Parliamentary debates: Tuesday, 31 March 2026

Point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to make a personal statement to correct a statement I made in the House last week.

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

Speaking in the debate on the first reading of the Immigration (Enhanced Risk Management) Amendment Bill, I incorrectly asserted that Erica Stanford had attended a five-country immigration Ministers meeting. I withdraw that statement.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to make a personal explanation to correct an answer I gave on behalf of the Minister for Social Development and Employment during oral questions on Thursday, 26 March.

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

In answer to question No. 7, I said, “We know that around 143,000 families will receive the full $50 weekly increase. That will include 48 percent of children in material hardship.” Based on the most recent figures published by Stats New Zealand, 48 percent of all children in material hardship—around 81,000—are in working households. Not all of these children will be in households eligible for the in-work tax credit, as some families in material hardship have incomes above the Working for Families threshold.

14:06 · to the Minister of Finance

What recent reports has she seen on the economy?

I’ve seen reports confirming that New Zealand continues to have sufficient fuel supply. The latest update shows that around 59 days of petrol, 54 days of diesel, and 50 days of jet fuel are in country, within our exclusive economic zone, or on the water heading here. That data is updated twice weekly. Importantly, we use maritime tracking, including the Starboard software system, to cross-check against the shipping information that fuel companies share with us. This gives us a high level of confidence in the accuracy of the data we publish. The breakdown of the exclusive economic zone data in yesterday’s reporting shows that five of the 15 ships on the water are within one to two days of our shore or already in port, unloading. On Friday, we announced a clear, phased fuel response plan that will allow us to respond proportionately to any changes in supply. We are making considered, timely, and evidence-based decisions to protect supply, support the economy, and keep New Zealand moving.

Has she received advice on whether a change in phase of the fuel plan is required?

I’ve seen advice confirming that two technical triggers have been met—they are a change in fuel stock levels and a policy shift in Australia. However, the full data set, updated yesterday, shows no material deterioration in supply risk. Under the fuel response plan, decisions to have an assessment are based on a range of indicators, not any single movement, and any shift requires careful assessment, including engagement with industry. On that basis, we have decided not to convene a formal phase assessment at this time. We will continue to monitor closely and act if needed, taking a measured, evidence-based approach.

What further actions is the Government considering to bolster fuel supply?

Yesterday, Cabinet agreed to explore additional options to guard against the risk of disrupted fuel supply and to secure additional fuel security over and above existing minimum supply obligations. These options include a specific proposal to swap the tickets or put options that we currently hold as part of our international energy agency obligations into usable fuel stock suitable to New Zealand’s needs, potentially stored here or offshore. The options also include consideration of commercial proposals, including with existing fuel importers or others, that could support the procurement of additional fuel supply.

What engagement has happened with business and industry on the fuel plan?

We are getting strong engagement from business and industry, which is great to see. More than 500 businesses have already provided direct feedback on how fuel should be prioritised if we ever needed to move to the more restrictive phases 3 and 4 outlined in the fuel plan. The Government is working with industry to get the settings right. We will make sure that any future decisions are practical, targeted, and minimise disruption to jobs, supply chains, and the wider economy.

14:10 · to the Prime Minister

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

Yes.

Did his Government’s cancelling of the planned 70 million litre strategic diesel reserve increase or decrease New Zealand’s exposure to a diesel supply shock?

Well, what this Government did is it cancelled Labour’s approach by putting fuel companies on the hook to making sure that they meet their obligations to hold higher levels of stocks. This is about working with industry and they’re on the hook for that.

Did his Government’s decision to delay increases to minimum diesel stock holding obligations until July 2028 increase or decrease New Zealand’s fuel resilience right now?

That’s why we agreed to increase the minimum stock holding obligations for fuel importers from 21 days to 28 days.

Does increasing the minimum stock holding obligation in 2028, rather than doing it earlier, as previously planned, increase or decrease New Zealand’s resilience right now?

Well, as I’ve said, we remain focused on supporting New Zealand’s energy security—that’s why we agreed to increase the minimum stock holdings.

Did his Government’s cutting of support for businesses transitioning away from fossil fuel dependence increase or decrease New Zealand’s long-term exposure to oil price shocks?

You banned oil and gas exploration.

Well, that member banned oil and gas. That member—[Interruption]

Just a moment—one moment. Prime Minister, answer again—his own side might give him a bit space to answer as well.

Well, what I was about to say was: that was the member who banned oil and gas; that drove up electricity prices to $800 a megawatt hour; and ended up making the rather unique transition, thanks to a Labour-Greens Government, of domestic gas to imported Indonesian coal.

Would it pretty handy right now if New Zealanders had been allowed to look for oil and gas over the last eight years?

Absolutely. We have an energy security strategy which is about economic security and that means “and-and-and”.

Did his Government’s reducing of nationwide public transport subsidies increase or decrease the options available to households trying to cut their transport costs right now?

Well, actually, we believe in an adult-to-adult relationship with the New Zealand people, not a parent-to-child relationship. It’s one of the learnings coming out of the COVID experience that that member led. And, actually, it’s great to see New Zealanders making their own decisions; some of them are choosing to use more public transport—good on them.

Have organisations such as Auckland Transport reported record usage of public transport despite this terrible Government taking away all these subsidies?

I’m proud to report that our Minister of Transport has met with the public transport authorities: he confirms that there is capacity in our transport network. The public transport authorities are looking at rejigging their network schedules so they maximise support for people in key peak times—all that’s good stuff.

Does he regret cutting the Clean Car Discount, given estimates suggest that had New Zealanders continued to buy electric vehicles at the rate they were under the discount, there’d be 50,000 more electric vehicles on the road today than there are now under his Government?

No, because we believe in farmers in this country, and they need utes, and, actually, they shouldn’t be subsidising people who want to buy EVs. As you’ve seen in the last week, EV sales have been just fine.

14:14 · to the Associate Minister for Energy

What reports, if any, has he received on fuel security?

I have received a number of reports, not the least of which is that the fuel import companies and the decision they made to move New Zealand towards a just-in-time model is working as they contemplated. But, sadly, we are bereft of adequate storage. I have received a report—I did receive a very threadbare proposal, unfunded, which, sadly, would have required us to raid the money that the Crown has put aside to meet the 50-day cushion internationally. On that basis, there’s no way the Matua could proceed with that half-baked idea.

Why is the Government pursuing additional supply options to support New Zealand’s fuel security?

After the refinery was closed down with the approval of the Labour Government—

Sorry, we established last week that while it might have been a matter that was considered by Cabinet, consideration does not mean approval. This is a very important issue, so just keep it straight for the public.

We are aware of how important it is to build a sovereign buffer. We are relying upon the oil companies to honour their word and to avoid very serious penalties in the event they do not comply with their statutory mandate. However, the development of future storage capacity is under way as we work through a proposal. This proposal will happen not over three or four years but in a matter of months.

Where would the Government secure fuel from?

As I’ve said elsewhere, we have the option of 960 million litres. Given that the nation consumes 24 million litres a day, that will require time to convert that virtual fuel into genuine, physical material. We also have been in receipt of a range of offers; however, they will require alacrity from the Crown as we are in a very competitive market. I say again, once the refinery was closed, New Zealand lost 700 million litres worth of storage capacity. Look no further than that side of the House.

The answer was fine right up until the last minute. It’s the Government who’s accountable here, not the Opposition.

Point of order, sir. I think you are being unfair. Now, look, I know that it may seem contradictory that I be the purveyor of truth and righteousness, but it was only a week ago, sir, that I was brandishing a Cabinet paper that clearly states—

No—

—the other side of the House agreed to the closure of the refinery. The Cabinet paper says Labour agreed to the closure of the refinery. How can I possibly be wrong?

No, the Cabinet paper says, if you were to interpret it any way, that the Government of the day chose not to support it remaining open, which was an entirely different proposition.

How will the Government ensure that the additional fuel stock is securely and effectively stored?

There has been a random press reference that apparently the Channel proposal—Channel being the import facility up in Marsden Point—may not be able to develop the project within the original time I referred to; i.e., a matter of months. That is not accurate: there is scope to rapidly develop the capacity for 90 million litres worth of storage in a matter of months. I suspect the person who made that stupid remark in the media was reading the Māori calendar or something like that.

14:19 · to the Prime Minister

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

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

Yes.

Is tomorrow’s minimum wage increase of just 2 percent, or 45c, enough for working families to keep on top of the bills when inflation was over 3 percent in the last year and is likely to be even higher this year—especially when we know beneficiaries and other low earners typically face worse inflation than others?

Well, as we’ve explained, as we deal with this and navigate this global fuel crisis, we want to make sure that any support we offer is timely and targeted, and actually make sure that it gets to the people who most need it. As of 1 April, there’s a series of increases coming through, including for students and superannuitants, and also for jobseeker support and beneficiaries, and that will help people at this time.

Why has he left more than half of the children living in hardship, disabled people on the supported living payment, and care workers without children to weather this fossil fuel crisis without support by excluding them from his Government’s support package?

Well, we’ve learnt the lesson from COVID, which is that you don’t go and spend $60 billion and half of it goes walkabout and can’t be explained. What we need to do is make sure that we protect New Zealanders—low and middle income working New Zealanders—by making sure we are economically responsible, not adding to and impacting inflation and growth, and minimising the impacts on that as much as possible. Therefore, that’s why we have criteria which we’ve laid out from day one of timely, targeted, and temporary support for people who need it the most.

What does he say to the woman I spoke with in Manurewa over the weekend who cannot afford to take her partner to the hospital for his lifesaving medical treatments because of rising fuel prices?

Well, again, as we talked about support last week, this is a Government that will continue to look at what it can do to support New Zealanders in this difficult time, but we have also been upfront that we are not going to be able to alleviate the pressures for everybody. That’s why we’ve been incredibly targeted for the 143,000 families—working families—who are using their cars getting to work and getting their kids to school.

Does he think it’s fair that home support workers who provide an essential public service, yet had their pay equity claim cancelled by his Government, are struggling to pay their bills because the Government won’t fully reimburse their fuel costs?

Well, as I’ve said, this Government continues to look at ways it can support New Zealanders, but it’s through the frame of timely, targeted, and temporary.

I let that last question go but you need to think carefully about how you ask those questions and the content you put in them.

Understood, thank you, Mr Speaker. Is he comfortable with some of our hardest-working but lowest-paid workers going into debt or using their emergency savings and, essentially, paying to have a job, with Kerris Adlam from Aotea Great Barrier saying, “If I can’t get more money out of Health New Zealand, I will use our crisis fund”?

Well, again, I don’t know how to explain it any further to the member. We are looking after New Zealanders and their future, having learnt the lessons from COVID that having an 84 percent increase in spending drove a 32-year high of inflation, rapidly high interest rates, and, actually, really put massive pressure on low and middle income working New Zealanders. We care about working New Zealanders and we’re making sure that we can support the most vulnerable as best we possibly can.

14:22 · to the Minister of Finance

Will the Government under any phase of the National Fuel Plan offer a financial underwrite or guarantee to fuel companies, as Australia is doing?

14:23

Yes, I can confirm that is something we are giving consideration to. Cabinet yesterday agreed to explore additional options to guard against the risk of disrupted fuel supply and to secure additional fuel security over and above existing minimum supply obligations. This does include consideration of commercial proposals with existing fuel importers that could support the procurement of additional fuel supply for New Zealand. Any proposal will need to be assessed to ensure that it delivers additional fuel security over and above that which would otherwise be provided by those commercial fuel importers, including in respect of their minimum stockholding obligations. Cabinet has agreed in principle that indemnities, guarantees, or loans to support commercial arrangements may be necessary in the public interest and could be included in commercial arrangements if necessary to achieve agreement—subject, of course, to any parameters and conditions needed to ensure responsible management of public finances.

Thank you. Has the Government yet considered what the triggers would be in terms of stock levels, price spikes, or supply disruptions that would cause the Government to move from relying on market settings to Government interventions such as she just described?

In terms of triggers that would lead to an assessment that would lead to a stronger response phase, we set those out when we released the fuel plan on Friday, and those include a number of indicators that would lead us to believe that fuel was at risk of being further disrupted in its supply. In terms of the measures that I outlined in my answer to the primary question, these are options we are actively exploring right now because we believe that this is an insurance policy which we would be grateful for if it does prevent us later having to go into a phase 3 or 4 response in which fuel needs to be prioritised across the economy.

Has she been briefed by the New Zealand Export Credit Office or the broader Treasury on the Australian initiative to give importers the confidence, such as she is describing?

Yes, I have been briefed by the lead of the ministerial oversight group who is in close communication with the lead in the Australian equivalent regime. The Australians informed us, ahead of their announcement about their proposed move to consider guarantees, so we were aware of that development, and we will continue to work closely with them. We have determined that it is in both countries’ national interests to share information with each other, and I note that our sharing of our fuel response plan was also appreciated by the Australians.

Are there any further measures to harmonise fuel regulations or conditions with Australia being considered?

We will continue to give consideration to those. There isn’t one actively being explored right now; however, we have said to fuel importers and those with an interest in ensuring fuel supply that should they think that changes in specification would assist them in securing more fuel, then we will give active consideration to changes in specifications.

14:26 · to the Minister for Social Development and Employment

What changes to financial support will come into effect from 1 April to help respond to cost of living challenges?

From 1 April, the Ministry of Social Development’s annual adjustments will increase financial support for more than 1.5 million New Zealanders. This includes working age beneficiaries, superannuitants, and students, as well as non-beneficiaries receiving supplementary assistance. The global fuel price surge is impacting New Zealand’s cost of living, and our Government is determined to keep progressing sensible, measured changes that provide some relief.

Who will benefit from these changes?

Around 960,000 Kiwis receiving superannuation and the veteran’s pension will get increased payments. There will be over 435,000 working age beneficiaries who will get increased support, around 52,000 students receiving student allowance and loans will get a boost, and approximately 67,000 non-beneficiaries will get an increase in their supplementary assistance.

How much more will they receive?

Superannuation for a married couple who both qualify will lift more than $50 to $1,708 a fortnight, an increase of over $180 since the 2023 election. A single person over 25 years old on jobseeker support will receive an additional $22 a fortnight, a couple with children receiving jobseeker support will receive an increase of more than $40 a fortnight, and a sole parent receiving sole parent support will receive an increase—

Eleven dollars a week.

—of more than $30 a fortnight. It’s sorry to hear that members opposite don’t believe this group of New Zealanders should have an increase. [Interruption]

The answer could have done without the last bit, but we will hear the next supplementary in silence.

How does this change help New Zealanders with the cost of living?

Increasing benefit rates in line with the upward movement in the Consumers Price Index means beneficiaries will continue to be able to afford the same essential goods and services such as food, clothing, accommodation, heating, and transport as the cost of living rises.

14:29 · to the Prime Minister

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

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

Yes.

Why did the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) stop publicly reporting on fossil fuel profit margin data on 18 March?

I’d just ask the member to direct her question to the Minister for Energy. I’m sure they’ll give an answer.

Does the Prime Minister believe that MBIE should continue its reporting on fossil fuel profit margin data for the sake of the public interest in fossil fuel companies not price gouging during a fossil fuel crisis?

Well, we have the New Zealand Commerce Commission that has a watching brief to make sure that fuel companies aren’t gouging, but I’m proud of the way that our Government’s actually working with the industry to provide solutions to New Zealanders at this time.

Does the Prime Minister understand the difference between the Commerce Commission monitoring this information and the public reporting on fossil fuel profit margin data?

Yes, but more importantly, I understand the importance of securing fuel.

Can the Prime Minister confirm that the importer margin, which has been misnamed as the profit margin, fell dramatically in the early days of the Iran war, but has subsequently ceased to be reported because the data had become so erratic it might not be reliable; and wouldn’t it be easier to invent that than make up conspiracies?

Well, I can’t speak to the specifics of that, but what I can speak to is the way that this Government is working in an adult-to-adult way, partnering with industry to deliver solutions for New Zealand. We are working with industry; we are not doing things to industry.

Can the Prime Minister then name just one thing that his Government has done to implement the International Energy Agency’s recommendations to immediately reduce demand for fossil fuels?

Well, I’m sorry, but we are going to secure fuel for New Zealanders. That is our number one priority. We are a Government that has delivered a renewables boom because we have action and investment, not just words. We are a Government that has created a strategic coal reserve for a dry-year risk, and that’s all good stuff. We’re a Government out there making sure that we get fuel to New Zealanders, and we’re going to continue to do so.

Point of order. Mr Speaker, you’ve just told the House about how serious an issue this is, and the Prime Minister did not even attempt to answer or address the question, which was about reducing demand for fossil fuels off the back of the International Energy Agency’s recommendations to all jurisdictions.

Well, that might be right, but his answer was that the Government is acting in the interest of New Zealanders. I think that’s quite reasonable. We’re not subject to the directions from outside international agencies.

I understand—he couldn’t name one. So supplementary, Mr Speaker—[Interruption] He pātai tāpiri.

I beg your pardon?

Has his Government commissioned any advice whatsoever from officials on making public transport free to reduce demand for fossil fuels during this crisis?

Look, as I answered before, I can assure the member that this is a transport Minister that is talking to public transport authorities—they’ve increased capacity. New Zealanders are free to use public transport if they think it helps their household budgets, and many are, and that’s a good thing.

14:33 · to the Minister for Social Development and Employment

How many people who have children in their care, are in paid employment, and who receive superannuation or a benefit will get the $50 a week fuel relief?

Around 143,000 families who have children in their care and who are in paid employment will get the $50 a week increase in the in-work tax credit from 1 April. Inland Revenue advise that this translates into around 230,000 individual parents and caregivers. People who receive a main benefit have never been eligible for the in-work tax credit, but their payments will also go up on 1 April through the annual adjustment. For example, New Zealand superannuation for a married couple who both qualify will go up by more than $50 to $1,708 a fortnight. Our Government is determined to keep progressing sensible, measured changes that provide some relief.

Why didn’t the Government’s response target solo parents who are raising children and working part-time while receiving part of a benefit?

Our Government’s been clear about the support that is available for New Zealanders. In my answer earlier today, I talked about the over 1.5 million New Zealanders who will receive support from 1 April, and the 143,000 families that will be receiving the targeted fuel support payment.

Why didn’t the Government’s response target grandparents raising grandchildren who are on superannuation or a benefit and who are in part-time work?

That member will realise that there are a number of circumstances that superannuitants and beneficiaries are in. What we have done is focus on the 1.5 million New Zealanders that will get support from 1 April, that increases to receive their cost of living as well as targeted, temporary, timely support to ensure that what we don’t do is follow the mistakes of a previous Government in COVID, where it was very widespread, untargeted support that led to high inflation. Actually, let me quote the Governor of the Reserve Bank—

Well, you’ve done pretty well with the answer so far. Have we got another supplementary on this?

Why didn’t the Government’s response target parents of disabled children who are in part-time work to make ends meet and getting State assistance?

Well, I’ll repeat what I said before: 1.5 million New Zealanders will get additional support from 1 April, and 143,000 families will get support through the targeted, timely, time-bound support through the in-work tax credit.

Why has the Government’s response been to do nothing for those most in need, pretend the 1 April changes don’t happen every year, and ignore the fact that working people who still need to drive their kids to school and go to work are being left behind?

Well, I totally and absolutely reject the comment that that member has made. What our Government is doing is making sure that there are increases available for New Zealanders in a range of ways, whether they are superannuitants, beneficiaries, or those working families. But what we’ve been very clear about is that widespread, untargeted support, where the hose of money is spread around, leads to high inflation. Who does that hurt the most? According to the Governor of the Reserve Bank, we have to remember that high inflation hurts everyone, but it particularly hurts households with low incomes.

14:37 · to the Minister of Housing

What recent announcements has he made about the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act 2020?

Last week, I announced around 1,500 new homes that are set to be built as part of the Te Awa Lakes development, thanks to the Government approving the use of an Infrastructure Funding and Financing (IFF) Act levy. This is a 2,500-property greenfield development north-west of the great city of Hamilton. The IFF Act levy will fund up to $50 million of water and roading infrastructure supporting 1,500 of these new properties. The first of these homes are expected to be delivered in 2029.

How does the infrastructure funding and financing work?

About six years ago now, Parliament passed the Act to try and accelerate greenfields housing developments, supported by both sides of the House. Since then, no new greenfields using the Act have been approved—this is the first one. It makes it easier for new housing developments to get off the ground, away from the borrowing constraints that councils are often subject to. Developers with viable projects should not be held back by an inability to gain infrastructure funding and finance. The model works by establishing a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for projects, separate from council balance sheets. The SPV then repays the finance raised by charging a levy to homeowners and landowners who benefit from the infrastructure that is delivered. The model allows growth to pay for growth.

What does the Te Awa Lakes development mean for Hamilton?

Well, the wider development is a great example of the type of urban growth we need in this country. They are transforming an old sand quarry into a masterplan community with residential development, retail, hospitality, recreational facilities, and tourism. It means more construction, more homes for families, more business opportunities, and a vibrant mixed-use suburb that blends housing, amenities, and services all in one place.

What else is the Government doing to improve infrastructure funding and financing to support urban growth?

Well, the Government is a believer in the IFF Act model, and, of course, we have a piece of legislation to amend it, before Parliament right now, to make it easier and more nimble so that we can get more greenfields developments under way. The amendments enhance the Act’s usability and remove unnecessary barriers to uptake. We’re also making different changes to funding and financing infrastructure more broadly, including replacing development contributions with a new development levies regime. The fundamental point is that for commercially viable projects, infrastructure should not be used as an excuse to prevent growth.

Cushla Tanga—[Interruption] Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. My apologies.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Just for those who might have misunderstood there, the member herself has given me instruction on how I should pronounce these things. So I hope I got a reasonable mark out of that one.

Something to work on! Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Some things you’ve just got to let go, don’t you?

14:40 · to the Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery

Does he stand by his commitment to “strengthening New Zealand’s emergency management system and ensuring that it can meet the growing risk we face from severe weather events and other emergencies”?

Yes.

How would a move to phase 2 of the National Fuel Plan impact civil defence and emergency services’ access to fuel in emergencies?

The National Emergency Management Agency is heavily involved and engaged—in fact, they were the architect of the original fuel plan for us, as a country; that, obviously, has gone through some modification due to what we’re dealing with now: a conflict in the Middle East and enormous pressure being put on fuel not just for us but around the world. Phase 2, quite simply, in terms of making sure that front-line services continue to respond and support New Zealanders—that will not be impacted.

What is he doing to prepare civil defence and emergency services in the scenario where there is a shortage of diesel?

Well, they’re already well prepared but there is a lot of contingency work going across all Government agencies because we have to take a responsible approach to this as a country—all of us. There is a significant amount of work being done to make sure that, fundamentally, the first priority is to make sure that, as a Government, we continue to provide all of those front-line services that Kiwis expect to get.

What assurances can he give New Zealanders that emergency generators, civil defence vehicles, and rescue equipment will have guaranteed access to diesel if stocks decline?

I can assure all New Zealanders that, in the last two years, I’m extremely proud, as a country, of how, in fact, we didn’t wait for Mr Jerry Mateparae’s report to come back to us after Cyclone Gabrielle. The whole of our emergency management system had already responded—and that goes from mayors to their councils, the civil defence and emergency management teams, the chief executives, right through to our world-class first responders, community groups, iwi and hapū, and our rural sector. The best response to these events is whole of society. We’ve never been in a stronger position to be able to respond to these events, and I’m confident we’ll continue to do so.

How will diesel supplies be prioritised for the emergency management system in the National Fuel Plan’s phases 2, 3, and 4?

The Government, at the moment, is fully focused on making sure that we build in as much resilience as we can, as a country. I think everyone can see the global challenges and the headwinds, but our Government has been proactive from day one. We’ve put ourselves in the best possible position, and we remain fully committed—as a Government should do—to make sure—

He’s as bad as Luxon.

Mr Speaker, I thought this was a really important question. So far, all I’ve got is nonsensical comments from the Leader of the Opposition, on what is actually really important to people.

We’ll all calm down and we’ll get the answer to the question.

This Government is 100 percent committed—and has got a proud track record over the last two years—to making sure that we provide those front-line services and support for Kiwis in their time of need. We will continue to do that.

14:44 · to the Minister of Immigration

What recent announcement has she made regarding strengthening New Zealand’s immigration system?

The Government has progressed the Immigration (Enhanced Risk Management) Amendment Bill to improve the integrity of our immigration system and strengthen the consequences for serious offending. Alongside the bill, I’ve tabled, also, a parliamentary paper with additional proposals. This bill delivers practical, targeted changes to improve compliance and enforcement, increase the maximum penalty for migrant exploitation, and ensure there are immigration consequences for criminal offending and deliberate use of the system.

