Parliamentary debates: Wednesday, 5 November 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.

No petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation. Ministers have delivered two papers.

2024-25 annual reports for Creative New Zealand and the Retirement Commission.

I’ve received a report of the Registrar of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests entitled Registrar’s Inquiry into Carl Bates MP’s compliance with the requirements Appendix B of the Standing Orders. Those papers are published under the authority of the House. A select committee report has been delivered for presentation.

Report of the Justice Committee on the Petition of Christine McCarthy.

No bills have been introduced.

to the Minister of Finance

What recent reports has she seen on the economy?

Today, Stats New Zealand released its September quarter labour market data. The data was in line with market expectations, with the unemployment rate sitting at 5.3 percent. The data shows the effects of an economic downturn which was caused by a period of sky-high inflation, followed by very high interest rates, as the Reserve Bank steeply increased the official cash rate in response to out-of-control inflation. Unemployment tends to be one of the last indicators to turn in an economic recovery. Economic forecasters are expecting it to fall next year as the economy strengthens.

How does the data compare with forecasts?

The unemployment rate is broadly in line with forecasts, including the Reserve Bank’s August Monetary Policy Statement. Interestingly, it is also in line with Treasury’s pre-election forecast from 2023, in which Treasury forecast that at this point, 165,000 people would be unemployed. In fact, the number today is 160,000. That means that what we have just experienced in the September quarter was what was forecast by the Treasury to happen under the previous—

Explaining is losing.

—Government’s watch before it left office.

Yeah, and so is calling out like that.

Well said, Mr Speaker. Of course, this Government is not satisfied with that. We are working hard to drive growth in the economy, which will, in turn, drive more people into employment. Forecasters expect the economy to return to growth in coming quarters, which is good news for job creation and for every Kiwi looking for work.

Why has unemployment risen over the past few quarters?

The economy is where it is now because in 2023, New Zealand had, by independent measures, the most overheated, inflationary economy in the advanced world. Inflation was far above the target band, fuelled by reckless Government spending. The Reserve Bank had to raise the official cash rate to 5.5 percent—the highest rate since 2008—and that, of course, is why the economy went into a long, painful downturn. It is now recovering. Members on the other side of the House—

Still blaming everyone else.

—might want to look at the actions of the previous Government when judging today’s data, and, members—

Good, that’s enough.

—I would also say this—

That is enough, thank you—the end of the question, thank you.

What is the Government doing to address unemployment?

Well—[Interruption]

Wait—just wait. You can’t start a barrage like that before there’s even one word out of the Minister’s mouth.

Well, a growing and strong economy is the key to getting more Kiwis into work. This is absolutely a time for backing effort, aspiration, and job creation. It is not the time for introducing broad new taxes and returning to reckless fiscal management. Our Government has been focused on rebuilding the economy to deliver more and better-paying jobs; fast tracking private sector projects that are job-rich, from housing to infrastructure expansion—opposed by my colleagues on the other side of the House—and delivering—

Good.

—$7 billion of Government-funded construction work and the Investment Boost tax policy. These are the policies which drive growth and job creation. This is the prescription New Zealand needs.

I’d just remind all Ministers that concise answers are good answers.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I understand the Prime Minister is in the building. He was on the tiles about five minutes ago answering media questions, so I seek leave for my question to be held until he’s available in the debating chamber to answer it.

Well, that’s an interesting reference you’re making to a member’s not being present, which is not appropriate. However, I will put the leave. Is there any objection to that course of action?

Yes.

to the Prime Minister

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

on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes, absolutely, and particularly this Government’s very careful use of its own finances. We inherited conditions where Government spending had increased very rapidly, leading to high inflation and high interest rates that were hurting Kiwis in their businesses, their farms, their firms, and their families. We have set a very conservative operating allowance, forcing Minister’s to do more with less each year, just as families and households have had to do over the last few years. As a result of the Government being careful with its finances, we are able to see declining inflation, declining interest rates, and an economic recovery for the benefit of all New Zealand.

And a Prime Minister on the run.

No, sorry, you can’t make a statement like that. Just calm it down.

Does he stand by his claim six months ago that unemployment had peaked, given that it’s still rising, with as many people now out of work as the entire population of Tauranga?

I do stand by that statement, because clearly unemployment has moved very little since that time. It is peaking and will decline in good time. As the Minister of Finance has recently said, one of the last things to be fixed when you have to do an economic repair job is unemployment. First comes the Government spending blowout—thanks, Labour—then comes the inflation, then comes the interest rates, and this Government, just as the Labour Government knocked each of those dominoes down, is putting them up in sequence, but there are no shortcuts.

If the unemployment was unacceptable, as he said in September 2023, is it now more unacceptable, given 37,000 more people have lost their jobs since then, or does he apply one set of standards for the previous Government and a different set of standards to his own?

We have always treated unemployment as a percentage figure. It is currently 5.3 percent. That is around 165,000 people. What’s interesting is that in late 2023, the time of the statement the member referred to, the Treasury was forecasting, on Labour Party policy settings, that unemployment would be 165,000 people. If you want to play these kinds of games, then you could say that under this Government, 5,000 fewer people have lost their jobs than they would have with those guys’ mismanagement.

Well, I certainly don’t want to play games with any figures, at all.

If the pre-election fiscal update is tracking according to plan, what happened to the 2 percent economic growth that the Treasury were forecasting before the election, which has actually turned, under his leadership, into a shrink of the economy?

The member is right to point out the difference in economic growth, but the other way you could look at it is that under this Government, in spite of softer economic conditions which have multiple unexpected causes, the facts are that more people have kept their jobs than otherwise expected. For New Zealanders anxious about losing their job and for New Zealanders trying to put food on the table and pay their bills, a Government that is good for employment is good for Kiwi families.

Does he regard rising unemployment as being a sign of a Government that’s good for employment?

Well, the member has really got to decide. The forecasts when the people kicked him out—quite rightly, in my view—were that unemployment would continue to rise. In actual fact, it’s risen less than it was forecast when he went out of Government, deposed by the people of this country.

Does he see any link between the fact that one in seven young New Zealanders is now unemployed under his leadership and the fact that 200 New Zealanders every day are giving up and permanently leaving the country?

On behalf of the Prime Minister, as I was saying on behalf of another Minister yesterday, I think sometimes the Opposition fails to give due credit to the intelligence and perspective that New Zealanders have. As a wiser man once said, maybe they measure the minds of others by their own. The fact is that New Zealanders understand that the economic conditions we face today are a product of at least three things: the conditions set by historical policy decisions, including those of the now Opposition, the previous Government; international factors, such as the world’s largest economy effectively deciding to renegotiate its deal with the rest of the world economically; and also the policies of the current Government. When they look at the third factor, the policies of the current Government, they see a Government that spends carefully, that cuts red tape and regulation, that tries to push people up instead of pulling them down, as we saw so often from the Opposition, and that is why this Government is in control, because people can see that the things we’re doing are making their future brighter.

Does he stand by his claim that for unemployed people who “don’t play ball”, the free ride is over; if so, how many of the 37,000 extra people who have joined the unemployment queue, who had jobs before he became Prime Minister, does he regard as “not playing ball”?

In answer to the first leg of the question, yes, absolutely. This Government doesn’t believe that welfare is a lifestyle choice. We believe that if you can work, you should work. We believe that you have obligations to look for work just as people who get up every morning and go to work to pay their taxes have to fulfil their obligation to pay the tax to fund your welfare. That is absolutely what this Government believes in: mutual obligation. There’s something else about it, which is that we believe that people who don’t have a job right now have value and do have the capability to get one. We don’t consign them to the scrapheap with the soft bigotry of low expectations like those guys did.

to the Minister responsible for RMA Reform

What announcements has he made regarding Eden Park?

Today, I’ve announced the Government’s released an investigative report showing Eden Park planning restrictions could be costing hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue and hundreds of fewer jobs. Eden Park is a vital asset for Auckland and New Zealand, hosting major sporting and entertainment events that inject millions into the economy. Restrictive local planning rules are stifling Eden Park’s ability to drive growth. It’s worth noting the rules were put in place in an attempt to balance the use of Eden Park as a venue of local community preferences, but it’s important to ensure that the rules remain fit for purpose and do not hold back Auckland’s event and tourism sectors.

What did the investigative report into Eden Park’s planning rules show?

It found that restrictions on Eden Park’s operations will cost the region at least $432 million in lost income, with 751 fewer jobs over the next 10 years. The investigation was carried out under a new power in the Resource Management Act introduced in August to modify or remove provisions in local plans if they negatively impact growth, development capacity, or employment. The Government is not willing to let unnecessary restrictions in district plans hold back millions or billions in economic potential.

What changes have been recommended as part of this report?

The report contained a large number of recommendations—for example, permitting 12 large concerts of more than 30,000 people each year, as well as 20 medium-sized concerts of between 10,000 and 30,000 people each year; more flexibility on timing for concerts, including permitting concerts of up to eight hours duration; more flexibility for sport games; and the removal of size limits for conferences and large functions.

What are the next steps in this process?

Public consultation begins today and will run until 19 November 2025 via the Ministry for the Environment’s online hub. Local residents and business owners can give feedback. We’re also consulting, obviously, with the Auckland Council. Following the consultation, the Government will consider what changes are warranted to boost growth in the region. We hope to make announcements by the end of the year.

to the Minister for Resources

What reports, if any, has he seen regarding the resources sector?

I can announce that we have mounted the crest of a golden millennium for mining. Santana—major investment—has been issued a mining permit for 30 years, over $5 billion to $6 billion worth of wealth, and to the small number of worry warts, allow science and technology to wash away your unnecessary anxieties. [Interruption]

Just wait for the House to settle.

How will this contribute to the economy?

As we know, as a consequence of the failed economic policies we inherited when we took over in 2023, we are managing a situation where unemployment is, sadly, quite high, but what about the 800 to 900 direct and indirect jobs? I say to the politicians oozing green elitism, think about the New Zealanders who will gain those jobs, who this very day are looking for new opportunities, and think about the royalties that will come over 14 years of operation. I say again: we are entering a golden age, not that I can completely claim all the credit.

What other reports has he seen regarding the resource sector?

Father Christmas has come early. On the West Coast of New Zealand, the sum of $172 million over the last day or three has been announced to be dedicated to the Federation Mine in Reefton, now known as the Endura mine.

Tell us about climate change, Shane.

Why do people on the other side of the House hate investment? Why do they undermine jobs? Why do they stand with frogs and geckos and unnecessary critters? No, we need jobs, and I am happy to announce $172 million is going directly into the economy of the West Coast, and I fear that it will be more busts they make of my good self.

I think answers should not contain questions to other parties.

What will this announcement mean for the local economy?

Modesty forbids that I claim total credit, but please think about the forlorn period of time that has afflicted these parts of the South Island. When we have fresh investment, unlike downtown Auckland—you don’t get rich by doing each other’s washing—we are able to extract the endowment, the resources, the critical minerals, the gold, the silver. What New Zealander does not want a brighter future through new investment and the jobs and the income and the growth that will spread through a part of New Zealand that has been neglected for far too long?

Can I ask the Minister, just looking around this Parliament and this building here, about what percentage of it is derived from extraction?

If I can deploy my fifth form mathematics, I’d say about 96 percent.

to the Minister of Finance

Does she stand by all her statements and actions?

Yes, in the context in which they were given. I particularly stand by my statement that with a hard-won economic recovery now under way, this is not the time for broad new taxes and a return to reckless fiscal management. Instead, this is a time for Government policies that back effort, aspiration, and job creation, and we are the Government doing that.

If she’s happy to use pre-election forecasts, will she compare her recessionary minus 1.1 percent growth rate to that in pre-election forecasts, which was 2 percent?

Well, what I would compare is the actions that have been taken, and in particular I want to highlight the success of the fast-track legislation introduced by this Government, opposed by those opposite, which so far has seen the Auckland port expansion permitted, with 140,000 jobs being supported over the coming decades. It has seen the Milldale housing development fast tracked, supporting 3,500 jobs. It has seen the Maitahi Village housing development in Nelson fast tracked, supporting 2,700 jobs. If you stand for jobs, you should vote for them, and you didn’t vote for fast track.

I’d just say to Government members: they may find it necessary to support the Minister, clearly, with things that are not being said that they would like to be said. It’s not helpful. Allow Ministers to answer questions.

Why is she cherry-picking the best number that suits her, when she has said, “Forecasts aren’t reality”, and the reality is things are worse?

Well, I’m not quite sure why the member would talk about cherrypicking when in her own press release today, she chose to highlight the increase in net departures of New Zealanders. Now, of course, that didn’t start under this Government. In the 21 months of data before our Government came to office, annual net migration of New Zealand citizens increased by 38,000, whereas in the 21 months since we were elected, that number has only increased by 5,800. If you want to talk cherry-picking, sort it out.

Answers to questions should relate to Government activity, not attacks on the Opposition, and that is dangerously close to that, which will see limited opportunities moving forward.

Is the 160,000 unemployed people—the highest in 30 years—a sign that her economic plan is working?

Well, it certainly isn’t the highest unemployment number in 30 years, as a proportion of the workforce. It’s also the case that it remains below the long-term average. Most importantly for that member, 160,000 is lower than the 165,000 unemployed people that Grant Robertson was predicting prior to the election. I want to see more workers getting the jobs they deserve in this economy, which is why we are driving growth and job-creating businesses. I’ll tell you what won’t help: new taxes, reckless fiscal management, and a return to the old Labour ways.

There is a lot of noise coming from the centre row of the Opposition that needs to just calm right down.

When will she take responsibility for growing unemployment, negative growth, increasing homelessness, a record number of liquidations and KiwiSaver hardship withdrawals, and increasing inflation, or will she continue to blame everyone else?

Well, I certainly won’t take responsibility for the economic mess this Government inherited. What I will take responsibility for is the results we are delivering to fix it, including lowering taxes—[Interruption]

Hold on, sorry. It’s ridiculous. Why ask a question if you don’t want to hear an answer?

—including lower taxes, inflation back in band, lower interest rates, policies that drive job creation, fewer children growing up in emergency motel rooms, delivering more State homes than that Government delivered in the previous periods. We are a Government that is delivering the fix. We inherited a mess, and we’re getting on with it.

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?]

on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes, absolutely, particularly this Government’s decision to reverse the ban on oil and gas exploration. We risked being the only country in the world that was transitioning from gas back to coal. If we want to have a so-called just transition, we actually need transition fuels, and most people would much rather be burning gas to generate electricity than coal. What’s more, it helps people with more affordable energy. You see, the member likes to say that people are doing it tough financially, and she may be right about that, but she can’t also put in place policies that make it harder for them to provide for themselves and their families by banning technologies that make life more comfortable.

Is the Government still committed to the Paris Agreement?

Yes, the Government is committed to the Paris climate agreement as it signed up nine years ago. It may have been a long time for the member, but we keep that commitment.

How does he reconcile his statement that the Government is still committed to the Paris Agreement with the Government’s announcement late last night that it will remove reference to “contributing to the global effort under the Paris Agreement” from our climate change laws?

It’s very simple. This Government has something the member will be familiar with, known as the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act, and that sets our domestic commitments to reduce emissions. Those emissions commitments or reduction commitments, I believe, are very, very strong and ambitious. As a result, they are the targets that we need to adhere to. The Paris Agreement is something different, but, actually, that doesn’t mean that we can’t achieve one by pursuing the other.

Can he name just one individual or group external from the Government and who the Government consulted with who supports the changes that were announced late last night to weaken our climate change laws?

Yes, in answer to the member’s question, I certainly can. But having the capability doesn’t mean that I will, because, you see, there’s a tone in this member’s questions—the one that chants things like “From the river to the sea”—that makes people unwilling to be identified and be able to share their views. That’s why I’m not going to participate in her doxxing and outing of people who have different views. So I could name them, but I’m not going to.

Look, if there’s going to be just a question then a barrage as the answer comes, there’s not much point in continuing with the question.

How exactly can he claim to be committed to our climate agreements while he is removing requirements for independent advice and accountability, removing reference to the Paris Agreement in law, and revoking rules that require our emissions trading scheme to align with our international climate agreements?

Well, very, very simply: we can achieve those reductions without necessarily using the mechanisms that the member describes. What’s more, the member needs to reflect carefully, because she cannot have it both ways. I, like many members of this House, grew up in the North. I grew up in Whangārei. I’ve driven many times past and visited Portland cement, and there are really tough decisions that Governments face, that we face as a country. Do we want to put those 200-odd people at Portland out of work so that we can have Vietnamese cements on the shelf at Bunnings and in the concrete we use to build our homes, or do we want to keep doing cement refining in New Zealand, keeping Kiwis in work? The member can’t complain about jobs and the economy and the cost of living—

Yeah.

—one day, and then have policies that destroy people’s effort to pursue—

Yep.

—those goals the next.

Very good.

Is he aware that it is entirely feasible to create good, green jobs in a sustainable economy, such as proposed by the Green Party in our Green budget and industrial strategy?

In so much as the Prime Minister has responsibility for the Green Party—

Mr Speaker, I seek your—

Hang on, wait until I’m finished. In so much as he has responsibility for any other party’s—other than the Government’s—policies, he may choose to make a very brief response.

Mr Speaker, I seek your guidance. You see, it’s against the rules for a member on the Government’s side to ask a question designed to launch an attack on the Opposition. But what if the Opposition asked a question that could only be designed to launch an attack on the Opposition? The fact is—

Well, that is—

—to Chlöe Swarbrick: sound bites and slogans don’t create jobs. It’s that simple. Over here in the real, practical world, we have policies that are designed to get—

Sit down—sit down. I’m not going to have that sort of outburst. The reality is that it is the job of the Opposition to point out the weaknesses, as they say, of the Government and, therefore, something the member needs to accept. Is there another supplementary, Chlöe Swarbrick? [Interruption] I’m on my feet—I’m on my feet.

Highest unemployment in nine years.

Someone is going to leave. I’m on my feet, and it’s not a good idea to call out.

Can I ask the Minister as to whether the Government intends to take advice from people about jobs when they’ve never had a real job?

No, that’s not something the Government is—the Government’s responsible for a lot of things; that’s not one of them. [Interruption] Listen, someone is going to have to symbolically leave so everyone else gets the message that question time is quiet when a question is being answered. The Government cross-bench back row might like to take that on board.

to the Minister for Social Development and Employment

Does she stand by her 50,000 jobseeker support reduction target; if so, why?

Yes, I absolutely stand by our target of 50,000 fewer people on the jobseeker support by 2030. Our Government is ambitious for all New Zealanders, and our target is ambitious and reflects our Government’s view that work brings independence so people can lead healthier, happier lives. That’s why we’re delivering practical support, clearer expectations, and stronger partnerships with employers to help more people move from welfare into work, and we’ve seen over 83,000 people leave benefit for work in the last 12 months.

How can she stand by her target when figures released today show unemployment at a nine-year high, job seekers have increased every quarter, and she is nowhere near meeting her own target?

Because, as I’ve said in this House before, the jobseeker target is ambitious, and the numbers were always going to get worse before they got better. The pre-election fiscal update had unemployment at 5.3 percent. Today, it was announced at 5.3 percent. While it is incredibly challenging for any individual that is without work right now, our Government is focused on the practical steps that help them to prepare for work and get ready for work, and our economic growth agenda—that we’ve already heard about today in terms of fast track and mining jobs—is on track.

Does she think forecasts from the Ministry of Social Development and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet are wrong, that show she is failing to meet her own target and that she will be 40,000 people over by June 2029?

The report that the member is referring to is a progress update on the jobseeker target, and, as I’ve said, I’ve never shied away from the fact that it was always going to get worse before it was better. But what our Government is unwilling to accept is that for a young person who goes on to welfare under the age of 25, that means 18 future years of their life on welfare, a figure that is 49 percent worse in the six years that they were in charge.

Who is correct: the Prime Minister, who encouraged young job seekers to look to horticulture jobs in the Hawke’s Bay, or Paul Paynter, CEO of Yummy Fruit, who said the industry wasn’t short-staffed right now?

Well, I always agree with the Prime Minister, and there are jobs available, otherwise we would not have seen 83,000 New Zealanders leave welfare for work in the last 12 months, despite there being challenging economic times—83,000 New Zealanders leaving welfare into jobs.

Does the Minister think it’s fair that if a job seeker fails to miss their targets to find work, they get sanctioned, but when she fails to meet her targets, she gets praised by the Prime Minister for making it harder for people to get support in the first place?

One of the things that we have done is got a way more active welfare system, which includes making it really easy, through the traffic light system, for those on benefit to know what their obligations are, and providing assistance and support to ensure that they fulfil their obligations. Yes, there’s a consequence if they don’t. Why do we have a system like that? Because we want more people exiting welfare into work, and over 83,000 in the last 12 months, I think, is good news.

to the Minister of Housing

Does he stand by the Government’s proposed changes to the National Policy Statement on Urban Development?

Yes.

What advice, if any, has he received from the Minister of Crown relations regarding the potential impact these reforms will have on Treaty settlements in Tāmaki-makau-rau?

I don’t believe I’ve had any specific advice from the Minister that the member references in relation to that particular issue, although clearly the Minister and I work closely together across a range of different areas. I would emphasise, for the member and the House, that the commitment to upholding Treaty of Waitangi settlements is a core coalition Government priority.

How many Tāmaki-makau-rau iwi and hapū were identified during the developments of these reforms, and how many of their Treaty settlements will be affected?

I don’t have that specific number and—[Interruption]

I think we’ll just stop the cross-party, cross-bench discussion. The Minister will start the answer again.

I don’t have that specific number in front of me, but if the member puts it down as a written question, I’ll be happy to get that feedback to her or get that answer to her. As I say, upholding Treaty settlements is a core Government priority. In relation to Tāmaki-makau-rau, the Government is working with a range of iwi in the area around a range of different housing developments, including, for example, at the Carrington site, where we’re making real progress—which is a land for housing programme started under the last National Government, continued under the previous Labour-led Government, and continuing under this coalition Government—and where we are building houses at some scale, utilising what was formerly Crown land, and working with our iwi partners in relation to that project.

Can he confirm that the Government’s reforms to the National Policy Statement on Urban Development will not undermine nor conflict with settlement redress, including cogovernance arrangements in Tāmaki-makau-rau?

As I’ve said a couple of times now, it is a Government commitment to uphold Treaty of Waitangi settlements, and all of the changes we are making to our national direction—for example, the National Policy Statement on Urban Development—will reflect that.

Can the Minister please confirm that this Government proposes to move a national statement in relation to papa kāinga that will enable up to 10 houses to be built on papa kāinga lands and also that this Government has articulated and foreshadowed that this Government will commit over $400 million to have 1,000 houses built on Māori land?

Yes, I can confirm that there will be a national environmental standard developed in relation to papa kāinga housing. It’s our view, as a Government, that there is real potential for this type of housing on whenua to unlock the potential for different housing typologies that will put warm, dry homes in place for people in need. We expect to have the national environmental standard, which will slot into council district plans, developed and promulgated in the first half of 2026.

to the Minister of Housing

Does he stand by his statements that “it’s clear that rough sleeping is a genuine problem” and “we can and will do more for rough sleepers”?

Yes.

Why is the Government working on legislation that would enable the removal of rough sleepers from central business districts?

The Government isn’t.

Why is the Minister denying this when police Minister Mark Mitchell confirmed on Newstalk ZB this morning that “Paul Goldsmith and justice are doing a lot of work around that.” and that legislation to move homeless people from CBDs to the suburbs was “fully supported by caucus and the Prime Minister.”?

The Government is considering a range of different things in relation to the CBD. It is 8 percent of the country’s economy; it is of national significance; and, with the City Rail Link opening next year, the International Convention Centre opening, and an increased push for tourism—for example, from cruise ships—the Government, as well as Auckland Council, is of the view that we can make the CBD a more desirable place for everyone to be than it currently is.

So which is it: the Government isn’t working on legislation to shift homeless people from the CBDs, or they are considering legislation to shift homeless people from the CBDs?

The member asked whether or not the Government was developing legislation. The Government is not, but, as I say, we are looking at a range of things in order to clean up the CBD. [Interruption]

Just wait for your colleagues to calm down.

If people are concerned about entering the CBD because of homelessness, how does he expect them to feel when the issue is moved to their doorstep in the suburbs?

Well, as the member knows, rough sleeping and homelessness is part of a complex cocktail of issues that successive Governments have had to grapple with. This Government is putting additional resource into Housing First, which is an internationally proven, evidence-based programme, that I know the member supports, in order to specifically provide housing options for people who are rough sleepers.

What—prisons? The cells?

Housing First does not support prison cells. Housing First supports warm homes so that people who are sleeping rough on the streets can move in—and, more specifically, it provides the kind of wraparound support that people in those difficult situations often need. The starting point of Housing First is that it is difficult to supply people with mental health or addiction service support unless they are in a house in the first place. That’s why the Government is proud to back Housing First. No one is pretending that this is a problem that is going to be solved overnight, and no one is pretending that this is not a difficult and complex problem that successive Governments have had to grapple with, but we are working hard with front-line providers like the City Mission and others in the Auckland CBD to get on top of the problem.

Can the Minister please confirm that this Government has reduced the spend of over $1 million a day on emergency housing to less than $200,000 a day; funds nearly half a billion dollars per annum on transitional housing, Housing First, and other related programmes; and has now contracted an additional 300 Housing First places, the majority of which are in Auckland, with Housing First providers to support rough sleepers within these and related contractual arrangements? [Interruption]

When the House is ready, we might hear the start of the Minister’s answer.

Yes, I can confirm that—

How many people have got a place from that announcement?

As the member well knows—and the member yelling out the problem well knows—the Government is working hard to make sure that we can supply warm, dry homes for people in very vulnerable situations. It is a complex, difficult challenge, but one that we are up for.

Supplementary.

A supplementary question, the Hon Shane Jones—and no one else speaking.

to the Minister

can he confirm it is not appropriate to use homelessness as a moral cloak to hide drug taking, criminality, and violence?

