Parliamentary debates: Thursday, 5 March 2026

09:00

I move, That the committee report progress presently and move on to consideration of the Social Security (Accident Compensation and Calculation of Weekly Income) Amendment Bill.

We now move to consideration of the Social Security (Accident Compensation and Calculation of Weekly Income) Amendment Bill.

09:02

Mr Chair, I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Part 1: this is the debate on clauses 4 to 7, “Amendments relating to accident compensation and calculation of weekly income”. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Thank you so much, Mr Chair. This is a bit of a quasi-urgency bill because we had a one-week select committee process, there’s no regulatory impact statement, and there was no ability to adequately engage with cross-Government agencies on the bill. I have some questions that would have been answered if we had had a proper process to begin with, and I’ll move to the clauses shortly.

The first one is: did the Minister, at any point, engage with ACC officials or the Minister for ACC in relation to the provision of this bill, and was she advised, at any point, around the inclusion of sexual violence survivors as part of those 37,000 people affected by the bill? If she did not consult at all, or her officials did not consult, with ACC on the inclusion of sexual violence survivors, I would like to know why, because submitters in the select committee stage were very, very clear about how this would affect not just sexual violence survivors but abuse in care survivors as well. That is my first question around the extent of engagement she has had with ACC, or the Minister for ACC for that matter, and whether she received any feedback.

On Part 1, I’m particularly interested in the provisions in clause 4(1) and then new subsection (1AAA), because this is where we talk about people’s partners. I want to start with something that the Minister has yet to acknowledge publicly, which is the impact on partners of ACC claimants and the relationship rules at Work and Income New Zealand and how this may affect people who may be deemed to be in a relationship in the nature of marriage with a person who’s receiving a benefit and may be an ACC claimant. As the Minister may know, the Work and Income New Zealand rules in relation to a relationship in the nature of marriage can include just going on a handful of dates. It could even include flatmates who may have just been deemed to be too close but not actually for all intents and purposes having a romantic relationship. I know this myself because I have sat at benefits review committee hearings where people have been accused of this, and the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has previously even been accused by the Privacy Commissioner for their practices in determining this and the type of information they gather.

Can the Minister illustrate how many partners of ACC claimants have also had historic debts as a result of the provisions in this bill? I am so far referring to the provisions in clause 4 because of the way that we are defining “P” or their spouse. I think this would be one of the more appropriate parts to outline it. How many partners are affected by this? These partners are not necessarily the ACC claimants themselves. Often, if you’re a beneficiary and your partner is also a beneficiary—say, for example, a supported living payment recipient—part of the challenge is that, say, somebody on a supported living payment, a person who’s got really serious health conditions and who’s a partner of an ACC claimant may just lose all their benefit and all their entitlements once an ACC claim comes through. Does she have a breakdown of who these partners are, how many thousands of them there may be, and, for example, the types of benefits that they may have been on, if they were on any benefit? How many of them would have been on the supported living payment with really serious health conditions and have been unlawfully put into debt due to the practice that MSD has carried out for decades? I want to begin with that.

If the Minister does not have the information in relation to partners, as defined in clause 4 by “P”, I want to know why she didn’t do due diligence to understand the scope of who is being affected by this bill. Equally, if the Minister did not engage with the Minister for ACC or if her officials did not engage with ACC officials to determine how many sensitive claims there were—or whether there were even sensitive claims, because I’m yet to hear the Minister, at any point, acknowledge sexual violence survivors in her contribution as people affected by this bill—I want to know why she has yet to acknowledge them. Those are my introductory remarks, and I hope that we can have a fulsome debate. This is the bill that affects 40,000 people, so I think it’s a worthwhile thing to be debating.

09:07

Thank you. I want to start my contribution by talking about my concern about whether people in this Chamber, and indeed the Minister truly understands the nature of the change that is proposed and its impact on people. I have got to admit that I did not when I began this inquiry. I am in the select committee that heard from submitters, and it was an enlightening experience. It sent a shudder through me that it had been proposed that this was actually something that would be done under urgency without a select committee. That would have been a travesty.

What emerged during that select committee process was an injustice that was very evident and was not evident in the advice that we had been given. I understood that there had been a longstanding practice in the relationship between the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and ACC and that that longstanding practice needed to continue because, otherwise, there was a risk that people would double-dip—they would get ACC and they would get MSD support—and that that was a risk that we were facing.

I would like the Minister to talk specifically about that double-dipping risk. I’d like to understand whether the Minister still thinks that, without this piece of legislation, there is double-dipping. I want to explain why I don’t think there is. What we were told in the submissions, over and over again—and we had 850 submissions. It was a very, very short time frame. Last week, we were in a recess from Parliament. We sat and we listened to only some of those submissions, not all of them, because of the process. Those submissions revealed a pattern that goes something like this: if you have a person who has a broken arm, their claim is immediately accepted because it is obvious that they have a broken arm. But if you have a person who has been sexually abused repeatedly and they suffer from post-traumatic stress as a consequence, many years later this becomes an impediment to their capacity to work. That is a common scenario. The Minister—not the Minister in the chair, the Hon Penny Simmonds, but the Minister responsible for this, the Hon Louise Upston—was at a sexual assault centre with me last week on recess. We saw on the whiteboards in that centre the impacts of something like post-traumatic stress disorder and how much those symptoms impact on people’s capacity to work and function. They’re very, very real. I think we’ve all accepted that as a country, I hope, but I think we still remain a little ignorant about it. The Minister wouldn’t be, because she saw the same whiteboards that I did.

In that situation where a person suffers from a sexual assault, it is a complex case. We heard from the advisers in ACC that they only had time to break down the last 50 of these potential cases in the last year. They looked at them and a significant number of them are sexual assault scenarios.

If that is happening, then the person—and I just want to foreshadow that I’m going to have to tell the story beyond the next time, and I’ll be seeking the next call. In that scenario, you have one situation which is a broken leg. Their claim is accepted and they get a whole lot of support in addition to 80 percent of their earnings. If they’re an airline pilot, they do rather well. If they’re on minimum wage, there is a capacity to pay a certain amount and they get that. That’s how they do it. But, because they’ve got a broken arm, they may get some household help. I had that, in fact, myself when I broke my arm when I was breastfeeding a baby. They gave me household help. It made a huge difference. They’d get rehabilitation services. There are all sorts of additional things they get. They may get winter-warming costs. They might get taxis. They are getting a bundle of benefits that are financially significant in addition to the 80 percent earnings.

Then you have the person with the delayed claim. Let’s take the sexual assault survivor. For that person, their claim takes five years to resolve. In that time that it is resolving, they may not be able to work because they’ve broken down as a consequence of what’s happening. I hope we all understand that that is real. In that situation, they will only have the Ministry of Social Development’s main benefit, and it will be, as my friend from the Greens has talked about, impacted in terms of whether they’ve got a partner, etc., so it will be whatever that minimum is. They may get some other benefits, like winter energy—they might be eligible for it—but they won’t get the much richer bundle of support that they would get under ACC.

Then, after five years, they get their claim accepted and ACC are accepting that they’ve been in default for that entire five-year period. At the moment, the arrangement has been for many years that the main benefit—there’s a discussion between ACC and MSD, and the amount of money that they’ve had as a main benefit is taken out of the back-pay of the 80 percent of earnings before the claimant ever sees it, so they lose that.

What this Government, as I understand it, is seeking to do now is to say that it is right that what MSD has been doing—because this is considered income, and I’d like a discussion from the Minister: I’d really like to know what she thinks about the income basis and the inequity here. Because MSD only look through the lens of income under their own Act, they have been asking and insisting that the claimant pay back any other costs that they have met. If they have met accommodation costs, they will ask for it back. If they have met any counselling needs, any energy payments, anything like that, they are asking the claimant to pay.

ACC have not paid any of these amounts during that time at all. They haven’t paid any of the superior bundle of rights that person will have, but they don’t seek to pay it back. I’d like the Minister to answer whether I’m right. Am I right that ACC has financially benefited enormously in most of those situations because, during the default, they do not actually pay any of this money and, in fact, then the claimant is paying back its own support? If the claimant has taken any support at that time, they must pay it back out of their income. Am I right with regard to that? If I’m right—and that’s what the claimant said—they are infinitely worse off.

What the Government seeks to do today is entrench that inequity, where somebody who had a perfectly justified claim for five years and has missed all those benefits is also being told they are responsible for all payments above it. Am I right that there is a problem here? For the main benefit, I understand that would be a double-dip. If you got the main benefit and you got the 80 percent earnings, that would be a double-dip, but that’s not what’s going on. We have never allowed that to happen in this country. What the Minister seeks to entrench here is the right of MSD to take back all those extra payments that MSD has made and not compensate that person with anything that ACC should have paid in the interim.

Now, that seems deeply unjust to me, and I’d like the Minister’s explanation as to why equity is established in this way. We have an amendment on the Table, which we hope, as the Labour Party—it’s informed by submitters, and I’d like to speak to that amendment separately. We have an amendment where we think that we can fix some of the injustice here. I’d like another call, but first of all, I’d love to hear the Minister explain why this is considered double-dipping and why I’m wrong about this. Thank you, Minister.

09:17

Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, there’s been a number of questions and a number of statements, and I want to clarify the situation. First of all, I want to make it very clear that this bill is about treating all types of income, whether ACC or other income, in the same way. It’s to ensure that the system is treating any income people can rely on in the same way, to ensure fairness and equity.

In terms of the questions from the Green Party member Ricardo Menéndez March, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) consulted with ACC as part of this process. I understand that ACC provided information to the committee about the nature of ACC claims that were available, including sensitive claims. With regard to the member’s questions about partners, relationship rules are out of scope of this bill.

I want to make it clear that this is ensuring that longstanding policy intent underpinning MSD’s approach to backdated ACC payments, and charging income against past entitlements is aligned with the general principles of the welfare system, and those are the principles of a targeted welfare system. It’s clarifying longstanding practice and there will be no impact on clients compared to the current state. There will be no change. There is no difference. It is clarifying what has been longstanding intent.

I also just want to note that it is providing certainty in the law to remove that risk of the policy intent not occurring, so past assistance should always be reviewed when backdated ACC payments are received.

I also have another comment here: MSD does not hold the ACC claim information beyond the financial information, so income will continue to be charged as per the longstanding policy and practice. Clients will not get less than they currently are entitled to, based on their situation.

09:20

It’s astounding that the Minister in the chair would actually say that partners are out of scope of this bill when, in the Social Services and Community Committee, we literally got given information confirming that if your partner is someone on a benefit and you get an ACC claim, that partner could lose their benefit as well, because the income calculations for benefit eligibility are treated as one.

Where is a Minister that is actually aware of this bill in the Chamber to speak to this? We’re not going to have a substantive debate if the Minister incorrectly says that something is out of scope. I want to ask again—

Point of order. I do believe mentioning someone’s absence from the Chamber is not supposed to be happening.

Speaking to the point of order, just a note for the Chair as well that there’s been a longstanding history that if the absence of a particular member in the House is vital to the debate of the House, we are able to call specific people as being absent.

Sit down; I’m going to make a ruling. I am going to make a ruling, so you can sit down. I mean, I do take the member’s point around absences in the House. If I could ask members to steer away from that. I think the point has been made. I would encourage members to not make it again.

Thank you. I will ask the Minister to engage correctly on my question. How many partners of people on a benefit who have made ACC claims who are also on a benefit are affected by this bill? What’s the breakdown of the types of benefit that they’re on? We have had very surface-level engagement—a little bit in the select committee around this—confirming that partners are affected. I expect the Minister to be on top of it, so can she please give us a number?

I’ll continue with some of my other questions in relation to the provisions in clause 5. I would also like to seek her engagement to my prior question as to whether she, the Minister, sought any advice on the impact of this bill on sexual violence survivors, abuse in care survivors, or people with traumatic head injuries; the three groups that we’ve received feedback from in the committee stage? I hear that officials engaged with ACC. I want to know if she, the Minister, sought any advice on the impact of this and, as a follow-up question, as to whether she sought advice that sensitive claimants would be one of the groups that would likely have some of the greatest debts imposed by the Ministry of Social Development due to the time that it takes for these claims to come back to them. Therefore, they would have accumulated quite a bit of debt due to the amount of time they would have been receiving some of the assistance outlined in clause 5.

Which takes me to my next question in relation to the provisions in clause 5: how many people that are affected in this bill, out of the 37,500-ish people, have received the disability allowance? I want to know whether the Minister thinks that the disability allowance is genuinely comparable to any support that ACC can provide for rehabilitation, because the disability allowance is normally not in line with any support that ACC can provide. The reason why I ask this is because we have heard a lot of discourse around how people access support during the time they’re waiting for their ACC claim. Then the ACC claim gets put as a debt, because it covers the support that people have received, but those two supports are not comparable.

To recap, did she engage in any way and seek advice on how many, and whether sexual violence survivors, abuse in care survivors, or, for example, traumatic head injury survivors were affected by this bill? How many people affected by this bill received the disability allowance? Is she able to clarify how many partners of ACC claimants have lost their benefit or have seen a reduction on their benefit as a result of the provisions of this bill, and whether she has a breakdown of the types of benefits? Thank you.

09:25

Thank you, Mr Chair. In terms of partners—and I’ll read some of the points out for the member—if a client or their partner receive a backdated ACC payment for the same period the client received Ministry of Social Development (MSD) assistance, any MSD assistance the client and their partner received may be impacted. This is the same as it is currently. Backdated ACC payments are applied against the full main benefit rate before it has been split between a client and their partner. Like main benefits, supplementary assistance is split between a client and their partner.

When MSD charges income to assess entitlement to assistance, both the income of the client and their partner is included. This means that, if the backdated ACC payment reduces the main benefit to zero for a past period and the supplementary assistance is reviewed, a debt may be created for both the client and their partner’s portion of any overpaid supplementary assistance. This is current practice.

Also, with regard to survivors of abuse in State care—and I want us to be very careful in addressing this, because it is important that these people, who have already been traumatised, are not used as a political football—redress payments are made to survivors of abuse in State care, and they are not in scope of these amendments. They are not in scope. Redress payments made to survivors of abuse in State care are not considered as income or cash assets when testing entitlement to MSD. This will not change.

09:29

Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s good to be able to take my first call in this debate. This is a very impactful bill, and I think there have been some comments raised in this debate by the Minister for Social Development and Employment that this is not going to change the status quo. That is not correct, in the sense that we did have a situation where the High Court found that the intention of this House and Parliament had been incorrectly applied by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). Of course, we know that MSD’s intention and the policy that they were working to was consistent with their policy, but that doesn’t mean that this law does not change the status quo for many hundreds, if not thousands, of people who may be impacted by these claims. So I think it’s important to know that we are talking about an impactful bill and an impactful change that will affect people’s lives, and that’s why we have taken this proposal really seriously.

We, as members have alluded to, have had an original proposal to have this passed very quickly and then have it engaged substantively with a select committee process, and, unfortunately, what this select committee process did outline was that many of the concerns that we had and that we were not able to get sufficient information about at first reading were borne out by the submissions of people who had submitted to the Social Services and Community Committee. Further to that, even yesterday—and members have referred to this, but I think it’s important to note it—the Minister referred to ACC providing information to the committee. Now, my understanding—and members of the committee can correct me if I’m wrong—is that this occurred yesterday and that that information has been available to members only from that time.

I’ve looked at that information that the Minister referred to. That information is concerning because it shows that from the information that we’ve been able to be provided by ACC, the majority of people that we’re talking about who will be impacted by this bill are women, and they are women who have sensitive claims and so are most likely to have suffered sexual abuse. That does change the proposition, I think, for the House in relation to this bill and the way that we talk about those affected. Of course it’s not entirely that group, but the statistics provided by ACC, when they looked at a group of 50 as a sample, found that around 65 percent of the people would have had sensitive claims and 70 percent would be women, and so these are the people that we are talking about today. I appreciate that there are aspects of that statistical analysis which will not be perfect, but I think that that’s important for our context.

