Parliamentary debates: Wednesday, 8 October 2025

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

A paper has been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

Petition of Connie Bachle requesting that the House reject the Plain Language Act Repeal Bill.

That petition stands referred to the Petitions Committee. Ministers have delivered 16 papers.

2024-25 annual reports of

AgResearch

Orillion

Callaghan Innovation

the Charter School Agency

the Ministry for the Environment

the Institute of Environmental Science and Research

the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences

Landcare Research

the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research

Scion

Airways Corporation

MetService

AsureQuality

Plant and Food Research, and

the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company; and

the report in relation to selected non-departmental appropriations within the space portfolio of Vote Business, Science and Innovation in the year ended 30 June 2025.

I present the annual report for the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment for the year ended 30 June 2025. Those papers are published under the authority of the House. No select committee papers have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation. No bills have been introduced.

to the Prime Minister

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

Yes.

Does he stand by his statement, “We’re going through a very difficult recovery.”, and, if so, on what basis does he consider an economy that’s shrinking to be in recovery?

We are going through a difficult recovery. As I’ve said, it’s two speed at the moment. In our provincial industries, in the South Island, and our rural communities, they are experiencing growth, but certainly in our cities it’s been very difficult.

Why should New Zealanders believe him that we are in a recovery when earlier this year he said that New Zealand was in a recovery, right at the very time the New Zealand economy was shrinking by almost 1 percent?

Well, as I said, you know, we had a good level of growth in quarter 4 last year. We had very good growth happening in quarter 1 this year. We had international tariffs and uncertainty around tariffs that hit us on the second day of April. That impacted on our quarter 2 result. We’re growing, now, and expected to grow stronger from this point onwards.

How much smaller is the New Zealand economy today than it was when he became Prime Minister?

Well, again, the former Prime Minister needs to understand this: he created the problem. You cannot increase spending by 84 percent, drive up inflation, drive up interest rates, put the economy into recession, and raise unemployment. That is the consequence of your failed economic management. I’d just say for the “sixty-six billion dollar man”, who increased debt threefold, that we now write out a $10 billion interest bill each and every year, thanks to your mismanagement. We’re sorting it out.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I think what the Prime Minister might be struggling to understand is what the question was, which is a very straightforward question: how much smaller is the New Zealand economy today than it was when he became the Prime Minister?

He certainly addressed that question; you can’t say he did it any other way. The other thing is: I’d just make the point that while there is always more leniency for interjection when there is the exchange between the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister, that was just getting a little bit excessive on that occasion.

Does he stand by his statement that horticulture is “crying out for young people”; if so, is orchardist Paul Paynter wrong when he says, “We’re not crying out for staff at the moment [and] … we don’t have a lot of seasonal jobs.”?

Well, unlike the member, I get out of Wellington most weeks and I actually get out and see the real economy and I see real businesses—the number of people that I talk to that say, “Look, there are real opportunities for people out there.” Yeah, it’s difficult, unemployment has ticked up a bit, but it’s the same as what it has been over a 30-year average; it’s significantly below what it has been over the last 15 years, and—unlike that member—we’re just not happy to actually be the party of people who don’t work. We are the party of workers, and we want people to come off welfare and get connected to work; it’s that simple.

When he’s been out and about, why hasn’t he been talking to the businesses who say that hiring staff is not their primary constraint for growth—given that only 4 percent are saying that—whilst 63 percent of businesses, according to the NZ Institute of Economic Research, are saying their real problem is not enough customers?

Well, because the economy has been in a recession caused by your reckless spending, caused by your Government running up inflation, and your Government running up interest rates. You put the country into the biggest recession in 35 years, you created the longest COVID hangover of any in the Western world, you actually made sure that you tripled the debt, for goodness’ sake, and we now have a $10 billion interest bill. We’re cleaning up the Labour Government’s mess; it’s that simple.

If the dire state of the economy is all someone else’s fault, why is it that the New Zealand economy shrunk by nearly 1 percent [Interruption]—

Sorry. Please, start again.

If the dire current state of the New Zealand economy is all someone else’s fault, why is it that the New Zealand economy shrunk by almost 1 percent at a time when other economies around the world that have been hit harder by Donald Trump’s tariffs—many of whom had a higher rate of inflation at the peak of the global pandemic—have been growing faster than New Zealand?

In quarter 4 last year, this economy was growing. In quarter 1 this year, economic growth was increasing. In quarter 2, our economy—as a small economy, a trading economy—got smashed around by uncertainty associated with tariffs. It’s now growing again in quarter 3; the growth in quarter 4 will step up. The recovery is coming. As I’ve said, it’s been two speed at the moment. We’ve got to make sure that we get growth coming through our cities, and that will come.

Supplementary.

Supplementary question, the—[Interruption]. When a supplementary question is being asked, no one else is speaking.

Can I ask the Prime Minister: does he remember, with respect to the policies that he inherited, that the then former Prime Minister had had a huge sort of Guy Fawkes burn-up one night, and got rid of all those policies—how much more quickly could we have recovered if he had done that much earlier in his career?

I’d just say to that member that I think there must be a lot of—

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder if you could clarify for the House what the current Prime Minister’s responsibility for that matter is.

Well, I took it as the fundamental part of the question being how much more progress might this current Government have made if they weren’t dealing with policies from a previous Government. That is a legitimate question. The bits—

He didn’t ask that.

Yes, he did. He did, with all due respect. Have a read of the Hansard tomorrow. The Prime Minister will give a very brief response to that.

Well, I agree with the member that there must be tremendous regret from the Labour Government that had an absolute majority in the last three years and did very little with it, delivered nothing, increasing debt, spending, and borrowing.

That’s sufficient.

to the Minister of Finance

What recent reports has she seen on the economy?

The Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee has just released its latest decision on the official cash rate (OCR). The committee has decided to reduce the OCR by 50 basis points. This is the 8th OCR reduction since August last year. At that time, the OCR was 5.5 percent. It is now at 2.5 percent.

What role does the OCR play in the economy?

The OCR plays a very important role in the economy. It is the key tool the Reserve Bank uses to influence economic activity in both good times and tough times, to meet its target for low, stable inflation. The level of the OCR and expectations about its future track affect the interest rates paid by households and businesses. Those interest rates, in turn, affect economic activity—households have disposable income to spend and businesses can borrow to invest. Today’s announcement represents stimulus that will help push along the economic recovery.

By how much have mortgage rates fallen?

Since the Reserve Bank started loosening in August last year, floating mortgage rates have fallen in line with the OCR. Everyone’s circumstances are different, of course, but let me give one example. Assuming today’s reduction is passed on in full, a family with a 25year $500,000 mortgage would have minimum repayments of $400 less a fortnight than they were in the middle of last year. Fixed rates have also fallen, and it’s important to remember that many fixed-term mortgage holders are yet to roll off higher rates and refix lower, so past OCR reductions as well as today’s reduction will continue to flow through to households over the remainder of this year and beyond.

How is the Government supporting the Reserve Bank?

Well, as the Treasury’s recent report made clear, macroeconomic stabilisation stimulating and de-stimulating the economy should almost always be left to monetary policy run by the independent Reserve Bank. However, through its spending decisions, the Government of the day can help that task or it can hinder it. I could give numerous examples of a previous Government hindering that task through excessive spending, keeping inflation higher for longer and preventing reductions in interest rates. This Government is helping. We have introduced discipline to Government spending and we remain focused on responsible economic management that supports recovery, delivers the public services New Zealanders expect, and drives reforms for growth.

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.

Is the Prime Minister aware that his cuts to jobseeker will impact over 2,000 18- and 19-year-olds who may be disabled, sick, or experiencing severe mental ill health, and, if so, how does he justify this?

Our policy is designed for 18- and 19-year-olds that are on jobseeker benefit. When you go on a jobseeker benefit, you’re deemed able and capable of working.

Can the Prime Minister guarantee, then, a job for every job seeker in this country?

That will also be up to the individual, the parents, and the Government’s economic conditions to create those jobs. But, again, we are sending a message very clearly to young people in New Zealand, unapologetically: we want you connected to work, we want you connected to training, we want you connected to education.

Why are there 10,000 more unemployed young people and 36,000 fewer jobs in this country since he took office, if not because of his Government’s billions of dollars of cuts to investment?

There are five immutable laws of economics. The first is about spending; that drives into creating inflation. When you have high inflation because spending went up 84 percent, you end up with 12 to 13 interest rate rises. That then, because of high interest rates and high inflation, means that, actually, businesses get squeezed because the economy’s in a recession, and, as a result, people, unfortunately, lose their jobs. That’s why if you care about low and middle income working New Zealanders, like this Government does, you actually make sure you run the economy well and you’re a fiscal conservative.

Does the Prime Minister understand, then, the basic maths that if there are four job seekers to every job that is available in this country, all of his cuts to jobseeker support couldn’t hope to possibly punish people into ghost jobs but will only deepen poverty and homelessness?

Point of order. Mr Speaker, the Standing Orders are very clear that a question needn’t contain irony or any more imputations that are required to make the question intelligible. That’s not actually a question designed to get information for the public; it’s an attempt at theatre and making a speech.

Let me be very clear. Attempts at theatre are a regular occurrence in this House, but I would say that putting in an expression like that is outside of the Standing Orders, and I encourage the member to rephrase it some other way and start the question again.

Does the Prime Minister understand that if there are four job seekers for every job that is currently available in this country, all of his cuts to jobseeker support could not possibly punish people into jobs but actually will deepen poverty, suffering, and homelessness?

On this side of the Government, we care about young people. We’re not prepared to actually just have them languishing and consigned to welfare, like a Labour-Greens Government. In the last administration, with 3.2 to 3.5 percent unemployment, the Labour-Greens Government drove a 50 percent increase and put 60,000 more people on jobseeker benefit. That is utterly shameful and unacceptable. We care about those young people and we want them connected to work, training, and employment. We don’t just say we’ll leave you on welfare and that’s good for you.

How many jobs did his $3 billion tax cut for landlords create?

This is a Government that is—I’ll tell you what the landlord cut did create: rents have gone down $5 a week, instead of up $180 a week. In even more good news on housing, if you want to talk about housing and landlords, we’ve got 6,000 people—[Interruption]

No, Prime Minister—

—off the State house wait-list.

That’s the last outburst for the day. People who want to sit in their seats and barrack through question time can do it in front of the TV screens in their offices.

Has the Prime Minister made statements in support of the America and Arab - led peace process, and how many letters has he received in support of that from members of the Opposition or their leaders?

I actually think we should be very proud of the efforts of President Trump and the Arab nations that actually are creating a pathway to peace, to stop the killing, and to create the ceasefire, but I have received zero letters that I am aware of.

to the Minister of Finance

Is her economic plan the reason the economy is smaller now than it was when she took office; if not, why not?

No. The economy is where it is now because harmful and painful inflation in 2021, in 2022, in 2023—fuelled by reckless Government spending—had to be brought down over time with high interest rates. As I said in my previous question, interest rates affect economic activity. New Zealand experienced a deep, protracted downturn. We are coming out of that downturn, but the recovery has been difficult and not helped by international events. The member might want to look at the actions of the previous Government.

If she is taking credit for the latest interest rate cut, will she also take responsibility that this cut is because of a stagnating economy caused by her Government’s inaction?

I’ve taken no such credit.

Is her economic plan to talk about growth, hope interest rates come down, and house prices grow?

No. Our approach, as a Government, is to address the underlying foundations for growth, which includes low and stable inflation to create a lower interest rate environment, having responsibly managed books, and driving reforms across the areas that have held New Zealand’s economy back for too long, including low rates of educational achievement, Byzantine consenting processes, excessive regulatory burdens, and a dire approach to overseas investment. These are the reforms our Government is driving. I would like to play the same game that the member played with me yesterday and quote someone from the Mood of the Boardroom who said, “I find it difficult to reconcile responsibility for the policies of the last Government with critiques of the current Government’s attempts at managing the consequences of those policies”.

Well, then, does she agree with another business leader from Mood of the Boardroom, who said—[Interruption]

Wait, wait. The member’s own side is making noises. Please just wait for silence in the House.

Does she agree with another business leader from the Mood of the Boardroom, who said, “The Government is ineffective. There is no compelling leadership and strategic plan evident that will turn New Zealand around.”?

Now, I prefer the view of the leader who said, “I … like Chris Hipkins but am frustrated by his lack of leadership.”

Does she agree, then, with another business leader from the Mood of the Boardroom, who said, “saying ‘growth, growth, growth’ doesn’t actually help. Growth just isn’t evident, and the benefits seem to be for top-end only.”?

No, I disagree with that assessment, because the Government is doing far more than simply talking about growth. It has often been a reflection I have had that if some of the reforms that we are making had been made six years ago, how much better off our economy would be now: if only fast-track legislation had been in place such that we didn’t still have major infrastructure projects in this country being held back by red tape; if only we had moved earlier to invite in more foreign investment; if only we had moved earlier to ensure our children were learning to read, write, and do maths; to ensure that our welfare system encourages people into work. These reforms are necessary and overdue.

to the Minister of Health

What recent announcements has he made on the Government’s health targets?

Good news: the latest quarterly results for April to June show clear improvements after years of decline. We’re starting to make progress; wait times are starting to fall, and more patients are being treated faster. In our emergency departments, 73.9 percent of patients were admitted, treated, or discharged within six hours during that quarter, up from 71.2 percent during the same period last year, despite increased attendances. For faster cancer treatment, 86.3 percent of patients started their treatment within 31 days following diagnosis, up from 83.5 percent at the same time last year. Our focus is on performance and on putting patients first. Whilst there is still a long way to go, we are absolutely committed to ensuring all New Zealanders can access timely, quality healthcare when they need it.

What do the results show about improvements in childhood immunisation rates?

Well, 82 percent of children are now fully immunised by age two, up from 76.5 percent last year, representing the largest annual gain across all health targets. This is a significant achievement and milestone, and it is a huge thanks to our GPs and outreach providers and vaccinators up and down the country who have done a tremendous job after years of decline, but there is still more work to do. The current measles cases serve as a timely reminder to get immunised, and I encourage more families to ensure that our children receive the healthy start to life that they deserve.

What progress has been made to improve elective wait times?

We’re making progress against our electives target to ensure New Zealanders are able to have their hip, knee, and cataract operations and other elective surgeries done in a timely manner. The elective targets saw the biggest quarterly improvement across all health targets, with the proportion of patients waiting less than four months increasing by 6.6 percent compared to last quarter, with every single district across the country seeing improvements. After years of ballooning wait-lists, the trend is starting to shift. Since January, the total wait-list has been reducing, with the total number of people waiting over four months also falling by around 24 percent. This is thanks to our Government’s Elective Boost, which has delivered more than 16,000 additional procedures, including hips, knees, and cataracts, between February and June by partnering with the private hospital sector.

What progress has been made in reducing wait times for first specialist assessments (FSAs)?

Good progress is being made. The proportion of patients being seen within four months has lifted 3.8 percent in just one quarter, with Health New Zealand delivering 104 percent of planned first specialist assessments—

You missed the bit about how it’s worse under your Government.

—in the June quarter. The Opposition member wants to talk about the wait-lists; I would just remind her that the number of people waiting more than four months for a first specialist assessment, under her watch, increased by over 6,000 percent while they were in Government. We are turning around a big wait-list, and we have a huge amount of work to do. Thanks to the hard-working doctors, surgeons, and specialists at Health New Zealand, they delivered a 104 percent of planned FSAs in the June quarter, meaning more patients were seen than planned.

It’s still getting worse.

Some regions have seen—well, actually, they’re completely wrong; it is improving. That’s what the target says. That’s why we released them, and you can’t manage what you don’t measure, which is why we’ve got targets. Some regions have seen significant increases, with Whanganui up 18 percentage points, Bay of Plenty up 10.1 percent, and South Canterbury up 4.6 percent. It is good to see wait-lists for these critical assessments starting to reduce, but we acknowledge there is still a long way to go.

to the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations

Does he agree with the former Minister who introduced the Marine and Coastal Area Act that his proposed amendments “do not restore the original intention of Parliament. They undermine them”; if not, why not?

No, I don’t, but I do agree with Mr Finlayson’s statement at the time when the bill did go in, in 2011, where he talked about a very high threshold for customary marine titles being granted. That, in essence, is what we are seeking to establish with this legislation. What we’re trying to achieve is that balance between the natural expectations of all New Zealanders to have an interest in what occurs in the marine and coastal space, and the opportunity for Māori to claim customary marine title. There was always a very high threshold involved in that, and that is what we are seeking to restore.

How many customary marine titles have been granted under this Act that will now be subject to challenge on the passing of his amendment bill?

There are several cases that have been heard that will have to be re-heard in light of this legislation, if it passes. That’s not something we have undertaken lightly. It’s a significant thing to overturn Court of Appeal and Supreme Court decisions, but we have done it because we believe it’s important to restore that balance, recognising the interests of all New Zealanders in what happens in the coastal area and recognising that customary marine title grants valuable rights, including the right to have a say over resource contents in that space. That’s why we had a high threshold.

If his goal is to guarantee the rights of all New Zealanders, when will his Government be introducing legislation to address the 13,000 privately owned parcels of land that actually prevent people from accessing the foreshore and seabed?

Well, anybody in a boat can access the foreshore and seabed, from any particular angle.

Does he consider that his decision to arbitrarily limit Māori rights to only 5 percent of the coastline is an example of a fair and durable framework, as was intended in this Act when it was first passed?

When I was asked for a figure, I proffered one. I point to the fact that the previous Minister the member quoted at the start offered a 10 percent figure at one point. Both of us immediately made the point that, of course, ultimately it is up to the courts to decide where that lands, through the process or through decisions made through the Government. It’s not an easy thing we’re trying to achieve. What we’re trying to achieve, as I said, is that balance between the expectations of all New Zealanders to have a say in what goes on in their coastal and marine environments and also to provide an opportunity to apply for customary marine titles. We think we’ve got that balance right, but it requires this legislation to be entered into the House.

Does he stand by his statement that this bill will “give effect to a commitment in the National - New Zealand First coalition agreement to amend section 58 of the Act to make clear Parliament’s original intent”?

Yes, indeed.

to the Minister of Education

Does teachers, principals, support staff, and Ministry of Education specialist staff all going on strike show that she is “growing and strengthening the education workforce”; if so, how?

Growing and strengthening the education workforce is exactly what this Government is doing, and, as I’ve already told the member on numerous occasions, the schooling teacher workforce grew by 2.5 percent in 2024, delivering 864 new teachers—the largest year-on-year increase since records began in 2009. On provisional figures for 2025, there’s been a 30 percent increase in domestic students enrolling in initial teacher education for the first time. We’ve strengthened the workforce by training 30,000 teachers in structured literacy and 20,000 in structured approaches to maths, and we’re delivering high-quality resources, professional learning and development, and, through Budget 2025, three-quarters of a billion dollars into learning support so that every single school has access to a learning support coordinator, along with 349 literacy intervention teachers for over 1,240 schools—exactly what the sector was asking for. No wonder more people than ever are flocking to the teaching profession.

Why were teachers offered a pay rise of less than inflation when Crown board members are getting up to an 80 percent increase?

Well, the member might like to go and chat with the unions, because the offer on the table at the moment is a fair and reasonable offer that meets the unions’ calls for meeting inflation. The 4.7 percent that is on the table at the moment is a fair and reasonable offer that we hope the New Zealand Educational Institute and Post Primary Teachers’ Association members will take seriously.

Does the Minister for the Public Service’s comments that people are striking just to have a long weekend increase or decrease the likelihood of strike action?

I’m not responsible for those comments.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I didn’t ask her if she was responsible for them; I said, “Will they increase or decrease the likelihood of strike action?”

Yeah, but that’s not something—she can’t be responding to some other comment like that. That’s not at all reasonable.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. Look, I’m that Minister. I’d like the member to table the evidence of that quote that she said I said, because I don’t recall I ever said that, although it may be her interpretation.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was in order because the Minister does have responsibility—oversight—of the negotiations, and the question was, essentially: how are the negotiations going in light of the behaviour of one of the other Ministers?

No, it wasn’t. The question was: given a particular statement, what was the likelihood of it either increasing or decreasing strike action? The Minister cannot know that—she has no responsibility for taking strike action. The Hon Willow-Jean Prime.

No, point of order.

The Hon Willow-Jean Prime—oh, sorry. We’re all over the place. The Rt Hon Winston Peters.

Oh, don’t tell us you’re going to accept his?

Yeah, well, you might learn something for the first time, sunshine.

No, hang on, hang on, don’t do that—no, don’t.

Well, I’m listening to “Idiot Features” here when I’m trying to give my—

Yes.

—point of order. My point of order is that Willow-Jean Prime has been challenged as to the veracity of a comment she made in her question, and she should not be able to get away with it just like that. Can she please now show us the background support of her quote?

Look, here’s how we’ll deal with this. Firstly, the question has not stood, because it’s not an appropriate question, and so there’s no question about the need for the proof or otherwise, other than if the member is standing in the House and saying something that is a misrepresentation of another member, then that member has a course of action that they can follow.

Will she front up and speak to the strike on 23 October?

I’ll tell you what I will do: I will be at four around-the-country, full-day curriculum roadshows where I will be presenting to teachers, principals, and school leaders, where we will be providing information on resourcing for new curriculum and professional learning and development, and unpacking some of the strategic leadership things that teachers and principals should be doing. I’ll be spending the entire day with hundreds and hundreds of principals around the country, and that is an excellent use of my time.

Will she accept responsibility for the anger that teachers, principals, and support staff are feeling, or will she continue to stick her head in the sand?

This Government has been backing teachers since the day that we took office, with more professional learning and development, more resourcing, more moving of back-end resources to deliver to the front line, three-quarters of a billion dollars into learning support, and more intervention teachers in mathematics and literacy. The amount of resources that we’ve been providing to the teaching profession to make their jobs easier is unparalleled, and I’m extraordinarily proud of that.

Question No. 8, Greg Fleming—just wait for a moment and the House will quietly settle itself.

E te Mangai o te Whare. To the Minister of Education—

Hang on a minute. I’m clearly going to have to get some additional microphones put down to the back end of the House because I’m missing far too much of a conversation across the aisles which shouldn’t be going on.

to the Minister of Education

What recent announcement has she made regarding school infrastructure?

Well, we’re continuing to supercharge the delivery of school infrastructure. We’re surging $413 million into improving classrooms and schools across the country. The investment package includes $58 million for maintenance work for all schools, which is a 50 percent uplift in their school maintenance grant; $255 million for improvements for small, rural, and isolated schools; $100 million over five years to fund urgent and essential infrastructure work. Our Government has turned around the delivery of school property, we’ve halved the cost of building new classrooms, and children deserve to live in safe, warm, dry classrooms and we’re delivering just that.

How many schools will benefit from this announcement?

Well, every school in New Zealand will benefit from the supercharge to school investment funding—in particular, 935 rural, small, isolated schools that have been crying out for increased funding and support, and we’re delivering that to them. That is for internal and external refits and increasing the number of small schools that are eligible for that. This funding allows for schools to do significant maintenance over the school holidays so students arrive in 2026 to improved classrooms—so they can focus on their learning and teaching the basics brilliantly.

What are the wider benefits of this announcement?

Well, more projects in the infrastructure pipeline mean more jobs for our hard-working tradies up and down the country. Schools will be able to do maintenance over the summer holidays, providing more work for our construction sector in every part of New Zealand. Tradies are going to be in schools up and down the country over the Christmas period. We are powering up the trade and construction sectors to create a steady flow of jobs for builders, plumbers, roofers, and more. This announcement is great for tradies, and what is great for tradies is great for our economy.

What feedback has she received on this announcement?

I’ve received a range of feedback from school leaders to the boost in infrastructure investment. One particular piece said: “Thank you. Great property announcement today. Very much appreciated. Great news. Loving the minimum top-up allocation component. Well done.” That was Andrew King, co-president of the Rural Schools Leadership Association. “Thank you, this will really be helpful and make a huge difference for us.”, “Wow, what a great opportunity not to be missed.”, and “We’re spending the money on gutter cleaning, downpipes replacements for our two- to three-storey blocks. We are most grateful for the funding.” Our focus remains on driving efficiencies across the school property portfolio so parents, teachers, and communities have clarity and certainty about their school’s future.

to the Minister for Social Development and Employment

What is the estimated reduction, if any, in the number of people receiving jobseeker support because of the proposed parental income test for 18- and 19-year-olds?

This policy is about fairness and personal responsibility, and our expectation that all 18- and 19-year-olds will be in employment, education, or training. I’m advised that around 4,300 fewer 18- and 19-year-olds will be eligible for the jobseeker support as a result of the parental assistance test, which has two parts: the parental income test and the parental support gap test. Where parents have the means to support their 18- and 19-year-old, taxpayers shouldn’t be asked to do so instead. The parental income test was not included in Budget 2025, which means more 18- and 19-year-olds are eligible than would have been. We are determined to reverse the trend we inherited, which saw people under the age of 25 on jobseeker spend an average of 18 more years on benefit. This has been 49 percent longer than in 2017.

Why has she incentivised parents on the threshold of the income requirement to reduce their hours just so 18- and 19-year-olds can access jobseeker?

We haven’t. What we have done is said that parents with 18- and 19-year-olds should be supporting their children to ensure that they are in further education, training, or a job.

Why should parents who are receiving Working for Families for a younger child have to choose between receiving the help they need or giving it up so their dependent 18- or 19-year-old can access jobseeker?

On this side of the House, we believe that all parents want the best for their children and to ensure that their 18- and 19-year-olds are set up for a great life, which means they’re in employment, education, or training.

Why has she made it so that two parents who are both working 27 hours each on the minimum wage can now work 11 hours less a week and yet be financially better off?

Because what we don’t want to see is the welfare dependency that we saw blow out in the six years of the previous Government; as I said, a 47 percent increase in the length of time a young person under 25 would go on to spend on welfare. It’s not good enough, which is why we are making sensible policy changes to interrupt a life for young people who should not be stuck on welfare.

How can she claim that this change will incentivise young people when her Government has increased university fees, increased youth unemployment, cut the Apprenticeship Boost, and made life even harder for working Kiwi families struggling with the cost of living crisis?

Well, I reject the comments that member makes. The Prime Minister today—for, I don’t know, the hundredth time or the thousandth time—outlined a lesson in economics, which is why we are where we are. My concern is the welfare dependency that we inherited where we don’t accept it is good enough for a young person to spend 18 future years of their life stuck on welfare.

Could the Minister explain what giant leap in comprehension it takes for people to realise that the first responsibility for a family member lies with the family, and not the taxpayer?

Indeed. That’s why our side of the House wants to see young people prepared for a life of opportunity so more of them are in education, training, or in a job.

to the Associate Minister of Education

What recent reports has he seen on school attendance, and why does he think going to school matters to students’ futures?

I’ve seen a recent report from the Education Review Office (ERO) called Back to class: How are attitudes to attendance changing? The Education Review Office, and in particular Ruth Shinoda, have done a superb job surveying 15,000 students, teachers, and parents about how they view the importance of school attendance and what ensures that children are more likely to attend. This survey follows an identical survey in 2022, and, most critically, it shows that in nearly every single measure for nearly every type of person, attitudes to attendance are improving. That is important to New Zealand, because when people want to attend and believe it’s important, they’re more likely to do it. I believe the most important number in New Zealand today is the number of children who go to school, because the amount of education that we pass from one generation to another more powerfully defines our future than anything else we can do on this day.

Does the report show that poverty is a barrier to school attendance?

Indeed, the report does show that in some cases, poverty and the lack of things such as school uniforms, transport, or stationery are a barrier to attendance. That’s one reason why the Government has put aside 3 percent of attendance service funding as money to be put to precisely those sorts of barriers for particular students. However, encouragingly—

Point of order, Mr Speaker. The answers to parliamentary questions are supposed to be short and to the point, and this answer has multiple layers. The question was answered, in fact, in the first sentence.

This answer was only something like 20, 24 seconds into its delivery. It may be—

Well, he’s making up for the last time, which was four minutes.

Well, the longest answer today was one minute and 16 seconds. It was the Minister of Health, but that was as a response to a whole lot of interjections that he was responding to across the House. So thank you very much for your timekeeping efforts. I deeply appreciate it, but they’re not all that accurate.

Critically, 82 percent of students from poorer families said that going to school is important for their future. That compares with 84 percent of students from wealthier families. In other words, they’re almost exactly the same. Three years ago there was a 10-point gap. Now they are almost exactly the same, and that gives me real hope for the future of New Zealand. While education may not have done well for Duncan Webb, this Government thinks it’s important.

What role do parents play and how have their views changed?

It’s true that parents are a critical link in the attendance story, and what is so important in this survey is that the number of students who say that they are comfortable keeping their kids off school for a week or more remains far too high at three out of 10 parents. It has fallen in the last three years. Three years ago, it was four out of 10 parents who thought it was OK for their children to miss a week of school. The Government’s message is that that’s taking away from their future and it’s not OK.