Well, I don’t think the Minister’s got particular responsibility in that regard.

to the Minister of Health

What recent announcements has the Government made about boosting hospital capacity?

Our Government is delivering real results for patients and staff across the country. That’s why we recently announced a programme to deliver 140 new hospital beds at five of New Zealand’s busiest hospitals. These new fast-tracked hospital wards will be open in the second half of 2026, boosting capacity and easing pressure where it’s needed the most. This is part of our broader plan to strengthen health infrastructure, getting hospitals built faster, using smarter construction methods, and ensuring our workforce is in place to deliver care. This Government is delivering more beds, more capacity, and better care for New Zealanders.

Which hospitals will benefit from this programme?

A total of 140 new beds will be delivered across five hospitals, with operational funding for these wards approved by Health New Zealand. The first will be at Middlemore, where we’re expanding general medicine capacity to take pressure off the emergency department. At Waikato Hospital, a new assessment and diagnostic unit will speed up patient flow. At Wellington Hospital, the new ward will support acute care and help support the shorter stays in emergency departments target. At Nelson Hospital, the new ward will provide flexibility during seismic work and add in-patient capacity ahead of the construction of the new in-patient building funded in the Budget. And, in Hawke’s Bay, the new ward will cater for short-stay surgical patients and surgical assessments, freeing up space elsewhere in the hospital. These investments will make a real, practical difference for both patients and staff.

How was the Government able to deliver more wards than originally planned without increasing the cost?

This is what happens when you run a disciplined and efficient system. The rapid-build wards will be constructed off site and installed on hospital grounds, enabling faster, more cost-effective delivery while also providing flexibility to redeploy units to other hospitals if required. As part of Budget 2025, we expected to fund three new wards, but through a competitive procurement process and the use of modular construction, we can now deliver four wards within the same funding, alongside the fifth ward at Hawke’s Bay Hospital announced earlier this year. That is smart management, better value for money, and faster delivery—exactly what New Zealanders elected this Government for.

What impact will these new wards have once they’re operational?

Adding additional capacity to hospitals would usually take multiple years. However, through our use of rapid-build wards, we can ease pressure on emergency departments, speed up admissions and discharges, and improve patient flow across the hospitals faster, meaning both patients and staff will feel the benefits sooner. The rapid-build wards will also give our front-line staff modern, flexible spaces to deliver the best possible care. We’re building capacity, supporting our workforce, and making sure New Zealanders can get the care they need when they need it. That is what delivery looks like, and that’s what our Government stands for.

to the Minister of Education

How can parents be confident that she is “putting the child’s needs at the centre of the education system” when education experts have described the newly rewritten curriculum as “more political than educational”?

In context, as stated in my press release from 5 September, parents can absolutely be confident we’re putting their children’s needs at the centre of the education system by ensuring 101,000 year 1 to 8 students and their teachers will benefit from the skills and support of a learning support coordinator working in their school next year. In response to the second part of the question, this is a direct quote taken from an open letter addressed to me in regard to the mathematics and statistics curriculum. I completely disagree with the small number of authors of that letter, and there is no politics in our children’s right to master key mathematical concepts like fractions, times tables, place value, and geometry. There’s nothing political about our maths curriculum. I encourage the member to read it and engage in an intellectual debate on the content of the maths curriculum.

We’ll just have concise answers, thank you.

Why should parents trust this curriculum is right for their kids when it puts kapa haka and mau rākau into the physical education curriculum?

Parents should trust this curriculum because it’s knowledge-rich year by year and it’s aspirational for their kids. It’s very clear that the member opposite hasn’t actually bothered to read the curriculum, because if she had, she would notice that in mathematics, for example—which relates to the primary question—we are teaching children place value by teaching it to them in te reo Māori, because it makes much more sense to say tekau mā rima, 10 and five, than it does to say 15. She’d also be well advised to read it and to understand that we teach shapes in te reo Māori because it’s easier to understand tapatoru, three sides, than it is a triangle, but it’s clear she’d not read it. [Interruption]

Just a minute. Look—[Interruption] Sorry, but there is discussion going on all over the House, particularly on those backbenches over there. One or two of you are in sights and will be going early if there cannot be a reasonable approach to questions being answered.

How can parents be confident that the curriculum was written with their kids’ learning in mind when year 3s will be taught Charles Elton’s concept of ecological pyramids?

It’s really important for young people when they’re learning concepts to understand that there were people before them who came up with these concepts. In year 1, children will learn about Karl von Frisch. Why are we learning about Karl von Frisch? Because he realised that bees dance when they communicate. How fun is it for a year 5 to buzz around the room, because that’s how bees communicate. But we didn’t just make this up. There was a guy who thought about it. We need to be more aspirational for our kids, because if we’re just going to be worried—

Sorry, but would three people on the front bench like to leave? If you don’t want to leave, don’t perform like that. We’ll also have concise answers.

How can parents be confident that the curriculum was written with their kids’ learning in mind when year 7 students will have to study Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the 1852 Constitution Act, the French Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution in one hour a week?

Well, parents should feel confident because finally we have a curriculum that is not just so narrowly focused on New Zealand history but actually teaches children our place in the world. The Education Review Office review said that children enjoy history more when they are learning about faraway places and our connection to the world. If that speaker thinks we’re just going to be focused on one of area of the curriculum, New Zealand history, well then she can take that to the election, but I am more ambitious for our kids.

Has the Minister heard any serious suggestions that maybe children shouldn’t be taught Newtonian mechanics because Newton was a white man?

No—sorry.

How can parents be confident that the curriculum was written with their kids’ learning in mind when maths experts called it potentially damaging to learners, history teachers called it developmentally inappropriate, and technology teachers said it was a major step backwards?

I can tell her that parents should feel confident in this curriculum, because there are a lot of other people—teachers and educators and principals on the front line—who take time to write to me and say things like, “I want to take a moment to express my full support for the work you and your team are doing to undertake in developing and launching the new curriculum. As a principal of a small rural school, I see firsthand how these changes are encouraging deeper learning, higher expectations, and a renewed sense of purpose across Aotearoa classrooms.” These two new curriculum areas have been in place for a year, and we are already seeing improved achievement in the classroom.

Question No. 12, Kahurangi Carter—just wait for a bit of quiet.

to the Minister for Children

Does she stand by her statement, “We have refocused the children’s system on what matters—the safety and wellbeing of children, whether in the community or residences—and the results are clear”; if so, what results is she referring to?

Yes, in the context in which it was made, which was the achievement of the first ever reduction of harm in youth justice and care and protection residences—a 14 percent decrease since 2024, which is a reduction of 33 findings of harm. Other results from the Safety of Children in Care report included a decrease in physical harm findings from the previous year and a reduction in harm by staff. However, at the same time, I also stand by a statement I made in the House during question time on 23 October that “I acknowledge that the latest Safety of Children in Care report shows that in the 12 months, from 31 March 2024 to 31 March 2025, there was an increase of 23 children and young people having a finding of harm compared to the previous year.”

Is it correct that there has been an increase in recorded findings of harm for children in State care?

I believe I just answered that, where I said there was an increase of 23 children and young people who had a finding of harm compared to the previous year.

What does she say to Aroturuki Tamariki chief executive Arran Jones and Children’s Commissioner Dr Claire Achmad, who warned, “Overall, the number of children in State care being abused or neglected has increased, and this is unacceptable.”, and “We must pay attention to the fact that 10 percent of all children in State care were abused or neglected over the last 12 months.”?

What I would say is, yes, definitely, it’s unacceptable. No child should be hurt or harmed in this country. If you are taking care of a vulnerable young child in our care, don’t hurt them, don’t harm them, and take responsibility for your actions, because, at the end of the day, if people that care for our young people don’t hurt or harm them, we wouldn’t be in this position to have Oranga Tamariki.

What does she say to ngā mōrehu, the survivors of State abuse, as we come to the anniversary of their apology, when reports tell us that the cycle of abuse they endured continues for tamariki in State care today?

What I would say is that the highest risk of harm is return-to-home care. This is where families and whānau are given a second chance to look after young people who have been removed from their home in the first place. We put support around those whānau and family, but, ultimately, at the end of the day, the people responsible for the harm are the people that are caring for those children.

Does she support implementing all recommendations of the royal commission of inquiry into abuse in State care; if not, why not?

Sorry, can you just repeat that question?

Of course. Does she support implementing all recommendations of the royal commission of inquiry into abuse in State care; if not, why not?

There is currently a work programme in place around the report of abuse in State care and faith-based care. What I would say to you is that this is a large work programme, which the Government is committed to working through to make sure that across the board, young people are safe in the homes that they live in, and that is my priority.

I move, That this House expresses grave concern that the Myanmar military regime’s elections, as currently planned, cannot be free nor fair and will not lead to sustainable peace; regards the election arrangements as significantly flawed because there will be no genuine Opposition parties on the ballot paper and repressive laws have been passed criminalising public criticism of the elections; considers that if held under current arrangements, the elections would not be credible; calls on the Myanmar military regime to release all political prisoners, cease the air strikes and other military action, enable genuine inclusive dialogue with all stakeholders, and relieve the humanitarian suffering of the Myanmar people; calls for the urgent implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2669 and the Association of South-east Asian Nations Five-Point Consensus as a necessary step towards a sustainable solution in Myanmar; calls on the New Zealand Government and the international community to not lose sight of the grievous position and situation of the Myanmar people, which will not be ameliorated by this election as currently planned; and continues to stand in solidarity with the people of Myanmar and their desire for inclusive and genuine representative democracy in their country.

Thank you.

The people of Myanmar are bravely resisting one of the most brutal military dictatorships in the world today, and they deserve our help. The war criminals running Myanmar are planning to hold elections before the end of this year, but this is not a general election; it is a generals’ election. It is a cynical repackaging designed to make the military regime look civilian and attract the international legitimacy that the generals so desperately crave. It cannot be free and fair. It is a sham election.

The regime is only planning to hold it in some of the country’s townships because they don’t control most of the country. No genuine opposition parties will be allowed on the ballot, and it’s clear that people will be forced at gunpoint to vote. The regime has in recent weeks passed three repressive laws criminalising the criticism of the elections, and there are currently teenagers in jail because they dared to criticise the elections on Facebook.

In the lead up to the sham election, the military has intensified its air strikes, artillery shelling, and scorched earth operations against civilians. These air strikes target schools, churches, monasteries, hospitals, and camps of internally displaced persons. On our recent fact-finding mission on Myanmar, everyone that we met wanted the international community to reject the military junta’s sham election. The election has no legitimacy, it should not be recognised by the international community, and that’s why Labour supports this resolution.

The war criminal Min Aung Hlaing stole democracy in a military coup four years ago, and since then he has waged war on his own people. He tortures political prisoners, burns down villages, and drops bombs on hospitals and schools; 3.6 million people are displaced from their homes inside the country, and 16 million people are starving, according to the World Food Programme.

Through this resolution of our Parliament today, we call on the international community to stand in solidarity with the people of Myanmar. The anti-junta movement has in the past few years taken back control of more than two-thirds of the country. It has built an impressive unity among the various groups opposing the regime, and it has advanced a constitutional process to establish an interim Government based on the principles of federal democracy.

Our fact-finding mission from this Parliament heard firsthand from people all over Myanmar who are building a new society and new forms of government in the liberated zones. They call it a bottomup federal democracy. The Myanmar junta is destabilising the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, one of New Zealand’s most important relationships. The junta’s war is the biggest cause of forced displacement in Asia. Under the generals, Myanmar is the source of most of the methamphetamine that makes its way to New Zealand. It is a leader in human trafficking and home to the notorious scam centres that swindle money from New Zealanders.

We urge the New Zealand Government and other liberal democracies to step up and work alongside our friends in South-east Asia to reject and isolate the military regime and stay true to the cause of democracy in Myanmar. We say to China, India, and Russia: stop propping up this murderous regime that conducts air strikes on schools and hospitals on a daily basis. Stop funding them, stop doing business with them, stop training their military, and stop supplying them with the military hardware they use against their own people.

To people all over the world, we say: don’t forget Myanmar. If you believe in democracy, human rights, and international law, the people of Myanmar need you now.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Greens to support this very considered motion, and I know that it will be meaningful for the diaspora Myanmar communities here in Aotearoa, around the world, and indeed in Myanmar itself.

I was also on that fact-finding mission, and as we spent some time on the border of Myanmar, we met with many, many people from various parts of the country. They talked about how their villages had been bombed. They talked about the air strikes. They talked about the impacts on their future and the impact on democracy. Having a motion like this debated and talked about in the House is an incredibly important move.

We also spent some time feeding back to the community. Appropriate decision-making is an important thing for the Green Party. The last of those meetings was hosted by Rachel Boyack, a Labour Party MP, and it was packed. Over a hundred people were there to listen about what we had learnt. In that vein, I want to acknowledge both the cultural, social, and political support we had from Phyo Sandar Soe, Ja Seng Ing, and Mi Kun Chan Non. Being able to understand what this means and the impacts particularly for their community brought a revelation to me in terms of the impact that was happening there.

What everybody said was that this is a sham election. It is not a general election; it’s a generals’ election, and they highlighted that for a number of reasons. One of them is the fact that the military junta itself controls less than a third of the country. They also pointed to the fact that, actually, with the elections that they’ve planned, they already get 25 percent of the ballot, but also they get to declare who will be on that ballot as well. There were also concerns raised about how it will be phased out as well. There could be one phase, two phases, or three phases and an ability to move that around. That is not a fair democracy, let alone the impact on all of the communities there, with 3.6 million and more internally displaced people fleeing the conflict into the liberated areas, and also the millions more that are refugees on the border.

This also has particular significance for us in Aotearoa, because much, if not most, of the methamphetamine originates from Myanmar. It makes its way down here as well, and there are the growing concerns of scam centres—something that I had not heard of before until they talked to us about it—and the concerns there around people that have been trafficked into those scam centres.

It was a very learning experience, spending some time with the community, and I think it’s important to acknowledge as well the role of the New Zealand Myanmar Campaign Committee. This is a committee that is chaired by Stanley Saw, with his wife, Sandra Saw, supporting, as well. Their daughter is part of our Green caucus: Yadana, who is a Wellington Greens regional councillor.

These are impacts that impact not just Myanmar but right across Aotearoa New Zealand, so having our attention on this is incredibly meaningful. It means that the people can say that people in New Zealand have actually considered this motion, that they have considered the issues, that they understand the issues, that they understand the harm that the military junta is doing in Myanmar and are willing to make a stand and to call it out.

This will be an important resolution. It will be a meaningful resolution for the Myanmar communities here in New Zealand but also a meaningful resolution for the communities who, across the world, have had to escape their homes, and also for those who are struggling on the ground—the anti-junta movement. It is meaningful also, noting the comments around the emerging democracy of hope, the emerging federalism of hope, and just to note that also we met with some of the young people who are trying to build a future as a part of this new emerging federalism. Some of them had an opportunity to go to Victoria University and to learn about public policy.

Support in these areas is incredibly, incredibly important. I commend this motion to the House.

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

Fresh from the dumpster fire that was the economic management approach of the last Government, last week a phoenix emerged, and its name was Chris Hipkins. Chris Hipkins, after six years of trashing the economy, emerged with energy renewed to say, “I have a new approach to the task, and its name is more taxes.” That’s his prescription for the New Zealand economy: to slam a new capital gains tax (CGT) on all those New Zealanders who have saved hard, who have invested, and who have worked hard to build up a nest egg, a rental property, a business. Chris Hipkins’ message to them: we’ll punish you for your effort with a new tax.

You cannot trust Labour on tax. Everyone who has worked hard in this economy is in their sights, because when they mismanage the economy and they run out of money, they always come after yours. The funny thing last week was, of course, the whole policy got leaked, because not only is there civil war in Te Pāti Māori; it turns out there’s civil war in the Labour Party too. There’s a host of them who want the tax to be bigger and bolder and brighter, so they hadn’t quite got around to finalising the details when the policy got leaked. I found it really amusing, colleagues, to see how upset some of their members are that I would have the temerity to point out that this policy will impact businesses, this policy will impact KiwiSaver funds, this policy will impact everyday mums and dads.

I don’t know whether it’s fair for me to say that Labour are actively misleading New Zealanders about their CGT, because I suspect that, actually, they don’t have a clue about their own policy. They don’t actually understand it—so, listen up. Let me spell it out. When you say, members opposite, it won’t impact businesses, answer me this: how do you levy a tax on buildings and land and not impact a business, when it is sold, that includes buildings and land? The simple fact is that you are putting a tax on that business. The Labour Party still hasn’t answered how this isn’t a tax on KiwiSaver. Just go and have a look at what KiwiSaver funds are invested in. It turns out they invest in commercial property in New Zealand. When you tax it more, you are cutting the returns of New Zealanders in their KiwiSaver accounts.

We’ve had all of these questions asked about the details. Valuation day—which, apparently, is going to be on 1 July 2027, but they can’t tell us how they’ll value the properties, how much it will cost, and who will be doing it. Apparently, it’s all fine, because they’ll sort it out when they get into Government. Well, they don’t have time to do that, because there will be no way they can get that detail worked out in time for legislation to be passed. It’s just classic Labour—light on detail.

The real thing here is what’s being left unsaid by Labour, which is that, actually, they are opening the door with a capital gains tax, with the true desire in their hearts to expand it even further. You saw that crystal clear with Mr Hipkins, didn’t you? When asked, “Will you introduce any other new taxes?” and given the absolute opportunity to rule it out, what did he do? He said, “Oh, well, there’ll be more to come.” There’ll be more to come! For all those New Zealanders who have been working hard, Mr Hipkins’ message for you and your economy and your job and your family’s savings is: “I want to tax it.”

We have to ask ourselves this: what kind of a country do we want to be? I want this to be a country that backs hard-working people. I want to back their aspirations, their efforts, their hard-won savings and achievements. Labour wants the opposite. They want a tax on people who have done the right thing—on those people who’ve saved up, built a nest egg, built a business. This is what Labour always do. They mismanage the economy, and then they make other people who do the right thing pay for it—and that’s before we talk about what the Greens want to do and what Te Pāti Māori want to do. It’s chaos on the other side. The phoenix has emerged. It’s not enough to moan anymore; now they want to make it worse. We say no.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Te Pāti Māori, first of all, wants to commemorate the Pāhuatanga day. Today, 144 years ago, reminds us of the violent invasion that happened at Parihaka, on 5 November 1881, when Crown troops stormed on a peaceful Māori community that was leading the world in non-violence, resistance, and selfdetermination—

Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt the member, but the discussion that’s going on in the Government benches is far too loud. You want to have a conversation, go out into the lobbies. Start again for Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, I’m sorry.

Kia ora, e te Pīka. A hundred and forty-four years ago today, there was a violent invasion on Parihaka. On 5 November 1881, Crown troops stormed on a peaceful Māori community that was leading the world in non-violent, self-determinant resistance. Parihaka for us was actually a place of vision. It was about just peaceful. It was about a united nation. Our ancestors were collectively building a future grounded in aroha, in peace, and in mana motuhake, showing a way through colonisation and horrific capitalisation.

Parihaka developed an economy rooted in whenua and collective responsibility and care. There were communal gardens. There was cooperative trade. There was shared labour. There was a real independent Māori economy that didn’t rely on some of the aged colonial systems that made individuals rich only. The people of Parihaka understood that prosperity must never come at the cost of land or the dignity of others. Had the Crown not invaded Parihaka, we today may have had an Aotearoa model for a regenerative circular economy where food security, energy, and housing were locally controlled and community-driven.

That is part of Te Pāti Māori’s economic vision, where policies are Māori-led, where the iwi economy is actually respected and it’s contributing, where we have Māori banking systems, where we have the ability to raise capital for Māori resources removed out of the way, and community-based energy solutions that reflect principles of self-reliance and community opportunities.

This is what we wanted to talk about today: how Parihaka led a social movement of peace and unity. It welcomed everyone, Māori and tangata Tiriti, who sought refuge from violence and injustice. It modelled restorative justice, manaakitanga, whanaungatanga, long before these became State policy terms. It showed that true leadership does not come from force but from moral courage and compassion. If the vision of Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi had been allowed to thrive, Aotearoa today would be a society where decisions were made through consensus, not dominance, with social systems of inclusivity and future focus.

Te Pāti Māori’s policies for Whānau Ora, Māori health transformation, living wages, pay equity, free education, constitutional reform through Matike Mai Aotearoa all uphold these same values. We stand for a nation where communities design their own futures; where wellbeing, not wealth, is measured for success. The Matike Mai movement is the modern expression of that vision. It offers a pathway to constitutional transformation promised by Te Tiriti. It’s an opportunity where Māori and the Crown, side by side, are able to talk and negotiate political restoration. That was spiritually envisaged in Parihaka.

Culturally, Parihaka was the pulse of Māori innovation. It nurtured language, spirituality, collective knowledge. It was a place where karakia and kōrero guided governance and where children were raised to see peace as power. Had it been left untouched, Parihaka could have been an intentional centre of indigenous thought, peace, education, and cultural exchange. Te Pāti Māori carries that cultural aspiration forward—our commitment to te reo Māori, Māori media, protection of mātauranga Māori. We fight for that restoration of our land and our oceans.

Had the invasion of 1881 not occurred, Aotearoa might have grown into a country led by partnership and peace, not control and not confiscation, with shared governance models that are rooted into Te Tiriti o Waitangi, with Māori and tangata Tiriti co-designing national systems of economy, education, and justice. The principles of Te Whiti and Tohu might have guided how we care for the vulnerable and respected the difference. Our kaupapa of mana motuhake, oranga whenua, reo, wairua, and whānau—our fight for an Aotearoa hou—is a continuation of Parihaka’s peaceful resistance.

We believe that by returning to the values of Parihaka, we can heal our nation: economically through redistribution, socially through care, and culturally through truth. Pāhuatanga is not only a remembrance of injustice; it is a call to action to finish what the legacy of Parihaka began, the building of an Aotearoa where peace, equity, and tino rangatira are not only dreams but they are daily realities.

Today, I stand in honour of all of those who believed in this nationhood, who stood in passive resistance against some of the worst atrocities and violence ever known and seen in mankind. I hope that one day we can be a place that not only reflects those values but truly aspires to achieve it. Nō reira, kia ora koutou katoa.

What a month—months, plural—it’s been for Te Pāti Māori. Right now, they’re like a bad episode of a reality TV show. Rather than Everyone Hates Chris, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, it’s more like “Everyone Hates Rawiri”, “Keeping Up with the Kapa-Kingis”, and “The Real Housewives of the Waipareira Trust”. I was going to make a joke about Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, but man of the people John Tamihere is already one of those.

A couple of things last week revealed New Zealanders should never put their faith and confidence in the mess of parties opposite to govern this country ever again. One was the ongoing civil war inside Te Pāti Māori, and we’ll wait and see how that transpires. The second, and the more important and the more substantive issue, was the release of what Chris Hipkins tried so hard not to call a capital gains tax. After two years of labyrinthine internal debate between the “policy council”, Phil Twyford and Helen White and David Parker, and all of the hard left of the Labour Party, and the ongoing backwards and forwards between the hardheads in the caucus and the softies on the backbench who want to go hard on a wealth tax, we’ve ended up with, basically, something that pleases nobody, least of which New Zealanders, which is this halfway house capital gains tax that Chris Hipkins spent much of the first week trying to say was “narrow”.

Every time someone asked him a question, he said, “Oh no, it’s narrow.” Is it a capital gains tax? “No, it’s a narrow tax”, every time someone asks him—“No, it’s narrow, very narrow, very narrow.” Except it affects commercial property. Now, people go, “Oh, commercial property—oh, that’s all good, commercial property.” Except when you think about the corner dairy, which is commercial property; the packhouse for the Kiwi fruit orchard, which is commercial property—when you start thinking about the factories, the logistics hubs, the warehouses, the GP surgeries. Actually, when you think about it, other than the sort of digital nomads who’ve got a laptop, it’s actually quite hard to imagine a business in New Zealand that doesn’t use buildings or land—all of which will be taxed. On 1 July 2027, a couple of years away—less than a couple of years away—everyone’s going to have to go out and get a valuation. If you sell your business, you’ll have to work out what the proportion of the business is that is the commercial property arm of it and how much that’s increased in the last few periods.

Oh, this is the other thing: don’t take account of inflation. That’s not allowed to be taken into consideration, which is actually how most capital gains schemes work, and then apply the capital gains tax on top. What does that mean? As the Minister of Finance says, KiwiSaver is affected, mum and dad landlords and businesses are affected, businesses up and down the country. Chris Hipkins has the temerity to say, “No, no, no, it’s narrow. It’s not a tax on business.” Almost every business in the country will be affected, but he says, “Don’t worry, don’t worry—it’s all under control. Vote for us and we’ll let you know the details after the election.”

That was the real kicker. The real kicker? It was like, “Trust us”—having driven the economy into the ditch in the first place through high debt and high spending and high taxation, he turns around and says, “Don’t worry, it’s all under control. Vote for us and we’ll let you know the details later.” The arrogance, the contempt, the disrespect for the voter, that they would expect New Zealanders to vote for a capital gains tax that even they can’t articulate properly to the New Zealand people. As a former political leader who I greatly admire said, “If you don’t understand it, don’t vote for it.” That’s exactly what I think the New Zealand people will do.

But “Don’t worry,” Chris Hipkins says, “We’ve learnt the lessons. We’ve listened. We’ve learnt the lessons from the last time we were in Government.” Except their first two policies contain very little detail, and to the extent they do contain detail, they are bad policies for New Zealand. Every day that goes by, they demand more spending, more tax, and more debt. That is precisely the toxic cocktail of policies that the last Government left this country in. I put it to the House: has the Labour Party learnt the lessons when everything in their record and their policies to date indicate the exact opposite? We say no.

