for pork—and pork and chicken are 75 percent of the protein in the world—we can’t do that any longer.

The Minister is providing a disservice long term for the pork industry. It might be a short-term relief, but they’re still going to have to make the changes. One of the things that we were asked to do is that when the Government imposes the standards, make sure they are long term and enduring. This is not; this is halfway. This is not what the industry needs long-term to be able to convince its consumers that they are caring for the animals in the way that not just New Zealand but, actually, international consumers expect.

This is a terribly backward step for the pork industry at an opportunity and a time when they could have moved forward. We gave them 10 years, we bent over backwards to give them time, and if I could be criticised for anything, it is the fact that I didn’t make the call and get on with it and give them what they needed, which was certainty.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Firstly, I’d just like to acknowledge and thank all those that farm pigs and produce pork in New Zealand. I’d thank them for the contributions they make to our food supply and to our economy. This bill reflects a commitment to high standards of animal welfare and also respect to those men and women who produce our food, so I look forward to this bill coming in front of our select committee.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity to speak on the Animal Welfare (Regulations for Management of Pigs) Amendment Bill. I want to reflect on the bill that we were just talking about, the Hauraki Gulf bill. Of course, we were talking more about fish than pigs, but we were also talking about a 10-year period and about how long the past decade has been and how much people involved in wanting to improve the Hauraki Gulf have been working away and trying to convince us decision makers in this House to do something about it. Ten years saw a number of reports. It saw a bill coming through. It saw a select committee in a different Government hearing submissions, and then it saw a select committee report back unanimously on that bill. The Government waited for a year to do anything about it, made some changes, and then it’s come back. Ten years is a long time, and what this bill does is say, “Oops, we haven’t done enough on animal welfare for pigs, so we’re just going to delay everything by a decade.” It’s outrageous, totally outrageous.

Then how are we going to do that delay? “Oh, I know.”, says the Government, “We’re going to do this thing that we keep doing in this Parliament, something that hasn’t happened beforehand with the egregious regularity that is happening in this Government. We are going to change secondary legislation, regulations by primary legislation.” You might say, “Well, that seems like an efficient way to change regulation, so what’s the problem with that, Mr Speaker?”

Well, of course, if you are changing regulations—and I know the other side of the House will say, “Well, Parliament is sovereign, and we can use Parliament’s resources to do this.”—what happens is that there is no recourse to the courts for judicial review for those regulations, for that secondary legislation.

I put it to the House and the Minister that this is not an accident; it is a cynical use of the parliamentary process to stop citizens who are concerned about legislation not being followed. In this case, this legislation is about the welfare of animals, and we’ve seen different groups say, “Well, actually, the welfare of animals is not happening. You need to do something, Government. We’re going to take this to court and have the court say that as well.” But now, by implementing this piece of legislation, those groups won’t have the ability to do that. The only voice that those groups will have is by doing what they do in terms of petitions and other engagements to show their displeasure.

We’ve heard that the Minister has consulted different groups, and he thinks that there is this high standard of animal welfare. In fact, he said that New Zealand is a leader in animal welfare. But we’ve also heard that the SPCA—not known, you know, to be a hugely radical group—has not been consulted by this Minister. This Minister has had his portfolio for two years—oh, almost two years; in November, it will be two years—and he has not consulted the SPCA and yet says that we are a leader in animal welfare, when we know that those groups that care about animal welfare say, “No, no, no! The process at the moment, the regulation that is intended for a decade’s time, it is not good enough.”

Labour is not supporting this bill, and we do not support this continued action by this Government to cynically override how regulatory processes are made and how they are able to be appealed. It is done on purpose, and it is done to the detriment of our animal welfare in this case, and our environment in other cases.

Look, I’d just like to take this opportunity to acknowledge our hard-working farmers and the contribution that they make to our New Zealand economy and the very, very high standards of animal welfare that we have here in New Zealand. This bill is going to raise those animal welfare standards. In fact, these new requirements in the bill will be among the highest animal welfare standards in the world. In New Zealand, we have extremely high animal welfare standards. This will continue our reputation on the global stage and in New Zealand, so I commend this bill to the House.

The question is, That the Animal Welfare (Regulations for Management of Pigs) Amendment Bill be considered by the Primary Production Committee.

I move, That the Animal Welfare (Regulations for Management of Pigs) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 9 February 2026.

I present a legislative statement on the Education and Training (Vocational Education and Training System) Amendment Bill.

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

I move, That the Education and Training (Vocational Education and Training System) Amendment bill be now read a second time.

I’d like to start by thanking the Education and Workforce Committee for their careful consideration of the bill over the past four months. To briefly recap, the purpose of this bill is to redesign the vocational education and training system, restoring regional decision-making and increasing industry leadership in vocational education and training, particularly in the areas of standard setting and work-based training. The bill is significant and involves substantial amendments to the Education and Training Act 2020. It contains both new policies and amendments to existing provisions in the Act, and it enables relevant secondary legislation.

With regard to the polytechnics, Mr Speaker, as you know, the bill will re-establish a network of regional polytechnics, and from 1 January 2026, the relevant programmes, functions, assets, and staff will transfer from Te Pūkenga to these polytechnics. Cabinet has taken and announced decisions regarding which polytechnics will stand alone from 1 January 2026 and which ones will join the new federation of polytechnics, and there will be a few that will remain in Te Pūkenga for now, as they continue to build their financial sustainability prior to decisions being taken early next year.

With regard to the industry skills boards, the bill enables the establishment of industry skills boards, each of which will have responsibility for a defined group of specific industries. Cabinet has taken and announced their decisions regarding the industries that will be represented by each of the eight industry skills boards. They will be statutory standard-setting bodies with majority of industry governance: six of the eight on the board will be from industry, ensuring that vocational education and training remains responsive to both new and emerging industry developments, as well as current industry needs.

Work-based training: there’s going to be a transition period for work-based training for up to two years, whereby the management and arrangement of work-based training and programmes will move from Te Pūkenga to industry skills boards. This is a temporary transitionary measure that will allow time for new work-based training programmes to be developed at private training establishments, polytechnics, and wānanga, and it will provide for continuity for those learners who were enrolled prior to commencement of the bill.

Submissions and recommendations came in to the committee and out from the committee. The committee received 210 written submissions, a relatively modest number in comparison to when Te Pūkenga was set up—I believe, from memory, there were about 2,000 submissions back then. The vast majority of them were against the setting up of Te Pūkenga, so the 210 written submissions were relatively modest for this in comparison. There were 32 submitters heard at oral hearings, including representatives from industry, employers, employees, and students in the vocational education and training system, as well as submissions from current work-based training divisions within Te Pūkenga and from Te Pūkenga itself. I’d like to thank the committee for their careful consideration of those submissions, and I’d also like to thank all those who did take the time to make submissions and also to those who appeared before the committee. The submissions have been carefully considered by the committee—I know that they’ve put a lot of time and discussion into consideration of the submissions—and they’ve helped to refine the bill and the proposed functioning of the new system.

The subsequent changes to the bill recommended by the committee are mostly technical in nature, to help ensure that the bill is workable, is fit for purpose, and to improve its clarity and consistency. These changes are outlined in the committee’s report. I don’t intend to go through all of them today, but I would, however, encourage anyone interested to read that report. The recommended changes do include an amendment relating to polytechnic council membership, and minor and technical amendments to provisions relating to the polytechnic federation.

Strengthening the bill to ensure that industry skills boards will be driven by industry needs—and this is a key concern for industry. This includes ensuring representation of employers and employee perspectives, and preventing people with ownership or governance interests in providers from sitting on an industry skills board.

Technical amendments to the transitional provisions in the bill to improve clarity, workability, and consistency: I intend to propose some additional changes at the committee of the whole House stage. The primary changes I will propose will support the timely establishment of the new entities and the smooth transfer of programmes, students, staff, and assets. Therefore, I will bring an Amendment Paper to seek to change the commencement date of the bill, to ensure all preparation for the new system can be made prior to the proposed transfer date of 1 January 2026 and the new entities can be ready to operate from that date. The Amendment Paper will also include some further technical amendments that have been identified in recent weeks. These include additional provisions to support the transition of the work-based training divisions to ensure the bill includes all provisions necessary for the effective transfer and operation of programmes, assets, staff, students, and activities associated with work-based training. They also include some further tidy-up amendments to ensure all appropriate provisions relating to record-keeping and annual reporting are included in the bill, and to correct any remaining drafting errors.

I also want to acknowledge and thank polytechnic staff and industry-training organisation staff. Their professionalism over this time of change has ensured that students have not suffered through the changes, and I want to acknowledge that professionalism of that staff and the work that they have done under difficult circumstances. I have visited all 10 of the institutes of technology and polytechnics that will be stood up, and I’ve met with not only the senior management teams but also community leaders from their local community. Without exception, they have all been pleased and relieved that they are getting their polytechnics back in their regions. I thank also the communities who have stuck with their polytechnics. If there has been one thing that has come out of this adversity of Te Pūkenga, the one good thing has been that local communities have realised how important vocational education and training is, how important industry training is, and how important polytechnics are to their regions.

In closing, I want to again acknowledge the valuable suggestions made by the committee and thank them for their work to bring the bill to this stage. I commend the bill to the House.

Members, the time has come for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30 p.m.

Good evening, members. We are on the second reading of the Education and Training (Vocational Education and Training System) Amendment Bill.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Whāia te iti kahurangi, ki te tūohu koe me he maunga teitei.

[Pursue excellence and if you should surrender may it be to a lofty mountain.]

Tonight, I speak in the second reading of the Education and Training (Vocational Education and Training System) Amendment Bill. This reform aims to restore regional decision-making, increase industry leadership, and reflect local training needs. Tonight, in her speech, Minister Simmonds played down the number of submissions made to the Education and Workforce Committee, but she avoided sharing with this House what, in fact, they said. The reason for that is because it’s difficult to find a reasonable number of submissions—despite acknowledging some good intent in the bill, it falls well short of the promise that the National Government made. Only 11 percent of submitters supported this bill.

7 percent?

11 percent—and this simply fails on many levels to set up a vocational training system in Aotearoa that we can all be proud of. In fact, it makes it worse.

There is widespread agreement that financial viability is the core challenge for the tertiary sector and the vocational sector in particular; however, in this legislation, any attempt to solve this challenge is absent. The Minister repeatedly says that Te Pūkenga was not financially viable, despite it returning a $16.7 million surplus last year, as it was intended to do. Yet she cannot show any evidence that these reforms or her plan will result in better long-term viability for our vocational training sector and polytechnics in particular.

On the other hand, Treasury did give advice that there remains a risk that these changes will not be able to fully sustain the financial challenges faced by institutes of technology and polytechnics prior to the establishment of Te Pūkenga. We’re going backwards.

Consultants have indicated that $190 million may be needed to restart the 16 polytechnics, and yet there’s only a minimum of $177 million in Government funding set aside to support this. This legislation and these reforms do not set our polytechnics up for success. It puts them at greater risk and does not even provide them with enough funding to undertake the Government’s reforms.

What do we see because of this financial instability and uncertainty? More cuts. NorthTec, Toi Ohomai, te Wānanga o Aotearoa, Otago Polytechnic, WelTec, Wintec, Whitireia—they continue. This legislation is resulting in more job cuts, more programmes lost, and more campuses closing as a result of Minister Simmonds’ and the National Government’s choices.

At the end of last year, it was indicated that the sector would lose up to 900 fulltime-equivalents, close 550 programmes, and close approximately 30 delivery sites. I’m hearing every week from the sector that these cuts and closures are only going to increase under this reform. These are real jobs lost, real opportunities for students gone, and key centres of learning, many of which provide for our most remote regional communities—places like Kaikohe, Kaitāia, Tokoroa, and Rotorua.

This is at a time when we are in desperate need of more apprentices. We’ve already lost 19,000 construction workers, and last year, 3,700 fewer individuals enrolled in building apprenticeships and there were 9,000 overall fewer apprentice completions across all fields year on year under this National Government.