Why are these changes needed?

Because the world we are responding to has changed. The geopolitical context is rapidly evolving, and the immigration risks are increasing in scale and complexity. We are seeing more risk, more deliberate misuse of the system, and ongoing harm from migrant exploitation. New Zealanders have also been appalled by cases where people have committed serious crimes, like the Jaz brothers, who are not able to be deported due to how long they’ve been in New Zealand. The system needs to be fit for purpose and ensure that our priority is on victims of crime and public safety, while ensuring that individual cases are considered on their particular circumstances. It’s about maintaining public confidence and making sure the system adapts to this changing world.

Why is the Government proposing to exclude people who commit serious crimes in New Zealand from refugee status?

We will always meet our international obligations, including allowing people to remain in New Zealand who genuinely need protection. However, we will update our interpretation of the Refugee Convention so that people who commit serious crimes after arriving in New Zealand but before the decision is made on their refugee status are to be excluded from refugee protection. There are currently 12 known refugee claims from people who have been convicted of serious offences in New Zealand, including for murder, accessory to murder, rape, indecent acts on a child, drug offences, and dangerous driving causing death. This change will mean that Immigration New Zealand can take convictions from crimes like these into account when making a refugee determination, and it’s important to maintain public confidence in our refugee and protection system.

How do these changes strengthen deportation settings?

The bill expands deportation liability across a wider range of criminal offending over a longer period of time, and strengthens our ability to deport people who commit the most serious crimes. It also closes loopholes, making it clear that providing false or misleading information, as well as historic offending, can trigger deportation liability, and ensuring that all victims can have a voice when a criminal appears in front of the Immigration and Protection Tribunal. If you come to New Zealand and you comply with our laws and contribute, you are welcome here. But if you are convicted of criminal offending or provide false or fraudulent information, you should expect to be required to leave.

14:47 · to the Minister of Internal Affairs

Is she confident that Fire and Emergency New Zealand has the equipment, appliances, and supplies it needs to operate effectively; if so, why?

As I said last month and prior to that, Fire and Emergency New Zealand has inherited decades of under-investment in old trucks with the amalgamation of multiple services into one. They have a plan, and have had a plan for a number of years, to invest in new fleet and equipment. This year alone, they have a plan to invest $84.7 million in new fire trucks, property, and equipment.

What actions, if any, has she taken to ensure that Fire and Emergency New Zealand has enough fuel and diesel reserves to operate during a prolonged fuel shortage?

Look, I’m very confident that Fire and Emergency will continue to respond to New Zealanders’ concerns and their calls of help. I’m advised that Fire and Emergency is taking a coordinated set of actions to manage the current fuel prices and potential supply pressures. They have established a Fuel Planning Group to assess potential impacts on fuel availability and cost and to coordinate contingency planning across the organisation. This work aligns very closely with the all-of-Government National Fuel Plan, under which Fire and Emergency, as an emergency service, is classified as a “critical customer”. I’m also advised from Fire and Emergency that they are working closely with their sector partners, including New Zealand Police and St John, to ensure planning assumptions, prioritisation settings, and potential response measures are aligned across the emergency services. They are also engaging with their aviation suppliers to ensure that there is continuity of service with the in-air service of Fire and Emergency, as well.

How many days of operational diesel reserves does Fire and Emergency New Zealand have to hand, and how are these distributed across the country?

That sort of question would have been quite helpful to have in writing as the primary question. That sort of detail can be sourced through a written parliamentary question.

How will diesel supplies be prioritised for Fire and Emergency New Zealand in the National Fuel Plan phases 2, 3, and 4?

As I have earlier alluded to, Fire and Emergency is working with the all-of-Government National Fuel Plan, under which they, as an emergency service, are classified as a critical customer. However, we are only in the first phase. I have had conversations with the chief executive, Kerry Gregory, and we are on the same page that all New Zealanders should expect a response from Fire and Emergency in a time of need, even while we have this fuel crisis.

Would professional crews be prioritised over volunteer crews in the National Fuel Plan phases 2, 3, or 4, and, if so, why?

As I said, if this question had actually been about the fuel plan, I would’ve been able to come to the House with those relevant pieces of information. I’d ask the member to actually put those down into written parliamentary questions, because I’ve had the exact same question in writing for pretty much month on month on month on end, and it’s very difficult to know where she’s going to go with the technical aspects of the question.

That concludes oral questions. Members who need to go off to other business, please do so quietly and without conversations on the way.

14:52

I move, That the sessional order relating to electronic petitions with highly discriminatory content, adopted by the House on 9 October 2025, be amended by deleting Rule 4 (Expiry).

14:53

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It gives me great privilege to close out the third and final reading, as the last speaker on the Public Finance Amendment Bill. This bill seeks to do a few things: to introduce more specific disclosure requirements for the statement of specific fiscal risks; to introduce a requirement to publish a tax expenditure statement; to increase the forecasting period for the economic and fiscal forecast to align with current practice and remove fiscal cliffs such that this Government inherited coming into election; and, finally, to repeal the requirement to articulate wellbeings that were put in by the previous administration and gave the last administration the ability to chase ideology, remove tangible measurements, and enable local government without any fiscal constraints. I commend this bill to the House.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Racing Industry (Closure of Greyhound Racing Industry) Amendment Bill.

14:56

Kia orana, Mr Chair. Thank you. I appreciate having the Minister for Racing in the chair. In relation to Part 1, I have just a couple of quick questions that focus around the functions, the duties, and the powers of the new transition agency. I know that the Minister has publicly indicated—and, indeed, in this Chamber—his desire that the members of the agency would, effectively, be the members of the ministerial advisory committee at the moment. Although it’s over to his remit, I think that that does provide some continuity in terms of some of the issues there.

But when we look at what is new section 53D, “Functions, duties, and powers of Agency”, inserted by clause 10—and this is in new Subpart 6 in clause 10—there are a number of things that are outlined there. The Primary Production Committee did hear about the need to ensure that the rehoming of the specified greyhounds was a process that was clear and understood. There is an expectation that the agency would be responsible, under subsection (1)(h), for keeping “a record of specified greyhounds that have been successfully rehomed:”.

Given this was a key part of the select committee’s consideration, my question to the Minister is whether he thinks there needs to be any other changes around the record-keeping, or whether he is satisfied with the information that he’s received to date that the incoming agency, once it is stood up, will have processes in place. Some of it might be inherited from Greyhound Racing New Zealand, but none the less they will be in place to be able to ensure that the record of those specified greyhounds that had been rehomed was accurate.

14:58

Thank you, Mr Chair. I was fortunate enough to be on the Primary Production Committee for the hearing of this bill, and we heard many, many concerns. But I think I’d just like to first reiterate that the universal thing we heard—and why we are here—is concern for animal welfare in the greyhound racing industry, concern for the dogs, and concern that the right practices are being put in place, and that’s what’s brought this bill to the House. During the select committee, we also heard concerns that go to the human aspect of what’s being done here—concerns for a community which has been established for a long time in New Zealand. They have been a core part of New Zealand’s identity that have built their own community around the sport and have intergenerational connections to it.

The concern for the people is what came through in the select committee, and so I have a couple of amendments that I’ve tabled. In Part 1, I have Amendment Paper 566 inserting a new clause 10A. The reason why this clause, I think, is important is that there have been concerns that were taken seriously at the select committee, to the point that the Government’s intention to allow overseas betting be put into this law. That would provide funds, through the TAB, to enable profits to be distributed back into New Zealand’s economy, you could say, but mostly it seemed like the equine codes is where that money might head to.

The people who came to the Primary Production Committee and who told us their stories of investment, of good faith, of community, and of heritage in this country need to have some olive leaf put to them from this House and from this Government that says that we understand your concerns that you felt passed over in the development of this bill—sorry, not you, Mr Chair; the people who came in felt passed over in the development of this bill. They felt that their trust was perhaps not given the weight that it deserves and that their input into our community has not been properly looked at, and the efforts they have made to address the legitimate concerns that have been made in the past and in reviews weren’t addressed.

This amendment—and the one I’m speaking to here is Amendment Paper 566—would make it so that the revenues derived from overseas betting on greyhounds, which was changed at the select committee to allow it to happen, only be given for purposes specified in this amendment. Any profit for which this section applies—to quote it—is “only [to be] used for an animal welfare related purpose, an approved greyhound rehoming programme, or an approved compensation regime.” I don’t want to talk too much about the third part there, because I have another Amendment Paper that will touch on compensation and I don’t want to pre-empt this committee stage, but I think that it is an important thing that it makes it clear where those funds are going.

It also makes it clear that there is some flexibility where the Minister, every 12 months after the date of the amendment Act coming into force, must approve where those funds are going. That’s because we don’t know this early in this stage what sorts of compensation regimes and what sorts of rehoming programmes will actually be used, because there is some disquiet about the potential of current rehoming facilities and agencies or organisations that have done rehoming in the past and their capacity to help these dogs as they are no longer able to race, which the greyhound racing breed is for. When that moves on, where will they go? What rehoming programmes will be used? It’s hard to tell.

My amendment would mean that the Minister must be constantly vigilant over the shutdown of this industry. That’s my first contribution, Mr Chair, and I hope for some more.

15:03

Thank you, Mr Chair. I just have a couple of questions on clause 10, which inserts new Subpart 6 in Part 2 of the Racing Industry Act. My questions to the Minister for Racing are on the establishment of the transition agency. Minister, can you confirm that the establishment agency, as a separate legal entity, ensures operational independence? It would be helpful to understand what type of entity it is, and its operational independence is important because, as we’ve heard, a number of submitters were very worried about the transitional arrangements that will take place under the bill.

The second question I have is: how will the agency’s corporate status assist with employment continuity and asset management? We heard the concerns about when it moves to the regime, whether those who have experience and skills with rehoming dogs and who understand the industry be allowed to continue. Will there be opportunities via the agency to look at those types of arrangements so that the people who are currently employed are not just out in the cold but the experienced people can transition through and continue in that space of employment? In particular, how will the assets that will be managed by the agency be disbursed, or what categories—there are a number of questions with those assets that are, in particular, with the different programmes that are decided by the agency. How will they be disbursed?

My last question is: is it expected that this structure will improve confidence among industry participants, specifically with rehoming agencies, Minister? We heard a number of people who were very upset and trying to handle their emotions, going from the current regime to a new regime. It’s all the different questions that they had and they put to committee members. Thank you.

15:05

There’s another question that remains on the table following the select committee stage and, indeed, the first and second readings, and I’m hoping the Minister for Racing might be able to shed some light on it because it leads to a major part of the fee. What’s happening in this bill, with an industry being completely disestablished and their assets being moved into a transition agency, is that there has been the change at Primary Production Committee—which we talked about at the second reading, in response to members’ contributions—to make sure that those funds that were for greyhound racing, at the end of the rehoming process, whenever that end may be, will be redistributed back to participants in the industry.

There are some changes in the process here, where we’ve had a ministerial advisory committee coming up with the programme and coming up with the bill and the transition agency, but it worked at the beginning with a report. In the regulatory impact statement—and this is relevant to Part 1 because it’s the establishment of the transition agency—at paragraph 164, it says that after the ministerial advisory committee disbands, which is at the beginning of the transition agency, it will produce a final report that will document the steps taken towards closure, what steps might be needed, and any remaining aspects of the closure. Interestingly, it’s got one further part of their role, which is to “provide advice about any general lessons learnt from this process should the Government consider disestablishing any other industry in the future.”

I would like to ask the Minister: what other industries, or even recreational activities, could be referenced in this? What other industries or activities could the Minister see this process being replicated upon? It leads to speculation in many New Zealanders’ heads that if this can happen to—as the Racing Industry Board has said—an industry that is meeting all its obligations, that is deemed compliant, and that is acting within the law, what lessons have been learnt? As we move from a ministerial advisory committee to a transition agency, what lessons have been learnt that could be applied to disestablishing any other industry in the future? Minister, what industries do you expect this could relate to?

I have another question that’s been left on the table, perhaps, after our select committee process and the second reading, and that is about the personnel that will be coming into the transition agency. For example, there are a lot of people in rehoming who have got a great deal of experience in finding homes for retired or uninterested racing dogs—dogs that never found their calling, despite their breeding, to become racing greyhounds. In going off to find loving homes for these beautiful animals, we’ve got a lot of experience in this country in that regard. We’ve also got people in Greyhound Racing New Zealand who have got deep connections into the community, and they are people who know the individuals, because that’s what we’re talking about: an industry of some 1,000 people whose livelihoods and industry and community are about to be ended.

There was a great deal of concern at the select committee from members across the parties of the House about the welfare and the connections that these now deemed industry participants are losing. I would love to hear the Minister address the questions that have been left on the table about who will actually be in the transition agency, managing the transition and the rehoming but also the people and the relationships.

There are members of the Opposition with portfolios in areas such as mental health who, I think, would be very interested—as they were at the select committee, and I hope they take contributions on this—as to what the transition agency will be doing to make sure that the people whose communities and livelihoods are being taken away by this are seen right.

Can I just remind members that pregnant pauses will often lead to a closure.

15:10

Thank you, Mr Chair. I wish to speak to some of the concerns of my colleague opposite—Cameron Luxton—regarding the practical impact on people in the industry. I believe the Minister for Racing has made it clear that it is his expectation—and I wonder, Minister, if you would respond to this—that the transitional agency does take account of how it can support the people currently employed by the greyhound industry in transition away from that industry, given its closure.

As it is currently drafted, Cameron Luxton’s amendment goes too far, I believe. It puts an expectation on the Minister to evaluate all of the factors and the cost to the industry of the closure and then make a report—

I think you might be talking about No. 567; it’s No. 566 in this part.

OK, sure. I’m sort of talking more broadly, because it relates to the impact on the industry itself and how that might be addressed. Sure, I can speak to your amendment later if you’d prefer.

Perhaps the Minister can respond in terms of the intention that he expects of the transitional agency and how those who are part of the industry are treated. Obviously, it’s very clear: the intention to protect the animals and ensure that they are rehomed in an effective way. Thank you.

15:12

Thank you, Mr Chair. I have spoken—this being Part 1—on that interjection I had with Steve Abel there. He was referring to one of my later Amendment Papers, but the Amendment Paper that I have right in front of us, on Part 1, Amendment Paper 566, relates to a rebuilding of trust. I hope that the Minister for Racing takes this opportunity to take a call, in Part 1, and that pregnant pauses, as directed by the Chair, do not lead to moving on before such parts are addressed.

I am sure the Minister would like to talk about making sure that the betting on overseas greyhounds, which was a change that the Primary Production Committee made, is addressed and speaks to an Amendment Paper that has been tabled that means the decisions every 12 months as we move through a transition process, which involves the ending of a historic and culturally important industry in New Zealand, a legally abiding and complying industry, are taken seriously. I just urge the Minister to address Amendment Paper 566 before the pregnant pauses of this committee move us on to another part.

I’d just remind the member, too, that his second Amendment Paper is to the Schedule, which is actually being debated with this part at the moment—just for his information.

15:14

There is only one thing more depressing than what we’ve been doing today, and that is not doing it. In 2013, there was an investigation into greyhound racing, with some serious concerns. Then the Hansen report, in 2017—a superb report—raised some serious concerns. Then, in 2021, the next report turned up. Again, there were more and more concerns. So pray, do not tell me that this is an industry that was not on alert as to what was going on. That’s the first thing.

The second thing: our bona fide in this industry is that we gave them the highest earnings they’ll ever have in the history of this country, by a factor of 150 percent more than ever before, and then when they were broke during the COVID years, we bailed them out. Perhaps it is important to say that at no point have I ever received a letter of thanks from anybody in that industry, but, anyway, that’s what life’s like. We’re not here for gratitude, otherwise we’d be very disappointed.

Now, with regard to the functions and powers of the transition agency, can I first of all say that someone questioned as to whether or not they were legal in their standing. Well, yes, they’re a separate statutory body, and so that’s the answer to that question. I think it was the honourable Lemauga Lydia Sosene who asked that question. She also talked about the dog industry personnel being used in the transition, and as much as we can do that in a positive way, of course that will be a sound idea.

In terms of confidence in the rehoming structure, well, there’s an enormous amount of preparation and we’re going into it, as we speak. In every respect, the plan and the time duration and the statutory safeguards for that to happen and the choice of the right people, we believe, is well under control. But I see emerging, of late, two questions. There is the idea that you can have an industry that is concerned massively in terms of animal safety and cruelty to animals, and, despite that, being massively compensated for that failure not once, not twice, but three times is somewhat of a tall, tall poppy to recognise.

The second thing is we have made sure that there is sufficient funding, but to start setting out what your funding options are before you know who will be relevant as an applicant would be a very, very unsound governmental strategy and a terrible precedent for all other forms of compensation going into the future. There’s no party in this House that’s ever got up in the past and advocated for that sort of circumstance where, no matter what the statutory change was, there was going to be full compensation. Dare I say it, if that was the case, there would be no change in this country in so many other areas where the question of precedent arises.

Now, do you remember—just as the background to this—that there are still advertisements being put in the newspaper from this industry? If they’re short of money, they’re not showing it—they’re taking out whole pages. If they’re short on money, why are they doing that? Or, more importantly, they’ve hired this King’s Counsel and went to court. The case was so weak on day one, the judge said, “This case is going to have to be adjourned so that you can substantiate the volume and the quality of your case.” Well, on the resumption, the judge thought the case was weaker than on day one.

We’re not coming here without history on our side, and we do not do it out of pleasure, but one thing we’re going to do is face up to the responsibility of doing what is right on this occasion, and this Parliament, unlike any other Parliament, has been awfully long-suffering to have gone through three separate inquiries. Two were under National and the third time was under Labour, and so it wasn’t to do with party politics; there was just a general concern that something was going horribly wrong in the peak damage of dogs in too many industries.

Now, the question was also asked: what possible industries in the future could be affected by this? Well, this is just a safe catch-all clause that should something in the future roughly approximate to this be required to happen, what lessons could we pass on to them from the experience that we’re going through now? Unlike, of course, the COVID inquiry, where there was a fake inquiry with fake terms of reference and fake personnel with a fake outcome, and now we’re finding out all sorts of people never got heard and all sorts of people were victimised—we’re not going to have that on this occasion. So—[Bell rung]

Mr Chair.

Sorry, this is too long!

I do have to remind the Minister that—

It’s only 10 minutes in.

—the broader he goes, then the more comes up for discussion.

15:20

Thank you, Mr Chair, and thank you, Minister, for addressing the questions that have been proposed so far. It’s good to have some of those answers. A couple of points that I’d love to explore further with the Minister for Racing is—and the Minister is right: there have been reviews that have found the industry wanting; in fact, reviews that have found it more than wanting, with animal rights issues and abuses that need to be solved. But that goes to the very point: what we have here is an industry who the Racing Integrity Board has marked as compliant on every issue, exceeding on most of them, and saying that this industry is an industry that is full of people who have invested in good faith.

These reports and reviews that the Minister talks about—yes, over those eight years, there were three reports that identified issues. That was five years ago. We are now talking about an industry of people who are not tall poppies to be cut down; they are tall poppies to recognise. These are individuals representing themselves and their families and their communities, their sport, their industry, and their hobby—their lives that they have invested. One of these tall poppies is Craig Roberts, who, at the Primary Production Committee, said: “Over the years, I have made a significant financial investment in this industry, including approximately $150,000 in kennel and facility improvements. This was not speculative spending—it was long-term investment made in good faith in a legally operating, highly regulated industry”. He goes on to talk about the people he employs and how long they’ve been doing this important work.

Katie, who’s a trainer, owner, and handler in Canterbury—this is one of the tall poppies—says: “This ban directly affects me by losing my livelihood, I will have no income. The ban announcement in December 2024 has meant I’ve had to put my future plans on hold (buying my first home, starting a family and having a holiday) due to the lack of certainty the Bill presents post July 2026. The ban is directly affecting my wellbeing, negatively. I will lose my greyhound community. I will lose my identity and sense of belonging”. These are not tall poppies to be cut down; they are tall poppies who we should recognise for putting the effort in that they have done, and look at them and say, “Well done, and thank you for taking the concerns of the past seriously and moving and investing and complying in a way that you have done in the last few years.”

People have invested, in good faith, and that goes to—and thank you for your guidance earlier, Mr Chair, about the Amendment Paper 567 being in this part. This Amendment Paper is not a speculative—you know, agreeing to a compensation regime without any numbers attached. It is saying that when good people comply with the law asked of them by Government, a defence of that investment and of their asset and of their life is that, if you comply with the law, your investments will not be made worthless overnight.

The lesson, otherwise, for the next industry—and the Minister doesn’t have any industries in mind, I take him at his word when he said that. But the lessons to any other future industries, when they look back at this process, and when the next industry, whoever it may be—fly fishing, perhaps; how dare these people catch a trout, take it out of the water for just a selfish photo, and then release it back? When they are put on notice, perhaps, if they invest, on a promise by the Crown, in gear to go fishing in, in vehicles and access and training, in a life, means that a compensation regime—which is not “numbers”; it is in my Amendment Paper 567. It says that there will be a review of the financial loss. There will be a recommendation made—not a binding recommendation, but a recommendation. The Minister can assess it then. The funding will be coming from sources of the TAB, which, in all likelihood, will be overseas greyhound-betting. This is not a binding situation; this is saying that when the next industry looks back on the lessons we’ve learnt here today, the Government didn’t just come in and destroy their livelihood and take their assets without recognising the pain that they have put in. That is what my Amendment Paper speaks to, and I hope the Minister addresses it.

15:25

Hang on—so somebody spent $150,000 on kennels in their industry and that’s being proposed as some sort of terrible sacrifice made on behalf of the industry? I would have thought that had been essential since day one.

That’s the problem we’ve got here. They had warnings in 2013, 2017, and 2021, and the member says they complied with the law asked of them by the Government; no, they did not. How many warnings would you need? To be told, “Look, if you don’t change dramatically and change those figures, then something’s going to be done.” That’s the point I’m making. I don’t know where all this righteousness came from at the last moment, because I was there at the time during COVID when they were flat out on their bones, and we saved them. And, as I said, if consultation and conversation was required, why didn’t I or anybody in my office get any communications on that score?

15:26

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Thank you, Mr Chair. It would be a shame for a Government to be proposing laws that end an industry without having a proper back and forth with at least one member of this House on what that means to the people in that industry, but, also, to the wider lessons that will be learnt.

The Minister for Racing—I wouldn’t want to be unkind—scoffed, perhaps, at a $150,000 investment in kennels. That’s not the only investment that’s been made. Yesterday, there was a piece in The Post which outlined a whole lot more that has been invested by participants in this industry—it employed loads of people. The article doesn’t quote the Minister, but it does quote a spokesperson for the racing Minister, Winston Peters, who said, “compensation for lost earnings was part of the closure plan and support for trainers and owners would be rolled out while dogs were being rehomed”. That is a good thing to hear, but the Primary Production Committee—the second reading, and now we’re in the committee of the whole House with members taking closure motions—has not seen a plan for these earnings compensations that were alluded to by a spokesperson for the Minister.

But earnings are not capital, and I think the lesson that in my last contribution, I was trying to draw members’ attention to—that is being learnt here—is: yes, there was money spent on kennels. We don’t know how much of that was upgrades required, how much was already invested in kennel infrastructure—you know, scoffing at $150,000; for a lot of people, that is a great deal of money, and that was one example. There have been many others who have come to the select committee talking about their investments. But just scoffing at a—I mean, a tradie in a van worth 25 grand, with 20 grand worth of tools; are we going to scoff at a $45,000 investment into a small trades business? I really hope that’s not the precedent that’s being put here—that just because it doesn’t seem like a great deal of money means that the Government can step in and take it whenever it pleases.

What my Amendment Paper is trying to do to improve this legislation for the future, for the people who are having this industry close, to give them some understanding that the money that they have invested to exactly comply with the law, meet the guidelines—you could say they should have invested it for animal welfare and, yes, they should have. You can say they should have invested it because that was asked of them by the Government and, yes, they should have. But the very fact that they made that investment requires good faith on their part that should be recognised in good faith on our part, on the part of the Government who says, “Yes, we recognise that your industry is coming to an end. We recognise that you’ve acted in good faith. But we also recognise that the precedent that’s being set here, that just because”—I think, was it, the Minister said—“we have might on our side, we can do it.” That’s quite a principle to be supporting around the House.

So my modest Amendment Paper—with the words from the Minister—is simply saying that we will recognise the words that have been spoken in this legislation. We will say that there must be an arrangement for an independent review of this Act, for the purposes of assessing the extent of the financial loss to any affected person that has resulted from the commencement of this bill. We will recommend the establishment of a compensation regime that seeks to address the financial loss, recommend any eligibility requirements for the scheme, and propose that the funding for the scheme comes from the TAB, not the taxpayer. We have a beautiful solution here, where the select committee has enabled overseas betting to be brought in.