Well, ACT is fixing what matters in this Government, and, for our children, nothing matters more than a good education. Education sets the direction of a young person’s life. It determines opportunity, confidence, and, ultimately, the future of New Zealand. Sadly, our education system hasn’t been living up to this responsibility. For the past six years, under the Labour Government, our education was in a steady decline. One of the very reasons that I am here in Parliament is because during COVID, I saw the state of the education and the quality that my child was being sent home with. Having to teach a Year 2 student how to do basic mathematics was completely outrageous, and it opened my eyes.

These concerns are now being addressed by this Government. Not only have we put the basics back in place—literacy and numeracy, and making sure that these are at the forefront—we heard yesterday under a new announcement just announced that student achievement will be the paramount objective for school boards, and they will not be bound to a Treaty mandate. This is highly important for our schools. They no longer will be having to wrestle between a Treaty obligation and making sure that our kids are achieving high standards. I get hundreds of emails and comments from concerned parents about their kids’ education and the fact that their kids are having to karakia three times a day but are unable to do the basics at school. It has turned into more of a cult than it is culture.

The new curriculum will be better for our children and, ultimately, better for all New Zealanders. The new social sciences curriculum is the biggest win for ACT in this Government. It delivers on our coalition commitments to restore the balance to the New Zealand’s history curriculum and teach facts, not feelings. The old Labour-designed system turned classrooms into a barn battleground of ideology. Its so-called big ideas divided New Zealanders into the victims and the villains. Those days are over. Under the new curriculum, students will actually learn about not just New Zealand history; they’ll also learn about ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece, the industrial revolution—issues that are wider beyond our shores. They will actually learn about democracy, freedom, and the ideas that have driven human progress and the free society that we live in today. I was shocked when one of my sons’ 12-year-old friends didn’t even know about World War I or World War II but could recite a karakia three times a day. Like, come on, there needs to be balance here. We need to think sensibly.

Our kids will see not a story of oppression, but they’ll see a story of human achievement. They’ll learn about the beauty and discover the freedom of the great ideas that have shaped our Western civilisation—ideas that have lifted billions out of poverty and built this modern world that I think a lot of people on the other side of this House have forgotten. It’s the very reason that we are sitting here today. For too long, young people have been taught to feel ashamed of their history and where they came from, not to be uplifted by their history, and that changes right now.

We’ll also be teaching our kids about financial literacy. Education is becoming useful again. For years, we had a system that produced students who could recite political slogans, but they couldn’t even add up their money in the bank. From their earliest years, children will now learn about money. They will learn that it’s limited, that choices matter, and that budgets help make decisions. Something makes me think that the other Government don’t want kids to know about budgets and money, or they may lose some voters. Let’s be honest: a few members opposite could have benefitted from those lessons themselves. Financial literacy is about real life. It’s about responsibility, independence, and understanding the value of work and saving.

This is the difference ACT is making in Government. We’re replacing indoctrination with education. We’re giving opportunities. We’re saying yes to charter schools; yes, that kids learn differently; yes, that some kids want full Māori immersion; some kids want to be in a sports college or a sports institute. We’re replacing guilt with grievance and curiosity with critical thinking, and we’ve replaced division with a shared sense of what being a New Zealander means, because that is the Kiwi way.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker.

Āmene.

Yeah, āmene. Today we’ve got the stats out on our most recent unemployment figures for New Zealand, and they are a stark reality. The record reached today is a nine-year high for New Zealanders, right now. The worst part of the 160,000 people who find themselves without a job, under this Government, is the fact that our young people are the ones that are impacted the most. Of those who are without a job, it is actually 15 percent of those under 24 who do not have employment. At a time in New Zealanders’ lives when there should be opportunity for learning, opportunity for taking up skills, there is none for our young people, and that is the deepest concern.

When we heard Nicola Willis and Christopher Bishop stand up and make their case this afternoon, did we hear one idea about what there are for jobs for young people? Did we hear one of their plans to look at how we’re going to increase opportunities for the youth in New Zealand? Did we have one single policy on how we’re going to stop 200 New Zealanders leaving our shores every single day? All they could talk about was Labour policies, because what Labour has is a clear plan for our future: to invest in our future, to invest in our people, and to make sure they stay here. That’s what is, sadly, lacking from those members opposite—absolutely no vision about what we do for young people here in New Zealand.

The response they have given—there has been one policy so far. The policy is that 18- and 19year-olds will no longer be eligible to receive the jobseeker and, in fact, if their parents are means-tested and the combined income is over $65,000, they are ineligible to receive that support. What I don’t understand—and maybe some of the other debaters this afternoon can enlighten us—is what happens to driver licensing for those young people who need to find employment? What happens to their statistics and their details from the Ministry of Social Development? They are vanished from the records, because if they are not there, then how do the support services that enable them to get driving, to get trained, and to get employed work? How do those services work? They are the very questions that many NGOs and many support groups across our country are now scratching their heads, wondering how we turn our unemployment statistics around when this Government’s plan is to simply vanish 18- and 19-year-olds from being able to receive the support they need to get a job.

But wait, there’s more, because, typically, when unemployment is high, what happens is people take that opportunity to learn, to take up an apprenticeship, to train in a new area, to look at ways that they can improve their skills because employment isn’t currently available. But this Government has taken the opportunity to cut those services at the very same time they drive up unemployment. It is once again our young people that bear the brunt of that force. We see right across the country 550 courses cut in New Zealand; 900 full-time jobs gone, and those training courses.

I was in Tokoroa last Friday, and not only has that small rural community faced two significant closures for wood manufacturing, with significant unemployment as a result, but on top of that, their local trade training, Toi Ohomai, is losing 60 full-time teacher equivalents that are training people. What a time. What a time to cut trade training and to stop people from picking up a new skill, at a time when this Government has witnessed and driven 20,000 construction jobs overseas—gone from New Zealand—and caused the downward spiral of our construction industry. They are cutting apprenticeships by making it harder for people to learn a trade. Once again, when they’re looking for jobs, it’ll be migration they use, not the skills and the talent right here in New Zealand—not backing our young people to pick up a trade, to be able to learn some skills that can grow our economy, grow our local economies, grow our communities, and make them stronger.

That sums up why neither of the first speakers on that side could offer up one ray of hope for our young people here in New Zealand, because they want them to be disappeared off the benefit register. They want them gone. They don’t want to count them. They don’t want to pay for them. They don’t want to know about them. On this side of the House, we back our young people. We want to train them, we want them to stay here, and we want them to have a hope, right here in New Zealand.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Let’s talk about banks—and I think I’ll make it exciting for you. The recent banking inquiry has concentrated on increasing competition, but there is more work to be done.

Excess profits—let’s start there. There is $8 billion per annum going across to the Aussie investors—not our retirement savings; theirs. This is the modern-day equivalent of the Vikings coming for your treasury. Remind me—why did we sell the BNZ and the ASB? Now we’re in this situation. Wow. Let’s get into a bit more.

Westpac just recently had $1.2 billion in profit—13 percent in tough times. ANZ’s profit nearly doubled, with just under $2.3 billion in—in their words—a tough year. Oh, how tough it must have been! What do they do to achieve this? More customers, better service, better productivity, increased investment in software maybe? Oh, well, let’s not think about that. The UBS, an investment bank—yes, they invest in banks—called the ANZ profit “alpha profits”. Yeah, there’s a reason why they call it that. The Commerce Commission called the “big four” a cosy oligopoly, where CEO salaries are more than what most of our fintechs could dream of in terms of capital. It’s a cosy oligopoly concentrating its profits from mortgages, not commercial banking. Why? Mortgages are low risk and very profitable. It’s been calculated that on average, mortgages in New Zealand cost us 1 percent more than in Australia. Why is that?

Over the life of a mortgage, an average loan will cost New Zealanders, on that basis, $500,000 extra. How about those interest rates? How are we doing with those? Well, net interest rates are at the moment approximately double the official cash rate (OCR). Really? That’s right. It’s a 100 percent mark-up. I can figure that out. Even the best fixed interest rates are around 80 percent higher than the OCR.

What are we doing about this? Kiwibank is touted as the answer to our competitive woes, and it was set up to provide greater support for Kiwi businesses. Well, really, in my view, it’s just a smaller, much smaller, “me too”. Judge them by what they do, not by what they say. So far, not good. There’s a lot to be done there.

Let me move to scams, which were mentioned earlier—Myanmar. The banks have been very quick to make positive statements around implementing confirmation-of-payee systems to address fraud. This is over a decade behind other jurisdictions, and have they updated their software systems on the back of excess profits to protect us from scams? Hmm. Has there been recompense to the victims who have lost their life savings as a result of inadequate banking software and systems? Do we seriously believe that these same banks are going to get ahead of extremely sophisticated organised crime groups funding terrorism? Really? This is woeful.

The institutional arrangements are not a system here; they’re like a fire swamp. For those of you who remember the cult movie The Princess Bride, it’s like entering the fire swamp: man-eating giant rodents, sinking sands, and fire swamps at every turn. That’s what you’re navigating: a series of disconnected institutions—banks, the Banking Ombudsman, media, the Financial Markets Authority, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the Department of Internal Affairs, Justice, lawyers, the Serious Fraud Office, and Police provide for a maze that you may never leave. Victims are confronted by painfully slow deliberation, obfuscation, and blame shifting. Gee, this is not a good picture, is it?

But never fear: New Zealand First is here. Thanks to the excellent work by Minister Costello to address organised crime, alongside forthcoming work that New Zealand First has been doing in addressing scams in the banking sector, we are on to this.

Banks are afforded a social licence to operate. Profitability is not enough. They must go beyond legal compliance to act in ethical ways. Banks have encouraged all of us to bank digitally. Now we are facing an artificial intelligence digital tsunami. Perhaps some of the vast profits that we have witnessed should now go towards protecting consumers.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity to speak in the general debate. Over the last few weeks, Labour set out the first steps in its very clear plan and goal to realise New Zealand’s full potential. We want more investment, more innovation, more good jobs in every community up and down this beautiful country of ours. Our plan is about backing aspiration. It’s about investing in our ideas, our businesses, and our people so our future is made right here in New Zealand—a New Zealand where our kids want to stay, where they can build good lives here at home and not feel forced to look overseas for opportunities.

Right now, we’re at risk of losing all of that. Every day, more than 200 New Zealanders pack up and leave to find work that should be available here at home. Christopher Luxon stood in front of New Zealanders and promised to fix the economy and the cost of living. Instead, it’s getting worse. This Government’s decisions are causing tens of thousands of talented New Zealanders to head offshore and ply their trade elsewhere. National’s economic credibility has taken a massive hit. The economy shrank by nearly 1 percent in just three months, while our competitors in the countries we like to compare ourselves to are growing and continuing to grow.

It’s clear on this side of the House that this Government has no plan but are strong on excuses. Today, it was revealed that the number of people unemployed is the highest it’s been for 30 years. Businesses are closing at rates higher than—in fact, 2,700 in the past year alone, the highest in a decade. This decline isn’t just something you read about in an economic report; no, it’s the lives our people in this country are living. People feel it when they are filling up their car, when families are paying more at the supermarket, and when people can’t afford to see a GP. Sitting around the kitchen table, whānau are looking through their bills, trying to make it all add up, wondering how they are going to plan for the future.

It’s clear that while families are trying to create survival plans, this Government has presented the country with no plan. Christopher Luxon’s only answer is to start selling off our assets and open the door wider to foreign investors, giving away our future instead of building it. Labour has a better way: we’re proud of Kiwi ingenuity and we’ll invest in it, creating good jobs, backing local businesses, and keeping talent here at home.

New Zealand is in a moment of urgency and extraordinary opportunity. We have a skilled workforce, great ideas, and a proud history of innovation, but decades of under-investment and shortterm thinking have, sadly, held us back. Productivity is very clear in this country: it has stagnated. We are too dependent on commodity exports, meaning only one part of the economy can race ahead while the rest fall behind. Wages are low even as people work some of the longest hours in the developed world.

The New Zealand Future Fund is the first step in Labour’s plan to back our own potential; create good, secure jobs; and grow our wealth so people can build their future here at home and not overseas. For too long, great Kiwi ideas haven’t had the backing they deserve. Too many of them have been forced offshore, bought by foreign investors, or never realised at all, taking jobs and opportunities with them. The New Zealand Future Fund will fix that. The future fund will invest in—

You stole it from us!

—New Zealand’s people, ideas, and industries, making life more affordable. And while New Zealand First will say we took it from them, they’re in Government and still can’t do it.

We want to also be clear: part of our plan is a capital gains tax. A simple, targeted capital gains tax on property profits made after 1 July 2027 is also part of the plan. Right now, too much of our wealth is locked up in property instead of backing Kiwi ideas, Kiwi jobs, and Kiwi innovation. These aren’t my words; these are Christopher Bishop’s words. This Government agrees but are doing nothing about it. A capital gains tax will help unlock that money and get it working for our economy, investing in businesses that create real opportunity. What it’ll also do is invest in good healthcare. We are saying to New Zealanders, “If you vote for Labour and you get us on to the Government benches, we will give our families—every person in this country—three free GP visits.”

The Minister of Education today said that three sides in Māori is a tapatoru. Well, this is a tapawhā roa. Tapawhā is a square; tapawhā roa is a rectangle. We want to say to New Zealanders right up and down the country, “With this, you can access better healthcare, three free GP visits for every New Zealander, and a plan this country deserves.”

When I was a little boy, my favourite song on my favourite 45 record went like this: “I’m a little fire engine. Flick is my name. They won’t let me put out fires. Isn’t that a shame? Someday I’ll be big and strong and fight every flame.” That song was ringing in my ears as New Zealanders last week watched the shambles that was Labour’s capital gains tax announcement and their leader then racing around doing his best to douse out the flames. Chris Hipkins was desperate to hose down speculation that the Green Party would demand even more taxes in any future coalition negotiations. And they would—they would. In fact, the Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick wasted no time describing Labour’s capital gains tax (CGT) as a mere starting point.

Introducing a 28 percent tax on all profits made after the sale of commercial or secondary residential property made Kiwis’ blood run cold. What gets whacked with Labour’s new tax? The investment flat helping pay your kids’ uni costs, yes. Mum and Dad’s small rental in Timaru, yes. The $900k bach in Gisborne, yes. How about this? How about the $550k rental in Hāwera? Yes. Labour’s hurried CGT now poses many more questions than answers. That’s not just National’s assessment; that’s according to many tax experts, economists, and commentators.

Here’s the first credibility fail for the Labour Party. The $700 million raised on average per year will not be enough to fund free doctors visits for all 5.3 million New Zealanders three times a year, plus all the other health initiatives they’re promising with their CGT grab. That’s not even factoring in the rising demand when “free” is written on every doctor’s front door. The computer simply says no.

With $700 million not cutting it, that only means one thing—it only means one thing. More new taxes and more debt will be required. Make no mistake: Labour’s capital gains tax is a Trojan horse to a much, much bigger tax grab. To fund all their promises, Labour, Greens, Te Pāti Māori will not only need a CGT; they will need a wealth tax, they will need an inheritance tax, they will need a higher top tax rate, and much, much more debt. Read the Greens’ alternative budget. It’s eye-watering stuff, with a CGT just their starting point.

Enter Deborah Chambers KC, with her column titled “Bugger off: why taxing property feels like punishing thrift”. She wrote, “For many New Zealanders, property isn’t a luxury, it’s the only realistic savings plan. That’s why many successful economies like Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong don’t have a capital gains tax. They attract capital. A capital gains tax,” she wrote, “hits the psyche. It tells ordinary New Zealanders that saving, investing, and taking risk will be punished.”, wrote Deborah Chambers KC.

The policy leaked from within the Labour Party showed us that not everyone in Labour is happy nor convinced, nor were they in 2023. Chris Hipkins, on 12 July 2023: “I am confirming today that under a Government I lead there will be no wealth or capital gains tax.” Labour can’t be trusted on tax.

With Labour not able to answer most questions, it came down to the media bringing in the experts to try and explain and make sense of it. What we do know is that hundreds of thousands of individuals and small businesses would be liable for a tax if the Labour - Greens - Te Pāti Māori Government was ever elected next year. Yet, astonishingly, Labour thinks it’s fine to fill in the details after the election. Let me repeat that: Labour is refusing to reveal key details of the tax until after the 2026 election. All Labour knows is how to tax Kiwis and dream up new ways of spending Kiwis’ hardearned money.

This is exactly the same recipe that landed New Zealand in this mess and that this Government continues to clean up. Like a possum in the headlights, Flick the little fire engine has proven he’s not big enough or strong enough to fight every flame, and, thankfully, Labour will never get out of the station again. Isn’t that a shame!

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. This is a quote from a person you may know, Mr Speaker: “People who need housing and social support are more important than who owns the houses.” Those are the words of Sir Bill English, in a report that came out about public housing called Owning Less to Achieve More. Yes, that is the same Bill English who led the review of Kāinga Ora, our nation’s public housing arm. Some think it’s a review and some see it for what it really is, which is the deconstruction or the dismantling of Kāinga Ora—things to be expected of the very same person who sold off 10,000 of our nation’s public homes, which happened to correlate with an increase of homelessness at the time.

Aside from the fact that the Kāinga Ora review that Sir Bill English led relied on flawed information, there are some major flaws in the Government’s logic when it comes to public housing. The thing is, the Government that we have today, compared to the last National Government we had, are a lot sneakier when it comes to public housing and getting rid of it. Last time, it was just simply “Sell it off. We don’t care. We don’t care what it looks like.” This time, it’s “Why does the Government need to run and own and manage public housing?” That’s besides the fact that they actually are still selling public housing, by the way. In this term alone, they have sold 444 public homes, 232 public homes are on the market, and that’s on top of the 3,500 public homes that they have already cancelled.

Why should the State own and manage public housing? Why should the market not be left to run and own public housing? It’s the common catchcry of privatisation, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter who runs or who owns a service or an asset, as long as the service or the asset is delivered. That’s the common catchcry of privatisation. The obvious reason why the State should build and maintain public housing is because we have the money, we have the balance sheet, we have access to capital in a way that is cheaper and easier than other entities and organisations to borrow to build that housing.

The second reason is because of productivity and role modelling. We know that only 2 percent of our entire housing stock is accessible, despite the fact that we have a population where over a quarter of all people are disabled. We know that a decent chunk of our carbon emissions come from energy efficiencies in homes and in housing that isn’t suitable, and we can role model what sustainable and accessible housing looks like, because, let’s be real, the market doesn’t have an incentive to do that. The market has always been and will always be driven by one thing and one thing only, and that is profit. The market doesn’t have social or environmental obligations. The market doesn’t feel a sense of responsibility for the suffering that happens when you deny people a home.

There’s no point arguing that community housing providers should provide public housing instead of the State, when the Government is only willing to work with and fund five community housing providers out of the hundreds that exist in Aotearoa.

The market doesn’t care about people in need; it cares about people with money that want to feed their insatiable greed. Kāinga Ora was always going to be public enemy No. 1 when it came to this Government, because this Government’s economic strategy relies on rich people trading houses amongst each other. It’s not about jobs, it’s not about industry, it’s not about productivity. It’s their typical laziness when it comes to the economy.

The mission of right-wing Governments in the playbook around the world is to funnel as much public funds into the hands of private greed as they can, and that is exactly what we have seen from this Government. We have seen our money being funnelled into the hands of tobacco companies, to landlords, and to oil and gas mining companies. With Kāinga Ora being the biggest landlord in Aotearoa, it is no surprise that they are public enemy No. 1 when it comes to this Government wanting to dismantle them so that their mates who are landlords can make profits and so that everybody has to rely on the private rental market.

It’s no surprise that National Governments insist on calling it social housing when it has and should always be called public housing. It is housing that is owned by and for the people, and so it should remain. It is not about profit and it is not for greed.

Let’s talk about Labour’s capital gains tax (CGT). It is the wrong tax, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons. It will not build a single extra home for New Zealand, it will not lift productivity, and it will make it harder for New Zealanders to save, to invest, and to grow.

Trust and competence come first when it’s about running the country. Labour’s plan, first of all, was leaked—it was leaked before it was even ready. Key design choices are still to come. Look at this: “not to be revealed until after election”. No clear valuation day rules, no certainty for small business goodwill or fit-outs, no credible guidance for family workshops—no nothing. Any political party who wants new tax should bring detail to the people before asking the people for a mandate.

Track records also matter. During the COVID period, the Labour Government spent $66 billion. I have another image: public breakdown shows $31 billion—that is 47 percent—went into a range of initiatives, and yet we have nothing to show for it in this country. That’s $31 billion of hard-earned taxpayers’ money spent on a wide range of initiatives. Now the country actually has a debt of over $120 billion, which we are paying $9 billion in interest costs for every year—just on interest—to service the debt. This is hard-earned taxpayers’ money—more than Police, Corrections, Customs, Defence, and Justice combined. All of these combined are still not quite enough to pay the interest on our country.

If Labour is to handle the money from their capital gains tax, New Zealanders have the right to ask the questions: where are they spending the money that is expected to be mismanaged? What is really on the table? Labour is now pitching for a tax that, in practice, will bite businesses and investment properties. Economists and experts have now come out to give their understanding and reading on the very, very, very thin Labour tax policy. One of the economists that I listen to, Ed McKnight, has spelt it out: the first-year revenue assumes only 6,000 to 7,000 investors will sell, and that capital growth is modest. Now, this is not a broad capital gains tax, and, effectively, it’s only a real-estate investor tax. On the claim that everyone has one, that is so not true: only about 10 to 14 percent of New Zealanders actually own an investment property. When Labour says that everyone is doing it, it is simply very misleading.

International comparisons also don’t support Labour’s capital gains tax. Yes, some economies have CGT, but some don’t, and some of economies, the most competitive, investor-friendly economies—for example, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong—do not have capital gains tax. In fact, they work so hard to attract and keep capital. Wouldn’t it be better for Kiwis and for New Zealand to be more like Switzerland and Singapore? We know we can. We know that we are so much better. Capital gains tax doesn’t stop house prices rising, either. Look at some data: since CGT was announced in many countries, house prices in Australia increased on average by 6.7 percent a year; in the UK, 8 percent a year; in Canada, 6.7 percent a year; in the USA, 5.4 percent every single year. CGT is not the solution to stop house price increases.

Let’s bring it home with some examples: a mum and dad in Timaru will now be taxed under Labour; a small investment flat in South Auckland will now be taxed by Labour; a family engineering firm in Hamilton which is ready to sell a workshop to upgrade into a bigger site will now be taxed under Labour; a couple who have quake-strengthened a very tired building in Christchurch will now be taxed under Labour; a cafe owner in Palmerston North who wants to exit and retire will now be taxed under Labour.

A little personal note, actually: it’s my mother’s birthday today—happy birthday, Mum—but I do want to say, Mum is working so hard to help take care of my young children, who are four and five, so that I can be here working, like most ethnic and Kiwi families in this country, who work so hard at one job, two jobs, three jobs, so that we can have a good life in New Zealand. I do not agree with a capital gains tax and—last two seconds—Labour needs to work with the Greens, and this is only the beginning to more capital gains tax.

Don’t you like it when Labour tries to rewrite its own history? Labour’s like an arsonist who then complains about the fire brigade’s efforts to extinguish the fire. Let’s run through Labour’s track record and what they left this Government.

Firstly, COVID spending of $66 billion that went on for far too long and too far. Debt in this country increased 2.5 times between the six years that they were in Government to $155 billion. Deficits—we inherited deficits on an annual basis of $10 billion. Productivity growth, as the other side likes to call it, was negative under the previous Government. The number of staff in Government increased by a whopping 18,699 people—that’s 34 percent under the previous Government. Inflation, as we know, reached 7.3 percent. Yet what did we get for that extra spending? Nothing. Worse outcomes in health, education, infrastructure, law and order, and transport. The only thing that was booming under the previous Government was house prices.

Now, Labour’s policies—let’s turn to their policies, for which my colleague Cameron Brewer here has got a great metaphor: it’s a Trojan horse. It’s a sugar-coated trap. It’s a gift-wrapped grenade waiting for the New Zealand public. Let’s go to the capital gains tax, which apparently is narrow, but it keeps creeping and creeping even larger and larger. We don’t know how much it’s going to cost, and even Labour doesn’t know how much it’s going to cost. They won’t tell us until after the election. We cannot trust Labour on tax.

On anything.

On anything. Let’s go to the Future Fund: $200 billion sounds good—it’s nowhere near Singapore’s model—but, again, we have no idea how it’s going to be funded. Where is that money going to come from? Right now, that $200 billion is being funnelled into other areas, outcome areas, and yet we don’t know a single dicky bird of where that $200 billion is going to be cut from. I don’t think they really know anything about their policies. Their costings are poor, and we’ll leave it at that.

I want to turn now to National, because National is the one left holding the mop after the party. We are the firefighters called in to douse someone else’s fireworks. This side of the House is working as fast as we can to improve things for New Zealand.

Let’s talk about our record: inflation down to 3 percent, the OCR down to 2.5 percent, fulltimeequivalent numbers down 5 percent since the election, crime rates down over 20,000 since the election, wait times for elective treatment down, wait times for first specialist of treatments down, and the tax to GDP ratio down, all under this Government in the last two years.

Now, we know that times are tough for many New Zealanders right across this country, but there are green shoots and positive things to come.

Lots of Roundup being poured on them.

What’s going up—and “What’s going up?”, Deborah Russell wants me to ask. Growth in the economy is growing up. Education results are going up. Business and consumer confidence is going up. Optimism in the future of our nation is going up.

Elective surgery.

Elective surgery is going up.

Export income.

The export income is going up, my colleague here says. There is great news in green shoots all around.

The alternative to our approach is what? Tax more, borrow more, and spend more—tax more, borrow more, spend more. After two years of being in Opposition, that is all the Opposition have come out with today. On this side of the House, we are optimistic. We are going for growth, because that is the only way that we can lift the productive capacity, lift incomes, and make sure that your kids, my grandkids, have a great future in this country.

We have announced the most progressive tax policy change that New Zealand has made for about 40 years—the most significant change is being made for 40 years. It is a targeted tax on investment property and on commercial property, and what have we heard in response from the Government? Mistruth, disinformation, and, frankly, hysteria about what it might entail. What I want to do today is set the record straight.