We are losing specialist programmes that provide key skills for our economy—for example, the timber machining apprenticeship at Toi Ohomai in Rotorua, the only programme of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, is set to be cut. This is a skill that is not delivered anywhere else, and it’s going to be lost under this Government. These cuts hurt our regions. The Minister says that the staff-to-student ratios at polytechnics are too high and job cuts are necessary. Her officials say that in the regions, this is just not realistic. It’s a clunky measure. It doesn’t work in Wairoa or Ngāwhā. We don’t live and die by it. It’s a difference of opinion from Minister Simmonds to her officials and to me.

The cuts to jobs, programmes, and campuses as a result of these reforms hurt our young people, our regions, and our economy. Civil Contractors New Zealand Chief Executive Alan Pollard summed it up well when he said on these reforms, “It is not about training, but it is about cutting costs.” That is the summary of this piece of legislation. When I think back to only the week before last, our select committee completed our report and within less than two weeks, here we are in a second reading. I’m unsure if she even listened to the recommendations in that report.

Industry experts and organisations have had a lot to say about this legislation. They were hopeful and they were led down a garden path that they would have more leadership under this legislation. The Minister, in fact, promised industry a stronger role under these reforms. That is a broken promise and industry have been short-changed by the National Government in this legislation.

Their submissions to the Education and Workforce Committee reflect the sentiment best. DairyNZ told us that this legislation will not work and that industries have not been given greater authority and the industry skills boards (ISBs) haven’t been given more leadership in funding decision-making. BusinessNZ echoed this, saying that ISBs don’t have the power to set the standards that industries require. ISBs don’t have the powers industry has asked for and they don’t have the funding that they need under this legislation—$30 million is not enough to do the same job that workforce development councils were doing for $60 million. That is half the funding and that is under-serving our workforce, our industry, and our communities.

The themes of industry submissions reflected in the ministry’s departmental report show that they feel ISBs aren’t independent enough and that they aren’t industry-led, as was promised time and time again. They also noted that there is not enough transitional funding.

Industry, like Treasury, has warned the Government about these reforms. Alan Pollard again said in his submission, “Make no mistake; in our view, there is a massive risk here. If we don’t get it right, the Government’s reform is not going to be delivered.”, and that is the mess that we find ourselves in. We’ve been building the plane as we go, and despite the numerous submissions during select committee hearings—and, again, only 11 percent of submitters unconditionally backed these reforms—little has changed in the second reading in this legislation.

What we do see in the changes post select committee is a further reduction, though, of Māori representation, and some over the other side will be happy about this. This is what they voted for. This legislation has now removed the requirement for industry skills boards to act in a matter that contributes to an education system that honours Te Tiriti o Waitangi and supports Māori-Crown relations. Alongside this, the provision that councils of polytechnics should include Māori has also been removed, and this is consistent with Minister Simmonds’ consultation document on the tertiary education strategy that she proposes moving forward.

The reality of this legislation is that, as I said, the plane is being built as we go. Here we are in a second reading with a dead horse of a piece of legislation, with no financial plan, that creates worse outcomes for regional communities, for kaimahi, staff, and for learners out in those communities, and the Minister undervalues both their feedback and submissions, the recommendations that they have made, and the recommendations that came from the Opposition that didn’t move forward. I do not support this bill and I don’t commend it to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to begin my speech by acknowledging the people who should be at the heart of our education system, whether it’s tertiary, primary, or secondary: the learners, the staff, and the communities in it, particularly in the tertiary education space and in the polytech space. They’ve gone through nearly one decade of churn with the original Te Pūkenga reforms, and now they’re going through this process, which disestablishes Te Pūkenga.

I want to talk about what we do find disappointing about this bill and why we do regard it as a missed opportunity. One of the things that this bill has failed to do is it has failed to guarantee any kind of staff or student representation on the governing councils of the newly established institutes of technology and polytechnic (ITP) councils. The second thing we’re quite disappointed by is that during the select committee process, what were already weak provisions for Māori representation in the bill were stripped even further during the select committee stage. The third reason—and, I guess, the most important reason—why we’re disappointed with it is that it doesn’t actually do anything to enhance sector viability.

In fact, the Treasury analysis of this reform said that the newly established ITPs could expect financials that were the same, if not worse, than before Te Pūkenga was established. So, in other words, we’re going back to the status quo, but, somehow, it’s even worse than before. This is what this bill actually does: it returns us to a status quo that already wasn’t working, but it makes it not work even further. I really want to stress that point because the impacts of the reforms and what we’re going through—I mean, you could make a sort of utilitarian argument that if, on the other side, we were going to emerge with a vocational education system that was more inclusive, that was more equitable, and that served the needs of learners, communities, and the regions better, then all the pain would be worth it, but that’s not the case. It’s just all pain and no gain.

Look, I really want to acknowledge the submissions that were made by the Tertiary Education Union and the Tertiary Institutes Allied Staff Association. When we asked them, during the select committee hearings on this bill whether, in their opinion, if the reform that we’re going through was now more or less disruptive than what they went through when Te Pūkenga was merged and all the polytechs were consolidated together into a single entity, both of them replied that this process was significantly more disruptive than what went on before, and we’re seeing the job-cuts effect. There were 855 job losses last year and 1,000 are expected in this year. Contrary to the Minister for Vocational Education’s rhetoric about how they’re overstaffed, for a sector that had only about 8,000 staff, losing about one-seventh of the staff is absolutely devastating to the capacity of these regions, and also the capacity of these institutions to remain as ongoing and viable concerns.

But the good news—well, this is still bad news—is that we are able to change things through people power, right? We’ve seen the Government back down on some of the more egregious proposals, thanks to the lobbying and front-line work being done by communities across the regions. In Northland, thanks to the efforts of Green list MP and future Te Tai Tokerau MP, Hūhana Lyndon, they’ve already backed down on some of the staff cuts that they were planning to undertake, thanks to all the public hui she’s done. I was there about a month ago and she’d organised a public hui, and there were about 200 people there. That’s really impressive for a town of that size, and really impressive when it was pulled together at short notice, as well.

We do know that the Government has withdrawn from proposals to close the Tokoroa and Taupō campuses, thanks to the efforts made by communities. I really want to acknowledge the local communities, who have been at the forefront of lobbying—particularly the Mayor of South Waikato District, Gary Petley—and I really want to acknowledge the probably quiet work that the National MPs who represent these electorates have been doing in the background. I know that you guys can’t be vocally opposing a lot of these reforms, but I think that on one hand, it’s kind of a dual-pressure strategy. You have the Opposition making a lot of noise and putting a lot of pressure on the Minister and then you can do the quiet lobbying on your side, and it all adds up to a win for the communities, whatever that might look like.

This bill is a win for the communities—that’s right.

Well, no—not according to any of the advice that the Government has received, and not according to what’s actually happened so far, Mr Bates.

I really want to talk about how we need to stop avoiding the chopping and churning of various policies when Governments change. The Government right now is setting a tertiary strategy that will outline the way forward for the tertiary sector. Now, the offer that I’m going to make to the Minister—which I’m not going to make through some botched hit job through the media, like the Prime Minister did with the energy reform hit job, and the more successful hit job that Erica Stanford did—is that we do want to work with the Government on an actual cross-party tertiary strategy that will actually endure a change of Government, because when the election happens next year and, God willing, I end up as the tertiary education Minister, I don’t want to have to rip up what’s already been done before. I really want to put some certainty in the hands of learners, in the hands of communities, and in the hands of the regions, because they deserve better than chopping and changing, and all the job cuts and all the uncertainty that’s gone on so far.

I want to move on to what we do think the solution should be. The solution should be to look at what they do over in Australia, where financial viability is of concern, but the primary concern is actually educating learners. The free technical and further education (free TAFE) programme in Australia has been an absolute success in terms of outcomes. This Government has talked about how they want to reduce the amount of people—particularly young people—going on to be beneficiaries, but the free TAFE programme in Australia shows that when someone has gone through the free TAFE programme, they’re 37 percent less likely to end up on the benefit, and over half of those people who have gone through the free TAFE programme have actually seen their incomes increase. It’s made an absolutely big difference, as well, for disadvantaged learners—particularly students with disabilities, Aboriginal Australians, and women learners, as well.

Having a programme like free TAFE—and, look, the Minister knows what a success free polytech has been to her community over at the Southland Institute of Technology. It’s absolutely led to the revival of Invercargill.

So we do think that education programmes that actually treat education as a public good, as they should be, rather than as being for private—you know, we do have quite a narrow conception of financial viability, and, look, I’m happy to attack the Government’s programmes on the basis that even their own advice doesn’t say that they’re financially viable. That was the initial advice said by the Treasury, and there’s actually even more damning advice that the Treasury later produced. I’m not able to discuss it because it’s still in the middle of a media pitch, but when it does come out, it will reveal that, actually, this thing is not that financially viable.

But the wider point is that financial viability is an overly narrow metric, and, actually, we should see education as a public good and not as something that should be assessed on the narrow metric of financial viability. Should it be one of the measures? Absolutely. Should it be the predominant measure? I don’t think so.

I want to conclude with a note of thanks to all the submitters for all the hard mahi that they have put into this bill. As the Minister correctly pointed out, there were only 210 submissions, which is a relatively small number of submissions, but, of those, there were definitely valuable insights that they contained, particularly the submissions made by the union movement, which really illuminated the scale of disruption and the damage that was going on. Look, the Minister talks about how this is an industry-centred reform, but, actually, of the around 38 industry submitters, only eight of them gave their full support to the changes. So if even industry—which is supposed to be walking hand in hand with this National Government—isn’t fully supportive of the reforms, then it really speaks to what’s actually happening on the ground.

Learners deserve thriving polytechnics that cater to their needs, so get behind the Green Party’s “Save our Polytechs” campaign. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m taking this call on behalf of the ACT Party to support the Education and Training (Vocational Education and Training System) Amendment Bill in the form that has been reported back from the select committee. I would like to thank all the submitters for taking the time to submit during the select committee process, and I would also like to thank the advisers for their support that they provided to the committee while we were considering this bill.

In the select committee, we have made several changes to this bill. As the Minister said in the speech, most of the changes are technical changes, so I won’t go through all those changes. But what I would say is that we know that New Zealand’s vocational education and training system has been in decline for some years. Instead of fixing that issue, what the previous Government—the Labour Government—did was they decided to come up with this idea of a mega-merger. That was a complete distraction from the actual issues that needed to be dealt with. Instead of dealing with those issues, they thought, “Bring in a big distraction and let’s merge all these polytechs, and let, you know, people not talk about the actual issues of the financial stability or sustainability of these politics and the operational issues that several polytechs had. So instead, bring in this mega-merger so people get confused, people stop talking about the actual issues.”

But the ACT Party, from day one, has been saying that that is not the right approach, and we wanted to give control to the regions. We are really pleased to see that this bill is going through our process here, and that it has come to the second reading today. We really want to give the control back to regions so that they can make the decisions based on the needs that they have in the local industries, and also see what suits the students there.

I also want to mention that as a member of the Education and Workforce Committee, there were some changes that I advocated for on behalf of the ACT Party, and we managed to get those changes done in this legislation. I’m very pleased to say that these changes are really important changes because we do not want to see any kind of ideological thinking being entrenched in this legislation, because these kind of ideological thinkings, when they are entrenched in these education legislations, they just lead to failure. We have seen that in the past, so we need to do some things differently. We need to look at what is best for students, what is best for the future of our industries here in New Zealand.

I would like to highlight two changes which ACT managed to get in this legislation: one is in new section 318, inserted by clause 22, which is about “Matters to be considered when appointing members of polytechnic’s council”. The member from the Labour Party did speak about it, and what I want to highlight here is that when you are appointing members to a polytech’s council, what would you take into consideration? I would take into consideration merit. I would take into consideration their ability, their proficiency. But those members want to focus on gender. Those members want to focus on those people’s ethnicity. I think by just focusing on gender and ethnicity, we are not going to deliver what polytechs should be delivering. Because that is just empty virtue signalling, and we don’t believe in that. That is why I, as a member of the ACT Party on the committee, advocated for these changes. I’m really pleased to say that that change has been done, those subclauses are removed, and that those subclauses are replaced with one which says, “(1) The council of a polytechnic should, as far as is reasonably practicable,— (a) reflect the communities in the region that the polytechnic serves,”. I think this is really fit for the purpose, and I’m really pleased that this change was made in the select committee process.