What can teachers and principals do, and how is this changing?

One of the key findings is that the expectations set by principals and teachers are critical, and yet there has been an enormous improvement in that, too: 93 percent of teachers and school leaders report that they set clear expectations with students, and 60 percent of students say that they have increased their efforts to set clear expectations for school attendance in their school community. I want to thank the ERO and all of those school leaders, parents, and students for joining us on a journey to where going to school regularly becomes the norm. It’s vital to the future of our country.

to the Associate Minister of Agriculture

Does he agree with the SPCA that “the use of farrowing crates causes significant animal welfare problems for both sow and piglets”; if so, why has the Government introduced legislation to extend the use of farrowing crates by at least another decade?

The changes that the Government are proposing are a significant strengthening of the animal welfare standards for pig farming. Advice I have received shows that confining sows just after farrowing is an effective tool at reducing the number of piglet-crush fatalities. An analysis of 22 scientific articles that are relevant shows that piglet mortality risk is 14 percent higher in systems that do not confine sows after farrowing. The 10-year transition time I have proposed is significant but this is a very big shift in farming systems for most of the pig industry. With the other changes I’m proposing, an independent economic analysis estimated the cost of transition at more than $675,000 for the average indoor pig farm. It’s only reasonable that those farming families have an opportunity to make this change.

Why is the Minister going against independent welfare experts who say farrowing crates cause significant suffering for mother pigs and piglets; they increase the risk of stillbirth; restrict normal nesting behaviour of mother pigs; and cause boredom, sores, pain, and distress due to prolonged confinement? [Interruption]

Sorry, just a minute. Someone was speaking during that question.

I still heard it.

Hold on. You might have heard it. That’s not the point. No one speaks when a question’s being asked, no matter what you might think of the question. So you can ask it again.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Why is the Minister going against independent welfare experts who say farrowing crates cause significant suffering for mother pigs and piglets, they increase the risk of stillbirth, restrict normal nesting behaviour of mother pigs, and cause boredom, sores, pain, and distress due to prolonged confinement?

As I explained in the primary question, farrowing crates reduce piglet mortality by 14 percent. This is important. This is based on advice that comes from scientific experts in this field. It is the result of looking at a range of a number of studies. So I am completely comfortable with the changes we are making. We are reducing the time from 33 days down to seven. Most of the rest of the world is at 33 days; we are reducing down to seven.

Is he aware that it is a profound behavioural need of mother pigs to build a nest 24 hours before giving birth, and if they are caged it is deeply distressing for them, they will literally paw the ground, often bloodying their snouts, trying to build a nest?

That is why we are introducing a requirement that nesting materials must be provided prior to farrowing. So we are covering this. I have visited pig farms, where I have been there after piglets have been farrowed, and I saw absolutely no sign of any of that.

How does he justify extending the use of cruel farrowing crates indefinitely when every animal welfare organisation in New Zealand, including the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC), and 73 percent of New Zealanders oppose the use of farrowing crates because of worse welfare outcomes for mother pigs and piglets?

Whilst NAWAC’s initial advice was that temporary crating was not acceptable, a reconsideration recognised that limited use of crating after farrowing was acceptable, although they remained concerned around how the pre-farrowing crating would inhibit nest building. But as I said, we have strengthened those requirements for the material to be available for the nest building.

Why was targeted consultation only undertaken with the pork industry across 2024 and 2025, while animal welfare organisations were blindsided on Friday with his plans to cancel the phase out of farrowing crates, and does he regard protecting animal welfare as his primary responsibility, or enacting the wishes of the pork industry?

I will make zero apologies for talking to the people that regulations in this House will affect the most. These are going to be massive changes for your average pig-farming operation. They needed to be consulted. We needed to ensure that we had a system that was practical and affordable for them, otherwise we would not have a pig-farming industry in New Zealand.

to the Minister for Infrastructure

Does he stand by his statement, “we make it too hard to deliver and maintain the infrastructure New Zealand needs”; if so, how is that consistent with a $2.6 billion drop in planned spending on capital commitments by the Government for the 11 months to May 2025?

on behalf of the Minister for Infrastructure: Yes; and, to the second part, the member misunderstands the statement of commitments in the latest Crown accounts. Let me explain: the statement of commitments does not indicate a drop in planned spending. It records, instead, at a particular point in time, where contracts have been signed that would involve the Crown spending money but the money hasn’t yet been paid or even owed. It doesn’t include forecast infrastructure spending where there is not yet a contract. For example, the figure she is referring to does not include many major upcoming projects that are being funded by this Government, including the Northland Expressway, main works for the new Dunedin Hospital, Christchurch Men’s Prison, and the Nelson Hospital redevelopment. In fact, this Government is investing more in infrastructure than was planned when we came in. Over the next four years, we have budgeted to invest a record $61.8 billion in public infrastructure, and this number is only set to grow with new capital earmarked for allocation and is a huge step up from the $50.6 billion the previous Government invested between 2019 and 2023.

Isn’t the point that the damage is done, with 20,000 jobs gone, after he decided to stop and pause infrastructure builds?

I will reiterate the answer I just gave to the previous question, which is that investment in infrastructure has increased under this Government. I invite the member to look at the Budget allocations and see that we have chosen to allocate more funding to infrastructure than was previously the case. The member seems to be labouring under the same misunderstanding her colleague Ginny Andersen had yesterday, in the last round of “Who’s got talent?”, in which she said that all changes in the construction sector are due to what public investment is happening in infrastructure. The private sector builds a significant amount of New Zealand’s infrastructure, and when private sector projects like Auckland port and major housing developments can’t even get a consent, that holds it back, which is why fast track is so important, and which is why today’s 50 basis point Official Cash Rate reduction is also pretty important.

Does he know that, to build his infrastructure pipeline, he will need the 761 private sector construction employers who have shut their doors and laid off their people in the last year, and how does he plan to stop the liquidations of two construction firms every day on his watch?

Concise answer.

Yes, it is the case that, as the economy recovers, we expect that more jobs will be created in the construction sector.

If the economy is recovering, then why are 200 New Zealanders leaving every day, including thousands of builders, heading to Australia instead of staying here to build in New Zealand?

Well, as has previously been traversed in this House, it is the case throughout New Zealand’s history that as economies recover, fewer New Zealanders leave, and we expect that to be the case.

How will he get those builders back on the tools here at home when our economy is shrinking, everyday costs continue to rise, and wages remain flat?

The member has failed to engage with the basic premise I set to her in the answer to the primary question, which is that this Government is investing a record amount in public infrastructure. In fact, we built more classrooms in the last year than the last Government did. We built more social housing in our last 23 months than that Government did in its last three years. I will not stand here and have that fact barracked—[Interruption]

That’s enough.

It is a fact that I will repeat again: we have built more social homes in the past 23 months than the last Government did in its last three years. Between now and Christmas, more than $7 billion worth of infrastructure projects will commence, including upgrades to Auckland City Hospital, Middlemore Hospital, Hawke’s Bay Hospital, the construction of a new acute mental health unit at Hutt Valley Hospital; over $5 billion worth of roading projects—the Ōtaki to north of Levin highway, Melling interchange, Waihoehoe Road, the Ōmanawa bridge—and more than $800 million in school property projects, which we’re building better and faster than ever before. This is a Government that believes in public infrastructure and is getting it built.

Point of order. I seek leave to make a personal explanation to correct answers to question No. 7.

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

Thank you. In question No. 7, in the third supplementary, I mentioned that I will be spending the entire day presenting to hundreds of principals. I should have said I will be spending the week presenting to principals. I mentioned that all schools will be receiving a learning support coordinator, and to be clear, I should have said all schools with years 0 to 8 students.

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

We just heard the Minister of Finance waxing and waning lyrical about some basic facts and basic maths, so let’s provide some of those basic facts and basic maths. If there are four job seekers that are available for every job in this country—

Ha! Why don’t they just give up?

—that means that there are four times as many people looking for jobs than jobs that are available, the Hon Paul Goldsmith. There are not enough jobs in this country for the beneficiaries that this Government is intent on punching down upon. It does not matter how hard you seek to punish people when there are not enough jobs for them to move into.

We asked the Prime Minister at question time today if he could guarantee that there was a job available for every job seeker that he seems so intent on punishing, and he deflected from the question. So our point to the Government is that New Zealanders, and young people in particular, can’t work your ghost jobs.

The Prime Minister says that these young people should move to where the jobs are. But, again, some of those basic facts: there are 36,000 fewer jobs and there are 10,000 more unemployed young people in the two years since this Government came to office and implemented their economic policies of firing up the shredder and cutting billions of dollars of investment in our economy and in our people. That probably explains why New Zealanders are, unfortunately, leaving in boatloads to the tune of approximately 200 every single day to Australia, because that is this Government’s policy on where the jobs are.

Cuts are not how you build a country; evidentially, it’s how you break one. It is abundantly clear that this Government’s economic policy is to kill the golden goose: to whittle down our infrastructure to such an anaemic state and then to pass it off at bargain-bin prices to the private sector, and also then to exploit the very environment that we trade on on the international stage. They have cut thousands of State home builds. They have scaled back infrastructure in hospitals, resulting in 15,000 fewer construction sector jobs.

If I can reiterate that point: there are 36,000 fewer jobs and 10,000 more young people that are jobless under this Government, and the Government’s response? To punish those young people and to make them dependent on their parents, unless their parents are earning no more than $66,000 per year combined.

We asked the Prime Minister today in question time if he had any awareness whatsoever about the specific 2,000 young people who would be disproportionately impacted under the jobseeker support health condition or disability benefit. These are young people who are currently experiencing severe mental ill-health, who are disabled, or who are profoundly sick, whom this Government has decided to make dependent on their parents or force them to move somewhere else, to where jobs currently don’t exist, because this Government has gutted those very jobs.

This is just the latest in a long line of policies, which—this Government has been warned—will make more people poor, will make more people homeless, and will actively increase inequality. What is this Government’s response to these statements in the House right now? To laugh. I really hope that New Zealanders understand just how much this Government laughs at the state of affairs which this Government is handing down to future generations, because this Government is choosing to intentionally make life harder for New Zealanders. What that is exposing is that we are not so much currently in a cost of living crisis; we are in a cost of greed crisis. This Government is fanning the flames with their intentional decisions.

But the message that we want New Zealanders to hear is that things do not have to be this way. The Greens have spent the last 18 months outlining our solutions and our clear policies, which would see free early childhood education, free dentistry, and free GPs. We would create 40,000 good, green jobs, because we used to make things in this country and we can do it again. The way that we get there is through having a fairer tax system—which I know terrifies those guys more than anything.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The jeering on the other side of the House—[Interruption]

Just a minute, we might start again. There’s far too much barracking across the House. It could be because people have got various mouths full for various reasons, but they shouldn’t have. The Hon Barbara Edmonds, start again.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The jeering from the other side of the House during the last speaker’s speech is exactly why that side of the House and the Government is so disconnected from everyday New Zealanders—because you can jeer and laugh at the teenagers who need jobs, you can jeer and laugh at the fact that we are doing nothing for climate change in this House because of that Government, and you can jeer and laugh at the fact that this economy is tanking because of their inaction, but they won’t think that’s funny, because they are so disconnected from everyday New Zealanders.

Do you think Christopher Luxon has any idea what life is really like for everyday New Zealanders? Do you think he knows what it’s like to stand at a supermarket aisle and to think, “Can I afford this? Should I put this bread back? Should I get that bottle of milk?”? Do you think he has any idea how everyday New Zealanders feel in the supermarket aisles? Does he have any idea of what it’s like to sit at your kitchen table with papers and papers of bills, trying to make those numbers add up and wondering, “Where on earth am I going to get this money for my power bill, am I going to get this money for my insurance premiums, am I going to get this money to pay my rates?” Of course he doesn’t. That is the reality for New Zealanders all across this country right now.

The Prime Minister is so out of touch that I bet you—and I’m willing to take a wager from anyone here in Parliament—that he hasn’t got a clue at all, because, in his own words, he is “wealthy and sorted”. In his own words, he is “wealthy and sorted”. He promised to make life better for New Zealanders.

He works hard; nothing wrong with working hard.

What has he actually done? He’s made it worse. The members on that side say, “Well, he worked hard for it.” Well, you know what? There are people up and down this country who are working extremely hard—who are not just working one job but are working two jobs, they’re working three jobs, just to make ends meet. That is the problem when you’re so out of touch that working hard is not just about working hard; it’s about making sure that jobs are here in New Zealand. If you stayed connected to your community, you’d understand that. This Government isn’t on the side of ordinary New Zealanders; they’re on the side of tobacco companies, of property speculators, of the oil and gas industry. It’s the wealthy few who are sorted, not everyday New Zealanders.

When they stand up and they say, “Oh, the economy is turning a corner—turning a corner”, let’s be clear what that really means: it means thousands of people with no work; it means 200 Kiwis per day leaving Aotearoa New Zealand for Australia, for better opportunities; it means Kiwis here are unable to afford to see their GP.

No, not “Go the Wallabies!”, no!

Those “Mozzies”—yes, those “Mozzies”. They have lost control of this economy, and we all know that. They can dance on the head of a pin and say, “Oh, we brought interest rates down.” It’s quite interesting to see, today, the Minister of Finance saying, “I didn’t take any credit for it”, despite, in the first question before that, saying the Government takes credit for it. That is a system of a stagnating economy where we have lost jobs, we are losing Kiwis, we have a health system in crisis, and a Government who is more than willing to make people homeless, to say to our teenagers “Just go under the support of mum and dad.” Well, you know what? The support of mum and dad would be great if mum and dad didn’t have to try and work two or three jobs just to put a roof over their heads. According to the National Party MPs, they do not work hard.

New Zealanders can demand a Government that they deserve. The Government has lost control of the economy. This is exactly what the National Party wants to do: to blame everyone else, give support to the wealthy people, and never mind the “bottom feeders”, because they’re wealthy and they’re sorted.

The next Labour Government won’t just be a Labour Government; it will be a Government for everybody in New Zealand, because when everybody thrives in New Zealand, our country thrives. When we invest in our people, when you create jobs, they will want to stay here, and they will want to make New Zealand a better place. At the moment, that Government is giving them no option but to leave.

Can I start by offering that member Barbara Edmonds a history lesson—because, back in 2008, the previous National Government came in, inherited a financial shambles and an economy in recession, and had a very tough couple of years at the start of the first term to get things sorted. But after a period of consistent clarity about building, focusing on growth, focusing on investment, and giving confidence to the broader community, in our second and third terms the economy was growing well, and we managed to reverse the flow across the Tasman, and that’s going to happen again this time. Again, we came in, we inherited a shambles, we inherited a lack of growth, and we’re going to turn it around. We’ve got every confidence that New Zealand will be zinging in the future, providing the opportunities for New Zealanders to get ahead and for their families to do well.

I wanted to talk about a broader issue, because there’s been a lot of discussion around the world about social division, about polarisation, about incivility in politics, and about aggression in politics. If we look around the world, often people talk about it and say, “It’s the far right that’s behind that”, but the reality in New Zealand, of course, is that it’s the Greens that are driving that level of aggression in politics. It’s the Greens—it’s the sanctimonious, “tofu wouldn’t melt in your mouth” Greens—who are the ones who are driving the division and acrimony within our body politic, aided and abetted by Labour.

There is no place in this democracy for intimidation, and yet that is what we have been seeing over the last few weeks, months, and years. People are lining up, banging pots, using loud hailers, and intimidating politicians in their own homes. Chlöe Swarbrick and the Greens have been behind a lot of this, and the hypocrisy is, quite frankly, outrageous. You look at a quote from Benjamin Doyle saying that “No person should have to avoid going to the supermarket or the letterbox because they’ve been advised that doing so would expose them to violence.”, and yet, at the same time, you’ve got Ricardo Menéndez March writing letters in support of people who vandalise MPs’ offices and, at the same time, you’ve got the leader of the Greens in press conferences with a peace-loving actor who hands out the private addresses of MPs for people to go and hassle them.

Ultimately, the Greens are the area of politics in this country that is most associated with intimidation and aggression. They need to look at themselves quite closely, and the Labour Party needs to ask itself whether they support this or not. It’s interesting that we’ve seen Duncan Webb saying, “Well, no, actually, we’re going to stick to our guns. We think people should protest outside MPs’ houses.”, and Mr Hipkins has said that they shouldn’t, but they both voted against the bill that we’ve got in the House that deals with it.

Why does this matter—why does this matter for ordinary New Zealanders? It matters because civility in politics and the ability for New Zealanders to talk to each other and to push back against that global direction of division and polarisation is an important part not only of our democracy but of how we succeed as a country. We want to succeed as a country and we want to do well—and, yes, there are lots of challenges we face. In my area of the Treaty negotiations, there are lots of challenges. We have big debates about what sovereignty means in the modern context, but the point is that we still talk about it. We get together, we talk, we discuss, and we thrash out ideas. We don’t always agree, but we keep talking.

That is the strength of this country and it’s why we do so well, and so we need to defend that civility that we have inherited in this country. We need to preserve it. We need to do everything we can to ensure that it continues. My challenge, particularly to the Greens, is that they need to change their approach, and my challenge to Labour is to be clear about where you stand on these issues.

When it comes, ultimately, to the ongoing success of this country—which we all have a huge belief in as a country as a great place to live, and also a great place to raise a family, make a living, and do well. The economic foundation of that is so important, and that’s why we’re focused on that as a Government, but the broader democratic traditions that we’ve inherited and that we benefit from need to be preserved. My encouragement to all parties across the House is to just think twice about the approach that is taken around intimidation and, frankly, to support this legislation that we have before the House to ensure that no New Zealander has to suffer people intimidating them in their private home—in their castle—and to do the right thing by that.

My speech today is directed at the fourth estate—the media—and the Government’s constant attack on Te Tiriti o Waitangi. There have been 14 inquiries in the last 18 months into Māori organisations and Te Pāti Māori, and not a single allegation was upheld. Public Service inquiry against Manurewa Marae, Te Whānau o Waipareira Trust, the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency: no negative findings or evidence found in this inquiry. In other words, despite widespread attacks by political parties and the media, innocence was maintained.

Stats NZ: claims of misuse of census data—claims proven to be false, and the CEO of Stats NZ resigned over this manner. Te Whatu Ora: allegations of misappropriation use of data. Findings were that Health New Zealand did not sufficiently protect public data. Subsequently, Health New Zealand’s CEO resigned. The Electoral Commission investigation into Manurewa Marae polling booth and Te Pāti Māori: investigation found no evidence of political interference despite immense negative media and political scrutiny. The Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency Māori enrolment initiative, investigated by Te Puni Kōkiri, was proven to be fully legitimate—it was found to be part of their contractual terms.

Political parties and media relentlessly attacked Te Pāti Māori and Māori providers in the public domain regarding these allegations over the last 18 months, yet since the news of these allegations being found false has come to light, where are the headlines? Where are the apologies? Other than Waatea News, no one has condemned the allegations to date. No headlines from the fourth estate—the media—proving they will be deafening in our condemnation and silent in our innocence. This only further highlights that Māori will always be guilty by whakapapa, and that we will always be tried, convicted, and executed before the truth is revealed, whilst the wealthy get to hide behind name suppression and privilege. That’s how Māori are treated in this country’s media. If it doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t lead.

When allegations were made against Manurewa Marae, Whānau Ora, Te Pou Matakana, and Te Pāti Māori, the headlines screamed corruption before a single fact was proven, and when the truth came out—when the Police, Stats NZ, the Public Service Commission, and the Serious Fraud Office found no evidence, and when the successful Māori kaupapa were cleared—the media went quiet. That silence speaks volumes because, in this country, the presumption of guilt still has a whakapapa, and it’s brown.

We are not afraid of scrutiny, we welcome truth, but what we reject completely is the colonial gaze that turns Māori excellence into suspicion and Māori success into scandal. We will not apologise for being powerful, unapologetically Māori, and politically awake. The real corruption is not in our marae or our movements; it is in the headlines that still treat us as intruders on our own land. I want to acknowledge Takutai Moana Tarsh Kemp and the attacks that she withstood under the investigations of Manurewa Marae by those in this House and the media. I wish you were here still to see the outcome of the innocence upheld by Manurewa Marae. We wait the apologies you are due, Takutai, now posthumously, as a rangatira who endured these false allegations alongside your whānau and your marae.

In addition to accusations and inquiries, the Government still attacks our people by continuing to keep te iwi Māori struggling: the cost of living crisis; the disestablishment of the Māori Health Authority; section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act; the Regulatory Standards Bill; Treaty principles bill; the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) (Customary Marine Title) Amendment Bill; removing tikanga Māori from justice systems; removing $30 million from Māori education. Despite the continued attacks, our people continue to rise. When faced with the Treaty principles bill, over 100,000 people hīkoi-ed and over 300,000 submissions were made—over 90 percent in opposition. The latest Electoral Commission figures show that since April 2023, almost 31,000 voters have switched to the Māori roll, and more than 25,000 first-time voters have gone for the Māori electoral option. Over a billion people saw the haka led by Hana in Parliament. The world is watching the continued rise of a movement against this Government.

Our people are rising, and there has been unity demonstrated on a scale never seen in Aotearoa before, in retaliation to this Government. We are committed to our mokopuna. We will activate ourselves. When we vote for ourselves, when we believe in ourselves, we keep sailing towards our Aotearoa hou. Kia ora tātou.

We on this side of the House welcome today’s announcement by the Reserve Bank to lower the official cash rate to 2.5 percent. This provides much-needed relief for businesses and households right across New Zealand. But today, I wish to touch on my home city of Auckland, because we are facing a long COVID hangover. That COVID hangover was caused by the previous Labour Government spending $66 billion of taxpayer money and raking up debt, over twice, to 44 percent of gross domestic product. That was the largest debt-fuelled spending binge in the developed world, according to the IMF.

Now, the good news is there are some good, green shoots for the economic recovery. I’d like to focus on three areas of green shoots, today. The first is infrastructure. My colleagues—some of whom are here today—and I visited the Port of Auckland on Monday. Under the fast-track regime, we have just consented a new project at the Port of Auckland to improve the extension of the Fergusson north berth. That will enable cruise ships that are bigger to dock here in Auckland, and it will enable about 200 jobs. That approval took place in 66 days, in record time—record time that would have never happened under the previous Government.

The second area is the Milldale development in the Auckland suburb of Wainui. I had to look up Wainui. I’ve never been to Wainui. It’s in the north of Auckland. We’ve got Fulton Hogan Land Development, and they’re delivering around 1,100 housing units to the total of $595 million—again, under this Government’s fast-track approvals regime, which never would have happened under the previous Government.

Let’s talk about the previous Government. What did they deliver in infrastructure? Light rail to nowhere; the Skypath, $50 million of money spent and nothing delivered. We are getting on with it. The second key area is around red tape—red tape in regard to earthquake remediation. Don’t we have a great Minister in Chris Penk, everyone? He has announced significant reforms in the area to the tone of removing the whole of Auckland from the seismic zone and the earthquake-prone buildings system. That is going to have real benefits for Aucklanders. That’s going to mean an estimated $4.5 billion does not need to be spent on strengthening buildings right across the Auckland division. That money can be spent on expanding your business and employing extra staff to encourage economic growth.

The third area is around sports and entertainment. We’ve got some great announcements around a better utilisation of stadiums like Eden Park. What an untapped potential. I think the only person in Auckland that doesn’t want that to go ahead is Helen Clark, but that is going to provide real economic opportunity for this country.

The tennis centre.

“We’ve got the tennis centre,” said Grant McCallum. He’s a regular at the ASB Classic. That’s going to be a $5 million co-investment, and that’s going to, again, provide real opportunity. It’s a huge opportunity.

There are some really good, encouraging initiatives going on in Auckland, on top of things like declining mortgage rates and on top of things like improved confidence. These will all mean a really great future for those in Auckland. It shows, if you look at economic forecasts, we’re already growing as a country and as a city. We know that times are still tough for many Aucklanders out there. I’m certainly optimistic about the future for Auckland and our country under a coalition Government—a Government that believes in minimal government, a Government that believes in a vibrant private sector where people go out there and create the economic opportunities, not some bureaucrats in Wellington. It is a positive future. The economic recovery has only just begun in Auckland.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. On the ninth floor of the Beehive today, there was a set of numbers that was being eagerly anticipated by the Prime Minister and his staff. It was not the official cash rate; it was their own pollster, Curia, coming out with their latest poll. What has happened? The National Party has dipped into the 20s, that psychological number that has every backbencher shaking in their boots, watching their majority disappear.

Not only has the party dipped into the 20s but Christopher Luxon is not the preferred Prime Minister in this country. That is from the Government’s own pollster, Curia, and I think this speaks very much to how weak and out of touch Christopher Luxon is showing New Zealanders he is. It is also showing how weak and out of touch the Government is.

In a week where we’ve been talking about a 4:1 ratio of job seekers, that applies no more than the National front bench. There are at least four job seekers sitting on that front bench queuing up for that job, and Christopher Luxon’s days are numbered. Those four pretenders to the crown aren’t even counting the cosplaying Prime Ministers of Winston Peters and David Seymour; they’re four job seekers from in his own ranks. If John Key was the “Teflon” Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon is showing himself to be the “Velcro” Prime Minister. Nothing he is doing is working for New Zealanders. It is taking us backwards. He made a big promise to New Zealanders that things were going to get better, but they’re getting worse.

I want to talk about energy pricing in this country. I want to talk about a report that the Government released last week. Have we seen one Government question to the Minister for Energy this week in this House, for the Government to talk about their famed reforms that were going to go on? Have we seen a contribution in this general debate, with the National Party crowing about what it’s achieved? The answer is no, and that is not surprising. While Simon Watts was out there foreshadowing that this was going to be a fundamental reform and significant but surgical reforms and changes were coming, he oversold it. At best, Simon Watts stumbled to the cupboard and grabbed a Disprin—that’s how far from a surgical set of reforms that we received.

How was it received? Well, these reforms were held up to be an abject failure—called a “nothing-burger”, I think, by some commentators. Simon Bridges, a former leader of the National Party, made it clear that the National Party had let the country down, that it had missed its opportunity and was not delivering what should be there.

There was an opportunity. There was an opportunity to do something to relieve New Zealand businesses and households of the burden of a broken energy system, and they fumbled it. They delivered absolutely nothing. Two reforms were taken on. The only group of people that came out and called these so-called “nothing-burger” reforms bold was a gentailer. What happened to the gentailer’s share prices on the day that the Government announced that set of significant but surgical reforms? The gentailer’s share prices soared. That’s how significant they were in reforming a broken market.

The other people that will be absolutely happy are fossil fuel companies, because they are the other beneficiaries of these so-called reforms that were being shared. What we have is a set of reforms that are not going to make energy cheaper for New Zealand households and businesses. It is not doing anything to save jobs in this country or create jobs. We have a Government that has kowtowed once again to vested interests and failed to deliver for New Zealanders who are counting on them. They promised big. They have let New Zealand down, and Christopher Luxon reminds us on a daily basis how out of touch and how weak he is as a leader.

For 30 years, the Resource Management Act has turned common sense into a compliance circus. Problem one: absurdity. Up on the Tararua Ranges, a regional council told a wind farm that they had to install a fish passage in a culvert under a temporary road, in a sheep paddock that had been dry for 50 years. Now, unless trout grow legs and buy hiking boots, they’re not getting there. That’s not environmental protection; it’s performance art.

Problem two: paralysis by inbox. A council spent a week, at $230 per hour, arguing over email about where a developer of affordable homes should put the clothesline. That’s a week that families spent in their old, damp homes, instead of new, warm, dry homes.

Problem three: petty policing. In the Waikato—I heard last week—a council called a farmer, demanding to know who was living in the other farmhouse on their farm, because the consent for that farmhouse said it was for farm workers. Now—

Mind their own business.

—since when did councils become the tenancy police? That Minister Collins, she knows these people—she knows this one.

Problem four: plans that punish growers. In the Manawatū, Canterbury, and Waikato under Plan Change 1, regional rules demand consents for what common sense says should be permitted: growing food for people. You shouldn’t need a consultant and a lawyer to plant onions. These aren’t isolated tales; this is the Resource Management Act. The result is higher power bills, dearer groceries, slower housing, and investors who simply walk away.

Now the fix: in a few months, this Government—and it’s set out in the Government’s quarter four plan—will introduce a new resource management system with two focused laws: a natural environment Act which sets clear environmental rules suited to each region, so we stop arguing over trivia and focus on the real environmental risks that we need to manage; and a planning Act that will make it simpler and more affordable to deliver infrastructure and housing. Standard rules upfront, not bespoke conditions for every culvert and clothesline.

We will permit common low-risk activities by default. We’ll cap council fishing expeditions for more information that drag out consents for months and years. Infrastructure will get a straight path, with spatial planning and national direction that actually enables quarries, power generation, pipes, transmission, and, of course, waste disposal facilities without which our cities would choke and die.