We have proposed a capital gains tax. It will not apply to the family home. Why? Because we know how important people’s homes are to them and because we know how important that sense of security is. Like most capital gains taxes around the world, our capital gains tax will not apply to the family home. No, it will not—that is not going to happen.

Our capital gains tax will not apply to KiwiSaver. When a person takes their savings out of KiwiSaver, there will be no capital gains tax on their KiwiSaver—no, that is not going to happen. Why? Because KiwiSaver is a productive asset that helps to grow a person’s own security and that helps to grow the economy. There will be no capital gains tax on a person’s KiwiSaver.

There will be no capital gains tax on the sale of a business—it’s really straightforward. Why? Because businesses are productive assets that help to grow the economy. No capital gains tax on a business—that is not going to happen—and that is because it is important to our productivity.

There will be no capital gains tax when a small business that wants to grow sells its building in order to move to a larger one. There will be no capital gains tax on that, so that is a really straightforward answer. Most businesses actually lease their building. Most businesses lease, but where a small business owns its own building, where it is growing and it needs to move to a larger building, there will be no capital gains tax on that transaction. Why? Because we know that a productive asset needs to grow. We are not taxing productivity. There will be no capital gains tax on the sale of a building by a small business.

There will be no capital gains tax on the sale of a farm. Why? Because a farm is a productive asset. We want farms to continue to grow and continue to be productive for New Zealand—no capital gains tax on the sale of a farm.

There will be no capital gains tax on inheritances. We know that many people get an investment property because they want it for their children. Where that property is left to their children, there will be no capital gains tax—it’s a really straightforward rule.

What about the case of a family home which is used partially for a business, such as a dairy—the question that that side of the House brings up continually. Business people are familiar with the way that apportionment works. There will be no capital gains tax on the home that is part of that business. It’s straightforward, and any accountant knows how to do it.

We have had a whole series of questions raised by that side of the House and we have said always that back in 2018, the Tax Working Group worked through a series of technical issues to do with a capital gains tax. We are following the rules set by the Tax Working Group, with some of them modified somewhat, and we are also using the rules set up around the brightline test. These are familiar rules. They are easily applied around the capital gains tax. It is a targeted tax, and what we are doing is encouraging Kiwis to invest in productive businesses.

This new tax is about raising revenue to pay for healthcare, but it is also about directing investment to the productive economy. Stop the hysteria, National, and get real.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

I move, That the sitting of the House today be extended into tomorrow morning for the continuation of Government orders of the day Nos 1 to 7.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Parliament Bill and the Land Transport Management (Time of Use Charging) Amendment Bill.

We come first to the Parliament Bill. When we were last considering the bill, we had just completed the debate on Part 7. We now come to Part 8, which is the debate on clauses 191 to 215, “Amendments to the Public Finance Act 1989”, and Schedule 7. The question is that Part 8 stand part.

Kia ora, Madam Chair. This part might seem, to many, to be a little dry, because it deals with amendments to the finance Act. It’s actually one of the more important parts, and I would just invite the Minister to, perhaps, make some comments on it. One of the important aspects of it is the fact that this makes the Budget process for the Clerk’s Office and Parliamentary Service independent, at least notionally, of Government. I guess the main clause is clause 203, and in particular the inserted section 26EB, and I just would invite the Minister, essentially, to outline the nature of this process. In particular, there’s one thing here I’m interested in, and that is in new section 26EB(2), there seems to be a distinction between general appropriation and capital appropriations. I would like him to elucidate, if he can, exactly how capital appropriations will be differently treated, and whether that remains entirely independent of the executive or not.

The other thing I’d be interested in him discussing is the relationship that Parliament, through whatever committee process is engaged, will have with Treasury, because it’s clear that Treasury will be involved. Essentially, this is a special kind of Budget bid, and Treasury has a lot of work to do on every single Budget bid in working through exactly what the appropriate appropriation is, how finetuned it should be, and the final amount. Obviously, it is just as important for an appropriation, essentially, to parliamentary agencies as for anywhere else that they’re accountable. One of the basic rules of Budget is if it’s not in the appropriation line, then it can’t be spent on it. I’m wondering whether there’s an expectation that it will be a very generic appropriation, say, to Parliamentary Service, or will it be kind of a line-by-line appropriation for the various—for the library, for salary, or whatever else it might be.

There are the first two questions: can we just have a bit of a discussion around the distinction between capital appropriations and other, and also just perhaps an explanation of what the expectation is of the role of Treasury and the consultation and degree of detail that will be expected in this budgeting process.

The member makes a good point that this is an important section of the bill. The intent of the Parliament Bill is to amend the Public Finance Act to establish a model for the House to determine the funding of parliamentary agencies, similar to that used for the Officers of Parliament—the Ombudsman, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Auditor-General, for example. I think it would be fair to say that there’s been some dissatisfaction in recent years that Parliament’s budget is, essentially, controlled by the executive now. Clearly, by definition, the executive has control of the House, because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be the executive, but it is important to distinguish between the executive and Parliament itself, and so these clauses, which are new, will change the Public Finance Act.

The member makes a range of different points. In relation to capital—the member can see it there—in new section 26EA(1)(b)(i) deals with an appropriation in a Vote that “is appropriated for the purpose of authorising the Parliamentary Service to incur capital expenditure in respect of Crown assets managed or controlled by the Parliamentary Service;”. Here, for example, this House, this Parliament, is controlled by the Parliamentary Service. There’s a variety of capital expenditure that’s put in place in relation to that for upgrades and various other things that happen.

The member asked about Treasury. The reference in new section 26EB(3): “the chief executive of the parliamentary agency must consult the Secretary”—and that reference to Secretary there at new section 26EB(3) is the Secretary of the Treasury—“before submitting information under subsection (1) or (2).” New section 26EB(1) states, “Before an appropriation in a Vote administered by an agency may be included in an Appropriation Bill for a financial year, the chief executive of the parliamentary agency [has to] prepare and submit to the House—(a) an estimate of expenses and capital expenditure to be incurred for—(i) each proposed appropriation; and (ii) each proposed category of expenses”.

I think most members will be familiar—certainly those who’ve been in Government will be familiar—with that. Ultimately, the executive lays before the Parliament the appropriations that are applied for to the House for a given year, broken down in a variety of different ways. There’s, literally, the Estimates, which are broken down into both operating and capital. The same thing will happen. But the point is they have to consult the Secretary for the Treasury before submitting that information. Then there is an Address to the Governor-General, which is, ultimately, how the Parliament funds the Officers of Parliament—which is a similar mechanism for the Estimates and the capital injection.

Ultimately, if the member reads new section 26EB(5), “The House … may request that the estimates be included as a Vote, and the capital injection be authorised, in an Appropriation Bill for that year”. The point is to give greater independence to the Parliament and give it greater control over its own destiny from a budgetary point of view but also to make sure that the Government has some ability to influence exactly how much is being asked for from the Parliament, but that’s a step forward from the status quo, where, basically, the Government, essentially, controls that budget. Now, that has not really been an issue, so one could argue this is arguably a case of constitutional niceties. The Parliament Bill itself is a constitutional nicety, in a funny way, so it’s important to get these things right from a procedure point of view. I think it’s laid out there and relatively straightforward.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for that, Minister. Also, I’m a little curious—I probably should know—what an Address to the Governor-General would look like in this House. It may just be a part of the debate, but I think moving this process to, essentially, as you say, move it away from entire control of the executive to at least—and I don’t think it’s a nicety, actually. I think it’s a pretty important constitutional point.

One of the things that does happen is that the part of the Public Finance Act which applies to reporting will apply to these parliamentary agencies: the Office of the Clerk and the Parliamentary Service. I haven’t got it in front of me, but in the relevant section of the bill, new section 45FA—I think it is—inserted by clause 207, it lists all of the things that the agencies must report on. I guess there’s—and I’ll come to the Privacy Act later, but one of the things I think it would be worth, in this Chamber, just at least giving the Leader of the House an opportunity to comment on is the number of people who said it’s all very nice to have that kind of reporting, but, in fact, we would expect these agencies to have even greater transparency—the same as any other Government department. Of course, they were referring to—and there were a number of submissions along these lines, because I sat on the Parliament Bill Committee—the Official Information Act.

Whilst there’s annual reports and all kinds of other proper financial accounts and so on, the fact of the matter is that the usual grounds for transparency under the Official Information Act still don’t apply to these agencies. Whilst there might be, within the practices and procedures of Parliament, a willingness to provide information, there’s certainly no obligation. I think it would be useful for the Minister to just speak to that, in some ways for completeness, but certainly I think it’s a useful point.

Could the member just clarify if he was speaking to a specific clause in Part 8.

Yeah, I was speaking to clause 207, which inserts new section 45FA, which is about the reporting obligations of the agency.

Thank you.

The vexed issue of the application of the Official Information Act (OIA) to Parliament is one that members with long memories will know has been around for a while, and the proposal in the Parliament Bill is not to make any changes there. There is a case that Parliament should be subject to the Official Information Act. It applies to everything else, basically, including school boards of trustees, for example. Some boards of trustees are surprised to discover that as an agency of the State, they are subject to the Official Information Act. Most people don’t know that, including most boards of trustees, I suspect.

The challenge has always been how you disentangle the legitimate things that the public might be interested in—much of which is public, by the way—like running Parliament and the cost of the Chamber and these sorts of things. Much of that is public already. How do you disentangle that stuff from MPs’ emails and all the other things that happen in Parliament that, frankly, is rightly the province of members and should remain private? Over the last few years, there’s been quite a degree of transparency—for example, members’ travel expenses are now made public; their mileage and travel expenses are made public; hotel accommodation is made public. All of that stuff is public, and Ministers’ credit cards are made public—although, that’s a slightly separate issue, because it’s the executive.

We’ve never been able to come up with a formula in which things that everyone thinks should remain the legitimate realm of members is disentangled from everything that should be public. No one has been able to come up with a formulation. The member is finishing up in a year or so, and we will miss his wisdom and his sagacity in the Parliament—if the member wishes, in his retirement, to come up with a form of words, I’m sure the Standing Orders Committee would welcome a submission. Maybe they wouldn’t—I don’t know. But no one has been able to come up with one, so the OIA is excluded from the Parliament Bill at this stage.

I think this is, for me, my final contribution on this part. It’s actually about clause 211, which replaces section 80 of the Public Finance Act. In particular, it subjects the Parliamentary Service—fundamentally the Parliamentary Service, but also the Office of the Clerk—to Treasury instructions. Now, this might sound arcane. I mean, Treasury has the ability to issue directions which are a kind of form of secondary legislation, as I understand it. This is not an area I’m right deep into, but I understand that they can do things, for example, to say, “Your accounts should be presented in such and such a way.”, or “You must adhere to this accounting standard when you prepare your accounts.”, or “You need to report in terms of the financial situation in a particular way.”, and so on and so forth.

Just an interesting thing there, which is it’s actually giving Treasury a degree of influence over Parliament in that it can actually tell Parliament what to do, because the Clerk and Parliamentary Service is part of Parliament. Whilst we in this House are ultimately the Parliament, these are agents of Parliament. I’m just really curious. I can see why we want to have good financial procedures, but is it appropriate for Treasury to be able to tell Parliamentary Service and the Office of the Clerk how to do their job?

A couple of other matters. The member asked earlier about an Address—how that works. An Address is prepared by the Speaker to reflect the House’s resolution about its contents. In practice, it’s prepared beforehand to reflect the recommendations of the select committee. Members who’ve seen an Address to the GovernorGeneral on behalf of His Majesty in relation to the salary or the appropriation for the Ombudsman, for example, will have seen that it’s relatively unusual but an important part. I think there was a discussion around clause 207 inserting new section 45FA, where the parliamentary agencies will, largely, be required to report under the Public Finance Act in the same way as they are now. The new section 45FA, essentially, reproduces those requirements, even though those agencies will no longer be requirements.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the Leader of the House for responses to questions on this part thus far. I wasn’t privileged to be on the select committee but have read through some of the submissions.

The Leader of the House commented on the new section 26EB, inserted by clause 203, and particularly in terms of the consultation that happens before a determination is made on the specific appropriation. I did note that the Council for Civil Liberties in their submission asked the question of what participation the public would have in terms of inputting into the appropriate amount of appropriations, if you like. They used the example of the Ombudsman and the Officers of Parliament Committee process as a model for making their point and said that the Ombudsman at one stage had argued that the office did not need additional funds to be able to meet their task of working to investigate Official Information Act complaints. The Council for Civil Liberties argued that the timeliness of those investigations was such that, actually, an additional injection of finances would have been useful, and they would have appreciated the opportunity to make that argument. Their proposal was to require “public evidence sessions on proposed budgets not only for parliamentary agencies, but also for the Officers of Parliament.” as well, and that that should be included, which of course it would have if it was in the body of section 26EB.

The question is really to the Leader of the House about whether that was considered and, if not, what sort of influence the public can have in this process.

I wasn’t familiar with Treasury instructions either, Dr Webb, but I now know slightly more than I did five minutes ago. The advice I’ve received is that Treasury instructions largely follow accounting standards, so it just really relates to the accounting treatment of the way in which things are done. Parliamentary agencies will be treated in the same way as Officers of Parliament are currently treated. Treasury will not be able to issue instructions to the Office of the Clerk or Parliamentary Service other than in relation to new section 26EA(1)(a), inserted by clause 203, which we’ve already dealt with.

In relation to Vanushi Walters’ point, it will ultimately be over to the select committee that considers the appropriations of the Officers of Parliament Committee or whatever select committee the House determines to reflect public input. My own view is that there probably is a bit of a role around public input in a way that there hasn’t been in the past. Ultimately, it will be over to the House to determine via select committee. Obviously, the special select committee considering the Parliament Bill did not see fit to include mandatory consultation in relation to the Council for Civil Liberties submission, but that’s certainly open to the House over time.

The question is that the Minister’s amendment to Part 8 set out on Amendment Paper 362 and Amendment Paper 401 be agreed to.

Members, we now come to Part 9, which is the debate on clauses 216 to 229, “Amendments to the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act 1993”. The question is that Part 9 stand part.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a number of questions about this part. I was involved in, I think, the very first attempt at a citizens initiated referendum, although I have some grave doubts about their role in a democracy. The very first one was about battery hens and about getting rid of battery cages, so we have made some progress on that issue. But I have a couple of small questions, and then perhaps a slightly larger question. Clause 219 seems perfectly sensible: that we move to internet instead of newspapers. I am unsure about clause 218 replacing section 6, section 6(2)(c), where it talks about “the contact details of the person or their representative”, and why it has an address rather than just email and phone number contacts—or maybe it needs both? Maybe we should be more specific? Back in 1993, this was the one way of raising an issue to the House of Representatives. There was no alternative. I think the bigger question now is what is the role of a citizens initiated referendum when we have petitions? Is it something that we think will continue? Are there amendments to make it easier to do, harder to do, or does it really make no difference other than some technicalities about addresses and websites rather than newspapers? Thank you.

The old citizens initiated referenda, which—

That old chestnut.

That old chestnut—that’s right. There hasn’t been that many of them, and those that we have had have not often times been—well, I was about to say they’ve been ignored, but I think that’s probably a bit unfair, actually. I was a young 16-year-old whippersnapper back in 1999 when we had the referendum that had four things to it, including hard labour, tougher sentences—I can’t remember the other—

The death penalty.

No, that wasn’t in it, but it may as well have been. There were four different things, and it duly passed 85 to 15, or whatever it is. It was a bit unclear what exactly people were voting on. But the general vibe was pretty clear: people wanted tougher sentences. Actually, that did lead, ultimately, to some tougher sentences from the Helen Clark Government back in 20002001—members will have different views about whether or not that was the right thing to do or not.

This is actually quite a minor change. What this does is transfer—because you need 10 percent of registered voters—the counting of that away from the Clerk to the Electoral Commission, and I think it’s pretty obvious why that’s the case. Back when we set up the citizens initiated referenda back in the 1990s—1993, I believe it was—for whatever reason, the role of both the certification and the approval of the wording and the counting was given to the Clerk. Now, the Clerk’s a great office, a great man, but their specialty expertise is not in the counting. Actually, what happens now is the Clerk goes and talks to the commission around how all that works anyway. This just formally transfers it and says, look, the responsibility for counting of the votes and working out the number of electors and the registered number of voters and all that stuff, that’s the commission’s core job. That’s literally why they exist. So that should be why it’s there.

Celia Wade-Brown asked about clause 218, replacement section 6(2)(c), I think—the contact details. I have to admit that is not something I have closely thought about, but I’m assuming that the contact details, including an address, is to make sure that those who are interested in promoting the referendum can be contacted at that. There’s probably a case to put email address in there as well. Maybe it’s a little bit old fashioned just referring to a physical address, but it will just be to make sure that it’s all in order from a promotion point of view. Maybe that’s something we can tidy up through a statutes amendment bill later on if members are willing to do that, or potentially some sort of regulatory standards bill. It’s not something I’ve given a huge amount of thought to.

I just have a couple of points. One of my personal favourite legislative tools is when you define something to mean something entirely differently. In this articulation, we are moving the counting job to the Electoral Commission. The count in new section 18(4)—that’s clause 226 of the bill—says, “The Electoral Commission must certify an indicative referendum petition under subsection (2) within 2 months of the receipt date.” One of the funny things about the Electoral Commission is that unlike the Office of the Clerk, they get busy over election periods, while the Office of the Clerk actually doesn’t have quite as much to do as usual, although they would protest that, I’m sure. Then subsection (5) says, “the 2-month period includes, in whole or in part, an election period,”. The election period is the date from writ date to the last date noted for the return of the writ. I can’t remember exactly how long that is, but it’s about three months, isn’t it? What we have is that the Electoral Commission must return it within two months, which means five months if there’s an election on—it’s one of those fantastic drafting things where two months means five months. But that’s quite a long time. I just wonder if, Minister, you’ve considered whether that’s appropriate. Now, I get the logistics of it, but I’ll be perfectly honest that when we considered who was the best counter—clearly it’s the Electoral Commission; that is their job—that now means that there’s a bit of a glitch in the system. I’d be interested to hear comments on that.

The other thing is this, and this isn’t new, but I’m not sure, given the opportunity we had, that we should have carried it over. That is because 10 percent of however many voters there are—there might be, I don’t know, 4 million; that’s 400,000. By new section 19, which is the same insertion, the commission works with the Government Statistician to, essentially, count by sample. It appears that you don’t have to count every signature. You can calculate the number of signatures that must be checked, presumably, for legitimacy by sample. Whereas, if you’ve got an election, we know that there’s a tortuous process—because the Government’s currently worried about that—of going through and checking that every voter is properly enrolled and so on and so forth. But here it appears you might check 1,000 signatures, and say three are not legitimate people, and the Government Statistician says, “That’s a decent sample; let’s just assume that three in every thousand are not legitimate.” Given that and given the importance to some people of these referenda, I’m wondering whether it’s appropriate for the Electoral Commission to not verify each signature but to simply verify a few and project that across all.

I’ll just deal with a couple of matters. I sort of made up some reasons why we needed a physical address before, but I’m advised that the reason is it’s the status quo, and the requirement for a New Zealand address is needed to ensure the petition is promoted in New Zealand. It’s just to double-check that petition promoters are New Zealand people, which I think is relatively straightforward.

In relation to Dr Duncan Webb’s point around the two-month versus five-month glitch in the system, it was probably true. But I suppose the lesson, the take-home point out of that, is don’t organise a citizens initiated referendum for election year; organise it for the off years. They’re every three years; you’ve got two out of three. It’s not too bad.

In relation to the 10 percent point, reasonable people can disagree about what the threshold should be. Most people, I think, would think 5 percent is too low and 15 percent is probably a bit too high. Is there any right answer? Probably not. Not everyone agrees we need citizens initiated referenda, but we have it, have had, for 30 years. But the status quo is that they use a sample so that we don’t have to go through the laborious process. Again, let’s put the people who are expert at that in charge of it; in relation to New Zealand, that’s the Chief Statistician. So that’s what we do. It just replicates the status quo, and to the extent we have citizens initiated referenda, I think most people agree it probably works quite well.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 9 set out on Amendment Paper 362 be agreed to.

Members, we now come to Part 10, which is the debate on clauses 230 to 237, “Amendments to Other Acts”, and Schedule 8. The question is that Part 10 stand part.

Oh, Madam Chair, what a treat.

Beating them off!

Yeah. Look, a very brief contribution here. It’s actually just around—so the key amendment here, one of the key amendments, is to the Privacy Act. Clause 231 inserts, essentially—or actually kind of reformulates an existing framing, which is the Parliamentary Service. It’s the Privacy Act, except in respect of—and these are exclusions. Actually, it’s quite important, that. Section 8(b), amended by clause 231, says these are excluded from the scope of being an agency under the Privacy Act, and they exclude the Parliamentary Service except in respect of employment information and personal information in respect of a security officer. That amended section 8(b)(vi)(B) is the new bit.

I’m just wondering, in terms of the Privacy Act, whether that will also capture the Office of the Clerk, or is the Office of the Clerk then by default captured? You haven’t expressly excluded it, and, under this piece of legislation, the Office of the Clerk is quite a distinct entity, as it is in this House and on precinct, from Parliamentary Service. Does that mean that the Office of the Clerk falls within the ambit of being an agency and therefore subject to the Privacy Act, or not?

The second question is the Parliamentary Corporation, which is one of those arcane beasts that exists around here, because that would seem to be an agency that is captured by the Privacy Act by not being included in this section. The Office of the Clerk is a little bit perplexing to me. The Parliamentary Corporation seems to have been included in the Privacy Act. Is that what is intended?

I’m advised that this clause 231 replacing section 8(b)(vi), in relation to section 8(b)(vi)(B), “personal information obtained by a parliamentary security officer”—I’m advised that’s intended to be included, after consultation with the Privacy Commissioner. It’s to make it clear that any information obtained by a security officer through a search or security action on the precinct—which we dealt with a couple of weeks ago—is subject to the Privacy Act, essentially. The Privacy Commissioner recommended it and we’ve agreed.

Is the Minister confident that the Office of the Clerk is not subject to the Privacy Act?

I think the Minister is getting some advice.

Perhaps we could take that one on notice, Dr Webb? I mean, I don’t want to particularly hold the debate up. The officials are checking. We think the answer is no, but perhaps we can take it on notice and get back to you.

Perhaps we could. I’m happy to move on from this part, and the Minister can come back with me about it.

Sure.

Yeah, sure.

Members, we now come to Part 11, which is the debate on clauses 238 and 239, “Repeals and revocation”. The question is that Part 11 stand part.

While the officials scurry to find the answer to Dr Webb’s very interesting question, I thought I’d take a call and talk very briefly around the Legislative Council Abolition Act. Despite the fact that we are on Part 11 of a chunky bill, this actually is an important part, because one of the actual objectives of the Parliament Bill is to bring together all of the different bits of legislation that make up the machinery of our constitution, our parliamentary constitution. As I’ve previously said, the Clerk of the House of Representatives Act is now gone, because that information has now been modernised and is included in the Parliament Bill. The Parliamentary Service Act 2000 is now 25 years old—same thing. The Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Act 2013, which has been a much-amended piece of legislation thanks to various Governments’ desires over the years to cut MPs’ pay, has now gone as well, and, of course, the Parliamentary Privilege Act—and I’ve been around long enough to remember the Parliament debating this after the Attorney-General v Leigh decision—is an important piece of legislation, and, of course, that’s now included within this bill as well.

I am someone who likes repealing things. I got into Parliament to try and get rid of some stuff from the statute book and stop the ever-growing and increasing arm of the regulatory State.

And then you replace it. You say you’re going to replace it.

Well, no, hang on; that’s very unfair. We’re replacing one, two, three, four, five Acts with one, so from a cost-benefit point of view, that’s a win. Five statutes are now gone from the statute book. They might be replicated in another statute, but let’s—it’s still between friends for now. Anyway, the Legislative Council Abolition Act—people forget we used to have a Legislative Council. It’s just over yonder. It’s a beautiful old debating chamber.

Bring back the council.

Oh, “Bring back the council.”, says Dr Webb. Here we go. This is Labour’s grand plan to win the next election—an Upper House. It’s coming back. It’s coming back—you heard it here first.

Anyway, with that brief, brief moment—

“Lord Webb”.

Lots of cobwebs up there.

“Lord Webb”.

Cobwebs.

Order!

Well, we’re not the United Kingdom, and there’s no desire, in fact, for anyone to bring back the Legislative Council. In fact, it did itself out of a job. They self-defeated. They voted to abolish themselves—the first time any member of Parliament voted to abolish their own job. So good luck to them.

Anyway, I now have the answer to the question on the last part, and I hope the committee will indulge me so I can answer it. The Office of the Clerk is subject to the Privacy Act 1993.

The question is, That the Minister’s amendments to Schedule 1 set out on Amendment Paper 362 be agreed to.

The question is, That Schedule 1 as amended be agreed to.

The question is, That Schedule 2 be agreed to.

The question is, That the Minister’s amendments to Schedule 3 set out on Amendment Paper 362 be agreed to.

The question is, That Schedule 3 as amended be agreed to.

The question is, That Schedule 4 be agreed to.

The question is, That Schedule 5 be agreed to.

The question is, That the Minister’s amendments to Schedule 6 set out on Amendment Paper 362 be agreed to.

The question is, That Schedule 6 as amended be agreed to.

The question is, That the Minister’s amendments to Schedule 7 set out on Amendment Paper 362 be agreed to.

The question is, That Schedule 7 as amended be agreed to.

The question is, That the Minister’s amendments to Schedule 8 set out on Amendment Paper 362 be agreed to.

The question is, That Schedule 8 as amended be agreed to.

Members, we now come to our final debate, clauses 1 and 2, “Title” and “Commencement”.