The second change I want to highlight is in new section 370, inserted by clause 23, and this is about “Performance of industry skills board’s functions and duties”. It says, “When performing its functions and duties under sections 367 to 369, the industry skills board must act in a manner that—”; and then at least five subclauses. There was one clause that has been now replaced with another clause. That clause said, “(c) contributes to an education system that honours Te Tiriti o Waitangi and supports Māori–Crown relations.” That has now been replaced with “has regard to the needs of Māori and other population groups as identified in the tertiary education strategy issued under section 7”.

What is the core function of these industry skill boards? We know that according to this legislation, the core function of industry skills boards is going to be to plan for workforce needs, to set and maintain skill standards and qualifications. So how is that subclause going to work? Because, in our view, that is just a distraction, and we want to see that polytechs are focused on what they should be focused on. These kinds of ideological distractions are not good for us. They are unnecessary. They are unhelpful for New Zealand’s industry future. That’s why we oppose these subclauses and are very pleased to say that we have managed to get changes done in this bill.

I really look forward to seeing this bill go through the committee of the whole House and the third reading of this bill. The ACT party supports this bill. Thank you.

Mr Speaker, this is an important and, I guess, a well-signalled reform bill. I want to thank the select committee for their work. New Zealand First doesn’t have quite enough members of Parliament; we need to get at least another couple so we can cover each of the select committees. So we don’t have a member on that select committee, but I do get to speak, as part of my role as our education spokesperson, with a lot of providers and stakeholders around the country, so I have some understanding of the complexity that there is in the vocational education sector and the diverse and numerous range of providers there are.

I want to make three points. The first one of them is about restoring regional decision-making. Now, Labour loved centralisation. I think that’s unarguable. I mean, we had that in health, we had that in the water sector, and we had that in education at the very least. It’s kind of the New Zealand disease that when in doubt, we restructure something. I guess you could argue on that side, we’re probably doing the same kind of thing again. But this is the New Zealand disease. Actually, if I might say—I was going to leave this until towards the end of my speech—Francisco Hernandez made a comment about a strategic approach, not just in education but across so many areas, and that if we could do that to provide some stability between changes in Government over a period of time, New Zealand Inc. will be much better served by that. We just have to come to that level of agreement about what it is that we broadly agree on. There might be some little bits here or there, but broadly speaking, that’s where we need to go.

Anyway, Labour established Te Pūkenga, as we know, by merging 16 polytechs and nine workplace training providers, and that only really started operating at the beginning of 2023. The issue which I’ve heard around that centralisation model is the loss of regional autonomy and that for a lot of the particularly smaller areas, dealing with Wellington was something they did not enjoy at all. Wellington did not listen to them; the bureaucracy did not listen to them.

I also heard that the WDCs, the workplace development councils, were often overly political and ideological. This bill is about stripping—

Te Pūkenga was based in Hamilton.

These are the things, Shanan Halbert, that I actually heard from people in the comments. I didn’t get to sit in the select committee, but I certainly hear these kind of things around the country as I meet with people.

So what this does is it re-establishes 10 regional polytechs, leaving the remnant in federation polytechs. Secondly, it establishes the industry skills boards to replace both the WDCs and to undertake a lot of training work.

In terms of regionalisation, one of the things that I really wanted to talk about is that I’ve seen a lot of great work being done by education providers with local communities, with local iwi, with local councils, and that’s really, really important. I think that bringing these institutions back to a regional model allows a lot more of that. The one I’m most familiar with is in the NorthTec area, where the idea of centralising around Whangārei is very, very important. But there’s a knowledge there that it is not going to look after the people out in Kaikohe and Kaitāia and Kerikeri and Mangawhai and Dargaville. That’s really, really important as well: how do you serve those people?

If I might say, one of those problems that we have here is sometimes saying that one-size-fits-all, one-amount-of-money-per-student-fits-all, will not work in some of those areas. We need to take a whole-of-Government approach because, otherwise, what will happen is the drop-out rates, the inability to participate rates in those far-flung areas, will be much, much higher. Those communities, which are often deprived anyway, will suffer as a result of that. So in doing this, we need to make sure that we look after not just the core but also the areas around, the more far-flung areas. That’s a really, really important part of the regional model.

The importance here is not just getting people into courses; the importance is getting people through those courses, getting them qualified, and lifting their opportunity: the kinds of things that we’ve heard already in this debate going forward—and I see them nodding on the other side.

The second point that I wanted to make is about the work-based training which is going to the industry skills boards. New section 367, inserted by clause 23, sets out a range of important functions which, actually, if you look at them, are basically the same as the WDCs, but it also takes over the actual training process. I think we’ve already heard Parmjeet Parmar referring to new section 370. Actually, there’s a whole lot of really, really fantastic outcomes that have been talked about there in terms of what we expect these Industry Skills Boards (ISBs) to do.

But there is one thing that I think we need to make sure that we don’t do and that is to put forward these organisations, which often were skills-based organisations which have now been embedded in Te Pūkenga; they will come out of Te Pūkenga, sticking them into an ISB and then, sometime less than two years later, they’re going to come out and be something different again. Some of them are all ready to go now. What we don’t want to do is to put them through that double-handling process. If I mention MITO, BCITO, and Connexis in particular, those organisations are ready to go now. So I hope, as we go through this process, that we actually allow those organisations not to have to go through the bureaucratic ISB process but can actually go and be established in their own right, straight away. That would be a much more efficient, much more effective way of doing things.

The third point I want to make before I conclude is a particular point that the Opposition made in their differing view, and that’s the one about talking about chronic underfunding issues that the sector faces. We hear this all the time. That’s probably true about just about every sector in our country. Now, the Green Party will probably say, “Well, just tax the living daylights out of everybody.” That’s a guaranteed way of making sure we’ll actually all end up poorer. What we have to do is we have to earn more money as a country so that we can afford the quality public services that we need, and that includes education. We need to lift productivity. That’s been a long-term blight on our country. We need to stop getting in our own way. We need to reform our resource management and other bureaucratic processes.

We had a question today about why some people are leaving our country. Well, in some cases, it’s because we are driving them out of the country. That, I put on the previous Government—and we’re trying to fix that problem.

We met with an engineering organisation today: 20 percent difference between the salaries they earn in New Zealand and the salaries they earn in Australia; same company. We need to bridge those gaps, and until we do that, we are pushing things uphill.

Te Pūkenga might have been founded with good intentions, but poor delivery and the lack of regionalisation, the bureaucracy sitting in Wellington—not a good model. New Zealand First has a strong belief in local and regional decision-making and just not relying on central government. We want real-world skills training leading to employment. Relationship with employers is really, really important and I think that often falls down. We all hear that. Many parts of our vocational workforce are crying out for new staff, particularly in an ageing workforce. There are lots of good jobs, great careers, delivering real value to New Zealand. That is the objective which we’ve got to focus on to strengthen regional responsiveness, to improve industry alignment. We want graduates to come out with the skills and the capabilities that employers need, and to ensure a more sustainable governance structure.

I commend this bill to the House.

A five-minute call—Ricardo Menéndez March.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the Education and Training (Vocational Education and Training System) Amendment Bill. I want to echo the words from my colleague Francisco Hernandez, who talked about the importance of centring decisions that the Government makes in vocational education sector with the needs of learners and the staff that are ultimately there to support them to be their best selves as well as the local communities and their needs. This is what should be driving Government policy decision.

This bill, though, does not do this. As I was listening to contributions from previous members, I think particularly the ACT Party member who was talking in her contributions about how she does not wish for things to be ideological. Well, let me tell you what: you can’t escape it. You can’t escape ideology, because let’s unpack the ideology behind this bill. This bill, for example, does not guarantee that the polytechnics’ governing council will have staff or student representation. That’s an ideologically driven decision. So while political parties can claim all these platitudes of common sense and lacking ideology, there’s always something driving that. In this case, for example, the cons of the bill that do not guarantee representation of staff and students in the governing council is critical to the ideology of the Government: that local communities actually do not know what’s best for them, that learners don’t know what’s best for them, that the staffers who are in charge of training the next workforce don’t know what’s good for them.

If they genuinely believed in that, they would be guaranteeing staff and learners a seat at the governing table, because their experiences and their voices are critical to ensuring that we have vocational education institutions that reflect the needs of the future generation that will be supporting our economy. It’s rich that we have a bill in front of us that does not tangibly increase the financial viability of vocational education institutions when the Government is so hell-bent on pushing young people in particular off income support and into education or work.

The second part: work. Well, that’s made a lot harder by this Government because we have seen how there are thousands and thousands fewer jobs available than there were when the Government first came into power. It’s a conscious decision to drive up unemployment to lower inflation, making our youngest people pay the price.

When it comes to the educational institutions, we’ve seen how many campuses across the country are at risk of closing, and my colleague Francisco Hernandez talked about the amazing work one of my colleagues Hūhana Lyndon has done in rallying her local community to save one of the local campuses. If the Government was genuinely serious about providing those vocational education opportunities for young people, they would be indeed resourcing those vocational education institutions. They would lower the cost barriers for people to enter into vocational education, and they would be supporting them in placements that they may need to be doing should they have a course that requires them to do so.

Instead, all that we are seeing is just buzzwords by the Government members in their contributions about things like productivity, without showing us exactly how this bill actually even increases productivity in and of itself. We’ve got the ACT Party celebrating the deprioritisation of Māori representation when we know that Māori, due to successive Governments’ decisions, have been failed by our education institutions and are overrepresented in unemployment statistics—not through fault of the communities, but actually through Governments who have actually dispossessed and prevented many communities from accessing education.

Vocational education should be lifted to the same degree of pedigree that we have with universities. We shouldn’t be treating vocational education as a sort of smaller sibling of our universities and instead recognise that vocational education plays a critical role in supporting the future workforce, particularly in helping us diversify and grow our economy’s skills. Because, you know, when I see the New Zealand First Party rally around their anti-migrant rhetoric, I don’t see them even at least being consistent with putting New Zealand first and actually calling for greater funding for our vocational education institutions. Instead, they’re supporting a bill that does not meaningfully improve the financial viability of these very same institutions that will help our local workforce grow their skills and their talents.

This is why the Green Party cannot support this bill. I want to commend our learners and the union movement who represent the workers in our vocational education institutions for the strong advocacy for having a vocational education system that centres the needs of learners.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to acknowledge Gus Gilmore from Te Pūkenga, who is in the gallery, and the work that his team is doing across the country as Te Pūkenga goes through this journey of having to undo the challenge that was created by the previous Government and implement, and plan to implement, the bill that is in front of the House today. I appreciate the huge amount of work that his staff are putting in across the country to prepare for what this bill will deliver, and that is regional polytechnics with governance locally. Having actually sat on the board—the council—of a regional polytechnic, I appreciate the value of local input into ensuring polytechs that deliver education in our regions. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity to speak on the Education and Training (Vocational Education and Training System) Amendment Bill, a bill that amends the Education and Training Act 2020.

We’ve just heard this term “flip-flop”—rather we’ve—

Can we have that again? What was that?

I’ll come to it—I’ll come to it. We have heard buzzwords being used. A previous speaker—Ricardo Menéndez March—was saying there are a whole lot of buzzwords going about, and one of the buzz phrases that I’ve heard recently is flip-flopping: “Business is telling us that they don’t like all of this flip-flopping.” Often, they will say that Governments do flip-flops, but it is my contention that it is this Government, this Parliament, that does all the flip-flopping, and that is what we have here. It seems to be flip-flopping that’s based on vanity, and it’s vindictive and it’s full of lazy terms.

So we’ve heard the Government members all speak about, “Oh, we have to get rid of these things that are ideological.”, they say. They don’t say what it is about that ideology that they don’t like, what their ideas are, and why it is that they don’t like, for instance, workforce development councils. So we heard Andy Foster say that they were ideological. What about them was ideological? What about them—

No, I said that people had told me they were ideological.

Oh, he’s correcting me. He said that people told him that workforce development councils were ideological, not that he thinks that they were ideological—

I didn’t say that.

—but he still said it in his speech. Now he’s informing the House that, in fact, he didn’t not say that they weren’t ideological. Work that sentence out, Hansard.