The other thing that I think it’s important to set out for us—and I want to thank the officials who have provided advice to the Ministers and who are providing advice today in the Chamber—is that there is a way that some of these concerns can be alleviated in terms of the impact on highly vulnerable people, in terms of the impact on sensitive claimants, and in terms of some of that impact that my colleague Helen White was discussing in relation to the payments that ACC has made which may have been related to recovery, and we have tabled an amendment in the name of Willie Jackson. This is a very significant amendment for the Labour Party. If the Government is not able to support this amendment, which would allow a discretion for situations of unfairness and would remove abuse in care survivors and sensitive claimants—those very vulnerable people, who have already gone through what we would all acknowledge is a terrible experience, and those people on a disability allowance, where it is highly likely that that money was used for recovery and rehabilitation that would have otherwise been provided by ACC.

We have put this amendment up in good faith. We would like the Minister’s support for this amendment. We’ve given it on notice to the Government so that they can assess this particular amendment, and it’s really important for us. This is in the part that we are currently discussing. I do have some questions on clause 4, but this is in relation to clause 5, and so they’re the two very first clauses we’re debating. If the Government is willing to support this amendment, that will be very integral for us in this debate, moving forward.

09:35

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m just giving some answers to the question on numbers that the Green Party member asked for. While the Ministry of Social Development doesn’t have the exact numbers of how many disabled people would be impacted, around 11,000 people had an ACC-related debt established for disability allowance between January 1998 and November 2025—again, no change to how that was dealt with.

In terms of partners, the partner status data: for clients that have a partner without ACC debt, 1,146; for those that have a partner with ACC debt or supplementary assistance, 11,467; and for those with no partner, 24,925. I’m just giving those numbers, again confirming that there is no change to what occurs currently.

I note Camilla Belich’s comments about it being an impactful bill rather than it being a bill that’s not going to change current practice. It does not change current practice. The High Court and the Social Security Appeal Authority judgment have identified a misalignment between the Social Security Act and longstanding policy intent and practice, and so the Government has a duty to fix that and ensure that policy and law match up and are aligned. We need to ensure that the law is aligned with the general principles of a targeted welfare system, where the more income you earn, the less assistance you receive from the State.

09:37

Thank you so much, Minister Simmonds, for engaging on the fact that this bill will impact 11,500 partners on a benefit. It is a substantive figure, and before I go on to more questions about clause 5 and one of my amendments, I have a question about the intent of the bill. I’ve heard the Minister say that this is just legalising existing practice, basically, but does that make the practice morally right or just? I mean, we could apply that to many things that were wrong that were done for decades. If, say, homosexuality was actually illegal for many decades, if you were just clarifying to continue doing that, I would be standing here again and saying that that is not correct, and so can I ask the Minister: does she genuinely believe that the existing practice is correct, even when it puts sexual violence survivors into substantive amounts of debt?

My second question—which she hasn’t engaged with—is whether she has received any information, or whether she is aware that sensitive claimants may be more likely to have greater debts with Work and Income because of the time that it often takes them to receive their ACC payments? I know that this is an extremely sensitive issue, and that’s why I do think it deserves adequate engagement and recognition of who it is impacting and a recognition of the fact that, as far as I’m aware—but I want to know if the Minister is aware, and if she has any information to allude to the fact that sensitive claimants do take longer to get their claims and are, therefore, more likely to have greater debt.

Now, I want to move to my first amendment, on Amendment Paper 522, which changes clause 5. This is an amendment that was brought forward after concerns from expert lawyers who echoed some of the stuff that we’ve been saying since the first reading, and the reason why I wanted to bring this amendment for discussion is that it does make significant changes—

Do you have the number of the amendment?

Amendment Paper 522.

Amendment Paper 522—cool.

Yes, thank you, Mr Chair. For this amendment—and if you’d just indulge me, Mr Chair, in making sure that I explain it thoroughly—I am seeking as much cross-party support as I can because this is actually not necessarily just a partisan amendment from the Green Party. This is coming from actual experts who understand this issue at a deep level, and they are people who work on these issues on a regular basis. I know that they have reached out to all political parties in the hope that we can all get behind this.

This amendment would actually create some limits—just limits—on the recovery of supplementary assistance following ACC back payments. What it does is it creates a framework where the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) isn’t able to recover all or part of the supplementary assistance if the person received the payments in good faith, did not intentionally contribute to any material error—and MSD is needing to have regard to all circumstances and consider whether the recovery would be inequitable. It also would allow MSD to have to consider whether these debts would alter the material position that people are in—for example, whether there was any delay in getting this entitlement; the financial circumstances of the person, including whether the recovery would cause serious hardship. These back payments and the weekly back payments can often genuinely undermine someone’s ability to make ends meet. If you’re on the breadline—if you were, say, someone who was living in a Kāinga Ora home, if you’re somebody who was literally struggling to survive—I think having consideration for the level of hardship these debts can impose is necessary.

Additionally—and this is why I was asking around the disability allowance—the amendment would prevent MSD from recovering the disability allowance paid during the relevant period, and any supplementary assistance paid to meet costs that would generally be made by ACC. Again, I want to seek the Minister’s engagement on my Amendment Paper 522, because this is a call for cross-party support to heed the calls of experts who work with survivors and people in hardship, who are telling us, time and time again, that just because this practice happened for decades, it does not make it right; and just because we’re legalising the practice, it does not make it right. I’d like to seek some engagement from the Minister on my Amendment Paper 522 and whether she would be inclined to support it—and, if not, why not?

09:42

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have seen the member Ricardo Menéndez March’s Amendment Paper 522. I just want to be very clear that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has a statutory duty to take all reasonably practical steps to recover debt. Having said that, MSD does have the discretion to look at the person’s circumstances and to ensure that any repayment is done that recognises their situation, that recognises any hardship, that recognises what would be an appropriate level of repayment. MSD has that discretion; they exercise that discretion to ensure that any repayment is done in such a way as to minimise the impact on the client.

09:43

Can I just seek clarity over those comments, because my understanding is that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has no option but to impose these debts. They could choose to work with the beneficiary to, say, either have it as being taken as a lump sum out of their ACC back payment or negotiate with the beneficiary—an ACC claimant—over a weekly repayment rate. Now, there is actually no discretion as to whether these debts on the supplementary assistance are applied altogether. This is why our Amendment Paper does seek to give MSD the tools to consider that hardship or, for example, the disability allowance.

Can I just check with the Minister in the chair that her understanding of the bill is that MSD has no option to say, “We’re not going to put debt—or we’re not going to create this debt—altogether, and maybe we’ll charge ACC for it instead.”, for example, if this would create hardship; or whether she’s referring more to the options around whether this is, like, a debt that’s imposed as a lump amount from the back payment or as a weekly repayment rate, and then there’s a negotiation of those?

Now, I have a question in relationship to the latter, around the weekly repayment rates, that maybe is what she was alluding to in her comments. It would be useful if she would clarify for us. Does she have any information around the breakdown of, historically, who has chosen to have that debt be taken out of the back payment as a lump sum, or whether it’s been imposed as a weekly repayment? On the latter, I would like an understanding as to whether she has any information on the median amount of repayment rates that people have had. We know, for things like advances and other debt to MSD, there is a huge disparity among gender and ethnic lines on the weekly amount people have to pay back to MSD, where there is discretion applied on the level of repayments. We know—we have this information—

That is done on earnings, so it’s not race or gender.

—and I think the Minister on the other side of the Chamber should engage on this bill if she cares so much, rather than just throwing jabs.

I would say that this is important, because, if she says that the status quo is that MSD does have the ability to not impose debts if there is hardship, I want to know what she’s specifically referring to, because this is not how the bill works. This would raise further concerns that I raised earlier about the understanding of the bill by the Minister and how this is actually undermining the debate that we are having. Again, I want to make a call for the Minister to engage with Amendment Paper 522. I don’t believe she has engaged with the substance of the amendment, because the bill itself does not give MSD that level of discretion. This amendment would allow MSD to have that level of discretion.

As a follow-up question, what I would like to seek the Minister’s engagement on, as well, to add to the list—I know that she said earlier that she didn’t have the number of disabled people out of the 37,500-ish people affected—but does she have information that shows how many people would have been on benefits that you can only qualify for if you are disabled or have a health condition? I know that some of these benefits may be historical, like the sickness benefit that we don’t have any more—but whether she received advice on how many people, historically, would have had debts while being on a benefit that means that they’re qualified as having a disability or a serious health condition? That is very different from how many disabled people are out there, because we know there are disabled people who are on the jobseeker benefit and are unable to access those other benefits. Does she have that information, and, if so, what is the breakdown?

This would actually be in relationship to the provisions in clause 5, in my view, because, ultimately, if you are someone, say, on the supported living payment, you’re far more likely to be needing that supplementary assistance. That is why this is relevant to the provisions in clause 5; ultimately, this is about understanding who is affected by clause 5 and who are the people affected by the provisions in clause 5.

So engagement on my amendment; the breakdown of benefit type; whether MSD can actually just waive those debts or whether it’s just simply how those debts are established—it would be really, really useful to hear from the Minister to have a constructive engagement on this debate, and in the hope that we can heed the calls of experts who work with survivors, who have asked all political parties to mitigate some of the harm that this bill is entrenching; and an ability to give MSD a bit more flexibility to consider people’s hardship.

09:48

Thank you, Mr Chair. I made very clear at the start, when I was talking about repayments, that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) does have a statutory duty to take all reasonably practical steps to recover debt. It is not discretion around debt; it is discretion around the repayments and taking into consideration the situation of the client. MSD already has that discretion.

I think the member Ricardo Menéndez March already answered their own issues around discretion when he said about MSD and their application of that discretion around repayments, and saying how inconsistent it was and how it wasn’t evenly applied against gender and ethnicity. Therein lies the problem: when you provide more discretion to MSD, there is a possibility of inconsistencies, and, therefore, the clearer the legislation is, the better. They have the discretion already; the member has complained about how they use that discretion, and yet he is asking for more discretion. We see exactly the issue that he clarified, that he made clear: that is, the inconsistencies that can occur across how discretion is applied. So, no, we won’t be accepting it.

09:49

Thank you, Mr Chair. I am interested to hear the Government-side contributions, because I think we’re certainly a long way away from a closure motion. We’ve barely discussed any of the substantive detail in Part 1 at all, and Part 1 is the majority part of this bill. I am sure that they have some very valid contributions to make to this debate, and that’s why they’re seeking the call.

The question of discretion is really important. The Minister in the chair hasn’t answered yet, in relation to the two amendments put forward to her that would allow discretion, whether she would support those or not. It is important to know at this stage; this is the time that we are debating these amendments. Will the Minister support this or not? Will she support discretion?

We’ve had a slight exchange here. It did appear that she was saying there was discretion already. I wonder if she was talking about the social security regulations and if she was referring to that at all, because I have had a relatively close look at some of the regulations, specifically No. 208, but my understanding is that only occurs when there’s been an error by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), which would not be the situation in most of these particular situations. She said that the discretion is in relation to the type of repayment. If she could just clarify that that is the only existing discretion and that there is no discretion, either, in the bill currently proposed, and, additionally, if why she was referring to discretion was perhaps because she may be looking to support some of these amendments. Now I’ve just lodged another amendment, which gives a generalised—

No.

—discretion to this bill. Those on the other side say, “No”, but I would remind them that the discretion is in relation to people who are survivors, mainly, of sexual assault, who will be given debts due to no fault of their own, due to the passage of this legislation.The discretion, as described, I think, in all the amendments tabled, is in relation to situations of unfairness and undue hardship and inequity.When those types of situations occur, that is when MSD can apply the discretion under the amendments proposed.

Now, the Minister notes that, sometimes, discretion can be applied in a way which is unjust and that that’s a risk. I don’t think that is a reason—or a justified reason—to turn our backs on not allowing payments for very vulnerable people who’ve already had terrible experiences, through no fault of their own, to suddenly be indebted, when that would be unjust, when that would be unfair, and when that would create undue hardship for those people. If the Minister is concerned about making sure that criteria apply, the amendments tabled have very, very specific criteria, which would allay some of those concerns. When applied in a uniform manner, they are unlikely to result in situations of discretion being applied unfairly, because of how prescriptive they are. They do require good faith, and they do require a situation where there is no fault on behalf of the claimant.

This is a serious matter. I go back again: the Minister did say that she did not agree that this was a change in procedure. Well, we do have a law, and as the law currently stands the recovery of these benefits is not permissible, and that is why the Government is bringing in this law. It is a change to the current status quo. I think it is really important to know that question of discretion. I know there are a lot of people who work in this field who are watching this debate and are keen to know: will the Minister agree? Will the Government agree to compassion in allowing discretion when there is truly a situation, assessed by MSD, of hardship? She has a few options in front of her, provided in good faith.

I think we need clarification that she does not consider that the current regulatory system allows for discretion. If that’s not correct, we need to have that cleared up right now, because this is going to be integrally important for how this particular piece of legislation is received and impacts the community. Discretion, and the ability of MSD to utilise discretion, is absolutely fundamentally important to how this bill will proceed, so having clarity on that is very important. Thank you.

09:54

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just before we move on from discretion, I wanted to ask the Minister in the chair whether she was aware that the amendment that the Labour Party has put up on this matter—which is quite comprehensive—is based on ACC discretion. While the Minister made a case that there should be no discretion because that could lead to inequity, in fact it’s based on a similar provision, as I understand it, that works well in the ACC setting.

Is she aware that a letter was written to the Minister by the very same experts in the area, seeking what the Labour Party has tabled as an amendment here, based on what they think will practically work in this area and make things fairer than they would otherwise be? I still haven’t had an answer to my question about what the differences are between someone who has a long claim and their claim is accepted in five years versus somebody who has an accident which is apparent straight away and can be ruled on straight away.

Does she accept they’re being treated differently, and does she think that’s fairer or not? If you look at the actual purposes and the intent that is at the beginning of the Act—so it relates to this clause 2—the reason for this clause is supposed to be that it looks at inequity.

I want to raise an issue about accredited employers and moral hazard because this did come up during the submissions. There are lots of accredited employers out there and some of them are our meatworks, etc., so I’ll use that as an example—if a meatworks has somebody who has a gradual process injury, so they are impacted because they’re cutting the meat and it is putting pressure and there’s enough pressure that it becomes a gradual process injury under the Act, it’s quite a hard one to establish because there are other things that you need to look at like was the person’s shoulder going to deteriorate anyway, etc, so it takes time through a process.

If it’s an accredited employer and the accredited employer is paying for the cost of rehabilitation, and if we had a bad-faith situation or even just somebody who thought of it in terms of the numbers, aren’t they better off just delaying the claim, in that in any situation that they can see prima facie any reason to delay, aren’t they better off—that accredited employer who pays their own ACC—delaying the claim? Under the law as we will make it now—and I take Camilla Belich’s point: the law as it is now doesn’t do this because the High Court has said it won’t; it would only take the main benefit, but, actually, in this current situation that we are putting in place today, isn’t an accredited employer put in a position where there is a moral hazard because we are making delays pay for an employer in that situation, because they don’t have to pay any of the additional costs?

At the end of the five years, they don’t pay all the things they would have paid. We had an example given to us by Hazel Armstrong from Hazel Armstrong Law. She was talking about her role, also; she’s on the board of the Port of Auckland and she was talking about how much benefit there is if you accept a claim early for the individual and for the rehabilitation of that person. In the Port of Auckland, they’ve got gold-plated rehabilitation. People return to work much quicker but it costs the company the outlay at that time because they put in that work.

If there is an employer who doesn’t do that and decides delay is their best friend, aren’t we making a moral hazard in this law, here? So I’d love an answer to that question. I want to know, also, because we had an ACC briefing yesterday in our select committee—it was after the select committee process was through and we had to report back, but we really had lots of unanswered questions. So I want to know some of the answers that I still haven’t got back because it was only a 20-minute briefing.

The question I asked ACC is: why are you not paying for these people’s extras? Why are you only passing on the 80 percent earnings? Is there a legal reason? What’s going on there? I haven’t received an answer to that. So I’d like to ask the Minister: has she asked—

The member’s time has expired.

09:59

Mr Chair, tēnā koe. Tēnā rā tātou. It is an absolute privilege to stand here to rise on behalf of Te Pāti Māori but on behalf of many Māori—as we know, overrepresented when it comes to social welfare and many other detrimental effects that really cause pain and suffering for generations. We’re not just referring to the last week since this bill came into this House, but we’re drawing retrospectively—pun intended—on the impacts that this bill and the proposed changes, amendments by the Minister, will have going forward prospectively.