Don’t worry, this won’t take long. Just two things. Firstly, the Act, when it’s an Act, will be the Parliament Act 2025, not 2024. Just wondering why he didn’t tidy that up with the Amendment Papers, or is it just one of the things the Clerks do? It’s not a big thing.

The real substantive point I was going to ask about is clause 2(2)(c), which is for the application of Part 9, which “comes into force—(i) on a date or dates set by Order in Council;”. This is the citizens initiated referenda part. For the life of me—it always seems odd to me to have an Order in Council, not only because it’s just another job to do but also because it gives a degree of vagueness. Given that it’s a citizens initiated referenda, it would have seemed wise to simply have a hard line. Now, I can understand that you want to make sure that the Electoral Commission has got a system in place, but I would have thought that 30 June 2026 might have done it, or even if it was 1 January 2027. But is there any reason why you thought an Order in Council was needed there rather than just setting a hard date?

Well, the member the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, I think, knows that bills have dates in them as they go through the process, but they get updated to the Royal assent. When it gets eventually to the Governor-General, it will say “Parliament Bill 2025”, and it will eventually become the Parliament Act 2025.

Part 9, as the member rightly notes—he’s quick on the uptake—is in relation to the citizens initiated referenda, and it will be because of the variety of things that need to happen between the Clerk and the Electoral Commission. The Electoral Commission is obviously getting ready for an election next year, so there will be a range of other things going on as well, and I think a huge amount turns on that. That’ll be the reason.

The question is, That the Minister’s amendments to clause 2 set out on Amendment Paper 362 be agreed to.

I move Amendment Paper 361 dividing the bill.

Members, we now come to the Land Transport Management (Time of Use Charging) Amendment Bill. We start with the debate on Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 3 and 4, “Amendments to Land Transport Management Act 2003”. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. I have a range of questions for the Minister, and I also have six Amendment Papers in my name, which I do hope the Minister and other members will consider. Some of the issues were not discussed at length in the select committee process. I do want to congratulate all the members of the select committee. I think it was a really great process, and we did make some changes with unanimous support, but the Green Party did note there are some lost opportunities that were not addressed, and I do hope the Minister will still consider those potential changes.

The first one of these has to do with exemptions. This is primarily because of a submission, which I’m sure the Minister has read—a very hefty submission from Auckland Council—where they talk about the need for flexibility with regard to both exemptions and mitigation in order to get the buyin that is needed for—

I’m sorry to interrupt the member. Can you just refer me to the clause you’re speaking to?

Actually, I’m speaking to my Amendment Paper, which is Amendment Paper 376. There’s two issues. My Amendment Paper 376 amends clause 4. We absolutely agree with the bill taking a narrow approach to exemptions. However, the bill, we think, could make exemptions for mobility parking permit holders. If the Minister refers to successful congestion charging schemes in New York City, Stockholm, and London, they all have some form of exemption for disabled people. This is not something that we discussed at length at the select committee, but looking at the evidence from submissions, I do think it is something that does need to be considered.

I think the main point—and this is raised in Auckland Council’s submission—is that in order for the scheme to be brought in by local authorities and to get the local political buy-in that we need for such a scheme, there needs to be some amount of flexibility to enable very limited exemptions. We did, in the committee, make an amendment that does result in one new exemption, which is for public transport buses. This is also the case in most other cities that have congestion pricing schemes. They do have exemptions for buses and emergency vehicles. The bill, as originally drafted, included exemptions for emergency vehicles. It did not include exemptions for public transport services, but at the select committee we made that amendment. However, the issue around disabled people holding up a mobility parking permit as a reason to enable an exemption or a refund is something that is widely available in almost every jurisdiction that has a congestion charge.

I think the Minister would agree that Stockholm and City of London, some of the first places to have congestion charging schemes, have been successful even though they have allowed exemptions for people with disabilities. Usually there’s some sort of official—you know, it’s different in every country, what the official process is to determine if someone legitimately has a mobility challenge that means that they are exempt from a congestion pricing scheme. In the case of New Zealand, we think this could be the mobility parking permit. Of course there has to be good enforcement of that, but I do hope that members in the New Zealand First Party, Labour, and the National Party will—I wouldn’t expect members from ACT to support it, but I think simply following along the international practice of enabling some sort of exemption for people with disabilities is a reasonable thing to do. But the main issue and the main point by raised by Auckland Council is simply that they need more flexibility. That was something that is raised by the submission.

I, unfortunately, highlighted too many things in their submission, so I’m not finding the exact quote right now, but I can bring it up later. It is about enabling local authorities—here we are. It’s on page 25 of the Auckland Council’s submission: “The legislation needs the flexibility to provide for exemptions in limited circumstances, to address genuine hardships and increase the chances for scheme success.” I know the Minister wants these schemes to be implemented, wants them to be successful, and so I would argue that simply addressing this issue is one way we can enable local authorities. They don’t have to, but the legislation should allow for it.

The short answer to the member the Hon Julie Anne Genter’s question is no. As the member herself acknowledges, exemptions, by definition, start to chip away at the integrity of why you have congestion pricing—it works the more people pay, because that affects behaviour. The moment you chip away and say, “Well, you are exempt and you don’t have to pay, and you don’t have to pay, and you don’t have to pay.”, by definition, you diminish the utility of the scheme. I think people broadly accept that—well, I hope they do.

The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has rightly recommended emergency vehicles—I think most people can agree on that—public transport, buses, which again makes sense, because it actually links to the purpose of the scheme. The whole purpose is to incentivise people taking the bus and getting out of their cars, which is good.

Is there a moral case or a legitimate case for people with disabilities? Yes. Are people sympathetic to that? Yes, of course people are. But the reality is—and this might potentially be harsh, but it’s just the truth—you have to draw the line somewhere. The trucking industry asked for an exemption. Well, the trucking industry, freight—they create congestion, so they should be part of the scheme. Again, though, we actually want them to be part of any congestion pricing scheme that’s implemented.

There were lots of different suggestions for exemptions, and the Government’s taken, I think, a pretty reasonable approach, which is: there’s a couple of minor ones which can be justified, but beyond that, we’re not proposing any further exemptions. The member’s welcome to keep trying, but we won’t be supporting those Amendment Papers.

The Hon Dr—I’m sorry, David Seymour.

Thanks for the random PhD, Madam Chair. I just reflect on something that the member who resumed her seat over there said, that she wouldn’t expect ACT to support an amendment to support people of the disability community. Well, actually, our starting point is we certainly would, because at least two ACT MPs have people living with disability in their family. Our empathy and compassion for the disability community is long and strong.

I can only assume that the member made that comment because she also knows the ACT Party has two economists in its caucus, and we know that if you want to help people with a disability, you want a functioning market and to use income transfers where appropriate to help them access the market, which, as the Minister has said, is the correct way to help people, rather than distorting the market on an ad hoc basis. I have to say, I don’t think that is why the member said it, and it reveals a nastiness that does not become her well.

I’m calling Tangi Utikere. He was on his feet before.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Labour Party do support this bill. We have been long-time supporters of moves in this particular space. I do want to join with my colleague the Hon Julie Anne Genter in acknowledging the work of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, which was very collegial in coming to some common ground. I also acknowledge that Government members have also accommodated through the report and have seen some sense, perhaps, in agreeing with some of the proposals that the Opposition have promoted.

I just have one first question for the Minister of Transport. It is that throughout the bill, it refers to “the responsible Minister”, as opposed to just “the Minister”, and so that’s just a technical sort of question around that.

I want to pick up on the focus around exemptions. I think that it’s right and proper that this bill does provide for a very narrow exemption lot—and the Minister is correct. The select committee did hear from submitters around some in the freight industry wanting to be included in the exemption process. Civil defence emergencies do include Defence Force vehicles and the like, and where the committee landed was that, no, it did need to be narrow. What we have in front of us, effectively, is two exemptions, or three, really. One is the emergency vehicles, the other is the buses that are contained in a regional land transport plan—so that’s very specific; it’s not around private charters and the like—and the third is around Ministry of Education rural buses.

Initially, our view in the Labour Party was to not support one that went beyond that. However, our view has changed just on the disability aspect, and the reason for that is that when we look at other parts of the world—and Stockholm is one that I’ve learnt to know over the last week, specifically having visited there last week. They have a number of exemptions for diplomatic vehicles and the like, but when I asked them why it was that they had a provision for disability users, it was very simple, and that is that the process, effectively, of authorising a vehicle that in New Zealand would be a total mobility permit is because those users have no other vehicle that they can use to get from A to B.

I do invite the Government to perhaps reconsider the appropriateness of allowing those users who—and I think that the total mobility permit is a good opportunity, actually. It’s justified that that’s the vehicle that meets their particular need. While we originally didn’t support an expansion of that narrow exemption, Julie Anne Genter’s suggestion is actually the one that we will look to support because of the inability of those who travel by that means to, effectively, use any and all other modes. I do ask the Minister to maybe just reflect on the willingness of the Government—given that this is something that we’re looking to try and get some multipartisan support around this bill—around opening the door for scheme boards to consider that. It’s not saying that it is a “must”, but it is still putting in the option list one option that scheme boards could turn their minds to. I would ask the Minister to think about that.

I don’t think that that’s going to undermine the integrity of this, because what’s also really clear is that it could be that scheme boards decide that, actually, they don’t want to offer an exemption process to buses that are contained in the regional land transport plan, or they don’t want to offer exemptions to emergency vehicles. Those are decisions that sit with the scheme board, and so I know that the Minister has said that the Government is not prepared to explore that, but given that this is an option where, really, those that hold those permits have little to no other alternative, I think that it would be the right thing to do.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the Minister for his reply. I do want to reassure the Deputy Prime Minister that I wasn’t intending any insults in my comments. It was precisely because the ACT Party has been very staunch on not supporting exemptions. It’s great to hear that the ACT Party does support people with disabilities, and, I guess, I’d invite them to consider what the tool is for the transfer to help support people on disabilities because, currently, the support is quite inadequate, and there’s nothing within the bill that, I think, explicitly enables that.

Auckland Council did raise in their submission that it is central government that is going to have to directly support people to mitigate the increased cost of the congestion charge, because the council simply doesn’t have the levers or tools to do that itself. You get this slightly disconnected situation where a local authority is the one, hopefully, initiating the scheme. The goal is around transportation, but some of the support and mitigation for people has to come in through the social welfare system. I’m not sure how that will be addressed if not through my Amendment Paper, but I do want to encourage the Minister just one more time. I understand what he’s saying. Of course, we want to keep it very narrow, but my main point, as raised by my colleague, is that virtually every jurisdiction that has brought in a congestion charge has some form of exemption for people with disabilities, and they have all worked.

As Tangi Utikere pointed out, this is all about getting the ability for there to be public buy-in and political support at a local level, because a congestion charge will not be brought in unless local authorities are able to get it over the line. Central government is not going to be imposing these, and, rightly, they should not. Already, the way the legislation is drafted, as Auckland Council raised, has a lot of central government control. They said, put simply, that the legislation enables the New Zealand Transport Agency to, effectively, exercise a right of veto over scheme proposals that negatively impact the operation of the State highway network but do not give local authorities that same right in reverse. I would argue to the Government parties that if they want congestion pricing to be implemented, they need to give the scheme boards and the local authorities more tools to make it politically acceptable. Often, what is politically acceptable is not the pure, perfect theory of the economist; it’s a kind of compromised version where we get as good as we possibly can get but we also acknowledge that lots of people have reasons to support things in practice. We want it implemented in practice, not some perfect thing in theory that never gets implemented. We’ve been waiting 20 years for this, Minister—20 years—and the Green Party was, I think, the first party to champion congestion charging. I think enabling local authorities to have a little bit more flexibility over exemptions—specifically the one for disabilities, however that is officially recognised—would be really, really valuable. It’s not forcing scheme boards to put in place those exemptions; it’s simply giving them an opportunity.

Well, the member the Hon Julie Anne Genter, I think, makes the right point, which is that we’ve been waiting 20 years for this. Having waited 20 years to get to the point in which all parties in Parliament, I think, support the idea of putting a price on congestion in order to disincentivise it and lead to more economic and efficient use of the roads, can we all just agree that if we’re going to do that, let’s get the best damn public policy scheme we can? Let’s try and get a world-class congestion pricing scheme in place.

All the other cities do.

Yeah, all the other cities do it, and that’s not good public policy. I’m advised that when London did it, 50 percent of people didn’t pay it, which, you know—is it a step forward? Well, yeah. Is it better than the status quo? Yes. But is it better than 95 percent of people paying and being subject to the price point, and leading to changed behaviour? No, it’s not. Now, London clearly had to make political compromises along the way, but just because London did it and other countries did it does not mean that New Zealand has to. I just reject the contention that congestion pricing in Auckland will fall down because people with disabilities may pay a congestion price depending on the behaviour that they engage in. They’re still going to pay petrol, by the way. We don’t exempt them from petrol tax, which is a way of, basically, road pricing by proxy. If they drive an electric vehicle, they’re going to pay road user charges, and, eventually, they have to pay based on how much they drive on distance-based pricing, which is a far fairer way of doing it—and we’ll eventually get to that piece of legislation in due course.

I just reject outright the idea that the whole scheme is going to fall over because we haven’t allowed an exemption that the member is keen on, and Auckland Council might be keen on it. It’s an interesting point of view. But as I’ve said twice now, the whole purpose is to subject as many people and groups as possible. It’s a bit like GST, right? Every now and then, people have got bright ideas for things we should exempt from GST. You know, children’s books. Well, I’ve got a threeyear-old. It’d be great to have 15 percent off a children’s book, assuming that the price was passed on, which it probably wouldn’t be. I buy a lot of baby formula—would that be good, to have that off? Yeah, absolutely. Sanitary products—if people get worked up about that, fair enough. Fruit and veg, you know? I mean, I don’t want to be too political, but we’ve had various different suggestions for that. Once you pop, you can’t stop, you know? Once you’re down this path—firstly, it’ll be people with disabilities, then it will be the trucking industry, then it will be people travelling to work at a particular time or going, then it will be—people will find exemptions.

It’s a slippery slope!

Well, so one example that—Mr Twyford makes a really good point; it’s a slippery slope. Stockholm did what the member the Hon Julie Anne Genter probably supports in her heart of hearts, which is they exempted low-emissions vehicles.

Yeah, good idea.

Well, see, but that’s a terrible idea. I’m sorry, but that is a terrible idea. Low-emissions vehicles are vehicles. If you’re trying to solve the public policy problem of fuel efficiency or carbon emissions, there are different ways to address that, and the member and I would probably disagree on the right public policy mechanism to do that. But they are vehicles. The problem is congestion, and you’re putting in place a congestion pricing scheme that uses price to efficiently allocate road space. Focus on as many people as possible paying that price to change behaviour. If you’re worried about emissions, that’s a whole other debate. Do not confuse the two. The Government stands for good public policy—I thought that member did too.

I’d just like to acknowledge Julie Anne Genter’s clarification. I withdraw my comments that she was nasty towards the ACT Party, and I’d like to just record her acknowledgment of the ACT Party’s microeconomic chops.

As it relates to this.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to engage in the crossparty spirit of comity which has broken out across the committee, taking into account the Minister of Transport’s reference to Pringles, what is the Minister’s favourite Pringle?

The second question that’s related to this is: has there been a distributional impact analysis done on the impact of congestion charging? Obviously, all members across the committee do support it, but we would like to, I guess, have the full facts in mind. We do want to acknowledge the Minister’s commentary around the impact on not watering down the potential for pricing and the importance of keeping it as pure as possible in terms of the scheme. Obviously, there are many ways to create potential rebates so that everyone is still facing the price at the initial point, but maybe designing some sort of rebate scheme so that there is that pricing element that’s still baked in, but there is potential for people to potentially get the rebate, like my colleague Julie Anne Genter suggested, which is potentially creating not an exemption scheme but, essentially, a rebate scheme for people with disabilities.

Acknowledging the Minister’s comment—surprisingly, the Minister would find common ground with the Degrowth Greens Network in not exempting low-emissions vehicles from the charge because, as the Degrowth Greens Network would point out, a vehicle is still a vehicle, and we need to consider the fact that that even though low-emissions vehicles are a lower emission mode of transport, it’s still good to, if possible, shift people away from these emissions-intensive modes of transport, because low-emissions vehicles still require embodied energy to have to be made. They’ll also still be running from the grid, and the grid is still not 100 percent renewable.

Can I just ask the member, which clause are you speaking to?

Well, I’m responding to the Minister’s points about why it’s good to not exempt low-emissions vehicles, so I’m responding to an answer—

Can you please refer to the bill.

—that the Minister gave. Clause 4—I’m still continuing on the point. That actually leads on to my next point, which is: has there been a climate impact analysis done on this? We do know that congestion pricing is one of the ways that we can help reduce emissions, and if there has been a climate implications of policy assessment that has been done on this, how many emissions will the introduction of congestion pricing lead to? Obviously, it’s not mandatory at this stage, but I would like to see the modelling that’s been done, because we do know that new section 65C, inserted by clause 4, makes it so that it’s not compulsory for local authorities, but what is the sort of maximum range that’s been done? Like, what’s the assumption if all territorial local authorities do it? What are the emissions reductions if half of them do it? I’d be interested in the answer.

Just to recap on the questions that I’ve asked, the distribution analysis would be good if there’s one that has been done. The second is the climate impact analysis—has one been done, and what were the results of that?

Just to deal with a few issues, I have to come back to you on the climate implications of policy assessment. I think the answer is it hasn’t, but I’ll double-check for you. A member asked what is my favourite brand of Pringles.

Sour cream and chives.

As it relates to this bill.

Big time, sour cream and chives—number one.

A member asked about impact assessments. The point will be that local authorities that initiate a scheme are actually required to do an impact assessment.

Broadly, I think all members have now, basically, agreed that congestion costs anywhere between half a billion dollars and $2 billion. Estimates vary. Everyone agrees there’s a problem in Auckland and Wellington in particular. Reducing that down has a big economic impact, but the exact scheme designs that local authorities engage in will depend, basically. They’ll have to go through a process of doing that, and actually that has to be consulted on, so that’s built into the scheme design that is part of the bill.

The member makes a good point around rebate schemes, which, potentially, are a way of reallocating distribution—you know, people who are affected by it. Actually, I’m advised that new section 65Z(2)(d) inserted by clause 4 requires an analysis of the distributional impacts as part of the scheme.

The other point I’d point out is the Total Mobility scheme, which provides very generous subsidies to people who have disabilities, for example. It’s a complicated funding formula between the individual local authorities, the National Land Transport Fund, and the Crown, and very generous subsidies for people who use Total Mobility. It’s a very worthwhile and valid scheme, which many people take advantage of.

It’s the first time in my life I have been likened to a member of the Degrowth Greens Network—frankly, it’s not an experience I particularly enjoyed, but thank you very much for that, to the member, and I’ll come back to you—

Slander.

Oh, well. I’ll come back to you on the climate impact policy assessment.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m interested in the Minister’s analysis of the percentage of vehicles that would be likely to have mobility stickers. I think you were talking about the fact that surely we don’t want 50 percent of vehicles going through these schemes to be let off, but surely if the proportion of people is somewhere between a quarter and a fifth, depending on whose figures you take, the likelihood of them travelling at congested times is not as high.

Unfortunately, the proportion of people with disabilities in work is lower than the average work participation, so I would like to know a little bit more about why he sees the mobility parking permit exemption as making a very significant difference. I’m also interested in the fact that this scheme is meant to improve traffic flow—improve times and reduce the number of vehicles. I wonder to what extent he’s going to see this relatively cost-effective mechanism as an alternative to very large capital expenditures and how long he’s likely to let a time of use charging scheme go for before potentially reviving some other travel plan.

Going back to the issue of this being a good idea that we shouldn’t amend too much despite the other cities that my colleague referred to, there will be cities and there will be councillors who want to find any excuse not to do this. I wonder if the Minister would address the question of whether not allowing mobility exemptions could actually make a council less likely to proceed with the scheme. We’ve seen people say that bike lanes are ablest, and I appreciate that the Minister has supported a number of cycling schemes, but there are genuine issues about ableism and there are ones that are just revved up to stop more sustainable transport options.

Before I take another call, I’m just going to point out that the last six calls have all related to the same topic. This is the first and probably last warning about repetition.

No, a climate implications of policy assessment (CIPA) was not required, because the bill doesn’t propose any particular scheme; it’s a framework, so no CIPA was required.

Secondly, I think I’ve dealt with the mobility issue at length. As I’ve said, ad nauseam now, the moment you start exempting groups or people—you could find any reason; there are any number of good arguments for it, which people would be very sympathetic to—you diminish the utility of the scheme, and the next exemption becomes easier. I do not believe that schemes will fall over at a council level because people with disabilities will be subject to a congestion price. I just do not believe that will be the case. We could be wrong; if that’s the case, we can come back and revisit it, but I find that highly unlikely in relation to deferred capital investment as a result of time of use pricing. Well, let’s just wait and see. Let’s get the bill in place and get a scheme in place and see how it goes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am disappointed in the Minister’s answer, but I accept it. The issue we haven’t talked about, of course, are the buses, the rural school buses. There might not be many of them to be exempted, because the current Government seem to be cancelling all the rural school buses anyhow, so the narrow approach to the exemptions will be very narrow indeed.

I want to turn to new section 65C(4). Now, this is about the notice of the charging scheme. It talks about the need to identify the locations with poor traffic flow. We don’t hear about congestion or anything like that; we hear about the poor traffic flow as the rationale for the notice of proposal. One of the issues, of course, that we are going to contend with is community interests will think that poor traffic flow will mean different things to different communities. Poor traffic flow in Auckland will have a particular experience or meaning, as opposed to poor traffic flow maybe in Levin. The issue there is how there will be a level of consistency around poor traffic flow and trying to understand that there is a minimum threshold or standard where a potential time of use charging scheme is warranted. That’s the first question for the Minister.

The other is in relation to new section 65D. This is a little bit of the more nitty and gritty detail of what is expected to be in the proposed charging scheme. One of the things that’s not identified there is whether or not the scheme proposal needs to include what some of the alternative options in terms of people being able to get where they need to go—where that might lie.

I appreciate that that might be very difficult in a scheme arrangement like Stockholm, where it’s basically an in and out sort of environment, as opposed to maybe Gothenburg, where it’s more a tennis racket or a stretch of road. It’s much more easy to identify alternatives for traffic flow if it’s a stretch of road, and saying, “Well, users can use this alternative or that alternative.” It’s very, very difficult in an in and out, entry/exit sort of approach.

The question for the Minister is where he sees that being placed in a scheme proposal, if at all. This is not a toll road opportunity where you’re required to identify alternatives, but it still, I think, would lend some weight as part of the proposal if there was some identification of what alternative routes could be used at a time—I’m not talking about the specific time of operation, but alternative routes that might be available.

The member makes good points. In relation to traffic flow, this is ultimately going to be an issue for local authorities or, indeed, the Minister, depending on who initiates a time of use charging scheme. In reality, councils will judge for themselves traffic flow, and they’ve got to identify the improvements that we made to traffic flow—so traffic in and out of Auckland.

The Auckland CBD is very congested at peak times. Everyone knows that. It’s partly why we’re talking about this bill. There are other parts of Wellington and parts of Christchurch. Levin, and Masterton, and parts of Dunedin, perhaps not—with the greatest respect to those wonderful towns and cities. They’re wonderful places, but they don’t necessarily have traffic issues that could be addressed through a time of use scheme. In reality, I think all members know this. We’re talking about Auckland, Wellington, and maybe Christchurch. Let’s wait and see where we get to. As I say, I’m just keen to get the bill in place and get something up and running. We’ve signalled, as a Government, that the starting point will be Auckland. We learn as we go. We learn as we go. Actually, because we’re so far behind other places, we can pick up some of the lessons from Stockholm and other places that have done it. London’s had it for 25 years.

You should do a post on it, Dan. You haven’t posted on it.

What’s that?

Just encouraging my colleague to do a post on it.

Well, we’re looking forward to your posts. That’ll be good too. Thank you. Thank you for your support, Mr Halbert.

In relation to new section 65D, a slightly facile answer to this is that the alternative is, by definition, not where the scheme is and not at the time the scheme applies. If you do a ring and you say, at a particular time in a particular place, the congestion charge is paid, well, the flip side of that is you don’t pay if you travel outside those times, outside that area. That’s the alternative. I think, in reality, what’s likely to end up happening is that as councils and scheme boards develop proposals, they will publicise those options and those choices as part of the development of the scheme—and, likewise, the public transport option and things like that.

The bill, essentially, envisages revenue generated from the time of use being funnelled back into mechanisms in order to provide transport choices for people, which I think is appropriate, so that will be part of the development of the scheme as well. Is it perfect? Probably not, but we’ve just got to crack on and get a scheme up and running. We can learn as we go, and we can iterate the legislation if, indeed, it needs changes as we go.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have a question, but I want to start off by saying, in relation to the suggestions that have been made that not including an exemption for members of the disability community would possibly lead to councils pulling the plug, that Auckland and Wellington have been pursuing the idea of a congestion charge or a time of use charge probably for a decade and a half, if not longer than that. This is something that, if they were to walk away from it, would be very, very foolish.

I want to thank the Minister for the flexibility in responding to the issues that the select committee raised, and one of them was indeed that area of exemptions, because originally there was not going to be a provision for exempting public transport. There’s scheduled public transport, and Tangi Utikere raised the issue of the Ministry of Education rural buses as well, and the whole purpose of this scheme was to encourage people to change their time of travel or their means of travel, and public transport obviously was a key means of travel that we wanted to encourage people towards.

I wanted to thank the Minister again for responding to the issues. We had some quite good discussion around a number of issues that were raised by the select committee. That was one. Another one was the governance arrangements, and the third one was the way in which any revenue was going to be spent. The committee was quite strong on those, and the Minister responded to those, and I thank him for that.

There is one question I’ve been asked by a colleague. It’s not a question that I’m asking because I want to ask it, but a colleague has asked and, as a team, we said we want to get an answer on this. It is around the issue of privacy. It’s making sure that we can give comfort to people that there is not going to be some massive collection of data that’s going to be held over people about where they were travelling, how they were travelling, when they were travelling, and all those sorts of issues.