The point is that we have not heard arguments for why it is that the Government members are so opposed to the Education and Training Act as it stands and why they are so opposed to workforce development councils. They seem to be being changed really in only two ways. One is the name: they are going to be industry skills boards. The other is in the funding. So perhaps—

And the Māoris.

Oh, a third change as well. I’m reminded of the changes to Treaty and Māori issues as well. So maybe rather than changing the name from workforce development councils, it would have been simpler just to call them “cut workforce development councils”, because that is what this Government is doing. They’re cutting the funding for work that it appears everybody in this House agrees with. We all want a more productive economy. We all want our training to link up to the jobs. That seems like a very basic thing.

I’m not hearing any noise from the Government members now telling me that I am being ideological and that they somehow disagree with it, because I don’t think they do disagree with that very basic premise. If they do, I would really love to hear them articulate that in a speech so we can have it on the Hansard.

Now, I want to move now to polytechs and this flip-flopping. So we know that the Labour Government had a problem, and it was before I was in Parliament, that there were many polytechs that were losing a lot of money, so the polytechs were put together in an effort to save the polytechs in the regions that were not making money and that were losing money.

Now, you might note that I’m the member of Parliament for Dunedin now. I wasn’t then. Of course, Dunedin is renowned for its wonderful tertiary education at both its university and its polytechnic.

Great student life.

It is a great student life; you’re quite right. Great town. Now, the Otago Polytechnic was not in the financial strife that many others were. I note also in the south that the Southern Institute of Technology (SIT) was also not having the same problems that other polytechnics did. However, what I also know is, at that time, the now Minister was in charge of SIT and that the now Minister was very passionate about the institution that she headed for approximately two decades. Good on her for being full of gusto for the institution that she led.

I know that because I recall her huge opposition to the mergers of the polytechs. She was very vocal about that. Then she managed to become a member of Parliament for National, and the Prime Minister has now made her the Minister in charge of polytechs. She’s lost some other things, but she’s still got the polytechs. This is very interesting that you would put someone who has such strong desires to break up polytechs and to bring back SIT at any cost—that it is going to be difficult for that Minister to look at the evidence and make good decisions. I say that because I think there have been some very bad decisions made. We acknowledge that she’s breaking up the merger. That is the flip-flop. But somehow or other, SIT is going to stand on its own yet Otago is not. That is very mysterious when you look at the various documents. They show that they are in similar economic zones. So Otago Polytechnic, we hear, is going to be part of the federation with the Open Polytechnic, and we heard also the Universal College of Learning.

So when I picked up this bill—a bill that I’ve not been involved with; I’m not on the Education and Workforce Committee—I thought, “I wonder where in the bill it will talk about this federation of Otago Polytechnic with the Open Polytechnic.” So I go to what will be new section 323, inserted by clause 22, and it is under the subheading, “Federation of Polytechnics”. It says, “Requirement to work in federation.” Then it says, “This section applies to (a) each polytechnic specified under section 315(3)(b) as an anchor polytechnic;” and then “each polytechnic designated under section 339 as a federation polytechnic”.

So then if you go looking for those sections, I go back to new section 315(3) and it just says, “An order may specify either or both of the following: (a) the region or regions served by the polytechnic (b) whether the polytechnic is an anchor polytechnic.” So it doesn’t give me the name of those polytechnics. So nowhere in this bill does it tell us about the Minister’s decisions that have been well publicised.

Then we look at what it is that the role of an anchor polytechnic is, and that is at what will be new section 337, and it must “provide the relevant services that the Federation Committee considers necessary to give effect to the purposes of the federation.”, and then it goes on. My point here is that we have heard over and over from the other side of the House that this is somehow all about local control. But I ask you, for Otago Polytechnic, how is it possibly about local control when it is not that anchor polytech? That anchor polytech is the Open Polytechnic, I’m told, because those names aren’t actually mentioned in this bill. So that seems to be going totally at odds to what all the Government members have said. I wonder if that is just because of their general dark approach on Dunedin, whereby the hospital where they promised to build a bigger and better one than what Labour promised; they just put it on hold for over a year. We have a wonderful medical school and now there’s going to be another one at Waikato trying to take areas where Otago students study.

So it seems that this Government is down on Dunedin, it is down on jobs, and we’ve had reports in the Otago Daily Times that the polytech might have to decrease their land area by 60 percent. This is a shameful bill and it’s terrible for Dunedin.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Education and Training (Vocational Education and Training System) Amendment Bill. This bill is returning autonomy to the regions, as has been described, but also setting up a very useful system to allow for federation, which will keep long-term sustainability, it will enable cost-effective delivery, and it will be a very useful system. I commend the bill to the House.

Just reflecting on some of the comments that I’ve heard here this evening about thinking that this is going to give long-term sustainability, when there are no financials. There has been advice that has been given that this is going to put the polytech sector in, perhaps, a worse state than what it was, which was one of the reasons, back when it became Te Pūkenga, when the Government made that decision, that we wanted to see viability of the sector, because there was no viability back then. It was going backwards.

I’m really disappointed in some of the arguments that I’m hearing here tonight, that this is going to see local decision-making. Local decision-making is already happening. What it means for local decision-making is that courses are being cut, whole sites are being cut. How can that side of the House sit there when you’ve got the likes of Tokoroa, who are going to lose their whole site? A Government who has sat blindly on the side of seeing absolutely massive cuts in jobs in that town, watching a whole town become an absolute ghost town—that is on that Government.

Now, after we hear the cuts that are happening in the polytechs sector because of the changes that that side of the House are making, we are hearing that they are taking even more away from a town like Tokoroa. It’s not only Tokoroa; look at Rotorua, look at Taupō, where jobs are being cut completely from Toi Ohomai, an area that that side should be standing up for and saying, “Hey, what’s going on here?” But, no, they’re not. They sit there, and they sit really quiet currently about it because they know that what they are doing here, with this piece of legislation, is actually shameful for the sector—absolutely shameful. They refuse to admit that the sector was on a really good run because we were getting decisions made that went beyond local cost-saving measures, as to what has to happen now.

When you see the cuts that are being made in Rotorua, when you see the cuts that are being made in Taupō, when you see the cuts that are being made in Tokoroa, and you see that those places are being hurt badly, they should be really hanging their heads in shame. It is happening across the country. The reason that I am speaking about those particular areas is that it comes under Toi Ohomai. When you see that only 11 percent of submitters on this bill were in full favour, there are big questions that need to be asked. There are questions about the cost of the transition of this. We hear very little about this, but we know from what’s been in the media recently that there has been a release of information that shows that this is going to cost a lot more than what they were absolutely telling us it was going to cost.

It seems that there is very little plan around this, and when we hear them standing up tonight and they’re saying that local decision-making is going to be at the heart of this, we know, from what we’re seeing coming out now through the Official Information Act, that that is just not right. That local decision-making is having to be made to cut costs, and that means that young people are going to be having less courses being put in front of them and less choice being made in that area.

My fear is that what we’re seeing here tonight is the start part of the death of vocational education in this country—what a shame. When we had countries, back in 2022 and 2023, such as China, who were coming out here saying, “What an amazing model. We are really interested in your model. We want to see it.” They signed memorandum of agreements. Do they know that? Do they know that China were looking to see and follow our example? No, they don’t, because they have not done their homework on what this—the model, the current model of Te Pūkenga—was actually doing in this country.

This is ideological, and I’m going to say that it’s going to be a failed experiment, and I will come back here and I will say, “I told you so.” Because Te Pūkenga might have had the slow start, but they cannot deny that it was on the right side of where it was moving to. They cannot deny that; the evidence was in the select committee submissions. I have gone through and read a whole lot of them, and people are very, very disappointed in what this Minister and what this Government is doing. This is an absolute atrocity for vocational education in this country.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. What’s been fascinating me as I rise to speak on the Education and Training (Vocational Education and Training System) Amendment Bill is the number of experts in this House on Northland. Yes, I know Northland is miles above the rest—and that’s fine; we can all accept that—but, suddenly, all these people know all about Northland. Let me tell you what’s happening in Northland and why these changes are so important for my region: we are looking to stand up a polytech that will be enduring, that will serve our region, and that will look after the people in the North. Because the locals know what they want, they’re going to stand it up. It will work. It will be much better than a Te Pūkenga. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think I might just start my contribution by responding to the MP for Northland, who’s making these massive promises to his region: I hope that you are going to be able to deliver on them. The member for Northland said, in an RNZ article, that the Government has no intention whatsoever to close NorthTec, and he promises that. When there are concerns about what courses are going to be offered, how many students they are going to have—all the different options, all the different campuses—he deflects from those, doesn’t answer any of those questions, and quickly starts talking about how that’s an operational matter. I reckon they’re going to get tied up in a whole lot of semantics, to be able to explain—

Tell us the plan!

Yeah, that’s right; I thought we were going to hear the plan. No plan—no plan, Mr Speaker. One of the concerns that we have is that, in this process, only 11 percent of the submitters supported this proposal. There is no support for this proposal, and there is good—

Rubbish!

You said 11 percent!

11 percent, sorry; 11 percent of the submitters. Oh, sorry, Mr Speaker, I’d better correct that statement. There was 11 percent support for this.

If I could just read a few headlines, some stakeholder commentary, for the other side of the House: the Tertiary Education Union—and watch them roll their eyeballs, because they hate it whenever we say the name “union” on this side of the House. But here, I’ll quote them: “Vocational Education announcement a disaster for regional Aotearoa”. What did they say in here? They said, “the only way the others have achieved standalone status is by slashing courses and jobs.” We know that this is the very issue that NorthTec is facing. I hope that MP returns to his people in the North when the courses are being slashed, when the land is being sold, and says, “This was in your best interests. This was the best thing to do. We had the best plan and the best alternative.”

BusinessNZ says, “Relevant Skills in Short Supply” and it has concerns about the legislation. Here’s the union again—they’ll hate this—“Supported learners carry the burden of the Minister’s delusion … describing [what is] high staffing levels as ‘abysmal’ ”. They’re not thinking about the human cost of this delusion. In fact, I actually think right from the beginning of this legislation, this was a campaign issue for the Minister. This has been a personal vendetta, and today, here we are, another step in the process of achieving the Minister’s goal of overturning—the flip-flopping. Who did that? The Minister did that. Who did that? That side of the House are the ones that are flip-flopping.

Here we have: “[This bill] will only further destabilise the provision of vocational education, as the bill provides no clarity on what the future of the sector looks like beyond closures and”—oh, another favourite of the other side—“possible privatisation. New Zealanders deserve better. They were promised regional autonomy but instead are having our tertiary providers hollowed out from within.”

I might also choose to quote my colleague, the spokesperson for tertiary and vocational, Shanan Halbert, who says that the reforms aren’t fixing anything. They do not fix the core issues for our polytechs, which is long-term financial viability, and now she is making it worse for Māori. He covered those in his contribution.

Here’s another one. Henry Cooke says, “Polytech reforms ‘risk work force’. Industry groups and the education sector have slammed the Government’s vocational education reforms, with one industry body saying they put the Government’s infrastructure programme at risk”.

Now, let me just turn to this: many submitters on the bill said, and we’ve heard it in the House tonight, that this is ideologically driven and it’s lacking clarity of purpose and a clear evidence base. They felt it reverses progress made under Te Pūkenga, and many also felt that their—

Regions know what’s best for regions, not Wellington.

Listen up: “Many also felt”—listen up.

No, don’t need to listen any more.

Oh, Mr Speaker, he’s not listening. “Many also felt there is no coherent plan or clarity regarding the functions of the new entity”. “Flawed” is another word that they use. There’s just article after article after article that I could quote—

Pick the ODT.

Ha, ha! Pick the region, pick the media outlet, pick the industry—they’ve all got criticisms because there is no clear plan. This is not delivering what the Minister was promising in terms of financial viability. It’s absent.

This bill does nothing to address the chronic funding challenges, putting polytechnics under greater financial pressure. There is no clear information about how much transitioning or reestablishing the politics is going to cost. In fact, we saw in yet another article, the RNZ article, that there’s an estimate of about $190 million, more than the total amount allocated to the Government for transition.