In consideration of the appointment of an independent reviewer, the Minister must consult with, and have regard to, the views of Greyhound Racing New Zealand before its dissolution, which will enable the people who are connected to the industry to make sure that those views are going to be taken into account. The recommendations of the review must be reported to the Minister. That is what we are asking here. It doesn’t say “will pay”, but it says the Minister must assess the losses here and reckon with the damage that is being done to livelihoods, lives, and communities.

15:31

The reality is that on the question of the Amendment Paper, we don’t believe it’s needed. It’s not necessary to ring-fence the revenue from overseas greyhound betting in the legislation. The bill already requires TAB New Zealand to provide an amount of funding approved by the Minister for Racing to enable the transition agency to perform its functions efficiently and effectively. Therefore, there is no need to further specify the source of TAB NZ funding, given that all funding will come from within TAB New Zealand’s overall bucket. Ring-fencing a single stream in legislation would only add unnecessary rigidity without improving outcomes.

The transition is estimated to cost $60 million over three years. Of that, approximately $44 million is expected to come from TAB NZ’s overseas greyhound racing revenue; $15 million from Greyhound Racing New Zealand and club assets; and any shortfall, of around $1 million, from the wider TAB NZ distributions, most likely from the equine codes. Here’s the point: revenue generated from betting on overseas greyhound racing is intended to support greyhound welfare and industry participants, reducing the financial burden that would otherwise fall on the remaining two equine codes. That’s our position.

Just one thing on the $150,000 on kennels: again, that’s astonishing when it’s been put up as some sort of sacrifice, when all the information you’re getting from the public and Parliament is that your industry is in danger because it is not reacting to the inquiries that have come its way—independently sought and commissioned—in the first place. Then to think “We haven’t reacted to that but we’re still going to get full compensation no matter what, because we’re blameless.” is not a meritorious position.

15:33

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Steve Abel—speaking to his amendments, presumably.

Yes, I am. I’m speaking to Amendment Paper 567 specifically, from Mr Luxton. The concern we have with that amendment—what I think the Minister for Racing has expressed—is just how broad it is. It does set a problematic precedent if there’s an expectation that when an industry has fallen out of favour with the public and has moved beyond being acceptable, in terms of social licence, they will be compensated if the Government does what is appropriate and brings an end to that industry. That would be a problematic precedent for us to set in the House.

I think there is another option available which recognises that we would wish legislative structures around the closure of the industry, not only to protect the animals but also to give some recognition of the need for transition for the workers. I have a proposed amendment to Mr Luxton’s Amendment Paper 567, and that is at new clause 35: “(2) The purpose of the review is to—(a) assess the extent of transitional challenges for any affected person that has resulted from the commencement of the amendment Act; and (b) recommend the establishment of a scheme that seeks to support retraining for those affected persons.” It very specifically narrows the scope just to support and retraining.

It articulates, in specific terms, Minister, what I think is your intention—that the transitional agency take care to the welfare of the people involved—but it certainly doesn’t move to the extent of compensating the industry for the closure, which we agree would be an inappropriate precedent. Thank you.

15:35

Thank you, Mr Chair. I suspect that my time addressing these issues on behalf of those affected is coming to an end.

Well, it’s probably time you actually look for some clarification of policy issues now.

I was about to ask the Minister for Racing, in response to his ring-fencing the funding comment to my Amendment Paper 566—I thank him for his answer, but I say that that response does not address any of the questions I’ve raised on Amendment Paper 567, which is the compensation scheme.

I was hoping the Minister would answer a simple question: how much monetary cost does he think is about to be imposed on the participants of the industry? How much does the Minister believe would be in a compensation regime, were one, hypothetically, to be agreed to by this committee tonight? Has the Minister had any advice on how much an independent reviewer might come up with and say, “This is lost earnings.”? How much would an independent reviewer say, “This is lost capital investment which has been made valueless after the closing of this industry.”? How much retraining cost?

To the member Steve Abel’s amendment, how much above the retraining costs—

This is coming from ACT!

Well, maybe you’d be surprised that we’re not—how much, Minister, above the Ministry of Social Development jobseeker and retraining schemes we already have in New Zealand, does he think it would cost to implement Mr Steve Abel’s amendment? Why would we need that? I suppose I couldn’t really ask the Minister that, but how much does he think it would cost to retrain, how much to compensate for earnings, and how much to compensate for capital?

15:37

The member Cameron Luxton asked that question seven times. It didn’t improve. The reality is that anyone who has been involved or with experience in this business would know that to summate that without the information—

That’s why I asked you if you had the information.

I’ve got a transitional authority of experts, serious experts, who are going to find that out, but to take a stab in the dark, when you could be out by $10 million or more, would be irresponsible in the extreme. The fact of the matter is that when it comes to Amendment Paper 567, the paper is not needed. The Government’s intention has always been to support industry members as they transition away from greyhound racing. We specifically said that. The bill allows for support, and the transition agency has flexibility to provide for additional compensation, such as for lost income, should this be seen as necessary.

These are blanket statements of commitment by the agency into the future and written into our law. Or is it that somebody has gone round the back door and lined up some politicians and said, “Well, hang on a minute now. You can’t trust these people. We don’t have any faith in them, and they’re out to cheat us.”? Well, if that’s the case, why didn’t they front with us and tell us that to our face? That would have been good. The ministerial advisory group set out key elements of its plan to graduate away from greyhound racing at the Primary Production Committee, which includes taking over ownership of dogs by contracting to cover food and care costs until they are successfully rehomed; working with partners like OnTrack to provide mental health and wellbeing services for those whose daily lives are closely tied to the industry; partnering to provide retraining support for those currently in the industry.

Now, some members of the industry have continued to invest in recent years even with the knowledge that the future of the industry was at risk. They’ve probably even done it in the last year when they knew this was the last year. Participants were on notice for a long time that the continuation of greyhound racing could not be guaranteed. The reality is that not only have we put this structure in place but we’ve given it a timeline, with an extra two years just in case we’ve got it wrong, to ensure that, when it’s all wrapped up, all the concerns that members are expressing will have been attended to. I want to say this thing as well: this was never going to be a painless exercise, but the fact is that the dogs are no longer going to be in pain.

15:40

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that Cameron Luxton’s amendment to Part 1 set out on Amendment Paper 566 be agreed to.

15:43

There has been commentary happening through the process that meetings haven’t been happening, that people haven’t been able to be contacted, that conversations that needed to happen had not happened. It was interesting to have the Minister for Racing’s last response: “Come and tell us. If you’ve got problems, come and tell us. Come and tell us.” He said that a few times. I have a question for the Minister: how many times, this parliamentary term, had he met with Greyhound Racing New Zealand?

I’m not sure that that relates to this exact part of the bill; that was probably a question for the previous one. The Minister may decide to answer it. It is not actually pertaining to this part of the bill.

Can I just say, look, we’ve had a transition team talking to them all the time—at any time they wanted to be consulted and talked to. And just one thing: the member has just, in this debate, used the word—and it was jarring on us when we heard it because he talked about us having promised compensation. No, we didn’t.That’s in none of the documents and where you got that from, I don’t know, but we never used the word “compensation”.

The question is that Steve Abel’s tabled amendments to clauses 17 and 19, and to delete clause 19(8), be agreed to.

The question is that Steve Abel’s tabled amendment to clause 19(8) replacing the definition of “overseas greyhound race” be agreed to.

15:46

Members, we come to Part 3, the debate on clauses 25 to 34—“Amendments that commence by Order in Council”—and Schedules 1 to 3. The question is that Part 3 stand part.

We come now to Schedule 1. The question is that Steve Abel’s tabled amendment to Amendment Paper 567 be agreed to.

The question is that Cameron Luxton’s amendment to Schedule 1 set out on Amendment Paper 567 be agreed to.

15:49

It would be remiss of me not to take this opportunity to put to the Minister for Racing the views of so many people that came, trying to seek a voice and an ear to this Parliament. The question to the Minister is: why can we not extend this racing ban out to give the people a chance to graciously end their industry they’ve been operating in New Zealand for so long, and to give the dogs that have entered a chance to run their races in the prime of their life and go on to retirement, worthy of champions? Would the Minister indulge in addressing the question that’s on so many people’s minds: why so fast; why not another 12 months?

15:50

The reality is that the motives behind this request is that you give another 12 months, then the future Parliament after 7 November 2026 may change its mind. That’s the full-on hope that’s being expressed here. Why so fast? Well, I don’t think 2013, 2017, and 2021 is lightning-speed reacting to damage to the New Zealand reputation occasioned by this industry. It’s not a matter of being so fast. You’re asking to extend it beyond August of this year by a further year, but that is, in our view, a Trojan suggestion; it’s designed to keep the industry going at the very time that Wales is out; Tasmania is saying they’re out, they’re finished; and I bet you, within two years, New South Wales will be out as well. Thank you.

15:51

The response from the Minister for Racing opened up a question about the Tasmanian closure and the time that they are giving. Tasmania is giving more time to the industry than the Minister is proposing. Tasmania’s got a compensation regime in there, which interacts with the title and commencement and time, because in a way you can say compensation versus time. Like, the longer that an industry has to wind down, the more it can run down its assets, depreciate its buildings, its infrastructure, its vehicles, the people’s small minor investments. That leads to less of a cost imposed on those people who interact. Final question to the Minister: why did he think that the Tasmanian model of allowing time to let assets depreciate is beyond the pale for you, Mr Minister?

15:52

Because in duration the Tasmanian model is very similar to New Zealand. It’s 2026 and they want to close in 2029. We announced what we’re going to do, and we’re now in the third year of that announcement.

15:53

Thank you, Mr Chair. I wonder if the committee and the Minister for Racing might indulge me somewhat in the definition of the title and the commencement. I’m seeking comment on an issue around timing, given that the commencement relates to the overall timing. There was a proposal put at the select committee stage that there not be a process of us continuing to collect income from Australian greyhound racing. I wonder if the Minister would consider giving us some reflection on the reason for allowing that when there is closure here, and what consideration he gave to there being a time-bound limit on that, which was just voted down in my amendment, that that be only three years in a fixed time-bound limit.

Understanding, as we all do on the committee, that the logic behind there continuing to be overseas gambling, even though it will be no longer allowed here, is that that will assist in funding the closure. We recognise that, but I wonder what consideration was given to funding the closure entirely from the TAB. I realise that’s slightly more than the scope of this particular section of the debate, but perhaps the Minister would be open to reflecting on it. Thank you.

15:54

Well, I’d suggest the member call up his teal mates in the New South Wales Parliament, because that’s a matter of their sovereignty. Having dog racing in New South Wales is the choice of the people of New South Wales via their elected representatives, and we’re not challenging that. For that member saying, “Well, symbolically because we don’t like it here, we should not be allowing any betting on here” when, in fact, it enables us to better look after people going out of the industry here. That’s the compromise we’ve made.

I can see the member’s point, but I also see the other side of it. The Australians will not be very happy if you start telling them what to do. They’ll think that you’re behaving in a rather jingoistic way, and that’s what I would suggest someone will get up in Parliament and say. All we’re doing is saying to you that rather than challenging the other industries that we’re trying to rebuild, we’ve got a chance of using the resources of the TAB betting in New South Wales, while it lasts, to help our people here get through this transition.

Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Racing Industry (Closure of Greyhound Racing Industry) Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

15:57

Tēnā tātou katoa. I present a legislative statement on the Fisheries Amendment Bill.

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

15:58

I move, That the Fisheries Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Primary Production Committee to consider the Fisheries Amendment Bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 6 August 2026.

This is an overdue but joyous day for those New Zealanders who enjoy either their economic livelihood, their recreational aspirations, or their customary legacy through the fishing resource, because this bill represents a substantial set of improvements to an area that is, sadly, a highly contested space riddled with misinformation.

The New Zealand economy is based on our primary sector in so far as we generate economic wealth through our export revenue. Over 9,000 jobs are tied up with the fishing industry. The are a host of other employment opportunities from those who enjoy the sports fishery—those who are amateur, fisherman, fisherwoman—so it does capture a great deal of attention amongst our fellow Kiwis. There are over $2 billion worth of exports. The quota that underpins the functioning of the commercial sector has a value of $10 billion. So for those of you who are listening to this speech, please don’t think that it’s the New Zealand way to indiscriminately summarily confiscate property rights. Quota means actual wealth. This bill is going to keep that wealth flowing. I belong to a Government—the last time I checked—that believed in property rights; I presume that will continue to be the case.

Building on the economic base of regional New Zealand, we should not overlook the fact that there is a strong global level of demand for our seafood. We should also bear in mind that the industry represents a broad portfolio of activity and products, and we do face a host of geopolitical barriers, trade restrictions hitherto unknown, and a variety of other shifting trends in the market; expectations that our exports will adhere to sustainability. Look no further for a recipe of success than our fishing industry.

It’s important that we bear in mind that there are some principles underpinning the legislation that we are dealing with: sustainability, utilisation. And it’s important that we bear in mind that there are a variety of stakeholders in this sector; none of those stakeholders will have seen a suite of changes of this scale, dare I say, since 1986, with the advent of the quota system—a part of my personal history, a part of my iwi history, a part of our nation’s history. These foundations—i.e., utilisation, sustainability, providing scope for all stakeholders—mean that the system has to be robust. Our quota management system has, for a long period of time, given us an enviable reputation internationally. Of course, this piece of legislation reflects a commitment in our coalition agreement that legislation would be passed to address regulatory barriers and other factors that inhibit the growth of this sector, for jobs, earnings, within guardrails.

Now, there are a host of fisheries decisions that are complicated by litigation. This bill seeks to ensure that litigation takes place within manageable guardrails. This bill seeks to ensure that when catch limit, sustainability, and utilisation decisions are made, they don’t turn into a free-for-all where litigants seek to solve problems that lie well beyond decisions pertaining to how much snapper should be caught within a given period of time.

The bill introduces a 20-working-day limit for lodging judicial reviews of decisions under the Act. The High Court will retain discretion to extend the time frame, where appropriate. People will still have the opportunity to challenge the State, but we are not going to create a situation where serial offenders—like the Environmental Law Initiative—wanting to contest every single decision, costing the State hundreds, if not millions of dollars, thousands, can conveniently go back many years and reprise a decision from another regime. There has to be discipline.

The Minister will also have the ability to recognise industry-led measures, such as catch shelving—decisions where evidence demonstrates that it’s supporting sustainability. It’s important that we have balance and we step away from these febrile-like responses that I’ve seen in more recent times. This is a resource that not only belongs to our time but has to serve the needs of the future. But a resource must be used. A resource has to generate economic wellbeing at a given point in time. This is the time to upgrade the rules and regulations pertaining to our industry.

The provisions in this bill also enable the Minister to set alternative deemed value rates for inshore stocks when caught by southern deep-water vessels operating in areas where, previously, inshore fish were not caught with great abundance.

Let me turn briefly to the matter of cameras. This bill provides for the ongoing operation of cameras. This bill protects the camera footage from peeping Toms hoping to distort, taint, stigmatise men and women deriving their livelihood on boats at sea. Camera footage is made available for those who are charged by the State to effect statutory outcomes, charged by the State to exercise regulatory power. They will not be made available to a range of groups who exist only to undermine the ongoing confidence of the men and women, the investors, and the owners of the industry. Now, in the event that the information is made available, it must be treated with care and used in a very circumspect-like way. Any attempt to leak information or to destroy the purpose for why the information is collected will lead to significant penalties.

Now, look, I’ve listened a great deal to people concerned about the future of our fisheries, and I’ll pay a great deal of attention to what comes through the select committee. I commend the work of the members on the select committee, but let me remind everyone in this House: this is a coalition agreement, and this agreement can be entered into and upheld by quality responses; quality stewardship of us as politicians as we seek to uphold property rights, not destroy the fisheries Treaty of Waitangi settlement; and maintaining balance between the competing stakeholders. I commend the bill.

16:08

Kia orana, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Labour Party to take our first call on the Fisheries Amendment Bill.

I don’t disagree with the Minister around the value of exports that this provides for New Zealand. We have a very clean and clear track record as a country located in the South Pacific Ocean, the envy of many others, and we certainly acknowledge that. However, the Labour Party will not be supporting this bill this afternoon, and that’s because it actually is a retrograde step backwards in terms of the role that New Zealand has all around the world when it comes to fishing.

The Minister talks about utilisation of resource, he talks about sustainability, but he talks in the sense or the camber that they’re two separate things; they can actually go hand in hand. You can utilise resources here in Aotearoa New Zealand and still do so in a sustainable way that protects the environment, that allows for that opportunity for exports to continue, and make sure, actually, that we continue to have that positive track record.

Many of us, I’m sure, have been receiving a lot of emails, in this House, from members out in the community who are extremely concerned about this Government legislation. When we look back at just one aspect that was cited in this particular bill, and it’s around the size of the catch and for commercial fisher people providers to have to not necessarily throw back or be able to retain and sell undersized fish—at the time when this was raised, the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, who has just resumed his seat, described this, I think just last week, as noisy voices—noisy voices. Then, soon after, there was a complete U-turn from the Minister to say, “Oh, actually, no, we’ve listened to the masses.”, and he’s been told we don’t quite know yet whether it was by Winston Peters or Christopher Luxon—both of them seem to be taking credit for that change. But, none the less, this is another example of a Government that is simply out of touch with what New Zealanders are thinking and what New Zealanders need.

We are well known all around the world for the way in which we go about our place in the South Pacific seas. Having a Government that wants to initiate and head down a path of change in this space, it is going to be detrimental for the environment, it’s going to be detrimental for our image, and it’s going to be detrimental in terms of ongoing sustainability as well.

The concerns that have been expressed, I’m sure to all members in this House, via emails and other means, is the real concern that there is a shift away from a focus on public and community involvement and influence towards the smaller players that seem to be perhaps seeking to gain something out of these particular moves. The level of transparency is nothing shy of dodginess when it’s seen through that particular lens, where the environmental protections simply seek to be degraded by this Government, and, in a global sense, that’s deeply disappointing.

Then we have this reliance on self-reporting. Now, I’m not intending to cast negative aspersions across everyone in the industry—far from it—but when you start to allow an increase in the level of self-reporting without an independent lens over what that looks like, naturally you get that sense of creep that allows that sense of dodginess to continue to pervade.

Reform is meant to be something where you make things better. What we’re experiencing under this Government is all their forms of reform actually do quite the opposite; they make things worse, and certainly for communities. I think the uproar from the community as to why this bill is a bad bill, and continues as recently as this afternoon, despite the Government’s announcement, is because there is an acknowledgment that this is a Government that have their blinkers on and they have their earplugs in, because they have no understanding of what this means for communities. They might say that these are particular tasks that are tagged to commercial fisheries, but that will filter down to recreational fishers, and that is a fundamental part of any kid’s childhood here in this country, and on an ongoing basis. For that reason alone, the Government should simply withdraw this bill. It won’t. So we will have to continue to oppose it.

16:13

I go out fishing with my mate Cam whenever I can, and, given the gig in this place, that, unfortunately, isn’t very often. But Cam is a fisherman and he likes to often reflect on the fact that he believes that this place—not his homeland—is in fact the real land of the free. What he and I talk about when we’re talking about that point is the fact that here in Aotearoa New Zealand, we pride ourselves on the fact that one can go and catch a feed for your family and your friends from the oceans or from the land, and what we have presented in the House in the form of this bill from the Government today is absolutely doing everything that it can to destroy and undermine that very birthright of New Zealanders.

This Government has not met a part of the environment yet that it will not do everything that it possibly can to destroy and pillage and extract as much short-term profit as possible for the benefit of industry at the expense of regular hard-working New Zealanders just trying to get by, just trying to live their lives, and just trying to feed their families. This bill today turns the Fisheries Act upside down. The Minister for Oceans and Fisheries himself actually said that pretty explicitly when he said that this was the most significant reform that we had seen in the fisheries space since 1986.

So let’s be really crystal clear here: the Government is not only making bad law but it’s doing it badly. We already know that many of the changes that are presented in this legislation were consulted on, and over 90 percent of the 27,000 submitters last year rejected many of these proposed changes. Yet we saw, when the Government dropped this bill seemingly out of nowhere about a week or so ago, and then those out there in the real world had to use all of their energies and resources to pore over it, that we then ended up with the Minister backing down on some of the most egregious examples of private profiteering and plunder at the expense of regular people and the future of our fish stocks in this country—namely, the specific allowance for commercial fishers to have minimum fish size requirements removed while they remained in place for recreational fishers.

But it’s critical that New Zealanders know and understand that there are so many other egregious and awful things in this legislation, winding back the accountability and the transparency necessary in the commercial fishing sector if we are to have sustainable fisheries in this country.

Now, we can already see that the National Party are starting to get cold feet with a number of the changes that they have enabled this Government—and particularly, apparently, Shane Jones—to push through in this term, notably the fact that the National Party has now come out and said that they are going to campaign on undoing the commercial fishing allowances in high-protected areas in the Hauraki Gulf, Tīkapa Moana. I’d just like to put it on the public record once again that the National Party, this Government, didn’t actually have to progress with those carve-outs for commercial fishers in those high-protected areas, because the Green Party offered our 15 votes to progress without New Zealand First and to keep the high-protected areas doing what it says on the tin. So how on earth are we supposed to respect, let alone believe, this Government when it says that it’s going to roll back some of the egregious changes that have been proposed as a result of the massive public pushback that we have already seen so far?

You could’ve supported the Kermadec reserve.

I hear there Grant McCallum heckling me, and I’d just like to make the point to that member of Parliament that he does not have to vote for this legislation, because, despite what New Zealand First has been saying about the coalition agreement, you can drive a bus through the terminology in that language and it is up to every member in this Parliament to stand up for what they think is the right thing. So the National Party does not have to be supporting this and they cannot be scapegoating New Zealand First. This bill does not have to progress, and every member of the Government that votes for it is doing so of their own free will to continue to undermine the sustainability of our fishing stocks in this country.

But I just really want to make the point that the Minister was saying that apparently he’s going to listen to the select committee. How ridiculous is that? Off the back of the fact that there has already been 27,000 submissions; 90 percent of them are opposed to many of the proposals that are in the legislation that we are debating today.

In summation, the Green Party ardently opposes this legislation, and it actually shouldn’t even be on the floor of the House, but, more than that, we don’t only want to defend the status quo; we can and should go further. We need to ban bottom trawling and protect at least 30 percent of our oceans because there is no separating the economy from the environment that sustains all of us.

16:18

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Why does this bill resonate with our communities, with people up and down New Zealand, with so many in this House, with myself? Why? I mean, fishing is an intrinsic part of our cultural identity, I heard it said. I think that is exactly right. In a five-minute speech, as a lifelong fisherman, I would like to spend my time talking about how much fishing has meant to me in my life; how going on the ocean with my father and my family, taking my daughter and my son out; how much catching a feed is important to my feeling of wellbeing, not just buying one; how we have a joint resource that is the definition of the tragedy of the commons, of why it needs to be managed.

I have spent two years in this House now. In that time, I’ll say I have not been the ACT Party’s spokesperson for fisheries. But, in recent weeks and months, I have begun to pay a lot of attention. This is before this hoo-ha all kicked off.

It’s because I trust the evidence—I trust that objective science that has been in the fishing world. That is part of the core of what makes up our fishing management situation. It’s the trust that we have to have in the systems and the processes and in each other. It’s the evidence that supports that trust is what we must rely on.

This system shares a resource between recreational, commercial, customary, but also it shares with a healthy environment. It’s a system that must balance so many different objectives. In my engagement in this sector, I have begun to worry that there is a severe lack of trust and that the trust that underpins what is this system is being hurt.

This bill exposes why evidence and trust is so important—that is, something in New Zealanders’ busy lives, as they deal with a cost of living crisis, with fuel insecurity, and with other things on their plate, you can see why minimum fish sizes and fish dumping are the topic that have caught their imagination. It’s easier to grasp for Kiwis who are shocked at the price of fuel while trying to get to work and pay the bills and get their kids to where they need to go. We can hear fish sizes and get a grasp of that, but there’s a lot of other things in this bill that need to be worked through at select committee.

I’ve heard the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, in this presentation of the bill and his opening speech, talk about property rights—the most I have heard anybody say property rights or quota. This is not my position; it’s not the ACT Party position, but people have only ever talked about buying out. The idea is we have a system in which recreational limits are managed through bag limits and commercial limits are managed through a cap and trade quota system. But there are things that have become the norm in the fishing system: the shelving of catch. But this bill talks about carry-over provisions, which would increase a property right. If you could carry over a fish stock, perhaps that fish stock would have value. If it wasn’t caught in year one, it might have value in year one. This is an increase, so this needs to be addressed at select committee.