We’re going to have a low-cost planning tribunal to call time on unreasonable demands, quickly and publicly. Māori engagement happens where it’s meaningful in national direction and plan making, not bolted on to every consent. What does that deliver? Well, energy projects delivered on time; the trout on the ridge nonsense disappears; wind, solar, thermal, gas, coal all on the same consenting pathway, easing bills for infrastructure and households; warm, dry homes sooner; no week-long email epics about clotheslines; clear, standardised rules and zones across the country; simple compliance; infrastructure planned once and delivered without all the drama; farming and horticulture treated as productive, not presumed to be harmful; growing food permitted—and risks managed—through farm plans.

Targeted controls and consents will still be necessary, but they should be the exception, not the rule. More time in paddocks, less time in council meeting rooms. The regions will be unlocked; Waikato, Canterbury, Horowhenua and others won’t be stuck in the slow lane, hobbled by old plans and nonsensical rules. Treaty settlements will still be upheld, special places protected, freshwater and coastal areas simply managed under the Natural and Built Environment Act. Investment confidence returns, fewer bespoke fights, predictable decisions, and upfront spatial planning.

ACT in Government is stripping back the system to the essentials, protecting the environment with clear limits. I’m fizzing to introduce this reform, alongside Minister Chris Bishop. Let’s get it done: let’s grow, let’s build, let’s dream big.

Growth and more growth means jobs and more jobs, it means higher wages, and it means a better future for New Zealanders. That is why we are driving economic growth in the regions, backing our primary sector, which creates jobs and opportunities. The news today of the official cash rate dropping another 50 basis points and decreasing mortgage rates is welcome news for families struggling with mortgage repayments, but it is also welcome news for our growers, farmers, and businesses across Hawke’s Bay, because it gives confidence and certainty and more money to invest in growing our economy and creating jobs, and this lifts wages for everyone. This is why we are laser-focused on economic growth.

With the recent recess that we’ve had, I took the opportunity to get out across our amazing Tukituki electorate. A highlight in the last few weeks was visiting the Hastings Stortford Lodge saleyards, and it was amazing to see the farmer confidence back again, with record highs in farmer confidence because, finally, they have a Government that is backing them and allowing our farmers to do what they do best, and that is farm. We’ve slashed the red tape, we’ve got rid of the bureaucracy, and we’ve been out in the world hustling for trade deals so we have better markets to send our good products to—and, wow, is that making a difference.

There is a massive global demand for our red meat, and it was amazing, actually, to sit next to a farmer at the cattle sale who said he had never seen such record prices in his lifetime. Cattle were going out the gate for $3,500 each, and this is just phenomenal for the growth of our economy because it motivates more spending and puts more money back into the pockets of New Zealanders.

It’s not just our Hawke’s Bay farmers putting money back into our economy; it’s our growers, too. Hawke’s Bay is the fruit bowl of New Zealand, contributing hugely to our economic growth story. Having a Government backing our Hawke’s Bay horticulture sector is making a huge difference. For years, I sat on the board of New Zealand Apples and Pears, and under the Labour Government, the apple industry could never meet the $1 billion export mark. Well, guess what? Under our Government it has exceeded the $1 billion export mark. In fact, our horticulture exports have hit record highs: $8.5 billion this year.

I was just recently out at the Yummy Fruit Co., and I had this awesome guy come up to me in the packhouse and he said to me, “Thank you for all the work that you’re doing in horticulture.” He said he’d been on a benefit but he was now able to hold down a job and provide for his five children, working hard in the apple sector and feeling a real purpose in his life, and a bright future—much better than languishing on welfare. I love these stories. We need to keep creating jobs and opportunities, which is done by supporting our primary sector. Around 360,000 Kiwis are employed in our food and fibre sector, about 15 percent of the total workforce. In Hawke’s Bay alone, our region is set to add another thousand new jobs in agriculture and horticulture.

Not only are we actually delivering for our primary industries but we’re also giving local hospitality industries the boost they need, too. Just recently, in the recess, I was out at the Common Room in Hawke’s Bay, a very iconic establishment, and they had just invested in a big renovation, putting a whole lot of lighting and new DJ systems into the establishment. They have used the Investment Boost package of this Government, which enabled a 20 percent tax deduction along with depreciation. It’s this kind of investment that grows our local businesses and creates jobs and delivers for New Zealand and gets our country back on track.

Thanks, Mr Speaker. Two years ago, Christopher Luxon promised New Zealanders quite a lot of things. He promised that he would actually bring prices down, and that’s what New Zealanders are not seeing right now in this cost of living crisis. The only thing that he’s managed to deflate is economic confidence, the number of jobs in New Zealand, and, of course, his own popularity—and linked to that is his party’s popularity, as well. All of those things have been deflated under his watch.

The truth is that New Zealanders are not fooled by the spin of Christopher Luxon. They know well and good that there are no green shoots when they go up and try to pay at the supermarket or pay for their power bill. And it is no green shoots for those people who have lost their jobs lately. In fact, there are 20,000 fewer construction jobs in New Zealand under his watch. There are 36,000 fewer people employed in New Zealand right now, over the past two years, under the watch of Christopher Luxon. Every single day, 200 New Zealanders leave our country. The truth is that Christopher Luxon promised us that he would turn this bus around, but somehow he’s driven it to Australia, and that’s where it’s left a whole bunch of New Zealanders right now.

Let’s take a look at those job losses, because I think it’s important. We heard, this week, from the Prime Minister that those people should go the regions, that they should find some jobs in the regions if they’re 18 or 19 and are no longer able to get the jobseeker benefit. Let’s look at the 230 jobs in Karioi Pulp Mill and Tangiwai Sawmill in Ruapehu—230 jobs there. At the Penrose mill in Auckland, 75 jobs gone. Smithfield meat works in Timaru shut its doors after 138 years of operating in New Zealand. Columbine Industries in Gisborne: 45 jobs gone there. We’ve also got 140 workers without a job at Carter Holt Harvey’s Eves Valley Sawmill in Tasman, where the plant was closing. And 30 jobs gone in Dunedin fertiliser, in Ravensdown site. Sealord are also proposing job cuts in Tasman—79 jobs gone there, as well as other jobs in the Nelson area. At Carter Holt Harvey’s Tokoroa Plywood Plant, there are 119 full-time jobs proposed to go, as well. New Zealanders cannot go to the regions and look for a job, because there aren’t any jobs there.

The solutions—what are the options that this Government has given people who want to find work? They’ve increased university fees. They’ve made it more expensive for people to get training or skills. They have increased youth unemployment—record levels of young people in New Zealand without employment or without any opportunities to retrain or focus on skills development. The Apprenticeship Boost: you would think at a time when 20,000 tradies’ jobs are gone, you would invest in apprenticeships, but those numbers have dropped, and the Apprenticeship Boost has gone down, as well. Believe it or not, Apprenticeship Boost for civil engineering has been removed—at a time when we’re talking about infrastructure, when those people opposite are talking about wanting to drive growth, they have cut the Apprenticeship Boost for civil engineering. How short-sighted can you actually get?

When people are trying to find some sort of vision, some sort of hope in New Zealand, they’re being driven overseas, because the only green shoots going on here is for those members’ mates in those circles that they operate in. The hard-working Kiwis that are trying to pay for their bills at the supermarket, trying to afford their groceries each week, they don’t see those green shoots happening anywhere.

Every parent wants the same for their kids in New Zealand. They want them to be safe. They want them to have a chance to grow up, get a good job, and do well and stay here in New Zealand. That’s our aspiration. But right now, there are far too many families who have lost that hope.

Under Christopher Luxon’s watch, people are working longer hours and still struggling to be able to pay the bills and put food on the table. The job opportunities just aren’t there. We believe in an economy that serves everybody, not the other way around. We believe that every person deserves a fair pay that pays a decent wage; good jobs that grow local economies and grow local communities. That’s what we believe in. We do not believe in simply serving ourselves and letting people drift off to Australia. This Government has no vision.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou katoa. Water: it is life, it is sustenance, and, in Northland, it is also the literal liquid gold that helps underpin our economic future. For decades, our region has wrestled with a cruel paradox: abundant rainfall for half the year, followed by summer droughts that stifle our potential. This cycle has limited us to lower-value land uses, while our fertile soils cry out for water. But we are writing a new chapter.

Today, I want to show you, with tangible evidence, how strategic water storage is not just an environmental solution but a powerful engine for economic growth, using the proven track record of the Kerikeri dams to highlight the incredible promise that new projects the Matawii, Otawere, and Te Waihekeora reservoirs bring.

Let’s first look at the blueprint just down the road in Kerikeri. The Kerikeri irrigation scheme with its two dams was completed in the late 1980s. It was a visionary project and the results are undeniable. Before the dams, Kerikeri was largely a pastoral land area. Today, it is the horticultural heartland of the North. A 2016 report confirmed the scheme contributes more than $100 million annually to the regional GDP and supports over 1,300 full-time job equivalents. Think about that: one infrastructure project generating $100 million a year. The evidence is also visible in land values, which can be three to four times higher for irrigated land within the scheme area, reflecting the substantial, proven economic benefit of a secure water supply.

Now we are taking this proven success and scaling it across Northland. The Te Tai Tokerau Water Trust is delivering three major reservoirs, and the first of these is the Matawii reservoir near Kaikohe, which already provides a powerful real-world example. Completed in May 2023, Matawii has a capacity of 750,000 cubic metres of water and serves two vital purposes: it acts as a crucial backup to Kaikohe township’s water supply, and also, most importantly, it has unlocked land for high-value development.

We see this success in the Ngawha Innovation and Enterprise Park, where the Matawii reservoir directly enables a key business success story—a joint venture between Ngāpuhi and horticultural giant T&G Fresh to grow strawberries and blueberries. This isn’t just theory; it’s happening right now. This venture provides sustained skilled employment for local kaimahi and allows Ngāpuhi to generate wealth from their own land, diversifying Northland’s economy and demonstrating how water security fosters new industries and jobs.

Building on the Matawii experience, we are scaling up with our two larger projects. Otawere reservoir holds 4 million cubic metres. This will be the largest new facility built of the three dams and will irrigate up to 1,000 hectares. Te Waihekeora reservoir: this reservoir near Dargaville—which I was privileged to attend the opening of recently, along with the Prime Minister—enables the development of nearly 1,000 hectares and provides crucial water supply to the largest employer in Dargaville, Silver Fern Farms, and also to the Dargaville township. This has already enabled enterprises like Te Uri o Hau to establish new avocado orchards, attracting whānau back to the area with job opportunities.

So I say to 18- and 19-year-olds in Northland: there are opportunities out there, opportunities that are better than being on welfare. I look forward to the day that we are employing young motivated workers in these projects, rather than so many recognised seasonal employer workers. The lesson of Kerikeri, reinforced by the rapid success of Matawii, is clear: water security is the foundation of economic growth in Northland. These reservoirs are investments in climate resilience and catalysts for attracting private investment, particularly for Māori land owners. They are changing the face of Northland agriculture, and we have seen the future in Kerikeri: it is green, productive and prosperous. With the Matawii, Otawere, and Te Waihekeora reservoirs, we are now extending that prosperity across Northland, building a stronger and more resilient economy for the generations to come.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. On Tuesday morning this week, it was wet and it was raining in Christchurch East. It was a cold spring day in New Brighton, and so it was disturbing to know that three primary school - aged children were waiting barefoot outside a local food bank. Instead of being in a warm home or a classroom, they were waiting in the rain—children waiting in the rain for food. The question is—

Where are their parents?

—how has this been allowed to happen? The answer is worse, because this Government is making it happen.

Over the past few years, New Zealanders have heard a lot of promises from this Government—including that Minister there asking, “Where are the parents?” New Zealanders could ask the same thing right now, because Christopher Luxon promised a laser focus on bringing down the cost of living. Nicola Willis promised that cost of living relief is on its way. She even promised before the election that National will take action to get food prices under control once more.

Christopher Luxon made big promises on tackling the cost of living and fixing the economy, but, instead, he’s making things worse. He’s out of touch and he’s refusing to take responsibility. Instead of a plan, he only has excuses—excuses for the decisions this Government chooses to make.

The Government’s mismanagement and waste comes from cancelling new ferries and stopping and cancelling projects, contributing to 20,000 jobs—20,000 jobs—gone in construction; manufacturing closures in several regions across the country, costing vital, local jobs; and handing over hundreds of millions of dollars to tobacco companies, and billions—billions—of dollars to property speculators, to name just a few. It is hurting businesses. It is no wonder that 200 people a day are packing up and leaving, every single day, and what that looks like in New Brighton is three children standing in the rain outside a food bank—and all that member can say is “Where are the parents?” That’s all that member can say.

New Zealanders will remember when Christopher Luxon told them before the last election that “Nicola Willis and myself understand economics. We understand budgets and we understand numbers.” Well, people at home might be forgiven for questioning that. Our economy hasn’t grown; it’s gone backwards.

Because of your lot.

In the last quarter alone, GDP fell 0.9 percent, and whilst Christopher Luxon—like that member—likes to talk about rights and responsibilities, you’ll never hear him—or her—take responsibility for the damage they are doing to our economy.

According to them, it’s anyone else’s fault. They’ll blame Trump, they’ll blame Labour, they’ll blame international headwinds, but let’s look at the real story, because the countries we compare ourselves to are doing a lot better. They’re growing. Australia is up 0.6 percent, the United Kingdom is up 0.3 percent, the United States is up 0.8 percent, Japan is up 0.5 percent, and China is up 1.1 percent. They’re all going up, but the economic ineptitude on that side of the House is having real impacts on everyday Kiwis, which is looking like soaring unemployment, record homelessness, and children standing on the footpath in the rain outside food banks, instead of inside warm, dry homes or in their classrooms.

Now, New Zealand has enormous strengths. We have a skilled creative economy and workforce, proven innovators, and a financial sector that can channel investment into the future. With a real long-term plan, we can build on these strengths to grow New Zealand, to create new, good jobs, better healthcare, affordable homes, and real action on the cost of living.

We will move beyond this Government’s short-term thinking to a plan that eases pressures on families and tackles the long-term challenges that will shape our country for generations to come, because people don’t fall into poverty, they’re pushed there—and, right now, those members are pushing.

In the last moments of the House sitting before the recent two-week recess, we were forced to endure insult and indignity in this House by the dishonourable speech given by an MP for whom we had accommodated his desire to give a departing speech—an MP who had spent, in terms of the life of this Parliament, a matter of moments here. We had to endure a narrative that was not only an insult to members of this side of the House but to the party that brought that member to this Parliament. The member was an MP in a party led by two women, yet we were told this is a hostile and toxic place unless you’re a cis white man in a black suit and a briefcase.

Let us pause and reflect on the make-up of this Parliament and identify the number of “cis white men with black suits and briefcases”. Let us look at the history of this House and the shoulders on whom we all stand. Our first Māori MP was elected in 1867—James Carroll. There was also Peter Buck; Apirana Ngata; Māui Pōmare; Iriaka Matiu Rātana, the first female Māori MP who served for 20 years; and Whetu Tirikatene-Sullivan, the first female Minister, who, at the time she left Parliament, was the longest-serving female MP. And what of Georgina Beyer? The first—in the world—transgender MP, serving two terms of Parliament. I would also look at my own party, led by Mr Winston Peters, who has carved out a political legacy that is unrivalled not because he is a cis white man but because he is a statesman unrivalled for his political acumen. Then there’s our deputy leader, a true champion of Māoridom of the provinces and most importantly a Māori Dalmatian who could far unlikely be described as the cis white man that is apparently needed to survive in this House. Let us also not ignore our youngest wahine, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, who has paved a proud place in our political landscape and, without doubt, could not be categorised as a cis white man.

I cite this legacy because I want to put the record straight following the insults laid at all of our feet, because we were told we had to be cis white men to succeed. I am appalled that a member of this House talked of a political system imposed on our land. What an insult to our proud legacy, to the country that was the first to give women the vote in the world—the cowardice and ignorance of that passing shot by a member who did nothing to use the privilege afforded by being an MP in this Parliament. To throw passing shots and run out the door, believing there would be no right of reply—well, I am replying.

Yes, to stand in this place requires fortitude. It requires strength, it requires character, it requires courage, and it requires determination, but it does not require any of us to have to be a cis white man to succeed. It is a privilege and an honour to be here. It behoves each of us to forge relationships, to find common ground, but, most of all, to show up. Not only did this member insult us, our legacy, and this House but also, in the same speech, called for revolution that must “rise up from the land and from the people.” That message was clear. Then, over the last days, the party that Benjamin Doyle represented has been associated with the rising-up—an attack on the home of a Minister of the Crown. Apparently, we are to believe it is a really long bow to draw to suggest there is a connection. Well, I think not.

To stand here is an honour, to serve is a privilege, and here is the place you prove your worth. If you can’t handle the heat, you are welcome to leave, but do not sling mud at our democracy and our legacy. Do not, for one minute, suggest that only cis white men can succeed. Neither our race nor our sexual identity is relevant. We succeed because of the content of our character. We succeed because we stand up, because we show up, and because we do the hard work that needs to be done every single day. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

I move, That the sitting of the House today be extended into tomorrow morning to consider the following Government orders of the day: consideration in committee of the Responding to Abuse in Care Legislation Amendment Bill, the second reading of the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) (Customary Marine Title) Amendment Bill and the Parliament Bill, and the third reading of the Broadcasting (Repeal of Advertising Restrictions) Amendment Bill.

I move, That the Auckland Council (Auckland Future Fund) Bill be now read a second time.

The Auckland Future Fund bill is a significant and forward-looking piece of legislation that will help shape the future of New Zealand’s largest city for generations to come. Auckland is not just our largest urban centre; it is the beating heart of New Zealand economy, culture, and diversity. Home to more than 1.7 million people, around one-third of the country’s population, Auckland’s continued growth affects our national progress, but with that growth comes real and complex challenges: purchase of infrastructure, transportation, environmental concern, and the ongoing needs for sustainable investment. Meeting these challenges requires more than a short-term fix; it demands long-term vision and innovative financial tools. This bill represents precisely that.

Before I go further, I want to sincerely thank the members of the Governance and Administration Committee for their details and for their consideration of this bill. I also want to acknowledge all those who took the time to submit their feedback. Your contribution has played an important role in shaping the legislation before us today.

This bill establishes the Auckland Future Fund, a mechanism to secure growth and protect long-term capital that can be used to support Auckland’s most important needs. It provides Auckland Council with dedicated and enjoined financial assets capable of generating sustainable returns to help address the city’s most pressing challenges, from infrastructure and transport to climate action and housing. It represents a shift in how we think about public finance. Rather than relying solely on rates, debt, or central government funding, the Auckland Future Fund creates a pathway to financial resilience. It gives Auckland Council a tool to invest in the future while insulating it from short-term uncertainty and political pressures.

One of the questions raised during the select committee process was whether a local bill is truly necessary. Auckland Council and the trustee answered this directly in their joint submission. There are two key reasons why legislation is required. First, having a statutory protection gives Aucklanders lasting confidence in the fund’s purpose and governance, unlike council policy or trustees, which can be changed by future councils. Legislation provides enduring safeguards that are not easily altered. This ensures the fund’s integrity over the long term. Second, the bill introduces a higher threshold for key financial decisions. This requires a 75 percent super majority of the council’s governing body to approve certain distribution resolutions. That’s way above the simple majority normally required under the Local Government Act. By setting this high bar, the bill ensures major decisions about the funds are made with board consensus and clear public support, a level of protection only legislation can guarantee.

Another issue raised during the committee process was whether the fund’s investment should be limited to the Auckland region. It’s important to be clear about what the bill does and what it does not. This bill governs how the fund’s capital is invested in generating long-term returns. These decisions are made by independent investment professionals guided by a responsible investment policy adopted under Auckland Council’s long-term plan. That policy, which the trustee must follow, includes environmental, social, governance, and climate change considerations. These are responsible, diversified investments. Restricting them to Auckland alone would reduce this diversification, expose the fund to unnecessary regional risks, and could undermine long-term return and limited performance. It would also conflict with the fund’s responsible investment policy, which is designed to ensure ethical and sustainable investment across sectors and markets.

To be clear, this bill separates investment decisions from how returns are used. Investments are managed independently, but how the income is spent remains a council decision subject to normal consultation requirements. Under section 12 of the Local Government Act, any spending must benefit Auckland. That safeguard remains fully in place and is unaffected by this bill. Clause 9 further ensures that investment decisions are made independently of elected members and their interests. Under existing law, councillors and local board members cannot serve as a director of a council-controlled organisation. This provision reinforces the fund’s independence and safeguards the integrity of its operation.

I want to give the House an update on the fund’s performance to date. In December 2024, the board sold Auckland Council’s shares in Auckland International Airport Limited at $8.08 per share. By comparison, had the sales occurred in late August 2025, when the share price had dropped to $7.60, Auckland would have received $78 million less. That timing protected significant value for ratepayers. Also, between December 2024 and June 2025, the fund delivered a return of 4.06 percent, a strong result in a volatile global market. Over the same period, the S&P 500 rose about 2.5 percent, while Auckland International Airport shares fell by over 7 percent. The income difference is so clear.

In the 2024-25 financial year, the fund generated $38.4 million in distribution income compared to just $10.2 million in dividends that would have come from retaining the airport shares. Combining both the capital value and income, the council is currently around $100 million better off than it would have been without the fund. These are real, measurable gains and clear evidence that the fund is already delivering strong financial outcomes for Aucklanders.

This bill is about more than just sound financial management; it’s about laying the groundwork for the future, where Auckland can meet its challenges with confidence, ambition, and physical resilience. It’s about ensuring our largest city has the tools it needs to invest in infrastructure, deliver housing, protect the environment, and plan for generations to come. It is a bill rooted in responsibility, independence, and public trust. It provides the structure, the safeguards, and the vision required to deliver long-term benefits to the people of Auckland.

Before I conclude, I would like to acknowledge Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown, Councillor Christine Fletcher, Auckland Future Fund chair Christopher Swasbrook, and all the council officers for their contribution. Your engagement has strengthened the legislation and helped shape a better outcome for Auckland.

Finally, I want to emphasise that this fund is not just a financial tool; it’s a commitment to the people of Auckland and future generations. It’s a commitment to the people of Auckland by securing sustainable return and embedding strong governance. The Auckland Future Fund will present a model for responsible stewardship that other regions can look to as they plan for their own future. It’s an investment in resilience, innovation, and the wellbeing of our communities. This bill sends a clear message that Auckland is ready to meet the challenges ahead with confidence and care. I commend the Auckland Future Fund bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Tāmaki-makau-rau. Tāmaki Herehere. Tāmake Herenga Waka. E mihi ana ki ngā mana whenua o Tāmaki-makau-rau me ngā mihi ki Ngāti Whātua ki Ōrakei i tēnei rā. Nōreira tēnā tātou.

[Acknowledgments to the native people of Tāmaki-makau-rau and also to Ngāti Whātua ki Ōrākei today. And so, greetings all.]

Auckland is, or can be, the greatest city that we see in Aotearoa New Zealand. We are bursting with diversity, potential, and life. It can be a city that truly is about all of us, but it has to be about all of us and not leaving anyone behind.

Labour supports this bill and its provision of statutory protection for the Auckland Future Fund. It will help provide Aucklanders with confidence; they can know that it will help current and future councils to invest productively, helping to support our city to grow and to become more and more prosperous. The fund operates as a council-controlled organisation and regional fund under high-level direction from council, but through an independent structure where the trustees board makes key decisions. This is estimated to return 7.24 percent per annum over the long term, with 5.2 percent returned to council as an annual cash distribution, and the rest protecting the real value of the fund. That is approximately $60 million to $70 million per year returned to council from 2026—$70 million that goes back into our greatest city in Aotearoa, and back into the people of Tāmaki-makau-rau.

Many people in the House today, and watching online, will have read the State of the City report. It’s the third rendition and benchmarks our city of Auckland Tāmaki-makau-rau up against other great cities in the world—other great cities—and it tells us how well we’re doing. The neutrality of this report largely talks about productivity, how we do better, how we stay more connected, both through transport but also how we build a society that looks after everyone and ensures that everyone has access to the opportunities of the city that we live in. We know that, in many of these measures, we are going backwards: prosperity, innovation, knowledge, culture, experience, place, connectivity—a big one—resilience, and sustainability. The last one: opportunity.

I moved to Auckland for opportunity—to learn, to get a great job, to do what I do now: to represent people on the North Shore and across Auckland. I love that job, but times are tough for them. The thing is, the promises that this Government made to Aucklanders haven’t been achieved. I cite the article that comes from the Heart of the City survey, which outlines that the business association for Auckland’s city centre has reluctantly released their report; that officers believe that homelessness, too few police, neglect, and disorder—and this is when Government members start to chitter-chatter amongst themselves and heckle—

No one’s heckling you, honey, because you’re not worth it.

Judith Collins is heckling me right now—

Don’t bring me into it.

—because homelessness, too few police, Minister—open your ears—and frightening antisocial behaviour are crippling their trade. That’s the realities of Auckland, and so the call for this future fund is the call of Mayor Wayne Brown. This is not a call that’s come from this Government, nor the National Party, nor any Government MPs that represent electorates in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland. I acknowledge Mayor Wayne Brown for the work that he’s done, along with his council, to move this Government to take one action—one action—to generate better outcomes for Aucklanders, because the Government has been woeful on real action on the cost of living for Aucklanders. Explain that!

It’s called interest rates coming down.

Coming down—coming down. The Minister might want to explain to people in Papakura how that tangibly makes a difference in their households in her own community. No change—no change.

The important stuff today in this House is that we get on and move through legislation that actually creates real change to Aucklanders—

Oh, it’s good you’ve realised that, Shanan.

—and this change, in my 10 minutes to have my say—

Only four to go.

—is to talk about the progress that Auckland Council is making and Mayor Wayne Brown. The National Party members and the ACT Party members who are heckling across the other side, I challenge them to step up. Step up and invest in Auckland.

We will.

Your investment in transport has taken us backwards. Where’s your investment in public transport? It’s gone backwards—there’s less. People are paying more for public transport in our city than they ever have in the last two decades.

Wait for my speech. It’s coming.

Shanan Halbert could sit down and we could get to the answers.

Shanan Halbert still has time left on the clock.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I look forward to the other contributions from members across the House. I hope they understand—

Back to the bill—back to the bill.

—the needs of Aucklanders and their call for help—

Three minutes to go.

—particularly the member from Hamilton. When we look at the statistics, National is taking us backwards. We see it in homelessness; we see it in an unemployment rate up to 6.1 percent in the June 2025 quarter, the worst of all regions; increasing food insecurity, as highlighted by Auckland City Mission; the closure of the North Shore Women’s Centre—that’s a big one for our community that we have heard nothing about from North Shore MPs, five of them—

Talk to the bill.

—five MPs. I am talking to the bill, because what you’ll understand about the Auckland Future Fund is that it’s about investment in our city—something that you have not done, Government members have not done. It’s time for them to step up and answer the call of our city, of business leaders, of community leaders, and this is a great example of something that can be achieved. When there’s a will, there’s an absolute way. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak in support of the Auckland Council (Auckland Future Fund) Bill. The Green Party supports this legislation. It’s good legislation. It’s good legislative practice, both in its substance and in the process that brought it here. As a member of the Governance and Administration Committee that examined this bill, I can report that we’ve unanimously recommended that it be passed without amendment. That unanimity reflects both the straightforward nature of this legislation and the quality of the process behind it.

I’ll just say a few words about what this bill does, rather than getting into a Wellington - Auckland competition, which is very tempting. The Green Party, first of all, does not support the sale of assets, but that was done. Auckland Council decided to sell its airport shares. The council chose to commit those proceeds to a dedicated investment fund, and this bill provides the legislative framework to safeguard that fund as a long-term financial asset for the benefit of Tāmaki-makau-rau’s communities, both present and future, and it’s a refreshing change to look a little bit further ahead into the future.

It requires the council to ensure that the fund is governed and managed with the intent of maintaining or increasing its value, and it mandates that investment decisions are made by suitably qualified and formally appointed managers. So it’s sound governance and it’s appropriate financial planning, but it doesn’t lock these resources away without any means of access—it could be in emergencies or various sorts of things that we haven’t even thought about yet.

The council does retain the ability to make distributions from the fund, but only through a very robust process. It requires public consultation through a long-term plan process and a resolution to be passed by at least 75 percent of council members.

Now, that’s the way, in my view, that Minister Goldsmith should have been looking at any changes to voter enrolment. It’s the way that we should have been looking at the purpose of local government. Those are quasi-constitutional issues that should not be decided by a narrow and ephemeral majority. Additionally, council must demonstrate that the proposed distribution will achieve a benefit that is better for current and future communities than just maintaining the capital. These are appropriately high thresholds that balance that sort of flexibility with responsibility.

I also want to highlight something else significant about this bill which is sadly growing rare during this Government. It represents a statement of support for the autonomy of local government. We often see central government imposing rules and unfunded mandates on local authorities, and this bill takes a very different approach. It respects Auckland Council’s decision making. It provides the legislative tools that the council requested to ensure long-term security, and it recognises that Aucklanders, through their elected representatives, are appropriately placed to make decisions about Auckland’s future, not this House.