Now, I have been a part of the select committee process and was fortunate enough to read as many of the 850-plus submissions that were put through, many of which were from Māori, submitted from whānau Māori, individuals, partners, separated parents, widows, survivors—several survivors. The harrowing stories that they shared openly with the Social Services and Community Committee, in writing and in person, cannot be ignored by this Minister or this Government.

One other area that cannot be ignored, that must be considered seriously with serious consideration by the Minister and by this Government, is the inclusion of a section that guarantees every New Zealander will be protected, and that is through Te Tiriti—one of the many amendments put forward by Te Pāti Māori. This is not ideological. Te Tiriti ensures that every New Zealander is safe, is treated with great respect, and is treated equally, yes—and I want to draw our attention again to that word, because that word is at the centre of the purpose, the intent, of this bill. Equity is what I understand the Minister is trying to achieve, but the stated objective of this bill is to maintain the integrity of a targeted welfare system and to ensure that people do not receive duplicate income replacements.

Equitable, to achieve equity—this isn’t it. This bill does not achieve that. It has been proven and shown in court and during the select committee process. It is written by legal experts who have been supporting survivors of abuse. They say that this bill does not provide equity. In fact, it provides, in perpetuity, inequity, and it also goes further to create further harm, to deepen hardship, to deepen the pain and suffering that these 37,500 people already suffer.

It has been proven in the High Court that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) was acting unlawfully. Rather than addressing that issue, we are now debating how we can scratch that and move forward but apply a retrospective lens that claws back what rightfully was paid to claimants. It wasn’t a main benefit. It was a supplementary to ensure that those people accessed and had access to the right supports—for instance, rehabilitation. For whānau that scrape together the last 10 bucks to put butter on the table, actually finding services, finding the right services, for whānau Māori—we’re talking about rongoā. Not everybody in te ao Māori actually goes to hospitals, seeks out those sorts of supports, but the ability to access compensation as well as supplementary supports to help families in desperate need is the query. Te Tiriti—one of our many amendments—ensures that everybody in New Zealand and everybody impacted by this bill is treated fairly. Fairness is what we call for in the amendments that we’ve put forward.

The Minister did say, and I acknowledge, that the intent of this bill is to ensure a targeted welfare system, but in her statement, simply fixing a situation where there has been an overpayment with MSD with benefit and supplementary allowance payments that are made while someone who is paid weekly ACC and someone who gets a backdated payment—excuse me, I’m a little bit nervous; this is my first time. The question to the Minister is: does she agree that the bill as enacted means that there is a difference between the person who gets ACC paid on time and gets backdated—

The member’s time has expired.

Madam Chair?

Excuse me. I was just going to suggest to the member, when your time is expiring, you can seek another call, and, if so, because the member had already started her question, I would give her the opportunity to finish the question. But I do encourage members to get to the questions earlier on, OK? Oriini Kaipara.

Thank you. I’ll finish the question. Does the Minister agree that the bill as enacted means that there is a difference between the person who gets ACC paid on time and gets a backdated payment; if so, is the Minister aware that in many supplementary assistance cases, it is used by people to pay for treatment and rehab for their injuries, and, when this money is paid on top of that person’s weekly compensation, by forcing them to pay this money back to MSD out of their weekly compensation payments, they are paying for their own treatment and their own rehabilitation costs, and so they are worse off?

10:05

I want to acknowledge the amendments from both the Green Party and the Labour Party with regard to additional forms of discretion. The reference to ACC discretion was made. Of course, ACC discretion is out of scope of this bill, and this bill is addressing how income is treated for benefit purposes. I just want to note that, while the two parties have put forward amendments on discretion, the Government considers that creating additional forms of discretion goes against the actual intent of this bill, which is to provide clarity and consistency in how ACC payments are treated in the welfare system.

I hope that I picked up Te Pāti Māori’s question right, about whether this bill is going to ensure fairness between the different types of ACC—whether it’s delayed payment, backdated payment, or ongoing payment. That is precisely the reason to ensure fairness between those two types of ACC payment.

10:07

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Yeah, astonishing the members on the other side are so keen to engage in the debate—but anyway. Look, I just have one clarification on my Amendment Paper 522 and the Minister’s amendment which was introduced in the committee of the whole House—and we haven’t had a chance to debate it.

Just on 522, I want to ask the Minister to clarify—I know that she just briefly touched on it—whether it is her view that some of these debts could cause hardship. Can she acknowledge whether this is currently what she’s intending to do?

Moving on to the Minister’s amendment that she has introduced, I wanted to ask—this kind of touches on all parts of the bill but particularly I think references some of the stuff in relationship to the Social Security Appeal Authority and the benefit review committees, etc. I may just take the opportunity to talk about her amendment right now, because it actually addresses the whole of the bill, but can I just get clarification from the Minister—because this will help us know whether we need to draft a further amendment to it, and I would love to be able to do so before we get to Part 2—whether the change that she is making through her amendment would also include people who have filed reviews of decisions.

The amendment language seems to only talk about benefit review committees, but there’s often a period in which you file a review of a decision and the Ministry of Social Development hasn’t had the chance to evaluate the review of the decision. For those who don’t know, often there’s sort of like a three-tier stage that people can go through, right? Sometimes, in my experience when I was at the front lines, once you launch a review of a decision, you may be able to get an outcome within a day. You may be able to get an outcome within a week. But sometimes it can take quite some time to get an acknowledgment. Can I just get clarity over her amendment, which does touch on all parts of the bill? I’m seeing some engagement. I can leave that for the other parts, but anyway, just wanting to raise that.

I’ll move on from the questions on her amendment and I’ll go to some of the provisions in clause 5. This is specifically on subclause (1), inserting new section 198A(5)(d). I wanted to get a sense of whether she also had any information on the temporary additional support data and how many people access it.

I also want to know, again, whether she considers that the support that people can access via the temporary additional support is comparable in any way to the support people can get through ACC for things like rehabilitation, etc. The reason why I’m focusing on the temporary additional support component as one of the types of supplementary assistance that is explicitly named in the bill—in clause 5, and this is a new point—is because, often, temporary additional support is to meet the costs that, effectively, no other type of supplement or main benefit can get you. So it can actually be used for things like, for example, transport costs, etc., to get to the doctors. My question is more whether the amount that people can get for temporary additional support and the scope of what it can be used for is comparable to the range of support they can access when they finally get their ACC claims.

This is particularly important because we have heard that this is about addressing inequity between—well, I disagree with the language, but this is what we’ve been told—people who have had access to a main benefit while waiting for an ACC claim and received support from MSD compared to people who perhaps got their claim really promptly. But my understanding is, and the High Court agrees, that a lot of this supplementary assistance is not necessarily comparable and it is just because people needed it while they waited for their claims to come through. So if she has any data on the temporary additional support specifically—so how many people needed it, maybe the range of things that she’s aware it can cover, and whether it’s comparable, that would be particularly useful.

I know that she may choose to address her amendment in another part of the bill, but I would none the less like some engagement on it at any point in this debate. Thank you.

10:12

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the question from the Green Party member about the savings provision, and, of course, the amendment came about because of the very issues that the member talked about, that was heard from submitters at the Social Services and Community Committee. The inclusion now has been made to those who have made application for a review by the benefits review committee, and they include those who have filed. So just absolutely clarifying that for the member. I will wait for some additional information from the officials regarding the temporary additional support data.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I think we are getting towards the end of this part, members. There are likely some questions on the two schedules, clauses 6 and 7; if we can move on to those while we wait for the Minister to get her advice from the officials.

10:13

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will move to clause 6, but I’ve actually got a question which is on new section 198(5)(b) and (c), inserted by clause 5. and that’s with regard to the issue of the winter energy payment. That came up in the submission process because people who have been disabled are often in a situation where they need warmth, and that is often paid for by ACC. So it’s a very—

So what’s the question?

I want to know from the Minister in the chair whether she considered that an issue like the winter energy payment is something that might have been excluded or could be excluded at this stage, because there’s such a correlation with recovery from an injury. So it’s something that is a really direct example of someone paying for their own rehabilitation. I’d be very keen to know what was discussed with regard to the winter energy payment.

Then if we move to replacement Schedule 3, inserted by clause 7, if we look at (1A), we have “MSD must, in calculating a person’s weekly income under subclause (1), determine the period or periods to which any income (other than annual … pay income) relates based only on—”, and then there’s a very long example of how they must do it. First of all, I would like to know from the Minister, why “must”—why have we been so directive in that situation? Because then we go on to (2) to say, “If MSD cannot determine the period … to which the income relates”. It sounds, to me, like what the drafters are trying to deal with there is that it’s a guessing game and that became very apparent in the process we were going through—that to calculate after all this time is actually really difficult. So there has been an additional part here.

I wanted to contrast that and ask: can the Minister explain why they would not be able to determine periods and periods of income that relate? What is the logic for that exclusion? Am I right that it is because it’s really, really difficult to do? And so MSD—we were told that the reason we were doing this was it was just going to be a nightmare, administratively, to actually change things for people away from longstanding practice. There’ve been a whole lot of people who had money clawed back and there would be a lot of work involved in doing it, because it’s so uncertain what was going on. Isn’t this an example of it being a nightmare the other way where there’s got to be calculations and then there’s uncertainty? Could I please understand that situation? I’d be really grateful for an answer on those before I moved on. I do appreciate that the Chair often looks for a to and fro. Thank you.

10:17

Oh, thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to note that we have had a few generalised questions around specific amendments that are in relation to this part, but there are a number of clauses that we haven’t touched on at all, so my intention is to ask specific questions on those clauses.

Just also to clarify for the Minister in the chair, the Minister’s Amendment Paper—is that to be debated in Part 1? Because if we moved on to Part 2, we wouldn’t be able to significantly discuss that. If we could get just some clarity in relation to that.

It does straddle both, and there has already been commentary on the Amendment Paper.

Yeah, I’m aware of that, but I just wanted to know if it—so that’s actually really helpful to know that it is in Part 2 as well.

I do have some specific questions that I wanted the Minister to answer in relation to these earlier questions on Part 1, and I think that these haven’t been touched on. If we look at clause 4, which is the first section, we’ve received some information from the Minister around partners and the amounts a week that that they would receive. I think we can probably move on from that section.

If we look at clause 4(4), we see that we look at what is a specified benefit under this particular Act. The question that I have is in relation to the kind of temporary benefits and the discretionary benefits that do not form part of the main types of benefit that would normally be considered, which are more usually described as a specified benefit. Obviously, we have the disability benefit and then we have the winter energy payment, and we have the accommodation supplement. But those discretionary benefits which are also going to be covered by this order—has the Minister received any information as to the types of situations that those particular such benefits would apply? I think that is important in terms of the argument that we will have probably throughout this bill—that it is really important to know and identify whether the ACC payment that has resulted in the debt was actually as a result of people using what would otherwise be utilised as a payment. So if someone was on ACC, they would have received money for recovery, and it might be that there’s some further information around those less common types of payments that might make it clearer as to how that was utilised, and that is really important to the effectiveness of this bill.

Also, one thing we haven’t discussed at all is the issue of holiday pay. I don’t believe we’ve discussed that issue at all. This does apply to holiday pay, and there’s a relatively complex discussion of how that holiday pay will be calculated in relation to whether it will be covered under this particular bill. The way that I had understood it is that people must have received their actual salary for their holidays and that is the only way that a holiday would be included within this, but it might be that that is incorrect. There is reference, in addition to that, to public holidays, and, obviously, some people are paid for public holidays and some people aren’t. Some guidance from the Minister on how that works, in relation to this, would also be helpful.

Additionally, we had the partners out of scope, and then they were in scope. Is this something that’s also taken into account? What about other types of payments, when people are on parental leave or other types of Government assistance? Is there an interaction with that in the bill? I think there are some outstanding matters in relation to the nuts and bolts of the calculation, which, while we have been looking at the high-level issues, have not yet been touched on at all within this debate.

10:21

Madam Chair, thank you. With regard to temporary additional support that the questioner from the Green Party was asking about, there are 10,963 people who were receiving temporary additional support and who also received backdated ACC payments.

With regard to Helen White’s comments, I’m just confirming, again, that this is confirming what is a longstanding policy intent when calculating a person’s weekly income. The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has to charge that income for the period that it represents and account for scenarios where MSD is not able to determine the period of a person’s income that it represents. They must determine the appropriate period to charge that income, having regard to the extent to which it was earned in that period or those periods, the extent to which other entitlements to it arose in respect of that period or periods, and the period or periods for which it was otherwise received, acquired, paid, provided, or supplied. The member asked: when a period can’t be determined, what sort of example would that be? For example, something like a gift for a relative doesn’t relate to any specific period.

Before I take the next call, can I please encourage members to move forward. We are now starting to go backwards. That is becoming repetitive. This is a warning that the debate is becoming repetitive.

10:23

Thank you. We have not talked about the retroactive nature of some of these provisions at all, from what I can recall. The issue is connected with the amendment that has been made because the amendment from the Minister herself is to widen the scope of the people who are able—

What clause are you speaking to?

Sorry, I’m speaking to the amendment and the retroactivity of cutting off the claims.

Is that Part 2?

You just indicated that we were discussing the amendment in this part.

The Minister’s amendment—

The Minister’s Amendment Paper 528. I can deal with the retrospective aspect in the next part and just deal with the amendment if that’s helpful.

Yes, because retrospective—

Thank you.

—is in Part 2.

Lovely. I’m very happy to do that. We thank the Minister for making that amendment, but what it does is it captures a group of people who have got claims in the works, basically. It is a situation that seems to me to suggest that the Minister accepts it was not just to cut people off who were in that position and that there’s an acceptance that it is unjust. Presumably, they would be double-dipping too—if there was really any double-dipping going on.

I’d like the Minister in the chair to answer that question. Why has that amendment been made? Is that a concession that these people are unjustly affected in that situation? Are they—those people that are now captured, which is a slightly wider circle—also the people who are going to now double-dip? I would really like a straight answer because I’ve had no answers on double-dipping. It’s not an answer to say that this is the practice that’s been—that was a justification for it. I want to know: what’s the story? Are they actually in a situation where it will be accepted that these people will be double-dipping but that’s OK because they’ve got their process in the works and it’s down to a High Court ruling that was itself illogical; or is it, in fact, a group of people that we need to expand? In which case, I would like to know whether the Minister has considered other expansions of this group. The ones who were really vulnerable couldn’t have known that they had to make a claim, because, in fact, this happened so quickly, but there’ll be a whole group of people who are just as impacted and who don’t know. Did she consider a pathway through for those people who are in that situation now and who were impacted by that decision when she was considering this particular amendment?

I don’t want to detract from the fact that I’m happy to see an amendment on the Table that gives a few more people their rights under the law, but what was the logic for this particular carve-out? I am very keen to hear why it wasn’t applied to others and whether others were considered in the greater scheme of things. Is it an amount of people? How many people are affected? What we heard from ACC is that they were only looking at the last year and they were only looking at 50 people. Is it that it’s considered that that will help sexual assault survivors? Is there some sort of logic there, because that is the greatest number in that period and that they’re more likely to know? I’d really like to know.

Finally, just with regard to the sexual assault issue, I’d really like to know: was there a discussion with the Minister who is involved in the prevention of sexual and family violence about this impacting on people who are the victims of that violence? I’d really like to know. Was there any discussion with that Minister about the nature of this and the impact on those survivors, because she’s deeply committed to that area and is working in it? It would seem logical given the numbers, or was that sort of impact just not known to the Minister? We only found out about it after our report was done. Thank you, Minister. I really want to hear the answers to those questions.

10:28

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I’m not going to take that closure motion just yet, but it is very close.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have a very specific question around clause 7, “Schedule 3 amended”. When we’re looking at “Periods to which income (other than annual holiday pay income) relates”, I want to focus specifically on the overall section. First of all, what I would like to know, in terms of clarification, is: when we are talking about the income and particularly the extent—for example, replacement subclause (1A)(a) says, “the extent to which it was earned in that period or those periods;”. When we are looking at that, particularly in the context of ACC, is that granted income or is that payable income? Because those two things would be considered different in that context.