The judicial review time frames: reducing it to 20 days. I went through the Judicial Review Procedure Act and I couldn’t find any limit on any other legislation or overriding legislation on judicial reviews. New Zealanders need to have trust that when their Parliament passes a law, and the executive executes that law, they have an oversight—something that needs to be looked at at select committee. Management plans, restrictions on environmental protection being taken into account, allocation increases—it is a complicated bill. It needs to be assessed at select committee.

I have watched kahawai schools become scarce. I’ve watched my youthful catch of gurnard disappear, scallops have been shut, Northland crayfish is under attack. We need a fishing system and management system that people trust in, so that in the future, my grandchildren and yours can actually go out and take part in that resource.

16:23

I rise to take a call on the Fisheries Amendment Bill. As a keen fisherman and a consumer of fish—when I’m fortunate enough to catch one—I understand the passion of this recreational fishing sector. I also acknowledge the importance of the fishing sector to all New Zealanders, both commercial and recreational.

We are supporting this bill at first reading so it can go to select committee and the public can have its say, but we have concerns. Some worry their voices won’t be heard and that we won’t listen, but let me assure you that we will. National will listen; I will listen. In fact, we have already listened. Late last year, proposals were put forward to make changes to the regulations that would have meant 19 species of reef fish would be able to be harvested and sold by commercial fisheries—we rejected that.

There was a proposal to allow dead marlin to be landed as a bycatch. The sports fishing sector were horrified by this. Why? They remembered the swordfish experience in the 1990s, when dead swordfish were allowed to be landed and sold. The bycatch, when they changed this rule, went from 100 tonnes to 1,000 tonnes in only a few years. Now the swordfish are part of the quota management system, and this world-class fishery was devastated. So after a meeting with the New Zealand Sports Fishing Council and LegaSea and boat building businesses from the North, the message was clear: “Stay away from our marlin.”

As Northland MP, I fought to get the marlin bycatch proposal thrown out. That is what representing your electorate means. In fact, at 6 a.m. on Boxing Day, there was an article in the paper highlighting this issue and that well-known fisherman from the North Matt Watson, constituent of mine, was highlighted with his concerns. I made it clear that as the Northland MP, I did not support the proposal.

Now to the current bill. The initial proposal was to allow commercial fishers to harvest nine different species, including snapper, without a minimum size limit. The feedback from the recreational sector, which has been acknowledged—we’ve all had plenty of it—was loud and persistent, and they said no; no to the commercial sector not having a minimum size limit. Why was that? Well, because they have—the recreational sector has. So not only is it unfair but it also meant that smaller fish would never have the chance to breed. The Prime Minister listened, and asked Shane Jones to remove the proposal, and he agreed to do this during the select committee process.

There are other changes proposed in the bill. This is where we need your help. Please submit to the Primary Production Committee. We want to hear from you, and we need to hear from you. Ultimately, if National is not happy with the bill following the select committee process, we will not support it at second reading. Let me say that again: if National is not happy with the bill following the select committee process, we will not be supporting it at second reading.

After the last few weeks, I’ve had further meetings with the Sports Fishing Council and LegaSea and numerous other conversations with that well-known member of the Northland community Matt Watson. Yes, I’ve said, he is one of my voters—or he might vote for me, I don’t know. We’ll find out. One thing I’ve learnt from all these conversations is that they all want one thing: an abundant fishery and a healthy marine environment so our kids and grandkids can pick up a fishing rod, chuck on a life jacket, and head out and catch a fish for generations to come.

I recently attended the Snapper Bonanza on Ninety Mile Beach—what an event! Twelve-hundred hopeful anglers spend a week trying to win a $30,000 cash prize for the biggest snapper. The tickets for that event sold out in 30 minutes, with a waiting list of 500. Entrants came from all over New Zealand, and some even came from Australia. It is an annual pilgrimage. For future generations to be able to enjoy experiences like this, we need an abundant fishery and a healthy marine environment.

Ultimately, the commercial sector also needs an abundant fishery, or else their businesses will struggle. The best examples of where we haven’t got it right are the scallop fishery and the crayfish fishery in the upper North Island, which have been closed. The time has come for all interested parties, recreational fishers, environmental groups, commercial operators, iwi and customary interests, marine scientists, and regional communities to develop a pathway to a healthy marine environment, so we can all have an abundant fishery. Thank you.

16:28

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. I rise for Te Pāti Māori today to take a call on this particular bill. I’ll open with: Tangaroa i te tītī, Tangaroa i te tātā. Tangaroa supreme below, Tangaroa supreme above.

I come from a community that relies heavily on the moana—born and bred on the moana. My grandfather was a commercial crayfisherman back in the 1970s. My father also fought one of the biggest fishing cases back in 1986, when he went to court to stop bottom trawling, Danish sailing, recreational netting in Whangaparāoa—Cape Runaway—and he was successful in his bid to stop that. Why I mention that is that he also was responsible for footing probably the biggest mātaitai in the North Island, which is Te Kopa o Rongokānapa, which also takes in the hapū of Kauaetangohia. Why I mention that is that we find that the mātaitai is one of the easiest ways to manage fisheries, which brings me back to this bill. This bill shows me that it has not consulted commercial fishermen, because the commercial fishermen I have spoken to do not support it. I’m talking about commercial fishermen who are Māori commercial fishermen; Māori have one of the biggest interests in commercial fishing in Aotearoa. The commercial fishermen I’ve spoken to—and I’m talking about small little commercial fishing companies and operators—do not support this bill.

What is also evident is that he didn’t consult recreational fishermen—hence why we got millions of emails last week that we’ve also spoken to since then. I can tell you what, he hasn’t spoken to customary fishermen. You’ve got three sectors who haven’t been consulted with in regards to this particular bill, which tells me that this bill has been created by bureaucrats. It has been created by bureaucrats, and it has been created by the Ministry of Fisheries, who are absolutely out of touch and have not consulted the right people in regards to this particular bill—hence the turnaround. I don’t want to come to the defence of the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, but I know that this has been in the pipeline for a while and has now come to light.

Where does the responsibility lie when it comes to legislation that has a damning effect on our fisheries here in Aotearoa? I absolutely agree with our recreational fishermen and their disgust at this particular bill. I also want to bring the point of view that Māori commercial fishermen also do not want this. If they have to catch over their quota, they have to pay deemed value on fish. That deemed value is a cost to that commercial fisherman. Little small operators have to now pay, through this bill, for the amount of fish that they catch over and above their quota. Then they have to get rid of it—this was the turnaround. They have to get rid of it at landfill, which they have to pay for also.

These were the discussions I had last week, and I welcome the turnaround by the Minister. I agree with Labour and I agree with the Greens: they should get rid of this bill, because it does nothing but pit recreational fishermen against commercial fishermen. It’s OK for Talley’s and the Sanfords; they’ve got the money to be able to deal with this type of stuff, but the smaller operators cannot. It will be a huge cost to them.

Customary fishing has not been consulted in this particular space, hence why I talked about mātaitai. We have mātaitai in my particular hapū, where commercial fisherman still have an active role in there. It’s because commercial, recreational, and customary are all talking together to make sure that we have abundance—to make sure that our fisheries are safe. But this is not about pitting recreational against commercial and customary; this is about bureaucrats making rules and making decisions without consulting the right people to enable abundance in our fisheries. Kia ora tātou.

The member’s time has expired.

16:33

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Fellow members and everyone who cares about the future of New Zealand’s oceans, today I rise not just as an MP but also as a Kiwi who knows that what happens in our waters touches each and every one of us.

The Fisheries Amendment Bill that is before us is one of the most consequential pieces of legislation for our marine environment in recent years. It promises a sweeping overhaul of the Fisheries Act 1996, aiming to modernise management and ramp up commercial efficiency while changing the rules on landing and discarding fish and increasing ministerial powers over sustainability measures. The bill, at its heart, is about commercial fishing, but the reality is that when commercial fishing rules change, every recreational fisher, every person who spends the weekends casting lines, every family who might gather around a bonfire on the beach, every child learning to bait a hook for the first time feels the ripple.

Already, recreational fishers have made their voices heard loud and clear, and their concerns are genuine. They worry about the future of our fisheries, the impact of these changes on their livelihoods, and the experiences that make the backbone of New Zealand’s culture. We have listened, and we have responded. Last week, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon intervened, requesting that amendments removing commercial minimum legal sizes for nine fish species be dropped. We share the concern about protecting young fish stocks.

We want to make sure future generations can enjoy healthy fisheries, not just as a resource but also as legacy. Fishing is more than a hobby in New Zealand; it’s a tradition, it’s a connection to our coastline, and fundamentally a part of our national identity. But there are tough questions we need to ask. Are we doing enough to protect our marine resources? Are we creating fair rules that hold commercial fishers accountable so they can’t haul in undersized fish and toss them back without consequences? Are we balancing the interests of exporters, quota holders, iwi, community groups, and recreational fishers, all of whom have a stake in these waters?

The bill is not without merit. Its main goal is to boost the value of seafood exports and to keep our fisheries sustainable. It aims to make management more responsive, certain, and efficient. National does support smarter use of data, technology, and onboard cameras to improve oversight, and we back better catch limit - setting and flexibility for quota holders facing extreme weather.

These are steps forward, but they don’t solve every problem. We remain wary of provisions that could let commercial fishers exceed catch limits and pay less for extra quota, potentially harming fish stocks and undermining fairness. Privacy concerns around cameras must be addressed, with strong protections and clear guidelines.

We’re open-minded, but we’re not naive. If this bill doesn’t undergo real, meaningful improvements at select committee, National cannot support it. Our priority is to ensure that any changes made reflect the best interests of New Zealand fisheries, balancing sustainability, fairness, and the rights of all users: commercial, customary, and recreational alike.

The select committee process is vital. This is New Zealand’s chance to speak up, to participate, and to help shape a system that serves all Kiwis. We urge everyone, especially recreational fishers, to share their views and raise their concerns for a sustainable outcome. Let’s be honest: the choices we make now will echo throughout the generations. We must work together, listen, and act boldly to protect our precious marine resources. The Fisheries Amendment Bill and the process that follows is your opportunity to be a part of real change, so let’s make that count. Thank you.

Cushla Tangaere-Manuel.

16:38

Thank you, Madam Speaker. You move to the front of the class for that pronunciation.

Oh, thank you.

Heoi anō rā, kei te tū awau ki te whakahē i tēnei pire, arā te Fisheries Amendment Bill, mā te Pāti Reipa.

[However, I stand in objection to this bill—that is, the Fisheries Amendment Bill—on behalf of the Labour Party.]

It’s almost unsettling to hear the speeches opposite; I feel like they should be sitting on this side. I’m all for it—ka pai koutou; I’m really glad to hear that you are listening to the public of New Zealand. On that note, I must commend the many, many people who not only sent me emails about their concerns but who hit me up in the street and sent me messages by any means possible. Power to the people—it works! We’ve seen the U-turn on size limits; that’s excellent, but there’s still work to go.

Throw the whole thing out!

That’ll do. As I was sitting there listening to people recount their childhood memories and their experiences fishing, I thought of the many peculiar traditions we have in Rangitukia, where I’m from—the little awa of the Waiapū River. In fact, one of our local haka, Tihei Taruke, is named specifically for a type of net peculiar to our area. The saying goes, “Haere mai koe ki roto Waiapū kia kite koe i Te Awe Mapua e te paripari tihei tāruke”—“Come to the Waiapū, where you will meet the people of Te Awe Mapua, who fish with this net peculiar to Rangitukia.” Now, why that’s important is because when you think of customary fishing rights and the massive concerns people have about this and why it matters, no blanket legislation would ever have known the peculiarities to the Waiapū River and to the Motu Awa in Rangitukia. That is, obviously, a concern that I’ll get back to shortly in addressing the issues of kaitiakitanga.

I want to address some of the issues that people who emailed me raised in particular. We’ve talked about environmental issues. That goes without saying. Environmental issues safeguards are, naturally, a massive concern for people writing in. For people of Aotearoa—Māori mā, Pākehā mā, ahakoa ko wai [Māori, Pākehā, no matter who]—everyone knows how important maintaining our takutai moana and our species is.

I’ve addressed the undersize issues, and, again, I do commend the U-turn on that. Let’s talk about kaitiakitanga. The issue here is kāpata kai [pantries]—and it’s nice to listen to people’s own memories of fishing and all that. Where I’m from, we’re very famous for the kahawai, and, over my lifetime, I have caught a grand sum of zero kahawai or, as we call them, Ngati Porou salmon.

Also, throughout my lifetime, though, I observed my father, my uncles, my kuia, and my cousins negotiating, in good faith, takutai moana deals that would allow commercial fisheries—Ngati Porou fisheries are one of the key contributors not only to the Ngati Porou economy but also to the Māori economy, and we know that Māori fisheries account for billions of dollars. What we saw was them negotiating, in good faith, deals that would serve the public’s concerns and accessibility while absolutely maintaining kaitiakitanga and our responsibility as kaitiaki of our waterways and of our species or our kāpata kai—not just for commercial purposes but for the traditions and, in times like this, indeed, feeding the whānau.

That is something that’s been made loud and clear, not just from recreational fishers but from people across Aotearoa. The amendments proposed in this bill threaten that. They threaten kaitiakitanga, they threaten the value of consulting with kaitiaki and, therefore, the sustainability of our kāpata kai and, potentially, the sustainability of our commercial interests.

It’s been a real honour to not only reflect on our unique, peculiar Ngati Porou and Waiapū concerns about this bill but also to be able to stand up and give voice to the many people who reached out to me, as their MP for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, from Te Mātakitaki-a-Kupe tae noa atu ki Pōtaka [from Cape Palliser all the way to Pōtaka]. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

16:43

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Feedback on the proposed Fisheries Amendment Bill, heartfelt commentary from my constituents across the mighty Rangitīkei—keen recreational fishers, just like me—has come in thick and fast, and I want to thank every single one of them. It’s been amazing to hear from everybody that’s reached out, and I’m very grateful. John Riding said that he was horrified at the imminent push to loosen up fisheries for the commercial fishing industry. “Please ensure that sense prevails.”, he said. He went on to say, “You’re National. You must be our sensible future, too. Please.” You’re right, John, we are sensible, and we hear you.

Dave Johnson said, “Our fisheries are not a private asset. They belong to all New Zealanders and are an important part of who we are.” Well, National agrees, Dave. Dave also wrote, “If this bill passes its first reading, the opportunity to meaningfully change it will be limited. That’s why I’m asking you to take a clear position now.” Well, Dave, the bill will pass its first reading, but be assured that our position is crystal clear: we will take out the sections of the bill that remove the minimum size limits. As my colleague and expert fisherman Grant McCallum said earlier, “If National is not happy with any changes made or not made at select committee, we will not support this bill to second reading.”

Rob Thomas wrote, “Having a rule that suits commercial interests and penalises New Zealanders for doing the same thing is morally and ethically wrong.” He said, “Twice a year, I get to spend a week with my family and enjoy spending time fishing—an activity we should all look forward to; not have commercial interests decimate the future breeding stock of the New Zealand ocean.” Paul Bickman said, “Our fisheries are a taonga belonging to all New Zealanders.” He also said, “When public opinion is so clearly unified, it raises serious questions about whose interests are being prioritised. It’s serious.” Well, I can assure you, Rob and Paul, that we are prioritising the interests of recreational fishers like you and thousands of other New Zealanders, because National shares your concerns about the impact on juvenile fish stocks. Like you, we want to do everything to make sure we can ensure our kids and grandchildren have abundant fisheries for decades to come,

Benjamin Tuck wrote, “From what I’ve seen, this bill deserves far more scrutiny than it’s getting. It shifts power away from the public and towards a small group of quota holders, removes environmental safeguards, and reduces transparency at a time when we should be strengthening it.” I can assure you, Benjamin, that this bill will get the scrutiny it needs and deserves at select committee.

To date, public scrutiny has been pretty deafening. Every New Zealander has an affiliation with recreational fishing in some shape or form. We can all tell stories from our childhood, or we know neighbours or friends or people down the road who go fishing. As my colleague Cameron Luxton paid testament to before, it’s a vital part of being a Kiwi. I encourage every recreational fisher to be part of the process and part of democracy at work. National backs recreational fishers, and I’m proud to say I’m one of them. Thank you to everyone who’s got in touch with me about this bill. Your voices really did, and will, make a difference, and that’s awesome.

16:47

Thank you, Madam Speaker. We’re lucky to live in a country, such as this, surrounded by the beautiful moana that is integral to who we are and our culture and what we do on a daily basis. I have to say I’m very lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the country in Tauranga, where you only have to travel probably a minute down the road, and you’ve got sea, and you’ve got that beautiful view. It has become integral, right from the very first settlers to this country. Fishing has become integral to a way of life. Tangata whenua fished from day one when they came to this country. Like many others in this House today, I can also claim to be a recreational fisher. We love getting out on our boat. We’re not very good at it, I have to say. We’re great conservationists because we don’t catch very much. We probably need some lessons from my colleague over there—Cameron Luxton. I know he is very successful; we are not.

At catching fish.

At catching fish, yes.

One thing, though, that I have seen and heard in this debate this afternoon is how we’ve got members from the governing parties on the other side of the House who are saying, “Well, this bill is not going to go through into second reading and pass the second reading if we don’t get the changes that we want to see.” I question why we’re having to do this now. Why wasn’t this work done before this bill was brought to the House? It seems a very mucky way of doing this. We’ve seen the shambolic way that this bill has been shepherded in the short time that it’s been released so far, where we’ve already seen changes that have been made to it. It is a very embarrassing situation when a bill just gets tabled and then already we’re starting to see a back-down, and that was on the size limit clause. I don’t understand, when you’ve got Government parties there who say they’re not going to vote for it any further, why they haven’t worked to get that sorted at this stage. That tells me that this bill should not be progressing even through to select committee because, as one of the people that was mentioned in one of the letters that was read out from the other side said, it is difficult to get some broad-ranging changes being made at select committee. It feels like, at this point, we’re wasting the House’s time by even progressing this bill to the next stage.

We stand really united on this side of the House in our huge opposition to this bill. First, that opposition was around that size limit clause, but there are so many other clauses and so many other parts of this bill, such as the ability to challenge fishery decisions with the 20-day limit on judicial review and changes to allow for multi-year catch limits without adequate data to support such decisions—they’re just stupidity in the bill. They’re not going to offer that sustainability going forward. They’re going to have a huge impact and a negative impact on our country going forward.

We’ve heard a lot here today about people who have contacted various members of Parliament, asking for this bill to be thrown out at this stage. They want it to go back and they want it to be reworked. They don’t think it’s in a state now that can be reworked. Usually when you take a bill—as we all know—to select committee, it is at a stage where it needs tweaking. This doesn’t need tweaking; this needs a massive overhaul, and that’s why we really, really stand opposed to where we’re sitting with this bill right at the moment.

We have a vision on this side of the House for a sustainable oceans and fisheries sector, and I don’t think that that’s too far apart from what I’ve heard in the speeches on the other side. I think that this is an area that we’re all agreed on, which is that we want to see that sustainable ocean and fisheries sector, and that includes looking out for our oceans and it includes supporting our recreational fishers, as well. So why? Again, I go back to the fact of saying, after listening to this debate thoroughly this afternoon, I am so disappointed and so surprised that the work to get this bill into a good shape wasn’t done before it came to the House. On that, I will once again say that Labour thoroughly opposes this bill.

16:52

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak on the Fisheries Amendment Bill. This bill seeks to overhaul the 1996 Act to modernise management and increase commercial efficiency, including changing the rules on landing, discarding of fish, and increasing ministerial powers over sustainability measures.

This bill is mainly about commercial fishing, but what happens in commercial fishing affects everyone who fishes for fun and for recreation, because they are intrinsically linked. Already this legislation has generated some fairly significant attention, particularly from our recreational fishers. Their voices have been loud and have been pretty clear, expressing their genuine concern about the future of our fisheries and the impact of the proposed changes on their livelihoods and their experiences. We’ve heard those concerns and we’ve responded. Last week, the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Christopher Luxon, stepped in to ask that amendments removing commercial minimum legal sizes for nine fish species be dropped. We share the concerns about protecting young fish stocks, and we too want to make sure that future generations can enjoy healthy fisheries, as well.

Fishing holds a special place in the heart of New Zealanders, as we’ve heard. We know, for countless Kiwis, fishing is more than just a pastime; it’s a way of life woven into the fabric of individuals, families, and local communities from the Far North to the very deep South. It’s the thrill of casting a line, sharing stories—not all accurate in terms of size and the number of fish caught—laughs on the beach, and jumping on a boat, with a life jacket on, of course, Cameron Brewer.

I must confess that I’m not a great seafarer. I’m not particularly lucky at catching big fish. I know the back end of a chop from one end to the other, but not fish. But there’s a very proud tradition of passing down the passion, the knowledge, and the skills in regard to fishing from one generation to the next.

Fishing puts food on the table, it sustains livelihoods, and it fosters a deep and enduring connection to our very unique coastal waters. Whether for sustenance, sport, or simply the joy of being out on the water, fishing does unite us and it enriches us as a national identity.

We respect the passion, knowledge, and experience that recreational fishers bring to this debate. The select committee process is a vital opportunity for everybody to have their say, and I urge all of those with concerns, whether big or small, to engage in the process. It’s their chance to raise any and all issues they may have with the bill. We want to hear from them, and their input is essential to ensuring that the legislation reflects the needs and aspirations of the people that it impacts the most.

Importantly, we must also ensure that commercial fishers are not able to continually haul undersized fish and throw them back without recourse or penalty, and there must be accountability. We need to get this right. If this bill is to succeed, it must create fair enforceable rules for all involved, protecting both our recreational and commercial interests while safeguarding our marine resources.

Let me be clear: National is committed to constructive change. We believe that if the bill, however, does not undergo real, meaningful improvements during the select committee stage, we will not be able to support it beyond that point. Our priority is to ensure that any amendments made are in the best interests of New Zealand’s fisheries, balancing sustainability, fairness, and the rights of all users, which is commercial, customary, and recreational alike. We must work together to protect our marine resources for future generations.

This bill and the process that follows is the public’s opportunity to be part of making real change that’s sustainable, and I encourage everybody to speak up, participate, and help us shape a fisheries management system that serves all of us. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The question is, That the Fisheries Amendment Bill be considered by the Primary Production Committee.

16:58

on behalf of the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries: I move, That the Fisheries Amendment Bill be reported by 6 August.

16:59

I move, That urgency be accorded to the introduction and passing through all stages of the Resource Management (Auckland Housing) Amendment Bill and the committee stage of the Local Government (Auckland Council) (Transport Governance) Amendment Bill.

The Resource Management (Auckland Housing) Amendment Bill is being passed through all stages urgently to give Aucklanders certainty on the process and requirements for Auckland Council’s Plan Change 120. This debate has gone on long enough. It is time to get on with it.

The committee stage of the Local Government (Auckland Council) (Transport Governance) Amendment Bill is also important to progress. There is a longer recess now, and the Government’s intention is to crack on with this, as it is a high priority for Auckland. There are 59 items of Government business on today’s Order Paper—60, if you include this urgent bill—and the Government intends to make progress.

I understand it is the intention of the Government to introduce a bill.

I present a legislative statement on the Resource Management (Auckland Housing) Amendment Bill.

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

I move, That the Resource Management (Auckland Housing) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

This bill responds to real and immediate problems in Auckland’s planning system. Let me start with a simple proposition, which is that Auckland needs more houses. Housing affordability remains one of the most serious challenges facing the city and, indeed, this country. As I’ve often talked about, it is also a major economic challenge. High housing costs make it harder for Auckland to play its role as New Zealand’s economic engine, and the impacts are felt across the country in productivity, in wages, and in living standards. This is a significant economic reform, and it is an important economic reform for Auckland in particular.

At the core of this issue is supply. The good news is that, for about 20 years in this Parliament, we had a longwinded, esoteric, and, frankly, facile debate about what the causes of housing unaffordability were. We’ve had endless debates about capital gains and endless debates about immigration and endless debates around first-home grants, and all this other stuff that, frankly, is at the margins of what is actually required to enable competitive land markets and affordable housing.

Eventually—eventually—people figured out that this is a supply issue, and eventually, people figured out that it is the urban containment policies in our cities that have stopped or stymied housing growth, from letting our cities grow. The good news is—

Sprawl—sprawl.

Notwithstanding the remarks from the list MP based in the Wairarapa, there is now actually a consensus across the sensible parties in the Parliament that this is a supply issue and that urban planning rules need to reflect that.