The Green Party supports the principle that decisions should be made as close as possible to the people they affect—appropriate decision-making. This bill, though modest, embodies that principle. It’s a partnership between central and local government rather than an imposition or a straitjacket from this House.

I also want to briefly address the process that brought this bill before us today. I think every bill that passes through this House should go through that kind of proper select committee scrutiny. We were able to ask the Auckland Council and other submitters some matters of detail about why the legislation was required, what was necessary, and what the changes were that should be made. We were made more confident about the effect of that bill through that thorough scrutiny. There have been far too many bills going through a curtailed process and it will not only have bad effects in the community but it will waste time in the next Parliament when we could be working constructively.

I just want to note that this bill’s probably unanimous passing should be a more frequent occurrence in this House. If we have the same aims as are often expressed in this House about the future wellbeing of our communities—economic, environmental, social, and cultural—then we would do better to work together and have more shared legislation.

There were legitimate questions raised about the local bill process, but in this case, given the Auckland Future Fund’s significance and the confidence that this fund will offer Aucklanders, we agreed that a local bill was justified. I want to thank Auckland Council, I want to thank Dr Carlos Cheung for bringing forward this bill, and I thank the Governance and Administration Committee members for a collegial and thorough process. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Firstly, I want to acknowledge the member Dr Carlos Cheung, from Mt Roskill in Auckland, the member who’s brought the Auckland Council (Auckland Future Fund) Bill. Congratulations, Carlos. Your bill will succeed. You’ve put in a lot of hard work, and Aucklanders now and Aucklanders in the future will thank you for this.

I also want to acknowledge the courage of Auckland Council in the face of the regressive forces which say, “No matter what assets you’ve got, whether they’re performing well or badly, you should never sell them. Assets should always remain stashed in a cupboard under the stairs or at the back of the garage because they’re assets.” That makes no sense. Auckland Council has seen sense that recycling assets and transferring the capital into an arrangement that can earn a better rate of return and, potentially, if they make more courageous decisions, lead to the deployment of that capital into new infrastructure that produces economic growth and makes Auckland a better place to live. If they can show that kind of courage, then the outcome from this Auckland Future Fund will be dramatic for Auckland.

That’s going to take a commitment. It’s going to take, as I said, courage. It’s also going to take some significant planning and weighing up of priorities, because, boy, oh boy, I’m an Aucklander and I can tell you there’s a lot of infrastructure lacking. We’ve got waste water overflowing into our harbour in places like—where I live, in Te Atatū Peninsula—Henderson Creek. Here’s one of my Te Atatū mates—Phil Twyford—who’s just joined us today. He knows what I’m talking about. We’ve got transport issues. The city’s going to grow by another million people, and I can tell you that despite those who would say, “You could just get out of your car and walk. You could just take a bike. We’ll put on more buses. We’ll tell you what: we’ll take out the car parks, and we’ll create bus and bike lanes. You can catch a bus.”, with a million more Aucklanders coming to live in Auckland, they are not going to catch a bus and ride a bike. They are going to need to drive their cars on roads.

That is why, in addition to all the other things that Auckland Council already has on its list—there’s a $4 billion shortfall between the infrastructure it knows it needs to fund and the amount of money it can get from ratepayers—it also is going to have to turn its mind to another million people coming, according to the Auckland plan. We’re going to have to increase the capacity of our existing and new roads by at least 60 to 80 percent to deal with the growth. That must sound like Armageddon to the Green Party. I’m sure that Julie Anne Genter would be having an absolute meltdown if she was here right now, but, in fact, growth demands infrastructure, and it’s not always the infrastructure that we like.

How did this infrastructure deficit occur, and how will the Auckland Future Fund help deal with that? Well, for many, many decades, Auckland Council and its predecessors have had a “Maybe if we don’t plan the infrastructure, maybe the growth won’t happen” approach. That’s not reality. Auckland has grown. It’s a very attractive city to live in—I’ve lived there most of my life—and it’s attracting more and more people who want to share in the benefits. There are thousands of kilometres of coastline. There’s the Hauraki Gulf marine protection areas—we’re going to restore the gulf. There are so many good recreation opportunities—not to mention jobs and manufacturing, high tech, and finance. There are so many good reasons to move to Auckland.

But we have an infrastructure deficit caused by an anti-growth council over many years, poor planning, and, of course, poor financial management. I’ll give you an example of poor financial management: every week in Auckland, trucks go round and round the city intending to pick up a tiny little bin of food scraps. Auckland Council said that every household must have this bin. They must put all their vegetable peelings in this tiny little bin, and they must put it on the kerbside every week. They bought a fleet of trucks to pick it up. Now, I’ll tell you what: most households don’t bother putting out that bin. They’ve got another plastic bin they’ve probably used to store something useful, like the plastic bags that they’ve hidden from the “plastic bag police” that they can still keep under the kitchen bench at home. It’s projects like that that have cost half a billion dollars or more, wasting Auckland ratepayers’ money and that have led to the situation where Auckland’s run out of money for infrastructure.

By selling the airport shares and transferring those funds into the Auckland Future Fund, that actually provides money to be spent on infrastructure we might need. What could Auckland Council spend it on? Well, in their regional land transport plan, they’ve identified public transport and other infrastructure that needs funding. They don’t have the money. Of course, the City Rail Link is near completion, and there are over a dozen level crossings approaching the city from the west and from the south and some to the east, but, because the road traffic and the trains meet at the level crossing, you can’t actually increase the frequency of trains and move more passengers through the City Rail Link unless you separate the rail lines from the road. Well, that was never planned or funded by the previous Labour Government or the previous ex-Labour mayor, Phil Goff.

Now, we have potentially another decade of disruption and billions of dollars that need to be spent on funding the grade separation on the Auckland train network, before we can start to see even the first meagre returns from the Crown’s $6 billion or so investment in the City Rail Link. There’s been poor planning, poor financial management, and a lack of courage, and it’s, basically, a “Maybe if we don’t plan for it, they won’t come” council. Well, this Government has committed to the City Rail Link projects and put down around $200 million for the first stage of grade separation in some of those really important parts of the network out in South Auckland. But, of course, you’ve got Kingsland, and then you’ve got Morningside and Sandringham all the way out west where Auckland’s intended to grow. If we don’t do the grade separation, the city will literally grind to a halt.

What about supporting growth outside of the city? Well, we have a supporting growth programme, which is an alliance between central government, Auckland Council, and Auckland Transport. It’s intended to deliver the infrastructure to allow the northwest of Auckland, places like Kumeū—near where I live in West Auckland—to actually grow and meet their potential. Every day, 15,000 vehicles—including heavy trucks and freight and stock trucks—trundle down the main street of Kumeū and the neighbouring town of Huapai on their way to and from Auckland City. That traffic volume is only going to increase. Hundreds of thousands of people are intending to live there. That land is zoned future urban and future commercial. None of it can be enabled. None of those homes can be delivered without the enabling infrastructure, such as a four-lane bypass around the little town of Kumeū, which, if that bypass goes in, will be able to grow and flourish just like other towns are when bypasses go in. Think of the Kāpiti Coast. Think of all of those towns that benefit from Transmission Gully and that are now able to grow. Kids can walk to school safely. All of these benefits are available if we put a bypass in. Northwest Kumeū deserves a bypass. Maybe the Auckland Future Fund could be allocated to that kind of project.

There are similar issues in Pukekohe and around the city. That’s before we get to the massive deficit in stormwater infrastructure. The fact is that large parts of Auckland are subject to flooding when, really, they shouldn’t be. It turns out the teeny-weeny little pipes they put in in the 90s, 70s, and 80s can’t cope with the tens of thousands more homes that have been built in those places those pipes were never built to service. We’ve got a huge stormwater deficit. Telling Aucklanders we’re going to take your golf course away and turn it into a wetland isn’t going to be the answer for everything. That’s before we get to the need to build our resilience against weather and other natural hazards, because, of course, Auckland is in the path of cyclones, like so many other parts of New Zealand, but a million and a half people live there. We really, really need to make sure that coastal defences, sea walls, and all of those things that protect our assets, protect our roads, and protect community facilities are actually funded and delivered.

I’m proud and the ACT Party is proud to support the Auckland Council (Auckland Future Fund) Bill to progress, to pass into legislation, and to be given effect, too. I also want to make it very clear that Auckland Council is on notice. The future elected members of Auckland Council will need to be courageous and take decisions that mobilise this fund into impactful investments, otherwise all this effort that proud Dr Carlos Cheung has put into it will be wasted. Go, Auckland Council! Get on with it!

What a fascinating speech to follow on from! Look, I wanted to start off by congratulating—

No money for Wellington.

I’m going to mention Wellington later on—tale of two cities.

I just wanted to start off by congratulating Dr Carlos Cheung, my good friend there, for your sponsorship of this bill. I also wanted to congratulate the Auckland Council because they brought this bill to the House. They didn’t have to do it, but they brought this, and I think it’s a matter of great responsibility on their behalf to safeguard this Auckland Future Fund. They’d already established this Auckland Future Fund before coming to the House, so they didn’t have to do this. What they’ve done is said, “We want to wrap some extra rules and controls around this so that future councils cannot spend that money too easily.”

It was fascinating listening to Simon Court there. I think he probably spent the fund about a hundred times over! What we’re talking about here is the ability to spend some of the income from the fund, not to be able to dip into the fund itself, unless you generally have a real emergency that the Auckland Council, by a 75 percent majority, have said, “Actually, we do think it’s more important to be able to spend some of that money to run down some of that capital, and to keep growing that money.” It might make $40 million, $50 million a year, that’s going to be a significant benefit, but it’s not going to pay for all of those things—and certainly not all the things that Simon Court was talking about—in a short period of time. It might contribute to them over a longer period of time; that will be a significant contribution.

I just wanted, also, to credit Auckland Council—because I’ve been given a little bit of a serve there—not only for their responsibility in bringing this legislation to the House but also for their responsibility in the way in which they are managing their finances and their rate increases. I would note that of all the big metropolitan councils in the country, their rates increase over the last two years is the smallest. The one thing we hear from ratepayers all across the country at the moment is their concern about rates levies. Auckland Council: last year, 6.8 percent on the residential rates; this year, 5.8. They’re not tiny rate increases, but they are the smallest of the big metropolitan centres, and some of the smallest in the country. So I want to congratulate them for that.

The money that’s made up this Auckland Future Fund has been from the sale of shares in Auckland Airport and, of course, the various constituent parts of what is now the Auckland Council—so the Waitākeres, the North Shores, and Auckland Councils, and so on. They all had shares in Auckland Airport, and they’ve been progressively sold. This was the last big chunk of those. Of course, the Crown itself sold its shareholding probably—what?—20, 25 years ago, I think it was. That means good, logical sense to say, “Instead of having a large chunk of our money in one asset, Finance Management 101 basically says ‘You diversify your assets’.” That is what the Auckland Future Fund is about. It’s about giving this in a controlled way to professional financial managers to manage a fund to achieve at least the kind of return that you were getting from the shares in Auckland Airport, and, probably, at the moment, a greater return from those shares. So it’s a diversification proposition.

It is not a spending proposition. It is not saying “We have sold these shares, and now we’re going to sell them.” Because the shares, of course, are in Auckland Airport. Auckland Airport represents something which has been built up as an asset over a very, very long period of time by the owners of that asset: the Crown, the councils, and, more latterly, private shareholders as well.

In fact, we heard about the investment in City Rail Link in Auckland, that’s a huge investment that’s been made, but, actually, by dollar numbers, the biggest investment in the country at the moment—and I think it probably will be the biggest investment in nominal dollar terms ever in New Zealand—is the redevelopment of Auckland Airport. Air New Zealand might not be entirely happy with the scale of that, but that is the nature of that. It is a very significant investment.

The establishment of the Auckland Future Fund is about not spending that long-developed asset, that long-developed amount of money quickly; it’s about saying that it was built up by past generations and it will be available to continue to provide benefit to today’s generations but also to future generations. The whole idea of wrapping that fund around with this legislation which we’re talking about at the moment is to say to councils that there is a discipline on you that you cannot simply go and raid the piggy bank; you have to do that in a careful and measured way. I think that shows great responsibility on behalf of the current Auckland Council, who have said to the Government—to the Parliament, actually, not to the Government; to the Parliament, “Can you pass this piece of legislation?”

I’d also make the point that the fund is worth about $1.3 billion, and, actually, there’s been an addition to that fund as well. There was a special dividend from another asset of the Auckland Council, that is the Ports of Auckland. They declared not only their normal dividend but also their special dividend of $45 million. That has gone also into the Auckland Future Fund, and that came from the sale of their shares in Marsden Maritime Holdings up in the Northport area.

The idea, as I said, is that this fund will be run by appropriately skilled investment professionals—not by politicians; by appropriately skilled investment professionals. They will make sure that there’s properly diversified, proper good returns, there will be asset sales and purchases and so on, as any good professional manager would do.

This fund represents, as I said, the assets which have been built up over a long period of time and it’s something that follows the model that has also been established by the New Plymouth Council. So they have also got a very similar kind of fund. I can see you nodding, Madam Speaker, because you’re well aware of this. So that, again, is another council which has said, “We have a set of assets, we want to sell those, we want to put that into a fund for the benefit of future generations which inhabit this particular part of the country.”

I did want to contrast that with another council very close to here, which looked—I told you it was going to be a tale of two cities in this particular bit—to sell shares in its airport, and that’s the Wellington City Council. They made a complete hash of it. Unlike Auckland—where Auckland said, “We are going to sell these shares.”, they went out and consulted on that and they said, “We are going to put the proceeds of that into a fund. We’re going to lock it away and hold it for future benefit.”—the Wellington Council, in contrast, in part said, “Oh, we’re going to sell those shares and then we’re going to use it to invest in a whole bunch of pieces of various assets of various sorts, kind of now.”, which would have of course run up their debt and, then, would also have had lots of costs ongoing.

The people of Wellington weren’t particularly keen on that proposition because they said, “Well, look, you’re going to sell an asset which earns revenue and makes a significant contribution to the funds of Wellington, which offsets rates, and you’re going to propose to sell that and transfer that into assets which do not earn revenue; in fact, cost you more.” So, quite logically, Wellingtonians were going, “Oh, hang on. I don’t particularly like that.”

They made that worse by, in some parts, saying, “We’re going to put it into those kinds of assets.”; other councillors saying, “We’re not going to put it into that; we’re going to lock it away.” I think, in the Wellington case, unlike the clarity that Auckland managed to deliver, they got everything completely confused. So, in the first place, they said they were going to sell; they then decided they weren’t going to sell; they then managed to be the only council in the country that that managed to torpedo their entire long-term plan; they then became the only council in the country which ended up an observer.

So it’s an example in Auckland—tale of one city—of how to do it right, and an example in Wellington—tale of another city—of how to do it completely wrong because you got your messaging and your ideas completely wrong, and probably misunderstood what you yourselves were trying to do.

So I just want to finish off with a couple of comments from a New Zealand First perspective. New Zealand First has always been a very, very strong advocate for the retention of assets. We like to see assets owned by New Zealanders, contributing to New Zealand’s economy. The more that we sell, the more that we borrow, of course, the more that the balance of payments is undermined and we keep on paying for that. There is no free lunch when you do these sort of things. We have always supported New Zealand ownership of assets, but in this case, what’s happened, of course, is you’re transferring one asset into another asset, and that is a perfectly valid thing to do because the return is still there for New Zealand—or, in this case, for Auckland. That makes absolute sense to us.

Of course, from our perspective, this also fits very, very closely with our approach, which is, as a party, to say, “We want to see New Zealanders saving more and investing more in our country because that is a way of both making individuals wealthier, of making our country wealthier, of providing better for our retirement income—and we know that that is a massive challenge—and it fits very, very strongly with our initiative to say that we want more money invested in the likes of KiwiSaver.”

So I’m delighted just to finish off and, again, to commend Dr Carlos Cheung and to commend the Auckland Council for this initiative, and to commend the bill to the House.

The next call is a split call.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. I want to start by expressing unmet expectations, and we’ll get the gist of it as I go through.

Unmet expectations: originally, in the first reading, Te Pāti Māori supported the intent of the Auckland Council (Auckland Future Fund) Bill, a bill that aims to protect whakapapa. It aims to protect intergenerational wealth and secure Auckland’s economic future. However—I say to my colleague on the left, who is smiling—we can no longer continue that support. Our change—

Aw!

—I know; all together—in position reflects a deeper issue. Without stronger and more direct engagement with Māori—that’s the missing piece, and it’s a critical piece from our party’s perspective—this bill cannot deliver on its promise of equity or intergenerational wellbeing. Yes, the bill outlines consultation requirements under the Local Government Act, and, yes, the trustee is expected to uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations. But let’s be realistic: expectations are not guarantees, and that remains an issue in this regard.

The current mechanisms, including letters of expectation, statements of intent, and council policies, are weak tools for protecting Māori interests. They do not ensure that Māori voices are heard where it matters most, particularly at the decision-making table. There is an undeniable lack of Māori representation, as my dear colleague Takutai Tarsh Kemp referred to when she took the previous speech on this bill.

How can we talk about securing the future for generations to come when Māori, the fastest-growing population in Tāmaki-makau-rau, over 250,000 strong, are not explicitly included in the governance of this fund? If this bill is to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Māori must be engaged as partners, not spectators; as partners in managing the fund, not as spectators watching from the sidelines. And sadly, this bill, even with a good intent—and we did spot that initially, but as it’s progressed, it doesn’t show up well enough in our minds.

This is not a new concern. Māori communities have long fought against the alienation of public- and Māori-owned land—land sold off with minimal consultation, and even less benefit returned to our people. If this fund is to protect intergenerational wealth, then Māori must have a say in what gets sold, how funds are invested, and who benefits from the returns. We acknowledge that the trustee is expected to contribute to the council’s achieving Māori outcomes strategy and work alongside Houkura, formerly the Independent Māori Statutory Board. But Māori must be more than advisers, and we must have the right to decide.

The Disabled Persons Assembly NZ has rightly called for amendments to ensure Māori, including whaikaha Māori, are directly consulted in decisions about the fund. Other submitters have called for mandatory consultation on governance, asset disposal, and capital distribution. These are not unreasonable requests. These are minimum standards if we are serious about upholding Te Tiriti o Waitangi and protecting our community’s interests.

If this bill is truly to serve all of those in Tāmaki-makau-rau, it must embed Māori consultation and representation into its foundations and not leave it to policy interpretation or vague future promises. Māori voices must be central to the development, governance, and oversight of this fund, not peripheral. This is the only way to honour Te Tiriti—that is our only way forward. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Green Party, as our previous speaker noted, is voting in support of the Auckland Council (Auckland Future Fund) Bill which, as others have already described, comes through an unfortunate history of the selling of assets—in this case, airport shares—by Auckland Council. It’s important to note that this decision should shine a light on the importance for central government to adequately support our councils, from a financial point of view, to make sure that councils are able to—rather than having debates about selling assets—if anything, on how more assets can be owned by local communities, and devolved to Māori, as well.

I think the previous speaker made some really valid points and a challenge, in my view, to the Auckland Council and to central government, around the need to strengthen our legislation and frameworks that council uses to make sure that Māori are guaranteed the promise of Te Tiriti, rather than just being a footnote in these pieces of legislation. I think that’s a really fair point, and one that the Green Party agrees with.

We also note that while we didn’t support the decision from Auckland Council, what we have in front of us is the need to establish a framework in how the Auckland Future Fund will go ahead.

I acknowledge the work that the committee did to get to a point of cross-party consensus within the members of the Governance and Administration Committee. I think that is important to at least give people in our largest city a bit of certainty around how that fund will be run in the future, and the frameworks that it will use. But, make no mistake, there’s more work that needs to be done to ensure that councils across the country—and certainly in our largest city—have the resources that they need to do well and to provide the basic essentials that people deserve—whether it’s picking up the rubbish, whether it’s clean drinking water, whether it’s adequate public transport—and a thriving natural environment to protect us against extreme weather events.

May this future fund be used for things that actually benefit our community. I do hope the council takes on board the challenges that have been made by the previous speaker to ensure that the promise of Te Tiriti is fulfilled, not just in future legislation and this one as it should have been but by the way that council operates.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would like to start by acknowledging Dr Carlos Cheung, a great National Party MP for Mt Roskill. As we’ve heard in this House many times, it’s a great day for Mt Roskill. I want to acknowledge the work he’s done, not just in bringing this bill to the House. He was the first, and eager, to come and appear before the Governance and Administration Committee, and he’s been a staunch advocate not just for Auckland but, in particular, for the people of Mt Roskill over the last couple of years. It’s great to see this coming to the next stage. Well done, Carlos.

He’s not the only one. I’ve been suitably lobbied by a good few number of Auckland MPs on this side of the House that want to see the best outcomes for their community. I’m thinking of the likes of the Hon Melissa Lee, who I’m sure we’ll hear from in a minute, Cameron Brewer from Upper Harbour. We did have the Hon Judith Collins here—

You can’t speak about people who are not here.

—I just said she’s here—

Not quite.

—advocating for the bill and the people of Papakura. We heard just recently from a member on the other side of the House, saying, “Well, what good will this do for the people of Papakura?” and “What good are decreasing mortgage rates going to do?” I would like to take the opportunity just to respond to that debating point that was raised here before. Let me explain to you how this is good, not just for the people of Papakura but for the people of all of Auckland, and, indeed, around New Zealand. To answer the question from that member, the official cash rate (OCR) has dropped from 5.5 percent to less than half of that, to 2.5 percent. What that means is when you refix the average mortgage, anywhere in New Zealand, you are saving $400 a fortnight. That’s real money in the hands, in the back pockets, of real mums and dads and Kiwis. We heard about a four-minute—

What’s this got to do with the bill?

—don’t start objecting on the other side. They can’t see the woods for the Woods on that side! But I’ll tell you what, we had about a five-minute tirade from the other side of the House saying that lowering interest rates did nothing for the people of Auckland. I’m explaining to that member—

In a general debate.

—exactly—no, it was not the general debate. It was speech No. 2 of this. If the members had bothered to listen, they would have heard that. It was speech No. 2 of this, and I’m responding to that. This is a great thing, to see what is happening to our economy. They might be a little protective, because their story was taking the OCR from 0.5 percent to 5.5 percent. It’s now back down to 2.5 percent, and that makes a real difference to Aucklanders.

Let’s move away from the distractions of the other side of the House to the Auckland Future Fund. I think one of the questions—

Which is where the interest rates might come in.

Well, it may do. One of the questions that many people watching will be asking is: why are we even discussing this in Parliament? This is a fund set up by Auckland for Auckland, for ratepayers under the council. How does it end up here? Those that have been watching recent members’ bills—remember, people often talk about private members’ bills. There are private bills, which apply just to a certain individual or entity; there are members’ bills, which are the ones bought by non-executive members of this House; and then there is actually a third category of “local bills”—that’s what this is. It applies just to a council in this case. People will be thinking of the “Takapuna Ice Cream Bill”, which this House has only just recently passed, which enabled the old boat club in Takapuna—on, as we all learnt, Sir Peter Blake Drive—to sell ice creams.

I was in Auckland just recently with the Hon Erica Stanford—another great advocate for Auckland in this House—and, gee, she’s popular up there, isn’t she? As we drove back from there to the Harbour Bridge, I looked across the shimmering waters against the dull, grey, overcast sky, and there was the Takapuna Boat Club—the one that we had passed the legislation for—and I had visions of them selling ice creams; probably not that day. But that’s what this Parliament spent hours and hours and hours working through, and here we are now with a second local bill for Auckland. I think it’s a fair question. Indeed, it’s one that the select committee has considered. Why are we passing this bill?

As Dr Cheung correctly gave us a nice synopsis in his contribution before, the reason—and perhaps one of the only reasons—that it needs to come to this mechanism is because of the supermajority clause: clause 11 in the bill. There are a number of terms set out in clause 8 about how funds should be distributed, and I will just go through those in a minute. Ordinarily, in any other organisation, if you had a majority, you could vote to go outside of that. However, those drafting this legislation saw the need that, in the future, there needs to be adequate protections because this is a considerable amount of ratepayer money that is being put into this fund through the sale of the Auckland Airport shares. How are we going to ensure there is suitable protection to make sure that, in the future, someone won’t just go and change it? That’s why they’re bringing legislation—because, otherwise, under the legislation, you’d just need 51 percent. They’ve put in this clause, clause 11, which requires a supermajority of 75 percent—75 percent.

Let’s just look at what that means. At the moment, when council are distributing funds, they need to meet certain criteria. One of those criteria is that it has got to be managed for the long-term benefit of current and future communities. The second one, and this is clause 8(b), is “with the intent of maintaining or increasing the real value of its capital over time.” In other words, you can’t spend more than you’re earning. If the trust has this much money, it gets a little bit of interest. You can’t spend, effectively, more than the interest that it earns in a given year. The real value of the capital has to increase every single year.

There may be extraordinary circumstances where it’s worth deviating from that rule. Clause 11 is really the crux that makes the requirement for this to be a local bill and to bring it to Parliament, and I would like to go over that. Clause 11(2) is where council may resolve by a supermajority of not less than 75 percent. Three-quarters of the members have to agree—

Read it like you mean it.

—based on—well, it’s Auckland; I’m half-hearted, to be honest, about Te Atatū in particular, in this case. The criteria that are set out and that are being enshrined in legislation—this is really the whole reason this has come here today—are that it must be to achieve a benefit that is better for current and future communities: better for them than maintaining or increasing the real capital value. They have to look at what this project is and say, “This is worth it”, and it has to be provided for in the long-term plan. They can’t just come up with a smart idea and say, “Well, actually, this is a good idea, shall we all vote?”—“We think we should have a second ice cream shop in Takapuna. Let’s go and vote for that.” No, this has to be in the long-term plan; it’s been publicly consulted on; it’s going to be publicly notified in accordance with the documents as set out in the Local Government Act; and then get the 75 percent majority. There are suitable protections.

I guess we’re thinking, what are the kinds of examples? We heard earlier from one of the ACT Party contributions, from Mr Court, that perhaps it is new roads to open up a new community, to bring new communities to life, to provide for that. Local roads that will be locally funded or local public transport might require that level of investment. Maybe it’s a stadium or a sporting or community facility in town, so we can have more of those late-night concerts that Helen Clark loves! Maybe it’s something like that. The plan has, firstly, to be consulted on with the community, it has to be adopted into the long-term plan, and then they still need that supermajority of 75 percent.

That’s really what it comes down to. That’s why this, ultimately, becomes worth setting aside the time of this House to come and pass legislation through all stages, through a long select committee process, to give the public opportunity to consult over and above what the council might do. I do want to recognise some of the officials at council who have done a lot of work with the Governance and Administration Committee. I’m particularly thinking of Grace and Katy Bexley, who have done, I think, a superb job of representing their community and working through some of the niggly issues.

Some of those niggly issues might be worth touching on just at the end, around clause 7. One of the submissions we heard in the select committee process was about—clause 7 sets up the governance and management structures—could it not just be an independent statutory body, much like the New Zealand Superannuation Fund? But, actually, what we have learnt as we’ve teased out these ideas is that the protections that are coming through this bill mean you get the Local Government Act 2002 and the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009 legislation that have requirements for auditor-consolidated financial statements, for an auditor’s report, and Auditor-General reviews. That provides, I think, the peace of mind that Aucklanders would be looking for when we look at the sizeable capital that’s being invested into their future. That’s what makes it worth bringing this in the form of a local bill.

There are great things happening for Auckland aside from the investment, like the new City Rail Link, and, of course, the great news that members seem so disappointed about today, with those lowering interest rates saving them $400 a fortnight—great news. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise in support of this bill, but how revealing that we had a National Party MP just stand up and tell us that he was half-hearted about Auckland—a third of New Zealand’s population. He really ought to come and visit and see the beautiful, beautiful thing that is West Auckland in all its glory. We have an amazing city council who some around this room across the aisles have recognised. They’re doing an excellent job in terms of proposing that this bill come to the House.

I do want to recognise all our councils today. Some of us had the opportunity to sit in on the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill this morning. They do so much. They do so much, and often not just the things they choose to do but what they’re directed to do under statute and under legislation. It’s examples of funds like this that will allow them to secure a good future for Auckland.

I must also mention that Auckland is a city that has seen emergency circumstances before, so I do think that it’s prudent that the system will allow the liquidity of some of these funds in an emergency situation and it’ll do so in a more effective way than the previous system. The previous system would have, if it had been continued, cost an additional $1 million to administer that fund, so it is useful to have that system.

I did read the third-quarter report of the fund, so we’re looking at a new fund here. It hasn’t been all smooth sailing. There were delays in terms of the appointment of the global investment manager, and while the distribution to the council measure was achieved, the gross return and net return for that third quarter weren’t, so no doubt there will be things that we will need to continue to watch, but certainly this fund is placing Auckland in the right direction. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is an absolute pleasure to rise to support this local bill from Auckland Council that is sponsored by my younger brother Dr Carlos Cheung—very tall younger brother—who does amazing work in his electorate of Mt Roskill and in all of Auckland as well, it seems. It is wonderful to see that the council had the confidence in my colleague to make sure that he shepherds this through Parliament. I’m so very pleased that we are here supporting it. He is a very great local MP indeed.