Now, moving on—just very quickly—to touch on replacement subsection (2), it does say that “If MSD cannot determine”, it may use other alternative measures, but I want to check that with the Minister because there’s no example given. A table of the sort that we see under (1A)(b) would have been helpful in terms of how the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) uses alternative periods or has regard to different periods in order to determine the period or periods in which an income relates if they cannot determine it. Those are my two questions, at this stage, around clause 7, “Schedule 3 amended”.

10:30

Madam Chair, thank you. I also wish to propose an amendment to Part 1, Part 7—

Clause 7.

Clause 7—thank you. It’s in regard to what my colleague here to my right touched on, in clause 7(2), replacement clause (1A)(2): “If MSD cannot determine the period”. Now, is there scope there to consider, knowing that the majority of the people—there are a large amount of Māori being impacted by this bill, and many others; there are a lot of Māori who are going to suffer by these amendments. The proposal is, in clause 7, which amends clause 13(2) of Schedule 3—on page 5, after line 29—to please input: “2(a) MSD develops an operational guidance for determining the period to which income relates in partnership with Māori, including iwi, hapū and Māori service providers.” This also ensures that partnership at that high level is implemented practically and pragmatically in law, in legislation. It allows Māori, especially iwi post-settlement, to ensure that they can act with courage, but also to take responsibility and help their whānau, which they want to do. This is really referring to ensuring that there is equity across this entire bill, and particularly in this Part 1, proposed new clause 7(2A) of Schedule 3 of the Act, in Amendment Paper 513.

10:32

I want to note that in the notification from ACC, the Ministry of Social Development always knows what period the payment relates to. ACC determines that period. In terms of the example, I had given an example earlier of where it can be difficult to determine a period—things like a series of gifts from family might be where it’s difficult to determine the period.

In terms of the paid parental leave question and the holiday pay question from Camilla Belich, paid parental leave is treated as income in the benefit system, and the bill is intended to treat holiday pay as other income, but there needs to be the bespoke provisions in here because of the nature of holiday pay, which can be earned in a different period to when it is paid.

10:33

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I have some questions on clause 7, and I will also be touching on some things that are yet to be addressed, including a couple of amendments I haven’t had a chance to speak to.

The first one is—if the Minister wouldn’t mind clarifying, on clause 7(2), replacement clause (1A)(b) of Schedule 3 of the Act—whether, in determining “the extent to which any other entitlements to it arose in, or in respect of, that period or those periods”, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) also has the opportunity to assess whether someone hadn’t received their full and legal entitlements as part of that process? I raise this because often when a case manager or case worker may be looking at someone’s entitlement, they may actually realise that someone may have been entitled to something that they haven’t received. I’m just checking whether the provisions in clause 7 are only to be used for the purposes of establishing a debt, or whether MSD could actually determine, “Hey, it turns out we should have been giving you a bunch of support that we didn’t.”, and that also gets to be addressed as part of that process.

The second one is in relation to—the Minister’s amendment touches a little bit on it, but she hasn’t addressed that, and I think clause 7 is the best place for us to potentially address it—the interactions between the mandatory reviews that are coming into place in March and how this works. Could the Minister in the chair elaborate on the mandatory review policy and the interaction with these, basically, assessments of periods to which income relates in the provisions of clause 7—whether there’s a relationship to those and whether she would like to speak to the implementation of mandatory reviews and how they interact with this bill, as proposed in her amendment. This is particularly important because, obviously, those mandatory reviews will have significant impacts on MSD staff and people on the benefit, and they are mentioned in her amendment.

There are a couple of amendments in Part 1 that I really need to speak to before we move on, because they matter to us and they matter to the people we serve. The first one is Amendment Paper 524, which I haven’t spoken to yet. Amendment Paper 524 is very specifically asking that, in clause 5, the entitlement does not relate to a sensitive claim, to survival of abuse in care, or the beneficiary having been a victim of crime. I wanted to know whether the Minister—524 is the amendment. Thank you—I appreciate the Minister checking. The reason for that is that I hear comments around how this is simply entrenching existing practice, but I guess it goes back to a question that she hasn’t engaged with from earlier—before the current Chair was in the Chamber, I believe—about whether she believed the existing practice was right. That’s why 524 is an amendment that I am proposing and that I would like to seek some engagement with.

One last thing that I haven’t had engagement from the Minister on and that I do want to reiterate to just see if the Minister would like to engage on this issue—it deeply matters to me and, I know, to other members—is the amount of debts that are established as a result of the provisions in clause 7. Would she be able to outline what some of these quite large amounts of debts are—what are we talking about? Do we have people that have debts in the amount of $30,000-plus? You know who these people are. It goes back to an earlier question I asked that has not been addressed, which is whether sensitive claimants are likely to have a greater amount of debt, and whether the Minister has that understanding or otherwise.

The reason this relates to clause 7 is because, ultimately, we’re talking about the calculation of the period of the person receiving that income and supplementary assistance in clause 7, so as part of calculating that period, we’re looking at the reality that the longer that period is, the larger the debt is also likely to be. Therefore, I want the Minister to outline which groups of people are likely to have a greater period being assessed as part of the provisions in clause 7 that may lead to them having large debts. Are those people more likely to be sensitive claimants? Again, if she would like to comment or address the range of debts that we have, particularly in the higher brackets, and what kind of level of debts we’re talking about, that would be really useful to get the Minister’s engagement on. Thank you.

10:38

I just want to clarify again that we are ensuring alignment—this bill is assuring alignment—with current policy and practice. We are not here debating whether a targeted welfare system is appropriate or not.

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 528 be agreed to.

Oriini Kaipara’s amendment inserting new clause 4AAA set out on Amendment Paper 509 is out of order as being outside the scope of the bill.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendment to clause 5 set out on Amendment Paper 524 be agreed to.

Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendment to clause 5 set out on Amendment Paper 525 is out of order as being contrary to the principles and objects of the bill.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 5 inserting subsection (1A) into new section 198A be agreed to.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 5 inserting subsection (1B) into new section 198A be agreed to.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 5 inserting subsection (2B) into new section 198A be agreed to.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 5 inserting subsection (2C) into new section 198A be agreed to.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 5 inserting subsection (3A) into new section 198A be agreed to.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 5 inserting subsection (3B) into new section 198A be agreed to.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 5 inserting subsection (3C) into new section 198A be agreed to.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 5 inserting subsection (3D) into new section 198A be agreed to.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 5 inserting subsection (3E) into new section 198A be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Willie Jackson’s tabled amendments to clause 5 inserting paragraphs (c) to (f) into new section 198A(2) and inserting subsection (4A) be agreed to.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s amendments to clause 5 set out on Amendment Paper 518 be agreed to.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s amendment to clause 5 set out on Amendment Paper 511 be agreed to.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s amendment to clause 5 set out on Amendment Paper 515 be agreed to.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s amendment to clause 5 set out on Amendment Paper 516 be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendment to clause 5 set out on Amendment Paper 526 be agreed to.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s amendment to clause 5 set out on Amendment Paper 517 be agreed to.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s amendment to clause 5 set out on Amendment Paper 519 be agreed to.

The question is that Camilla Belich’s tabled amendment to clause 5 inserting subsection (6) into new section 198A be agreed to.

Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendment to clause 5 set out on Amendment Paper 522 is out of order as being contrary to the principles and objects of the bill.

The question is that Camilla Belich’s tabled amendment to clause 6(2), deleting “or an accredited employer” from new paragraph (b), be agreed to.

Oriini Kaipara’s amendment to clause 7 set out on Amendment Paper 514 is out of order as being contrary to the principles and objects of the bill.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s amendment to clause 7 set out on Amendment Paper 513 be agreed to.

11:00

Thank you so much, Mr Chair. I want to go back to the Minister’s amendment because, at the end of the day, it touches a lot on Part 2. First of all, can I ask the Minister in the chair, in the saving provision changes that she is proposing, how much money will likely or potentially be considered as part of that, right? So we’ve got the amounts that are potentially being considered by the Social Security Appeal Authority, and now we’ve got the ones in this provision that are part of the benefits review committee. I would like to understand whether she did any work to understand how much money would be in question here.

Earlier, I actually asked a question, and I just want to triple-confirm with the Minister, because I’m particularly concerned that the answer I got given may have been incorrect. Now, if I look at page 10 of her Amendment Paper 528, the Schedule, “New Part 11 inserted into Schedule 1”, clause 108, “Effect on proceedings”, it says, “Clauses 105 to 107 apply to proceedings before a benefits review committee (BRC), the appeal authority, or a court only if those proceedings are begun on or after the changeover.”, and then it kind of talks about, in subclause (2), the same thing. Earlier, I asked about whether people who have lodged a review of decision would be captured in this, but my understanding is that the proceedings of the benefit review committees do not start, necessarily, when someone lodges a review of decision; the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) determines, after a review of decision, whether this will go to a benefit review committee. This is particularly important because during the select committee process, we did get a breakdown of how many reviews of decisions have been lodged, how many of them were waiting for a hearing, and how many were in front of the Social Security Appeal Authority. We also found out that people who were lodging these things for the purposes of challenging the dates established by this practice were waiting, on average, considerably longer than others. In her amendment, I do not see a specific reference to a review of decision.

What I am concerned about is that you have got people that would have literally filled out the form, haven’t heard back, and may be excluded by this new amendment, which, in the Minister’s own words in the second reading debate, was brought forward because of the concerns that were raised by submitters and members during the one-week select committee process. Confirmation of this is critical to understanding our support and satisfaction with this amendment and whether it generally honours the contributions by submitters. If she has excluded people who have lodged a review of decision, I would be keen to know whether the Minister’s intent would be to support any amendments presented by us to include review-of-decision documents that have been presented to MSD. Clarity over that would be useful.

I go back to my earlier question around the dollar figure that we’re talking about through the inclusion of the benefit review committees, which is the new language in the Minister’s amendments when it comes to the saving provisions.

The other thing that I wanted to understand is whether the Minister would confirm whether MSD had proactively let people know, after the High Court decision and this bill being introduced, that the existing practice was unlawful and that they could challenge it. This also has affected the number of BRCs and Social Security Appeal Authority numbers that we’re talking about in the savings provisions outlined in Part 2. Is the Minister aware whether MSD took any steps to let beneficiaries know of the High Court decision and that their practice had been unlawful and that they would be able to challenge this through any process; if not, why did MSD not let people know that the practice was unlawful and that they could be eligible to actually receive quite substantive amounts of money back? If that is the case, I wonder whether the current amendments still leave out people who would have been legally able to challenge these debts but just may not have been aware, because I would say that the layperson is not necessarily following proceedings in the High Court.

So those are my three sets of questions that I hope the Minister can engage with to a full extent.

11:06

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ll just confirm what I said to the member’s question regarding the provisions, the amendment, and the expanded provisions. For avoidance of all doubt: they are reviews that are filed with the benefits review committee, including those at the internal review stage, so there is no doubt they are those that are filed.

The Ministry of Social Development have undertaken some very high-level costings based on the reassessment for the first 39 people, and anticipate that these expanded savings will cost an additional $2.1 million to expand the savings provision to another 91 people. So that’s, at a very high level, the cost of the expansion of the Amendment Paper.

What’s the figure?

Mr Chair?

Camilla Belich.

Sorry, I don’t think the member heard: $2.1 million.

11:07

Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s good to be able to take a call in Part 2, which, obviously, does cover some significant parts of this Act. I think it is important to note that although there has been a policy rationale articulated by the Minister in relation to this particular bill, and the rationale for the retrospective nature of this bill, the fact is that the High Court has determined that with the legislation as it applies in New Zealand at the moment, and since the passage of the primary legislation in 2018, it would have been possible to change the law in order to be consistent with the objectives of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and the policy that that wanted to implement, without having a retrospective element to this bill. It could have been a decision that the Government made in relation to these transitional provisions and commencement, which are in the Schedule, “New Part 11 inserted into Schedule 1”, clause 104 to actually have this bill apply to future events and to change the law to align with policy of the future.

This is an important point, because, essentially, what we’re having here at the moment is the Government saying that there are a certain set of rules that applied at the time that these particular payments were made and that we’re going to go back in time and we are today going to change those rules so that different rules apply. So things that were done in good faith over that time can be covered. I think this is a fundamental point of Part 2.

Although we’ve heard from the Minister, repeatedly, that this is no change to the current practice of MSD, there is a way that the Government could have put forward a bill which did not have this element of retrospectivity whilst making the position consistent. I think the committee deserves to know the rationale for that. I would imagine that it is partly due to the cost of that, and we’ve got some exclusions to that, and the Minister’s Amendment Paper is relevant to this because this does expand the group of people who would not have these rules apply to them. But we need to hear the policy rationale for that. As we know, retrospective legislation is not the norm in this House. I’ve read the Attorney-General’s New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet, which I don’t feel sufficiently addressed—it certainly didn’t find that there was a breach. But also, at the time—and I think this is important—she didn’t have the information available to her on the types of people impacted by this bill, and, as we’ve said, those are mainly women and mainly people who are victims of assault and of sensitive claims. This is a serious matter, and the retrospectivity of this means we could be going back some time.

I want to know from the Minister the rationale in relation to this section, and also if she’s had any advice as to the period of time that this would actually apply for this policy: will there be people who received these payments in 2018—who will actually be going back that far—who will be impacted by this? I do have an amendment on the Table, but I may wait to see what the Minister says in relation to the policy justification before going over it. I do think that it is a serious decision to bring retrospective legislation to the House. It is something that is out of the norm, and it does require good policy rationale in order to justify it.

11:11

I want to look further at the issue of retrospectivity, because it is so unusual that we do that in this House—for good reason. I’m looking at clause 106 in particular, “Validation of certain pre-commencement decisions”. We’re validating the law, as I understand it. We’re validating the practice over what the law has found is unlawful behaviour in that situation. I would love to know what the rationale is, but I’d also like to talk about the practicalities of that. I suspect the rationale is that there’s a lot of administration involved in going back.

For the benefit of the public, this is a situation where the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has been clawing back, for many years, moneys from beneficiaries that have been paid out, and they’ve been doing it unlawfully. They shouldn’t have been taking the money that is those extra payments; they were only entitled, as I understand it, to take the main benefit. They’ve been taking real money off real people, and today what we’re doing is saying that was OK regardless of their circumstances and impact. I would really like to know whether the Minister, faced with the fact that it was going to be hard to go back and repay people what should never have been taken off them under the law, has thought about some practical ways around that that might narrow the number of claimants.

For example, we could have looked at people who had a lot of money taken off them. We could have gone to the ones that had had a significant amount—so, say, over $5,000 or $10,000. We could have just looked at them and ring-fenced them so that we were narrowing the amount of work to be done, but we would recognise that that’s a significant amount of money that had been unlawfully taken off people. I’d love to know whether any work was done in terms of looking at it in terms of the wood for the trees—so not looking at every claim, but could we have looked at those big amounts where there’s been a clawback? We must know what the clawback was already. That doesn’t seem to be that hard a thing to find out.

Then I wondered, also, whether we could have done that with regard to our most vulnerable—if we looked at people who have been, for example, on a benefit for a long time, or for the duration of the period. Those are the people who haven’t necessarily been rehabilitated in the time. Could we have excluded them and paid them? What we seem to have done is chosen a group of people who are probably our most well-informed, who have got on to it and have lodged a review in the process. That seems to me to be inherently unequal, because they are not necessarily the people who have suffered the most damage. I genuinely want to know whether that is something that the Minister would be prepared to do, and how that stacks up against the usual caution about retroactivity.

I would also like to know whether there was any liaison with ACC over these issues, because it really concerned me, in the discussion that I had with MSD advisers during the select committee process, that when we asked about that, it seemed as if the operation of MSD and ACC were acting in silo. Over something like this, how much discussion was there with ACC about the practicalities of that?

We also have got rid of what used to be there in the law, which was a catch-all, which was the Judicature Act’s savings clause. It basically said, under that Act, that if you’d spent money in good faith, there wasn’t a capacity to claim it back, and that has been part of our law since, I think, 1908. It was in statutory form. It is an equitable principle. I don’t want to keep going beyond these points except to say, can I just check in: given that that check and balance was gone, the Judicature Act, and there’s not really an equivalent any more, was it something that was considered?