I’m really interested in the Industry Skills Boards (ISBs) because now the Minister of Education has suddenly created them a new job as well, because she wants to throw out NCEA, make a whole lot of subjects vocational only, and she wants the ISBs to be the ones who are going to develop that curriculum for all of those subjects. When we asked questions in the House, there’s no budget for that. When I ask questions of the Minister about what engagement she has had with the Minister for vocational training and tertiary, you’ve got the Minister of Education who did not even have a meeting with the Minister of Vocational Education about the role that ISBs are going to play in the replacement of NCEA. We have ISBs who are expected to do more work with half the funding of what the Workforce Development Councils had. I’m really worried, not only because of what is in this bill but because of the future role that these ISBs are going to have.

There are going to be more cuts. These reforms are taking vocational education backwards. As of last year, some 900 fulltime-equivalents, 500 programmes, and approximately 30 delivery sites have been cut—cut, cut, cut.

The industry is being shortchanged. The Hon Penny Simmonds promised the industry a stronger role and a more responsive vocational system. This is a broken promise, and the industry has spoken out strongly against these reforms. Did you hear that, Grant Rob—

Did you call him “Robertson”?

Yeah, almost Grant “Robertson”—Grant McCallum, did you hear that? The industry has spoken out against these reforms.

Read it like you mean it.

Did you just arrive? Oh, sorry, have you been here the whole time? Anyway, that member obviously wasn’t listening to my last part of the contribution, which is that you have two Ministers in the same Government not even having a meeting about fundamental changes. You’re in the same party and you didn’t even have a meeting, and you have the nerve to attack me?

The Minister has promised so much in terms of these reforms, but the information just isn’t even there. We can’t see the plan. We can’t see how they’re going to be financially viable. We, on this side of the House, are all concerned about the impact that this is going to have in our regions.

I look over to that side of the House, to MPs in parts of regional New Zealand: how can you stand by this decision? They know it is going to lead to job cuts, to cuts to courses, to the sale of land that we won’t be able to get back, and they’re just agreeing with their Minister and saying that this is going to be a great thing and promising. But I will be holding you accountable.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Te Pūkenga was a failed Labour experiment. Big Brother. Centralisation. It resulted in $300 million going down the gurgler—$300 million down the Labour fiscal drain. It’s a bit like KiwiBuild, really. This bill brings polytechs back to the community, puts the “local” back in local, is community-led, focused on community needs, and enables viability into the future. I commend this bill.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. It’s been really fascinating to sit here and listen to the debate this evening. One thing I want to reflect on, being a Labour member based in Taranaki, where we have our polytechnic of WITT, the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki, is that we get things thrown at us around “It was all about centralisation. We were all just fraternising with centralising everything and bringing everything to Wellington. It’s all about Wellington.” Well, I’m assuming most of the members know that the head office for Te Pūkenga actually is in the Waikato, in Hamilton. It’s not about bringing everything back to Wellington, like we’ve been talking about; it’s actually about it being out in the regions.

It was fascinating to be in the early stages last term when Te Pūkenga was first floated and the concept of it. Again, being the MP for New Plymouth at the time and having this amazing meeting—

They didn’t like the idea, did they? They threw you out.

Yeah, thank you. They threw me out. It’s hilarious. I’m laughing too.

I met with the CEO at the time and met with the leadership team of WITT, and they were the first polytech in the country to actually come out supporting it and going, “We are not financially viable.” They were very clear about that. They came out in support of Te Pūkenga. In fact, they’ve been bailed out twice by the Government over the last 20 years. This is one of the many polytechs that have failed in the past and are going to fail in the future. As I reflect on those conversations and what WITT said to me, and on the conversations they had with the Minister and what it was when the possibility of what this could do, the possibility of what, actually, it would mean to work across the nation to find opportunities and possibilities to specialise in areas, it was around how we actually prop up something that is broken. We’ve probably, actually, got to pull it apart and start again, which we did.

There were green shoots of hope coming through, but it’s all been cancelled under this legislation. I want to come back—and it was mentioned by my colleague Shanan Halbert—to some of the information in the departmental report. If you want to listen really carefully, the Ministry of Education, in terms of their reflections on this legislation, wrote about the overall affordability of these changes that we’re talking about tonight. Listen to this: “high-level concerns regarding the financial viability of the system and how costly the reforms will be, and this includes the lack of financial modelling, cost-benefit analysis, and funding plan for transition, and concern regarding insufficient capital to support the transition.” This is the Ministry of Education. These are the pen pushers and the people with their calculators actually doing the numbers and going—

Where are the numbers?

Where are the numbers? We’ve got nothing else to go on. They go on to say that, with the way this is legislated, there are “no legislated supports for financially viable polytechnics attempting to stand on their own post-disestablishment.” There’s no clarity on how regional institutes will be sustainably funded.

Again, it’s this whole wonderful concept of “Let’s just pull it apart and get rid of it because it was a Labour thing.” But, actually, where are the financials? Where are the numbers? They always talk about being the best managers of the numbers, but we can see, in this departmental report, that they are not. They talk about the regional campuses being cut and the financial risk is being offloaded to communities that are already under-resourced. The regional campuses are being cut, and the financial risk is being offloaded to communities that are already under-resourced.

Members of the Government should be concerned and worried about this piece of legislation that they’re probably going to vote for tonight. When you look at what the officials, what the numbers people, are saying, they’re saying, “This isn’t financially viable. We don’t even know the numbers.” It’s just pie-in-the-sky stuff.

Finally, they had concerns regarding the loss of small yet high-value programmes and the lack of dedicated or flexible funding mechanisms that protect and sustain these. We look at some of the outdoor education institutes that have been caught up in this. If you look at the West Coast of the South Island, the challenge here is the fact that these are programmes that take in so many of our young people who are transitioning out of school or are NEETs—not in education employment or training—coming into places like outdoor education where they find a future in the tourism industry or they find a future in rafting, but that is all in jeopardy because this Government is not managing the numbers, they’re not managing the books, and this doesn’t work.

I present a legislative statement on the Building and Construction (Small Stand-alone Dwellings) Amendment Bill.

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

I move, That the Building and Construction (Small Stand-alone Dwellings) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

It takes too long and it is too expensive to build in New Zealand. So it’s a real privilege to be delivering the second reading speech on behalf of my colleague, the Hon Chris Penk, who’s doing fantastic work for all the grannies across New Zealand with the “Granny Flat Bill”, as it’s been colloquially called.

Didn’t you get the memo? We’ve stopped calling them granny flats.

Oh, I’ve got to start calling it the “Granny and Grandpa Flat Bill”. We should, absolutely, we need to be far more inclusive in our language when it comes to this piece of legislation.

I thought I was getting jokes from the other side about Building and Construction (Small Stand-alone Dwellings) Amendment Bill and I thought we were going to comment on my height instead, but no, they decided not to find that as funny, like I did.

Anyway, as I said, it takes too long and it’s too expensive to—

It would be good if your side exercised the same restraint all night, throughout.

The same restraint as I expressed myself. As Chris Penk has previously stated in the House, it is around 50 percent more expensive to build a stand-alone house in New Zealand than in Australia. We know that increasing housing supply and availability helps lower living costs for our communities and that is why this coalition Government, through the National - New Zealand First coalition agreement—can I just acknowledge the New Zealand First Party for putting this into the coalition agreement and committing us to make it faster and more affordable to build granny flats and grandpa flats. These simple dwellings, while small, have an important role in providing families—

And flatmate flats.

Flatmate flats—there we are; thank you, I look forward to the Labour Party’s support as well—have an important role in providing families with more housing options, particularly for grandparents, people with disabilities, young adults, and the rural sector workers.

I’d also like to acknowledge Andy Foster, who was the chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, and I look forward to his judicious speech shortly, which will go into the detail of the bill, the submissions, and the changes that he made as the chair. I know that he guided that committee incredibly well, listening in detail to the submitters and making sure that everything that they had to say has been now reflected in the report and to improve the workability of this piece of legislation.

One of the biggest changes, I think, is that these small houses got bigger. They’re now 65 to 70 square metres and I think that’s fantastic. That’s all part of the great work that Andy Foster and the team have been doing.

Look, there a number of really important changes, though, making sure that we can get rid of some of the bureaucracy. Things like a project information memorandum, or PIM, making it easier to process; clarifying key phrases, defining them—that’s actually really important legislative work that the select committee’s been doing because, ultimately, we want to make sure this bill is effective, is easy for builders, for homeowners, for landowners to be able to use. Once this is legislated, I’m sure there are people up and down the country who can’t wait to give effect to the changes.

This is one of the most popular pieces of legislation, I think, that this Government is implementing. I know how many people in my electorate come up to me and talk to me about this piece of legislation, and how excited they are, so I just want to say thank you to the select committee for all of the incredibly important changes you’ve made.

The select committee also recommended that a new section is inserted to ensure that implied warranties, which are an existing consumer protection mechanism under the Building Act, continue to be applied, because, of course, we also need to make sure that we are protecting consumers, protecting those people who will become the owners of these properties, as well.

Lastly, several changes have been made to Schedule 1A of the bill, which sets out that the building design conditions for consent exempt granny flats. Again, that’s all part of making it more efficient. I hear the member for the ACT Party saying we could liberalise things more, but I just appreciate the spirit of the coalition in terms of getting this piece of legislation through.

In conclusion, the committee’s recommendations offer sensible changes to the bill that stay true to its intent while also addressing reasonable concerns by submitters. I’m confident these changes will not only improve its workability for building owners and qualified tradespeople but we’ll also make clear that councils are protected from liability for building work they have not assessed.

I believe the bill will reduce the barriers to building in New Zealand and unlock productivity in the construction sector—and, boy oh boy, we need productivity in this country. These changes will increase the supply of affordable housing options and provide Kiwis with more choices.

Once again, I’d like to thank the Transport and Infrastructure Committee for their hard work on the bill, to those who’ve taken the time to submit, and on that basis, I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Wow! This is surely needed; good news for builders. Can we all agree around the House that that is something to be supportive of, and Labour does support this bill. We have worked very closely at select committee, and I also want to share the Minister’s acknowledgment of chair Andy Foster over something that should be cross-partisan. Everyone can look at this and say there is merit to be found here; that, for most New Zealanders, when they are looking to build a flat at the back of their home for—it might be an older person in their family, it might be a teenager, it might be to be able to rent it out as accommodation, whatever it is, making that easier. At a time when the building sector is crying out for work, it’s on its knees, and we desperately need more housing, this is a sensible change that we need to work through.

We are working at pace here with this legislation. There will be things that we come back to in this legislation because they do not work in the way that they are intended to. There are unintended consequences to be found here. We do not know what they are, because we are working through a system where the Government introduced this, took it to select committee, submitters had a limited period of time in which they were able to raise issues from both the building industry and from local councils. But we didn’t really hear from homeowners, because they are not resourced to give those kinds of submissions in the select committee process, and so we will not know how this has a long-term impact on not only consumers and household owners who are affected by this but also for their insurance and for their banks. How this will play out in our housing market is simply unknown.

We think that there will be 13,000 more dwellings because of this legislation, and that is a good thing. We have engaged in the process of making this law on that basis, that this will be an incremental change in the way that housing is provided, that that will be spread around the country in a relatively even way with some more of the benefits felt in Auckland, but we don’t know that. There are a lot of questions that remain unanswered here, and so I also look forward to the other speeches that will highlight some of the issues which are still being worked through the system, especially the new changes around making these things larger. Some of the things that we have worked through around the way that the council process will work remain untested ground for how this policy might play out for ordinary New Zealanders.

The risks here were raised with the committee over and over again—things like the way that hazards and stormwater might be dealt with on properties where people are building these properties without what you might expect in New Zealand for the kind of compliance checks. Also raised with us over and over again was the need for compliance with the Building Act and to make sure that our normal processes and regulations are followed, simply so that future owners of those properties can have confidence in the building work that has been undertaken and have the right sort of documents. You know, it’s not unnecessary paperwork; it’s just something to help them be able to get lending from a bank, insurance from an insurer, keep their costs down, and make sure they can live in the building safely. Those are simple, sensible things that New Zealanders will write to us, the select committee, about and which, frankly, we have not been able to get to the bottom of.