There have been many speeches made on this particular bill, the Auckland Council (Auckland Future Fund) Bill, in our second reading stage. I’d just like to echo some of my colleagues in the Governance and Administration Committee who talked about the unanimous way that we had worked and the cooperative way that we had actually looked at this bill. I also want to acknowledge Mr Andy Foster, who, despite the fact that he was a former Wellington mayor and a Wellington local government politician, acknowledged the great work of Auckland Council. This did not necessarily have to come to Parliament. The only reason this actually came to Parliament via Dr Carlos Cheung as the sponsoring MP is that Auckland Council wanted to make specific protections to make sure that the fund is protected for the future.

This fund was, essentially, established for the long-term financial security and resilience of Auckland and its communities. It’s all communities; it’s not one community or another community but all of Auckland, because Auckland is the biggest. It is the economic hub, the centre, the heartbeat of New Zealand. It is, in fact, one of the world’s most diverse cities, and more than 30 percent of its population is, in fact, Asian. I’m one of those people who migrated to New Zealand 37 years ago. I think my parents had the intention of moving to Christchurch, but they stopped at Auckland and never left. When they first arrived in New Zealand to actually tour and visit, they thought they would stop in Christchurch, but then they stopped in Auckland because it was, in fact, the place where businesses can actually thrive and the infrastructure was there, and they felt that that was where they wanted my brother and me to settle.

Let me actually get back to the establishment of the fund. The fund was established through the sale of Auckland Council’s shares in Auckland International Airport. They sold the shares for $1.3 billion. When Dr Carlos Cheung was speaking, he was actually talking about how those share prices dropped soon after they had, in fact, sold their shares. Potentially, if they had left the shares or if they were still holding the shares until this year, they could have lost $78 million of whatever they actually sold. The value of their share was $1.3 billion, not million.

That is what is actually financing this Auckland Future Fund. It is, in fact, a protected trust that, hopefully, will generate assets. It, in fact, started from one entity that Auckland Council had shares in. They sold that and set up the Auckland Future Fund so that they could actually own a few others rather than just one entity. That is the investment vision of the Auckland Future Fund and the value of the international assets that they could actually own—not just in Auckland or New Zealand. They can, actually, purchase shares and invest. Their expectation is that they will receive 7.24 percent in terms of returns, and they will invest 2 percent of that return back into the fund to grow the share of the fund and return 5.25 percent to the council where they can actually spend it or invest it on whatever the Auckland Council deems fit to use that fund for.

This is a visionary way in which Auckland Council has actually decided to not be reliant on ratepayer’s money to pay for things. More and more people who are ratepayers are getting very uptight and angry, and I suppose they should. When councils decide to spend the ratepayers’ money—and the rates are constantly going up—ratepayers get very angry about that because they feel that the council’s not doing enough or spending their money well.

Numerous members have actually talked about the potential growth of the Auckland population. We are expected to grow so much. When I first arrived in Auckland in 1988, there wasn’t—

As a small child.

Yeah, I like to pretend that I was a very small child—you couldn’t even find a decent flat white. Now, Auckland prides itself as a place where baristas make amazing coffee, and we are better than Australia, I say. Considering I came from Australia back in 1988, I am very proud to actually say that. We are so good at what we do. We have amazing facilities in Auckland, but we can actually grow with the benefit of the Auckland Future Fund.

While other members were actually talking, I went to the Auckland Future Fund website just to see what they have actually said. It says—and I quote—“As a council-controlled organisation, the Auckland Future Fund operates under the high-level direction of Auckland Council but through an independent structure, where the trustee’s board makes all key decisions. The board oversees the fund under a clear set of investment objectives and policies. Established as a trust, there are strict protections over the fund’s assets. In particular, the protections require the fund to maintain the real value of its capital over the long run.”

When you actually consider the fact that, between December 2024 and June 2025, the fund actually delivered a return of 4.06 percent, which my colleague Dr Carlos Cheung said earlier was a strong result in a volatile global market. When you actually consider the fact that, at the same time, the Auckland International Airport shares actually fell by more than 7 percent, that is good fortune—good luck—in a way. It was also good investment and good foresight to think that Auckland needed to fortify their future and the finances of their council and that they needed to structure the fund so that it has a 75 percent supermajority vote in order for them to decide how they’re going to spend the money and how it needs to be consulted with the people of Auckland. They didn’t just say, “This council decides that we’re going to set up the fund, and the next council will potentially do whatever the heck they like.” It didn’t happen that way. This is protected for the future with a 75 percent supermajority.

I’d like to congratulate the Auckland Council and all of the councillors, and everyone involved in the establishment of the Auckland Future Fund, and the operators and the financial experts and the geniuses that have been employed to look after the Auckland Future Fund. I hope that you can actually do an amazing job to provide a much brighter future for Auckland City ratepayers and also citizens of Auckland City, as I’m one of them. I’d like to, once again, congratulate my colleague Dr Carlos Cheung for bringing this bill to the House. I commend the bill to the House.

The next call is a split call—the Hon Phil Twyford.

I have a question for the Hon Melissa Lee. If she thinks this is such a great policy and such a great bill to put in place protections around safeguarding public assets in an elected organisation like Auckland Council, why didn’t the National Party do that when they flogged off a 50 percent share of the energy gentailers in 2013, 2014, and promptly frittered away the billions of dollars that came into the Government coffers as a result of that privatisation exercise that the National Party did? That’s quite a contrast, and I invite parliamentary colleagues on the National Party benches to think about that for a moment.

There are two good reasons to vote for this bill. The first is that Auckland Council asked this Parliament to legislate these particular safeguards—for example, a 75 percent supermajority before these publicly owned assets can be sold, and also a set of criteria that require a justification for the public good. But the second reason is that this, I think, is a genuine effort to manage public assets in a new way and to get the best out of public ownership. I think it’s right and it’s good to see the great majority of votes in this House supporting this bill.

The $1.3 billion that currently sits in the Auckland Future Fund comes from the sale of the Auckland Airport shares, a 9.71 percent stake. I won’t dwell on that. There were a range of views about whether selling that asset was a good thing or not, but what I do want to comment on is the fact that there are, in our view, some important reasons for public ownership—for example, the holding in public ownership of strategic assets, particularly in situations where you’ve got infrastructure or an entity that’s a natural monopoly. Other reasons: public ownership to deliver a service in a case of market failure or—as is so often the case in New Zealand—where there is a market that suffers from lack of competition and a duopoly or oligopoly, and non-commercial assets that just intrinsically have a strong public-good value.

Since the 1980s, the left and the right in New Zealand politics have been locked in a political argument over asset sales, and the John Key - Bill English flogging off of the energy gentailers’ 50 percent share is, I think, the case study of how badly the right has approached this question of public ownership. As I said before, they frittered away billions and billions of dollars of public value without actually reinvesting that in things that would seriously improve the productivity of New Zealand’s economy. It’s for that reason that the left always resists the selling of public assets and why that has become such a hot-button issue in New Zealand politics.

What I hope is that the wide support in the Parliament for this bill could suggest the possibility of a new consensus about how we approach public ownership. Auckland Council’s Future Fund is based on the idea of strategic management of publicly owned assets. Its charter includes a commitment to growth of those assets, shepherding them and growing them so that Auckland Council is able to use public ownership in a smart way to deliver on its task and to meet the needs of the people of Auckland. It is about using public ownership for the public good.

I urge members—I don’t have any hope for the ACT Party, to be honest, but I urge the National Party at least, and certainly New Zealand First, who, I know, feel strongly about this issue of public ownership, that we must build a consensus around how to properly preserve and look after and grow public ownership in New Zealand in the interest of the public good. There are lots of models around the world that would allow us to do that, and Auckland Council’s initiative with the Future Fund is a modest but positive effort to do this for the people of Auckland.

It’s with great pleasure to rise for the second reading of this Auckland Council (Auckland Future Fund) Bill. It is a master stroke for our leading region—certainly when it comes to population—and our commercial capital. It is growing at a rate of about 50,000 people per year. In fact, Auckland could reach 2 million people by 2030, so that just gives you some indication of the challenges that lie ahead and the infrastructure need that is unrelenting. This is not about asset sales; this is about asset recycling. This is about selling the old family silver and buying new family silver, and, as others have said, this is ring-fencing this fund in perpetuity, protecting it for future generations. The sell-down of council’s final shareholding in the airport last year, as has been articulated, formed the basis for this $1.3 billion fund that now sits as the Auckland Future Fund.

As has also been mentioned, there have been other contributions—one being in June, by the Port of Auckland, when they announced the special dividend of $45 million to be paid as a capital contribution into the Auckland Future Fund. That came on top of its $52 million dividend for the council. I want to just use this opportunity to acknowledge the success—because it was never guaranteed—of the Port of Auckland and its CEO Roger Gray. I want to also acknowledge the success of the Port of Auckland as it pertains to the chairperson, Jan Dawson, and I congratulate her on being appointed just in the last few days as board chair of ACC. If you want to drive performance in ACC, Jan Dawson is a very good appointment. In fact, I think the mayor said in jest to Jan, and possibly to the CEO of Port of Auckland, that if you don’t get the Port of Auckland going, there’s always the option to sell down the operational arm of the Port of Auckland, but that’s not on the books now given that it’s a contributor to this fund and it’s a contributor to our region and city of Auckland.

As Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson said at the time of the formation of this fund last year, this fund will give our council much needed headroom. I want to thank Desley Simpson for her leadership, not just at the council but around the formation of this Auckland Future Fund. I want to also acknowledge my long-time colleague and friend, former MP and former mayor Christine Fletcher for the work that she’s done on the formation of this Auckland Future Fund, not to mention the landmark legislation that was passed yesterday around the Hauraki Gulf. Christine Fletcher has been key in that. Wayne Brown, of course, has been leading this, and I also, of course, want to acknowledge my good friend and colleague the MP for Mt Roskill, Dr Carlos Cheung. Can I also acknowledge Chris Swasbrook, the chair of the foundation board for the Auckland Future Fund. Chris is going to do a great job there. He’s got a great track record, and he is going to do well.

This Government is working very closely with this council, as you can see. It’s happening before our very eyes, not just with this bill but when you look at the Land Transport Management (Time of Use Charging) Amendment Bill that’s before the Transport and Infrastructure Committee—congestion charging, that is—the reforms of Auckland Transport that will soon kick off and return more democracy and more accountability to Auckland Transport, and a 30-year integrated regional transport plan for Government and council to work on together. Let’s not forget the City Rail Link that’s opening next year, guys, and that being a council and that being a former National Government that kicked that off and that will be there to cut the ribbon. Let’s not forget that it was a former National Government that delivered the amalgamated city, which has given it such clout to create a fund like this for the perpetuity of Auckland. I commend the bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity for the second day in a row to talk about Auckland. Yesterday, it was about the wonderful Hauraki Gulf and doing some marine protection there—it took too long but it’s great to have it over the line. Today, I’m very happy to be talking, again, about Auckland, which is, of course, our only international city—

Oh!

—and of great importance to all of us here. It’s great, I’m talking up Auckland here! It’s really important.

What about Palmerston North?

I recognise that as a South Islander. That’s two things to be happy about today: talking about Auckland, one; and, secondly, talking about the future. It’s great to be talking about words like “long term” and “future” in this. The purpose here is to safeguard these funds, so it’s to continue as a long-term financial investment for the benefit of the current and future communities of the Auckland region. It’s so good to have these safeguards in place so that this money will be used for the long-term benefit. I wish we could see more of this in the House. I commend the bill.

It’s a great day to talk about Auckland. I’ve long been a big fan of Auckland.

Talk for 10 minutes, James.

What was that sorry, Dr Russell? Dr Russell would like to say that she wants me to speak for 10 minutes. Well, I could only possibly speak for 10 minutes if I had a plethora of notes in front of me, because that’s what some members obviously need to spend 10 minutes talking in the House—but not me. I don’t need speaking notes. I don’t need a copious amount of assistance for my colleagues. I don’t even need a copy of the bill to speak to this, because today we’re here to talk about a fantastic bill, promoted by my excellent colleague Dr Carlos Cheung. Hasn’t he done a great job in bringing this bill to this House, this Auckland Council (Auckland Future Fund) Bill? Isn’t it an excellent bill that Dr Cheung has brought to this House?

I don’t know if there’s much more to say in this short contribution that my colleague Cameron Brewer hasn’t already well and truly covered off. He gave an enormous amount of praise to the likes of Ms Fletcher and Mayor Wayne Brown. He even said that Mayor Brown had been talking about how if Port of Auckland doesn’t improve their performance, maybe he’ll sell down their operational arm. Well, hasn’t he been shown about what a success story Port of Auckland can be, with the tremendous results, and of course, with the development that they are undertaking? Just last week, I believe, they turned the sod on the berth extension down there at Bledisloe North. Of course, that was only made possible by the likes of the fast-track legislation, another amazing bit of legislation that this Government has passed through the House for the economic growth of New Zealand and of Aucklanders—similarly, this key bill as well, which will also add to that economic growth.

Now, of course we’re not talking about short-term gains here; we’re talking about a long-term financial investment fund to support the long-term growth of Aucklanders. That is the kind of Government we are; we are a Government that is focused not on the here and now but on the next 10, 20, 30 years. What does Auckland look like for future generations, for our children and our grandchildren? Possibly not my children and grandchildren, because, of course, they’ll be required to spend the majority of their life in the South Island, unless they give up their passport!

I need to raise an issue with the contribution of the previous speaker, the Hon Rachel Brooking, who said Auckland is our only international city. Now, I’m not going to denigrate the speaker—I’m sure she misspoke and was just trying to give the right amount of praise to Auckland—but, of course, we have a number of brilliant cities in this country: Christchurch, Dunedin, Timaru. These are all fantastic cities that could do with similar investment to what we’re getting through this particular fund. But I digress. I talk too much about the South Island on a day which is really specifically supposed to be about the Auckland Future Fund (AFF) local bill.

Now, of course this bill is one which aims to protect the real value of Auckland Council’s assets for generations to come. I think it’s worth looking at that for a second, because you’ve seen a lot of this in this Government: thinking about, well, how do we actually make sure that we secure the future for New Zealanders for the next 10, 20, 30 years? Along with this particular piece of legislation, I also reflect on the work of the National Infrastructure Plan, which is one of those pieces of work which has received bipartisan support across the House. When you look at what Minister Bishop is trying to do in that infrastructure space and the needs of cities like Auckland, who need to grow not only now but in the future, you’ll see that the investment opportunity that funds like this produce are key to that investment.

We’ve got to provide certainty to the international community if they’re looking to invest heavily in New Zealand, if we’re going to invest in our ports, in our roads, in our infrastructure, in our tunnels, in our bus lanes—let’s say some day, in the far distant future, light rail may even be a possibility in some of our big cities. It might not come now, but funds like this at least give us the opportunity to explore those options, and it means we don’t have to go cap in hand across the world looking for every dollar and cent; we can actually get it from within.

Now, I will talk a little bit about the management of the fund. My understanding from my colleague, and I spoke to him about this a short while ago, just before taking this call, was that it is important to highlight that the management of the fund will be flexible. Of course, it allows for internal or external governance structures, including trusts or other entities. That’s important, because we don’t want to put this investment fund inside a square box with very hard, thick, bold outlines that they can’t be manoeuvred in and out of. We want to provide some flexibility, because we don’t know what the future’s going to bring in the next 30 years for Auckland. We don’t know whether, in 30 years’ time, it should be in a trust or the fund should be in another kind of entity, or whether or not there’s some sort of third entity that exists in 30 years’ time. Providing that flexibility for management is very important for this kind of bill.

It is also important to note, for those who may have some concerns about the management of the funds in this, we are going to make sure—and we have made sure in this legislation—that only appropriately qualified and independent individuals will be responsible for making investment decisions related to the AFF assets. It should come as a lot of reassurance to members opposite that only those with the highest and most prestigious of qualifications will be entitled to participate in this process. I’m not going to point out any single particular university, but I know you could name the likes of the University of Otago, for example. If you’ve got master’s degrees or PhDs from that university, that would be, I think, the kind of qualification that would qualify you to be a manager in this fund. Not any qualification; you wouldn’t necessarily want your law graduates, like myself, running around doing that kind of stuff, but maybe your accounting or your finance graduates—or maybe someone with a PhD in tax or revenue or something like that; some of those really intelligent individuals that we have here in the House who, in fact, make a decent living out of teaching future generations about this kind of ability, these kinds of jobs that you can gain when you have a high-quality qualification in New Zealand.

Now, I’ve talked a little bit about the management of the fund. I’ve talked about how only appropriately qualified and independent individuals will be able to be making investment decisions. We also need to talk about how the decisions about distributing the fund will be made very carefully. I’m not too sure whether there is scope for further amendments, but whether or not we put some sort of qualification requirement on how those individuals make those decisions. I mean, I’m not sure we necessarily want them all to have to have PhDs; you want, maybe, some business experience or some investment, real-world experience from those who haven’t necessarily spent the five or six years grinding away at the University of Otago, going into the Burns Lecture Theatre or down to the Quad to get their Master’s and then their PhD under the supervision of one of the excellent professors—sorry, very excellent professors, my colleague Vanessa Weenink says, from experience, I think.

I think that you could actually extend maybe those kinds of criteria to those who are making decisions about distributing the funds because we’ve got to ensure that they align with the intended benefit of enhancing the region’s wellbeing. I’m talking about all of the regions, and my colleague before mentioned the amalgamation that is, I think, close to 15 years old now. I know there were some road bumps along the way, some maybe $500,000 speed bumps along the way, to amalgamation, but I think, on the whole, it has been good for Auckland. I think one of the good things about the region and securing its future is that there is a consistent approach across all of Auckland. Having not spent a lot of time in Auckland myself, much to my great shame, I think—I’d love to spend more time in Auckland but there are mountains to climb and tahr to hunt down in the “Riviera of the South”. I understand that bringing that disparate grouping of Auckland councils together to create this single entity has really—you know, I think Ms Brooking maybe had a point; it has really turned Auckland into a great international city, a city that we can be proud of, and we can be proud of the people that have been born and raised and come from Auckland, and those who choose to move there and live there.

I actually think that bills like this that are aimed at securing the future of regions like Auckland are incredibly vital to its success, so kudos to Mr Brewer, Mr Cheung, Ms Nakhle, and all the other Aucklanders who are in here. I see Mr Wilson down there as well. There’ll be a fierce battle in Upper Harbour this year, I would imagine. Who can be the “king of the bridge” up there? Hopefully they do better than their rugby team, but we’ll talk about that later on!

Look, I know I can’t get another call, and as much as I would love to take another 10 minutes exhorting the values of Auckland, I just think we should really sign off this brief contribution by recognising that it is important that as a country—I know I’m the Minister for the South Island and it’s not a North versus South thing—we do need to come together as a country. We do need to make sure that all parts of our great nation are contributing to the economic success of New Zealand; whether that is the far Far North, in Grant McCallum’s electorate—which he says as miles above the rest, but I think he’s looking at the map upside down—or whether we’re right down in the deep South, where I was last week, in Invercargill, looking at some of the fantastic on-land aquaculture opportunities that are there.

It’s the kind of approach that we need to take to make sure that “New Zealand Inc.” as a whole operates to make sure that we have the kind of country and future that generations want to live, work, play, and raise a family. So, with that, bearing in mind that I will be in Auckland this Saturday and I will be enjoying the economic growth and vibrancy that we are seeing there over the coming years—I haven’t yet been able to get a ticket to the train, but I’m hoping that all going well with my associate transport role, maybe I can get a brief delegation to join the rail link. But, in saying that, I really do think this is an excellent bill. I’m glad it’s supported across the House, and I commend it to the country.

Well, that was a real lesson in opportunity!

Members, the House is in committee for further consideration of the Companies (Address Information) Amendment Bill. When the committee was last considering the bill, we were debating clause 2. Clause 2 is the debate on the commencement of the bill. The question, again, is that clause 2 stand part.

When we were last debating this a few weeks ago, Tom Rutherford had just asked a series of questions about the commencement clause. He had asked what was an Order in Council, and I think that was for the benefit of people who might be watching at home and might not know what an Order in Council was.

That’s right—simple language.

Well, we do need to have language that specifies legally what’s correct as well. An Order in Council is an order that’s issued by the Executive Council—that’s the Ministers of the Crown—to put something into effect, and it’s often used to bring legislation into effect. So, in effect, what it will take for this legislation to come into effect is a Cabinet decision. Unless that hasn’t happened, there’s a hard line there of a year from the date of Royal assent.

Mr Rutherford also asked whether 12 months was sufficient for the officials to complete the necessary preparations. The officials assured us during the select committee process that that was indeed the case. Of course the Minister is responsible for the officials, rather than me. I take the officials’ word for the fact that they say that that is enough time.

He asked what regulations were needed to be made and did they need consultation—no regulations need to be made for this, so no consultation is needed—and what if all the preparations aren’t in place from day one? Well, I’d have to go back to what the officials told me, which is that they assured me that they would be able to have this set up in time for the legislation to take effect.

Members, we now come to clause 3. This is the debate on the principal Act. The question is that clause 3 stand part.

Members, we now come to clause 3A. This is the debate on the amendment to section 2, which is the interpretation section. The question is that clause 3A stand part.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I might just seek your guidance for a moment, actually, if that’s OK. I actually want to pay credit firstly to the Hon Dr Deborah Russell for returning to the Chamber with answers to those questions I posed about four weeks ago. I had been actually sitting on the edge of my seat here for the last four weeks waiting with bated breath for those responses. So I appreciate her seeking those answers and getting the clarity for me.

Mr Chair, I was just wondering if you can just clarify for me: we’re looking at section 4—sorry, Part 4. No, clause 4, clause 3A—clause 2A, the transitional savings and related clause provisions?

No, no, clause 3A—this is the debate on the amendments to section 2, interpretation. That was on page—

Got the right bill there, Mr Rutherford?

Yes.

It’s on page 2.

Thank you very much—that’s what I was looking for. Thank you very much for clarifying, Mr Chair. While I’m on my feet, I will take the opportunity, then. I’m keen to understand: if we look here, where it says “appropriate alphabetical order”, I want to clarify from the member in charge, firstly, why that was decided upon. Then it says: “ ‘alternative address’, in relation to the person, means—(a) the address given for the person in an application under section 360D(3)(c); or (b) a new alternative address given in a notice under section 159(1)”.

Can the member in charge just clarify what both of those sections actually are, for those who are potentially watching along from the gallery up the top, or watching along at home. It would be really interesting to get some clarity—

There’s no one up the top.

Suze Redmayne says there’s no one up there. She can’t see behind me—she can’t see what’s behind me.

I’m just keen if the member in charge could just clarify for us around those particular sections and what they’re getting at in there, because it is really important to understand so we know, actually, what this slight amendment around the interpretation is actually looking to achieve. So I’d ask if the member could clarify that, please.

The member Tom Rutherford asked, really, about what this clause is amending in the original Act. The principal Act here is the Companies Act. Section 159 of the Companies Act is to do with the notice of change of directors, and in order to give a change of directors, you have to specify a number of things that are listed. So that’s what it amends there.

So inserting the term “alternative address” in its appropriate alphabetical order—of course, this is amending the interpretation section of the Act, and, as I’m sure Mr Rutherford actually knows, we don’t just randomly bung terms in there, but we actually do list them in alphabetical order. So there you are. It’s specifying “alternative address” and it flows through into effects on section 159 of the original Act.

Mr Rutherford also asked about, I think, sections 215(1A) and 215(1B), or sections 360D to—

No, I didn’t get to that yet.

Oh, well. Just so—

That’s for my next call.

When you do, those are actually new clauses in this particular bill, so you can read further through the bill, and we will end up discussing them later in the bill.

Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s good to see you back in the chair there, Dr Russell. You’ve been great at giving us some back and forward so rapidly. You almost seem to have really pre-empted and thought ahead of what my questions were going to be. Oh, look at that! You’ve got a matrix—you’ve got a matrix of all the possible things that we could ask. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could get a copy of that? That would be just amazing and really helpful. But these are the things where, as new MPs, we’re actually learning a great deal on these members’ days about how we debate these issues and the very important elements. Even seeing your matrix there has given me great inspiration for the next time we go ahead with these.

It will help as we go through this section by section and clause, almost, by clause. You’ve taken us to clause 5A, which looks at—

No, no. We’re on clause 3A.

New subsection 2(5A), yes. So it says that subsection (5) does not affect section 215(1A). But when we’re just flicking through this bill here, it’s quite hard to see—and that must be in the original Act, in the Companies Act, because I can’t—“Public inspection of company records”. Because I don’t have the full original Act in front of me, I’m just wondering if new section 215(1A) must refer to the original Act. If it doesn’t affect that, which is about public access to it, I just wonder, not being able to look at it, how that is actually going to be a functional thing.

If you are wanting to provide an alternative address, part of what we’re trying to ensure is some privacy around that, that there’d be a way that people can say what their address is, other than their home address for those directors or shareholders. So I’m just wondering if you could explain a little bit more about what that new section 215(1A) is about. I can understand a little bit—and we can read through for new section 360D and where those apply, because this subsection doesn’t affect section 360D, which is about alterations of entries on the New Zealand Register. So that’s where the registrar can actually, in accordance with this Act or with other regulations—and, as you pointed out just in your previous answer, the other regulations are not going to be required, but I’m assuming other regulations mean other regulations similar or around this that could be caught up.

Also, subsection (5) doesn’t affect the fact that the registrar must take reasonable steps. Now, one of those things is: what is “reasonable” and what are “reasonable steps”, and is there anywhere where that’s defined or is there any potential challenge that could come from the definition or working out what reasonable steps are and whether or not that creates any difficulties for those who are trying to use this law change to be able to protect their privacy—if there are any barriers that that might then put in the place of a swift passage of changes on the part of the registrar so that people can be protected? Because as we were working through this process, we know that the real reasons why we’re doing this change, this amendment to the Companies Act, is that we really want to protect those people who have put themselves forward to be directors of companies, who are going ahead and are part of, really, the economic drivers of this country. They need to be able to feel safe in their own homes and their privacy is protected. We heard so many submissions about this. So it would be a shame if there was a process reason why things could be slowed down because of those reasonable steps of having to include extra steps in the process for the registrar to be able to make changes so that they prove that it was reasonable, because, you know, when it comes to these things, people are always trying to protect themselves from future issues and problems that might come up as a result of exercising their duties and their roles.

When it comes to people who are of the legal profession or with a background in anything to do with law, I’ve noticed that they can be quite pedantic in their interpretations. Also, sometimes they take different understandings and different interpretations than we may have expected when we are drafting the law. It’s one of those issues where it can seem really sensible to us, and for all of the time and care that we as a committee have taken, I just hope that there is not any problem that we’re going to be putting in there with that “reasonable” word in there. So just thank you in advance for that and also for your inspiration on that matrix.

I thank the member Dr Vanessa Weenink for her speech. A large part of what she referred to is to do with the new sections 360D to 360G—I think they are. I’m going to suggest that the member defers those questions until we come to clause 5, because that’s actually the operative section of this bill, which actually does all the work. This clause 3A is a pretty technical one.

The member asked what section 215 is about. Section 215 is about the “Public inspection of company records”. The member will see that it’s dealt with in clause 4 of this bill. So that discussion could wait until then. Sections 215(1A) and (1B) are new subsections in the Act, and they are introduced later in the bill. So I’m going to suggest that we just defer that discussion until we actually reach that point.

Thank you, Mr Chair, though—now that I’ve stood up and made that—I might be a little bit ahead. I was wanting to look at new section 360F and take it down that track. Is that—

We’re on clause 3A.

Ah, all right. Dang!

You can wait until then, if that works?

Wait a while? All right.

Excellent, brilliant—and I also want to thank the member for the very useful contributions that we’ve heard. I appreciate that we’re focusing on clause 3A here, around the alternative address. Clause 3A(1) says, “In section 2(1), insert in its appropriate alphabetical order: ‘alternative address’, in relation to a person, means—”, because, of course, section 2, the interpretation, is amended. The “alternative address” is “(a) the address given for a person in an application under section 360D(3)(c); or (b) a new alternative address given in a notice under section 159(1)”.

This is really important, and I do want just to kind of note what we’re trying to do here. Unfortunately, there are safety concerns for some of these addresses, and, of course, we’ve even seen people in this House having issues with their addresses being made public. There is a reason why we want to have alternative addresses. It is to make sure that there is some sort of accountability for people, and, really, my question is around the interpretation of alternative addresses, and what kinds of mechanisms will be in place to ensure that substitute addresses, or, as they’re called, alternative addresses—I suppose it could have been called substitute addresses—are still functional for legal and services purposes, because, of course, we’d want to make sure that any director is held accountable.