Then, finally, I want to go to the point of a window for the claims. We’ve heard that we’ve decided what claims were in as of the date, and this definitely goes to the retroactive nature of it. What was wrong with having a window for claims that said, “We’re on notice now that this is going to change. But if you have a claim, and you could have done that in combination with the significant nature of the amount—if you have a claim that you think is over $10,000 or $5,000—then you have six months to get your review in.”? That would have been an opportunity to get the most important cases through. I want to know: was that considered, having a window rather than slamming the door shut with no notice, and particularly in combination with retroactivity? Thank you. I’d be very keen to hear the answers to this question, Minister.

11:18

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ve got a relatively technical question, and I am just mindful that the Minister in the chair is engaging with her officials. OK, cool, awesome.

Just on Part 11 of Schedule 1, does the entitlement in clause 105(3)—this is page 8, if we’re looking, for example, at the Minister’s amendment, which means the whole bill. I’m looking at wanting to know whether the provisions in there include an entitlement to “treatment or rehabilitation” or simply “weekly compensation”. Then I want to know how this relates to the provisions in Part 1, particularly new section 198A, which doesn’t just include income replacement but also includes disability allowance and other treatment and rehabilitation-related needs. Basically, the question here is: is the intent of the bill simply about requiring repaying injury-related needs from people from weekly compensation or not?

These are two quite different things, right? There’s the loss of weekly earnings that are compensated through the payment, but also there’s a cost of rehabilitation, which I think is really specific support that is unlocked by ACC. I’m particularly concerned as to whether the intent is to—I know we gave an example in the bill.

It says literally, for example, an entitlement to weekly loss of earning compensation, but there’s no mention of rehabilitation, and I want to understand whether that was the intent or otherwise, and if it isn’t the case to include the cost of rehabilitation, whether she would then allow people to be able to have access to those and for those to not be affected by the clawbacks.

One of the things that I am also particularly interested in, and I haven’t had engagement with the Minister on, is on the range of debts imposed by Part 2. There hasn’t been engagement on the upper end of debts that are imposed and who is particularly affected. I’ve continuously sought engagement from the Minister on this and haven’t been able to get an engagement or answer from her on it. The reason for the question, I’ll reiterate, is that I am particularly concerned that the higher end of these debts are likely to be carried by women who are sexual violence survivors. I do think this is such a delicate and important point that we need to have engagement to traverse, and it relates to the savings provisions in Part 2.

I know that in the select committee period, we had a bit of—we know that there are debts that are over $30,000, which is substantive for someone on a low wage or a low income. Debt of $30,000 is significant—life-changing, even, I would say. But what the Minister hasn’t given us clarity on is whether she believes that these debts are more likely to be carried by sexual violence survivors or otherwise.

So, once again, clarity over, basically, new section 105(3), inserted by clause 8, in relationship to the cost of rehabilitation—clarity around that as well as the sort of higher-end debts and whether these are likely to be carried by sexual violence survivors would be useful to have clarity on.

As I said, this is a sensitive issue that I do think requires addressing from the Minister, and I just think I’m not satisfied by just saying that, well, this is just confirming existing practice. This is in some ways the ability for us to ascertain whether the existing practice is harming people who have been trying to seek recourse from traumatic and incredibly traumatic things.

One thing that I also didn’t get engagement on and I want to go back to the Minister on is whether she’s aware whether the Ministry of Social Development considered sending or even did send communications following the High Court decision letting people know that they would be able to challenge this decision through the review-of-decision process. The reason why I asked this is she gave us a number, the number of people in the benefit review committees (BRCs), but that’s a very low number compared to the 37,500 people affected by this bill. I believe this number of reviews of decisions and BRCs would have been higher if communications had been sent, and this is why I want to know whether, at any point, communications had been sent.

Again, we could have traversed this in the select committee process, but we had one week. It was rushed. We didn’t even have the Minister, so this is the one opportunity we have to seek clarity from her on these issues. Thank you.

11:23

Thank you, Mr Chair. There’s been a number of questions around the retrospective nature of the bill. The key reason behind this is the fact that the bill is reflecting the operation of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) with regard to policy intent. This has been their operating intent, and it has been aligned with the policy intent, and therefore it’s appropriate that this be upheld both retrospectively and prospectively.

If it wasn’t, we’d be looking at substantial inequities arising between ACC clients who have received welfare entitlements. The bill does save those small cohort of cases who have been under review, and that’s appropriate. It ensures that legislation doesn’t interfere with those particular cases, but they are a very small number of cases. The reason for the retrospectivity of it is that it’s important to ensure that the fairness occurs outside of that very small cohort that are currently before review.

In terms of the interaction between MSD and ACC, MSD worked with ACC throughout the select committee process and they engaged on all the relevant questions that have been asked.

Just noting with regard to the question from the Green Party member about rehabilitation requirements, that responsibility sits with ACC. This bill is about clarifying how income from ACC is treated in the welfare system.

11:25

Thank you, Mr Chair. I do thank the Minister in the chair for engaging in some of that discussion around retrospectivity, because it is very, very important and significant in this bill. A slightly different matter that hasn’t been specifically addressed by the Minister is in relation to the changeover date, which is in Part 11. Actually, it was quite difficult when I was doing amendments on this section because it’s a schedule—new Part 11—inserting new clause 104, and then the definition of “changeover”. The reason that that’s particularly interesting and I think deserves comment is this changeover date puts in place a date which I think reflects the time that this bill was introduced to the House. It does make it retrospective, but it is a more unusual form of retrospectivity because it’s actually picking a time that doesn’t coincide with commencement or Royal assent, but simply when this bill became publicly available.

I would like to hear the Minister specifically on that changeover date and why in fact it was necessary to, effectively, prevent those people who may have had claims once this decision was made giving any period of time at all that was prior to the introduction of this bill. That is particularly unusual to have that changeover date there and something that the Minister could change. I think an even fairer change would be along with the introduction of this bill—so whether the Minister would consider an amendment in relation to that; I think that is particularly important to try and make sure that we do have this addressed.

Additionally, the bill, in this part, as it applies to the transitions, puts into place the Minister’s amendment. For the purpose of this, I’m actually looking at the Amendment Paper, which has been lodged in the House as a fully amended bill. I’m imagining that because we agreed to the Amendment Paper in the last section, even though this is in Part 2, these are already in place. I’m discussing the relevant parts of the Minister’s amendment with reference to the Minister’s Amendment Paper 528. The Minister’s Amendment Paper looks at—and we agree with this, and I think all parties of the House have supported it—the inclusion of the benefits review claimants and the people who are excluded from the effect of this bill. The question I wanted to ask the Minister in respect of the benefits review committee is: is she aware or has she sought advice from officials on whether there are people who may have had a claim declined by the benefits review committee or otherwise dealt with in a way that didn’t fully recognise their entitlement?

The reason that this is an important question is because this is a retrospective bill, and because people who are now—and, we agree, should be—excluded from it are covered by the people who have been in the benefits review committee. Are there people whose cases have been discharged who are excluded from this, and who, in fairness, should be included within the exclusion? The only reason that they would not be is because they were faster and more efficient at asking and inquiring to the benefits review committee around the status of their case. That would also apply to people who had cases in the courts, but we know that that will be a much smaller number of people and that will be most likely because we’ve had the High Court decision. There’s usually a greater degree of consistency required within those types of arguments. That’s quite a specific question, but one that I think should be addressed.

11:30

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just noting, again, some points on the retrospective nature of the bill. The bill, of course, is ensuring—as we’ve said many times—that policy intent and practice is upheld, both going back and going forward, and it’s to ensure that policy and practice is upheld for as many people as possible, apart from that savings provision of that small cohort of people that are in active dispute.

I think we’ve made it very clear: yes, the changeover is 2 p.m. on the date of the bill being introduced. That isn’t the standard approach but there is a very clear reason why there is the need for retrospectivity on this bill, because we need to ensure that current policy and current practice is upheld for as many people as possible. In terms of the claims declined around that very small number, I’ll ask the officials to give me some additional information.

I’d just make the point at the moment that we are sort of covering one aspect of this, which is fine—seeking points—but when each of the presentations is taking the full five minutes, it does sort of influence the Chair on whether the next person will get the call or not. The whole idea of committee stage, of course, is to explore.

11:31

Thank you. Mr Chair. I would like to speak to my amendment, and this is specifically for clause 105(1) of the schedule. I’m coming at this from a completely different angle, which is from a taxation angle. The reason I bring forward this amendment, which is to say that subclause (1)(a) and (b) are not applicable to any specified benefit or specified supplementary assistance granted payable prior to 1 April 2024—there’s a reason for that.

Previously, ACC arrears covering multiple years were taxed at a higher rate, which is up to 37 percent. That would have applied if ACC compensation had been paid on a weekly basis, starting from the original date of the injury. But the problem with that is that, at a higher rate, a claimant could possibly lose all of the entitlement, for example, to Working for Families tax credits for the year in which they received ACC arrears, and a significant portion of the arrears was lost to tax and related liabilities that way.

So this particular aspect of the tax treatment of ACC arrears was changed in sections 57, 59, and 62 of the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023-24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill, which introduces new provisions to the Income Tax Act 2007. But this took effect on 1 April 2024. So, for claimants who will receive the ACC arrears prior to the day and did not have the benefit of the amendment, the bill presents additional unfairness where they are taxed at a higher rate for their ACC arrears, as well as having the clawback we’re seeing in this particular bill, which then means that when we’re looking at this bill, my amendment is simply just to say to ease some of those unfairnesses, we’re looking at those ones simply granted after 1 April 2024.

I guess the question comes down to three parts. The first part: it is likely for those people who are also up before the 2024 date where there is a higher taxation being placed on that, they may very well receive very little in terms of ACC arrears, which means that it’s better for them not to receive the ACC arrears because they’re going to be further in debt. So the first question to the Minister is: how many people would have had more debt accrued than what the ACC arrears present post-tax?

My second question is around whether the Minister would consider this amendment which corrects that potential level of unfairness. Those are my only two questions.

11:34

Thank you. The Minister in the chair has now repeatedly talked about how this is longstanding practice, and I want to examine that statement in terms of the evidence she has for that because I have seen no evidence of that practice being something that is reflected in the law.

So here we have a legal decision which says this is what the legislature said that the bill would do, and we have an assertion that the practice is the way it is because it’s consistent with the law, as I understand it, and yet the two are at odds here. So what I want to know is: did the Minister get advice as to whether the Ministry of Social Development genuinely thought they were abiding by the law in this practice? Is there any connection there? To say it’s a practice, if it’s a practice of chopping people’s heads off when the law says you can’t, doesn’t really cut it. We need to know what the basis is for this being a bona fide practice rather than getting wrong the intent of the legislature.

I would say that’s a fundamental question. So repeating it’s a longstanding practice isn’t going to cut it; what’s the evidence of that practice being bona fide in that way, and what kind of advice has the Minister had on the justice of that, in light of the intention of the legislature? Did they look at the Hansard, for example, from the time when the bill came in and say, “OK, this is what the legislature did mean to happen; we just wrote it down wrong.”? That would be the kind of thing that I’d expect rather than just saying it is as it is.

Then I have a couple of other questions. One is: in terms of claims for delay, you will recall I talked about how I was worried about the risk that an accredited employer might take advantage of the situation and delay things. Well, it’s also true that delay is something that has always been a worry with regard to accredited employers, and that there has been an advantage taken. So would a claimant who had had their claim delayed in a calculated way because this was the practice and the accredited employer didn’t have to pay as much if they delayed the claim—if there is evidence of that kind of practice occurring, which has been a worry for my colleagues in the law for some time, is this law going to stop any case that says that someone has deliberately or in negligence delayed a case, and it has caused loss? Because I would say that in a normal legal setting, you would be able to take that case on the basis of there being a negligent act or a deliberate act to stop.

Are we doing that here? Are we saying no claims whatsoever; you can’t have any remedy? Is that what the Minister intends to do, and is that what is happening here? The next bit is the claims against ACC itself. I have not yet had any clarification about why ACC doesn’t pass over to the recipient—to the claimant who’s successful—the kinds of payments they would have had in the default. They’ve missed a lot of those opportunities. Why does that not happen? In which case, is there still here a claim possible against ACC? Does the Minister intend to stop that happening by this retroactive Act, or is that still possible?

Those are three concrete questions. I actually have had very few answers to my questions so far, and I’d be really appreciative of some of those sorts of answers. Thank you, Mr Chair.

11:39

With regard to the very specific question around those people who have had a claim declined and will they be captured or not, the amendment is very clear that the savings provision applies to all live cases, either with the review and with the benefits review committee, the Social Security Appeal Authority, or the courts, at the changeover date. It is clear that they must be live cases.

In terms of Helen White’s assertions, this has been practice that has been operational practice by the Ministry of Social Development. It is the policy intent of the legislation, and it aligns with that overall principle of a targeted welfare system, where the more income you earn, the less assistance you receive from the State. I don’t believe that we are here to debate that matter.

11:40

Thank you so much, Mr Chair. I just want to raise some issues that I haven’t had engagement with, and then I’ll move on to some new material.

I’m interested in still knowing about the communications side from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and whether that was considered after the High Court decision, because that would have affected or may give us information as to why we have the number of benefit review committees and Social Security Appeal Authority appeals that we have.

The other thing that I wanted to ask, and this is specifically something the Minister in the chair mentioned in her previous answer—she mentioned that there was engagement with ACC as part of the select committee process. She said that explicitly. I would like to know whether there was engagement in the development of the bill. We would know this from a regulatory impact statement, but we don’t know. What kind of engagement did she have in relationship to, for example, the savings provisions with ACC in the development of the bill specifically?

I also wanted to speak to—and this is new material, Mr Chair, but it does relate to the Working for Families entitlements that are affected due to the interaction between the tax system and these debts and back payments, etc. Does the Minister know how many people may have lost their entitlement to Working for Families historically over the period that this unlawful practice was happening? If anyone lost their entitlements for Working for Families, does she have concerns that this actually may go contrary to the intent of the Working for Families policy of incentivising and supporting people into employment? Therefore, does she think that the interaction between the bill, which is legalising practice, whether it’s right or wrong; obviously, there’s different views between party lines—but whether she thinks that the existing practice may have actually undermined the intent of the Working for Families policy?

I also want to know, again, whether she had any information on—and this is something that I have tried to seek engagement with. She talked about the lump-sum debts but didn’t really engage on the sort of weekly repayments that would, obviously, be affected by the savings provisions. What is the higher-end percentile, the top 10 percentile, of weekly repayments that people would be experiencing? For example, would this be larger than, say, the weekly amount one could get with the winter energy payment? This also helps us ascertain whether these debts are putting people into hardship or otherwise. We do not know, have not had engagement with the Minister, on the weekly repayment rates that come as a result of this. I’m particularly interested in the top 10 percentile, because the top 10 percentile often tells us where discretion has been used in a way that often does negatively impact people.

The other thing that I want to know is whether she has any information about the employment status of the 37,500 people following these debts being established and whether they went on to continue being on a benefit after receiving the ACC support or whether they were adequately rehabilitated to the point of being able to return to the workforce. The reason why I ask this—this is new material, and this is MSD’s responsibility to have those statistics—is because if the ACC back payment is to support people to rehabilitate themselves to re-enter the workforce, but then there’s a debt established which negatively affects the person, negatively affects their financial position, that may negatively impact their ability to re-enter the workforce. Does she have any information to ascertain this? At the end of the day, the outcomes for the people affected by this bill deeply, deeply matter in relationship to whether we or other parties support it or otherwise.

Information around the interactions of how many people have lost their Working for Families entitlements, how many people have re-entered the workforce after these debts or have ended up staying on a benefit, whether communications have been sent by MSD to people following the High Court decisions and prior to this bill being introduced, and the top 10 percentile are things that I’m yet to get engagement from the Minister. That is new material. Thank you very much.

11:45

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just a couple of questions that were really specific that I want to give some feedback on. One, with regard to ACC and Ministry of Social Development (MSD) consultation outside the select committee process, I can confirm that there was consultation throughout the process of developing the bill, so not just the select committee process.

With regard to communications from MSD to clients regarding the High Court decision following the ministry’s acceptance of the High Court ruling in November 2025, MSD’s immediate priority was to engage with the clients who had active cases before the High Court or Social Security Appeal Authority. At that time, there were three that had pending High Court decisions and 36 with the Social Security Appeal Authority.