There are also some missed opportunities here, I would say. Submitters raised with us a slate of concerns, ranging from being able to use this bill to address some of the unaddressed issues for utilities companies—say, lines companies in connections to power—that are still unaddressed. There is also the issue of what a “simple design” is. It’s pretty unusual for primary legislation like this to set out what a simple design might be and what the features of those simple designs are. But in New Zealand, that is because we don’t have—like, say, many Australian state Governments or the UK system—a sort of book of designs for these sorts of simple builds that people can expect to have signed-off quickly and for there to be a very low administrative burden when they are building. In the UK, for instance, the UK Government Architect is a longstanding system which is part of that system of simplifying designs and of bringing down costs. This is not something that’s a feature of the legislation but that came up as something for the select committee to consider, and we were not able to progress further.

Having said that, I think some of the innovations here that are really worth looking at and are making—it is on all of us that we keep a watching brief of how this will work. The project information memorandums—this will be a pretty different system to how those operate now. The intention of those is not to be a final check, but they will operate, in a sense, in the way that they will be councils’ most active ability to be able to set out requirements with homeowners, and also to collect fees. They will work in a completely different way to the way they do now. That is probably the right system, but, again, we’re going to have to work this through with councils, because if there are certain councils around the country that see the numbers of these very much increasing—and we had some very good questions from National members at the select committee about what will happen if councils see lots of these or lots of these on one property, or certain landlords using lots of these in their properties in a way that councils can’t plan for and does actually create a burden on infrastructure for those councils—what is the mechanism for addressing that? Those are sensible questions. We don’t know; we haven’t answered those questions. This is legislation which we are passing in good faith, but it is something that we will need to be very clear with councillors about, that we are listening, we are open to feedback from the industry on this, and that we want this to work.

After outlining those concerns, it’s probably important for me to outline why the Labour Party is supporting this. We are supporting this because housing is critically important to people, and anything that will bring down the cost of housing is something we will be working hard to find the merit in, and this is one of those. New Zealanders need different options for housing. They need to be able to have different building options as well as greater density options in their cities. We want people to be able to enjoy their land and be able to build on it in the way that they want to, and to be able to provide for their kids, for other generations of their family—all of those things are good in this bill.

The concerns are that we need to have high standards in our buildings in New Zealand. They need to be safe, they need to be dry, they need to be designed in a way which people can have confidence in in the future. Whether that balance is struck here is the question that remains for us. But overall, with the help of the submitters, I think we have got to a relatively even-handed place. There are a number of amendments in this bill tonight, because the committee has worked very closely not only on those submissions but with officials who were assisting with this. Because, again, acknowledging that they were working at pace, that this was legislation that they needed to also work through that public consultative process with.

I also want to speak to the possibility here for some of those large home builders to make a real difference in the provision of housing from these sorts of regulations. There is a real hope and intention that the builders who build homes at scale will also be able to use these rules to offer sort of standardised products, particularly in the cities where there is a real demand for housing and housing growth and smaller housing, and for that to be rolled out quickly and effectively. That will depend on, though, the economy turning a corner and us having a pipeline of people who can build those small dwellings, and that’s something that there are real questions about.

When you look at the enabling possibilities of this legislation, you also have to ask yourself: do we have the workforce there ready to go? Do we have the building sector that is ready to pick up this work? And there remain real questions around that. You know, we’ve seen 20,000 jobs in building and construction gone since the day of the election. We’re also seeing more and more young New Zealanders who could be taking up those opportunities and building apprenticeships and getting into building, from whatever walk of life they are from, either leaving our shores—200 young New Zealanders a day—or not able to get into those jobs in building and construction. It’s very common for young people, at least in my electorate in South Auckland, to be assisted into the building and construction sector through the various Government supports available, like being able to get your forklift ticket, being able to get your tickets for the use of heavy machinery, being able to upskill while you might be on the jobseeker benefit, or through one of the programmes that Government supports.

There is a real question now, with the Government’s introduction of policy around how young people, particularly 18- and 19-year-olds, will be able to realise those supports, about what supports the building and construction sector will have when it needs to rapidly up its workforce and get more and more young New Zealanders into those jobs, unless we have rapid change in the immigration settings, that see more offshore builders being able to come in to fill those. There are questions here about how we will use this. We will be watching it, but Labour supports this still.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I just want to start by saying that the Green Party sees housing as a human right, and it is vitally important that the Government is taking effective action to increase the supply of healthy, secure, affordable housing. That’s really important, and I’d say that this Government has kind of done the opposite, really, by cancelling a bunch of State homes that would have been built over the last few years that would have helped address the housing shortage but also would have kept builders and construction companies employed during this time. When you take away one of the biggest levers the Government has to address housing quality and housing supply—that is, through direct provision through the public building of homes, which is what most countries do, because there will always be a section of the market that will not be met. There will always be a section of housing—people who need housing—that will not be met by the private market.

Secondly, this bill definitely won’t address the housing crisis. I’m all for making Government regulation work better, particularly resource consents and building consents, to deliver what we want. It hasn’t; it’s not good at the moment. Our building code is, actually, wholly insufficient, and we will be facing another issue of something similar to the leaky buildings over the next 10 or 20 years. There’s a big question about who is going to pay for that when our building code hasn’t been up to scratch. Even with the building consent process, we haven’t had good building techniques that are delivering structures that will last longer and not be subject to black mould.

I have a constituent—a young person—who asked for a meeting in my electorate. He was particularly concerned to speak to his local MP because he is in the unfortunate position of having bought a home at the peak of the market and so now has more debt than what the house is worth. He went to do some really minor repairs that had been planned and found out, through trying to do those minor repairs, that there’s substantial damage to the frame of the building. It’s not a really old building; it was built in the last 20 years. This sort of thing is going to be happening all over the place, but there isn’t that same support that we had for the leaky homes. That cost councils a fortune, and that was the outcome of the last time the Government decided to massively deregulate the building sector in order to, supposedly, achieve productivity, make it cheaper, make it easier to build more homes. There can be quite substantial costs to not doing things well, and we will face them at some point down the line.

The regulatory impact statement on this bill, which was developed quite quickly—because it was just one of those election promises that, unfortunately, gets prioritised in a coalition Government—didn’t have the benefit of the Public Service doing the work before the election to say this is really the best way to address the problem. I think that all New Zealanders want to address the problem. As the previous speaker Arena Williams said, I think all parties in this Parliament want to see better-quality housing and a better supply of housing, delivered at a better price for people, so that they can afford to live—but we don’t want that to be done in an “election slogan” way of what sounds good on the hustings but has no data or work done behind it to say that this is actually the problem we’re facing and this is the best way to solve it. It would be good if we had a longer-term process leading up to this, because, if you look at the regulatory impact statement, it does say that it was developed in haste because it was part of the coalition agreement. We don’t have good information, as Arena Williams said.

The select committee made some minor tweaks to the bill. I love our select committee, I think it’s very constructive, but we didn’t have a full process on this bill. It was a shorter process and, ultimately, the scope of what the select committee can consider is very narrow because it’s within the bill that has been proposed. It doesn’t look wider to say, “Is this the biggest problem that we have to solve, and is this the best way to address it?” I’m just saying, although the select committee might have made minor improvements, ultimately, I don’t think the process that we’ve gone through as a country to deliver this particular piece of legislation is necessarily the best one.

It’s pretty simple: the dwelling must be simple in design, it can be up to 70 square metres, it must meet the building code, the building work must be done by authorised professionals, and councils have to be notified before and after construction. There’s still going to be a cost to that. If we want to have some sort of enforcement of standards, we need a public authority whose job it is to collect that information and then to ensure—otherwise, what do we do? We’re leaving it to the courts and the insurance market to sort out. I think one of the issues that we didn’t get a lot of advice about on the select committee, and which will probably be an issue, is that in saving the building consent costs, are we just going to see increased costs to insure dwellings like this? That’s entirely possible. We might not actually be solving the problem.

From the regulatory impact statement, it’s estimating approximately 7,800 additional granny flats—maybe the numbers are up a little bit. Arena Williams said 13,000; the number I have is more like 8,000. This is a tiny number of additional dwellings. For a lot of people, this won’t be their primary dwelling; it’ll just be a spare room or an Airbnb thing they can rent out for short-term rentals. We’re dreaming if we think this is addressing the housing crisis. That said, look, we absolutely support the bill’s intent to make it easier for people to create small, high-quality homes on existing properties. If we can actually improve the building code and properly resource authorities and take the liability away from councils, I think we would get better outcomes.

I speak to a lot of professionals in the building and construction sector who are very experienced, delivering much better, more energy efficient, higher quality buildings in other jurisdictions—like in Germany, in British Columbia, also in the UK—and they are quite frustrated, when they come to New Zealand, that they can be proposing something that’s going to work far better than the building code but, because it’s not an acceptable solution defined in the Act, councils have some reluctance to give them the building consent for it. That’s ridiculous. If we’re going to have a building code and if we’re going to have consent authorities, we should be making it easier to do the things that get better outcomes. That’s the big win-win that we could have in Aotearoa New Zealand. We don’t have to completely reinvent the wheel. I admit that in Wellington we might have a windier and damper environment than most places where people live around the world, and that does put a certain strain on buildings, but, if you go to parts of British Columbia or coastal parts of Ireland or Canada, it would probably be somewhat comparable. We don’t have to completely reinvent the wheel.

We heard that targeting engagement in 2024 showed strong support from Māori for the intent of this bill. I totally understand that. Self-determination of tangata whenua to be able to build on their own land is important, and anything we can do to enable and support that is a good thing. I just want to ensure, and the Green Party wants to ensure, that we are properly resourcing builders to have the know-how, knowledge, and tools they need to build good dwellings and that the social support system is there to support people so that you don’t have the situation where you’re having to pay a fortune for insurance or you find out your building is defective and it turns out the building company went into liquidation, so you can’t sue them. Who is going to help people when things go wrong? That’s why I think we need a much broader improvement to our building and construction sector that could actually address productivity, that could actually increase housing supply in a substantial way, and that could lift the quality of what we’re building and bring down the cost of the materials and the techniques that are needed to build energy efficient, healthy buildings that have proper ventilation, so we don’t get this problem with black mould, so we don’t get the problems that we see so often in Aotearoa.

There’s lots of potential. In this particular bill, the specific improvements around liability and around requiring the right information to be provided to the council—all of that is fine. I think the jury is still out. The Green Party supports the intent of the bill. We won’t oppose the bill, but we are putting it very clearly on the record what our concerns are longer term and that fundamentally the slogan of cutting red tape is not the panacea that the Government wants it to be. We have to make much more substantial improvements. That is the role of the public sector, of the Government doing this together, working with communities and builders and everyone else, to actually lift our performance, because we all stand to benefit when we have more environmentally friendly, energy-efficient, healthy buildings.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, I’ve spent years on the tools. I’ve seen—

Which type of tools?

Well, farm implements, but mostly construction tools as a carpentry qualified builder. I’ve built small buildings, I’ve tried to put them in backyards, dealt with the massive amount of issues that come up with councils that genuinely don’t want this to happen. That’s how it feels when you’re on the side of people actually trying to build things in New Zealand. It feels like a non-stop battle.

This is a common-sense change. It’s something that’s talking about trusting tradespeople, trusting people to design houses that fit their needs on their land, providing homes that provide something that’s designed for their family, whether it’s a granny, a grandpa, a koro, an uncle, a parent, a kid, anybody—someone who you might want to rent a building out to. This is what we are trying to achieve here.

Look, I just want to talk about a couple of things before Suze Redmayne drags me down to sit down. She builds everybody up; she always wants me to sit down. The people are going to ask: what is a PIM—project information memorandum—and why do we have it in this piece of legislation? The reason is because a PIM provides the information about the site that a building is going to be built on. So that’s one benefit: it’s going to tell the people who are designing a project, the clients that are interrogating whether they’d like to do one, what sort of ground that they are actually trying to land a building on. For the builders, it gives certainty about the project. It gives accuracy about the costs that are involved. It means that can be planned properly. For councils—and this is the important part—it’s a way for councils to keep an eye on what’s being built in their area. The reason we’ve gone with a PIM instead of a certificate of acceptance or other such accreditation is because a PIM is just a way of letting a council know.