Of course, there’s phoenixing, when businesses may go a little bit sideways and then they’re reborn—I think that’s quite a clever kind of analogy there.

What’s phoenixing?

Yeah, rising from the ashes is where it comes from, but, of course, we want to make sure that the directors are accountable. Really, it’s about what mechanisms are in place in this interpretation to ensure that the alternative addresses that are given are still functional for legal and services purposes.

Members, the time has come from me to leave the Chair. The House will resume at 7.30.

Members, when we broke for the dinner break, we were debating clause 3A of the Companies (Address Information) Amendment Bill.

I just want to answer some of the questions that members asked previously. One of the members was asking about new sections 215(1A) and 215(1B). I’m just going to direct the member’s attention to clause 4 of this bill. That’s where those particular sections are. They’re new sections. They’re sitting in clause 4, so we may want to have a discussion on them under clause 4 rather than this stage. Similarly, with sections 360D to 360G, which actually contain pretty much the operative work in this bill, they’re actually in clause 5 of this bill.

Clause 3A amends the interpretation section, so it’s pretty technical, and it really is just technical, linking bits and pieces of the bill back and forth. If members wish to discuss the issues of what is reasonable and so on, I genuinely suggest that they save it for clause 5.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Just on clause 3A, I had a look through the select committee report on this bill, and it had in it that the select committee recommended replacing “address for service” with “alternative address”, which, from my understanding—I wasn’t from a member of the select committee—was to avoid confusion with the existing definition in the Companies Act.

Filibustering members—outrageous!

Interesting. Dr Duncan Webb seems to have an issue with members of this Chamber scrutinising legislation as it comes through the passage of Parliament. Isn’t that a novelty as to the role of what parliamentarians do on a day-to-day basis—holding those who bring legislation to the House accountable and trying in the committee of the whole House stage—

It’s a pity you don’t do it on other days!

Jan Tinetti pipes up.

That’s right!

Jan Tinetti pipes up. She might finally have something meaningful to contribute to this Chamber.

Can we address the bill, not each other, please? We don’t need the cross-Chamber debate going on.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I just want to finish the point there because I am on my feet and I do have the call. The role of the committee of the whole House—particularly in this bill because it is just one part, and we’re going clause by clause—is to dive into the minutiae of the details of the legislation. Being a clause-by-clause debate, we’re on clause 3A, and I’m asking a question about clause 3A. Before I was rudely interrupted—

I can’t wait until the next time you take a closure motion.

See, here we go. This is brilliant. Why don’t you take one now, Jan Tinetti, and try your luck with a closure motion, and I will see how I will, potentially, vote on it. Just keep going. Keep oiling me up. This is great. I’m having a good time.

Clause 3A, around the definition of “alternative address”: the select committee recommended replacing “address for service” with “alternative address” to avoid confusion with the existing definition in the Companies Act, hence why there’s clause 3A, which we’re talking about here, which inserts a definition of “alternative address”, while new section 360E sets requirements that mirror, but also differ from, existing section 192, “Address for service”, requirements.

The select committee amendments created new section 3A to define “alternative address” rather than use the existing “address for service” concept. I am keen to first understand, from the member in charge, why they thought it was important to shift from the previously used “address for service”, as is the case in, say, the Companies Act, to the change, which was the “alternative address”. Can the member also explain why new section 360E was necessary when section 192 already provides address for service requirements? How do the requirements in new section 360E differ from section 192? Why couldn’t the existing framework have been used? This seems, in my view, to create unnecessary complexity in the Act.

Duplication.

Yeah, a bit of duplication, Vanessa Weenink says. I would agree with her around “address for service”, but now we’re creating an entirely new term and calling it “alternative address”—for some reason—to avoid confusion. If the member could clarify that for me, I would appreciate it.

I note that a large part of the member’s discourse was related to clause 5 and the new sections that are introduced under that. He did ask one question that is quite interesting and is worth speaking about in relation to this clause, the interpretation section. As he’s pointed out, during the select committee process, it was realised that the term “address for service” is used in the Companies Act and, actually, used elsewhere for a whole variety of technical purposes like serving papers, as a place to contact directors, and so on. The point of having a director’s home address in the Companies Office records is, at least in part, to ensure that people can identify who a director is and where they’re located. It’s not to do with having a place where papers can be served—papers can always be served at the company’s office and so on—it’s to do with locating the individual director.

However, this bill has a different purpose. The purpose of this bill is to ensure that, in some cases, a director doesn’t have to put their own personal address in the Companies Office records; they can use an alternative address. Calling it an “address for service” would confuse it with the legal reason of having a place where papers can be served. It is to do with enabling the director to have an alternative address so that she or he is not subject to stalking and is not subject to people standing out in the street and protesting at their home address, and so on. It has particularly been requested by women who have been stalked by people who obtained their home address through the Companies Office records.

That is the purpose of this bill. It is quite a separate purpose from the legal service of documents, hence the different term that is introduced in this bill: the alternative address. The other thing is that using the term “alternative address” does quite clearly mark out a particular set of circumstances, which is relevant in this case, rather than confusing it with all the other reasons one might need an address for companies.

Clause 3A agreed to.

Members, we come now to clause 3B, “Section 159 amended (Notice of change of directors)”. This is the debate on section 159. The question is that clause 3B stand part.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was inspired by my burst of activity prior to the break to have a real good long hard look at clause 3B, which is, of course, the section that has to do with notice of change of directors. I have, I would say, probably about five real key topics or areas I’d like to examine this clause with the member on, and, within each of those topics, a number of probing questions around this particular clause 3B.

The first topic I’d like to speak to is around what I would describe as the clarity and purpose of this particular amendment, and I’d like the Minister to explain a few things, or at least try to attempt to explain a few things. The first one—

Oh, I will explain them—there’s no attempt about it.

Oh, no, there will be no attempt about it. Well, I mean, I’ve outlined quite a lot of content coming down the barrel, and I want to give the member time to rigorously examine the questions and provide thorough responses.

But the first one, and this first topic, is the clarity and purpose of the amendment. I just want to see if the member can explain the purpose of inserting that phrase “or the alternative address” into section 159. What is the problem that the amendment seeks to address here? Is the member looking at this from primarily a privacy perspective, is it a safety issue, or is it just administrative convenience? That’s the first question within this topic.

The second one is an interesting one, actually. There are a number of sections within the principal Act which could have been amended, and I point to section 360C or section 360D. I guess the question is: why amend section 159 rather than some of the other address-related provisions in order to make this particular clause amendment?

The final question in this introductory topic of examination is around the inclusion of alternative address anyway. Is that a mandatory requirement, or is it optional for directors when they’re notifying a change of details? Are they required to give an alternative address, or can they use one of the other options listed there? That’s the first set of questions on that first topic.

Thank you very much—

We could go together.

What was that, Mr Webb?

Dr Webb—Professor Dr Webb.

I haven’t even got to my feet and I’m being heckled already. That’s when I know I live rent free in his head—that’s when I know. That’s when I know. It’s very good. There’s not much else taking up the brain space; I’ll tell you that.

Clause 3B.

Madam Chair, clause 3B, “Section 159 amended (Notice of change of directors)”. Following on from my colleague James Meager, I’m keen to understand about, actually, the administrative burden for companies. So how will clause 3B, which amends section 159 to include alternative addresses in change notifications—how will clause 3B, amendment to section 159, affect the administrative burden on companies? Because with this change, companies will now be required to track and notify—so both track and notify—changes to both residential and alternative addresses.

They were previously just doing the one—they were just doing the residential address, which is the change that this bill is looking to make to provide that security to people. So you’re potentially not having people turning up at your property, who knows, throwing things through your windows, not putting pots and pans and banging things outside, disrupting the neighbourhood—who knows? Who knows? Hypothetically, that could happen. You wouldn’t know—you wouldn’t know—

Common decency.

—some common decency. You would think if you had such an issue with it, you would support legislation to change that sort of thing.

Companies will now need to track and notify changes to both residential and alternative addresses. What guidance is going to be provided on how companies should manage these dual address requirements? What guidance is going to be provided to the companies to say you’ve now got the required residential address of the director, but now you’ve also got what we have termed—and we just fleshed it out in the previous clause, what was now going to be called “their alternative address”. [Interruption] Potentially, Stuart Smith. How will you be able to differentiate between what will be their residential address and their alternative address and the burden that that may put on companies?

How will companies also know when a director’s alternative address has changed if the director deals directly, say, with the registrar, which is required under section 360D? So I’m keen to understand from the member, how would the company know when a director’s alternative address—let’s remember it’s not their residential address.

No, the alternative.

Their alternative address that they have nominated has changed—if that director just deals directly with the registrar and does not inform the company, how would the company know? Because under section 360D, all the requirement is is for the director to advise the registrar, and maybe the company might not find out. So how would I know if I was said member of the public and I go to the company and say, “Well, this was the alternative address that was provided, that was notified publicly.” I turned up there with my documents to serve them or whatever it might be and suddenly it’s now no longer accurate.

They also go and change the actual director.

Oh, Vanessa Weenink is going to take a five-minute call after me to talk about what if there was the change of the director but the alternative address potentially stayed the same. What if it goes both ways?

So my question to the member in charge is: if the alternative address changes but the director tells the registrar, how does the company know? Where is the check and balance and stopgap in the middle there to say to the company that you need to change the alternative address as well? Because the director has only told the registrar and hasn’t actually told the company itself. They’ve actually just taken the initiative, told the registrar, and then someone turns up and they’re grumpy and they say, “Well, I went to the alternative address that you advertised and it was not accurate.”

What was that clause again?

It was quite clear—well, under section 360D, which says the director just has to advise the registrar of the alternative address, they don’t actually have to tell the company specifically themselves. How do you actually mitigate that from happening? Otherwise you’re going to have grumpy people out there who are saying, “I went to the alternative address and there was nobody there. I couldn’t drop things off. It’s out of date.” How do you ensure that information stays completely up to date so that people can actually get to the alternative addresses that they need to get to?

Madam Chair, thank you. I will just go through the questions that have been asked. The Hon James Meager has asked whether this alternative address is a matter of safety or administrative convenience. The safety is the whole point of this bill. The point of the bill is to ensure that directors who are concerned that their home address is readily available through the Companies Register can actually use an alternative address. It provides a level of safety so that the Companies Register, which is easily available online, cannot be used to stalk. So that’s the point of this bill.

The second question said, “Well, why did we not look at amending other parts of the Act?” I just want to draw Mr Meager’s attention to section 159. Clause 3B is looking at amending section 159, and that’s the “Notice of change of directors”. The obligation under section 159 of the Companies Act is that the board of a company must ensure that notice is given, in the “prescribed form”, to the registrar of any changes in director or in the name or residential address of a director. This amendment will add in “or the alternative address” of a director of a company.

Now, directors actually have obligations to the company to keep the company itself up to date with where they live and what their names are. The member—and I note that his colleagues seem to think the same thing—sort of assumes that directors are very at arm’s length from a company; they are not. They are tied up quite closely in the governance of a company. Companies actually have an interest in knowing who their directors are and where to contact them and so on, so companies do this anyway. In particular, if the member goes to section 159(3) of the Companies Act, the board of a company has an obligation to comply with the section. Boards already have the obligation to keep the names and addresses of companies up to date with the Registrar of Companies.

So that goes to the third question that the Hon James Meager asked, which is—oh, no, sorry, something that Mr Rutherford asked. I’ll go back to the third one that Mr Meager asked: is it mandatory to have an alternative address? No. It’s not mandatory. This is an option that someone may want to adopt. When we get on to discussing clause 5, you will see the steps that a person needs to go through in order to adopt that option.

Then Mr Rutherford talked about the administrative burden for companies. There is no extra administrative burden for companies. They already have to keep track of the addresses of directors. A director who wishes to use an alternative address has to go through a procedure for that, then she or he will need to keep that up with the company. The company reports either the address or the alternative address of a director to the Registrar of Companies. So there is no extra administrative burden there. It’s not a dual address requirement; it’s an alternative address. So the company only needs to keep one or other of those addresses up—and, yeah, alternative address only if the director has opted for it.

The other thing is that there was a question about “Well, what if there is a change of director?” Again, this is just standard in the Companies Act. It has to be notified to the Registrar of Companies. There is already a set of procedures in place; there is no extra burden there. It is just the ongoing compliance cost of running a company, anyway.

Before I take the next call, can I just remind members that clauses 3A, 3B, and 3C are quite consequential to the substantive changes which are found in clause 5. So if members wish to canvass issues that will be in clause 5, they could already be deemed to be repetitive by the time we get there. So just a caution there.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the very satisfactory responses from the member in the chair, the Hon Dr Deborah Russell, to those questions. I was wondering, when she said “the young Mr Meager”, who she was referring to—

I meant the young Mr Rutherford.

—but, obviously, she got me confused with Mr Rutherford, and that’s where the “young” part came in from, so I acknowledge that.

Look, I am going to move on to the second topic of this clause, and it sort of follows on from Mr Rutherford’s contribution. It is around the definition of “alternative address” and its administration, and I think it’s important to address this here because it doesn’t appear in clause 5. It’s a question around how it is defined. Is it defined identically as the “address for service”, or is it a different meaning under the Act? I really want to touch on how you tell whether an alternative address is suitably qualified.

Now, I think it’s quite straightforward that when you have a residential address, those tend to be, first and foremost, legitimate addresses. They tend to actually exist in an actual property, a place, and a physical location which someone can actually seek information from. How will the Companies Office ensure that an alternative is a real place so that when you turn up to undertake the activities that you might want to for those addresses, such as providing service, it is a physical location that you can drop something to? Who will be determining what qualifies and constitutes an alternative address?

I can imagine a situation where it could be quite simple, where there’s a basic search on the Google machine. But what kind of proof of address do you have to provide that this is an actual physical location? And I’m not just going to sort of turn up to 242 Beach Road and find some rock or a set of sticks or a stone circle that someone has put into the system?

Just following that, do the registrars themselves have the power to reject an address that appears to be false or inadequate in that case, and, if that is the case, what is the process to go through in order to make sure that the address is actually a legitimate alternative address? I only raise this because it is quite straightforward for residential addresses. They are in the system, so when we’re now talking about alternative addresses, that might not be physical locations. I think they are legitimate questions to ask.

Madam Chair, as you suspected, the member was discussing material that is in clause 5; however, I will address it now so I don’t have to address it later.

I will draw the member’s attention to new section 360E, inserted by clause 5, where it talks about the requirements for an alternative address and it says what it must not be. It’s not the company’s registered office. It can’t be a post centre or a document exchange. It can be, say, at the offices of any firm of accountants, barristers, or solicitors, but you’ve got to state that the address is at the office of that firm and the particulars of the location in any building of those offices. If that doesn’t apply, but the alternative address is located in a building containing a number of premises, the alternative address must state the particulars of its location in the building, so a physical address is assumed, and it must be reasonably well specified.

The member asked as well, “Who verifies the address?” Well, that problem arises with existing company addresses or addresses for service anyway, so it’s no different a problem than already exists for the Registrar of Companies.

Can the registrar reject addresses? Well, I’m sure the registrar can. That would be in the powers of the registrar as already contained in the Companies Act. It’s not part of this bill, but the alternative address functions in exactly the same way as the ordinary, regular address, so all the same powers apply. So we’ve now discussed new section 360E.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, I understand the interpretation that the member’s taking on, dragging us up to clause 5, so I won’t dig into some of the consequences of amending section 159, which may well be covered under clause 5 and new section 360E in the subsections. But I will talk about the broader policy and the precedent being set here.

We’re going to be changing the Companies Act to provide for an alternative address for company directors. Now, I was involved in a number of club constitutions when the new Incorporated Societies Act came through, and I just want to raise a question around consistency with other Acts and other address requirements for potentially slightly more vulnerable people. You’ve got offices of incorporated societies and charities, who now have to provide their information, and they have to actually provide a physical address. How is this consistent with existing legislation, and is there any intention for the member to go further and look at the other requirements for address provisions in other similarly stated entities such as incorporated societies, charities, and other entities that may well have address publication requirements that, perhaps, members of those organisations are entitled to receive as well?

No, not in this bill. This bill is quite narrow. It confines itself only to companies. However, I invite the member the Hon James Meager, in his capacity as a Minister, to perhaps look at introducing a bill that would deal with that, or, indeed, any of his colleagues to put forward their own member’s bill dealing with those particular issues.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I appreciate your words of wisdom about the narrowness of this clause.

Good.

We are, of course, talking about clause 3B, “Section 159 amended (Notice of change of directors)”. My colleague has already brought up the burden for directors and businesses, and I just wondered whether there’s actually been any look into the burden on the registrar for this extra bit that we’re adding into the notice of change of directors.

Of course, in clause 3B we have subclauses (1) and (2). Subclause (1) says, “In section 159(1)(b), replace ‘name or the residential address’ with ‘name, the residential address, or the alternative address’ ”. I wasn’t part of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee at the time that this bill went through, but if I was, I might have brought this up then, but luckily, I have been transferred on to that select committee now.

We are very lucky to have you.

Yeah—very lucky. The thing is, I am just questioning about the wording, and whether it is actually clear. Instead of having the name or residential address and changing that to the name, the residential address, or the name and the alternative address, just to make it clear, because, otherwise, it might not necessarily—people might think that they could have a name or the alternative address.

So that was in subclause (1). In subclause (2), once again, we have “In section 159(2)(d)(ii), replace ‘name or the residential address’ with ‘name, the residential address, or the alternative address’ ”. The wording here just seems a little bit clunky, and it probably has a kind of different meaning, and so I was just wondering what was discussed in the select committee about that and whether we’re actually adding more burden on to the Companies Register with that.

I’ve covered this already. One needs to go to the actual original Act. This is an amendment to the original Act, so one needs to read the original Act. Clause 3B amends section 159(1)(b). At the moment, it says that the board of a company must ensure notice in the prescribed form of a change in the name or a residential address of a director of a company. We’re inserting the words “name, the residential address, or the alternative address”. I just invite the member to perhaps look at the original Act because, often, it provides its own explanation.

I was just going to remind the House that unless you are a garden gnome living on a mushroom at the bottom of the garden, I think we’ve canvassed this clause 3B, and so I’m going to suggest that the question is that clause 3B stand part.

Clause 3B agreed to.

Members, we now come to clause 3C.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Clause 3C is about section 189 being amended, the “Company records”. My question relates to the record-keeping complexity that may potentially arise from this change. The amendment requires companies to maintain records—as I outlined in my previous contribution—of both, now, the alternative addresses along with the residential addresses. Now, the member the Hon Dr Deborah Russell answered the question by saying that there will be no administrative burden, there will be no additional record-keeping complexity; whereas I say, in clause 3C, which amends section 189 to include alternative addresses in company record requirements—how will clause 3C’s amendment to section 189 work in practice for company record-keeping? Companies now will need to maintain both the residential and the alternative addresses. How will this interact with the privacy protections that the bill is trying to create? If a director’s alternative address is meant to protect their privacy, should companies be required to maintain records of both addresses?

I think that’s a really important point we haven’t canvassed, because what we’re trying to do here with the alternative address is provide those directors the privacy so they don’t necessarily have people turning up to their home residential address. But how will this change interact with the privacy protections in the bill that it’s trying to create? If a director’s alternative address is meant to protect their privacy, should companies be required to maintain records of both addresses?

I’m going to make two points here. One is that I invite the member to look up section 189 of the Companies Act. I’m assuming the member uses a smartphone and that, in fact, he could call up the Companies Act himself and have a look at it. Section 189 is about company records, where it says, “a company must keep the following documents at its registered office:”—this is section 189(1)—“(a) the constitution of the company: (b) minutes of all meetings and resolutions of shareholders within the last 7 years: (c) an interests register: (d) minutes of all meetings and resolutions of directors and directors’ committees within the last 7 years: (e) certificates given by directors under this Act within the last 7 years: (f) the full names and addresses of the current directors: (g) copies of all written communications to all shareholders or all holders of the same class of shares during the last 7 years, including annual reports … : (h) copies of all financial statements and group financial statements required to be completed by this Act or any other enactment for the last 7 [years]: (i) the accounting records required by section 194 for the current accounting period and for the last 7 completed accounting periods of the company: (j) the share register.” Frankly, having to have the alternative address as well is neither here nor there, particularly if for a small group of people who are the directors of the company.

The member then said, “Well, hang on a second. If a director’s alternative address is going to be available in the company’s records, which can be available for inspection and people can find it.” I’m going to take it the member has now moved on to discuss clause 4 because, in actual fact, if we look at it, clause 4 addresses exactly that privacy concern that the member was worried about. If the clause applies, a company can replace a director’s residential address with an alternative address on the company’s records that are available for inspection. That particular issue has already been addressed, and we’ve now addressed clause 4 as well.

For clarity for the House, too, the question is that clause 3C stand part.

Clause 3C agreed to.

Members, we come now to clause 4. This is the debate on the amendment to section 215, “Public inspection of company records”. The question is that clause 4 stand part.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Now, clause 4 amends section 215 and it relates to some of the content in clause 5 in so far as it refers to new sections 360D and 360F, and it says that section 215 applies if those other sections apply.

I’m not going to talk about the content of those other sections, but I want to talk about the content of this particular clause for itself. The first part that I want to question the member about is the use of the word “may” in both of those clauses—well, new subsection (1A) and new subsection (1B). The use of the word “may”: “a company may replace a director’s residential address with their alternative address”—and also in (1B)—“a company may replace a shareholder’s address”. “May” indicates an optionality there. Why is it not a requirement on the company?

If someone chooses to use an alternative address, wouldn’t there be, therefore, a requirement on the company to update their records rather than just give them an option? This is about the public inspection of those records, and if an individual changes to an alternative address but then the company is not required to update their records, how does that meet the intention of the legislation, which is to provide a sense of privacy if the original residential address remains on the record and the company is not therefore required to do it?

The director may well go to all extents to provide an alternative address, but if there’s no requirement to actually change it and make sure that the public record reflects that fact, wouldn’t that, therefore, defeat the intention of the bill in the first place?

I’m going to suggest to the member the Hon James Meager that a director of a company has quite some power to ensure that the address on a company’s register has changed to the alternative address. Directors have that kind of power. I’m going to suggest further that a director who goes to the efforts to have an alternative address—and there is a process there—will also be similarly motivated to ensure that the Companies Register is updated. This just gives the person who is maintaining it—the Companies Register—the capacity to do so.

Further to that, what is the harm in allowing this to be optional? Why is there not a direct requirement that the company must replace the residential address with an alternative address? It could even be qualified if the particular director asked them to do so. I don’t understand what the harm would be in requiring this. If the whole purpose of the bill is to provide—yes, we provide the option to provide an alternative address. But I assume that the director may need some sort of resolution to ask for the board in order to do so. It depends on how hands-on they are with a particular company. What is the harm caused by changing “may” to “shall” and actually saying to companies, “You have an obligation to do this.”, rather than leaving it up to a particular board of directors at a particular time?

Thank you, Madam Chair. We’ll wait with bated breath for the answer from the member the Hon Dr Deborah Russell in the follow-up question from James Meager around the changes to potentially requiring it, as Minister Meager outlined.

My question is around company record accessibility. Clause 4 inserts new subsections 215(1A) and (1B), which allow companies to replace residential addresses with alternative addresses in public records. How do the new subsections in 215(1A) and (1B), inserted by clause 4, interact with the main protections in new section 360D, which is: if the registrar removes public access to residential addresses, under new section 360D(2), why do companies also need the ability to replace addresses in their own records, under section 215(1A), and doesn’t that create potential inconsistencies between what are company records and the official register? Haven’t we, then, suddenly created some discrepancies between the two?

My question is: if the registrar removes public access to residential addresses, under new section 260D(2), why do companies also need the ability to replace addresses in their own records, under section 215(1A), and does that not create potential inconsistencies between what are then on the company records and the official register?

I’ll repeat the answer I gave to the question that the Hon James Meager repeated about why it is using “may” rather than “shall” or “must”. A director has an incentive to get that address changed to an alternative address. I don’t think we need to legislate that the director needs to do that, and it gives the company the capacity to act. That’s why the word “may” is used.

To the question from Tom Rutherford about inconsistencies between the company’s records and the Companies Register records, if the member cared to go to section 215 in the Companies Act, he would see that a company is required to keep records available for inspection by a person who serves written notice of intention to inspect on the company. That enables the company to ensure that an alternative address is used rather than the residential address, so it just does away with the concerns that there might be an inconsistency.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the very clear replies to our questions from the member in the chair. It is really helpful and is really getting through this very well.

This is one of the very important aspects that I remember during the Economic Development, Science and Innovation process. We did spend quite a bit of time debating around what the implications on the company records are. If you look at the company records through the Business New Zealand website or anything like that, you can find quite a rich amount of information on those company documents. Some of those documents, whether they’re in PDF form or other forms that you can actually look for, actually have pages and pages of information about the company, about the work that the company’s doing, some of their records. Sometimes, they’ll even have annual reports or sort of AGM-type notes and minutes that are recorded in there. Depending on how the company chooses to share their information or record their information, it can be quite verbose. There can be quite a lot of words used in there, so that, if you were to trawl through a lot of the documents, you may find that there are addresses or references to people scattered throughout.

One of the things that we discussed during the select committee process was—well, actually, when you look at the Companies Register, you see, as a highlight, the addresses come up, but in the actual documents on the company’s records themselves, and those that are available for inspection, they can actually have the addresses throughout. Although it’s beholden on the company to check all of that, it is potentially quite a manual process to go through some of the old records. If you look at the company’s website, the access to the information and how far it goes back is quite rich in history now. You have records that go back many years. If one wanted to expunge the e-record of an address from all of the documents that are available publicly, it would be quite an intensely manual process.

I think my question to the member really is: do you think that would be quite a technical process and quite a long, drawn-out, manual process to do? Is the expectation and the safety that we’re relying on here for people really buried in the fact that it would be an intensely detailed process to go through to get that information? We hope that people—the criminals or the slightly fixated individuals—might not actually have the energy or the tenacity or the understanding to really go to those extremes of really combing through past histories of old company AGM and annual reports and the kind of rich detail that is available on the company’s website to find that information. It would be impossible for somebody to completely expunge all records.

I know, when we had these discussions at the time and we were involved in some of those very interesting and edifying discussions and hearings, that we heard from a variety of people that were representing those directors, and especially from, for example, the Institute of Directors, who really implored that there be no requirement for anyone to have any residential address information available anywhere. I think we have some sympathy with that because, really, what it’s about is identifying, as you discussed, a person, not where they live. It’s not actually about the address. We don’t want, necessarily, to know exactly where that person lives. It’s about making sure that of the 30-odd John Smiths that you have on the companies and directors register, that it’s actually—

There’s very few of them.

Yeah, well, there’s 40-something on the page in there. There’s a lot of the same name. It’s about identifying the person, not about that. Are we relying on the tedious nature of going through the data that is there to protect people from the risk that they still may have somewhere there might be an address? Thank you.

I’m just going to note, first up, that clause 4 concerns itself with section 215 and that section 215 is to do with the public inspection of a company’s records at the company’s offices. It’s not at the Registrar of Companies; it’s at the company’s own offices. It’s a much smaller operation there. Presumably, a director will have some direct access to those records and can ensure that her or his alternate address is used rather than their residential address.

The member, then, really went on to discuss the matters that are sitting in clause 5, new section 360D(2), which is that “The Registrar must—(a) take reasonable steps to prevent public access from the New Zealand register”. We did discuss this at length in the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, discussing where a director’s address might be available. Indeed, it might be available on old PDFs and need to be redacted from it and so on. This is why we have, in there, the reasonable steps. We expect, in the first instance, that the Registrar of Companies, or whoever’s there, will actually do what they can to erase that residential address and replace it with the alternate address. My expectation is that, having done a good job of that, if the director themself comes across other places where the old address is still visible, then it may be possible that they can bring it to the attention of the Registrar of Companies.

There’s a whole variety of mechanisms there. It’s reasonable steps, not every single possible step. We would expect a reasonable standard of care. Of course, that’s a term used quite frequently in the law. It’s to take reasonable steps that can be tested, so I think that’s a perfectly good way to do it.

Finally, the member did talk about—this does float through the entire bill, so I will address it now—the issue raised by the Institute of Directors, who said, “Well, why are we using these private addresses at all? Why are we using them for shareholders? Why are we using them for company directors?” In fact, there’s a whole variety of instances where it seems odd that people’s home addresses are so readily available. Indeed, those of us who are in public office often take steps to get our addresses removed from the electoral roll because, for good reason, we don’t want people turning up and protesting outside our homes—or, at least, perhaps, they might care to do so in a peaceful fashion. However, I’m just going to point out here that this is a good little piece of law. It does serve a very particular purpose.