We’ve made really good progress, and I don’t want to litigate the long history with the National Policy Statement on Urban Development and then the medium-density residential standards (MDRS), but it is true that successive Governments have taken steps to enable more housing. What happened after the MDRS came in is that Auckland said, “Hang on a minute. This is too one-size-fits-all for Auckland, and we require the ability”—post the cyclone events of Gabrielle in 2023—“to downzone areas in Auckland.”

Auckland faces a combination of growth pressures, infrastructure constraints, and natural hazards that are not evenly shared across the country. The Government agreed to a bespoke approach for Auckland, reflecting how important Auckland is for the country. In doing so, we required the new Auckland Plan to upzone particularly around the City Rail Link stations—a $5.5 billion to $6 billion investment into the future of Auckland. It is critical that Auckland gain the benefits from this once-in-a-generation, transformational opportunity for Auckland. Now, that was not in the Plan Change 78 that was being advanced. Parliament legislated last year to enable broad upzoning in five City Rail Link stations in particular, and that is preserved through this legislation.

What we did last year was require the new plan to provide at least the equivalent capacity of the previous plan change, and that equivalence requirement turned into a capacity figure of just over 2 million homes. There’s been a lot of information thrown around about 2 million. What this planning aims to do is enable theoretical development capacity on the basis that, when there are abundant development opportunities—not all of them will be taken up, clearly—the surplus of development opportunities leads to competition around those development opportunities, which leads to affordability over time.

This idea that there were going to be 2 million homes in Auckland plonked down into the middle of wherever is not accurate, and it was never accurate. However, it’s a lightning rod, and I want to make it clear that the idea that the Government will facilitate 2 million homes to be built in Auckland and that all those homes would ever be built is not accurate and was never accurate.

The other thing that has become really clear is that flexibility matters. Aucklanders care, as indeed everyone does, about where housing growth takes place, and that’s what we are now fixated on: making sure that housing growth in Auckland takes place in the areas that make the most sense. For example, I am yet to find someone who thinks that we shouldn’t grow around City Rail Link stations. There are a few people out there probably, but most people think, “Well, OK, we’re spending $6 billion, there are going to be rapid transit trains running to and from and through the network over the next few years, once it eventually opens in the second-half of the year”—no date yet; just wait and see—“people should live around there, and for people who can live 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700 metres’ walk to the train station, that’s good. That makes sense.”

I’m yet to find someone who doesn’t think that we should grow more in the Auckland CBD. It’s not included in this bill, but I’ve started an investigation into unlocking some of the planning restrictions in the Auckland CBD, because the Auckland CBD is the economic powerhouse of Auckland, and, indeed, it’s important nationally for the rest of the country. I’m yet to find people who don’t think the CBD should grow. I’m yet to find someone who doesn’t think we should grow by busways and by rapid bus stops. I’m yet to find people who don’t think we should grow in metropolitan centres that are the villages—they’re not villages; they’re actually quite built-up areas—that dot around Auckland and in the wider Auckland urban area.

That’s what this bill allows for, and that’s what the Auckland Plan that will flow from this bill allows for. It allows flexibility around exactly where the density takes place, and it settles the issue of who is in charge of this, because, once this bill passes, it will be over to Auckland Council and the local boards and the local communities of Auckland to shape where that density takes place. It’s completely legitimate for interested communities to say, “Well, hang on a minute. You’ve upzoned this street; you’re allowed to build terraced houses here or apartments here, or you’re allowed to build XYZ here. Hang on a minute. There are all these constraints here. You haven’t taken account of all this. You haven’t taken account of all these things.”

No, that’s nimbyism, Bish—you know it.

Well, I’m sorry, if your proposition is that central government should dictate on a street-by-street level what happens in Auckland, good luck explaining that to your constituents in Wellington Central. If that is your position, I think you may find that Wellington Central constituents don’t like the idea that—

No one is proposing that.

Well, no, I just put that proposition, and she told me I was wrong. We are not going to do that. Auckland Council and its communities will be involved in that process, and there’s an independent hearings panel that people will be able to submit to. This is about flexibility and making sure that we reduce down the rigidity.

The minimum capacity required under this plan change will be reduced down to 1.4. However, I want to be clear with the House about what officials have advised us. Once you take into account the City Rail Link upzoning, once you take into account the mandatory legal requirements through the National Policy Statement on Urban Development—that’s the legal instrument advanced under the last Government that we have supported; that legal instrument means upzoning around rapid transit stops, around busways, around metropolitan centres. That is unchanged and, in fact, is a core legal requirement, and every other council in the country has implemented it, with the exception of Auckland.

Once you take those two things into account, the capacity that will be unlocked as a result of this will be, roughly, around 1.6 million homes. That is a substantial advance on the status quo, which is in the Auckland Unitary Plan—which hasn’t been updated for years—which is around 1.2 million homes. The Auckland Unitary Plan has been internationally studied and scrutinised as an example of successful upzoning. It is true, almost objectively, that rents in Auckland are lower now than they would otherwise have been as a result of the upzoning—Auckland rents are lower than they otherwise would be.

I see that the list MP based in Northcote is shaking his head. I suggest you go and talk to your colleagues who understand this point. I suggest you go and read the extensive academic evidence around the Auckland Unitary Plan. If you don’t like that, go and talk to Phil Twyford, who put in place the National Policy Statement on Urban Development, which was an advance on the Auckland Unitary Plan in the first place. If the member opposite wants to shake his head and deny economic reality and the broad thrust of successive Governments’ housing policies for the last 10 years, well, he’s welcome to it, but it doesn’t speak very well about a future Labor-led Government.

So 1.6 million homes is about where we’ll land; 1.2 million homes is the current capacity. This will be a substantial advance on that. Here’s the critical point: it centres the growth in the right areas. The advice that I’ve received is that the theoretical capacity that is unlocked is more likely to translate into actual houses being built, because it centres the growth around the infrastructure in the right places.

This is a sensible plan. It will, I hope, lead to a durable consensus in Auckland around where growth happens. Auckland must grow; this bill allows for it.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

17:12

Thank you, Madam Speaker. While the Minister is in the House, I want to be very clear that Labour absolutely supports more houses in Auckland.

Of course we do.

Of course we do; what a ridiculous statement that he just made. But it is also an interesting potted history that he gave there. I want to remind the House that in the last term, National came to Labour with a bipartisan proposal of that mixed-density standard, and they said, “Yes, we want to do this together.” Then there was a sniff of unhappiness from some of National’s Auckland-based MPs, and they reneged on that bipartisanship after it had been passed into law.

They then campaigned—nothing to do with the Hawke’s Bay. It was nothing to do with cyclones and hazard issues, because if that was the case, then we would have seen a lot more hazard work in the Resource Management Act that we have not seen. Instead of focusing on repealing things and fast-tracking projects in flood plains, we have not seen the work that could have been done at the outset on natural hazards and national instruments regarding those things—no, no. Instead, we saw a promise that they would get rid of the medium-density residential standards (MDRS)—“But don’t worry, Auckland and Aucklanders who are worried about housing and housing prices. Do not worry, we will replace it with something that we’re going to do through a very convoluted resource management process, and we will require this equivalence”, which we just heard about, “that whatever the plan change you were doing to implement the MDRS, we will have as many houses, but it will be better intensification.”

We went through the resource management amendment process, and we understood that the Minister was talking with Auckland Council about how to make it work, and so we let that process roll. Then, on the day that we were debating the committee stage of that bill, a giant Amendment Paper landed. The Minister had signalled that there would be some changes around this Auckland urban development, but included in that were other changes that related to burning more coal and polluting more rivers, and so we voted against it. What that change did, that was changed at the last stage, was to have this equivalence test, and so the Minister said that would relate to about 2 million dwellings.

It went through a process without a select committee, and then, over summer, it seems that maybe some of those same MPs who didn’t like the MDRS have been chatting away to the Prime Minister and others, who, finally, noticed what this meant. They could have, of course, read the legislation when, I presume, it went through a Cabinet process.

We’ve also seen the Minister just now say, “Well, the unitary plan would produce 1.2 million homes with capacity.”, and I agree with what the Minister was saying about capacity. What the bill in front of us does is it says that it’s 32 percent or less than Plan Change 78. We’ve heard today that that is 1.4 million capacity, and so it is only 200,000 different from the status quo, and we are looping around in these very expensive plan-change processes because this Government cannot make up its mind.

However, just a couple of minutes ago, the regulatory impact statement landed on the Table. This bill has been in urgency, and so we went up and we got it as soon as the Minister started speaking, and the number in the regulatory impact statement—is it 1.4 million capacity for houses? No. I think you’ll see that the headline number there is 1.6 million, and so what is it that this Government wants to do? Why is it that Ministers go to Cabinet meetings and Ministers pluck numbers out the air, and then change legislation that they’ve already changed in a very poor process, which we now are going to stand here and do all-stages urgency on because they cannot make up their minds and have proper, robust discussions at the outset and stand by their decisions?

17:17

E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. It’s like we’ve entered The Twilight Zone. We’ve just had a Minister of the Government saying that what this bill does is unlock housing growth, but I just want to read from the first page the first paragraph of the bill that that Minister just introduced, which says—and I quote—“In effect, this reduces the requirement from approximately 2 million dwellings to approximately 1.4 million dwellings.” That’s a quote from the legislation that the Minister introduced. As he was talking about how this bill unlocks more housing growth and having more houses being built, the legislation itself says, on its very first page, in its very first paragraph, that, in fact, what this bill does is reduce the supply of housing, or the potential supply of housing, in our largest city by 600,000 units. It’s insane. It’s bonkers.

We are truly living in the Upside Down, where we have a Minister of the Crown who can say something that is so demonstrably untrue. I don’t know where that leaves us, as a House, if we’re not able to have—I don’t know—a debate on what is literally contained within the legislation: the Minister’s saying one thing, and it is actively being undermined by the very law that he is tabling in the House for us to debate. How are we supposed to have any form of rational engagement on that basis?

This Government tells us that it’s all about the market and that the market needs to just sort everything out, and I guess they mean that if you are somebody who right now is struggling to get by and being pushed on to commuting for hours by bus, on a public transport system that has been systematically underfunded for generations. But they don’t mean it if you want to build some housing where—God forbid—people actually want to live near the city centre and the surrounding amenities in suburbs like Parnell and Remuera and in the Epsom electorate.

This Government says that they want to cut red tape—oh, but they mean it everywhere but the Epsom electorate. They say that they want localism, and it seems as though, perhaps, maybe, at least in the language that we’re hearing they want it, but they don’t actually want local decision-making for our largest city, which has already so far progressed on the process that had been undertaken per Plan Change 120.

I know that we’ve already had a bit of a potted history from both the Minister and from my Labour colleague, but I think it’s really important to put this on the public record, because in 2022 there was an agreement by two of the legacy parties in this place that we would have something called the medium-density residential standards (MDRS).

Ponsonby.

Then, in 2023, the National Party started getting cold feet—funnily enough, as the Minister, Paul Goldsmith, was just heckling at me, from places like my electorate, where I have very clearly made the case for density done well and managed to retain that electorate, because my constituents understand that our city is not a museum; it needs to house people—and, in fact, leafy suburbs should be the same thing as dense suburbs.

None the less, we had that roll-back from the Nats in 2023, who promised that they would undo the MDRS and promised, instead, 30 years of growth. Then, in 2025, we saw that they passed an update to the Resource Management Act (RMA)—which, again, we’re now amending today, despite the fact that the Government is saying that it wants to completely undo the RMA—that resulted in a break in the process on Plan Change 78. Then, Auckland Council had to move on to something called Plan Change 120, which it has done significant consultation on, and guess what! The Government’s now pulling the rug out from underneath Auckland Council, prompting some statements from Mayor Wayne Brown of the likes of, and I quote, “They”—by which he means this Government—“don’t want any concerts in Auckland. They don’t want any sports events because they’re opposing the bed night levy. They don’t want people living intensively. Two million: I was happy enough with that. Just let the market sort itself out. ACT is meant to be about the marketplace, but they are the most anti-marketplace outside of Russia”.

That is the position of Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown. If this Government believes what it says about localism, then let’s be honest and hand back the local decision-making powers to Auckland Council and to our mayor, who very clearly has made the case for density done well.

In closing, I just think it’s utterly bonkers to hear from the Minister, who is waxing and waning lyrical about this all being about increasing the supply, despite introducing legislation that actively and explicitly says that they are cutting 600,000 units from that potential supplier—but, more than that, to say it’s about where we build this housing, as this Government enables more sprawl, more climate-changing emissions, and people being pushed further and further away from where they want to live.

17:22

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT and my electorate of Epsom in support of this piece of legislation. I’ll start by saying there’s nothing more important for New Zealand to achieve in terms of public policy than making it easier to build more homes, because you could give a potted history of the economics of the last decade saying that productivity growth has been almost flat and wages have not risen. However, some people have done OK out of asset value inflation, while others have fallen behind, looking at the eye-watering price of getting themselves into that same housing market. That’s not sustainable. People won’t keep voting for a market-based economy with property rights if they see no prospect of advancement and ownership of property themselves.

It matters that we get infrastructure funding and financing right. It matters that we get consenting right. It matters that we get building consents and building materials right, so that we can be affordable and productive as a country. All of that stuff really matters. Unfortunately, for the last five years, a series of well-meaning but misguided interventions from this place into our city of Auckland have distracted from those things that matter to get more homes built. Instead, there has been this absurd battle over what the heights should be of different areas of the city according to the zoning map. It goes back as far as 2021, when a number of parties—I think, all parties bar ACT—in this Parliament voted to impose a three by three - storey housing law right across Auckland and, indeed, across all of the larger cities in New Zealand. This was unpopular. This was impractical.

There are people that say, “Oh, well, we want to talk about the market.” Let me tell you a little bit about the market. There are such things as natural monopolies. In case you wonder if I know what I’m talking about, a natural monopoly is a service that has constantly increasing returns to scale, so one provider is the most efficient way to provide. As it happens, roads and sewer networks and water pipes and public transport networks and a whole lot of things that cities rely on are natural monopolies. That’s why you can’t have a competitive market, and that is the public policy case for zoning and actually having some central control of where growth and intensification occurs. You, if you know your economics, will be in favour of having some regime of zoning.

The question is: who should decide? When Wellington decides and says it’s three by three - storey houses everywhere, they missed the most critical and important facts on each streets and in each suburb of our city. They missed the areas that are flood prone. They missed the areas that have cracked pipes that are over 100 years old. They missed so many things that are important to the people in their community that it cannot stand. And when our city flooded, people became clear that the three by three - storey home rule would not work, so we campaigned and won an agreement to remove that three by three - storey house rule, and it will be gone.

However, there was also in law a proviso that there needed to be at least the same number of homes—2.078 million, I think, about 2.1 million homes—built in the new plan that replaced the three by three - storey home rule. Again, we heard it from Aucklanders, people who actually believe in localism, saying, “We don’t want to have this forced on us and dictated to us from Wellington. We want to be able to have the Auckland Unitary Plan that we all battled over as Aucklanders to establish over a decade ago.”

Today, I’m proud to stand here in this House and support legislation that says that the required number of homes will only be 1.4 million. We’re not going to force on Aucklanders something that they did not want. We are, effectively, allowing Aucklanders to go back to our Auckland Unitary Plan, plus intensification around transport corridors, villages, and train stations, as envisaged by the National Policy Statement on Urban Development. This is localism. This is the market with the realities of network infrastructure. This is a sensible approach to getting more homes built for the next generation, and I commend it to the House.

17:27

I’m going to start with some personal reflections, because one of the things that central government has done, whether it’s a red-led Government or a blue-led Government, is continuously interfere in the way in which cities are designed. I can remember not once but twice during the time that we were developing a district plan in Wellington that we literally got a call from Government—in my case, it was David Parker—saying, “Hey, by the way, we’re just about to change the rules on you.” We were about to go out to consult on a district plan, and he said, “Well, in two hours’ time”—in two hours’ time—“we’re going to change the rules.”, and that was the medium-density residential standards (MDRS).

What we should be doing is working with local government, helping local government where it needs to be helped, to design cities in the way that makes the most possible sense.

No, you had 30 years, Andy. No.

We actually did a damn good job, and you were trying to wreck the place.

Oh, wreck the place by densifying it?

Yeah, absolutely, you were trying to wreck the place, Tamatha Paul. What we should be doing is trying to work with councils, not continuously intervening, not continuously changing the rules.

Can I say, one thing that I’ve stood up and said in this House quite frequently is that we keep saying to councils, “Well, you need to provide for 30 years of growth.” But growth, by and large, is not driven by births and deaths now; it is driven by migration. This House—it doesn’t matter if it’s a red-led House or a blue-led House—has not got any clue about a long-term strategy around demographics and migration. It hasn’t got a clue, and that makes it really, really hard—it makes it really, really hard—for councils to plan. We are asking them to do the impossible, because we have not stepped up as Government—it doesn’t matter whether it’s a red-led Government or a blue-led Government—and we need to change that.

It’s interesting to look at some of the numbers that are in the bill, whether it’s 2 million or 1.6 million or 1.4 million. As of 2023, there was something like 545,000 houses in Auckland. Whatever the number is—and we know it’s a theoretical number—it is a massive increase in the number of houses, potentially, in Auckland. The question you’ve got to ask is: “Are we going to have a better city as a result of that or just more people living in that city?” That’s a question that I think is a real one.

Densification, by and large, I think people generally agree, should be around public transport services, around jobs, and so on so there’s less pressure on the transport system. That makes absolute sense. It should also be done in a way that helps to pay for the infrastructure. Too often we have allowed the privatisation of the benefit, and then the public sector has to come along and pay for the infrastructure. We should be trying to make sure, especially in our biggest city, that we’re trying to pay for some of that needed public infrastructure and do that by getting the benefit for the public of that upzoning. Too often we fail to do that.

We had the Infrastructure Commission—who I think are a great organisation—in front of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. We asked them that question: “What proportion of the costs of growth are paid for by that growth?” We keep on talking about growth paying for growth. They said, “Rough order of magnitude: 30 to 50 percent.” That means that 50 to 70 percent is paid for by existing ratepayers, existing taxpayers, existing consumers. Growth is not paying for growth, so we’ve got to really step up in that place as well.

Look, the other point I wanted to make, just in finishing, is around MDRS—and that’s come up several times. The problem with MDRS—and I take the Wellington example—is that it, essentially, said, “Three by three.” It didn’t matter whether you were on the outskirts of Upper Hutt or whether you were in downtown Wellington—it made no difference. That was the fundamental problem with it because it, basically, treated all of those areas the same. It was a completely non-targeted approach. Yes, sure, it increased capacity, but it did it in a very non-targeted way.

I think what we should be doing is working alongside councils, not telling them what to do, but helping those councils to design the best possible cities that they can and to be able to afford the infrastructure they need by capturing some of the value of that growth to pay for that infrastructure. I look forward to the discussion that is going to go on now, and I commend this bill to the House.

17:32

It’s great to stand in the House to talk on this Resource Management (Auckland Housing) Amendment Bill. This bill, of course, locks in the Government’s decision this week to reduce the minimum housing capacity required by Plan Change 120 from 2 million to 1.4 million. This comes from the earlier 2 million number and is up from the 2016 unitary plan capacity targets. It’s a very good place to land.

As we well know, Aucklanders wanted out of the MDRS—the medium-density residential standards. They were, just to recap, three by threes—three townhouses, three storeys high—on most sites without a resource consent. This Government said, “Yes, you can opt out, but show us where the density should go.” We’ve listened to Aucklanders, and we’ve dropped that capacity requirement from, again, 2 million to 1.4 million, with intensification, of course, going to be happening in the CBD, along the City Rail Link stations and key transport nodes.

Former Auckland City mayor and long-time councillor Christine Fletcher summed it up, and she’s no easy critic—she’s no easy critic. “Thank goodness”—she said today on Facebook—“common sense has prevailed.” Council, a week or two ago, agreed to some of the guiding principles, and, soon, updated planning provisions and maps will be made available, and the public will get to have its say, and the independent hearings panel will get to do its work. This is now very much in Auckland’s court, and I wish them all the very best. I commend the bill.

17:34

What a shambles this is. Here we are, and the Government is using urgency today to bypass the very democratic process it claims to champion, ramming through a bill that rewrites Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland’s housing future.

Let me repaint this picture for everyone in the House. Nicola Willis and Megan Woods stood up on a podium back in 2022 and said, “We are going to solve the housing crisis together. We are going to work in a bipartisan way.” Lo and behold, in 2023, National backtracked on a problem that Auckland and New Zealand is experiencing—that is a housing crisis. Here we are again, today, and this National Government have pandered to the ACT Party to reduce the number of houses that will be built in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland to address the housing crisis to make it more affordable for young Aucklanders to get into the property market and buy their own first home. This is a backtrack from Prime Minister Luxon, through the influence from his constituents, to really walk away from the key issue that is in front of us.

We need to unlock housing in our largest urban centre in this country. In my community, we know what good intensification looks like. We only have to look to the Northcote housing development, under both Governments—both a National and a Labour Government. That is what good practice looks like. It has the right houses. It has the right mix of houses. It has the recreational centres to build strong communities. It has the water infrastructure required. When I talk to communities in my area on the North Shore, yes, they are concerned by intensification, but, largely, their concern comes from the lack of infrastructure or, in particular, from ageing infrastructure.

Again, I acknowledge that Minister Bishop’s backtrack today on this particular bill—the reduction of the number of houses, the reduction of their commitment to actually demonstrating any leadership to solve the housing issues in front of us—is, in fact, actually, no surprise. Here we are again, under a National Government—weak, weak, weak. It does nothing. It does not serve Aucklanders.

Bringing this through urgency is bad process. It doesn’t allow the Opposition to actually fairly scrutinise the issues that are raised today. It doesn’t enable people, communities, Aucklanders, to have their say. Council will do that, but they won’t get to do that on this important legislation.

Minister Bishop deflected today. He talked about the rents in Auckland and said that they were coming down. His deflection shifted from this bill on to me, in the House, sitting here, to say to go and ask my colleagues. I say to him, “I’m not asking my colleagues. I’m asking my constituents in Northcote what they think.” They don’t think their rent has come down. They haven’t seen any decreases there. I don’t know what he’s talking about, but clearly it is a deflection, a distraction, from what is in front of us today.

My concerns are that while the Government talks up localism—giving control back to Auckland Council—there’s no evidence in here that they’re doing that. The decision making and control stays squarely here in Wellington with the Government. That’s where Auckland Council has to come back and get agreement and sign-off from. That is not devolution of power—of decision making. That is not putting it in the hands of Aucklanders to make the best decisions for their communities. I encourage Government members to stand up and tell me—tell me—where we are putting that decision making back in the hands of Aucklanders. It’s because we know that politics won on the day, at the cost of unlocking housing in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland. In fairness, it should be fairly spread across the city, not excusing places like Epsom.

17:39

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s really an exciting day as we embark on the three readings for the Resource Management (Auckland Housing) Amendment Bill. We’re in the first reading. It’s no secret that Auckland has felt the pressure of housing shortage for a very long time. Some members of the House who had six years to do something about it didn’t do something about it. We are embarking on doing something maybe swiftly, but we need the swiftness after we’ve listened to our neighbours all around Auckland. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you. I am probably the MP in this room who is most connected with the area that looks to have the most affordable housing built in it as a result of these plans that we have been looking at. They have been revisited and revisited. I’ve tried to do my job and talk to people about what they needed to know before they made submissions to council, and they did make submissions to council—lots of them—good, informed submissions that were about things that really mattered to them, like stormwater and flooding and all sorts of issues that they should be talking to their council about when such plans are made. Well, what was the point? Now, we have another iteration of the bill, and it’s going through in one single day and, perhaps, tomorrow morning. There is absolutely no way that I can do the job I want to do for my constituents and go through this in the thorough way that they deserve, when it is their neighbourhood that’s being affected, when they had the floods that came across Auckland and legitimately worried people. They don’t get to participate, in the way they should, in the process, and I do not accept that there is any reason why this has to happen so urgently. They need to be involved in those processes.

What really worries me—and what should worry us—is that we had Chris Bishop tell us that this was all about red tape and that we were just going to do things quickly and that we were going to get rid of zoning, and he was quoting abundance at us. All of that has gone out the window because what actually seems to have happened is that the interests of some MPs in election year are being looked after rather well. They are not going to have intensification in housing in their areas, because it does not suit them. Now, that is the opposite of democracy. That is a very dangerous precedent. I am very concerned. I’ll be asking a lot of questions about why this is not happening in certain areas of Auckland. Why not? Why are we not prioritising the things that Aucklanders were worried about, like stormwater and flooding? These are areas where all those things have happened, and we need to make sure that we look at them.