11:46

Thank you, Mr Chair, and thanks to the Minister in the chair for her engagement on this issue. I wanted to just clarify the answer that she had given me on the fact that the savings provisions only applied to live cases with either the committee or with the courts. I just wanted to get some assurances that the people who actually took the case to the High Court—that would be considered a not live case under this bill, so I just wanted to get some reassurance that those people would not in fact have these debts retrospectively put back on them, considering they were the ones who first took this case and would successfully be able to have a ruling in the High Court. I would imagine that these would be the very people who the savings provisions would want to save and protect—and, if not, whether those people will be disadvantaged by this legislation. I think that’s an important point in terms of how the savings provisions apply.

Then just to raise a few issues which haven’t yet been covered in relation to clause 107, inserted into Schedule 1 by Amendment Paper 528. This also relates to contrary decisions, but I think it’s a new point and not a clause that we’ve referenced specifically in this debate so far. This is quite an unusual clause, because it specifically states that contrary decisions are overridden, and that appears to me to be a statement in relation to existing articulation of law either in the appeal authority, the Social Security Appeal Authority, or in the court.

Then, relatively unusually in the way that this is drafted, there are three cases mentioned. I wanted to check those examples, that that’s not an exclusive list—because it says “examples”, so I’m assuming that that’s not an exclusive list. But does this clause have any effect following the passage of this Act? What I mean is: is this purely to retrospectively state that the law as it is now is what’s currently in the new bill, and then will this clause 107, effectively, be redundant as it has overridden the existing case law?

I assume that the reason for these examples is that there will be more cases that could have been listed, but for—I don’t know—practical reasons or not wanting to miss one out, that was listed. Is this purely an issue to do with the law prior to its commencement, and moving forward will this not override any further decisions? Of course, there could be appeals in the Social Security Appeal Authority around this legislation on different points of law. I think that’s quite an important point. Hopefully, I articulated that in a way that the Minister or advisers can provide an answer to. I’m really wanting a response on the people that took the case to the High Court, and are they being sufficiently considered with the savings provision because of what the previous Minister in the chair had said, and the future impact of clause 107?

11:50

Thank you, Mr Chair. I can confirm that the person who took the case is in scope of the savings.

In terms of your other question around the structure of this legislation, we’ve taken great care to try and not introduce new risk. Those sorts of things have been carefully considered. One of the things that is important in this legislation is to make it clear that where there has been an overpayment, that is what is being addressed, irrespective of what form of income came in to mean that there is an overpayment. We’ve been very careful not to create additional risk in drafting this legislation.

11:51

Thank you. I want to take the Minister in the chair up on that opportunity to talk about what that overpayment looks like. We have a whole lot of people who are being cut off retrospectively. I’m mindful that we’re in this part of the Act, but I’m also mindful that the Minister did answer questions in the House yesterday where she talked about equity. That’s actually one of the things that is supposed to be the intention of this part, as much as I understand it as the entire bill. It’s supposed to prevent inequities.

What I’d like to know from the Minister is: is she confident that what she is doing prevents inequities? If I give an example of somebody who is cut off from making a claim when we pass this legislation, who has been subject to a sensitive claim, it’s taken five years for them to go through that process. They have received the main benefit in that time. That is not in dispute. That is a definite double-dip, because you’re getting a benefit and you’re getting the 80 percent. So they had that taken out of the money that they’ve got by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and ACC in consultation before they receive anything. Then they receive what’s left over and out of that comes a claim from MSD—there has been a claim for everything that they have got in their 80 percent, because it is to offset costs in the situation that have been addressed by MSD; so things like energy payments, counselling, etc.

If those amounts have been taken away from them and somebody else who had a broken arm has not had any of that money taken away—they’ve received all of the ACC system through it—how is it equitable to cut them off from what the court has said was an unlawful recovery of the money that MSD has clawed back? They would be significantly better off if there was no retroactivity, because they could make a claim for the money that’s been clawed back, and they get the balance of the 80 percent after the main benefit. That would be their position.

They would be in the same position, then—actually, not as good a position as somebody whose claim was accepted straight away because they would have had more; we know from the evidence before the select committee, they would have received a lot more assistance, because ACC is a better system in many ways; it’s not as bare bones. How can the Minister justify that? I would like an answer. Does she actually think that that person I’ve just described has double-dipped in some way that it justifies the recovery of those payments; or is it just a fanatical adherence to the idea of income and a siloing of income from the ACC system?

MSD has an idea of what income is and it will not look beyond it. It will not look to equity. That’s what we’re really doing today. We’re not looking at equity. How does she actually reconcile the purpose with this retroactive claw-back confirmation—it’s OK, MSD took all this money off you, and you got nothing: how is that OK? How does that reconcile with the purpose?

I am really interested in her answer on this, because I was concerned in the House yesterday, when she was answering questions about inequity, that the Minister did not understand that this is not a double-dip—that these people are having money taken off them. The only people who are double-dipping are ACC, who are not paying all that money across. They are the benefiters, and now accredited employers, who when they delay matters, have benefited significantly financially. I would like those issues addressed from the Minister. I’m grateful that she’s here in the chair on this bill. Thank you.

11:56

I’m reluctant to say much on this, because I know much of it’s been covered already in the debate. Let me just say this: the welfare system of income support considers a person’s circumstances and their need for an income for a period of time. That is how it works. That is quite separate from the ACC system.

If a person received income—for example, an investment income—it would be charged over that period. If it then meant over that period of time someone had received an overpayment of support based on their income for that period of time, the same rules would apply. This is when we talk about equity. That is exactly what this bill is doing. Irrespective of what the source of income is, it needs to be treated fairly. New Zealanders need to know that the welfare system is based on income support for people when it is needed based on their income; all sources of income, not just some.

11:57

Thank you, Mr Chair. That’s actually quite a useful contribution from the Minister in the chair to engage with, because this goes contrary to what the High Court actually found, which was that these payments were not so much deemed as overpayments, but they were there because people needed it.

Can I get confirmation from the Minister as to whether the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) provides comparable assistance for things like rehabilitation that ACC can provide? Secondly, she talks a lot about fairness and inequity in referring to this bill, but isn’t it the case that an existing inequity in the system is how long, for example, sensitive claims take to process? Comparing the people who have to wait, often, years to get their claims with people who may be able to get their claims more promptly, for, say, things like a rugby injury, is just simply not comparable. I would like to get the engagement of the Minister: when she talks about fairness and inequities, who is genuinely losing out if we didn’t have these debts—who would be negatively materially impacted if we didn’t have these debts imposed directly to people because of the assistance that they receive?

Now, one thing that I didn’t get engagement whatsoever from the Minister on is how many people have lost their Working for Families eligibility from this. Again, we haven’t had engagement from the Minister on this, on the number of people—the number of people—who have lost their Working for Families eligibility because of the interaction between the tax system and the auditor’s reports. Now, the Working for Families package is within the remit of this Minister, and I would like to know whether that was something she had explored in relation to this, because this goes back to an amendment that my colleague Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan made. I will pose those two questions to the Minister.

The third one is: why did the Minister—the previous Minister in the chair talked about how communications were only sent to people who had cases in the Social Security Appeal Authority, I believe in the High Court, when the decision in the High Court was made. But why did she not send communications to the 37,500 people who had debts so that they could actually challenge these after these debts were found to be unlawful? Why did she remain quiet to tens of thousands of people whose debts were unlawful, and not choose to actually send any communications to let them know of the decision so that they could challenge it? Otherwise, the handful of cases that did make it to the Social Security Appeal Authority would have only been because they were able to often engage with expert advocates for lawyers. If she would be able to justify why only a narrow set of people got communications from MSD after their practice of putting these debts was found to be unlawful, it would be really beneficial for the debate and to get clarity as we head to the next reading.

Just for members’ awareness, the issue around retrospectivity and policy intent has been well canvassed—I’ve just been talking with the Clerks. Just to let people know that that has been well covered. There was an issue raised around Working for Families which I believe is yet to be addressed, but we’ll now go to Rachel Brooking.

Point of order. Thank you. What is your approach, Mr Chair, in relationship to the Minister for Social Development and Employment bringing new material herself to the debate, and us engaging with that new material that she is bringing? The Minister is making some new points in her contributions, and it makes it hard for us, then feeling like we cannot engage with those.

Well, it has to be within the context of the bill. If I can encourage members to keep their questions within that framework, that would be useful—the Hon Rachel Brooking.

12:01

Thank you, Mr Chair. My questions are not policy questions; they are just questions about the mechanics of the drafting. They relate to the Schedule, new clauses 107 and 108 and the definitions in 104. I’m interested in this term “proceedings”.

Before I get to that, I just want to note that my colleague Camilla Belich was speaking on clause 107(2), which is “Examples of contrary decisions”, including—and there’s some listed there. I think it would be helpful to have in the Hansard why it is that these specific cases have been chosen to be included in the bill, because that just is unusual drafting. Again, that’s not a policy point.

Then, in Amendment Paper 528, I want to look at “Effect on proceedings”, new clause 108, inserted by the Schedule. Subclauses (1) and (2) separate—“depending if proceedings have begun on or after the changeover.” That’s that 2 p.m. time; if it’s at 2 p.m. or after, that’s the changeover. Then subclause (2) is for the ones begun after: “Proceedings before a benefits review committee, the appeal authority, or a court that are begun, whether or not they are finally determined”. I’m just checking this wording of “whether or not they are finally determined (including any rehearing, retrial, or appeal), before the changeover—”.

I’ll tell you why I’m asking this question: those words are also found in clause 107(1), which is about the proceedings: “whether or not they are finally determined”. My question is just to clarify that link. If a proceeding is started in one tribunal and then it is appealed and goes through different courts, then—this is what I’m wanting confirmation of—the proceeding; that is how this legislation works. It’s because those words about the continuation don’t appear to be in the definition of “proceedings”, but then they do appear in clauses 108 and 107. Would it be simpler if they were, in fact, in the definition: that the proceeding is where it starts and where it continues on to higher jurisdictions? Why it’s not in the definition but it is in clauses 107 and 108—that’s my question.

12:04

Firstly, the question on Working for Families: the Ministry of Social Development is not responsible for assessing entitlement; that’s Inland Revenue.

In terms of the question around the examples, that is just giving a couple of examples of the decisions, not all of them.

In terms of the question around the proceedings, that is just to provide clarity that, for those that have begun proceedings, they will be progressed until their completion, and Amendment Paper 528 includes those that are at benefit review decision.

Thank you to the Minister for Social Development and Employment. I don’t intend to take a full call; I just was going to ask a similar question to my colleague the Hon Rachel Brooking, but then wanted to wait to hear the Minister in the chair’s answer.

Just for the Hansard and just to clarify that we’ve got this exactly clear: if there is a case in the Social Security Appeal Authority which is saved by the savings provision and if that case then goes on and is successful, then that person would not have their debt recovered if it’s on this point—presumably, that it covers all the other points—and that would not interact, then, with the point in new clause 107 of Schedule 1, inserted by the Schedule, where they’d be overridden. So they’d be able to, essentially, carry on with their case as if this bill had not been passed, and if they’re successful, then they would receive a decision, which would be up to the Social Security Appeal Authority, leaving the courts aside. Maybe in this one instance they were unsuccessful, though; then they would presumably have been unsuccessful under the previous interpretation anyway and so would also just be at the mercy of the Social Security Appeal Authority.

I know it’s quite a technical question, and I’m sure that the Minister and officials know the answer to this, but just so we’re exactly clear on those, especially as the amendment has not been able to be scrutinised in the select committee process, just working out exactly where those individuals will end up.

12:06

I want to thank the member Camilla Belich, who raised the question, for her engagement on this bill. One of the things that we are wanting to preserve for anyone who is at any stage of the appeal process, that has raised a concern that is in a review of decision with a benefits review committee or the Social Security Appeal Authority or further up, their cases will proceed. That was to, basically, recognise that from the date of introduction, anything that was already in a process prior to that point can run its course.

12:07

In relationship to her Amendment Paper 528—this is new material, but it relates to her amendment to broaden the scope to people going through the benefits review committee (BRC) process and review of decision, and on top of the Social Security Appeal Authority. Will the Minister for Social Development and Employment explore additional resources for people undergoing those processes so that they’re supported to not be retraumatised by it, in acknowledgment that many of them would have been survivors of horrific experiences? I’m just interested to know if, as part of the amendment that she brought forward, she’s intending to have any additional resources for people undergoing those processes who may be survivors of abuse in care or sexual violence.

I ask this because the BRC process is often quite stacked against beneficiaries: it’s two Ministry of Social Development (MSD) people and one community person—they, in my view, often side with MSD. It can be a really daunting process for people to undergo without, say, lawyers or advocates. Is the Minister—now that, in her amendment, she’s broadening the scope of who will be covered in the savings provisions—also intending to allocate any resources so that no one is retraumatised by the experience of being able to prevent those debts being imposed, and, if not, does she think this is something worth exploring to make sure that the people who she’s now including in the settings provisions can actually undergo these processes in a way that does not create further harm or trauma?

All right. I’m still waiting for engagement on the number of people who may have lost their eligibility to Working for Families. I would lodge for the debate to close—I would hope that maybe the Minister is looking at some documents in relationship to it to ascertain that figure. I don’t know what the Minister feels like in relationship to my colleague Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s amendment—if we’re not able to ascertain those interactions within the taxes and the eligibility for Working for Families that these back payments can create.

I also want to get engagement on the top 10 percentile of the weekly repayment rates, that I haven’t had engagement on. I just want to reiterate those. I know the Minister has engaged with us, but I just wanted to note and put it in the Hansard that that engagement has just been a repetition of the intent of the policy, which makes it hard for us to engage in some of the substance of those kind of more granular bits of this bill.

Lastly, out of the people who she has now expanded the scope on around the BRCs and review of decisions in relation to the savings provisions, does she have any information in relation to whether they’re in employment or receiving income support at the moment, and, if so, does she know whether any of them have any disabilities that may require them to receive additional support—not just to not be re-traumatised as part of the process, but to just make sure that the process is accessible to them? Like I said, the BRC process that she’s now including in her amendment often includes people having to prepare a humongous amount of documentations before those hearings. If she is aware that any of them have disabilities that would require additional support to make sure that they can go through the process in a way that it is fair—whether she has identified that in the preparation on the amendment that seeks to include a few dozen additional people into the saving provisions following the select committee process. So some engagement on that would be deeply appreciated.

I’d also like to know how organisations like Community Law Centres Aotearoa will have to engage on this process, and perhaps if the Minister is not tapping into resources to make this process accessible, whether that will have to be footed by front-line organisations supporting those very same survivors.

12:11

I move, That debate on this question now close.

We’ll go to Helen White, but just to reiterate, we don’t want more discussions on policy intent, retrospectivity, and those sort of things. So very specific clauses with new material would be appreciated.

This follows on from something that Ricardo Menéndez March has raised about those who are included within the capture of the savings of this and how we best expedite those cases. Did the Minister for Social Development and Employment consider streamlining those cases basically through a mediation process? That would be a faster way of dealing with those matters. I’ve never really had an answer from the Minister on why those people who are part of that category are more equitable than the group beyond it.

I just wanted to also mention that those questions that I asked about the scope of this cut off in terms of what other avenues people might have—so I talked about the delay—they’ve never been answered, and they’re actually really important for the lawyers looking at the Hansard, so that they can see what the intention of the Minister was, whether it was intended that this cut off, and the words seem to cut off the right to take any claim for any reason. So would it be possible for those people to take a claim if they had a legitimate other course of action in that way?

Those are real questions and if you don’t answer them, Minister, then it leaves us in a position where lawyers will be litigating on whether they can do that. So it’s really important we know what the extent of the intention is in this situation. I would be very keen on knowing plainly where people stand in that situation, and I would thank the Minister for answers.

12:13

A specialist team at the Ministry for Social Development and Employment has been set up to work through the reassessments for this group.

Given the nature and the gravity of the impacts that we are debating here in the Chamber to do with this bill, part of the discussion points that Te Pāti Māori has put forward to the Minister’s select committee and gone through this process in 109—which does not exist. But that is my question to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: is there scope to make an allowance for us to revisit this, knowing this is detrimental? There are severe impacts that could worsen the crisis amongst our whānau. We’re not just referring to welfare but the need for supplementary supports for whānau Māori is real. So the question to the Minister is: is there scope to allow for a review of this part of this bill in one year’s time—an allowance for this House to repeal this part of the bill should it not give effect to the original intent of the Minister and this Government, which is a targeted welfare system that fully realises equitable outcomes for all?