If you wanted a particular area in terms of the bill, section 65ZF, in clause 4, is probably the best place to look, as it talks about the potential impact on privacy. I’d just like to ask the Minister if he can give the public some assurance that there are going to be no issues with privacy around this scheme and that people can rest easy on that score. Thank you.

Madam Chair, thank you, and thank you to the honourable member Andy Foster, as well, for his very diligent work in chairing the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. It was, from my understanding, a very well-chaired select committee, and we’ve managed to achieve some unanimity, I think, which is really good, due in part to his very good chairing.

I think that the member makes a good point around privacy, and the member himself adverts to the relevant section, which is new section 65ZF in clause 4, which, rightly, says that “(2) The enforcement authority and the Agency”—which is the Transport Agency—“must not use any personal information … except for—(a) the purpose of collecting time of use charges (including billing);”—which I think is totally appropriate; obviously, members will be familiar with that now via tolling, the motor vehicle register, licences, etc.—“or (b) the purpose of enforcing this subpart.” Obviously, the Privacy Act applies to other information that is collected, which has been amended many times, and I think that it works quite well.

Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. I know that we’ve well and truly covered the issue of disability vehicles, but could I put on the record of this debate that mobility parking permit holders are less than 5 percent of all driver licence holders—

Yeah, you can put that on the record, but I heard the previous Chair ask us to move on from that topic.

Yes, yes. So now my topic—moving quite on to my Amendment Paper 374, which is in clause 4 and proposes a new section 65A and 65B. The point of this Amendment Paper is to address the high cost of air pollution. The Minister, the Hon Chris Bishop, has referred to being a supporter of good public policy. The Minister has rightly noted the cost of congestion being in the order of a billion a year, maybe, for Auckland. The Minister might realise that the cost of harmful air pollution in Aotearoa is upwards of $10 billion a year. It kills more people than traffic crashes do—car crashes—and it has an enormous strain on our health system and productivity, because small children getting asthma—we have one of the highest asthma rates in the world.

The reason why the Minister, as he was referring to earlier—when we talk about emissions and low-emissions vehicles, there are carbon emissions and greenhouse gas emissions and then there are harmful air pollution emissions. The harmful air pollution is specifically what we are asking to be addressed. This comes out of the inquiry—which the Minister, I believe, sat on the select committee when we had the inquiry into congestion charging, or maybe it was Christopher Luxon, actually.

In the previous term of Parliament, the Transport and Infrastructure Committee had an inquiry into the congestion question. During that process, we received numerous submissions from experts overseas who recommended that within our congestion charging legislation we allow some provision for scheme boards to apply additional charges to high-emissions vehicles. This is not in competition with congestion charge; it’s complementary to a congestion charge, and it is very much something that would be useful to local councils, as they have some requirement under national environmental standards to guarantee air quality, yet they don’t have any levers for the geographic containment of where air pollution tends to be worse.

Hence the reason why zones like a congestion pricing zone, if we’re able to take into account high and low-emissions vehicles, are a very, very useful, sensible evidence-based policy tool for addressing the geographic location and constraint and giving local authorities some tool to address poor air quality. That’s why low-emission zones, low-emission vehicle charging, in tandem with congestion charging, is quite a useful tool for concentrated air pollution—areas of concentrated air pollution problem. It’s the regional councils that are responsible for making sure the airshed meets a certain standard, right? Currently, they have no tools to address that. It’s not something that we address through any other public policy mechanism that I’m aware of, and the cost is five times higher than the cost of congestion to the public.

If you support good public policy in this House, we would love to see cross-party support for this Amendment Paper 374, which would simply enable scheme boards to take into account highemissions and low-emissions vehicles and apply not exemptions for low-emissions vehicles but higher charges for high-emissions vehicles that have harmful air pollution impacts in those parts of the city.

Look, I’ve dealt with this now a couple of times, I think. I’ve dealt with it already, but I’ll just repeat, very briefly: I’m really keen not to confuse what we’re trying to achieve here. What we’re trying to achieve is addressing the congestion question in Auckland and to some extent Wellington, and maybe some other cities, OK? That is, as the member—

Dream big.

Dream big. The member’s colleague made a point, about half an hour ago, that we’ve waited 20 years for this. I agree, so let’s focus on getting it in place, focus on what congestion pricing schemes can do, which is reduce congestion. Is there a debate, is there an argument, around how we incentivise and reduce emissions? Absolutely, but that is a separate issue to this debate and this bill, which, if we can get it into place, will bring New Zealand into line with many other jurisdictions, and, frankly, most people would say it’s taken way too long to do this. The member talked before around social licence and said the whole scheme is going to break down if we don’t allow people with disability permits to be exempt from congestion prices. I disagree with her.

The easiest way to make sure that congestion pricing in every city in New Zealand never happens: say to people who drive gas guzzlers, “Oh, by the way, you’re now going to be lumped with an even higher price.” I think we all know implementing congestion pricing is going to be bumpy, OK? It’s going to be unpopular. Every jurisdiction that has implemented it, it’s been wildly unpopular, and then the moment it starts and everyone experiences school holiday traffic, they go, “Oh well, this is fantastic. We should have done this 20 years ago.” It’s like, “Absolutely”. But it’s going to be bumpy on the way through, and I think we all just have to recognise that. It’s not going to be very popular. That’s why I’m really pleased that I think I’m right in saying we have unanimous support for it across Parliament. That’s really good; this is a ginormous step forward for good transport policy in New Zealand.

But, respectfully, Ms Genter, the easiest way to destroy public support for congestion pricing would be to whack big new prices on people who happen to drive emissions-intensive cars. You would see public support that’s going to be a bit tentative to start with utterly evaporate, so we’re not in favour of that. It’s a separate issue.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I’m going to take a burning question from Tangi Utikere, and I’m sure it’s going to be a new issue.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. The Minister’s talked about the support across the House, and that is certainly my perspective here, which is why I’m working my way through different aspects that haven’t been touched on.

I want to look at new section 65E. This is about the consultation process around the proposal. When it comes to new subsection (1)(a), it talks about the fact that before a scheme is even submitted to the Minister, the board needs to undertake public consultation. Now, this is very important, so my question to the Minister is around expectations around the minimum levels of engagement for that process. There is a process here, that was outlined previously, around whether a local authority or two or more local authorities that have come together want to pursue this or whether it’s Minister initiated. If it’s involving local government, rightly or wrongly, members will be familiar with the fact that that sector has a special consultative process that it’s called upon to engage from time to time, where the potential outcome is of significance. This just talks about the fact that there needs to be public consultation.

Now, we all know that that could mean just putting a public notice in, getting some submissions, and then saying, “Yeah, OK. We’ll go ahead”—or not. My question for the Minister is around expectations for the level of public consultation that a scheme board must undertake before they even submit that to the Minister. I want to, if I may, move on to a couple of other clauses as well.

Could you do it now?

Yeah. It’s new section 65F—this is about the actual submission of the scheme—and, in particular, new subsection (2)(c). This is the information that might be accompanying a proposal.

Now, what’s listed there in the bill at the moment is that they could provide any other information that the responsible Minister considers necessary. The problem is that there’s nothing in the bill that identifies what process would be engaged or used to signify that the Minister might need that information. The question there is: is it just that there’s going to be some ongoing communication and contact between the scheme board and the Minister? If so, can the Minister point out where that provision actually exists? If not, how is the board going to know that the Minister requires some information in order for him or her to exercise their thinking in that space?

The member Tangi Utikere makes good points. In relation to public consultation, look, this is local government’s bread and butter. This is what they do, I would argue, probably far too much. I think it’s relatively straightforward. The scheme board, before they submit something to the responsible Minister, have to do public consultation. My expectation would be that they’d be relatively comprehensive. The bill and I are not going to dictate the number of months and all the rest of it. Ultimately, this is what local authorities do, and they’re actually pretty good at it, so I don’t want to get too worked up about that.

In relation to section 65F, inserted by clause 4, I think (2)(c) is there as a bit of a catch-all, but it should be read in light of (2)(a) and (2)(b). The scheme proposal has to have the report of the consultation we’ve just been talking about, a summary of the submissions, and the impact assessment. Having just gone through a bit of this with some councils in relation to a variety of things under the Resource Management Act, there is quite a lot of backwards and forwards between central government and councils as part of the formal exchange of documents and things like that. My expectation would be that it would work in a similar way, in which the scheme board might say to the officials, “Here’s what we’re planning on submitting”, and if there’s some other information that the Government or the Minister might like that would encourage the scheme board in advance of the submission in order to help expedite the process, submit that as well.

Now, look, I can’t imagine, off the top of my head, exactly what that information might be, but the point is it’s there as a catch-all. In case the Minister needs more information, they can ask for it. My expectation would be that Ministers and local authorities would work in good faith around these things, and I’m very confident that will be the case.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments set out on Amendment Paper 400 be agreed to.

The Hon Julie Anne Genter’s amendments set out on Amendment Paper 374 are out of order as being outside the scope of the bill.

The question is that the Hon Julie Anne Genter’s amendments set out on Amendment Paper 375 be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Julie Anne Genter’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 376 be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Julie Anne Genter’s amendments set out on Amendment Paper 377 be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Julie Anne Genter’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 378 be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Julie Anne Genter’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 379 be agreed to.

Members, the time has come for the committee to break for dinner. I just did want to make a comment: in terms of committee stages, when a bill is largely agreed and it’s been through a select committee—I heard the previous speaker talking about things being stretched out around the same topics—we would expect the questions to be really homed in in this situation. Under urgency or when a bill’s just put before the committee, then we’re quite happy to extend things out. In a situation like this, there was plenty of opportunity in the time frame to answer those questions. I just wanted to put that on the table. The House is suspended until after the dinner the break at 7.30 p.m.

Members, welcome back. We come now to Part 2 of the Land Transport Management (Time of Use Charging) Amendment Bill. The debate is on clauses 5 to 10, “Amendments to other enactments”. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s good to be in the chair for Part 2. Part 2 is the part which outlines the amendments to other enactments, and we’ve got amendments to the Land Transport Act 1998 and amendments to the Legislation Act 2019. It’s pretty straightforward. They are almost sort of your technical amendments that you need to make in order to enact the substantive policy within the bill itself.

Let’s skip clause 5 and go straight to clause 6. That’s amending the interpretation section of the Land Transport Act to define “enforcement authority” and “moving vehicle offence”, and subclause (3) inserts definitions of “time of use charge” and “time of use charging offence” to reflect, again, our policy intent. New clause 6A amends section 145 to provide for evidence of approved vehicle surveillance equipment. There’s a small amendment under clause 7 which amends the regulations to allow the Minister to set regulations for the setting of infringement fees for the time of use charging offences. Clause 8 amends section 208 to update some numbering of some sections, and then clauses 9 and 10 make some small amendments to the Legislation Act 2019.

That’s a pretty straightforward summary of what the part does. It makes those consequential amendments to two other pieces of legislation in order to fulfil the policy intent of the bill.

Kia orana, Mr Chair. I thank the Minister for his comments on those sections. Obviously, you know, this is a bill that the Labour Party will continue to support.

The Minister does indicate that they are technical amendments, but none the less they are still important to ensure that whatever is transferred over to other pieces of legislation is consistent. Now, it’s very clear that what the bill does provide for is an infringement fee for this type of offence rather than a conviction or anything like that, and it doesn’t seem as though that’s going to change.

If I can just pick up on clause 6 of this part, and it is in relation to the Land Transport Act and specifically the interpretation. What is proposed here is inserting a new section that, I guess, adds to the definition of an enforcement authority. Now, the interesting word that’s used there in that definition is that of “entity”. Now, what this is doing is, basically, as we understand it, saying that the entity or organisation that would enforce the scheme would be able to do so by way of an infringement notice as a result of an offence, but they would be identified as an enforcement authority.

The question for the Minister is that when we look at the New Zealand Transport Agency or Waka Kotahi or indeed a local territorial authority, in many respects those entities already have enforcement powers and in legislation would be defined in some respects as an enforcement agency or enforcement authority. My question to the Minister is: is it actually required that they be identified or is there, effectively, a transfer or transference of that status if the entity themselves has that elsewhere in legislation? It would seem that it might be because maybe—I’m not sure—local government doesn’t have anything in terms of that definition in the Land Transport Act, although it may be the case that it could do as a local road controlling authority. So that’s the first question.

The second question is in relation to what is clause 6A. This is section 145 amended, so still in relation to the principal Act, the Land Transport Act, but what this is doing is seeking to add in the reference to an infringement or a charge not being paid in respect of a scheme that is in place over a piece of road. Now, we understand that it’s going to be inserted after the reference to a toll. So, on the one hand, you have the toll not being paid, and this would, basically, insert an additional add-on, so to speak, that this would be for a congestion charge not being paid.

The interesting thing, though, is that what is proposed to be inserted here is “the fact that”. Now, we don’t have that for the toll. It doesn’t say after “the fact that a toll has not been paid”, but for some reason we have “the fact that a time of use charge has not been paid”. Consistency is important. I take the Minister’s earlier point that there’s technical matters here, but why not just drop “the fact that” and just have “a time of use charge has not been paid in respect of the vehicle,”? I know it might be about semantics, but semantics matter, and so that’s really the crux of the question for the Minister.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I do want to pick up on what the previous member Tangi Utikere has mentioned in terms of clause 6A of this bill. I think it is important for the Minister to respond to the fact of what that implies in this particular instance, but I also want to check that this particular section is to do with when a car is travelling and potentially has an unpaid toll or unpaid time of use charge, using vehicle surveillance equipment.

In conjunction with what has been discussed previously, I do want to check in terms of who would then be responsible. The reason I ask is that this is the only time in this bill that a toll has been mentioned. Usually, when we’re looking at the circumstances around a toll, there’s a very clear signal that you do need to pay a toll and it gives a very clear signal of when you need to pay that particular toll by. In this case, if we’re using the same allowances, which allows approved vehicle surveillance equipment to be used not just simply for tolls but also for time of use charges, it also then raises the same question of whether the signifier of the time of use charge would be on the same level as what would be done with the toll when a person is travelling, so that way they know exactly when they have to pay things by. Potentially that’s a very easy question that has been covered earlier.

I do have two other questions, though, and the first question is around clause 8, “Section 208 amended”. Now, what’s interesting is that over here it says, “Replace section 208(3)(a)(ia) with: (ia) subpart 3 of Part 2 of the Land Transport Management Act”, but what I found within the legislation itself is that that part was originally repealed and is now sort of, I guess, in some ways reintroduced. Is this in reference to the time of use charge or is there something else that has happened that makes this particular repealed section—now being reintroduced, as far as I can see, in terms of that particular section 208?

My final question is around clause 10, “Schedule 4 amended”. Now, understanding that previously we were looking at the amendment to the Land Transport Act 1998, but now we’re looking at the Legislation Act 2019. This is an interesting section, because it does pertain to an earlier section of the bill, which is new section 65H(1), inserted by clause 4, but it is an important part, because it specifically talks about how the inclusion of this is by Order in Council. I wanted to check with the Minister in the chair that we were looking at changes to the Legislation Act 2019, and particularly in Schedule 4, Part 1. There are other things in that schedule of Part 1 that talks about “by Order in Council” and “secondary legislation”, but in many of those references in there, they’ll also talk about, in the other legislation, the regulatory-making powers when you’re looking at something that’s introduced by Order in Council, particularly when it comes to any provisions around reviews.

Again, this might be something that may have been discussed in the relevant section, new section 65H, in which case the Minister can just say that it has been covered. I’ll be really interested to know from the Minister about what that particular regulatory-making power would look like so that we don’t see an executive overreach.

Those are my three questions. The first one is in terms of how a toll and the time of use charge would be examined or signalled before we get to the point that a person could be snapped, I guess, as part of the approved vehicle surveillance equipment. The second question is around the reintroduced section of the repealed section 208(3)(a)(ia). The third part is around Order in Council and regulatorymaking powers.

I’ll have a crack at the last one first, because Schedule 4 of the Legislation Act lists those pieces of legislation that need to be confirmed by a deadline, which, I think, from memory, is clause 4 in that legislation confirmation. It’s the idea that a regulation that is made must be confirmed by a deadline, otherwise it automatically expires. Now, that’s my understanding, and so Schedule 4, amended by clause 10 of the bill, just lists the regulation-making power 65H(1) in the Land Transport Management Act in that list.

I will skip back to the questions from Mr Utikere. The question around the use of the terminology “the fact that”—if Mr Utikere goes to the original provision in the Land Transport Act, section 145(1), ironically, before the phrase “a toll has not been paid” is the phrase “the fact that”. It’s a consistency between the two.

In terms of the first question around “Do identities need to be specifically identified?”, local authorities and road-controlling authorities are already defined as—what was the word I’m looking for there?—

Enforcement agencies.

—enforcement agencies in that paragraph. This inclusion will include other entities that enforce time of use charging schemes in accordance with an order. They may well be local authorities or road-controlling authorities, but it does capture those entities that may fall outside of that.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I thank the Minister for those responses and the clarification. I just have one further point on this section, and it’s in relation to clause 7. This is about the regulations that would be amended, and it’s right and proper that what is included in there is the reference to what the penalty provision would be for the offending, which would be failing to pay the charge. There is the possibility that the charge that would be payable in a particular region—once the scheme board has gone through its process, the Minister has agreed, and a time of use charge is in place. In a circumstance where there is more than one location where a time of use charge is in place, it is possible that the actual fee that is paid could vary—would be different in one particular city to another.

Now, in a circumstance where someone does not pay that fee, what this provision does is it sets the infringement fee for failing to do that. Effectively, committing the offence will lead to a fee being charged. The issue as currently drafted with new section 167(l)(fb), inserted under clause 7, is that it relates to setting the infringement fee for a time of use charging offence. My question to the Minister is whether that limits the ability for the infringement fee to vary depending on the offence that is committed.

For example, if someone fails to pay a fee in an area where it is a higher level, it could be likely that the infringement fee should be at a higher level than a time of use charge that is set elsewhere. The provision as drafted perhaps won’t allow for variation in infringement fees, or perhaps it will. But the question really is the lack of it being a plural in that “infringement fee”, and stating the singular, means that there might be some limitation in circumstances where there is a variation of charge but an infringement fee with that provision couldn’t be variable in itself.

Section 167 provides the regulation-making power for the Governor-General, by Order in Council, to all intents and purposes at the advice of the Minister, to set those infringement fees. There’s nothing in section 167 which would prevent variable fees from being set, but you would then be subject to, I guess, regular regulation-making constraints of fairness and adherence to rule of law and whether that’s a proper imposition of the power. I can’t think of examples where different infringement fees would be set, based on the nature of the particular ticket. I could think of a similar one where you might face an infringement fee for not paying a parking ticket, but I don’t think it changes depending on whether your parking ticket is a $12 ticket or $20—I’m not too sure that’s the case.

Depending on time.

Well, the infringement for not paying the ticket might be, but the offence of not paying the ticket itself would be an offence. That might not be the best example to use, but all I’m saying is I think there’s nothing in section 167 to prevent variable charging. It would just be whether or not that is an appropriate use of the regulation.

Members, we come now to our final debate—clauses 1 and 2, title and commencement.

Thank you, Mr Chair. My questions relate to clause 2, which is in relation to the commencement. What is pretty clear here is that it is proposed that the Act would come into play on the first anniversary of it receiving Royal assent—12 months after that.

Now, my recollection from the select committee is that we didn’t really have much conversation or discussion around this. I don’t think there’s much in the report around this. Obviously, there’s a desire across the Parliament to have this legislation in place, but my question is around the timeliness and the suitability of having it as a 12-month, first anniversary kick-in. There is actually quite a lot of content in this bill that relates to some of the preparatory stuff and steps that would be undertaken. I guess there’s nothing to informally prevent some local councils or others thinking about what might kick into play when this bill comes into place.

My question to the Minister is very simply: does he believe that the 12-month provision, or the first anniversary of Royal assent, is appropriate? Usually that’s the case when there are certain steps that need to be taken. A lot of the steps that are being outlined in the bill are steps that could be done as soon as Royal assent is actually given, rather than having a period of time before that, effectively, gets under way.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I do have a similar question to the previous speaker Tangi Utikere, but, I think, from a different perspective. In Part 1 of this bill, people have talked a lot in terms of the consultation mechanism, and so there is a pertinent question of whether 12 months is sufficient when we’re looking at the ability to bring this bill into effect. I guess that the question, again, is: what happens if some of the regional authorities haven’t quite managed to finish some of the processes and some of the consultation? Particularly, I’m thinking of some of the areas that potentially have more challenging relationships with what is potentially the board, or the scheme, or the mechanism that is being defined here—and I’m thinking of some of the recent challenges we’ve been seeing in terms of Auckland Transport.

That’s kind of my first question, I think, and another question, if the Minister wouldn’t mind responding and just kind of indulging me a little bit, is this. I’m curious to know why in some bills we see commencement dates coming into force one year after Royal assent, and, like in this case, it says that it’s the “first anniversary”. What is the difference between 12 months, or one year, and the first anniversary? That’s just my own—

It’s about the same thing.

It’s the same, but why word it differently, then?

Oh, come on—do better than that.

Oh, I feel like, as lawmakers, we ought to care in terms of wording, and generally, I think, for many of us, we all should have a little bit of curiosity. Again, I will be taking that in mind the next time we have a members’ day, because I feel that we do allow for a much broader conversation during the committee stage when you’re looking at any bill, and I don’t see why one side of the House should be treated differently from the other side of the House.

If the Minister wouldn’t mind responding—that wasn’t the crux of my question. The crux of my question is whether 12 months is sufficient, but also what then happens if it’s insufficient? At the same time, some of the mechanisms we see here in this bill—it talks about reviews. I say to the Minister, thank you for answering my previous question around it being by Order in Council, but it also mentions that that particular thing would give a specific deadline as well. How, then, do those deadlines interact with the commencement date of one—sorry, not one year, but the first anniversary of the Royal assent? Those are my three questions.

Just before I call the Minister, I presume that the member wasn’t accusing the Chair, or any Chair, of treating one side differently from the other. I presume that he was saying that members treat each other differently and expectations differently? I take—

I do agree.

—it that that’s what he really meant.

Yes, thank you, Mr Chair. I wholeheartedly agree with you.

Thank you for clarifying that.

Mr Chair, thank you. My understanding is that the particular phrasing used in the commencement date is the preferred phrasing provided by the drafters of the legislation to indicate a 12-month or a one-year or a first anniversary after the Royal assent.

Now, the reason for that length of time, to Mr Utikere’s question, is to allow for sufficient time both for, I guess, local authorities to prepare for what this might look like in their area but also to allow for a series of regulations to be developed and put into place prior to the commencement date. Then, of course, once the bill comes into force, that will trigger the ability for those entities, councils, and enforcement agencies to start thinking about how a particular scheme might come into place. Then there are consultation requirements and the establishment of boards and all those things that come into force after then. A year is a sufficient amount of time, we think, for people to prepare for the appropriate regulations to be passed. Then, once the bill is in force, there will be some time before a scheme is implemented, because there are those public consultation requirements and the actual practical implementation of it to go into place as well.

Madam Speaker, the committee has further considered the Parliament Bill and reports it with amendment and divided into the following bills: the Parliament Bill; the Parliament (Repeals and Amendments) Bill. The committee has also considered the Land Transport Management (Time of Use Charging) Amendment Bill and reports it with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Those bills are set down for third reading next sitting day. I call on Government order of the day No. 3.

on behalf of the Minister of Justice: I move, That, under section 7 of the Inspector-General of Defence Act 2023, this House recommend to Her Excellency the Governor-General the appointment of the Hon Justice Timothy Charles Brewer ONZM as the Inspector-General of Defence for a term of five years commencing on 1 December 2025, and that, under section 11 of the Inspector General of Defence Act 2023, this House recommend to Her Excellency the Governor-General the appointment of Natalie Ruth Pierce as the Deputy Inspector-General of Defence for a term of three years from 10 November 2025.

The positions of Inspector-General of Defence and Deputy Inspector-General are statutory officers established to provide independent oversight of the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF). They are established by the Inspector-General of Defence Act 2023, which came into force on 26 January 2025. The functions of the Inspector-General of Defence are to investigate incidents that have occurred in the course of activities of the New Zealand Defence Force and any subsequent acts or omissions in the New Zealand Defence Force in relation to those incidents; to assess and identify potential improvements or additions to policies and procedures governing activities of the NZDF. The Inspector-General of Defence may carry out any such investigation or assessment on their own initiative or at the request of the Minister, the Secretary of Defence, or the Chief of Defence Force.

These appointments are made by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the House of Representatives. The Act provides that the initial term for the Inspector-General of Defence may be up to five years and the initial term for the Deputy Inspector-General of Defence may be for up to three years. The Inspector-General can be reappointed for one further term of up to three years. The deputy may be reappointed for one or more further terms of up to three years.

In December 2024, Mr Brendan Horsley was appointed as interim Inspector-General. His term in that role expires on 30 November 2025. The intention has been for Mr Horsley to provide experienced and expert oversight for the role of Inspector-General until a longer-term appointment can be confirmed. The Minister is now proposing the Hon Justice Timothy Brewer for appointment as the Inspector-General of Defence, with effect from 1 December 2025.

It’s considered that he has impeccable qualifications for the role. Justice Brewer was appointed to the High Court in 2010. He will retire from the bench on 15 November 2025. He will bring to the role of Inspector-General a combination of judicial experience and extensive knowledge of the Defence Force. He joined the Territorial Force of the New Zealand Army in 1976. In 2000, he was promoted to brigadier and appointed Territorial Force Adviser to the Chief of Army. He has a long-held interest in military law, including the law of armed conflict. He was appointed as a member of the court martial panel of advocates in 2001, judge advocate from 2004 to 2009, and judge of the Court Martial of New Zealand in 2009. In 2009, as brigadier, he took a three-month contract and served in Afghanistan. His job was to evaluate the role of the NZDF in Afghanistan and report to Government on the options for withdrawal from that theatre of operations. He retired from the army in 2009, following his return from Afghanistan.