There is better legislation coming. The Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs has assured me that he’s working on his Companies Amendment Bill and that he anticipates having it in the House sometime soon. We don’t know when that soon will be. I’ve had a pretty upfront exchange with him as to what I intend to do with this bill, and my commitment to him has been that if his bill has its first reading before the end of the year, I will withdraw this bill. That is the commitment I’ve made to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, and I intend to keep it. It’s now on him to get his bill into the House. Having said all that, I take the point. There are many cases where we would prefer that we don’t have home addresses readily available—as they are at the moment, with just a few clicks on a keyboard. The Minister’s bill will provide a better solution. In the meantime, I want this band-aid.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move, That debate on this question now close.

Madam Chair? Directly relevant, Madam Chair.

I did give notice earlier that these clauses are very consequential to the substantive part of the bill, which is clause 5, which we are coming to next, so I am going to put the closure motion.

Members, we come now to clause 4A. This is the debate on the amendment to section 328, “Registrar may restore company to New Zealand register”. The question is that clause 4A stand part.

Clause 4A agreed to.

Members, we come now to clause 5. This is the debate on new sections 360D to 360G. The question is that clause 5 stand part.

I’m sorry to my colleagues Minister Meager and Vanessa Weenink. This is the substantive part of the bill. This is the nitty gritty. This is what—

Which you’ve already canvassed.

Ricardo Menéndez March says, “You’ve already canvassed this.” See, here’s the irony. In 24 hours, we’ll be in this House, less than 24 hours, and Ricardo Menéndez March will be speaking at liberty. He will be waxing lyrical on things—

About nothing.

About absolutely nothing. It’ll be just full of hot air—hot air. We’ll come up and say, “Madam Chair, I move that debate on this question now close.” Then he’ll get up with a point of order and he’ll complain about it and say, “No, no. It’s got many substantive points to raise.” How the boot changes.

And back to the bill.

Oh, I look forward to you taking a call, Jan Tinetti, and contributing something to the committee.

Now, clause 5, main provisions, new sections 360D to 360G—I firstly want to ask about application volume and resource planning. The briefing materials indicate that there are over 650,000 directors currently on the Companies Register. The Institute of Directors survey found that privacy was the number one personal concern for directors, supported by 44 percent of directors generally and 61 directors who are on high profile NZX-listed companies.

Clause 5 creates new section 360D, which establishes the application mechanism that could potentially be used by hundreds of thousands of directors. Can the member, firstly, confirm how many directors currently have their residential address publicly available on the Companies Register and what volume of applications the Companies Office is expecting under new section 360D?

Has the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) provided the member any modelling on expected application volumes with this change and what additional resourcing does she believe will be required to process applications without creating, for instance, significant delays under the section 360D framework?

I’m keen to understand from the member what volume of applications the Companies Office is expecting under new section 360D, and has any modelling been provided through, say, the select committee process or to the member directly on how many expected application volumes—

That’s what the select committee process is for—ask a colleague.

He says, “Ask a colleague”. I am asking a colleague. I’m asking the Hon Dr Deborah Russell. She’s a parliamentary colleague and I’m asking her—yes, very well.

Before I was rudely interrupted, has MBIE provided any modelling on expected application volumes and what additional resourcing, if any, will be required to process applications without creating significant delays under the new section 360D framework?

In terms of the volume of applications that we’re expecting, we don’t know. No, there was no modelling done. That’s the nature of a member’s bill. However, I note that the application has to be made in a particular form and there are some steps to it, including a statutory declaration. I doubt that there are going to be frivolous applications.

In terms of whether or not it could be done in time: as we discussed earlier in this debate, officials assured us that they could do the work, and we have to take the officials’ word at that, and certainly I do as I am not a Minister; I am just a member. They assured us that they could do the work.

In terms of the resourcing that’s required for it, well, that’s the Minister’s issue. If it’s going to be a problem, the Minister can apply for funding through the ordinary Budget process.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for the opportunity to ask a question on this bill. The member has just referred to a process which creates some challenge for chartered accountants across the country. Given that chartered accountants have a large amount to do with the management of companies in New Zealand, I want to understand if the member has canvassed, or engaged with, Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, regarding my member’s bill, about statutory declarations. The member just referred to statutory declarations and said that there will be a large number of these that will require a statutory declaration. Currently, chartered accountants cannot sign a statutory declaration, so they’re going to have to deal with the large volumes that my colleague Tom Rutherford has referred to if potentially up to 650,000 directors who could apply go to their accountant as part of the annual reporting process, etc., and have these statutory declarations signed.

I’m interested to understand whether the member has considered the impact on small and medium chartered accounting firms across the country, and whether she has spoken to her parliamentary colleagues on that side of the House about whether or not they would be supportive of the additional member’s bill which enables chartered accountants to sign statutory declarations to make the implementation of this particular legislation—

You can’t trust an accountant.

Call that out.

Yeah, I would call that out actually. Duncan Webb’s saying I can’t cross-reference. Of course I can.

No. He said, “You can’t trust an accountant.”

“You can’t trust an accountant.”—I think that that is disgraceful. Not only is that an insult to myself as a chartered accountant but it’s also an insult to every chartered accountant in New Zealand. I’m interested in whether the Hon Deborah Russell, the member in charge of the bill, was able to consult any chartered accountants from—

And does she agree with that comment?

Hold on! Was she able to consult any chartered accountants in her caucus about the impact of this? I understand that there aren’t any chartered accountants in the caucus on that side. I’m interested to know who she has engaged on the importance of signing statutory declarations and the impact for small and medium firms across New Zealand, which Duncan Webb has just said can’t be trusted. It’s an insult to business in this country. It’s outrageous. It should be withdrawn and apologised for.

To get back to my question regarding this clause and the comment that the member made—that there will be a large number of statutory declarations that will be required to be signed as a result of the implementation of this legislation—has she considered the impact on those firms, and would she, to reduce the impact, go to her caucus and encourage them to support a practical change that will support the implementation of her bill, as well as informing her caucus that chartered accountants can indeed be trusted and should be trusted? I’m sure we’ll understand a lot more about the implementation of any tax policy that that side comes up with, because, clearly, without any chartered accountants on that side, they don’t know.

I was, of course, admitted to the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants myself in 1992. There are plenty of us in the Labour caucus who have owned businesses, have business experience, and know our way around the Income Tax Act, amongst other things.

In terms of the burden on chartered accountants, if the member thinks it’s going to be a burden on chartered accountants to take statutory declarations, I suggest he withdraw his bill. However, I would invite the member to take notice of what needs to go into the statutory declaration. That is in new section 360D(3)(b), inserted by clause 5, and it includes “a statutory declaration … made by the director verifying that public availability of the director’s residential address … is likely to result in physical or mental harm to (i) the director; or (ii) a person with whom the director resides;”.

These are not mere frivolous applications for the sake of it. A person has to be able to say that they think they are at risk of physical or mental harm. I sincerely doubt that all 650,000 directors on the register of directors are going to turn up tomorrow the minute the bill is through asking for one of these, and I think it’s not reasonable to engage in that kind of scaremongering.

In terms of getting a statutory declaration sorted out, it’s interesting. It’s actually comparatively easy these days. Most justices of the peace run public desks in libraries or in malls and so on. LynnMall on a Thursday night—the JPs are there. It’s pretty easy to get a statutory declaration sorted out there.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Many Māori organisations’ trustees, Dr Russell, are listed as shareholders in their personal names, and not because they own the shares themselves but because they’re often holding them on behalf of iwi, hapū, and whānau. These trustees often aren’t directors, and yet they can face the serious risk and pressure and even the harassment from within their own communities, especially when decisions are contested.

I’m coming to new section 360D, Madam Chair. Te Hunga Rōia Māori o Aotearoa recommended that all shareholders should be able to apply to keep their residential address private; not just those connected to a director.

Tāku pātai ki a koe: could any shareholder, particularly those in sensitive roles, like Māori trustees, apply for address protection in their own right? First question. Second—and I apologise if you may have already covered this, but I just wanted i roto i te whakaaro Māori [a Māori viewpoint] in those contexts particularly. And, Dr Russell, would you consider extending the protections under new section 360D to all shareholders, not just those linked to directors? Thank you.

The member raises a really important issue, and it was raised during the select committee process: why doesn’t this apply to shareholders as well? She’s quite right. It ought to, but it’s beyond the scope of this bill. Again, if the Minister’s new legislation comes into this House, it ought to address that issue as well, so that shareholders are not necessarily identified by their home address, by their personal address. It ought to have some mechanism for dealing with it. Can I invite the member to write to the Minister now and raise that particular issue to make sure that it gets considered in the legislation that he’s considering bringing to the House? Having said that, once this bill is, I hope, through the House or is—who knows how things will go. That is an issue I had thought I might pick up as the next issue I might try to address, is that one about shareholders, because it is an issue. It’s a shame we didn’t address it in this bill, but perhaps in the next one we try for.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the time to gather my thoughts after the shocking revelations from Dr Webb—rich coming from a lawyer, of course, which is one of the least trusted professions alongside politicians. Perhaps Dr Webb could start a podcast and get media and get the holy trinity?

Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to take a call on clause 5, which, as we were reminded earlier on, contains the operative provisions, new sections 360D and 360F. Of course, it contains the provision around public access that the member was referring to before, and alluded to some of my questions around public access to company records being those physically held by the company under inspection rather than the website.

I think it’s entirely relevant to raise that point here again, because, of course, one of the intentions of this bill is to provide that protection, that privacy right—and to require the registrar to take those reasonable steps—including to redact information. Now, that relates directly to the questions I had around the optionality for companies to “may” replace residential address or “may” replace shareholder’s address. If we’re talking about getting into litigation about what defines “reasonable steps” of the registrar, surely one of the ways we could reduce the risk of litigation as to whether or not the registrar has indeed taken reasonable steps to ensure that privacy by removing or redacting a residential address and ensure it’s replaced with an alternative address would be to just require those companies to replace the address with the alternative address where requested.

That is the crux of that question around “may” or “shall”. If you change that term to “shall”, you then remove one of the uncertain criteria as to whether or not it is a reasonable step for the registrar to take. Upon being notified that a residential address remains on company records and has not been removed by the company, despite the fact a company director has chosen to put in place an alternative address, I can easily see litigation where the registrar is unsure as to what the reasonable steps would be to take if they are notified. We could take that risk of litigation out of this by simply saying that a company is required to replace it and reduce and remove that optionality.

That’s the question: what is the harm, and is it not a good thing to reduce some of the risk of litigation and uncertainty about what reasonable steps could be when a registrar is required to perhaps redact that information?

Excellent. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate that there is quite a lot of meaty substance in this clause. I’d like to thank Dr Deborah Russell for her kind of full answers that she’s given to date.

Something I want to touch on—and I nearly kind of touched on it in clause 4, when it talks about “a company may replace a shareholder’s address”, because, of course, we realise that directors don’t exist in isolation; they have family members that also may be affected. Of course, in new section 360D, inserted by clause 5, “Alteration of entries on New Zealand register on application for safety reason”, in (3)(b), it talks about “a statutory declaration made by the director verifying that public availability of the director’s residential address is likely to result in physical or mental harm to—(i) the director;”—which, of course, that’s very clear—“or (ii) a person with whom the director resides;” and it goes on.

Really, my question is about who determines who resides and what “residing” actually means. How will “reside with” be defined in practice? What proof will be needed to kind of furnish, to actually prove that this person, then, does reside with the director? Does it actually have to be for 365 days of the year? We do realise that people do move round. Relationships can be dynamic. I suppose it kind of comes down to: should we be actually extending this to all household members, not just who resides with the director? Bearing in mind that there are a lot of family-run businesses here in New Zealand which may have intergenerational shareholders. There may be multiple generations actually involved in it. Maybe we should extend it to all households? It may be even broader relatives, because we do want to make sure that everybody in New Zealand does remain safe. We’ve already talked about stalking behaviour; we would hate that to spread not only to the director but to the wider family members.

The question would be—really, there’s probably a couple of questions in there—how would “resides with” be defined in practice, and what proof will be needed to actually prove that a director resides with someone?

I just want to respond to one really important—well, a number of points. I think the one really important point that Dr Hamish Campbell picked up was other people who get affected. I think it’s going to be the same answer as the answer I gave to the member Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. It’s actually that, yes, it would be good, and the legislation that is promised by the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs should create that capacity.

This is, unfortunately, a very narrow bill. It really does just deal with directors and people they live with. It would be good to have taken it wider, but members’ bills are often necessarily quite narrow, so it’s a shame it didn’t go wider. I trust that the Minister’s legislation that is promised will deal with that particular issue. If not, again, it is something that I will look at as perhaps the next step, depending on what happens with the Minister’s legislation.

Then Dr Campbell also asked about “resides with”. It’s the ordinary meaning of the words, as often is the case in the law. There’s the obvious one of a husband and wife residing together. I have to say, I haven’t seen a lot of my husband in recent weeks. We’ve gone back and forth past each other, but we live together most of the time—aspirationally live together, the way it is for MPs. It’s just the ordinary meaning of those words.

Then, in terms of what is the test for whether someone really does reside with the director, of course, again, that director has to sign a statutory declaration saying that the person who resides with them could be in danger. A statutory declaration is—I know it seems like just signing a piece of paper, but it is actually a legal test. It does have legal standing. People can be prosecuted if they commit fraud, I suppose, when signing a statutory declaration, so there is that protection there as well.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I’m going to focus particularly on new section 360D(3)(b), inserted by clause 5. That’s what my primary focus is going to be. It says the application must “include a statutory declaration made by the director verifying that public availability of the director’s residential address is likely to result in physical or mental harm to—(i) the director; or (ii) a person with whom the director resides”. The bill requires directors to make a statutory declaration that public availability of this address is “likely to result in physical or mental harm”. Now, I note that Bell Gully’s legal commentary noted that this standard appears to be subjective, with no guidance on what actually constitutes harm.

Under section 360D(3)(b), it now requires a statutory declaration verifying that public availability is “likely to result in physical or mental harm”. The language in the new section requires the statutory declaration that public availability will result in physical or mental harm, but can the member explain or clarify what threshold of likelihood is required and whether any guidance will be provided on what constitutes physical or mental harm?

The bill itself provides no definition of these terms in section 360D, so will this be addressed in regulations, or is the subjective assessment by the applicant intended to be the sole test? Are we solely taking the applicant at their word, or are there going to be some rules, some requirements that people must meet? How are we going to actually understand that that director has actually met the threshold for what may constitute physical or mental harm?

Now, my next question, on that same section, is in Chapman Tripp’s submission to the bill and to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. They recommended that the service address option should be available as a matter of preference without any need to establish safety risk. They were saying no need to have that requirement to say a person is likely to result in physical or mental harm if they disclose their physical address. Chapman Tripp was saying, “Get rid of that, don’t have that provision whatsoever, don’t have”—

Winston Peters wouldn’t have put that in.

Well, Winston Peters would have, I’m sure, really appreciated had that requirement not been in there, as he then wouldn’t have had to necessarily declare his address being a director of a company, for example, and being publicly available—let alone people knowingly sharing it widely, which is just terrible, the harm that incited and the support that’s been given from political parties in this House.

Chapman Tripp, in their submission, recommended that the service address option should be available as a matter of preference without any need to establish safety risk. Why does section 360D(3)(b) limit eligibility to situations involving potential harm rather than allowing directors to protect their privacy for other legitimate reasons? Why is it only physical or mental harm that has been specified? Why aren’t there other legitimate reasons as to why they necessarily don’t need to have it disclosed publicly?

The harm-based test in this provision is, in my opinion, quite restrictive compared to what I’ve read, what many submitters have said, including the one from Chapman Tripp that said it should be available as a matter of preference without any need to establish a safety risk. What evidence does the member have that this narrow approach in section 360D is the most appropriate for this legislation and for New Zealand? Why is it necessary to have the physical and mental harm component? Why can’t a director just say, “I want to put this address rather than my residential address” without having to provide the justification; or who’s going to be the sole discretion on that one?

Madam Chair, while you’re finding your way and we’re having a replacement, I will carry on, but I want to be really clear is that I will continue to—Mr Chair—

Tom Humphries. [Interruption] Sorry, Tom Rutherford.

I seek leave to recall—ha, ha! Tom Humphries? I’m blushing, that’s—

Such a quiet, retiring member, that it’s—

I’m certainly not retiring to my seat, Mr Chair, but thank you very much.

My question I asked was with clause 5, section 360D(3)(b), around likely harm and Bell Gully having their commentary that noted that this appears to be subjective, which I agree with. There’s no guidance on what constitutes physical or mental harm, so who’s going to create the discretion and the description of what that is? Then the other part around Chapman Tripp’s submission recommended—

Play it three times and then say it again, Tom.

I love being heckled from the member in the chair. Isn’t it great? Isn’t it great? It means I’m contributing a lot. Chapman Tripp’s submission recommended that the service address option should be available as a matter of preference without any need to establish safety risk. Why does section 360D(3)(b) limit eligibility to situations involving potential harm, both physical and mental, rather than allowing directors to protect their privacy for other legitimate reasons?

The harm-based test in this provision, in my view, is very restrictive compared to what many submitters requested. Many submitters said we don’t want to have the physical or mental harm provision, just give us this change option altogether. Don’t require us to have to prove that we have threats or potential of physical or mental harm. Don’t require us to prove that. Just allow us to say we want to have an alternative address, and that should be enough. Rather than our residential address, let us just provide an alternative address, and that should be enough. Don’t make us have to justify to the register, or through our business as a director of it, or to the company’s office why we feel we are in such a position.

What if that actually relitigates things for that person? What if it triggers them around what potentially may be raised from it, the trauma that could be associated with then having to say to the Companies Office, to a person they’ve potentially never met, and say, “For XYZ reason, I want to remove my residential address and I want to provide an alternative address.”

Why can’t they just turn up and say to the Companies Office, “I am a director of XYZ business limited and it is my view that I want to change what is disclosed from being my residential address to an alternative address,” and for the company’s office to say, “OK, we will action that change. No further questions. We will go about it as long as you provide the necessary paperwork. We will go about actioning that change”—rather than requiring them to prove why they believe they could potentially be impacted with either physical or mental harm? I would welcome the member’s opportunity to answer that question.

Two interesting questions from the member Tom Rutherford. The questions rather pull against each other. One of them was asking why the standard is so tight, and the other one was asking why shouldn’t the standard be much looser.

In terms of physical or mental harm: again, the answer is the same as before, it’s a statutory declaration. That’s all that’s required. If a person is willing to say that about themselves or someone that they live with, well, then that is taken to be enough. We do take people at their word when they sign a statutory declaration. That’s a good thing there.

I take the member’s point about the submission from Chapman Tripp. In fact, I had a bit of correspondence during the course of this bill with Roger Wallis, one of the partners at Chapman Tripp.

Again, I just say to the member—that point about “Why shouldn’t it just be a preference?”—it is exactly the same point as was raised by Dr Campbell and raised by Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: “Why couldn’t it just go further?” It would be good if it went further. It’s a narrow bill. It is just applying to directors and it also, of course, is to directors who happen to be the shareholders as well, so it applies across their shareholdings too, for a particular company.

I trust that the Minister’s legislation will actually address those particular issues. From the way he has described it to me, it should. In the meantime, this is just a narrow piece of work that will actually help in what we hope are reasonably few cases where people have stalked through the Companies Register. We don’t actually know, but I do know that I have had people write to me and say, “Hey, I’ve had this real problem.” It is a real problem. It does exist. How big it is, we don’t really know. The Minister’s legislation will solve it properly. This will be a band-aid.

Excellent—thank you, Mr Chair. I probably will take up where my colleague just finished, talking about this criteria—why limit it? I appreciate your answer that it is a statutory declaration, but should that statutory declaration come to light to be untrue, what role, then, does the Companies Register have in actually challenging it, kind of rectifying the situation? What mechanisms are there, or would the Companies Register leave the alternative address in there, even though they know that, actually, the statutory declaration is not correct, and it may not be likely to result in physical harm or mental harm for the director, or as, of course, the clause lays out a person with whom the director resides. What sort of time frame would the registrar then have to correct the issue? I’m also bearing in mind what my colleague Tom Rutherford said: that maybe this is a little bit of an overkill, that we should just be able to say that we want an alternative address.

This is a slightly different situation, and the fact that when information has come to light, once something has already happened, what way does the registrar’s office have to kind of challenge the alternative address and rectify a situation that has arisen because this clause has been then inserted into the Companies Act? Of course, unfortunately, situations change. Also, maybe if there’s no longer that risk of physical or mental harm, what then happens? We’ve spelt it out that they can apply for it if this is likely to result, but times change, people move on, relationships move on. Maybe it no longer actually matters. What then? What challenges or corrective actions will then be taken?

Very straightforwardly, there will be the same remedies the Registrar of Companies already has with respect to false information being provided to it.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Thank you, Mr Chair. At last! I have so many questions. In this section, if you will indulge me a little bit, I want to take a few of the subclauses of clause 5. I may go forward and back and forwards a little bit when I’m getting to my point. There’s a bit of a theme that I think is developing in some of our lines of questioning around the barriers that are put in place for people who are trying to get this remedy. We’ve really traversed a little bit about the fact that there does need to be a statutory declaration.

We talked about this at length, and, as has been discussed, many submitters also asked why this was a requirement. As the member in the chair, the Hon Dr Deborah Russell, has pointed out, we expect that that will be quite a low barrier. The fact that there are many people who can sign off a statutory declaration—not just chartered accountants but JPs and the like, where you find JPs quite common and easy to find at any of the service centres or MPs’ offices. I’d just like to shout out to Anna Matthews who’s a JP in my electoral office down in Ferrymead in Christchurch. She’s recently become a JP, and, very frequently, those services are used at our office there on Ferry Road. Although it’s a low barrier, it’s still a barrier. Given that there are 650,000-odd directors, I think part of the rationale for this, if I’m correct, was that we need to have some small barrier so that there isn’t a tidal wave of requests that then aren’t able to be actioned and, then, in the volume itself, create a barrier to people having this actioned through the Registrar of Companies. This is a small barrier but potentially a necessary one. I wonder if the member agrees with that.

Then the other barrier that we did really talk about and discuss quite a bit at length at the committee was in new subsection 360D(3)(d) that it may “be accompanied by the prescribed fee (if any).” We weren’t sure if this was going to be something that would be applied, whether a fee would be required to carry out the service, whether or not that would actually create much of a barrier to people using the service, and whether it was a fair and equitable thing to impose any fee. As Te Pāti Māori members will appreciate, we considered whether that created any additional barriers for Māori or other lower socio-economic groups or others who might be otherwise economically challenged. I’m not saying all Māori are, because that’s certainly not the case, but if that was creating any barriers, was that fair and was that equitable? There was quite a discussion about the fact that there may not need to be any fee. That’s why it’s important that “(if any)” was in there, because if we’d said “prescribed fee” and then didn’t actually have a fee, then we could end up with a ridiculous situation where, actually, there was some fee that had to apply, even though it might not really mean anything or be just a notional thing.

The other thing that I think is a useful thing that has been put into this is that each application can apply to more than one company. It would be, again, a nonsensical situation if every company that each director was a director of had to be individually applied for. Given that some people can be a director of multiple companies and have different roles, they may have multiple companies that are nested within one company. It is a very sensible thing, but, again, a small barrier has been removed, and others have been put in place.

Thank you, sir. I only have two questions. One of them has been touched on by the Government member Dr Vanessa Weenink just now. But I wish to take a slightly different tack, and that’s on what will become section 360D(3)(d), which is the words “be accompanied by the prescribed fee (if any).” I just wonder, having sat through a couple of select committee deliberations where it was discussed, I think, of citizenship, “Would there be a fee?”—I understand the reason why it says “the prescribed fee (if any).”, to give some latitude and this can be set in regulations. But I wonder if there is consideration given to removing that or to making it clear at this point in the legislation that there would not be a fee.

The reason I ask that is that this is about safety and security and the wellbeing of directors of companies, and these are not all the big corporate companies that we might be thinking of. You know, when you look at an electorate like mine on the Kāpiti Coast, but it’s representative of all of New Zealand, that the average company has one employee, maybe one director, they are working hard to get this country ahead, and not everyone necessarily has the means to pay for a fee. But should that be inherently a barrier or an obstacle to receiving the protection that this bill brings? I commend the intent of this because it’s about providing that safety-net protection to Kiwis who are getting about their business but feel there is a genuine risk to them. But should money ever be an obstacle to receiving that protection?

It would be easy for some to look at this and say “Well, look, it probably won’t be much. It might not be that much. We don’t know what it will be.”, but, actually, there is just an inherent access to justice and to the private enjoyment of their own home that is worthy, I think, of consideration here. So I would be interested to hear from the member: is there consideration to make it clear now in regulation that there will not be a fee, that, actually, we don’t sell security in New Zealand; we provide it? That’s ultimately what brings most of us to this Chamber.

The second question that I wanted to ask [Interruption]—thank you—is about new section 360E(2). I just wonder—maybe it’s the way I’m reading it, because not everyone reading this is going to be a trained lawyer—if there is just a little bit of wording that needs clarification. If there is, I’m happy to bring an amendment, but the member may have a response. This is talking about the “Requirements for alternative address”. New subsection (1) talks about the things it must not be, it must not be a post centre or a registered office or service; it needs to be a physical location. We covered some of this in the earlier clauses, also. In (2), it says, “If the alternative address is at the offices of any firm of accountants, barristers and solicitors, or any other person, the alternative address must state—(a) that the address is at the offices of that firm or person; and (b) particulars of the location in any building of those offices.”

Now, it is the words of “any other person”. If I’m reading this correctly and that it is correct that I could nominate some other persons—maybe it’s not their place of business; it’s their address; it’s not an office; it is in the category of “any other person”—does it have to be in an office, can it only be in an office? The way I read (2)(b) is because it’s an “and”, not an “or”, between (a) and (b), it must state the “particulars of the location in any building of those offices.” But what if they’re not offices? I’m not trying to be pedantic here, but I think it’s important that we just understand “of those offices”, “of the location”, could it be anything at all? Could someone use their mum’s house? Could they use a different address that’s maybe not an office, but it’s an outlet, it’s some other kind of place? What if it’s, I don’t know, the director of something that’s held by a church and can it be the church, can it be something else? So are we narrowing ourselves inadvertently by saying it must be of “those offices.”, or could it be actually those offices, that location, that community hall, that church, whatever it might be?

So I’d just be interested to hear an answer on those two points. One is about the fee for service, and the second is about whether it is restricted only to a physical office. Thank you.

It’d be good if the members on this side of the House made up their mind about the fee. Some of them think it’s not sufficient of a barrier; others think it’s too much of a barrier. It’s fortunate the words “if any” are in there. We are trusting the judgment of officials on that and we do trust the officials to get that right. So thank you for the points in different directions, but we are trusting the officials to manage that “if any”.

I just have to say to Mr Costley, not to be pedantic, as he was not being pedantic either—I just want to draw his attention in section 360E(2), inserted by clause 5, to that little word “if” at the start of that: if the alternative address is at a set of offices. The implication is that offices can be elsewhere. It could be your mum’s address, it could be your neighbour’s, or whatever. There are possibilities for alternative addresses. So it’s just like if it’s at those sort of offices, so that does cover the sorts of concerns Mr Costley had.

The Hon James Meager, and I might say to the side on my right, we’re getting down to some very, very nitty-gritty stuff here, so I expect some new material.

Thank you, Mr Chair. That’s precisely what the committee stage is brilliant at doing, is to get into the pedantry and the nitty-gritty and examine clause by clause, and I’m—

New nitty-gritty—new nitty-gritty.

I’m disappointed that the member the Hon Dr Deborah Russell hasn’t addressed the questions that I raised earlier, because we were directed to move from clause 4 to clause 5, and we did so, and then we also have not opposed closure motions nor did we take any debate on new clause 4A, so with that good faith of moving through to clause 5—then the Chair will look at his worksheet and see that there are a number of questions without any ticks beside them that haven’t been addressed by the member. I would like the member to address those questions, in particular around the issue of preventing public access and the requirements of the registrar.

I understand—and the way I read it—there is a drafting error in new section 360D(2), inserted by clause 5, because the provision purports to require the registrar to take reasonable steps to do X, Y, and Z. So the question for the member and even the member in the chair currently is about new section 360D(2), “The Registrar must—(a) take reasonable steps to prevent public access … and (b) ensure the alternative address is publicly available from the New Zealand register.” Now, if the intention is for the registrar to take reasonable steps for both (a) and (b), there is a drafting error, because the way it is drafted is that the reasonable steps are contained within (a) and not (b). So the natural consequence of that drafting is, therefore, that the registrar must take absolute steps or all steps to ensure (b), “the alternative address is publicly available from the New Zealand register.” Because if the intention was for (b) to also be subject to the reasonableness standard, then the drafting should have been “The registrar must take reasonable steps to (a) … (b)”, so that the reasonableness is a precursor for both subsections.

My fear is that the way it is drafted now, reasonableness applies to (a) and not to (b). Therefore when the registrar is looking at what they have to do to ensure the alternative address is publicly available from the New Zealand register, they therefore have to take all steps. Because a plain interpretation of that section is that if Parliament had intended those steps to be reasonable, it would have said so. But by deliberately excluding it from (b) and including it in (a), the only interpretation available to a court of law in interpreting the section is that that is an absolute provision. I don’t think that is the intention of the member.