Why are we treating this like a situation that is not relevant to Aucklanders yet calling it localism? How absolutely Nineteen Eighty-Four can we get? It does actually make me think about a statement that was made by George Orwell—while we’re on Nineteen Eighty-Four—which was that “Some animals are more equal than others.” In this process, we were supposed to be having a transparent process. What have we found? The very same people turn around and make sure that some animals living in some areas of Auckland are more equal than others. I can tell you that Mt Albert will be furious about that, and fair enough too. It’s their communities that are affected, and nobody is even promising them that, in those areas, they will be getting the support they need for that housing.

Now, I am for affordable housing. I want it in my community, but I don’t want it to be something that is not rational, so I come back, again, to the issue of stormwater management and to the issue of the infrastructure under the ground. I ask: where is that going to land here? How do people talk about these things in any intelligent way at a local level when central government comes to this House with a piece of legislation that I’ve tried to get through—but it’s actually quite hard—in the time frame and when we get a regulatory impact statement (RIS), today, at the same time that the Minister stands up to give a speech?

Do you know what that RIS says? Let’s have a look. It says, “Introducing legislative change while a plan change process is under way creates a number of risks, including risks of challenge due to the changes in the requirements midway through the plan change process … not all outcomes can be fully predicted as final implementation decisions will rest with Auckland Council and the panel … The proposals in this RIS have been developed at pace. This time frame necessarily limits the identification of options, level of analysis and the collation and review of evidence. There has been very little engagement with stakeholders on these proposals by officials.”—“There’s been very little” is probably an understatement. That’s actually language that says there’s been almost no engagement with stakeholders. My electorate deserves better than this. If there are going to be major changes, they need to be involved.

17:44

The Labour Party is completely out of touch. Aucklanders have been clear that they support growth, but as long as it happens in the right place and is backed up by the right infrastructure. People in Mt Roskill have determined that they are not satisfied with the current Auckland Council draft plan. I’ve been working closely with the Balmoral Residents Association, and the residents are particularly concerned that enabling large-scale development, often without confirming the infrastructure capacity, could lead to isolated and out-of-scale development. This is the local voice, and we have listened.

This is why we decided to make a change in this bill to reduce the minimum housing capacity in Plan Change 120 from 2 million homes to 1.4 million. This is a more realistic approach that focuses growth in the city centre, around town centres, and along major transport routes. This is better than just forcing intensification into every suburb, including my area, the Mt Roskill electorate.

Once these changes take effect, it will be up to the Auckland Council to deliver their plan and to consult with Aucklanders, including those in Mt Roskill, about where the growth should happen and where it shouldn’t. I commend this bill to the House.

This bill is set down for second reading immediately.

17:47

on behalf of the Minister responsible for RMA Reform: I move, That the Resource Management (Auckland Housing) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

The need for this bill arises from experience. As Auckland Council has progressed Plan Change 120, it has become very clear that the current legislative settings do not provide sufficient flexibility to respond to evidence, constraints, and community feedback. The issue is not whether Auckland should grow; it must grow. Auckland is New Zealand’s largest city, home to a third of our population, and a central driver of national economic performance. How Auckland grows and whether it can grow efficiently has direct consequences for productivity, investment, and living standards across the country. The issue is whether the system allows growth to occur in the right places and avoids it where intensification is unsuitable. Without legislative change, the council and hearings panel are constrained in how they proceed and respond to submissions—particularly where addressing issues in one location requires capacity to be offset elsewhere. This is not a good recipe for planning. It is also not a recipe for economic confidence—uncertainty increases, investment decisions are delayed, and housing supply responds more slowly than it should. It is not what Aucklanders expect.

The bill has a specific and targeted focus. Firstly, it reduces Auckland’s minimum housing capacity required by 32.5 percent—from just over 2 million homes to approximately 1.4 million homes. This matters because the previous minimum requirement was operating as a blunt constraint on good planning. The 2 million homes figure was never a build target. It was technical modelling output—in practice, limiting flexibility—and it constrained the ability of the council and the hearings panel to respond to evidence and submissions.

Reducing the minimum requirement does not reduce Auckland’s ambition for growth. A requirement of approximately 1.4 million homes still represents a very high level of development capacity—well beyond what the city will deliver in either the short term or the medium term—but it restores Auckland Council’s ability to operate the planning system as it is intended. This is about smarter growth, not slower growth—growth that is better aligned with infrastructure, with transport, and with employment patterns.

Secondly, it establishes a clear and workable process for how Auckland Council and the hearings panel respond to that change, including opportunities for public input on revised provisions. This matters because flexibility must be exercised transparently. The bill does not simply reduce the requirement and move on; it sets out a clear pathway of how the revised capacity requirement is worked through the planning process, with updated provisions and maps made available by the council so that people can see what is proposed and how it affects their communities. Public participation remains a core feature of the system. The way these changes are implemented matters. Auckland Council will decide where development should occur and will make that public.

Importantly, those who have already engaged with Plan Change 120 will not be pushed aside. Existing submissions will remain valid, and submitters will be able to update or add to them, if they wish. At the same time, Aucklanders who did not previously submit will still be able to take part in the process, moving forward. The independent hearings panel will continue to consider submissions and evidence and make recommendations, just as it was established to do. This strikes the right balance. It allows the planning process to move forward at pace, while ensuring that changes are not made behind closed doors and that Aucklanders are not shut out of decisions that matter to their city.

It also resolves the medium-density residential standards transitional issue, ensuring that people who relied on previous rules are not unfairly disadvantaged. When Auckland Council withdrew Plan Change 78, the medium-density residential standards were removed across much of the city. That created a transitional gap. A number of landowners and developers were already part-way through resource consent or building consent processes, and had relied on those rules in good faith; without intervention, they were left in limbo. This bill provides certainty. It ensures that people who acted in accordance with the rules at the time are not penalised by a change in planning settings beyond their control. That’s a matter for fairness, and it matters for confidence in the planning system. The Government’s response has been deliberate and restrained. This is proportionate.

The bill does not reopen debates about Auckland’s overall growth strategy. It does not substitute central government judgment for local planning expertise. It does not rewrite the Auckland Unitary Plan from Wellington; instead, it resets the minimum requirement and allows the existing planning process to do its job properly. This is still Auckland’s plan.

Crucially, the bill does not step away from Auckland’s intensification direction. Auckland Council must still give effect to the intensification policies in the National Policy Statement on Urban Development. It must still enable greater density around metropolitan centres and rapid transit stations. It must increase intensification around key stations, to maximise the benefits of the City Rail Link (CRL). In practice, these requirements may result in more capacity than the minimum capacity of 1.4 million homes required by the bill. The CRL represents one of the largest public investments in this country, and ensuring Auckland’s planning system supports growth around that investment is essential to realising its full economic return in productivity, accessibility, and reduced congestion.

The economic evidence supporting intensification in these locations is strong. Well-located density supports productivity, improves access to jobs and services, reduces transport costs, and makes better use of existing infrastructure. Major public investments like the CRL deliver their full value only when the planning system allows people to live and work around them. This bill does not step away from that. It intervenes only where the existing settings are clearly constraining the ability of the planning process to function as intended. It does not attempt to resolve every issue facing Auckland’s planning system.

This bill reflects what Aucklanders have told us. Ministers and members have received a significant volume of correspondence from Aucklanders about Plan Change 120 and its impacts. People want more homes, but they also want a planning system that recognises constraints, local context, and infrastructure realities. Greater flexibility allows those conversations to occur within the planning process, rather than be shut out by rigid rules. This bill listens, and it responds. This House should support a targeted and balanced bill that enables growth while respecting local conditions. I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Members, it is time for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House is suspended until 7.30.

Members, the House is resumed. We are on the second reading of the Resource Management (Auckland Housing) Amendment Bill. Again, the question is that the motion be agreed to. The second call?

19:30

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Over the last couple of decades, we’ve generated, in this country, a lot of heat and some light, as we as a country and as a Parliament, and through successive Governments, have grappled with this intergenerational housing crisis that has been such a plague on New Zealand. Some interesting things have happened. There are some areas where the two sides of this House don’t agree: on the building of public housing, we build them; they don’t. When it comes to taxing capital gains in the housing market, we do; they don’t. We legislate for renters’ rights; they repeal them.

A very interesting—unusual and interesting—cross-party consensus has emerged in recent years about the importance of reforming the planning system and fixing the country’s broken infrastructure funding and financing. Those two things are the major drivers of an absolutely dysfunctional housing market that has caused so much downstream social and economic distress.

The sad thing about this debate and this bill that’s going through the House tonight is that it’s a depressing climb-down by Minister Chris Bishop, who has been a keen participant in this cross-party reform agenda. Future generations of New Zealanders—young New Zealanders—are going to pay the cost for this, because they are the ones who will suffer years and years of rent that will be higher than it needs to be. They are the ones who cannot and will not be able to afford to buy their own home, because of the problems that we have with the housing crisis. It’s my hope that this back-down, by the National Party and by this National-led coalition, that we are legislating tonight is merely a bump in the road.

The Government has cravenly given in to their voters in some of the leafy suburbs of Auckland—incumbent property owners who do not want to see flats, terraces, townhouses, apartments, and, God forbid, affordable housing in their neighbourhoods, in the garden suburbs. To get to this point tonight, to legislate this climb-down, Minister Bishop has been openly white-anted and undermined by Simeon Brown, by David Seymour, his ministerial colleagues, and by the Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, the “nimby-in-chief”. It is a climb-down, it has created an absolute shambles of a policy, and Auckland Council and the mayor, Mayor Brown, have every right to be aggrieved at what they’ve been put through. Make no mistake about it: it is a significant retreat from the commitment of 2 million or 2.1 million enabled developments in the Auckland property market.

I want to say something about that—the numbers that have been tossed around on this debate, and the 2 million that Chris Bishop said had become a “lightning rod” for discontent. It was never about, “We’re going to build 2 million houses.” It was about calibrating the Auckland planning system to enable the live zoning of 2 million potential properties. The reason for it—the reason that’s important—is that the planning system and the overly restrictive zoning rules have acted as a brake on housing being built. It is one of the main reasons that Auckland got itself into a terrible housing shortage. Not enough houses were being built because of this myriad of planning rules that stopped people building out and building up and that stopped people building certain kinds of houses.

This move that grew out of the medium-density residential standards—and I’ll come to say more about those—was designed to flood the market with development opportunities to enable future development, thereby freeing up Aucklanders to invest, build, and live in the kind of houses that they want in places where they want to live. It was a good thing, a good reform. The worst thing about this bill tonight that we’re debating is that Simeon Brown and David Seymour are being allowed by this Government to stop houses being built in places where they should be, so that we, as a city, can build enough houses to meet the needs of our people—different kinds of houses: terraces, townhouses, and apartments, in places where people want to live.

Now, this is personal for me. I have a grievance about this, because the communities that I represent in West Auckland have carried far more than their fair share of urban intensification over the last decades since Auckland Council brought in its unitary plan and freed up the planning rules. And the West said, “Yep, we know more houses have to be built, and we’ll do our fair share.” And so, the West has had a hell of a lot of intensification—actually, more than it should have. Why? Why more? Because the leafy suburbs in the Auckland isthmus and the North Shore and the Eastern suburbs refused to do their bit. They don’t have the liberalised planning rules that we did. They haven’t had the intensification, and it’s totally unjust.

Because of those planning rules and the way the Unitary Plan was designed, we have a doughnut city. The intensification has happened on the fringes of the city—in West Auckland and South Auckland particularly—and not in the central city. And yet the central city has the best public transport infrastructure to support intensification. It has a far greater percentage of people who, daily, use public transport. It’s closer to the jobs. It’s exactly where the intensification should take place.

Politicians like Simeon Brown, Christopher Luxon, and David Seymour have succeeded tonight in imposing their will. In speaking up for privilege—people who have property—they are conniving in the intergenerational theft of opportunity and wealth from my son’s generation, and they’re taking that wealth for themselves. I resent that. I resent that on behalf of the people that I represent. I resent it for the people of West Auckland and South Auckland, who have done their bit. They’ve had the intensification, and now it’s time for the people of the leafy suburbs and parts of the Auckland isthmus that haven’t had the intensification—in the North Shore and the Eastern suburbs—to carry their share of the load.

There are some basics that need to be said about this issue. Reforming the planning rules is one of the most important things that we have to do. Actually, we’ve made progress in recent years, and it’s been successive Governments who have carried the torch. In some degree, because of the way that this Parliament has reformed the planning rules, people come from Europe and they come from the US to look at what we have done, because it’s bold and innovative. But this bill tonight is a climb-down. It’s a retreat back to mediocrity. Instead of a figure of 2 million, this bill only says 1.4 million properties need to be enabled.

I’ll tell you why that’s important: it’s because Auckland Council have already delivered and enabled about 1.7 million development opportunities through the work that they’ve done, particularly in complying with the National Policy Statement on Urban Development. Now, to legislate the limit down to 1.4 million makes it virtually impossible for anyone at Auckland Council to argue that there should be more intensification along the corridor of the Eastern Busway, where the Crown has invested multiple billions of dollars building top-quality modern rapid transit infrastructure, but Simeon Brown doesn’t want there to be apartments in that corridor, because he’s against intensification. He lives in a kind of urban planning vision of the 1950s, and he has been able to exert his political will to undermine Chris Bishop and set back this policy. It’s an absolute disgrace.

Those suburbs that are getting a free ride because of this bill tonight need to carry their load. Intensification and all of the pain that goes with retrofitting a 1950s city to make it better for the 21st century should be shared fairly.

19:40

I’m really happy to speak off the back of that because I feel the same way. I was a councillor when the medium-density residential standards were introduced in the country, but, obviously, I was based here in Wellington. This is just such a huge step back from the ambition that I thought we had all agreed was what we wanted for the future of Aotearoa and for the future of housing so that, like Phil Twyford has said, my generation and the generations below me can actually have a chance at maybe one day owning a home, which is just getting further and further away. That is why 200 New Zealanders, the working-age base of this population, continue to leave daily. There is no hope for us to own a home one day.

Let’s be clear: this bill is about Chris Bishop swallowing a dead rat. Chris Bishop is one of, perhaps, the only members of Government—and I’d say probably one of the only members of the Cabinet—who puts himself out there as a “yimby”, which means “Yes in my backyard; build housing where I live.” It’s, basically, anyone who supports more housing and enabling more housing, so much so that, at the time, I’m sure he influenced the National Party to join with the Labour Party when they were leading the Government, and, alongside us and maybe others, to support the medium-density residential standards, which, simply put, mean that you can build three homes of up to three storeys as of right.

Listening to the debate in the first reading of this bill shows that there is no understanding of planning going on on the other side of the House. Just because you enable something to be built doesn’t mean that tomorrow the developers are coming in and building what is allowed for. That’s not the way that planning works. How do I know? Because I helped to develop the Wellington City district plan, where—guess what!—we enabled intensification and, a few years later, you don’t see massive town houses springing up, because planning is a future planning exercise. That’s what it is. It’s not a case of snap your fingers and the houses are there tomorrow—although I wish it was, because we’ve got a housing deficit.

The rationale behind intensifying our cities is about understanding and acknowledging that our city centres are the economic engine rooms of the regions and of New Zealand. Allowing more people to live in their city centres, to live close to the places where they work, where they live, where they learn, and where they connect with each other is a really simple way to make your city more economically productive, to speak in terms that I thought the Government understood, but it clearly doesn’t—looking at this bill.

The National Party pulled out of the medium-density residential standards, which means that the Government is directly responsible for enabling 400,000 fewer houses. That is huge. This bill goes even further than that and reduces the housing supply potential of Auckland City, the home of more than a million New Zealanders—is it 2 million? Is it almost 2 million?

It’s getting there.

For almost 2 million New Zealanders, it reduces that even further—600,000 homes are being backed away from by this Government. That’s 600,000 homes that will never be realised, because fake “yimby”—fake “yimby”—housing Minister Chris Bishop has backed down and been overruled by his colleagues that don’t even understand planning.

Auckland is a city—let’s contextualise it—where rough-sleeping homelessness has doubled in the last few years because of the choices of this Government to restrict access to emergency housing. Auckland is a city where 8,000 families are waiting for a public home. Auckland is a city where hundreds of Kāinga Ora public homes have been delayed or cancelled as a result of this Government. They’ve cut public housing, they’ve brought back no-cause evictions and made renting more insecure and unaffordable for renters, and they’ve always hung their hat up on this idea that they would enable more housing supply. It was the one thing that this Government was betting on—to fix the housing crisis—and you can’t even get that right. You can’t even get a simple, free thing right. That’s the thing about zoning: it’s free. It costs nothing to change zoning—literally. You couldn’t even get that right.

Then the National Party, in the debate on the first reading, were hiding behind saying that “This should be a decision for Auckland. Auckland should be able to decide what they want for themselves.” Well, what about listening to the number one spokesperson for Auckland, the Mayor of Auckland—who was elected by 180,130 people—who said, himself, “Two million: I was happy enough with that. Just let the market sort itself out. ACT is meant to be about the marketplace. They’re the most anti-marketplace outside of Russia,”. Damn, that must hurt—compared to even the Greens—and he’s right: the ACT Party are hypocrites. They say, “All hail property rights.”, but I wonder whether they know that property rights don’t only apply to oneself; they apply to your neighbour, as well.

What about the property rights of your neighbour to be able to develop and do what they want with their land? That’s right: inconsistency. The ACT Party are hypocrites. They brand themselves as anti-regulation, pro-market, freedom of speech, property rights supremacists, and yet look at this bill, which they’re heralding as a success.

Zoning is not about saying, “This many houses will be built tomorrow.”; zoning is actually about sending a signal to the market that this is the kind of growth that we are planning for. I thought that was what you were into—letting the market do its thing. What this bill demonstrates is that there’s a fundamental lack of understanding about how the market actually works.

In fact, David Seymour said that residents in Epsom electorate were not anti-intensification, but if they were told that towering buildings would be constructed, looking into everyone’s backyards and their swing sets and their pools, they would ask “Why would you do that?”, and that’s what it’s about, right there. Thanks, David Seymour, for exactly summarising where the ACT Party stands on this, because it’s about rich, wealthy people in Epsom who don’t want poor people coming and living next door to them.

Do you know how I know that? When we were rezoning Wellington City, it was the rich people in Mount Victoria and Oriental Bay that didn’t want the poor renters and the poor cleaners coming and living next door to them. Been there, done that, guess what! They never win, because there are more of us in this generation that deserve to live close to the places where we work our arses off than the people who sit there, have no job, own multiple properties, and do nothing to earn their wealth. Rich, wealthy people in Epsom, Remuera, and Parnell, with their $2 million house prices, don’t want more housing in their neighbourhoods, and that’s what we’re seeing in front of us today.

I’ve fought against those same powerbrokers—those same old powerbrokers that live in the leafy suburbs—and guess what! I won my seat, over and over again, actually, with historic margins on that, and I wonder what happened to the people who protected heritage and so-called character instead. Oh, right—that’s right; we know what happened. There’s no consensus in the planning world about what character is. This is what happens: these old powerbrokers are cashed up and they’re lawyered up, and what they do when the planning system isn’t freeing up is that they take anyone who wants to build anything to court and they stop housing from being built. They use this thing, and they weaponise this concept of character, protecting the special character of an area. There is no consensus in the planning world as to what character actually refers to, but there is a whole lot of literature that argues that character is a way of protecting the status quo and making sure that people of the same economic class, the same race, and the same background remain and that working people never get access to the inner city that is run off of their backs and their hard work.

When you are planning for more housing, there is a collective responsibility for everybody to share the load, which is exactly what Mr Twyford was talking about. We all have a collective responsibility and duty to share the load for our growing cities. This is obvious. But why is it that certain suburbs get to get away with not doing their fair share? We know what that is because I just said what it is. The House doesn’t like it. You don’t like to hear the reality of what’s happening here—that poor, working-class people, renters, are not able to access the inner suburbs. That’s the reality. That is why this bill started off so good but is now reduced to so little.

I’m looking forward to the committee of the whole House, and I’m looking forward to hearing your rebuttal to some of those points, because we’re going to be in for a really long night. Kia ora tātou.

19:50

Let’s be clear about what this bill is, for the Hon Phil Twyford and for others who’ve weighed in. This is a clean-up job. Auckland Council has resisted growth for decades, through nonsensical planning decisions like denying the ability for a new seven-storey residential building on K Road, which is now a car park, for heritage reasons. The member Tamatha Paul makes a good point: the Resource Management Act is broken. I hope, when the Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill come back to this House, the Green Party will vote for it because of its enabling of housing and enabling of infrastructure, and for economic development.

Now, I know the economic development part’s going to be a hard thing to swallow for the Green Party, who, if you look at their social media posts, would be quite happy for Kiwis to live in the dark, drive nothing, and maybe actually go back to a time when New Zealand was poor, but ACT does not believe that. This is a clean-up job because when National and ACT got together and agreed that there was a need to encourage more housing development in the major metros—the three storeys, the three units, everywhere—

August 2025—we’re changing something from August 2025, Simon Court.

Rachel Brooking, you can take a call, and you can explain why three storeys of three units everywhere, which is the Labour and National policy that this bill is designed to clean up, didn’t account for infrastructure. ACT was the only party to oppose it. It didn’t account for infrastructure. We have artists like Gretchen Albrecht, whose paintings hang in this Parliament—an artist in her 70s—appearing at a select committee on a Saturday afternoon to say that this medium-density residential standards (MDRS) bill that Labour and National got together to propose doesn’t account for infrastructure: “I live in Grey Lynn. The stormwater and the sewer haven’t been separated. When it floods, the sewer overflows.”

Tell us about what happened in August 2025—last year.

Rachel Brooking cannot possibly believe that three units of three storeys everywhere in the absence of infrastructure was a good start. That’s why ACT said at the time that this is not sustainable—

That is why there are qualifying matters.

Rachel Brooking, if you want to take a call, grab one off one of your Labour mates. Take the call and rebut it. In the absence of infrastructure, the planned development cannot possibly happen. ACT has been consistent about that.

I want to come back to Auckland Council. They’ve resisted growth. I’m aware of a private plan change for a commercial industrial development right next to the motorway north of Auckland where they have opposed it. They’ve said, “Oh, it’s not in the development area we thought all the stuff was going to be.” Well, who knew that hundreds of thousands of people who live in North Auckland and North-west Auckland, where I live, actually, need somewhere to be able to go to work. Businesses need somewhere to be able to run their business and to manufacture, and—guess what!—that provides jobs. Auckland Council have been absolutely hopeless, over the years, at responding to the need for development.

Now, there are so many examples, but, essentially, failing to provide that balance between plan-enabled growth—in other words, what you SimCity obsessed planning nerds believe should be the right number of houses, Tamatha Paul—versus the amount of infrastructure that’s needed to support that growth is still the problem to solve. That’s why this bill is so important. It rebalances what we could conceivably plan for and deliver in terms of homes and what we’re going to realistically be able to do. If you get them too far apart, you end up with really divergent policy imperatives that drive malinvestment and actually leave councils and infrastructure suppliers with nowhere to go. How does Watercare in Auckland know where to build the next central interceptor if they don’t know where the growth is going to go or if it’s everywhere all at once? That’s a nonsense, ACT said it’s a nonsense, and this bill is helping to reset it.

The next problem with Auckland Council—remember: this bill actually puts the ball back in their court—is whether they know how to do the job that they’ve said they want to do. Well, we’ve set up the goal with 1.4 million dwelling units, which is what the plan that we’re asking them to enable should be able to deliver, but can they really deliver it? When it comes to planning for infrastructure—when it comes to funding and financing it—Watercare in Auckland, while delivering a fantastic central interceptor project, has underspent their capital expenditure budget by $100 million to $200 million a year for the past decade. That’s a $1 billion to $2 billion infrastructure deficit that Aucklanders are suffering from because of a failure by Auckland Council to direct where infrastructure should go and to insist—if Watercare’s going to collect the money from water users, if Auckland Council’s going to collect the money from ratepayers, it should actually be to deliver infrastructure, not just to waste it on all kinds of things that this Government have said, in a separate piece of policy, that councils shouldn’t be doing. They need to get back to basics. They need to fix what matters.