The Minister is also proposing the appointment of a Deputy Inspector-General of Defence. Over time, the appointee will assume responsibility for the day-to-day management of the office. The appointee must also, if required, be able to stand in for the Inspector-General in every aspect of the role. Ms Natalie Pierce is recommended for the Deputy Inspector-General of Defence position following a rigorous selection process. She has excellent credentials for the role. She has been in practice as a barrister since 2021 and specialises in domestic and international criminal law, human rights, and national defence and security. She has previously served as chief adviser to the Government inquiry into Operation Burnham and related matters, providing expert advice on detention and torture. As principal legal adviser and project lead, she was closely involved in the establishment of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions. Amongst other earlier career positions, Ms Pierce was a legal intern with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Ms Pierce has good knowledge of NZDF processes and policies through her current role as senior counsel on the NZDF panel of counsel and her extensive work with the Operation Burnham inquiry. Ms Pearce will bring to the deputy role a rounded legal and investigatory skill set, relevant international law experience, the ability to exercise sound judgment, and the ability to take an effective leadership role with a small team. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand in support of the motion offered by the Government in the appointment of two very highly qualified and highly experienced members to these important statutory roles.

For context, Operation Burnham was an important piece of work undertaken by a very good and independent group of people that could allow a rare view for the public into the workings of the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF)—the decision making, the chain of command, and where accountability sits. From Operation Burnham, there were a number of recommendations, of which this was one of them: the creation of the role of the Inspector-General of Defence (IGD), and the need to, in the words of the Operation Burnham report, “democratise Defence” to make sure that there are processes in there that continue to uphold the expectations of the broader population—not only of the Defence Force but, of course, the role the Minister of Defence and the Government plays in the way that operations are undertaken, in the way that the chain of command is given.

This is an important role. It’s an important role that demands integrity. It’s an important role that demands transparency to give the public the confidence that the operations that the New Zealand Defence Force embarks on or are deployed to are undertaken with the utmost integrity, transparency, and with clear chains of command to make sure that the operation is conducted appropriately according to international law and the standards—the high standards, I should say—that we all set as a country for our people who are deployed overseas.

In my time as the defence Minister, this particular piece of legislation was undertaken and then subsequently was made into law, and now we, as the Minister has rightly pointed out, have had somebody in a transition role or a caretaker role, so I think it’s about time that we’ve made a very clear statement in the appointment of these two very good candidates for the role.

Of course, the support of the Hon Justice Timothy Charles Brewer to the Inspector-General of Defence is a good appointment. As the Minister pointed out, he brings together a good mix of legal experience while also the experience in the armed forces, in the New Zealand Defence Force, rising to the rank of brigadier. That isn’t a very common skill set to have, which is why this person couldn’t be more better suited to the role, to make sure that they bring that understanding and that knowledge to bear in any of the reviews that the IGD can be asked to undertake on behalf of New Zealand, but also the ones that the IGD office can undertake under their own power and of their own will to make sure that we continue to have, as I mentioned earlier, an NZDF that continues to conduct itself to the high standards we all expect.

The appointment of the Deputy Inspector-General of Defence, I think, is a good move. The Minister made clear in her contribution before mine that the deputy role is not only just to support the Inspector-General of Defence role but also to have broader oversight over the actual workings of the office, which I think is an important thing to note. The Minister also pointed out that this particular candidate—this particular person—was involved in the royal commission of inquiry into abuse in State care, and my experience as a Minister and the undertaking of that particular royal commission of inquiry is that it did require a large amount of administration, a large amount of leadership, to ensure that the office actually performed to the expectations that we all have of the office. In the appointment of Natalie Ruth Pierce as the Deputy Inspector-General of Defence, the Minister rightly points out her expertise in this field, her strong legal mind, as well as her ongoing undertaking of education—as I understand it, studying at Oxford at this point in time.

The Labour Party stands to support these two appointments. We continue to support the office of the Inspector-General of Defence for the matters I’ve raised earlier, and we look forward to working with the IGD moving forward.

Just finally, can we thank the Minister of Defence, who I know reached out to the Leader of the Opposition early in the appointment process. That is, of course, a good show of bipartisan politics, and something that I believe, in particular in defence, belongs in that space, where the more support we can have across this House gives New Zealanders and the NZDF the confidence they need and the confidence they deserve from this House. Thank you.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Greens to support the motion by the Minister. These are important positions, and just to acknowledge the strong portfolios, the strong curricula vitae, the CVs, that the Minister read out as well, which points to their ability, I think, to be able to take on this very important role.

The role of the Inspector-General of Defence is a very important role. The Defence Force is unlike any other organisation in Aotearoa, which involves significant authority but also deserves appropriate accountability. Where that authority is misused, especially where there are devastating consequences such as loss of life, it is critical that there is the opportunity for inquiry and for accountability.

The office of the Inspector-General of Defence was established by the Inspector-General of Defence Act 2023, which came into force in January this year, so acknowledging the work done there as well. There is a long history behind the establishment of this office. The office of the InspectorGeneral of Defence was established in response to the findings of the inquiry into Operation Burnham. That inquiry found failures in process, accountability, and transparency that went right up to the ranks to three successive heads of our military. They were failures in process, transparency, and accountability that impacted the ability of successive Ministers, who were the only and the highest civilian accountability mechanism for our military to conduct their roles with integrity.

There always remains a risk of misconduct or fundamental failings, and that’s especially as our military escalates. I note our participation in joint operations alongside the likes of the United States. It’s important that we have adequate measures to ensure that our Defence Force adheres to the rule of law, adheres to human rights, and does not bring itself into fundamental disrepute. I do acknowledge the point made by the previous two speakers about the bringing on of a Deputy Inspector-General as well, noting that the Government has made a significant investment—$12 billion and growing—and our role in cooperation with the US will require there to be a greater level of scrutiny and a greater ability to hold the military to account. I think it’s also important for us to make sure that there are sufficient resources as well, with a bigger investment of $12 billion and growing, a closer alignment with the United States—which is not a problem for some people in this House, but it is a problem for the Greens, noting that issues around the independence of Aotearoa New Zealand are important for some in this House. Having the resources for the Inspector-General of Defence is incredibly important to make sure that it happens as well.

For these reasons, it is critical for those who are appointed to the roles of the Inspector-General of Defence and Deputy Inspector-General of Defence to be well equipped to provide independent scrutiny of the New Zealand Defence Force and help to ensure that the New Zealand Defence Force always acts in compliance with international law. I think that’s a pretty important point to make, given the state of the world at this particular point in time.

The office of the Inspector-General has two essential functions: an investigation function, with appropriate supporting powers to scrutinise in response to issues that have occurred, and an assessment function to assess processes, procedures, and policies and identify gaps to prevent issues from occurring in the future.

We wish the new Inspector-General of Defence the best of success as he ensures that the Defence Force is subject to transparency and accountability, and extend those best wishes also to the Deputy Inspector-General. We support the motion.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Regulatory Standards Bill, the Crimes (Countering Foreign Interference) Amendment Bill, the Crimes Legislation (Stalking and Harassment) Amendment Bill, and the Offshore Renewable Energy Bill.

Members, the House is in committee for the Regulatory Standards Bill, the Crimes (Countering Foreign Interference) Amendment Bill, the Crimes Legislation (Stalking and Harassment) Amendment Bill, and the Offshore Renewable Energy Bill.

We come first to the Regulatory Standards Bill. We begin with Part 1, the debate on clauses 3 to 7, “Preliminary provisions”, and Schedules 1 and 1A. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Thank you, Mr Chair. This part sets out the purposes, overview, and interpretation, and also refers to certain legislation that is not considered by the Regulatory Standards Bill—or Act, as it would be. I do not intend to adopt any of the Opposition amendments that I have seen on this part, although there is a single amendment in the name of the Minister, which makes some minor and technical changes.

The purpose clause sets out the purpose of the bill, which is best expressed in clause 3(1), which says, “The [purpose] of this Act [is] to—(a) promote the accountability of the Executive to Parliament for—(i) the development of high-quality legislation; and (ii) the exercise of stewardship over regulatory systems;”. It’s also to “support Parliament’s ability to scrutinise Bills; and (c) support Parliament in overseeing and controlling the use of delegated powers to make legislation (see Part 5 of the Legislation Act 2019).” It goes on to give a range of ways that those purposes are given effect to.

The overview, which is the next clause, gives a summary of the clauses of the bill. I intend to answer questions on the substance of those clauses in Parts 2 and 3, where they are found. I don’t intend to engage in any debate on those clauses through this part—however, perhaps on the wording that describes those parts in Part 1, under that overview clause.

The interpretation gives a series of definitions, which I think most people would describe as selfexplanatory. This part finishes by referring to legislation that the Regulatory Standards Bill would not apply to, as I said at the outset.

Just mind, given what the Minister has said, it will still be up to the Chair to determine which questions will be accepted and how that will relate to closures, just to clarify that.

Yes, thank you for that clarification, Mr Chair. I’m sure the Minister wouldn’t be so arrogant as to say he wouldn’t answer questions on any given section, because every section, of course, is part of the legislation and properly appropriate for debate in this House and scrutiny in this committee of the whole House stage.

Of course, the “Purposes” section is of critical importance because it is, in fact, the guiding light for the overarching bill. When anyone should come to look at the bill, whether it be a judge or a bureaucrat—and there’ll be plenty of them under this bill—then that is what they will look to. I mean, I guess I would invite the Minister to be a bit more frank about the purposes of this bill, because, as the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee said, the principles—

Sorry, just before that, Minister, can I remind you that when you speak or answer a call, it’s going through the microphone. I’ll ask you, please, to be aware of that, because that means that your replies are going out across the House and also across the broadcast. Thank you, please.

That’s extremely useful to know. Thank you.

Well, and my point, Mr Chair and Minister, was that the “Purposes” section is the guiding light, and as the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee said, the principles found in I think it’s clause 8 are contested and selective. In fact, for the purposes, I would put to you that if you’d like to take a call and explain what the purpose of this bill is, given the fact that you’ve got these property-tilted principles in the bill.

I put it to you that, in fact, if you look at the genealogy of this bill, the scholarship around it, and the work that you and your party have done across many bills, what this bill is, is it’s trying to be a bill of rights for property. In fact, the purpose of this bill—the real purpose of this bill—is to put into our law the pre-eminence of two fundamental libertarian principles, which are the primacy of property and the primacy of individual liberty—two foundation stones of libertarian ideology. I would suggest that if we were to actually be upfront, we would adopt one of my Amendment Papers which would actually articulate the genuine purpose of this bill.

Minister, you yourself have said that you think this bill should be like the Public Finance Act for legislation, and that is a constitutional piece of legislation. What we have here, then, is a piece of legislation of the same ilk. It sits alongside those other pieces of legislation about how Government and legislation works and imbues certain principles into our entire legislative framework, so that the work that we do in this House is no longer principle-neutral. It is no longer value-neutral. It’s not up to any incoming Government to choose their value set. They get judged against a value set that you have put in this bill. The two headline values are private property, no confiscation without compensation—that classic libertarian principle—and the primacy of individual rights and liberties, and simplistic equality.

Why don’t we just say in the purposes section that the purpose of this bill is to promote these principles which accord with your party’s value set? That would be a lot more honest and upfront, rather than pretending, because we know all of the advice that your ministry has given you says this is a bad idea. This is not the way to go about good stewardship. We’ve got the tools there. Let’s bolster them. To say that this is about the exercise of stewardship over regulatory systems is duplicitous. In fact, it’s the opposite. This is a way to clog up the system, to make it harder to pass laws that we like and you don’t.

Thank you, Mr Chair. As you can see, I am here with our full migrant caucus, standing for Te Tiriti.

Where’s Lan?

Good point. Where is Lan? I want to first just actually thank the Minister, in terms of outlining the purpose of this bill, because I think the Minister’s right that the purpose of this bill does set out quite nicely in terms of what is expected of the executive and what is expected of Parliament’s ability to scrutinise bills. I think that’s incredibly important, and that I wholeheartedly agree with. I think the Minister then would appreciate that we don’t want the Minister to inadvertently contradict his own bill by the Parliament—i.e., this House—providing a full scrutiny of this bill. I think the Minister will be also prudent to understand that, as legislators, it is our role to examine the Minister as part of the executive.

But in terms of my questions, my first question is something that was raised a number of times during the select committee process, which there wasn’t a response for, which is: what does the Minister actually mean when we’re talking about high-quality legislation? The definition of “highquality” is not something that—potentially it could be defined later. We want to go clause by clause, so I’m not anticipating what’s in a later section or later part at this stage. But, also, in terms of what we are seeing in clause 3(2) when we’re looking at the purpose of this bill is to give effect “by setting out principles of responsible regulation”. I think it’s also important when we’re looking at whose responsibilities we are referring to.

I think I will start with those two broader questions on the definition of “high-quality” and the definition of “responsible”.

Thank you. Just following up on questions in relationship to clause 3(2), I’ve noticed that there are some definitions in there, but it seems to me like “high-quality” wasn’t defined in the bill, and so I’m just wanting to get an explanation as to what definition the Minister would be using when it comes to high quality.

The previous member from Labour, the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, who spoke about being valuesneutral, raises a good point around the fact that in most of the legislation, this is clearly not values-neutral; there are clearly a set of values that are being pushed forward by the Minister. For example, in clause 3(1)(a)(i), “high-quality legislation” does not seem to be defined, and the concern that I have around that is clarity from the Minister as to why he didn’t choose to actually put in a definition for what “high-quality” actually means. That could then be interpreted in different ways by other Governments.

If the Minister would like to elucidate—I know that he made his initial remarks that he wouldn’t really be participating in Part 1—I would invite him to engage on the commentary from the Hon Duncan Webb, my colleague Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, and just on this, in relationship to some of the language that is used, particularly in clause 3, which lacks a definition. I wanted to ask why there are quite a few terms where it just seems like there is no sort of definition attached to them. Again, as Lawrence already noted, “responsible regulation” would be another one that just seems to be lacking a definition, and that’s really concerning as well.

The other part that I wanted to ask him about was whether, in the process of designing this bill, this was the whole range of purposes that he wanted to include in the bill; whether, initially, he may have thought of others and the process of the legislation meant that he had to trim it down, and that’s why we’ve ended up with this language, particularly in subclause (1), which doesn’t seem to be defined.

Just to recap, I’m really keen to get a sense of what he intends when he says “high-quality legislation” and whether he thinks that this should be defined in the section where some of this terminology later down the line is actually defined in the bill.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just a short contribution from me in relation to the clause 3, “Purposes” section, clause 3(1)(c). I just have a question for the Minister in relation to the intersection between this clause and the reference to Part 5 of the Legislation Act 2019 within that clause. I’ve got a few questions for the Minister in relation to how he envisages, through the drafting of this legislation, that part of the Legislation Act impacting on the purpose clause of the bill. I’ve had a look at Part 5 of the Legislation Act. It refers to secondary legislation. It’s quite a substantive part of the Legislation Act, and it outlines quite clearly some significant powers in relation to delegated legislation and Parliament’s role.

The thing that I’m not clear about is that this is the purpose of the bill. This should be setting out exactly what the bill intends to do throughout its operation, and the reference here to Part 5 of the Legislation Act is simply to see that. I want to know: is he intending for the entire of Part 5 to be upheld through the overseeing and control powers in other parts of this legislation, or is Part 5 in the reference there simply a definition of the overseeing and controlling use of delegated legislation?

The Minister will know from his experience in the House that’s actually quite an unusual way of phrasing legislation, especially in a purpose clause. I think it is a valid and important question for the Minister to answer exactly what is the intention of paragraph (c) and how it relates to that Part 5 of the Legislation Act, which, as I said, is quite extensive.

If the Minister could clarify what the intention is—if it is consistency with that particular part, then perhaps there’s a different word that could be used. If it’s simply that that’s the outline of what the current responsibilities for Parliament in relation to delegated powers are, then I also think that that could be more correctly defined. I invite the Minister to explain the intention, and then, if there’s time, I wouldn’t mind engaging with the Minister over whether there would be a clearer way to reflect that intention within what is quite an important section of this bill.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. My contribution and questions for the Minister for Regulation are also focused on clause 3, and they are building on an earlier contribution that we’ve had from a Green member of Parliament. It is around this development of high-quality legislation.

Specifically, I want to ask the Minister—so this is in clause 3(1)(a)(i)—in terms of some of his thinking behind this. I think the Law Society’s very substantive submission made the very pertinent point that the word “quality” is not defined in the bill, and this term is not used outside of clause 3. I think it makes it imperative that the Minister does spend some time on what is quite a central part and a word that has been used about the problem definition by the Minister throughout the development of this bill: “high-quality legislation”. It’s not defined in the bill; it’s the word that is not used beyond clause 3 of the bill, so this is the only chance that this House will have to understand from the Minister what is meant by this in the context of this legislation.

The Law Society make some very good comments about the ambiguity that this “high-quality” is going to introduce into our legal discourse—that there will be disagreements between reasonable people, acting in good faith, about what social, economic, or environmental goals should be enacted in legislation. That’s a central feature of democratic politics, and something that we all come to this House and we debate on a daily basis. The quality of a given legislative regulatory proposal, in this sense, is appropriately resolved through a fair and transparent process. The House needs to know what is meant in the context of this law that we are now debating in the committee by this “highquality”.

One of the things that I would also be keen to understand from the Minister, given that we’re not going to have this “high-quality” word occur in any other part of the legislation, is the problem definition that led to this. Of course, we already have mechanisms within our lawmaking processes around the quality of our lawmaking, whether that be our primary legislation or our regulatory regime specifically. We’ve got the regulatory impact statements—how the Minister envisions that this is going to differ or, as my colleague Camilla Belich has alluded to and talked about, in terms of the Legislation Act of 2019 and the provisions that exist within that.

To understand from the Minister why it is that clause 3 has this term “high-quality”—what does it mean? Why is it not contained in any other part of the bill? What was his thinking behind there not being a definition of it in this legislation? Did he consider putting a definition of it into the bill so that there could be that certainty and to provide that clarity when we came to statutory interpretations of this bill—which undoubtedly there will be—and what was his thinking for omitting it from this bill?

Mr Chair, I’d first of all like to thank various members for their questions, some of which are quite similar, so I thought I would try to group them together in my answer.

First of all, we were asked about the definition of “high-quality” by multiple members. I think Lawrence Xu-Nan asked that, Ricardo Menéndez March asked a near identical question, and then Megan Woods also asked that question, while also asking a question about the interplay with regulatory impact statements, not dissimilar to Camilla Belich’s question. To address “highquality” first: it, indeed, is defined in the Act. If you read a little bit further on, it goes on to say that “The purposes of this Act are given effect to only by—(a) setting out principles of responsible regulation;”. There’s been an invitation to debate what the principles are, and, perhaps, the idea that the principles are the purpose—that invitation came from Duncan Webb. As I’ve indicated, I’m very happy to talk about the purpose in the correct part, which is Part 2. But for now, we can say that clause 3 refers to those principles, and it says that setting out those principles is one of the ways that we define high-quality legislation, which, in itself, is the purpose.

If you work that back the other way, the purpose is high-quality legislation; the purpose is given effect to by following the principles, as well as a series of other initiatives, such as providing for the review of consistency of existing legislation and also providing for a Regulatory Standards Board. You can find the answers to what high quality is later in the same clause—it is legislation that follows the purposes and the way that it’s given effect to—in just the next subclause after “high-quality” is mentioned.

There’s also a question about how this law will interact with Part 5 of the Legislation Act—what the relationship will be—and that was Camilla Belich who asked that question. Clause 5 deals with how Parliament can scrutinise secondary legislation. This bill—and, again, this comes in a later part—provides for consistency assessment statements. Those, you could think of as being similar to regulatory impact statements but guided more strongly by the principles set out in statute by this bill. It may be that the Government, if this law passes, will actually change the regulatory impact statement regime in order to accommodate consistency assessment statements; however, that’s not a matter for today. What will happen is that Parliament, in its role under Part 5 of the Legislation Act, will be more empowered by being able to access the consistency accountability statements.

A couple of things, really. I just want to pick up that I was not informed by the Minister’s response on the quality question, because he essentially said quality will be achieved if you do what is set out in clause 3(2). That just seems entirely circular, because there is no actual quality test in there. It might be that the Minister could elucidate, and it may be that—I don’t think it’s quite accurate—some of this bill is entirely procedural. So, did you consult? Was there a cost-benefit analysis undertaken? If we’ve got a surrogate for quality and the surrogate is a procedure—go through these various quality checks or procedural checks, better expressed as procedural checks—then perhaps that’s what we really mean.

But my concern there is that this isn’t just procedural, because there are two kinds—well, there’s actually three kinds of principles that we’ll get to later. One is procedural; one is value-based. You’ve got to consult as widely as possible—procedural. You’ve got to respect individual liberty—valuebased. Then you’ve got an outlier in there, which is make sure it will operationally work, which is operational. So you’ve got three kinds. Now, I could contemplate a piece of legislation or executive action—Attorney-General’s direction, Cabinet paper, which there exist already—which says: do these procedural things to achieve good-quality legislation. But that’s not what we’ve got. When the Minister does talk about quality, I think, to be honest, he should stand up and say, “It should adhere to my principles, including my value-based principles.”

But, at the end of the day, I mean, it’s actually a really verbose purpose section. If it’s just about quality, he could just say that. All this stewardship regulatory systems scrutiny—it’s actually just about improving the quality of Acts of Parliament and other kinds of legislation. One of the things that struck me, because this is such an offensive bill, is it’s used obscure language to try and hide what it’s doing. If it was doing something acceptable, you could adopt one of my Amendment Papers, which is to say the purpose of the bill is to improve the quality of Acts of Parliament and other kinds of legislation, or you could add, if you wanted to, some words on to the end of that and say, “and adhere to libertarian value principles”. That would be another way to frame the actual purpose of this bill. But the drafting of this purpose section is verbose in the extreme.

In a lot of my Amendment Papers—and I was really disappointed when the Minister, who clearly hasn’t read the Amendment Papers that have been tabled, just stood up and said, “I’m not going to adopt any of them.” I suspect, as we go through them one by one, we’ll find some which are actually quite useful, and I’d invite the Minister to bring an open mind. I know that it’s traditional for Ministers to kind of put their own Amendment Papers in and steal our ideas, but that’s OK by me if we improve, if it’s possible, this piece of legislation.

In clause 3(2)(d), which talks about providing support to the regulatory standards ministry, I think we should actually give a bit more guidance and we could actually talk about the work of the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee. That’s one of my Amendment Papers as well, because the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee actually gives substantive guidance as to what quality really is, and I think to use an external and objective measure of experts rather than kind of bringing this politically charged bill to the House, it would have been something we could quite possibly have agreed on. I would suggest we do look at including the advice of the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee in the purpose section.

Thank you, Mr Chair, for allowing me to take my first call on this bill. My questions are around clauses 3(1)(a), (b), and (c), which are around the purpose of the Act. Just to check my understanding of the Minister’s intention of the legislation, the Minister has said, in his second reading speech, that the purpose of the law is to promote accountability and transparency to the Parliament by the executive, and that’s reflected in subclauses (1)(a), (b), and (c).

Now, from this, we are to glean that the kind of idea of this bill, and maybe of the wider Regulatory Standards Board, is perhaps to see it as one of the Offices of Parliament. My question is: did the Minister look at alternative models for how the board could have been appointed and alternative models for how different functions and how different set-ups could have accommodated the function of this Act and the function of the Regulatory Standards Bill to support the task of Parliament in scrutinising legislation?

If I look back to other potential precedents and other potential models that the Minister might follow, there is the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, and, of course, the appointment process for that is that all the parties in the House are consulted on that and then the Governor-General makes an appointment based on the recommendation of the House, and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is then appointed for a five-year term. That’s one possible model. Did the Minister potentially look at that model when the legislation was being drafted, in terms of aligning the purpose of the Act with what actually ended up getting drafted?

The other potential model that the Minister could have looked at is the design of the Climate Change Commission’s board, where the boards are appointed on a rotating basis by different Governments. I think it is something like two-on, and then two-on, across a three-year term. Their terms are staggered so that no Government is, essentially, able to dominate the make-up of the board. I appreciate that the board make-up is referred to later in the legislation, but I’m asking in the context of the purpose of the Act and whether or not the form that ended up defining the board’s make-up actually relates to the function as defined and articulated by the Minister in his various speeches through the readings and also through clauses 3(1)(a), (b), and (c) of the bill.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d just like to reiterate what my colleague the Hon Duncan Webb said in terms of the circular nature of the definition of “high-quality” that the Minister has given us, that hasn’t really provided the House with that clarity. This is put out as one of the main purposes of the legislation. The Law Society put in a very substantive submission, particularly around this clause 3, and the fact that this is the only place in the legislation where we will have the opportunity to scrutinise that. To give us the circular argument that “Quality legislation is one that follows the principles set out in this bill.” doesn’t give us any insight into what the Minister’s policy thinking is around “high-quality” legislation. This is of course a subjective term, and the House needs to understand more about what the Minister was thinking.

But my questions now for the Minister are moving on to clause 4 of the bill. This is the review of new legislation—the provisions that are provided in clause 4 around that. Clause 4(1)(b) “provides for the explanatory note of a Government Bill, a Government amendment, or secondary legislation to include (or link to) the following … (i) a consistency accountability statement. This statement is made by the chief executive of the responsible agency for the legislation. It confirms that the agency has reviewed the legislation for consistency with the principles and summarises any inconsistency that is identified in the review.”

Now, we in this House know that it is not without precedent that bills come to this House for debate without a regulatory impact statement. What I would like to know from the Minister, in terms of the working of this legislation, is what if a bill comes to this House without a consistency accountability statement? For example, will we have consistency accountability statements for urgent legislation? Will all ministerial Amendment Papers be required to also have that? I know it says in clause 4(1)(b) that it would include amendments, but what happens if they don’t? That’s really what we need to understand in terms of the working of this legislation.