So if the member can record maybe that question for the Hon Dr Deborah Russell for when she returns and she clarifies whether her intention is for the registrar to have reasonable steps for both new section 360D(2)(a) and (b)—I suspect that an amendment may well need to be put forward. Because if an amendment is not put forward, then the reasonableness test only applies only to (a) and not to (b), and I am of the understanding that that is a drafting error.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. My first question is going to be about multiple company applications. As we know, many directors across New Zealand serve on multiple company boards, and the bill makes some attempts, in my view, to address this, but there’s still some outlying questions. If we look at new section 360D(4), “An application under this section may relate to more than 1 company.”, how will the new section 360D(4) provision for applications relating to multiple companies actually work in practice? If a director serves on boards of companies with different risk profiles, how does the single application process address varying levels of safety concern? Does this provision work effectively with the one alternative address limitation in new section 360E(4)? That’s my first question to the member.

My next question is around preserving other legal requirements. The bill must not interfere with other legal obligations. If we look at just below that point that I was talking about, in new section 360D(5), it says, “This section does not limit—(a) any requirement to provide residential address information about a director to the Registrar in accordance with this Act or regulations made under it; or (b) the Official Information Act 1982.” While new section 360D(5) preserves the Official Information Act, how will the section 360D(2) removal of public access—which says, “The Registrar must—(a) take reasonable steps to prevent public access from the New Zealand register to the residential address (including by redacting information from a document that is publicly available from the New Zealand register); and (b) ensure the alternative address is publicly available from the New Zealand register.”—affect law enforcement efficiency? Will agencies need to make formal Official Information Act requests for information that is currently publicly available, or does new section 360D(5) adequately address all interactions with other transparency legislation beyond the Official Information Act?

I’m going to carry on to my next point, which is around prospective directors and proposed companies. If we look at the next point down, which is new section 360D(6), it extends definitions to include proposed companies and prospective directors and shareholders. It says, “In this section and sections 360E to 360G,—‘company’ includes a proposed company, ‘director’ includes a prospective director, ‘shareholder’ includes a prospective shareholder.” How will new section 360D(6)’s inclusion of “proposed company”, “prospective director”, and “prospective shareholder” work in practice when the company does not yet exist? The definitions in new section 360D(6) seem to create some complex scenarios. Who will maintain alternative address records during company formation, for example?

I would welcome a response from the member to my question around new section 360D(4), around allowing applications to relate to more than one company; around 360D(5), which preserves other requirements, and the query I had around the Official Information Act; and new section 360D(6), which is extending definitions to include proposed companies and prospective directors and shareholders.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I move, That debate on this question now close.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you for the opportunity, because, on further examination of the bill, the point I raised in my previous contribution is, then, repeated in new sections 360F(2)(a) and (b)—the split reasonableness test which applies to paragraph (a) and then not paragraph (b). That question, therefore, also applies to section 360F as well as section 360D.

To further confuse the drafting in this situation, if we then look at section 360G, which is around the removal of the alternative address from the register—and I’ll take the committee through this because it is a step-by-step process. We can fast-forward to sections 360G(2(a), (b), and (c), but if we look at this in its whole, section 360G is about the removal of the alternative address from the register. If the registrar has taken the steps outlined in section 360D(2), which is that reasonableness test in paragraph (a) and the absolute test in paragraph (b), and then the following events occur—either the director notifies the registrar that they no longer wish to have an alternative address or the director ceases to be a director of the company—if we go down to section (2)(a) or (b), section 360D(2) no longer applies and therefore the registrar, under subsection (2)(b), “must, as soon as practicable, ensure the residential address is publicly available from the New Zealand register;”.

Therefore, already we have a differentiation in the test between section 360G(2)(b), which is “as soon as practicable”, and section 360D(2)(b), which is “ensure the alternative address is publicly available from the New Zealand register.”, which would then lead any interpretation to conclude that it must be an absolute test, because if the Parliament had wanted to put a qualifier in, such as “take reasonable steps” or “as soon as practicable”, it would have put it in there. But we have left it silent. This is the opportunity to clarify or to remedy those sections, because, then, if you go on to paragraph (c), they then “may make any other relevant alterations to the New Zealand register that they think fit.”

There are multiple different tests here, and I am actually reasonably concerned, for want of a better word, that the drafting here is confused and may be incorrect and may need rectification before we potentially vote on this clause or any other clauses before the end of the evening. I’d like the member Hon Dr Deborah Russell to address that point.

I note that the members have been raising various concerns around companies which are to come into existence and directors that may come into existence. The idea is to provide an alternative address right from the start instead of having to go through a process of a residential address and an alternative address. But, further, there’s a wider point on this and it goes to the matter that the Hon James Meager was just raising around the slightly different wording in parts of these. These were all actually drafting suggestions. So our officials and, particularly, the drafters from the Parliamentary Counsel Office said, actually, if we really want to capture the intent of this bill, if we want to capture the nuances, then this is the way to draft it. So we very gratefully accepted their drafting recommendations to try to capture the various different situations that might occur, and it’s all designed to put that in place. So as I said, I have looked through the drafting, am pretty satisfied with it, and I’m happy with it as it stands; it captures the policy intent for the bill.

Excellent, thank you very much. We see a lot in new section 360E, “Requirements for alternative address”. A lot of these are actually kind of very prescriptive, describing the physicality of what an alternative address would look like. But they don’t really kind of address any of the functional characteristics that an alternative address may have. For example, if the service at an alternative address fails—it may be undelivered mail or undeliverable mail—will the service at that alternative address then actually be legally effective, or is there some sort of fall-back mechanism which the Companies Register could then actually work? I think a prime example of some of these alternative addresses is a building that has lots of different occupiers. If you look at a lot of commercial addresses around New Zealand that have multiple businesses, they are not overly well signposted. You just need to be a delivery driver and have a bit of experience in this, but, actually, it’s very hard, even if it’s labelled as a business address, to actually find some of these businesses because of poor signage and it’s not clear where it is.

So there’s nothing really in new section 360E that actually talks about the serviceability of the alternative address. Of course, it’s also important whether, actually, there has also been some consideration that courts and other statutes uniformly recognise the services at an alternative address, or is this something that is actually going to cause conflict with other laws which require a residential address? How will a notice of legal proceedings, or anything, reliably reach a director via an alternative address if we don’t really outline some of the functionality of an alternative address rather than maybe some of the descriptive things that we’ve got in this provision?

Dr Campbell raises a good point. It was a point that was discussed extensively before the dinner break, about the difference between an “address for service” and an “alternative address”, so we’ve already canvassed that matter considerably.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that the Hon Dr Deborah Russell’s amendments set out on Amendment Paper 373 be agreed to.

Members, we come now to clause 6. This is the debate on the amendment to section 387A, “Service of documents on directors in legal proceedings”. The question is that clause 6 stand part. Tom Rutherford.

Very good, Mr Chair! Clause 6, “Section 387A amended (Service of documents on directors in legal proceedings)”, says, “After section 387A(1)(b), insert: (ba)”—which is—“by leaving it at the director’s alternative address (as that address is shown in the register);”. My question is: these clauses ensure that alternative addresses can be used for serving legal documents on directors, as we’ve transpired and gone through throughout the debate this evening; how will clause 6 and its amendments to sections 387A—and 388A, which is actually in clause 7, and I’ll speak to when we get to it—affect legal practitioners serving documents on directors? Will there be any hierarchy of service methods or will alternative addresses under these provisions have equal status with residential addresses?

How will legal practitioners know which address to use for service, say, if actually both have been made available—if it is both their private residential address and their alternative address, as we’ve transpired? How would I as, say, a legal practitioner—maybe a chartered accountant that was slandered recently by the Hon Dr Duncan Webb. How will legal practitioners know which address to use for service? If I was said chartered accountant—very upset by comments made by Dr Webb—how would I know which address to use for service? We’ve now enabled both under the changes in this legislation. How would I know which one to go and utilise as their residential address or their alternative address, as with clause 6, “Section 387A amended (Service of documents on directors in legal proceedings)”? Will there be any hierarchy of service methods? Is it that you must go to the property that is listed first in the way it shows on the paper, number one and then number two? What if they’re showing side by side to each other?

It could be alphabetical based on the address; it could be numerical. For example, if one is 1 Butterick Road and then the other one is 2 Andersen’s Drive, how would I know which one to serve the papers on? How—

Are you serious?

What was that, Steve Abel?

Are you serious?

Am I serious? I am serious. This is the intention of the committee of the whole House stage: to stand in this House and go line by line through legislation. Fundamentally, this is actually the primary role of members of Parliament. The job of members of Parliament is not to stir up hate in the community, not to incite things to take place. No, their number one job is to come to this place and legislate—legislate—and say, “Have we got the legislation right? Is the clause written correctly? Has the member’s intention been reflected in the legislation?”. For a member of the Green Party to say, “Are you serious?”—am I serious that at 9.25 on a Wednesday night, I’m doing my job? Yes, I am serious. That’s why I got elected: to legislate in this House and to ensure that New Zealand has the best possible legislation moving forward.

I’ll send Lawrence over to give you the lesson.

What was that, Marama Davidson?

Lawrence will come over and give you the lesson.

He’s welcome to. It’d be a nice change, actually. It’d be very refreshing. He’s the one that actually does the heavy lifting. I’m surprised he hasn’t resigned yet.

Mr Rutherford, if you want to rewrite the general orders, that’s fine, but, right now, back on the bill.

Point of order?

Back on the bill. Don’t “point of order” at my decision or you’ll be sitting down.

No, no. I’m—

You have spent a lot of time talking about what we might do and why we’re here and giving a job description of a backbench MP. That’s not your job. Your job is to talk about this clause—now do it.

OK, I will. Clause 6 is around “Section 387A amended (Service of documents on directors in legal proceedings)”. How will clause 6 affect legal practitioners serving documents on directors, and how will legal practitioners know whether to use the residential address or the alternative address to use for service?

As I have done a number of times before, this evening, I direct the member Tom Rutherford’s attention to the particular section in the Companies Act. Section 387A deals with the service of documents on directors in legal proceedings, and it says, “A document, including a writ, summons, notice, or order, in any legal proceedings involving a director … may be served on the director as follows: (a) by delivery to the director; or (b) by leaving it at the director’s residential address … or (c) by leaving it at the company’s registered office … or (d) by serving it in accordance with any directions as to service … or (e) in accordance with an agreement made with the director; or (f) by serving it at an address for service …”—and so on. There are already a number of methods for delivering documents for service. All this clause does is enable an alternative address to be used as one of the many methods, and lawyers are quite accomplished at delivering those documents already, despite the plethora of methods that are already available to them.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Of course, the problem with this clause is that it contradicts the clause that we just voted on, which prevents a company’s registered office from being the address for service, and, of course, if you’re a director of a company—

No, it doesn’t.

Sorry, Deborah Russell, it does. New section 360E(3), “Requirements for alternative address”, in clause 5, states, “The alternative address of a director or shareholder of a company must not be—(a) the company’s registered office or address for service:”. That’s the clause you just voted on and just passed. Therefore, when we’re looking at this clause, clause 6, which says that says that service of documents on directors in legal proceedings must be done “by leaving it at the director’s alternative address (as that address is shown in the register)”, that alternative address cannot be the company that they work for, which is the legal address of service. There’s a contradiction in terms here. I’m not sure if the member was aware of what we just voted on, but that is the consequence of voting on clause 5 and now moving to clause 6. I think the member needs to have a look at what we’ve just passed and how this clause interacts with that, because it may leave us in quite a tricky situation.

I think my friend Mr Rutherford raised some very valid points on that, and it raises some questions. I think we’ve had a pretty good crack tonight at being quite serious and quite upfront about actually addressing the content before us, and to be heckled about that is quite unacceptable. So if the member is able to address that point, I’m sure we’d really appreciate it.

I just can’t believe the misreading of the law that’s going on there. I’m just going back to clause 6, amending section 387A. It gives a number of different places where documents may be served. If we go back to new section 360E, inserted by clause 5: the alternative address must not be the company’s registered office, but the company’s registered office can still be used for service. It doesn’t stop it being used for service; it’s just that you have an alternative address instead of the residential address. It doesn’t say you cannot use the company’s office for serving documents; it just simply says that the alternative address cannot be the company’s registered office. It needs to be an alternative address.

I think the member is making a mountain out of—it’s not even a molehill; it’s just a blip in his mind somewhere. I think filibustering is all very well, but it should at least have some point.

Mr Chair, I—

Point of order.

He’s got a point of order.

Oh, sorry, I missed that. Was that a point of order?

I sat down.

Well, you know, here we go. I actually thought that we should just take a moment to pause and just very carefully look again at what the Hon James Meager was talking about, because I think he may actually have a point. We need to be very, very careful when we look at the way that it’s actually written.

I’m going back just to make this point about new section 360E: “(1) The alternative address of a director or shareholder … must not be—(a) the company’s registered office or address for service;”, and then it’s got a semicolon and “or” the other thing. It must not be the address for service. In this section, it says: “The alternative address”—blah, blah, blah—“must not be … [either] the company’s registered office or address for service;”, which does contradict, as my learned colleague pointed out, the clause that we are now looking at, clause 6, “Section 387A amended (Service of documents on directors in legal proceedings)”.

It’s actually important that we just clarify and make sure that we haven’t—in all of the addresses and alternative addresses and addresses for service that have been put in here—inadvertently just contradicted the law that we were trying to make, and ensure that, where it says, in new paragraph (ba), “by leaving it at the director’s alternative address (as that address is shown in the register);”—but that previously has said that that must not be the address for service. I think we shouldn’t just brush off this question. I think that it’s actually a very, very important question and a very important point, and I think, at this late hour of the night—it’s 9.30 p.m. on a Wednesday—we risk not taking seriously a point of law that has been very carefully and diligently found by one of my colleagues.

I do take umbrage from across the House at being asked whether we are taking this seriously. We are taking it extremely seriously, Mr Abel. We are going through this with a fine-toothed comb and potentially picking up problems with the way that this has been drafted and making sure that we aren’t actually inadvertently creating contradictions in the law that would then create consternation amongst our legal fraternity in New Zealand, where they would be constantly wondering, “Well, is this allowed to be an alternative address, or is this the address for service? Can we use this alternative address? Why have they said that it must not be an address for service where, at the same time, it then says that they may leave it at the alternative address?”

I think that it really does behove us to be careful, to consider this, and to argue this point until we are absolutely satisfied whether this is a contradiction or not. I think it would be a mistake for us to go in haste through this. We have been accused many times by the Opposition of pushing too fast with law, and here we are being very careful with a piece of law, and being attacked for—

No, no, this is poetry—poetry.

This is great. You’re embarrassing yourself wonderfully.

You’re liking my poetry? That is really a wonderful compliment from those members across the House to say that I’m being poetic about all of this, because I’m serious about this, and I think that it would be a real shame if the Hon James Meager’s point was not taken as seriously as I think—

It’d be good to hear from James again on it.

—it actually should be. I think we should—I think you’re right, Mr Abel. I think we should hear from him. I think he probably had more to say. He was thinking about taking a point of order, but he could see that I had a good point to make in support of his very, very important, I think, picking-up of a potential blunder. It’s really, really important that we take this seriously and look into it in as much depth and as much seriousness as possible.

Members will recall the extended discussion we had earlier this evening about why we needed to use “alternative address” rather than “address for service”. An address for service is a place where documents may be served to someone. They can be served in a variety of places, including the company’s address for service. However, a director’s alternative address, which is not the same as an address for service, cannot be the company’s address for service. Straightforward, right? It really, really cannot be. But the alternative address can be used for service, as can the company’s address for service. That’s fine; no worries about that. It’s just that the director cannot use the company’s address for service as their alternative address. So there is no confusion here; there’s a very careful delineation of terms.

More to the point, there are a whole set of places where documents can be served on directors, listed in section 387A of the primary Act. There are a whole lot there that can be used. This is precisely why those two terms have been pulled apart: we have the alternative address and the address for service. So there’s a whole lot of places that can be used to serve documents, including the address for service. A director may have a residential address or they may apply to use their alternative address. They cannot, however, use the company’s address for service as their alternative address. Nevertheless, documents can still be served on them at that address for service. That’s fine; it sits in the law already. All this legislation does, and all this section does, is make sure that instead of a residential address, an alternative address can be used for service. There is no confusion in the law; the point’s been addressed.

There is confusion in the law, because section 387A(1) of the Companies Act is in regard to a director in their capacity as a director. Now, you can serve legal proceedings on someone in their capacity as a director or you can serve legal proceedings on someone because they’ve defamed you and called you an untrustworthy accountant, having nothing to do with their directorship. So the issue is, in an ordinary course of action, the member is right—you can get served at your address for service, which is ordinarily your solicitor or your company’s office, or you can get served at your residential address.

But we have now created a two-tier system where if you are serving legal documents on an individual, you therefore have to determine whether or not you are doing this in their capacity as a director or you’re doing it in some other capacity. Because if it’s as a director, you can serve it at the company that they have put as their address for service. If you’re doing it as an individual, you have to serve it at their—well, not their alternative address, because you can’t have that, because normally most people would use that as the company address.

So that’s the contradiction we’re creating. You’ve created two addresses where you can provide legal service. So if you are an individual who provides legal services—a person who goes to addresses and provides documents—you are therefore going to have to determine whether the documents you are providing are in the capacity of that individual as a company director, or in some other capacity. That’s the contradiction we’ve created, because most company directors around the country would have the address for service as being their company. That’s it. That’s the contradiction, and that’s what I’ve tried to raise. And to be heckled by members of the Green Party for saying that we’re sitting here filibustering, when they sit there day after day after day abusing members of Parliament in title changes of bills, is really disappointing and it only reflects more on them than it does on us.

Keep going, but just be good at it.

Mr Chair? Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ll take up the invitation to continue taking a call. Just to challenge one of the points that Mr Abel made in his interjections, which we are entitled to respond to, where he said, “Take another five-minute call.”—well, if he’d been here for long enough, he’d realise that actually most of us are taking succinct calls to ask direct questions of the member and to seek answers, and we still haven’t had answers to questions asked a long time ago. I know we don’t retread that because we’ve passed those clauses, but the Chair has worksheets with a number of questions that won’t have ticks beside them. So we will continue prosecuting this, because it’s our right as members to sit in this House, as long as we comply with the Standing Orders, to challenge and to scrutinise legislation, as is our number one job as legislators in this country.

Members, we come now to clause 7. This is the debate on the amendment to Section 388A, “Service of other documents on directors”. The question is that clause 7 stand part. Hamish—[Interruption] Tom Rutherford.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Clause 7—

We’re getting a bit of a blackspot over there, I’m afraid, I’m sorry. Carry on, and I apologise for my tardiness in your name. Carry on.

No offence taken, Mr Chair. I refer to clause 7, “Section 388A amended (Service of other documents on directors)”: “(1) In section 388A(a), after ‘(b),’, insert ‘(ba),’. (2) In section 388A(b), after ‘residential address’, insert ‘or alternative address’.” My question remains: how will the clause 7 amendments to section 388A affect legal practitioners serving documents on directors? Will there be any hierarchy of service methods, or will alternative addresses, under these provisions, have equal status with residential addresses? How will legal practitioners know which address under section 388A to use for service?

I remind the member: if you are a director of a company and you disclose both your residential address and the alternative, if I am the legal practitioner, how will I know which of those addresses to use for service? Is it, as Mike Butterick said earlier, based on the numerical order of the residential and then the alternative? Is it based on the alphabetical order—which one comes first; which one comes next? How would I know, as the legal practitioner, which address I am going to use for service? Or is it expected of our legal practitioners to travel to the first one; to see, potentially, that that is not going to be the address to use for service, and then travel to the next one? Is that potentially an option? What are the expectations that we would then put on those people to use their direction to decide which of the two is the one we’re going to use as the address for service?

My friend Cameron Luxton raises a very, very valid point. We live in a mixed-terrain country with long gravel roads, windy roads—very mixed terrain. What if they are driving a Toyota Corolla and it’s supposed to be for four-wheel drives, hypothetically? What if people want to fly business class but there is only economy available? What would you do if you were a member of the Green Party, with that option? What would you do? What would your option be? So how would that person that is a legal practitioner looking at the director’s information, seeing both their residential address and an alternative address, not showing any particular order or particular preference, with neither one put in bold to say that that is the preferred one or used as number one and the other one as the backup—how are they, then, to know which one they’re going to use for service? How do they know? Or do we expect them to factor that in to the allocation of their time? What if the residential address is somewhere in Auckland, and then the alternative address is shown as an address on Stewart Island?

What do we expect of our legal practitioner in that scenario? Are we expecting them to travel to both and hope they land on the first one, on their first guess, with a fifty-fifty shot? How are they to know which one, unless we clearly specify and identify that the alternative address is the preference, and if you can’t get them at the alternative address but they’ve made their residential address available so that is number two—but only after you’ve attempted to get them at the alternative address? Or what if it’s the other way around? They’re putting the alternative address as a backstop, as a backup, if something were to happen for the residential address if they weren’t available, if there were accessibility challenges that they couldn’t quite face.

It’s really not that clear, both in clause 6, which I talked about a little earlier, and clause 7—this one is around section 388A: how will legal practitioners serving documents on directors know which address to use for service? Will there be a hierarchy of service methods, or will alternative addresses under these provisions hold an equal status with residential addresses? I would love for the member to clarify that for me.

I note that the same arguments apply for the next clause, as well, and I note that they are possibly just as irrelevant. Section 388A of the principal Act is “Service of other documents on directors”: “A document, other than a document in any legal proceedings, may be served on a director as follows: (a) by any of the methods”—they’re not hierarchical; any of the methods can be used—“set out in … section 387A; or (b) by posting it … to the director’s residential address”—or now by posting it to the director’s alternative address—“or (c) by posting it to the company’s registered office or address for service … or (d) by sending it by fax machine to a telephone number used for the transmission of documents by fax at the director’s residential address”—or alternative address and so on—“or (f) by emailing it to the director at an email address”—we are in modern times now. I’m surprised we can’t Snapchat one of the directors or something like that or signal the preferred method of communication for secret documents these days.

There’s a whole variety of methods someone may use—whichever one is most convenient. They are not in any hierarchy. Frankly, I do rather trust our legal practitioners to be able to work it out as to which one is easiest to use. I think we’ve heard that lawyers can be quite smart; I should think they are smart enough to work out where to—

What about chartered accountants?

—and chartered accountants too.

Well, have a chat with Duncan Webb!

I disassociate myself with my colleague’s comments.

Mr Chair.

Hamish Campbell.

Excellent. Thank you, Mr Chair. I appreciate it is getting late in the evening, but I appreciate you getting the name right. I think Dale Carnegie said, “Isn’t your name the most favourite sound”, or something like that. Anyway, getting back to clause 7, “Section 388A amended (Service of documents on directors)”: so just in subclause (1), “In section 388A(a), after ‘(b),’, insert ‘(ba),’.”—but then in subclause (2) of this: “In section 388A(b), after ‘residential address’, insert ‘or alternative address’.” Surely, the second clause here actually supersedes the first clause, really, because, otherwise, we’re not really adding anything more under new paragraph (ba). I think it’s maybe a bit of a drafting error here, and we have ended up adding a bit of complexity. I’ve already heard about the risk of confusion in the other uses of some of the addresses and things like that.

Really, it’s just making sure we actually have the drafting of this clause correct, because I’m a little bit unclear what the inserting of “(ba)” will actually do, since this subclause, in (2), is probably going to reach the goal of what the bill is trying to achieve—because, by doing that, of course, it is removing that, kind of, essentialness of the residential address. The alternative address could be used, which, of course, is what I think the bill is trying to do. But I do just want clarification on that issue.

It’s really quite straightforward—insert “(ba)” into 388A so that (ba) is you can leave it—leave the document—at the director’s alternative address. At 388A(b), you post it to the director’s residential address. One envisages envelope, stamp, putting it in the post; the other one envisages walking it up to the door. It’s straightforward.

Members, we come now to clause 8. This is the debate on the amendment to section 391, “Service of documents on shareholders and creditors”. The question is that clause 8 stand part.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Clause 8—the great clause 8. We are talking about amending section 391. We’re still talking about service, but, now, we’re talking about service of documents on shareholders and creditors. I’ve got a question about this amendment, and it’s possibly a missed opportunity from the member Hon Dr Deborah Russell. I wanted to reflect on something that I learnt this morning. I got up and I went through my ordinary routine of waking up bright and early and had my bowl of Kornies and got in the shower and got dressed and was heading off to work. I felt very uncomfortable walking those first few steps, and I looked down and my left shoe was on my right foot, and my right shoe was on my left foot. I thought, “That’s what’s making me feel uncomfortable. The shoe is on the other foot.” That can make some of us feel very uncomfortable, but, for me, it was an enlightening experience this morning. I quickly changed them back, and I got myself sprightly to work. I guess that’s a lesson for me, today, about how I approached my day and how I’m going to approach this remaining clause as we head into the last moments of the night.

It’s just really to ask the member—and I know my colleague Mr Rutherford has a question, as well, but my question really is that clause 8 amends section 391(1)(b) of the principal Act. If you look at section (1)(c), it refers to facsimiles. Now, I was one of those ungodly litigators who worked in a law firm for a brief time, and we had to have a facsimile somewhere in the building—I think it was locked in the records room—because, of course, it was still a valid requirement or a valid method of service. I just wonder whether the member thought for a second about taking the opportunity to, once and for all, eradicate facsimiles from the record and make our lives just a little bit easier.

As I’ve said previously, this clause 8 pretty much replicates some of the other ones we’ve just gone through. All we’re doing is ensuring that an alternative address can be used instead of a residential address.

To the member the Hon James Meager’s question—did I think about taking the opportunity to eliminate facsimile machines?—alas, it would have been beyond the scope of this particular bill. But I invite the member to mention to his colleague the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs that now would be a good time to remove facsimile machines—although I understand some medical doctors and pharmacists still use them quite a lot.

They still use them in the Wairarapa.

Well, there you are. I invite the member to consider whether it’s appropriate, but please do consider writing to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. Clause 8, and I’m going to talk about the director identification problem that has come to my attention. The briefing materials associated with the legislation note that there are currently almost 3,200 registered John Smiths on the Companies Register—almost 3,200. New sections 360D to 360G remove address information that currently helps distinguish between directors with similar names. How do new sections 360D to 360G address the identification problem when multiple directors, such as the nearly 3,200 John Smiths in New Zealand, share the same names?

The removal of residential addresses under these provisions, in my view, will make it even harder to distinguish between directors with 3,200 John Smiths currently registered. How will the alternative address system maintain adequate identification?

Or someone like John Smith and they think they’re actually the same person, but they might be John B Smith for John Brent Smith or John Bob Smith.

That’s right. So if you were then to say, “Oh, why don’t you include an initial for your middle name,” for example, where you’ve got John B Smith and then the options open far and wide, hypothetically—then it’s unlimited. Just the list goes on. How will the removal of residential addresses under these provisions make it even harder to distinguish between directors? How will the alternative address system maintain adequate identification? The question to the member is: was there any consideration around whether, potentially, this should wait for director identification numbers to solve the identification problem properly?

I understand that the Minister has indicated that he intends to introduce comprehensive reforms which include director identification numbers. Is there going to be a period between this legislation hypothetically passing—if this passes before that legislation is introduced, before directors then have the director identification numbers, then there will be sort of a period in between those two; that being this bill being completed, and that being introduced? Isn’t that, hypothetically, something that may well happen in this case?

What is there to say to the 3,200 John Smiths and many other shared names across New Zealand, and how will the alternative address system maintain adequate identification?

I do have some sympathy with the member about distinguishing between members.

There are some other people in this country called Deborah Russell. I’ve always sort of thought it’s a bit unfortunate, really. I guess we’re all women in our 50s and 60s. That tends to be when Deborahs date from.

Look, in terms of the address problem, unless all those John Smiths adopt exactly the same alternative address, the problem exists already of distinguishing the—

We’ll solve it with the new Companies Act.

Yeah. It will be solved with the director DNI—the director number—

The DIN.

The DIN, which is promised in the Minister’s legislation. As I said earlier this evening, this is a band-aid; it’s not a solution itself. I have given the Minister the commitment that if his bill is through the first reading before the end of the year, I will withdraw my member’s bill—I will hold off on the third reading. If his bill is not going to make it, then I’m going to have this third reading in December and then it’s up to the Minister to adjust his legislation to take account of my legislation. I’m sure he can do that. The Minister and I have been very straightforward with each other about this. I trust his word and he trusts mine. I’ve given my word; he’s given his. We’ll see what happens.

Numbers instead of names for members. That might work, actually.

Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Companies (Address Information) Amendment Bill and reports it with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

The bill is set down for third reading next sitting day. The House is suspended and I will resume the Chair at 9 a.m. tomorrow for the extended sitting to consider Government orders of the day. Good night.