Now, the question also goes on to ensure that if the Minister is confident that this bill will be applied fairly, then what is, then, the objection to ensuring there are mechanisms within here to review, as a House, but also for further public consultation, which was cut very short. In fact, it was only by chance that public consultation was considered on this very significant bill. Koirā taku pātai. [That is my question.]

12:15

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I’m looking for new material.

12:16

Thank you, Mr Chair. I think, while we’re looking at another part of this particular bill—and I’m specifically looking at Amendment Paper 528—it’s important to note that there’s still a number of specific data that we’re looking for and seeking engagement from the Minister for Social Development and Employment on.

I do want to pick up on something that we haven’t discussed, later on, which is around the pre-commencement decisions. Also, when we’re looking at the effect on the proceedings, I want to check with the Minister that one of the things we are looking at is in terms of noting that in this Amendment Paper, we have seen the addition of the benefit review committee being applied. Noting that there are multiple tiers of a review and appeal processes being able be conducted as a part of this, has the Minister considered what the ability is for some of those changes being made and how that could be challenged further under the primary legislation? I think this is something that we will tease out more in the next part of the debate, but I think it’s just a signal to the Minister that there are still questions that we haven’t managed to receive from the Minister regarding some of the data and the costings behind a lot of this, as opposed to sort of the standard line that we’ve been getting, but also in terms of the magnitude of some of those potential repeal, appeal, or review processes.

12:17

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendment deleting Part 2 set out on Amendment Paper 523 is out of order as being a direct negation of the question.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to Amendment Paper 528 inserting subclause (1)(a) into new clause 105 is out of order as being contrary to the objects and principles of the bill.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to the Schedule set out on Amendment Paper 528 be agreed to.

Oriini Kaipara’s amendments to the Schedule set out on Amendment Papers 510 and 512 are out of order as being contrary to the objects and principles of the bill.

Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendments to the Schedule set out on Amendment Paper 527 are out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

Camilla Belich’s amendment to clause 108 of Schedule 1 is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s amendment to the Schedule set out on Amendment Paper 521 be agreed to.

12:24

Sorry, sorry—too enthusiastic. I want to start by actually addressing clause 3, “Principal Act”, and the reason I wanted to pick up on this one first—and I’m sure many other people have many additional questions around clauses 1 and 2, in terms of title and commencement—is because clause 3 amends the principal Act, which is the Social Security Act 2018.

While my amendment for Part 2 was not accepted because it’s outside of the narrow scope of this bill, my amendment to Part 2 is not outside of the scope of the principal Act. The reason I want to address this is, as part of the High Court ruling—and I want to quote this from the High Court’s response, which is in paragraph 35: “The recipient of the supplementary assistance needed and was eligible for the assistance at the time. Furthermore, the Ministry’s interpretation could result in the state retrospectively imposing potentially significant debts on [a person] of limited means, through no fault of their own. This would be contrary to both the purposes of the ACC Act and the Social Security Act, which provides, among other things, for the provision of the financial support of the people to help alleviate hardship.”

If we’re looking at section 3 of the Social Security Act, “Purpose of this Act”, section 3(a)(i) specifies “to help people to support themselves and their dependants while not in paid employment”. My question to the Minister is: in the context of statutory interpretation, the purpose of the clause reigns supreme over other parts of the clauses, what is the likelihood, in the Minister’s opinion, of further legal challenges on the basis of this? What has been introduced in this bill goes against the purpose of the intention of the principal bill. And, if it is so, you could actually present those kinds of additional legal challenges, which then, potentially, will create ongoing inconsistencies, as we see, going forward.

Now, the reason I’m also picking up on that comes down to one of the questions I had for the Ministers before, which is if we are looking at a situation where someone whose post-tax ACC arrears is less than the debt that is accrued through the Ministry of Social Development—including everything else, such as Working for Families credits, etc.—that goes contrary to the intention of the Social Security Act in terms of helping those to alleviate hardship. I guess that’s my primary question in terms of the principal Act, which is: what are the potential further legal challenges on the basis of the broader principal Act, which falls under clause 3?

12:27

Another question relating to the principal Act—and this relates to something in Part 2 we never got engagement on, so I’m giving the Minister for Social Development and Employment an opportunity for engagement on this—is that one of them is to help people find or retain paid employment. Now, we know that the interactions between the tax system and some of these debts and back payments could affect Working for Families eligibility, which, again, I was trying to get the number from the Minister and didn’t get engagement on. It seems to me like if these debts push people deeper into poverty, maybe even the way some of this gets taxed affects Working for Families eligibility, would this not actually be contrary to helping people access—well, to retain or find paid employment?

The other thing that I wanted to ask is, in relationship to the principal Act, whether she believes that these debts can also cause a greater demand for other parts of the Act, like the need for special needs grants. If these debts prevent people from making ends meet, is she concerned that there’s a greater demand of things like special needs grants as a result of this bill? This interacts with the principal Act, as well. Clarification on those two things would be useful.

I’d just reiterate—I think Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan makes an excellent point around alleviating hardship; this seems to be contrary to that. Is she concerned that people could challenge this in the courts, and how these debts actually go against the principles of the Act; or is she aware that this was already traversed in the High Court—you know, this process that led us to this bill? Thank you.

12:29

Obviously, this is not a debate that allows you to traverse the entire Social Security Act. This particular bill is about ensuring that all income is charged in the period in which it was received, irrespective of where that income came from. That is a principle of the Social Security Act. Ensuring that if somebody doesn’t have income and they receive some; that is taken into consideration in terms of their application for income support, and if there is an overpayment, that is then addressed.

Thank you, Mr Chair. This is just a comment on that issue. We had a situation for many years with regard to tax. Redundancy payments were taxed much higher because they were all treated as one lump sum, and so people missed out because the payments were treated as income when, in fact, they were compensation for a long period of time. My understanding is that in the tax department, that was a longstanding practice for years that was unfair, and since that time, there has been a decision to take that payment and spread it over a number of years to get a more equitable outcome. My point is that it is quite possible to find smart ways to create an equitable solution, even when a practice has been going on for a long time. Often that happens in the space of time where departments can talk to each other, and so I want to come to my concern about the commencement date of this and the time that the Minister has allocated.

We have a time which, as has been pointed out, is unusual. It’s a very unusual form of retroactivity, and there is plenty of opportunity here to consider in the commencement date a different one. We have an interesting thing here because we have it saying that the law will come into force on the day of Royal assent, but, actually, the law will come into force on that date in order to create a different set of rules and a different lawful situation a long time before that date of assent. What I want to know from the Minister is whether we could look at pushing out that date of assent for some time so that for some of those situations that we’ve talked about, it would be, effectively, a way of creating a window for people to get in a number of claims, and that would mean that for people who have got their claims lodged, they would be covered by some of the amendments that the Minister has made to allow that.

That would allow a greater window by simply playing with the date that this comes in, and it would also allow that thought about when that would be appropriate. I’ve talked about the possibility of it being six months that we’d look at having a date of assent for when this comes into force, and then we could have a wider group, but it would be the people next in the queue who would be able to get in. The Minister looks like she’s got an answer to my question, and so I’d be grateful for that answer. Thank you.

12:32

Thank you, Mr Chair. I have an amendment to this part of the bill. It’s on quite a serious issue, and I think it’s one that could be quite easily agreed to, based on the information that we have before us, and that is a little bit contrary to the bill. I’ve read the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet that the Attorney-General did on the bill, dated 5 February. It concluded that there isn’t an inconsistency, or that if there is, it’s justified with this bill, but I suppose the issue is that quite a bit of information has come to light since the Attorney-General provided that New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet.

Yesterday, the Accident Compensation Corporation presented information to the Social Services and Community Committee, and that information appeared to show that the main group of people that were affected by this claim were overwhelmingly female. The group of people that they looked at was a sample size of 50, and, of course, there may be some issues with that, but it may be that ACC can get a greater degree of certainty on that information. But, certainly, it being 70 percent female is very, very high, even with the Government’s changes to pay equity, which, I think, everyone agrees were a high threshold, but 70 percent would get you there. It’s a significantly high threshold for the number of women impacted by this, and there is also the nature of the claims that the woman have. They are sensitive claims; claims of sexual violence. There is a gendered element in the statistics around sexual violence, and although, of course, that can affect anyone, having such a high percentage of women indicates that that is sexual violence perpetrated against women.

The question I have, really, in relation to the commencement is: would it be possible to get the Attorney-General to do another New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet with the benefit of the information provided by ACC? It’s not a time-wasting suggestion; it’s actually because that information wasn’t available, and my understanding and my belief of the people that have been working on this is that everyone has been working on it in good faith, based on the advice of officials, and under shortened periods of time. This is not a criticism of what the Attorney-General had and it’s not a criticism, necessarily, of this process; it’s a fact of this process that because it has had a truncated time in public and also at the select committee, by its nature, information has come to light, and so I think it would be good to have another assessment based on that information.

The reason I say that is that there is a type of discrimination called indirect discrimination. It’s provided for in section 65 of the Human Rights Act. That type of discrimination is where there’s a policy which appears to be neutral and appears to apply to everyone, but, actually, it affects mainly a particular group of people, and one of those groups can be gender. This is a very good example of something which, on the evidence we have had from ACC, is indirectly discriminatory.

It might be that the Attorney-General could take that information and can say that it’s still justified, and that’s something that her advisers and experts in her office could do. But I suppose my concern is that we haven’t seen that information traversed, as far as I can ascertain, in the initial New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet, and so my amendment would be that that Royal assent is granted only after a second New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet has been able to be undertaken. I imagine that that could be done relatively quickly. These are not long documents that we have. I’ve got it in front of me. It’s a few pages, and they’re actually not numbered, but I think it’s around about five pages long. So it could be done quickly.

I think it would be a good part of the process. It’s a genuine attempt to make sure that there aren’t discriminatory aspects to this bill which we should be made aware of, and so I would appreciate the Minister’s views.

12:37

In terms of the changeover date in which claims are possible and accepted up until, that was traversed in the earlier part of the debate, and so I’m not going to cover that again. In terms of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet, that is done prior to the introduction, and I don’t anticipate doing another one, just as with every other piece of legislation in the House where there is a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet at the start and it is not repeated throughout the process.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to move on now to clause 2, “Commencement date”, which I have a couple of amendments to, as well. But the reason that I wanted to preface my amendments to clause 2 is around the fact that even when we were looking at my question to the Minister for Social Development and Employment on clause 3, “Principal Act”, while the Minister has said that “This is what we’re doing.”, that doesn’t actually address my question initially, which was whether there is anticipated legal challenge because it may not fulfil the purpose of the principal Act under section 3 of the Social Security Act. I think that that is something for the judiciary, for example, to tease out, but the fact that the Minister didn’t say no implies that that, potentially, is a possibility in terms of weighing up the balance between what is presented in this bill and what is in the principal Act.

That brings me to my amendment to the commencement date. I do believe that, through the select committee stage and through the conversation we’ve had today, while we are able to get certain data out of the officials and through the process around the number of people who are affected under the expanded scope in terms of the number of people, which includes partners and spouses that could be affected by this bill, the level of nuance and specificity that is required for something of this magnitude hasn’t quite been teased out. My amendment to the commencement date would just simply suggest that rather than having this bill come into force after the commencement date, it comes into force on 1 July 2027. That is just to give us some clearer guidance and ability to look at this bill more carefully, and for the agency to be able to kind of do the background work more carefully, as well, before the bill fully comes into effect. That goes down to what my colleague Ricardo Menéndez March also said in terms of the fact that we haven’t had the confirmation that the Ministry of Social Development is able to contact the kind of people who would be affected by the introduction of this bill.

At the same time, I do understand, potentially, that the Minister wants the policy change to be clarified as quickly as possible. So if the Minister isn’t open to my amendment, which means that the entirety of the bill takes effect on 1 July 2027, my other amendment is to specify to say that we understand the policy part in Part 1 may be taken into effect immediately the day after Royal assent, but Part 2 of this bill, in terms of the transitional measures, etc., and the retrospectivity, takes place later on 1 July 2027. Now, the reason I suggest that also is that regardless of how we’re debating it and how the Minister views our amendments, the retrospectivity is going to take place regardless of the commencement date. I think if we’re going to be doing that, then it actually does, again, allow us a little bit more time to tease out those specificities in terms of the number and the nuance in terms of those who are affected by this bill.

So those are my two amendments. One of them is to amend the commencement date of the entirety of the bill, and my second amendment is only amending the commencement date of Part 2, noting that the Minister’s intention and the bill’s intention is to ensure the policy is clarified in Part 1.

12:41

I want to just make another point about what happened in the last week. I was on the Social Services and Community Committee, and what we ended up doing, once the report was in, because we had to bring it back to the House within a very short time frame—we were able to get ACC to come in, but we only saw them for 20 minutes. One of the questions that is at the heart of this issue is: why was ACC not paying for the additional benefits that that claimant would have got in the period of default? That’s a clear issue.

Now, I put a question in writing to ACC at the end of the 20-minute hearing on that point, but I haven’t received an answer. I have not got any clarity as to why that was happening. I asked whether there was a legal impediment, whether it was a legal constraint they had that meant they didn’t pass that on, or some sort of permission they had not to pay on those amounts, because it’s so pivotal to why Labour was supporting this bill and is not any more: we just simply did not understand that there were additional benefits on top of that main benefit that were being paid and that ACC wasn’t passing them on. I don’t have the answers yet. I would like those answers to be present before the Minister signs this into law, because it seems critical to me. I simply do not know the answer to a fundamental question that changes who should be paying here.

The result of this law is that beneficiaries who have had injuries, but through no fault of their own have not been able to have that claim decided for some time—either because it’s complex or because it’s been declined—are paying for a lot of things that I think most New Zealanders would have thought were being paid for by the ACC system in that time, and I simply don’t know why; I wish I did. It would be an interesting thing to know, and it would be critical to whether this is a fair law or not: knowing whether, in fact, ACC should be paying.

When we asked about whether we could explore those kinds of solutions, we were told we were moving too fast for that, there wasn’t time to consider those things, or they were outside the scope because they were ACC. Nothing’s outside of the scope of a good solution in this Parliament. That’s the nature of parliamentary supremacy: that we should be able to make fair laws.

I would like the kind of amendment that, actually, my friend Lawrence Xu-Nan has put up, which says that there is a delay here that is sufficient for the Minister to assure herself that she knows the answer to that question, because I haven’t heard it today. I’ve asked and I have not heard an answer to that question as to why that’s occurring and why that’s just. So I would like that amendment for that time, and I would like to suggest also that the amendment that says there’s a different treatment of the retroactive part of this is a good alternative because to do that—to split it up—makes sense in terms of how we know now that the law has not been adhered to for many years and that people have suffered. We don’t know the extent of that suffering.

In the ACC briefing, we had a situation where we know of about 50 cases in the last year; we know about nothing before that. We do not know how much financial impact we are causing today and who we’re causing it to. It’s an absolute shame that we don’t know those things. We could have known them if there’d been time. Let’s put the date out for a few months while the Minister finds these things out, so that ordinary New Zealanders don’t get hurt and treated unjustly.

Just before I take the next call, we are getting near the end of it, but this is the debate on clauses 1 to 3, “Title”, “Commencement”, and “Principal Act”, so if we could keep the contributions within that. It is an opportunity to summarise but not to repeat other arguments or questions that might not have been addressed, from your perspective, in earlier parts.

12:46

Tēnā koe. Just one observation from Te Pāti Māori in terms of clause 2. Really, it’s in consideration of the scope and the scale and, again, the detrimental impacts this will have on Māori—on whānau Māori specifically. The question is: is there scope and will the Minister for Social Development and Employment, and the Government, reconsider there being, again, greater investment and greater focus on data and ensuring that we know exactly who is going to be impacted beyond the numbers that have been given to us? We need to know the faces, the places, and the spaces that they occupy.

One area that is very, very, very under-spoken of, if that’s a word in te reo Pākehā—kāore i te tino kōrerotia [it is not often spoken of]—there is really no discussion about how we protect Māori who are severely impacted by these changes in the past, in the current, and going forward when this bill becomes law. The question back to the Minister, in terms of clause 2, is if there is consideration—in fact, ensuring—that there is scope for a Māori impact assessment report. That is the request from Te Pāti Māori: to replace the clause instead with ensuring that there is a subsection in this bill that ensures there is proper reporting investment into this bill that specifies the impact on whānau Māori everywhere.