I think probably when we’ve been, rightly, asking questions around what is the policy intent, the problem definition work that the Minister went through with his officials in terms of why not just fix the current system that we have, a big part of that is the regulatory impact statement (RIS). I think, on this side of the House, we’d be the first to acknowledge that actually one of the problems with the regulatory impact statement system is that, actually, sometimes it’s just not used, and we have bills landing here without the House having the ability to understand that work that has gone on within that RIS system that can already inform us how it interacts with other legislation, what officials have raised, what the regulatory impacts are going to be. Just on clause 4(1)(b)(i), the consistency accountability statement, I look forward to hearing from the Minister more around his thinking on that and what happens in its absence.

But also, I do reiterate that I do not consider that this House is adequately informed about what the Minister’s thinking is around “high-quality” legislation, and we will not have the opportunity to return to this question. It is only clause 3 of this bill that contains that word.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Like other colleagues, I am also equally dismayed at the Minister’s very quick dismal of some very excellent amendments proposed by my colleague the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, particularly so given the wave of opposition to this bill. If one were concerned with process, one ought to have had regard for the very comprehensive amendments proposed as a result of that process, and I am dismayed that that doesn’t appear to be the case this evening.

My question is also in regards to clause 3. This is setting out principles of responsible regulation. When I read this the first time, I think what stood out to me was the absence of the word “the”: setting out “principles” of responsible regulation as opposed to setting out “the principles” of responsible regulation. The reason it stood out to me is that it leads you to question what the scope of those principles is and what the genesis of those principles is, and what’s being actively excluded—whether the Minister believes this to be an exclusive list of principles, or whether the Minister’s view is that there are other principles and the Minister has cherry-picked the ones he wishes to include for this particular assessment. Of course, the question then begs: why these principles and not others?

The link later in the bill, of course, cross-references the rule of law—so it sits the principles as akin to principles of the rule of law—but looking at the history of lawmaking and commentary on what the rule of law is, there is frequent reference to a set of human rights principles and human rights being integral to what the law is. Arguably, there are principles within the Minister’s cherry-picked set that don’t fall into what we accept as the rule of law, certainly in terms of the case of international law and the principles we have accepted in other guidelines that are applied to legislative drafting. They reference international conventions, they reference the declaration of human rights as well, and that is where the law is drawn down from.

It would be useful to hear from the Minister why he chose not to include the word “the”; if there is a belief that there are other principles that sit outside the scope of these principles, why those other principles were excluded; and from what space he is drawing down, what the genesis is for, some of these principles that he’s drawing down—recognising that we have, for example, the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, where it’s very clear that those principles are drawn down from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and there are clear obligations that flow down through that. They could be seen to be affirmed as principles of the rule of law because of a process of affirmation that happened domestically as well.

The Minister is laughing, but what I mean by that is that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act was campaigned on by two Labour Governments. The public was very familiar with it, and understanding what the rule of law is—it’s not just substantive; it’s also about the familiarity of your population with a set of principles. Again, I’m asking the Minister what the narrative of that process is that makes him believe that the principles he has adopted have the same status as those within the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which had not only that linking to international law—(a)—but also had, (b), that process affirmation of having been socialised and familiarised with New Zealanders and New Zealand culture, having withstood two elections to get through to legislation. That gives them the legitimacy of being able to call those values part of our rule of law and part of good principles.

First of all, Duncan Webb and Megan Woods have argued that my definition of “high-quality legislation” is circular. That is a mistake. Actually, what I’ve said is that high-quality legislation is, among other things, adherent to the principles, which can be found in Part 2. Vanushi Walters spent a lot of time debating the principles. As I’ve indicated, I’m very happy to do that in the appropriate part, which is Part 2. For our current purposes, in the preliminary provisions, there is a reference to the principles, but their content or definition is in another part, where I’ll be really happy to debate it.

Fernando Hernando asked me—

Francisco.

Sorry. Francisco Hernandez—sorry.

Everyone gets it wrong.

Well, I’m sorry to be everyone. He asked had we considered other prospects for structuring the Regulatory Standards Bill. We might well have, but the purpose of this debate is to see whether the legislation, as written, accords with the principles and objects agreed at the second reading. Certainly, what we said at second reading is we would have a Regulatory Standards Board, and I believe that as it’s written, it does comport with those principles and objects agreed at second reading, and I don’t intend to make changes to that at this time. I also refer to Speakers’ rulings which forbid members from speaking extensively about material that is not in the bill or hypothetically could have been.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I just want to touch on one thing. I won’t spend much time on the overview section, which does seem a little excessive, given it’s a relatively compact piece of legislation. But, anyway, it is there. One of the things it says in clause 4(1)(h) is that the “the Act does not confer or impose legal rights or duties or affect the validity of any legislation”. I must say that I find this, really, one of the oddest approaches. What this House does is pass law, right? And what law does is create, in some way, legal rights and obligations or duties. This bill has been compared, and its predecessors have been compared, to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Now, that legislation does not affect the validity of any other law. That is well established. I can understand why you would say we’re going to have these principles and we’re going to have these obligations and one of the obligations is follow the principles and do your consistency accountability statements, but it doesn’t affect the validity of any other law.

I accept the Minister will no doubt explain in further detail, either now or later, that there is a small chunk of the Act which is about the work of the Regulatory Standards Board, essentially, asking for information and undertaking inquiries, for which they do have legal powers, but the important part of the Act is that you must provide these consistency and accountability statements, that you must consult, and that you must comply with these principles. To say that it doesn’t create any obligation at all is to say we’re passing a law which is in fact the opposite of a law. It’s a suggestion, it’s an exhortation, but it’s not an obligation.

To be perfectly honest, either we have a framework where you are obliged to do things—you can have obligations for which there is no consequence for a breach. It’s well recognised in the law to say you have a legal obligation to do this, and if you don’t do it, you are in breach of the law, and you can be declared to be in breach of the law, but there’s no particular sanction or remedy. That often happens at a governmental and Crown level. Ministerial obligations probably fall within that category. Breach of the Cabinet Manual happens all the time. It’s a breach of an obligation or a duty, but there are no particular consequences that flow from it in a legal sense of the word.

We’ll come and talk to this a bit more later, but this is a good way in which it’s captured, because it captures the overall theme where you’ve got a piece of not law. I would invite the Minister to explain how this not law is going to be effective when it doesn’t actually do anything. It’s just a vague way—and this new wave of bureaucrats will be expected to run around complying with this—to say, “Please do these consistency accountability statements, please run the regulatory standards principles ruler over every piece of legislation, but you don’t have to; there is no legal obligation, there are no sanctions, and it doesn’t affect the validity.”

That’s it. I’d just be really interested. My Amendment Paper actually says, “Get rid of that.” You’re either going to write a law or you’re not. If you want to get a law that does stuff, then don’t say it’s a law that’s not a law, which is, again, classic humpty-dumpty language.

I’ll just note that I know the member did refer to his Amendment Paper. Can I say that we’ve covered some pretty broad issues, and referring to an Amendment Paper is probably a pretty good idea at this stage.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Speaking of amendments, I did want to canvass the Minister and seek his engagement on Chlöe Swarbrick’s amendment. Normally, I would hope the Minister would know which one I’m talking to, because I see Ministers engaged with amendments and reading them, but I agree that the vibe I got from his first contribution is one that doesn’t fill me with confidence that the Minister has engaged with the amendments.

This amendment specifically seeks to do the following—and I do want to make it clear, because at the end of the day, these amendments are not voted on by the Minister, and I know he made an initial remark that he wouldn’t be introducing any of the amendments, but it’s actually up to other political parties, so allow me to make a plea to, for example, the National Party.

The amendment would add to clause 3, “Purposes”, subclause (3), “For the purposes of this Act, all persons exercising functions and powers under it must give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.” The reason why I want to seek the engagement of the Minister in relationship to this amendment is because it’s whether he thinks that such an amendment would be contrary to, for example, issues of high quality, or whether, for example, making sure that giving effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi would be contrary to what the Minister is seeking to do in this bill. If that is not the case, I don’t see why the Minister wouldn’t accept our amendment, because at the end of day, unless the Minister is actively trying to undermine Te Tiriti o Waitangi, I don’t see why he would be afraid of or against having this amendment put in place—unless, again, he’s doing the exact opposite.

I also ask this because the Minister has talked about property rights, but Te Tiriti in some ways also could be perceived to be about property rights in some way or another. They’re just not potentially the people that he may have been campaigning for. I’m keen to get an understanding as to whether Chlöe Swarbrick’s amendment would go contrary to the purposes of the bill, and if so, why, and, secondly—

Point of order. I hesitate to interrupt the member’s speech, but what he appeared to just say is that I would not want property rights to apply to Māori. It’s totally baseless and quite offensive. I think he should withdraw it.

Is that what the member did say?

I think the member is putting words in my mouth, so I’m not going to indulge the member assuming what my intentions were when I did not say that.

Carry on.

All right. Anyway, I didn’t assume such an amendment would rattle the Minister in such ways, but here we go.

Again, my question is quite simple. Would putting Te Tiriti as part of the purposes of the legislation be contrary to what the Minister seeks to do, and if not, why wouldn’t he support it?

The other question I have is more broadly about his initial comments on amendments, and it is whether he actually sought to engage with the amendments at all or even read them. I think it’s concerning to see a Minister just disregarding all amendments, including those that may have been lodged well in advance, without telling us that he engaged with them meaningfully. Otherwise, all I am hearing is a complete refusal to engage with the substance of what we’re trying to do here, which is, in some ways, to bring to light whether the Minister is intending to actively trample over Te Tiriti, and if not, why he would not be supporting our amendment.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. I specifically want to talk to two of the amendments to clause 3 of the legislation, put forward in the name of the Hon Duncan Webb—in particular, the amendment to clause 3(2) replacing paragraph (d) with the following, which is: “providing support to the Ministry for Regulation in its work to improve the quality of legislation”. As the legislation is currently drafted, clause 3(2)(d) is “providing support to the regulatory standards Ministry in its work to improve the quality of legislation”.

The explanatory note that Dr Webb has put forward with this amendment, of course, is to say that the way that the Minister’s legislation is currently drafted means that any ministry could theoretically be given responsibility for the Act. The amendment that Dr Webb has put up identifies the Ministry for Regulation as that responsible ministry. The current drafting could be interpreted very broadly: any ministry could say that they are a regulatory standards ministry if they are administering regulatory standards. I think it is very sensible, and the product of someone that has carefully scrutinised the legislation, to want to make sure that there is absolute clarity in that. Just for the Minister’s reference, that was the amendment that was lodged at 8.30 and 15 seconds on the morning of 4 November.

The second of Dr Webb’s amendments, which was lodged at 8.13 and 16 seconds on the morning of 4 November, is to clause 3(2)(c)(i): after the words “responsible legislation”, to insert the following clause as defined by the Legislative Design and Advisory Committee (LDAC). In some of his earlier contributions, Dr Webb went through in quite a substantive way the very compelling and detailed submission that the Legislative Design and Advisory Committee made on this piece of legislation. What this amendment that has been put up highlights is that there are already existing guidelines produced by LDAC regarding legislative quality, and that means that the principles of good legislation are determined by an independent body rather than politicians.

These are two very specific amendments that are sitting there. They are sensible amendments, ones in which we’d like to understand whether, on these two particular amendments, the Minister will entertain them, and, if not, what his reasoning is for not—for not wanting to clarify and make it crystal clear that it is the Ministry for Regulation that is the responsible ministry here, and whether or not we can clarify that interface.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to briefly come back to the Minister’s response to my question in relation to clause 3(1)(c). From his explanation to that, it appeared to me that the intention of that could be better articulated, instead of the word “see”, as “as provided for or consistent with”. After hearing the Minister’s explanation, I wondered if he or his officials would consider a clearer word, as opposed to “see”—and by “see”, I mean s-e-e, not the letter C. That’s the response to the Minister’s contribution before, which I did indicate I would like to come back to him on.

The second part of my contribution is still in relation to the purposes clause but also the intersection with the interpretation clause, which was also part of Part 1. In the purposes clause, there are numerous examples and uses of the word “legislation”, and, additionally, in clause 3(2)(c)(ii), there is a reference to Government bills. Now, the reason I ask that is because this bill—[Interruption]. The members opposite seem to have a lot of contributions to make, so I encourage them to take a call if they want to participate. This bill doesn’t cover all pieces of legislation, as I understand, and I know that there’s a schedule that we’ll be discussing shortly which sets out excluded pieces of legislation.

However, the question I had for the Minister is: when he says “legislation”, does that mean that pieces of legislation that are not excluded—like, for example, members’ bills—would or would not be covered by the purpose of this Act? I’ve looked at the excluded sections for the purpose of relating it back to the purpose clause to see what is excluded. I’ve seen local and private bills excluded; I couldn’t see members’ bills in that list. Of course, the Minister will know that a member’s bill is not a Government bill.

My question is, really: what is the intention of the purpose of this Act in relation to members’ bills, which is a specific example that I found that I couldn’t see referenced? If they are, indeed, included, does that mean that they are included in relation to existing legislation but not included in relation to accountability statements? That’s a genuine question in relation to a specific example. Apologies if it is in the list and I missed it. I’d appreciate a reference from the Minister in relation to that.

Madam Chair, I’ll just address a number of questions that have arisen so far.

Duncan Webb pointed out that the bill—in a later section, not this section—does not give any legal rights. As I’ve been consistent, I’m not going to debate the contents; that’s summarised in the overview section. Now, I am happy to debate the substantive clauses in Part 2 and Part 3 where they lie.

Ricardo Menéndez March mentioned an amendment in the name of Chlöe Swarbrick. His logic was that if the bill was not inconsistent with the Treaty of Waitangi, then it should be added. I simply disagree. Just because something’s not inconsistent doesn’t mean you have to do it. That’s a logical syllogism for him. I’ll just point out the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, the Constitution Act, and, I believe, the Human Rights Act do not contain a Treaty reference. Clearly, you don’t have to do it all the time, so we’re not going to entertain that Chlöe Swarbrick amendment or anything like it. Nor do we believe that it demonstrates inconsistency with the Treaty of Waitangi. We just have a different purpose here.

Megan Woods said that the Duncan Webb amendment would change clause 3(2)(d). The “Ministry” could be any ministry, he says, because it just defines “regulatory standards Ministry”. I’d like to draw both Ms Woods’ and Dr Webb’s attention to clause 5, which is just over the page, which gives a definition for “regulatory standards Ministry”, as “the department or Ministry that, with the authority of the Prime Minister, is responsible for the administration of this Act”. It couldn’t be “any ministry”. You just had to turn two pages to see the answer to your question, then you could have saved time drafting that amendment.

Then there is the Duncan Webb amendment that says that the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee principles should supersede the Regulatory Standards Bill principles. Once again, if he wants to debate the merits of the principles, we’re very happy to do that in Part 2, but actually the principles, the content of them, are not in Part 1 that we’re currently debating. It may have been a clause 3 amendment, but the substance of it related to the content of the principles. The question he wanted addressed was why these principles and not those. As I said, I’m happy to address those in the appropriate place.

Finally, Camilla Belich had a wording change. I’m not entirely sure if I understood, but she wanted to say “as provided for” rather than “consistent with”—

No, “see”—instead of the word “see”.

Oh, instead of the word “see”, “inquire into whether”—this is clause 3(2)(c)(i)?

Clause 3(1)(c).

Oh, 3(1)(c). That probably is “overseeing and controlling the use of delegated powers to make legislation”.

In the bracketed “see”—the word “s-e-e” in brackets.

OK. Well, I mean, I think probably people can interpret the word “see”. It’s only three letters; two of them are the same. It’s been around for a long time. I think we’ll just keep it simple. But thank you.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I’m going to take another question from the Hon Dr Duncan Webb. I have been listening very carefully to this before I came to the Chamber, and I believe that the substance of the bill is in the next two parts and we’re outlining it here. The Minister has been engaging in answering the questions. Have we got something that’s specific and—

Oh yes—oh yes.

I’m sure you have—I’m sure you have—Dr Webb. That’s why I’m taking a question from you.

Kia ora. Thank you, Madam Chair. We haven’t really nutted out the definition section, which is the real nuts and bolts in this part. The other section that I’m going to talk about in this contribution is actually really important, and it’s what is excluded.

Schedule 7 comes under this part, and it was actually one of the things that consumed most of the time at the select committee. One of the overarching kind of themes of the exclusions was that we don’t want to subject anything that is Treaty-related. Treaty settlement bills were out; some of the fisheries legislation was out. That was all good, and we actually made some really good improvements, but there are a few other things, and my Amendment Papers, to be very clear, make some other suggestions. My Amendment Papers are both related, and they suggest that our most important constitutional legislation should not be run through this particular filter. I am suggesting in my Amendment Papers, and I have a couple of other observations as well, that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act should not be subject to this legislation, and neither should the Constitution Act, because they’re actually sitting at the same level, which is law about law. There is also a good argument that the Human Rights Act should not be subject to this legislation and should form part of the list of legislation that is excluded in Schedule 7.

There is another class of legislation that runs into real problems, and we haven’t seen it recently in the House, but it’s treaty validation legislation. It’s legislation that we’re obliged to pass by entering into international obligations. To then run a kind of domestic lens over it is to undermine, essentially, Sovereign power to enter into treaties. The job of this House is to approve that and to get on with it.

If the executive says it, we just have to approve it?

No, no, you newbies haven’t actually engaged in these treaty validation bills. It’s a quite different exercise of this House’s authority. One of the fundamental principles in it is that you can’t rewrite the treaty obligations that the Crown has entered into; it’s a yes/no question. That’s why it shouldn’t be subject to this framework.

There are two other classes of bill that we might consider to be inappropriate for being subject to this. One is legislation that is the product of a referendum. If we had succeeded in the cannabis referendum, we would have had a piece of legislation that had been approved by the whole of New Zealand by referendum, and there is a really good argument that it shouldn’t then be subject to some quality check, because it’s had the biggest quality check you can imagine. That’s the last particular example. The examples were that class of legislation that is constitutional, which actually sits above—we don’t have supreme law in New Zealand, but there is a class of legislation that sits above other law and shouldn’t be subject to executive scrutiny in this manner. The other one was referendums—legislation which is the product of a referendum—and then international treaty validation bills. I think that’s pretty clear.

I’ve got a couple of other things to say about it, but I haven’t got enough—well, 50 seconds, but I’ll start it. The other one is this: the Minister can add to this list of legislation that is excluded. My other Amendment Paper says that it has to be confirmed by Parliament—an exclusion has to be confirmed by Parliament—and I would like us to think carefully about what that confirmation should look like. There is a strong argument in my Amendment Paper that it should not be 50 percent voting; it should be a higher threshold, because you are actually doing something quite important—you are adjusting the scrutiny that legislation is subject to. If I could have another two minutes, Madam Chair, because I have got one more, and that is revision bills.

Yes.

Now, revision bills are currently subject—

Madam Chair? Madam Chair!

No, I’ve already told the member he can keep going.

The other is revision bills, because revision bills are currently being considered by this House under the Legislation Amendment Bill, and the suggestion is that what a revision bill is be expanded. A revision bill, in its current form, is simply a modernisation. You can do things like, say, get rid of “faxes” and say “emails”, but what you can’t do is change any of the substantive operations of the Act. The suggestion that we’re getting in the Justice Committee right now is that revision bills can make operational changes to the Act to make them more effective. Now, that then would make them much more substantive, and they shouldn’t be excluded from this, because all of a sudden, a revision bill becomes a substantial piece of legislation and not just a once over lightly.

Madam Chair, I won’t abuse the privilege of the extra call you gave me, because I don’t need it all, but they are the observations about the exclusions that I think the Minister should carefully consider in terms of how this Act operates.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have a couple of questions for the Minister, following on. I think the first thing I want to mention to the Minister is whether the Minister would consider my amendment to clause 4, under “Overview”. Now, I understand there are a number of overviews being laid out, but my clause takes place after clause 4(2), which suggests it’s simply a guide. I would like to add another sort of guide to it, which is that no regulation should override, diminish, or reinterpret the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and all regulatory decisions must demonstrate active protection of Māori rights and tino rangatiratanga.

Now, I did hear the Minister’s response previously, in terms of my colleague Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendment, but I’d also like to say that, yes, although the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the Human Rights Act may not explicitly mention Te Tiriti o Waitangi, they do make references to our international obligations, which includes the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. If the Minister would also elevate this bill to the same sort of standard, those two bills also don’t make specific references to taxes, levies, and fees under principles. I think that if we’re going to be expanding the scope of what is considered under those bills, my tabled amendment should also be considered.

I do have two other questions for the Minister, and one of them is under clause 5, “Interpretation”. This is to do with “consistency accountability statement” (CAS). Now, I know that there are other things in terms of how—let’s say (a)(ii), “summarises any inconsistency”. I know there are later sections that talk about what happens when there are inconsistencies, but what I haven’t seen in later sections—and that I want to see if the Minister wouldn’t mind addressing now—is what the degree is when something is too inconsistent that it needs to be brought back to be reviewed. That is something, for example, that isn’t mentioned in later clauses, so I want to check with the Minister in terms of degree. I think it could be something as clear as there is actually no degree, as long as the inconsistency has been summarised within the CAS, in which case, fair enough.

My final two questions to the Minister are with regard to the same clause that the previous speaker, the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, mentioned, in terms of clause 6A, regarding the excluded legislation. Now, I guess, the first question around that is in terms of the process for that, and I just want a clarification from the Minister—it says in subclauses (2) and (3), “The regulatory standards Minister may issue a notice […] A notice may be issued … only after it has been approved by a resolution of the House of Representatives.” I’m guessing that is something that the House just needs to vote on, as in a motion, and then there would be, potentially, inclusions or exclusions to that particular Schedule 1A as a result of that. I just want to check with the Minister if it’s something like a motion to the House that needs to be voted on.

Finally, the Hon Dr Duncan Webb raised a few very important points in terms of what is included in the excluded legislation in Schedule 1A, but, while the Minister is considering it, I want to check two other things that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb didn’t mention. Again, if the Minister is just like, “They have been considered, and they’re not part of the list because they’re not excluded.”, I accept that. The first one is members’ bills. Are members’ bills considered excluded legislation, because I don’t see it in Part 1 of Schedule 1A? The second one, which has been stated in Part 2 of Schedule 1A, is private Acts or local Acts. As we know, the only way for you to make amendments to a local Act is with a local bill, but a local Act is excluded legislation in Part 2, but a local bill is an excluded bill under Part 1. Can I just check with the Minister: is it the intention of the Minister that only local Acts are excluded, but not local bills?

Those are my four questions. The first one is around my amendment to clause 4. My second one is around CAS, on degrees of inconsistency before it needs to go back to the drawing board. The next two questions are around clause 6A, and the first one is around the resolution of the House and how that’s going to work. The last question is around members’ bills and local bills. Thank you.

First of all, I apologise to Camilla Belich. She asked earlier, “Are members’ bills in scope?”. No, they’re not. Clause 9 refers only to Government bills, and that also eliminates, for Lawrence Xu-Nan’s purposes, local bills. Duncan Webb suggested a series of types of legislation that perhaps should be exempted from scrutiny by the Regulatory Standards Bill in Schedule 1—the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, for example; the Constitution Act. He might have a point there, but even if they were to be reviewed, it’s difficult to imagine that either of those would be inconsistent with the principles of the Regulatory Standards Bill, so it’s probably unnecessary.

He then asked if treaty validation legislation should be exempt, and his argument seemed to be that it might undermine representatives of a New Zealand Government going overseas, negotiating treaties with foreigners, if they felt they might face scrutiny by the people’s Parliament when they got home. I can see why he would be concerned about that from the point of view of a Government representative negotiating overseas, but as a New Zealander back home, I kind of see it from the opposite perspective—that, actually, it is important that if people are going to go overseas and sign up for things on behalf of all of us in our home in New Zealand, then they should be accountable to a set of principles that are designed to protect New Zealanders’ rights.

He then said that a bill that is the product of a referendum should be exempt. I have to say, as far as I’m aware, as the only member in this House in decades to have actually passed legislation confirmed by referendum—and I thank Duncan Webb for his support of that bill back in the day—I would not have minded if that bill had gone through the regulatory standard. I know it would have passed very easily, because it did not remove anyone’s rights; in fact, it expanded people’s rights and liberties in this country.

Finally, there was a proposed amendment by Lawrence Xu-Nan suggesting that the bill cannot override the Treaty of Waitangi or tino rangatiratanga. We have no intention of adopting an amendment like that. It is unclear what that would achieve. In fact, the Government currently has a lot of work under way to clarify what these Treaty principles, in various formats that have been sprinkled through legislation over the decades, actually mean. It certainly caused a lot of confusion for a lot of people trying to get on with their lives. Obviously, we have no intention of introducing something like that.

Finally, he asked about how inconsistent does a piece of legislation have to be with a consistency accountability statement. The law is very clear: a Minister is required to introduce either an explanation why not, or a consistency accountability statement. That’s up to them to judge, and, ultimately, it’s up to everyone else to judge them—whether they are indeed lawmakers that respect the principles or if they are lawmakers who, perhaps, have other objectives.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Amendment Paper 427 be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment replacing clause 3 be agreed to.

The Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 3(1)(a), replacing subparagraph (i) is ruled out of order as being merely an attempt to criticise the bill.

The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 3(2)(c), amending subparagraph (i) be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 3(2)(c), amending subparagraph (i) be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 3(2), replacing paragraph (d) be agreed to.

The question is that Chlöe Swarbrick’s tabled amendment to clause 3, inserting new subclause (3) be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 4(1), deleting paragraph (h) be agreed to.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4, inserting new subclause (3) is ruled out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 5, definition of “responsible Minister”, is ruled out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

The Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 5 inserting new paragraph (e) is ruled out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

The Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 5 inserting new paragraph (f) is ruled out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.