The councils are not there to be a blocking mechanism. This is something that the Transport and Infrastructure Committee had to work quite hard on. I’m going to say something that builders and developers who have dealt with this will understand, but the section 71 in the Building Act, it’s an infamous section. It’s used in the same way I’m sure many members of this House will recognise the term RFI—request for information. These are the sort of things that have got in the way of people trying to build in New Zealand. It’s meant that there’s been a loss of trust between the industry, the people operating in it, and the councils.

I think we really do need to see councils taking the spirit that this bill is intended, not finding ways to delay things being built because they don’t want to see it built. I’m trying to get across the feeling of separation between the players in the industry, but there is a way forward. Councils can use things that already exist in the Building Act. Section 72 allows councils to grant consent for building. Section 67 allows councils to take a liberalised view of a project and allow something to happen. That’s what needs to happen. The committee spent a lot of time making sure we were covering all the different ways that a council might wiggle out of allowing something to happen. For example, backflow valves on pipes and waste water, trying to make sure that councils don’t find a way to get into the site.

The reason I wanted to say that was to make sure that it’s on record that there does need to be a level of trust developed, and that is what this olive branch is trying to do. To the previous speaker’s point, this is far from a fix, but it is a part of a solution. But we do need to go a lot further to fix one of New Zealand’s greatest challenges, and that is the costly and complicated housing crisis. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

It’s a pleasure to rise to speak to this bill as the chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. I just want to start off by saying thank you to the Minister for the generous comments he made at the beginning. I say thank you also to all the committee members for the way in which this was collegially worked through, and we got to a unanimous view which was really, really appreciated. Thanks also to the officials who provided us a lot of good information and to our 171 submitters.

This bill delivers on a part of the coalition agreement. It was something that New Zealand First specifically campaigned on, so we are delighted that we’re now actually able to deliver this campaign promise. This is part of—and it’s only a part—a response to the housing challenges that we face. It’s about reducing the time and the cost of delivery of warm, dry homes.

Now, I want to respond to a couple of the things that the Hon Julie Anne Genter mentioned, because the example she gave us was that of a person in a 20-year-old house. Now, that house would have been subject to a building consent, and, obviously, something has gone wrong with that process, that building consent, when something is actually wrong with that house. And what’s more, that building certainly would not be a building which will fall under this regime regardless, because this regime is quite clearly about simple stand-alone single-story—no mezzanines—buildings complying with the Building Act and also delivered by licensed building professionals and other licensed practitioners—electricians, gas fitters and so on. So that building that she was talking about would not have met the requirements of this piece of legislation.

One of things this bill does is it takes the councils’ role and changes it from, as we’ve just heard from our resident builder, the certificate of compliance process where the councils are actually on the hook for liability, and that is a real problem for councils. If you want to know why councils are really risk-averse, it’s because when something goes wrong, they get it in the neck and it’s a cost directly to the councils. As the Mayor of Wellington and actually as councillor before that, I was in the position of starting to talk to officials, and Government officials were saying, “You want our building consent authority—here it is because it’s just a liability for us.” I must say, I don’t think the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment officials were particularly keen to see that happen because the building consent process is a liability for councils. So this bill simply puts the councils in the position of being a provider of information and then a keeper of that information once the building is constructed. It also gives them the ability to be able to collect development contributions.

The other bit the councils have a responsibility to do is to make sure that if there are connections to utilities—which often there will be; not always but often there will be connections to stormwater, waste water, etc., systems—those things are done properly. It is absolutely critical that that is done. We don’t want them interfering in the building process itself but the connection to services is absolutely essential because if you get that wrong, the costs of finding it and fixing it are immense.

The other area the councils are going to need to be involved in is the whole area of foundations, the connection to the land itself. This started off talking about 60 square-metre buildings. After consultation—there was consultation before the legislation was introduced—it was raised to 70 square metres. I just want to say we’ve heard some comments made, particularly by Julie Anne Genter, about the quality of the homes.

Now, I would invite anybody, particularly if you go to field days, to go and talk to a lot of the building providers there—go and see what it is that they’re doing. And I think you’ll find a lot of reassurance about the quality of the buildings that they’re producing. Also, they are not one-offs. They are doing repeated jobs, and I’ve actually visited some of them at their factories as well. What is happening is at the moment they are getting inspected on every single building, paying the cost for every single building, even though they’re all the same, and who wears that cost? That cost is worn by the consumer. So we want more affordable homes. Some of them actually said, “Well, why don’t we just inspect one out of every 20 because it’s actually good for us as well as the building provider, but not every single one of them.” So this is about making a more sensible approach to reducing the cost of building of housing.

If we want to get the cost of housing down, we actually have to get the cost of building down. We could crash the market, but all you do by crashing the market is put people off actually building new houses because the cost of building a new house then becomes less than the value you can get for selling that house because existing houses are worth more than the new houses.

Just to finish off, there were a couple of other things which we did raise. Arena Williams made a very good speech, but there were there were a number of things—and I thank her for her contribution at the select committee—about the definitions of a building. There are three or four pages in Schedule 1 of all the component parts of what makes a complying building for this piece of legislation, so I think we’ve answered that particular issue.

There are two last things I want to pick up. I already talked about the connections to utilities but there’s the issue around safe electrical distances. This was almost an amusing one but we did put it in there because we listened very carefully to the submitters. The electrical industry said that what we don’t want to do is have a situation where you actually literally have the electrical wires right outside this small new stand-alone building so that people could reach out of their bedroom window and touch them. We said, no, we’re not going to have that—we have to say that in building these buildings you have to have comply with those electrical regulations as well.

I think we’ve done a good job collectively as a team. I want to again thank the submitters and the select committee, and I commend this bill to the House.

The next call is a split call. I call Tamatha Paul

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Granny flats—interesting little concept there. I just want to appreciate the work that different parties and different members have done to bring this to the House. Obviously, I think it’s pretty well acknowledged that we are in a housing crisis. There are lots of people who are waiting for homes on the public housing wait-list. There is increasing homelessness and rough sleeping across the country. Overcrowding is a big issue in this country as well within housing.

We know that there’s a crisis—a catastrophe, you might call it—and I think the important piece to understanding that crisis is understanding that there are lots of different solutions to that as well. There isn’t one big silver bullet that’s going to fix the housing crisis, but many different solutions coming together. I appreciate that this bill is identifying one solution that might work for some people, and, as submitters have said—particularly those in multigenerational families who might want to have a granny flat for their kids, or maybe for their grandparents or a family member to come and stay in that granny flat—that’s definitely not a bad thing.

One thing that this bill made me think about is that a lot of this Government’s solutions and responses to the housing crisis are often around planning—and I get why. When I was on Wellington City Council with Andy Foster, we made lots of changes to the district plan because we needed to—because we needed to enable more housing in Wellington City, because it had been locked down for a really long time in a whole lot of rules and processes. I understand that planning plays an important part in enabling housing, which is why I went and studied planning, actually, and have a post-graduate degree in it.

The shortcomings or the limitations of planning is that it enables something, but it doesn’t necessarily make that thing a reality. There are still lots of other steps along the way that come after enabling things. That’s not to criticise this bill—it’s to say it’s a good first step, but there are probably other elements that we have to consider as well as to why it is that the construction sector has been the hardest hit by job losses. Why is it that people aren’t building? Is it because of council planning rules? Is it because the rules are too difficult to follow? Is it because of access to building materials? Is it because tradies can’t make a living on the work that’s available to them at the moment? Is it because major infrastructure projects have been cancelled, such as more than 3,000 State homes?

There are lots of different reasons, there are lots of different solutions, and I think understanding that this is a small part of the solution is important, but that we’ve also got to think about what next. This bill enables something; now how do we make those things a reality? Not just limiting ourselves to granny flats, how do we enable for truly multigenerational living if families want to renovate or make their homes bigger or more accessible for different generations living in their homes?

This bill is a good thing. We’re really happy that there are still some good safeguards within this bill that will require the dwelling to still meet the building code, for the work to be notified to council, and for those people that are building or constructing those granny flats to have the right authorisations, which is really important. There’s a lot of cowboy tradies out there. This is also important in the context of councils’ consenting systems because, at the moment, council consents are at the lowest they have been over the last seven years, and I think there’s a lot of different reasons for that, but this takes some of that out. We can definitely understand why those suspicions exist around this bill, particularly when we reflect on what happened during the leaky buildings crisis, when people weren’t building properly, they weren’t getting the right certification, and, obviously, that was disastrous for all of the people involved.

The other point I just wanted to raise at the end is that Andy Foster made some really good points about connection to utilities and about making sure that the power is connected in the right way, and it’s connected to the right water systems and stuff. I think that’s a really important point because we don’t want to be creating risks and potentially creating little situations where there are lots of fires, because, just to plug the firefighters, they do not get enough support from Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ). They do not even have aerial trucks—lots of them don’t have trucks in general, and won’t be able to come out and service the fires if they happen in these granny flats. Up the firefighters! FENZ need to stop mismanaging. Thanks.

It’s time we started saying yes to innovative solutions to our housing challenges. It’s time we started saying yes to easing planning restrictions and unshackling ourselves from the bureaucracy of local planning laws. That is what this bill seeks to do; it is a good bill.

I wish to thank members of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee for diligently working through this bill. We have made a number of changes. Those changes have been outlined and my colleagues have mentioned those changes around the project memorandum, the design plans and liability protections, and also the building requirements that will be required. So with that, I just wish to commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for this opportunity to speak on the Building and Construction (Small Stand-alone Dwellings) Amendment Bill. I’m interested in a couple of the words in that title that I just read out, and one of them is small. We’ve heard this bill referred to as the “Granny Flat Bill” and we’ve heard this word “small” a lot.

Of course, the size of the building is defined and, as we’ve heard, initially the policy position was going to be that it’s 60 square metres and now it’s 70 as the bill was introduced, and that hasn’t changed. So we can argue about whether or not it is small—70 square metres—but it’s certainly not tiny. It’s not a tiny home and it’s not as small as the flat that my husband’s grandmother lived in out the back of their house in Oamaru, which was a granny flat. So we are talking about fairly substantial buildings. At 70 square metres, it could be a small three-bedroomed home with one bathroom. So not tiny, is my point on “small”.

Then, of course, they’re “stand-alone”. So there are also—and I’ll come to them—some requirements that they’re a distance from the existing building and these buildings have to be new. We’ve heard that they’re just the one story, as well, and the Transport and Infrastructure Committee has added in a ban on mezzanines, which makes some sense given that they can only be 4 metres high.

That is the “small” in it, and they are dwellings. As we were discussing, when the Minister was speaking before, they’re not just for grannies, they’re not just for uncles, they’re not just for flatmates, they’re not just for smelly teenagers; I think these were all recommendations of who they might be for. They could be for a family, as well. These are proper houses—they can be proper houses—and they’re not tiny homes.

I want to start by going back to an earlier speech I made this evening about a totally different bill—related though—because it was about vocational training and of course the people that build these houses are trained in those great institutions. But this bill is not a flip-flop, and that is to be commended. It’s very good to see this Government doing something that isn’t flip-flopping. So, well done.

The process, however—good that it went to a select committee, this bill; that doesn’t happen nearly enough. But unfortunately the process was a bit shorter than the six-month process and we heard from some of the members of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee that it was rushed and that there are probably more rooms for improvement. So I do want the Government members to hear my call that I hope the Minister, the Hon Chris Penk—who I know takes this issue very seriously—does look at further improvements that can be made in the committee stage. The report back from the Transport and Infrastructure Committee had unanimous changes, and I’m sure all parties who have been involved in the select committee would take good faith changes in the spirit that they were delivered.

Now, talking of spirit, I note that one of the ACT Party contributions was talking about councils and how they should interpret the spirit of this legislation, and he used the phrase that he didn’t want to have the councils “wiggling out of”, I think, the spirit of the legislation. He complained about councils being too finickity. That was not his word; that’s my word.

Councils, as was described by an ex-mayor of a council, are held liable for substandard building work. So you can’t just say to councils, “Oh, it’s the vibe of the thing. We just want you to permit these things and we don’t want any paperwork or anything.” But then, “Council, if something goes wrong, you’re going to get sued and the ratepayers are going to have to pay for it.” That is not how the world works. So, councils, like any institution, are governed by the incentives around there, and there are some liability provisions in this, and it’s very good that those issues are thought through and that it is acknowledged that councils are creatures of statute and have to follow the statute. In building cases—well, in all cases—they have to follow the letter of the law. That is, they have no other choice; that is what they have to do. So, no vibes please.