Due to the timing of this amendment and because it confirms current practice, there has been limited opportunity to undertake fulsome Treaty analysis. Te Tiriti is missing from this bill. Te Tiriti protects all New Zealanders, but it ensures that whānau Māori receive the proper care that was guaranteed to them under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Again, I implore the Minister to go back to have that hui with the executive on the data for Māori specifically, whether they are survivors of abuse, sexual assault, or they are the injured workers—predominantly Māori work in those spaces. They are the ones that are working in forestry and fishing without proper supports. So when I refer to Te Tiriti, I mean seriously, not ideologically. This is a practical solution to ensure equitable outcomes for all, especially Māori. Minister, Māori impact assessment reports ensure that not just the Crown but also iwi can look after their people.

12:49

I just want to address the amendment that’s proposed around commencement, but the Greens member answered his own question: the time frame is because we want certainty and clarity for those who are currently receiving income support.

Just a reminder about what I said earlier around keeping it confined to title, commencement, etc. That would be greatly appreciated.

12:50

Look, I just wanted to speak to the title—I haven’t brought material myself on the title itself. One of the things that I’m always interested in seeking engagement from Ministers on the title itself is whether the title actually facilitates people to understand what the bill really is about. Often titles of bills that actually do seek to entrench or create harm make it harder for the layperson to go on the Parliament website and actually ascertain what the Government’s bills are actually doing.

I wonder whether the Minister for Social Development and Employment considered alternatives to the existing title in front of us. So far, we have the Social Security (Accident Compensation and Calculation of Weekly Income) Amendment Bill, but I genuinely do think—and I don’t offer these titles in bad faith or with the intent of making a mockery of the bill, but titles which reflect some of the consequences of the bill—so, for example: “Social Security (Entrenchment of Unlawful Practices)” or “Social Security (Continuing Practices of Debt Collection by Government Agencies)”; including other titles that may help people understand this bill, such as “Social Security (Creation of Debt After Receiving ACC Support)”. More plain-language titles, in my view, support people actually understanding the intent of the bill.

The Minister will well know that one of the themes that has arisen throughout the select committee process—if she has read the material from the select committee process—is that many of our law experts will note that many ACC claimants were completely unaware that they would have received a debt after finally getting their ACC claim. I do not think the title of this bill leaves people any wiser on what actually happens to ACC claimants who are on a benefit after making a claim. I wanted to get a sense as to whether the Minister considered more plain language or clearer options as to the impact of this title on people.

In relationship to the commencement, I wondered whether the Minister is intending to allocate any resources, immediately after the commencement, to send communications to people—for example, people who were making a review of decision or a benefits review committee application—following the commencement, so that they know that these applications still stand, and whether she’s allocating any resources following the commencement date for this, because, obviously, the commencement date is, at the moment—

8 November.

8 November. Thank you; appreciate it. It’s actually relatively soon after Royal assent. So I think there’s something about making sure that people are very, very, very clear that, after this, they’re actually going to be subjected to some debts, and that people are super-aware that if they choose to be on a benefit while waiting for an ACC claim, even if the ACC claim is in relationship to extremely traumatic stuff, like sexual violence, they may want to be careful of choosing to go on income support or taking up any supplements.

I’m also wondering whether, after the commencement date, she will consider giving Ministry of Social Development front-line workers any guidance and making sure that this is made clear to people at the front line so that no one is inadvertently, accidentally entering into debt after applying for a benefit while waiting for an ACC claim.

The other thing I had in relationship to the commencement date is whether any communications that will be sent following the commencement date—and I genuinely wish to seek the engagement from the Minister on this—will be made accessible to disabled people and will be communicated in accessible means. This is quite important because we know that, obviously, traumatic head injuries are one of the things that feature quite a bit within ACC claimants, that often takes a while for them to come through, and I’m worried that without clear and accessible communications, people who may be dealing with brain injuries will be left none the wiser on the nature of this bill.

12:55

I move, That debate on this question now close.

There’s been substantial engagement on this clause, so I am moving to a closure motion.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to Amendment Paper 528, amending clause 2 to replace “the day after Royal assent” with “1 July 2027”, be agreed to.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to Amendment Paper 528, inserting subclause (2) into clause 2, is out of order as being contrary to the principles and objects of the bill.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to clause 2 set out on Amendment Paper 528 be agreed to.

Oriini Kaipara’s amendment replacing the commencement set out on Amendment Paper 520 is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

Camilla Belich’s tabled amendment to clause 2 is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

14:01

Next week, we will be continuing to progress business that is on the Order Paper. [TheHon Chris Bishop enters Chamber]

I can do that again if you want, Mr Speaker.

I just would note that there is a particularly large media scrum outside and that some of the media, clearly, are not playing ball with regards to making sure that members get to the House. It’s going to be something that I will speak to the gallery about.

I’m happy for you to have another go.

Just a minute. The Opposition would like to hear more from the Government about its intentions—you’re indicating that?

If they’d be so kind, I’d be delighted.

Next week, the House will consider further stages of the Public Finance Amendment Bill, the Legislation Amendment Bill, and the Public Service Amendment Bill. The hours of Tuesday will be extended into Wednesday morning for Government business. On Wednesday, the general debate will be replaced by a debate on the Finance and Expenditure Committee’s report on the Treasury’s Long-term Fiscal Statement and will be followed by members’ business.

to the Minister of Finance

What recent reports has she seen on the economic impact of conflict in the Middle East?

I’ve seen reports of overnight activity in the financial markets. Oil was trading at around US$81 a barrel this morning; little changed from yesterday’s close, but still up around 14 percent from a week ago. US and European equities actually rose in overnight trading, although Asian stock markets were down. The New Zealand dollar is up slightly against the US dollar, and the trade-weighted index rose 0.6 percent overnight. It appears that risk sentiment in the markets is relatively stable, at least for the time being.

Has she seen any reports of economic impacts under different scenarios?

Yes, I’ve seen some “what if” analyses from different commentators. Those are interesting but, as I said, markets seem relatively calm at the moment and are not rushing to worst case scenarios. That sentiment may be influenced by comments from the US administration that it is considering measures to support oil flows, including shipping insurance and naval escorts for tankers. It could also be that markets are waiting to see how the conflict unfolds. As I’ve said previously, there is likely to be an impact on the New Zealand economy, but that will depend on the scale and duration of any disruption, and how quickly things will get back to normal.

When will any impacts of the Middle East conflict be reflected in the forecasts?

The Treasury’s next set of economic and fiscal forecasts will be released on 28 May, alongside this year’s Budget. These forecasts will reflect information available before the forecasts are closed off in April. That includes, of course, any impacts of the conflict. The Reserve Bank’s next set of economic forecasts will be in its Monetary Policy Statement on 27 May. However, the Reserve Bank may choose to comment on global events in the April monetary policy review.

What is the starting point for the next set of forecasts?

A lot of factors are incorporated in the forecasts. One of those is how the Crown accounts have been tracking in the year to date. The accounts for the first seven months were released this morning and they show that key fiscal indicators are tracking stronger than forecast in the half-year update. Members will be interested to hear that the operating balance before gains and losses, excluding ACC revenue and expenses (OBEGALx) deficit was $1.9 billion lower at the end of January than was previously forecast. Net core Crown debt was lower than forecast, and core Crown expenses were lower than forecast. While there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge in this financial year, it’s good to see the accounts looking better than previously expected.

14:07 · to the Minister for Energy

What specific gas price sensitivity analysis did MBIE and Concept Consulting carry out for the LNG terminal decision, if any?

The modelling by Concept Consulting included a number of scenarios, including variations in the liquefied natural gas price (LNG) to assess the impact on electricity prices. The modelling showed that the key benefit of LNG is to provide the market with certainty to access fuel during a dry year. That will reduce the risk premium and provide downward pressure on electricity prices. The most important thing to consider is the long-run price of LNG, and that is why we expect to see a reduction in consumer bills by at least $50 per household.

What LNG price path in New Zealand dollars per gigajoule underpins his claims that New Zealanders will save money?

As I outlined in my answer to the primary question, Concept Consulting included a number of scenarios including variations in LNG price. For the member’s interest, when one looks at the LNG price in terms of what it is currently trading at, it is somewhat and closely aligned to the 10-year average.

How can New Zealanders have confidence in his claims when the regulatory impact statement and cost recovery analysis record a constrained analysis of options, constrained time frames, no completed business case, and no independent stage gate review?

Kiwis can be confident because LNG makes New Zealand more resilient. Surprisingly enough, having more options than less options gives you greater resilience, and greater resilience means less volatility. For those at home, if you have less volatility, you see less power prices and downward pressure on power prices. On this side of the House, we understand energy and that’s why we are putting more options on the table.

If he agrees with the Prime Minister that LNG prices go up and down, why did he lock New Zealanders into this volatility without first demanding a genuinely comprehensive analysis of LNG price and contract risks?

The member has just asked a question in terms of me locking New Zealanders into a scenario. The counterfactual is that in the context of having no gas, it means that we currently do not have enough gas to fuel our existing power plants. The reason why we don’t have enough gas today is the previous Government banned oil and gas, and that’s why our energy prices are high. Thank you, Labour. [Interruption]

Just—all right.

Has he, in light of this week’s price spikes, sought updated advice on whether scaling up domestic solutions like more renewables and demand-side measures could provide the same dry-year security, with less exposure to global volatile prices?

As I have outlined in answers to questions already in this House, when the assessment was undertaken by this Government in order to select the LNG scenario, a number of options were considered; however, none of the other options were able to deliver the solution to the problem which this country faces, which is we do not have enough gas to make electricity in a dry year. None of the other solutions will meet that requirement in terms of cost or time. We face an acute problem, because in 2024, we had prices exceeding $800 because we did not have the fuel. It is incumbent upon the Government to ensure that we do have fuel to make electricity in a dry year, and that is what we’re doing.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked the Minister a very direct question about whether he’d sought updated advice this week in light of events. I’m still not sure whether or not he has sought that updated advice from the answer he gave.

Well, I took it from the answer that he said that they had considered a range of things, none of them came up to scratch from their perspective, and nothing has changed.

Will the Minister make available any price sensitivity analysis undertaken by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) when the refinery was closed down under the honourable Woods’ leadership?

That’s too wide of the question.

Point of order. [Interruption]

Points of order are heard in silence.

Price sensitivity analysis, MBIE—underlying that is fuel security. The closure of the refinery is obviously a blow, arguably, to fuel security. How can that possibly be out of line?

Well, because it wasn’t a Government action would be one reason. But I’ll allow the Minister to make a comment to move us on.

It would be fair to say—and I think what the member is also referring to is—that when a Government makes a policy decision in order to reduce options within a country, it creates volatility and puts upward pressure on price. What we saw from the last Government’s policy decision to shut the oil refinery, to ban oil and gas, is it reduced New Zealand’s energy independence, reduced its energy resilience, and as a result, this Government is having to tidy up their mess.

14:13 · to the Minister for Children

Was she aware of the reported increase in kids in State care with complex needs and disabilities being housed in motels, sometimes with untrained staff, before the Aroturuki Tamariki Experiences of Care in Aotearoa 2024/25 report; if not, why not?

14:14

I have asked Oranga Tamariki about the serious allegation in the member’s question of kids being housed in motels with untrained staff, and they’ve been unable to identify what the member is referring to. If the member has evidence of this occurring, I would strongly encourage her to provide this information so it can be addressed and we can make sure that kids are safe, rather than waiting to raise it in the House. To the broader question, yes, I am aware that motels are being used as an emergency option, as a last resort where no other safe option is available. This practice even pre-dates Oranga Tamariki as an organisation.

Has she seen the report released yesterday, and has she read it?

Yes, I have read the Independent Children’s Monitor (ICM) report very closely.

Does she stand by her statement that it is “unacceptable” that children in care are staying in motels; and, if so, how does she justify the over 25 percent increase that has taken place under her watch in the last year?

No one wants to see kids in motels or young people in motels, but the reality is that sometimes it’s more important to make sure their safety and wellbeing comes first. There are many reasons why a young person may be placed in a motel. The most common length of stay in a motel is one night, and most children and young people stay fewer than three nights. Sometimes, it is a case of not wanting to remove them from their community or from their family supports while we make sure we can find a safe place for them to stay.

Does she agree that 246 tamariki and rangatahi in care spending over 4,000 nights in motels, with the longest stay being nearly a year, is inconsistent with motels being used as a last resort?

As I said, the most common length of stay in a motel is one night, and most children and young people stay for three nights or fewer. Sometimes, this is unavoidable. In an emergency situation where there is no placement available and we don’t want to remove that young person from their community or their supports, this is a better option. They still also need to go to school and have a routine. Removing them from their communities is not a better option.

What does she say to the caregiver who stated, “We got told about her disability but got limited information around how to work with her needs. It was really rushed, especially not knowing anything or given any information”?

I think that, because the first question was incorrect, I would have to take away and verify what that member is saying before I can answer it.

How does placing tamariki with complex needs in the care of untrained caregivers and insufficiently trained caregivers, like security guards, fit with the key priorities she has set, including ensuring the safety of children and young people and supporting caregivers?

I have read the ICM report very closely, and there is no mention in that report of untrained staff being used to look after children in motels.

How would the Minister advise members of the public or Parliament to raise serious concerns about children’s welfare with Oranga Tamariki?

There are many ways that those concerns can be raised. They can be raised with Oranga Tamariki themselves. A letter could be sent to my office so that I can follow up. Even a letter to be sent to speak about the situation would be helpful, too.

14:18 · to the Minister for Media and Communications

On what dates has he, or any person acting on his behalf, discussed TVNZ news coverage with any member of the TVNZ Board (including the Chair of TVNZ, Andrew Barclay) or the chief executive of TVNZ?

14:19

On Sunday, 1 March, I received a text message from the chair of TVNZ asking for a call. We spoke about a range of matters including TVNZ financials and board appointments, and he observed, as I recall, that TVNZ had been in the news that week over a law and order story and that he was taking an interest in it in the context of the board’s interests in improving trust in TVNZ. I didn’t engage further in the discussion on that matter. Also, on Tuesday evening, I spoke at the 60th anniversary of Country Calendar, hosted by TVNZ, and spoke with three board members and the chief executive. To the best of my knowledge, TVNZ news coverage did not come up in those conversations. The primary point of discussion was the history of Country Calendar. Yesterday, I spoke to the chair, informing him that I had been questioned about our phone call on the way out of the House, as a courtesy, and I rang him again at 6.30 yesterday evening, after the coverage over the afternoon, to check on his welfare, as he is a new chair.

Has he sought an assurance from TVNZ chair Andrew Barclay in any of those conversations that he hasn’t discussed or directed the Minister’s or his ministerial colleagues’ concerns around TVNZ coverage of crime numbers on 26 February 2026 with any staff member of TVNZ, and, if not, why not?

Sorry, can I ask him to repeat that? It had so many legs, I couldn’t understand it.

Yeah, thank you—I would like to hear that myself one more time.

Has he sought an assurance from TVNZ chair Andrew Barclay that he hasn’t discussed or directed the Minister’s or his ministerial colleagues’ concerns around TVNZ coverage of crime numbers on 26 February 2026 with any staff member of TVNZ, and, if not, why not?

No, I haven’t sought that assurance directly. What is my expectation of the board? The primary Government interest in TVNZ is, one, that it maintains its financial stability; two, that it’s growing its audiences and producing great quality local content; and the third thing that has been raised in my letter of expectation is building or improving levels of trust. I expect the board to have an interest in all of those topics.

No more woke!

Stick to kids’ TV.

Supplementary.

This is a serious issue.

Just a moment. When someone stands up to start asking a question, it’s a good idea for everyone else to be quiet.

Is he then guaranteeing to the New Zealand public that the TVNZ chair, Andrew Barclay, has not sought to influence editorial discussions at TVNZ?

Well, I wouldn’t expect the board to be interfering in editorial decisions at TVNZ. I would expect the board to have an interest in the broader issue of improving trust, as I do with the Radio New Zealand board, and that’s absolutely appropriate.