What are we going to do about it? Well, this bill resets expectations, but in the long run, we need to allow for flexibility where people want to live and work. That’s something that, when laws are being made from Wellington, really doesn’t help the people of Auckland, who need that flexibility. That flexibility has been expressed, as Tamatha Paul rightly pointed out, in the Planning Bill, which is a bill designed to replace the Resource Management Act with a system based on property rights, unless New Zealanders, including Aucklanders, have the ability to say, “You know what? The next development I want to live in hasn’t been conceived by a council yet, but it might still be the place where a developer is going to build the roads, build the infrastructure, build the houses, build the parks, and build the community infrastructure. Maybe that’s somewhere I want to live and somewhere a planner in Auckland Council, despite all the hours they spent on SimCity, had no idea was where I wanted to live.” The new Planning Bill is going to, through a goal around competitive urban land markets and enabling agile land release, allow developers and Aucklanders to decide where they want to live.

This plan change that we’re talking about today, under the legacy, failed Resource Management Act, has a zombie-like quality to it. In a few short months, when Minister Chris Bishop and I pass the Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill, Aucklanders and everyone in New Zealand are going to have a whole lot more options about where they develop that won’t be constrained by where some nerdy, wonky council planner or former Wellington councillor thinks we should live. It’s important to set this direction about what’s coming in the resource management reform. It’s important to recognise that this bill is a clean-up. This bill is the ACT janitor coming with the mop to clean up the legacy of Labour and National getting together, on a whim, to design a three-units, three-storeys MDRS policy—

Last year.

—Rachel Brooking—that even artists in Auckland recognised there wasn’t the infrastructure to deliver.

Now, before I wrap up, I just want to touch on this concept of property rights for the Green MP Tamatha Paul. What do property rights mean when it comes to enjoying property? Well, of course, people deserve some level of certainty—that’s what zoning is for. There are rules around the zone—how many storeys, what are the setbacks, what is the height in relation to boundary, and what should I be allowed to build as of right? Those rules balance the needs and the property rights of the neighbour, who should also be confident that when a building project starts next door, they’re not going to end up with somebody looking in their kid’s bedroom window or looking down at them, like some of us like to do, sunbathing in the backyard on a Saturday afternoon. That’s what the Planning Bill is designed to deliver.

I also want to address some of the comments from Phil Twyford about enabling growth. Now, Phil, to some of us, is a hero. I probably shouldn’t be admitting that as an ACT MP, but the National Policy Statement on Urban Development, Mr Twyford, actually set the scene for why it’s important to build up around these expensive investments in transport, like the City Rail Link, and to build up around our town centres so that—for people like me, who live within a five-minute walk of the supermarket in the town centre—those benefits are extended to many, many more people in affordable homes.

I just want to close. This is a clean-up job. It’s absolutely vital. The ball’s now in Auckland Council’s court. They can choose to live out a SimCity planner’s unicorn world where there’s a 10-kilometre radius around the CBD and not a single house should ever be built outside it, or they can choose to listen to Aucklanders. That’s what I recommend they do.

20:00

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, this is an interesting debate. Two million, 1.6 million, 1.4 million—these are theoretical houses. They are the houses that conceivably could be built under a set of planning rules, but they are not the houses that will be built. All it does is say that there is a certain number of houses that could be built and, under certain circumstances, somebody may choose to develop their property in a certain way, somebody may choose not to develop their property in a certain way, and somebody else might do it in a different way.

What we’re arguing about, it seems to me, is that there is a certain number of houses, and I do note that it is a minimum number. Now, if Auckland Council say, “We actually don’t want that minimum; we want to go further than that.”, isn’t that up to Auckland Council to decide that? If Wayne Brown and his team say, “Actually, no, we’d quite like to go for 1.6 or 1.8 million.”, well, that’s good, because they should be able to make those decisions themselves. If there’s any council that’s big enough and grown up enough to make those decisions, it’s Auckland Council, and we should be allowing them to do that.

The other thing I might say is that we are just in the process, of course, of changing the Auckland Transport regime, and they are going to have the ability to have a 30-year transport plan sitting alongside Government where we’re working together. Of course, transport and urban development also need to work together and get those infrastructure things together. I’d just like to make the point, too, that, at the moment—certainly by the last number I found as at 2023—we’re talking about 1.4, 1.6, or 2 million potential houses. It has taken us 183 years to get to the point of having 612,000 houses—612,000 houses. The numbers we’re talking about over the next 30 years—which are the numbers that we’re looking at—are way beyond what has been delivered in all the history of Auckland City.

Then I asked the question to you about the growth that we’re talking about. The first question we should be asking is: is that growth a good thing for New Zealand Inc? That growth is no longer being delivered by births being greater than deaths, because we know, actually, that we’re now at less than replacement level. It’s being delivered by migration. As I said in the first reading and as I’ve stood up in this House many times before and said, we actually don’t have a long-term strategy of any sort around migration—how many people should we have, and what’s the age profile and all of those sort of things? What are the skills that we’ve got? We’ve got low-level policy, and that’s about as good as it gets. That is not good enough. Actually, it’s really good, when chairing the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, to have an organisation as good as the Infrastructure Commission saying we need to have a policy around this and we need to have some strategy around this. Otherwise, we are flying blind. We’re flying blind on the number of houses we want, and we’re flying blind on the infrastructure we want, so we need to have a coherent, joined-up strategy, and that is something that Government should be doing. Successive Governments have been woeful at doing that because we think about three years in advance—maybe we think about three months in advance. That is not good enough. If we’ve got 30-year strategies that we expect councils to deliver, we should be also doing 30-year strategies, from a Government perspective, about how many people we are looking at, what infrastructure is required, what schooling is required, and what health services are required. All those things should be the sorts of thing that Governments—whether red, blue, or whatever colour they are—should be looking at focusing on.

The theory behind all of this is that the more houses you potentially enable—the more theoretical houses you enable—potentially it will get the cost down because there’s more competition. You could develop this site or this site or this site. That makes sense to a point, because there’s only so far that you can push costs down before builders say, “Actually, it’s not worth it. I can’t make a dollar out of it.”, and they won’t build. We saw that because, in the COVID situation, we saw prices ramp up very, very fast; we saw development ramp up very, very fast; and then the market turned. What happened? There was a bit of a lag, and then, of course, development dropped down as the prices dropped down. We saw quite a number of developments that were cancelled because people could no longer make money. It’s only so far that you can drive the cost down because there’s a fundamental amount of money, a fundamental cost, of actually building and delivering the houses and building and delivering the residences. We can only go so far.

More competition, more opportunities, and more choices are a good thing, except one of the other things there is that we need to allow councils to decide where and when the development occurs. You can have a development over here, a development over there, and development over there, and guess what! Somebody’s got to provide the infrastructure for that. You don’t want to have the cost of providing infrastructure in all sorts of different places and carrying that cost, possibly for decades, if you don’t need to do that. That is a very, very expensive way to do things. We should be allowing councils to do some sort of thinking about what the phasing is of this development so that we’re making sure that they are not carrying the significant cost. Why is that important? Well, first of all, it’s the direct cost. Secondly—I mentioned this in the first reading—the Infrastructure Commission has been very clear that growth is not paying for growth. Growth is not paying for growth. At best, it’s paying for 50 percent of growth; at worst, 30 percent. The rest of that is falling on the taxpayer, the ratepayer, and whoever else it might be. Growth is not paying for growth. If we’re talking about markets, we need to make sure that we’re sending clear, coherent signals that growth does pay for growth. Otherwise, it is falling on the people that are already there.

The other point is that these growth targets become very, very, very, very speculative. One of the key things we’ve got to make sure that we do is we’ve got to link growth with investment in infrastructure. We’ve got the City Rail Link (CRL), for example. We want to intensify around the CRL. That makes absolute sense. The last thing you want to do is then say, “Well, let’s do medium-density development all over the place.”, and you drag development away from the CRL. That’s exactly what you do. I know that when the medium-density residential standards (MDRS) were proposed—at the time, I was the mayor of Wellington—I said, “The first thing you’ve done is you have killed any chance that we’ve got of intensifying development around a key public transport corridor, because you’re treating everywhere, effectively, as being the same.” They’re not, and that’s exactly what they’ve done. You need to link investment with infrastructure. You need to be able to capture the value uplift so that you help to pay for that infrastructure. Otherwise, all you’re doing is you’re privatising the benefits and socialising the costs.

I know there have been things like fast track, where greenfield developments been approved amongst other things, but also private plan changes in delivering greenfield developments. For many councils, that is a real problem. They’ve thought very carefully about where development should occur and how that integrates best with their infrastructure. and then suddenly somebody comes from the side and says, “Hey, we’re going to do a greenfield development.” As I said, that would be fine if they pay for 100 percent of the growth costs. They don’t, so that is a cost that falls on the councils and on the ratepayers. We need to make sure that we manage those things a lot better than we’re doing at the moment, and we need to make sure that we phase development.

Penny Simmonds, when she was speaking in the first reading, said that “major investments”—I think I’m quoting her roughly accurately—“like CRL only achieve their full value when you get, essentially, full development around them.” That’s exactly right. If we spend, in this case, $5.5 billion dollars on creating this CRL capacity, if you like, and we don’t develop around that, we are not fully recovering the value. We’re not fully meeting the value that could be achieved through that investment—possibly, partly because we’re encouraging development to go to other areas of, in this case, Auckland City. As I said, the MDRS proposition failed—the whole thing—in my view, very badly. The key is that we can’t afford to develop everywhere and do the infrastructure everywhere all at once. We have to phase it and think about that very, very carefully.

To the comment that’s been made that the market will sort itself out—and that’s been attributed to Mayor Wayne Brown, who I have a lot of respect for—yes, the market can sort itself out, but we need to make sure that we send the right market signals. If growth is not paying for growth, then we are not sending the right market signals. The market can only sort itself out if it actually has the right signals there to sort itself out.

I think there’s an element to which there’s a bit of faux outrage on this. Whether it’s 1.4, 1.6, or 2 million, they are very, very big numbers. They are three times the number of houses, at least, that currently exist in Auckland, and that’s what’s been built up over 180-odd years. There will be plenty of capacity, and there will be plenty of choice there, regardless of what the number is. The key thing is allowing Auckland City to choose where development occurs, to phase where development occurs, and to sit alongside and support them in doing that, rather than what successive Governments have done—not just to Auckland; they’ve done it to other cities around the country as well—which is to keep on chopping and changing the rules and imposing rules on them. That comes with huge cost, and it is really, really unappreciated, I know, by local government. I commend this bill to the House.

The next call is a split call.

20:10

Let’s stop pretending that this bill is just about planning or good urban design, because it isn’t; it’s about who gets protected and who is made to carry the burden. Those most vulnerable right now are not just Māori in Tāmaki Makaurau; there is a huge population who are struggling to put gas in their car, kai on their table, and actually have a roof over their heads.

Under National, enabled by ACT, and allowed to proceed by New Zealand First, this Government is cutting Auckland’s future housing capacity by 32.5 percent. That’s not a technical reset. That is not neutral. It is actually a political decision to protect some neighbours from change and push the change on to everyone else—specifically, West Auckland and South Auckland. I’m a westie. We know this. You can’t even get out of Te Atatū in two hours. That was why I was delayed coming to Wellington. The traffic is hideous because the intensification is just out of control in West and South Auckland. Well, guess what! The prices have gone up, and that’s an abuse of privilege—that’s an abuse of privilege.

As the member, as the māngai, elected by Tāmaki Makaurau, and on behalf of Te Pāti Māori, I represent urban Māori—five generations of it. We migrated from our rohe kāinga, our hau kāinga of Te Teko, four hours away—you can’t taxi yourself there. In Te Teko, many a Māori in our country—today, yesterday, 100 years ago—were forced away from their papa kāinga to urban centres, and still we are, at the very least, in this bill not even mentioned. Where is mana whenua? The cheek of it.

It’s rich to sit here and listen to members of this House say, “Let Auckland speak for itself.”, when the actual regulatory impact statement, in black and white, says, “Officials engaged with senior officers at Auckland Council on the detail of these proposals on 9 and 10 February 2026. No other consultation has been undertaken on these proposals by officials,”. Kei hea ngā mana whenua? [Where are the mandated authorities?]

Ngāti Whātua, predominantly, in the CBD, the only mana whenua to the CBD—of course they’re impacted heavily. Property is their portfolio, their domain. Did you even bother to ask them? No, you have not. Rather, you have presented this bill into this House, under urgency. I’m not here to debate; I am here to straighten the facts. Urgency: why are we discussing this bill under urgency? Where is the consultation with the public, if you’re only going to rely on certain senior members who are put in positions on behalf of the wider electorate? Where are the 1.6 million voices?

Where are the 19 mana whenua of the super Auckland region? Remember that, once upon a time, Auckland wasn’t one super-city; it was actually functioning really well when West Auckland has its own mana motuhake, South Auckland had its own voice, Central East Side, and then it got amalgamated, and then, suddenly, everybody doesn’t want to talk about the 19 mana whenua who are left out of this bill, the Planning Bill, and the environmental bill. There is no discussion about Te Tiriti o Waitangi—takahi whenua, takahi mana, takahi tangata [abuse of land, abuse of authority, abuse of people].

You know what? It really is about locking whānau out. Tamatha is right. My passion isn’t just about the people who live now, but the decisions we make in the House really are impacting any Māori owning a home, let alone having access to any one of these new proposed builds, and any of those that are actually spare right now—which we know there aren’t, when you’ve got a thousand homeless people who can’t even access one single house right now. Where is the commitment to Tāmaki Makaurau? All of it; not just parts of it. The whole lot. You’re leaving—

Not the Speaker.

This Government is leaving too many people behind for us to get behind any of this. I mean, there is no Te Tiriti o Waitangi clause. There is no role for the 19 mana whenua of Tāmaki in the design or the implementation of the bill. There is no commitment to prioritising Māori housing, despite Māori facing the greatest need.

Papa kāinga—let’s talk about papa kāinga. Papa kāinga do not look like town houses, intensification. You and I both know, Mr Speaker, that papa kāinga is the Māori solution, and that is what the Māori of Tāmaki Makaurau are screaming for. I look forward to the continued debate.

Before I take the next call, I just remind members that interjections need to be rare and reasonable. I don’t want to have a running commentary, and we’ve had a little bit of that from both sides of the House. Just calm it down, please. And a reminder—and I didn’t want to interrupt the previous speaker—that when you use the term “you”, you bring the Speaker into the debate, so, please, refrain from doing that. There are just a couple of reminders there.

20:16

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Our biggest city is at a crossroads. People are spending longer getting to work and to school, often working longer hours than they’ve ever done before just to make ends meet, and often trying to save for a home that they may never be able to access. What is this Government’s response to this crossroads? It’s to gut access for people who are in the most precarious conditions—often they’re homeless, as well—making it harder for them to access emergency housing; gutting our public housing programme, where low-income people could have had secure housing; and, now with this bill, effectively, pushing people out to the margins of our city that are already facing the brunt of a lack of adequate public infrastructure—which has found more resource in our city centre—and, so, locking out future generations from being able to live in the city suburbs and the city centre, where there are jobs, where there are opportunities, and where there has been more investment in things like public transport and infrastructure. This is the ultimate pandering to the wealthy few—people in Parnell, Remuera, and Epsom—by David Seymour, Simeon Brown, and Luxon, and the other politicians who keep pandering to the people that are not facing the biggest and heaviest brunt of the current fossil fuel crisis, for example.

We’ve got a Government that pretends that literally cutting the minimum amount of homes that should be built in our city from 2 million to 1.4 million is about actually accounting for the needs of our infrastructure, pretending as though central and local government are not responsible for that very same thing. At the very same time, we have a Government that hands out billions to the wealthy landlords while stripping everyday people of the ability to make ends meet and potentially save for a home that they could have had in the city centre suburbs.

This is a Government that has pretended that we don’t have a crisis when it comes to the supply of housing—particularly affordable housing that can be better enabled through medium density—and, instead, wants to sell off State homes in the very same neighbourhoods to protect their character, claiming that we shouldn’t be having State homes in expensive neighbourhoods, because it seems like this Government, quite bluntly, just supports gentrification. They do not want to see young people living in apartments in Remuera. They don’t want State homes in Remuera. They just want those homes to remain accessible for the wealthy few. This is exactly what the Government is doing.

Let’s not pretend that Auckland also needs to rezone after, particularly, the Auckland floods of 2023. That’s what Plan Change 120 was all about. It was to account for the fact that we actually needed to downsize some parts of our city that were particularly badly affected by the floods, which I know, since my own street and my own neighbourhood was flooded and my own street is sitting half empty right now, as a result of the floods that we faced. Plan Change 120 was literally about recognising that because we needed to, basically, have less homes in areas that were flood-prone, we needed to build more homes elsewhere and enable that in areas that made sense.

It is time to de-gentrify Remuera, Epsom, and Parnell and actually allow young people and working people to be able to see themselves living in those neighbourhoods. Those neighbourhoods do not belong to the multimillionaire, multiple property - owning class. They belong to everyone, and the Government has a role to enable that by actually allowing greater density and more housing in those very same neighbourhoods.

I simply do not buy that this is, as the ACT Party speaker said, about going back to a time when we were poor. We’re the richest we’ve ever been as a country, and yet we’ve got more children growing up in this country unable to make ends meet. Make it make sense! This is not about taking us back to a time when we were poor; this is about a Government that wants to keep the poor struggling to survive and that wants to enable their donors and the wealthy voters to continue to hold on to rich property-investment portfolios.

The Green Party will continue to fight for communities that are affordable, where public transport is accessible, frequent, and—ideally—free, and where young people can see themselves living close to the heart of our biggest city because their Government believes in their aspirations and their right to affordable housing, which is why the Green Party will be fighting against this bill and supporting public housing in areas where David Seymour likes to take a walk and canvass to get his voters out.

20:21

I am somewhat confused. We are speaking about the Resource Management (Auckland Housing) Amendment Bill, are we not—this bill here, right?—the one that is about intensification in Tāmaki-makau-rau; the one that is about returning power to Auckland Council to be able to decide where they want to build the houses? That’s what the bill does. I do not understand where these critiques are coming from. I look forward to getting to the committee of the whole House where you can enlighten me as to where on earth these critiques are found in the bill. Thank you.

I think I’ve just had my invitation to enlighten the member Greg Fleming as to what’s going on in this bill. I think that’s a really good opportunity. The first thing I’d do is I’d ask the member to have a look at what’s called the regulatory impact statement (RIS). It has come out, and it has this proposal that we’re dealing with tonight, and it has a counterfactual in it. It says what the policy initiatives are supposed to be and what the objectives are. It goes through those objectives, and it says that they will “Ensure [the] Auckland Council provides sufficient, well-located housing and business”—that sounds good, doesn’t it?—and it will “Provide sufficient flexibility for Auckland Council and the hearings panel to respond to submitter feedback and evidence,”—all sounds really good. Then, it comes to a counterfactual, which is basically, “Do what we’re doing and make sure that we give people a chance to submit to the plan and build around the City Rail Link (CRL) stations.” That’s what the counterfactual is. Then, there’s the plan we’re adopting tonight. Guess what the RIS people think! It says, when it comes to the advice of Cabinet, that the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and the Ministry for the Environment consider that the counterfactual performs better overall than option 1 or 2, but the Minister prefers option 2.

Tonight, we are not doing what the advisers say, and we’re not doing something that will produce the best results if those are our objectives. We’re doing something that’s less than that. We’re doing something that people on this side of the House—who can read—are actually comprehending; it is not the weasel words spoken by the ACT Party tonight; it is the reality of the situation.

Let’s talk about it from the point of view of one of my constituents. Actually, if you would just bear with me, I’ll just take an email that I got this morning. This is what it says. [Interruption] Please, bear with me. Just listen, OK? This is what somebody in my area—I know that this person in my area lived in the next street to me and I know that there was flooding in his area and there was a guy who was rescued in a wheelchair in that street. It was quite a big deal, so he is concerned. He’s concerned when he sees the reports of this. In this bit, he says, “We have no drainage or waste-water system—literally. Why pick on us? There are other suburbs that are inner city and have train stations. Is it because we have Labour MPs? I thought the Government was going to stop ordering the Auckland Council around and let us decide what happens to our city.”

We are!

Guess what! Today, what we are doing is we are making sure—

A reminder to what I just said around reasonable interjections.

Thank you. Today, what we are doing is we are making sure that David Seymour’s area does not have the kinds of houses that are going to be going into my area. You have heard the passionate response of Phil Twyford today about his area, which already has those. We are deciding, in our centralised system—not the council—that, no, we know best. We know this is an election year, and we are actually intervening in a way I would strongly suspect was partisan. We are not making decisions based on where the train stations are. We are not making the decisions based on justice. We’re not even making the decisions based on what our good council, the super-city, thinks—all those people who we have voted in and were supposed to make those decisions. No, we are making decisions based on what the National Party and the ACT Party and the New Zealand First Party have decided suits them this election. It is incredibly damaging to our democracy when we do that.

I have watched the flag be raised that we were going to have some sort of veto, etc.—and you can see our mayor is worried about that and is trying to take power back—but I want to just talk again about what it’s like for a constituent in my area. What we have done, since I have been the MP there, is we have had a plan. We have had meetings about the plan that was there. We have had people with a variety of different views about that plan. We have had a consideration of floods. We have made submissions. I made a big submission where I gathered up what I was being told by my constituents, and I made that submission to the Auckland Council, who was supposed to be able to go through that process. Now, we are being told, “Well, too bad, we’re changing the rules again, and you’ve got about 20 days to get any extra things in.” A lot of that work that was done was really expensive—I think it’s about $20 million to do that work—but, oh, it’s gone, because it doesn’t happen to suit the National Government today. That’s why it’s gone. It’s not gone because it made any sense, and it’s definitely not gone because it gives flexibility. They are weasel words. It is not about flexibility, because if we want flexibility, we need to give the council the right to look at these things in the way that they should. We need to take into account areas like flooding, etc.—all those really legitimate concerns. We need to let that happen, and we need to let go of it in that way because we believe in the people that are elected in that area. That’s what we need to do. Hopefully, as a result, we’ll get a just result. And guess what! Under that result, there’d be houses in places like Epsom, and that is important.

Now, I want to talk about the value of these communities, because this is something that I don’t think we’ve told the story of: the value of communities where there are more houses. If we do the infrastructure work in those areas, they are the best kind of communities. They have a range of solutions in them. They are close to transport, etc., but they are valuable to every community in the inner city, including Epsom, because it means that your neighbour, when their children have grown up, move into smaller places in the same area because it’s available and because there’s an apartment block. It means that your kids get to move next door or down the road and they get to have all the things that you have in a community with a multiplicity of different options. That’s a valuable thing. Actually, Epsom will be the poorer for its choices tonight because it won’t have the range of solutions in it, because it is afraid of the value of people of different wealth living in its community. It’s really, really sad to see New Zealand dividing like that.

My community has some of that stuff in it, and I don’t want to go away from this speech without mentioning how valuable it can be, but it needs to be developed with good infrastructure. It needs to be developed with a sense of community. Those are things that are important, and they need to come alongside it.

I take the point that some people have made tonight—that’s valuable and important alongside it—but what I have come to the conclusion about, over this term of Government, is that we have a lot of things in common but that we have a lot of things where we’re very different in the Labour Party from the National Party, and this is one. We have a sense of community. We are actually stretching to bring New Zealand together. I am worried that this piece of legislation, which is partisan, which does ring-fence certain leafy suburbs, which does not share the burden, which does not understand the value of communities that are multiple in the nature of their people—I am afraid that’s a sign of a Government that actually is extremely elitist, and it is going in a way that means there is going to be a division in society.

Now, I want to talk about one thing that is relevant to affordable housing in my area. We have an area called Wesley. I think the Labour Party should be extremely proud of the planning that was done in Wesley. I had a public meeting there the other day. The planning that was done there and the infrastructure that was put in the ground meant it was going to be a walkable, livable, and affordable part of our city. It was going to be great. Guess what the National Government has done! While barking on about affordable housing at every turn, guess what it has done! It has put that project on hold: 11,000 houses that we could have had in the inner city, that could have been an affordable community in the inner city, on hold, as if there is no crisis. I ask this Government to reconsider that—not put such things on hold—because they’re the things that stop people being homeless.

It’s a hell of a lot better to spend some money building houses in a place like Wesley, walking the talk of affordable housing, than it is to sweep the problem under the carpet by changing the law and criminalising rough sleeping. That is the difference between the Labour Party and this Government.

20:32

Well, I must say, I feel like we’re debating different bills in this House. We are here talking about the Resource Management (Auckland Housing) Amendment Bill, which seeks to provide Auckland Council with greater flexibility in how housing capacity is allocated across the city. That is what this bill is about. It was all about getting density right, in the right areas, where it makes sense—in the CBD, around the City Rail Link corridor, around major centres, and around major arterial routes and bus routes as well. The next step is that council will decide how this is going to be applied to the city.

Can we trust them?

Can we trust them? They are elected representatives. I trust my councillors to do their job; I think the member that just sat down should trust theirs. I commend this bill to the House.