I also want to note that this legislation, when it passes, only applies to the building consent aspect of the consents that you might need if you’re building a building. If you need a Resource Management Act provision, for instance, that is not covered by the bill that we’re talking about today. It is interesting that the commentary to the bill notes that the Resource Management Act component of allowing these small, stand-alone dwellings to not have to go through a consenting process is going to be done through a proposed National Environment Standards for Granny Flats that is expected to take effect by the end of 2025. That is a regulation made under the Resource Management Act, and I, again, make a plea to the people opposite me that they talk to their Minister about that and perhaps change the name away from “granny flats” and make it consistent with small, stand-alone dwellings. That is my suggestion.

There’s also some other permissions that might be needed. We see that the committee has made a change at clause 15, in what will be new section 42B. I’ll come to what this section does, in a moment. It says “To avoid doubt, building work, sanitary plumbing, and drainlaying undertaken in connection with a non-consented small stand-alone dwelling must comply with applicable requirements under other legislation or documents under that legislation (for example, the New Zealand Electrical Code of Practice for Electrical Safe Distances,”—I won’t give you the number— “unless the context otherwise requires.”

So there might be other permissions that are needed on top of whatever the Resource Management Act and various plans and potential environmental standards say; there might be other permissions that are also needed. I think it’ll be interesting in the committee stage to discuss what “unless the context otherwise requires” means, because, in this case, it is good that it’s very clear what is exempt from a consent process and what isn’t.

On that point, at clause 15 we have the new 42B, which is building work for which building consent is not required under Schedule 1A. I’ll come to Schedule 1A in the in a moment. We’ve heard that from some other speeches, and that sets out exactly what the exempt buildings are. The reference to it is in this section, but it’s interesting—and the Building Act, in the past, has exempt various buildings from needing a consent; this is not an unusual mechanism. This section refers back to the Schedule; if you meet the Schedule, then you can be exempt, except it is subject to the following conditions at subsection (3). So that is that it “complies with the Building Code to the extent required by this Act:”, and some other issues, but it also relates to hazards. It is important that hazards are not exacerbated by additional dwellings being built on sites that might be prone to flooding, for instance.

My only point on these hazard provisions are that they do introduce an element of discretion that goes against the political rhetoric of “everybody is going to be able to build one of these 70 square metre houses.” There are some constraints and they are important constraints. Whether or not that discretion has been thought through enough, I’m not sure; no doubt I will have some questions in the committee stage to ask about that.

I just want to quickly note: it is a shame that the small dwellings can have gas in them. This would be an opportunity to require electricity only, and also some other more ambitious building standards. But this isn’t where those things are done. I hope that the Government continues more work on this field, as Labour did with the Building (Building Products and Methods, Modular Components, and Other Matters) Amendment Act.

This bill represents a practical step forward in addressing housing affordability and accessibility. By simplifying the consenting process for small stand-alone dwellings, we are cutting red tape, supporting innovation, and enabling faster delivery of quality homes. It is a smart, balanced move to meet growing demand while maintaining safety and standards. I commend this bill to the House.

This is a split call—Reuben Davidson.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a privilege to take a small stand to speak to the Building and Construction (Small Stand-alone Dwellings) Amendment Bill. And a welcome back to this bill, that’s come back to the House from select committee. As other members have commented, it’s really good that a bill like this has been able to have scrutiny in that select committee process. By all accounts, from various members who have spoken about that process, it’s been a really productive and—no pun intended—constructive process at select committee.

The other note that I think we should look at here is the very welcome work that this will bring to our builders, our sparkies, our plumbers, and tradies across the country who have been facing real challenge and uncertainty with the number of projects being slowed or stopped. The uncertainty in the construction sector has meant that a lot of construction companies haven’t received the same levels of work that they would expect or that they had been used to expecting. So it is good to now see some level of certainty return for them.

Coming to the bill and what it does, we’ve heard a bit about the square metreage—the 70 square metres. In addition, the design must be simple, must meet the building code. The building work must be carried out by those authorised professionals—that’s those registered builders and sparkies and plumbers who need that work—and councils must be notified that the work has been completed. That’s really important too.

One of the things that is discussed a little in the assessment of the bill is some feedback from industry. I think it’s worth noting that at this point, this feedback came from Master Plumbers, and they talk about the suggestion that digital record-keeping should be required by trade policy professionals. I think that’s a good thing for us to focus on here because so much of the records that we’ve seen kept over time, and historically, around things like construction and building projects, have been kept in formats that are very hard to access, very hard to compare, and very hard to contrast, and because this bill has moved at pace, it does need to be closely monitored in its implementation.

Taking up the recommendation from Mr Wallace of Master Plumbers to ensure that digital tools are used to record the work and, therefore, be able to, at a national level, monitor what’s been built—it’s estimated 13,000 dwellings could be constructed over a 10-year period—I think it would be really good for any potential issues to be able to be identified and addressed as quickly as possible. We know that digital tools give us that ability for the level of oversight and the speed of assessment of the various data points that could be captured and collected. This also allows us to be far faster and more targeted at response when we see negative impacts through climate change and extreme weather events on these homes and dwellings. When people’s houses are damaged, we would be able to get a far better sense of the horizontal infrastructure that provides the services for those dwellings to make sure that it can be addressed and remediated as safely and quickly as possible.

I think at the heart of this, though, what we know is that we have a desperate need for housing in New Zealand and we need to see a range of options made available and this, potentially, can fill one part of the market. But I think it’s very important that it doesn’t come at the expense of creating warm, dry, and safe homes for New Zealanders, because every New Zealander deserves to have a warm, dry, and safe home. In the speed to see this construction and this legislation take place, we cannot lose the focus on making sure that all New Zealanders have a warm home that is safe and that is dry.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It really is a pleasure to rise and speak to the second reading of the Building and Construction (Small Stand-alone Dwellings) Amendment Bill. As I said in my first reading speaking, I’m really looking forward to how this is going to help the over 50 percent of migrants in my community now that we’ve got the parent visa up and running. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity to take one of the final calls tonight on the Building and Construction (Small Stand-alone Dwellings) Amendment Bill. I am a member of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, but didn’t sit on the committee when this bill went through, but heard plenty about it.

As has been said in the House tonight, Labour will be supporting this bill. We do have some reservations, as has been well traversed by all of our previous contributors. I think it’s important that we take the opportunity not only to talk about what the bill does, what we do like about the bill, but outline, again, why we have some issues with the bill—not so much in so far as some of the technical issues that have been well and truly outlined by my colleague Arena Williams earlier on, but also just taking some time to outline the fact that whilst there’s a huge problem in this sector and in housing in general, this is a very small piece of the puzzle and therefore a very small contribution that’s before us tonight.

We do agree with the fact that simplifying the rules for small stand-alone dwellings can help families. It can help them by adding space. It can help them by improving the flexibility in so far as the way that they conduct their living arrangements, including the flexibility for intergenerational living arrangements, which is becoming something that is perhaps more and more necessary, not just a choice—and a good choice it is to be made at the best of times, but a lived reality that many people find themselves in the situation of adapting to. Anything that we can do to make that easier and to make that simpler is something that we will support.

But that does not limit our ability to have some reservations and to have some caveats. Principally, this bill shouldn’t become, essentially, a Trojan horse for lowering building standards, leading to what is quite patently riskier construction practices if not done right. We’ve seen in Auckland and other places around the country, all too frequently, how severe weather and various events can be incredibly devastating, and certainly devastating to homes and houses, and therefore devastating to communities. In the spirit of increasing housing supply, which we all agree is incredibly necessary—and, also, not always simple; it requires several levers and several tools in the toolbox. But in the service of aiming toward that, we have to make sure that we’re not loosening those standards in a way that increases risk, because it’s really important. A home and a house isn’t just a financial investment; it’s people’s whole lives, and it’s not just financial risk involved in those adverse events or unforeseen circumstances, it’s risk to life and safety as well, which is incredibly important.

The bill, as has been said, will help some people build a small, self-contained unit for either a parent or a child or any whānau member, but we shouldn’t pretend it’s going to make a large dent in the housing supply. As my colleague the Hon Rachel Brooking said, 70 square metres is not a tiny house. Seventy square metres is relatively substantial, and it’s certainly—depending on where you live; certainly if you live in the middle of Christchurch or Auckland or Wellington, 70 square metres can be a well-designed home. It’s not the quintessential granny flat come shed out the back of the backyard that’s a bit of a make-do; it is a substantial dwelling and therefore needs to have those protections and the substantive thoughts and process around making sure that they’re safe.

Experts have already noted that the impact of this bill, of this piece of potential legislation, will be modest in so far as saving people perhaps a few thousand dollars and some paperwork—nothing to be sniffed at, absolutely, but it won’t solve our housing shortage, and that is really important. As Professor John Turkey pointed out, without building consents, authorities almost certainly will lose that robust oversight of how many new dwellings are being added and the pressure on local infrastructure. That’s something that we’ve heard mentioned tonight, but not in a huge amount of detail, and I think that’s worth repeating. It means that local government could be left managing not just stormwater but stormwater drainage and road capacity as things develop, with less information and fewer resources. That’s really important. Those are things that require management and require planning that can be difficult at the best of times without this added complexity, so I think that that is something, most definitely, to be mindful of as well.

The other overarching theme of the contributions that have been made tonight have taken the opportunity, whilst we’re talking about housing and whilst we’re talking about construction, to note—quite correctly—that the construction sector is in crisis, and it certainly is. This bill in itself is small, it’s a positive step, but it’s in the shadow of a much, much bigger problem. The National Government, as we’ve heard tonight, have made decisions that absolutely have caused a dramatic slowdown in new builds, and we’ve seen that manifest in various ways right across New Zealand.

Selling Albertson Ave.

Yup, exactly. If we look at the statistics that are readily available for anybody to check in to, specific statistics that were released in April this year show that 33,595 new homes consented in the year to February this year—February 2025—and that was down 7.4 percent from the year before. That’s huge when you start to quantify that, not only in terms of investment, not only in terms of the impact on the economy, but certainly in jobs as well. That is huge. It’s the worst February for home consents since 2012.

As we’ve talked about, the housing shortage in this country is something that everybody agrees is incredibly important, but it requires momentum. The previous Labour Government had built more houses, more social houses, for instance, since the 1970s, and to sit on this side of the House and watch all of that momentum disappear through what I believe to be poor decisions from the current Government—you can’t turn that ship around lightly. It’s really disheartening. This drop came straight after the Government stopped Kāinga Ora building houses and cut $1.5 billion from the public housing build and that maintenance fund as well.

Those houses aren’t just bricks and mortar; they are people’s lives. As my colleague Hon Rachel Brooking has managed to interject in many parts of her discourse today, her very prominent example where she comes from in Dunedin. Where I come from, there’s a single Kāinga Ora house in Lyttelton, for instance—one house, and they’re selling that, and the woman who’s lived there for 42 years has been unceremoniously told that, in her 70s, she has to leave. I think if this Government is hell-bent on divesting from the public good, public housing, it would have been much more preferable for them to get their own house in order before considering selling this single house that is actually quite life-destroying for the individual involved.

These cuts mean fewer homes, fewer jobs, and less capacity in our construction industry. When we think of the 20,000 construction jobs that have already been lost—which is 20,000 workers—we can only look at this particular bill, whilst we support it, being such a trivial, small step in the overall situation that we’re facing. It’s one thing to make it easier to build a granny flat, and we applaud that and we will be supporting it. It’s one thing to make it easier to whip up a small building in the backyard. It’s another to make sure that New Zealand still has the builders, the jobs, and the families with homes and communities that can certainly weather the next storm. Whilst the contributions from the other side tonight haven’t been very substantive and we haven’t gleaned much more information from that tonight, we now found ourselves at the end of this process. I commend the bill to the House.

This is a great bill. I commend it to the House.

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

I am going to take the discretion of using about 40 seconds, and the House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 9.54 p.m.