The next call is a split call.

20:33

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call, and I feel very privileged to be able to speak about the worries and concerns of my local community, because we oppose this bill on this side of the House.

As the local MP for Māngere—infrastructure, housing, because of our proximity and because we don’t want to be that island in the middle of South Auckland, it’s really important that we in my local community are informed of what is happening. This bill goes against the very beliefs that our local representatives, who were elected by our local community just recently, in the last six months—intensification, getting roading and stormwater and pipes and all of those things. It is really important in our local community—and affordability and affordable housing in my local community. What we see is that the intensification that was promised through the various elected member roles is all going backwards. Why? Because of this Government. The announcement that the Minister of Housing has made today—this urgency process to bypass the very democratic process and to go backwards in rewriting the rules—is ignoring the will of the people.

I’ve been listening to the intense contributions from different sides of the House, and it’s really important that people actually understand the will of South Auckland. The reason why I bark on about South Auckland all the time is because I come from probably the most diverse community in the country, so I really want to highlight them in my short call. Minister, we feel, on this side of the House, that this bill is being rushed through because of things happening in terms of planning instruments. The Government must be honest, and it must be consistent in terms of the legislation that is brought before the House, because New Zealanders want to know what is affordable at this time, especially with the fuel crisis at the moment. Listening to a number of the speakers this evening, it is really important the Government realises that, when they fail Auckland, they fail the whole country.

We’ve heard the Minister this afternoon, and on this side of the House I want to highlight why he is buckling to political pressure and also not showing leadership for New Zealanders. Auckland is very, very important, and in Auckland, we’ve recently had a number of celebrations, called Pasifika festivals. Then we’ve had ASB Polyfest, where thousands of young people have come across not just Auckland, actually, but the North Island region. We want to give those young people hope. We want them to stay in New Zealand. We want them to represent the diversity of Auckland. When young people go to the polling booth, those that are interested in politics, and they vote for their elected leaders, they are voting for change, they are voting for hope, and they are voting for Auckland Council to keep their promises to the people.

Infrastructure is really, really important, because, just a couple of years ago, we had the Auckland floods. We saw, in Māngere, a number of houses were affected—over a couple of thousand—and some of those people are still homeless and still displaced.

I just want to quickly reflect on Auckland Airport. For those that are interested in figures of domestic arrivals and also international arrivals, in the year to 30 June 2025, 8.4 million people went through on domestic trips. In international arrivals, the year to end 30 June, there were 10.3 million people, and the total of passenger movements in that last financial year, ended 30 June 2025, was 18.7 million passenger trips. The Auckland Airport precinct is in Māngere. For all of the Auckland politicians, it’s a very important piece of infrastructure. If we don’t have affordable housing, if we don’t have planned infrastructure through Auckland Council, then communities like mine in Māngere miss out, and our young people miss out. And what happens? They get on those planes, and they go overseas.

I’ll just wind up, in my short contribution, by saying how important this bill is to Auckland, and getting it right for our young people for the future is really, really important. Thank you.

20:38

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Auckland is New Zealand’s largest city—it’s the centre for commerce for New Zealand—but unlike many big cities in many countries around the world, Auckland still has room to develop, to build more housing, and to be able to provide housing opportunities that are more affordable for everyone.

What the bill does is reduce the minimum housing capacity. Reducing the minimum housing capacity only means that it cannot go below 1.4 million. These are numbers that are put out there for people to take on and be guided by, but it does not set a restricted amount of development. When we say, “Market forces will lead the way”, what that means, really, is that more housing will be developed in the areas and in the places where they matter—where people can be able to live well and walk to work and live in a good environment. It does not restrict development at all. I commend this bill to the House.

The Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan. Just to inform the House that this is a split call between Labour and Labour.

20:40

Thank you, Mr Speaker. On Saturday, I held a community event in Onehunga, where I live, and it was on the topic of housing and homelessness, in that particular instance, where locals came to the event and talked about how desperately Auckland needs more housing. We’ve seen homelessness rise by 120 percent in this city. We’ve also seen this Government cancel 3,500 public homes across the country, 510 of those in the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki area alone, across about 11 plots. About half of those are being sold to private developers. While that event focused specifically on public housing and homelessness, there was, I guess, a clear plea from those who came along about the wider spectrum of housing that needs to be built across Auckland.

Sadly, members opposite don’t seem to have read anything in this bill. We’ve had National Party MPs stand up and say, “Oh, we don’t know what the problem is with this bill. What is the other side talking about? We’re still going to build some houses.” This tells us clearly that nimbyism is alive and well; that leafy suburbs and their members of Parliament, particularly Botany and Epsom—the CEO; sorry, the Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, and David Seymour—have listened to their constituents and decided “Oh, no, we believe in housing intensification. Of course Auckland must have more housing, but not in my backyard. We’ll build it somewhere else.” I’ll get to the “somewhere else” in a minute, but it’s clear that some suburbs don’t want to see apartments or terraces or townhouses, or more affordable housing, because they’re just fine. They’re wealthy and sorted.

And the sad thing in this is that the housing Minister had good intentions at one point and wanted to see additional housing. That’s where the bipartisan approach to the medium-density residential standards came into effect—because both sides, at that point, wanted to see growth in housing and in communities across Auckland. Sadly, that Minister has been undermined by his own Cabinet colleagues and now has to come back to the House and say, “Oh, sorry. Luxon and Seymour don’t want more housing in their electorates, and so now we’re just going to backtrack.” So much for “back on track”; they’re backtracking from their commitment to build more housing.

We’ve heard about some of the suburbs in Auckland that have seen intensification over the past few years, and I want to add to that. Right next door to where I had my housing meeting on Saturday is Ōranga, which has seen a fair bit of intensification over the years, and it’s well deserved. It’s a community where Kāinga Ora has built a number of houses and has also worked to improve community and public facilities in that area, in the same way that the Tāmaki Regeneration Company has done on the other side in the neighbouring electorate of Tāmaki, where we’ve seen a huge amount of housing go into Glen Innes, into Point England, and into Panmure—where potentially more intensification can happen—and Mount Wellington.

That’s not the issue here; the issue is that certain suburbs in certain areas shouldn’t be expected to continue to bear the intensification burden, in a sense. We need to see other suburbs, I guess, having a fair share of intensification there, as well, and for that to be shared in a fair and equitable way across Auckland. It’s not fair that certain areas, particularly out East, which are well served by transport and road links, don’t see intensification just because of the nimbyism that we are seeing at the moment.

The final point that I’ll make is the huge amount of uncertainty that this Government has brought into play, as well. We heard that loud and clear at the Environment Committee from many submitters to the two bills that will be replacing the Resource Management Act (RMA), which this bill now tweaks again. They’ve seen Plan Change 78 and then Plan Change 120, and now we’ll see a complete overhaul of the RMA—which, actually, Labour in Government repealed and replaced with two bills that are only different because of this Government’s fascination with property rights and with eroding the environment. Because of all that, those who want to develop and just get on with building communities in our biggest city are being held back, and they were very clear at the select committee that this constant chopping and changing by this Government is unhelpful.

20:45

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think it’s been interesting listening to members of the Government speak on this bill, because it feels to me like they genuinely don’t understand what the issue is. They’re genuinely asking for some engagement to understand—which is good, which is really good.

I think if you reduce the minimum build and you have suburbs in West and South Auckland that have already been intensified, there is no incentive to continue to intensify equitably across the city. You will do that in particular regions, as they have, and there is no incentive to equitably build across the city. What that means, in effect, is that for all the young people who are leaving New Zealand now, there will be no incentive for them to stay. It is really just that simple. I’m going to speak a little bit more about that in a moment.

I did just want to touch on the fact that we are here in all-stages urgency this evening and potentially into tomorrow, as well. I know I raise this every time we are in urgency, but I am keeping tabs. I think there has to come a time when the period that the House is sitting under urgency just becomes a little bit silly. If you ask people at home, “What percentage of the House’s time should we be in urgency?”, some people might say 5 percent or 10 percent. Well, in the 52nd Parliament, we were sitting under urgency for 10.9 percent; in the 53rd Parliament, for 15.7 percent—

Was there an emergency then?

There was an emergency then, as well, that we were responding to. Now, the numbers as of December last year are that the House was sitting under urgency for 30.4 percent of Parliament’s time—

Outrageous.

—which is outrageous for December last year. But please do know that I will continue to update as we progress through this term, because it looks like we will be facing more urgency.

We don’t have an Upper House. We rely on select committees for people to be able to submit their views. But in relation to this bill, the Government are making it very clear that they don’t care. They don’t care what New Zealanders think. They’re not interested in good governance. We have Auckland councillors who consulted initially on a 2 million minimum build, who then, when it was drawn down to 1.6 million, spent six weeks planning on the basis that it would be 1.6 million and overnight—overnight—they find out that it’s 1.4 million.

This isn’t responsible decision-making. It’s not respectful decision-making. Looking at the documents, so looking at the regulatory impact statement and the departmental disclosure statement, it’s very clear that there has been a lack of consultation that we’ve seen in terms of—the documents say that while officials were engaged, no other consultation was undertaken on the proposals. The departmental disclosure statement says that the models that were used—so the options that were assessed—were done on the basis that it would be 1.6 million. So this is extremely poor planning.

Again, what the Government are, essentially, asking West Aucklanders to do—which is where I’m based—is to cope with the intensification, and in the case of West Auckland, they’re coping with the intensification without the adequate infrastructure around them. I know, because constituents have raised this with me frequently in Glen Eden, where there are significant builds in the community, that the Glen Eden railway station and the rail crossing is a huge issue in terms of traffic congestion, in terms of pedestrians trying to get across that crossing. But it may well be up to 30 years before the issues around that crossing are addressed.

And yet the Government doesn’t really seem to care about two sets of communities in Auckland, and that is South Auckland and that is West Auckland. And, ultimately, it also doesn’t seem to care about the young people who desperately want to stay in New Zealand, who want to stay here and get jobs, but who this Government is making it absolutely impossible for, because they simply aren’t building the houses across Auckland that are needed for Auckland’s population. So I do not commend this bill to the House.

20:50

It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Resource Management (Auckland Housing) Amendment Bill. I want to commend this bill to the House because, unlike the other side of the House, which talks about what officials were saying and about consultation between bureaucrats in Wellington and bureaucrats in Auckland, on this side of the House we actually listen to Aucklanders. By the way, Aucklanders are voters, and Aucklanders deserve to be respected. We’re delivering a piece of legislation which sets an ambitious target for housing in Auckland, which delivers the housing in the right places, around the infrastructure. Unlike the previous Government, which said, “We’re going to build three houses on every section, to three storeys high”, we’re actually having a common-sense solution. We’ve listened to Auckland, it’s an appropriate target, and now it allows Auckland Council to do what it should do, which is to consult Aucklanders and come up with a plan for the future of Auckland.

I hear them moaning on the other side of the House, where they’re complaining about the challenges with the process, but, actually, this is about listening and going through this process and actually understanding what Aucklanders need. Where this legislation will now lead to is that Auckland Council will have the ability, under this legislation, to zone its city, taking into account issues such as infrastructure, taking into account issues such as view shafts and heritage and a whole range of other factors, as it should do when setting policy, but with an ambitious target, which says that we expect 1.4 million development opportunities to be set, so that over the long term there will be the availability and supply of property so that young New Zealanders can buy their own home, so that there is housing in the right places, around the train stations, around the City Rail Link, around the bus stations, and then we’ll be able to make sure we have a balanced approach in other places.

That is incredibly different from the previous Government, who thought they could put three houses on every single section, to three storeys high. We have listened to Aucklanders, and now we are responding to this piece of legislation. Our message to Auckland Council is that once this piece of legislation is passed, it will be up to them to ensure they have a robust process, where they engage with Aucklanders, and they will be responsible for the final plan for Auckland. They will be responsible for what that plan looks like. They will be responsible for delivering on it. It will be their responsibility to make sure that Aucklanders are engaged in that.

I commend this piece of legislation to the House. Many people across Auckland have been saying to me, “We’ve just spent $5.5 billion on the City Rail Link. It’s opening later this year. That is a fantastic investment in our city. We need to be focusing our housing policy on delivering houses around those train stations, around the City Rail Link, around the bus stations.” That’s about focusing housing around the infrastructure. That is a common-sense approach to delivering housing policy. I commend the Hon Chris Bishop for shepherding this bill through the House. I look forward to its passage through all stages. I appreciate that while the Opposition might be complaining about what the bureaucrats and all of them are thinking, we on this side of the House are listening to Aucklanders.

This bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Resource Management (Auckland Housing) Amendment Bill.

20:56

Thank you, Madam Chair. As you say, this part is very short—two clauses—but it does include the Schedule. That is what I want to refer to, and I’m sure my colleague over there from the Greens will have many things to say about this.

Clause 4 has new Part 10 inserted into Schedule 12 of the Act. A lot of what new Part 10 is about is fixing up a problem related to the medium-density residential standards (MDRS). In some of the documents that accompany the bill, they say it was a technical mistake. It would be useful to have the Minister responsible for RMA Reform’s commentary in the Hansard around it, because, as we’ve been discussing in the first and second reading debates, the different legislation introduced in 2024 and passed in August 2025, after some changes at the select committee and then an Amendment Paper that was introduced on the day that we were discussing that committee stage of the bill—this is complicated stuff—what that 2025 legislation did was enable Auckland Council to get rid of the MDRS if they did a new plan change with the equivalent.

How the MDRS worked is that, if there were not qualifying factors, it was permitted to build the three three-storey houses on a site, but what happened—and this is my understanding; the Minister can add to this—is that some developers were relying on those permitted first rights, and then they disappeared with the withdrawal of that Plan Change 78, and so people were left with nothing and had to go through resource consents. My understanding is that what we see on page 7 of the bill, at what will be clause 65 of Schedule 12 of the Act, is that this is a fix for that situation. That’s one question: can the Minister explain that process and how it’s a fix? I’ve got a couple more on this point.

Another question is that we’re here in all-stages urgency, and we’ll talk about the changing of numbers when we get to Part 2 of the bill, but given the difficulties that certainly I’ve heard about from property developers in Auckland, about this change to MDRS, why was this change not made sooner? There are bits of legislation that I’m sure it could have been added to. Also, what analysis has gone on to understand the effects on those developers of the MDRS being removed in that Plan Change 78?

Then, if we turn over the page, there are provisions there that validate the previous MDRS-permitted activity status, but it seems to me that this is all reliant on the property owner having a building consent. I do want the Minister to take us through that building consent process. Also, what happens to those properties or those developments where there’s been no building consent process yet? That’s one question.

Also, has there been any analysis on the new changes to what the Minister and other members of the Government have referred to as “granny flats” but are actually quite substantial buildings that can now be built, as of right, without a building consent? Are there any sorts of buildings that might have been able to be permitted under the MDRS that people may have given up on and are now doing something with the granny flat legislation? How does that all interact? If the Minister can comment on that, that would be good. Thank you.

21:00

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to add to Rachel Brooking’s question, before the Minister responsible for RMA Reform gets up to answer it, and ask whether he has been advised about whether there are any developments that, if not for this retrospective deeming provision, would have become unlawful.

Thank you to both learned members for those questions. This has been a tricky Resource Management Act (RMA) gymnastics issue. Basically, what happened when the Act went through in August last year—“RMA Bill No. 2”, as we’ve called it, which, essentially, gave effect to the Plan Change 120 process that we are now in the process of altering again—is the medium-density residential standards (MDRS) provisions that the member is talking about were withdrawn. There is a group of people, roughly around 400, who were in the process of applying for a resource consent or getting on with building, reliant on the MDRS, who have been affected by this.

It would be fair to say that the council and the Government had an exchange of letters around whether or not this was a legal problem. The council’s view was that it was, and the Government’s view was that it was an issue that the council could solve. That went back and forward, and then what happened is I started an investigation process, under section 360I of the Resource Management Act, which is the “Eden Park provisions”—what I used for the Eden Park changes. That then prompted the council to decide they had the legal powers to solve the problem. The issue has, largely, gone away, but we thought, for the avoidance of doubt, given we are legislating anyway through this process, that we would just make absolutely sure that people could rely on the rights they thought they had beforehand. This is more for the avoidance of doubt—given we were legislating anyway, we thought, “Why not? It’s a pretty small and simple change.”—but the issue had been fixed before that.

That, I think, deals with the member’s question around why the Government didn’t move before that. It’s quite a big thing to legislate, and we didn’t really want to legislate if we didn’t have to. It turns out that we probably didn’t, but given we’re legislating anyway, we may as well do that.

It’s the only good bit of the bill.

It’s the only good bit of the bill? Well, that’s good to know!

Mr Twyford’s question was about whether or not anyone was affected by this. Well, I think I’ve sort of dealt with that: yes, there was a group of people who were affected by it, and some of them were quite voluminous in the media. The council and the Government had a—

Who cares?

Who cares? Well, they care. The member shows her thinly veiled contempt for people just trying to do things. Actually, these are not large property developers, who I know the member hates. Most of the time, these were actually people doing things to their own property, adding another house or doing a variety of things, often quite small-scale developers who, through no fault of their own, were caught up in RMA limbo land through Parliament. The MDRS lacuna—the 400 or so people affected by the lacuna in the law—was not a foreseen consequence; if it had been, we wouldn’t have done it, and we would not have legislated like that in the first place.

No one advised the Government it was going to be an issue; it only came up once the council took an interpretation of the existing law that the Government did not expect after we’d legislated. They then told us about it. We moved to fix it. The issue has been dealt with. We’re now legislating for the avoidance of doubt. That is as simple as it gets.

21:04

Thank you. I’ll just continue on this point and then sit down before a different point. If it is for the avoidance of doubt, can the Minister responsible for RMA Reform comment on why there is this building consent trigger and whether he’s got analysis that the 400 that he was just referring to will all be picked up by the mechanism that is the building consent. Like, what happens if there was a developer who was waiting to do it? Is he saying, “Well, it doesn’t matter, because in fact the council is wrong with their illegal interpretation.”?—which was his point. That’s one question.

My second question, still on the point of the medium-density residential standards (MDRS) and the rights that people had under the MDRS that were removed, is that he mentioned just now that there was no advice to say that this would be a problem and that nobody raised it—I’m wondering if he’s done any analysis into whether the changes that were made in the Amendment Paper that was introduced on the day it was debated related to this point or not, or whether the changes to the MDRS provisions that created this issue with the council were always in the bill as it was introduced in 2024.

21:06

The building consent point links to this, because what happened is that people went and got building consents and were about to build or, in some cases, were building already, not needing a resource consent because of the medium-density residential standards (MDRS), and then the Government let the council withdraw Plan Change 78, which took away the underlying MDRS zoning. They were stuck in this limbo land of having a building consent but having to go off and get a resource consent, and then they got stuck in that land. That’s the trigger there.

In relation to exactly how this happened, I don’t recall—but I could be wrong; I don’t recall—advice on it, and it’s not clear if it was the fault of the primary legislation that we put through in October last year or the Amendment Paper. It’s probably, in reality, a combination of both.

21:07

My last point on this one, then, is in terms of what the Minister responsible for RMA Reform just said about the building consents and because there was this problem. What about the people who might have been relying on a certificate of compliance and were not yet at the building consent phase? A property owner has had their land zoned under the medium-density residential standards and they’re thinking and they’re planning and they’re getting their capital together to build their houses, but they’re not yet at the building consent stage. Are they able to get a certificate of compliance to say that it was permitted as of “X” date and they can still continue with it? Or is that all gone now?

No, I’m advised that Auckland Council dealt with that through their processes, which they thought they had the power to do. They decided they did not have the power to deal with the wider issue that we are now dealing with—well, they eventually did decide that. It’s been an interesting process, to put it that way.

21:08

Further to the question of the retrospective nature of clause 2(1), in relation to new clause 65 of Schedule 12 of the Act, it really points us to, I would say, the chaotic nature of this process.

The fact that the process the Minister responsible for RMA Reform has explained for dealing with developers who had begun a process under the medium-density residential standards rules really puts the spotlight on what has been a pretty torturous process, where the target for the number of enabled dwellings for Auckland started out at 2 million; it went to 1.6 million; Auckland Council have been consulting on the 1.6 million figure in the associated plan; this bill reduces the target to 1.4 million; the mayor is sort of apoplectic about it.

My question to the Minister is, really: what has this process done to the confidence that the people of Auckland can and should have in the planning process?

21:09

Thank you, Madam Chair. All right, where do we even start?

At the beginning is a good place.

With a clause.

It’s OK. I’ve got this, Madam Chair. Let’s start with clause 63 in new Part 10 of Schedule 12, inserted by clause 4. This says, “Nothing in the amendment Act affects the validity or status of any submission made or struck out”, blah-blah-blah-blah. That’s what I’m really interested in because I know and the Minister responsible for RMA Reform knows and probably this side of the House—but, hopefully, the whole House—knows that there were many submissions from people who wanted 2 million homes enabled in Auckland, including the person who got 180,130 votes from Aucklanders, who said “2 million. I was happy enough with that; just let the market sort itself out. ACT is meant to be about the market place; they’re the most anti - market place, outside of Russia.”—and that was, of course, Mayor Wayne Brown.

I’m just trying to work out what happens now to all of the people who have submitted on various iterations of the Auckland Unitary Plan, who want the most density possible to be allowed under any amendments to the Resource Management Act (RMA) or any of the planning instruments that fall underneath that Act. It’s not just the person at the top, in terms of the mayor himself, but it’s also all of the renters who made submissions who wanted an opportunity to live in the inner city, close to the places where they work, learn, live, and love.

All of the future generations—and I know the Minister understands this—who aren’t able to make a submission now because they’re probably crawling around in nappies, who would one day like to live in the inner suburbs of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin—everywhere—they can’t speak right now. When we do planning exercises—so we’re talking about the validity of submissions, right, Madam Chair; that’s the relevance here. When we’re doing a planning exercise like this—I know the Minister understands this—we’re thinking well into the future. We’re thinking about what we want Auckland City to look like, or what he or his Government wants Auckland City to look like, in a few generations. But the problem is that those generations can’t speak for themselves, so they’re not even able to inform this process. The question is: where is their voice?

I remember the Minister, in the first reading of this bill tonight, talking about “interested parties”. I understand that the RMA makes a special place for interested parties. But where I’ve always had beef with the resource management system is that interested parties are really only those who live immediately in the vicinity of the place that is being affected by the decision, but it precludes those who would love to live in the inner cities, and it also precludes those who maybe have not been born yet. What of all of those submissions that have been struck out, especially those coming from the Auckland City mayor, but also all of the Auckland City councillors who also want to see more housing enabled? What is to come of the validity or the status of their submissions that they’ve made for 2 million—if not 1.6 million—homes to be enabled in Auckland? I could keep going—I’ve got more content—but I’ll let you respond.

21:13

I can’t wait! Let me just deal with the member Tamatha Paul’s points first and then I’ll get to Mr Twyford’s.

The short point, legally, is there are about 10,500 submissions that are all valid and will be taken into account through the independent hearings panel process and then, subsequently, by the councils. That is, literally, the purpose of clause 63 of new Part 10 of Schedule 12, which is inserted by clause 4 of the substantive bill. The bill lays out a process to make sure that people are required to be told they can update their submissions or amend them in response to the revised target—well, it’s not a target; in relation to the revised minimum, and then the changes that the council will go through as a result of that, so they will have a chance to do that, but all of those submissions that have been made are valid.

The member makes a series of, I think, interesting points, to which I have some sympathy, around future generations and how they are taken into account in the planning system. It is definitely true that when you are talking about zoning and talking about theoretical development capacity, that is why you’re doing it, because you want to allow development opportunities to be there so that people can go and build houses for today’s generation—but not only today, the next generation and beyond. There is some tension there around the existing system and the way in which the planning system works, which places a real premium or places a real significance on the views of people in the status quo today. I don’t say that in a particular political way, but it’s just a function of planning law and, actually, also a function of democracy.

What we’ve tried to do here is make sure we get the balance right between ensuring the legitimate views of Aucklanders are given effect to and making sure that there is social licence for density. The member may disagree with me, but I would rather have a planning system or a plan change that the majority of people can live with, and make progress, rather than continue to have endless debates and backwards and forwards with different parts of the country and different people from different generations talking in different ways to each other. I would rather crack on and make progress because this is one of the most significant reforms that will happen to Auckland. This is one of the most significant economic enablers that Auckland can and will do.

Is it?

That is definitely true. Auckland has spent six years not upzoning around train stations and City Rail Link stations. Unless we actually legislated, they weren’t going to do the City Rail Link stations to the extent that they could have done. Getting zoning in the right place where infrastructure has been invested in and already exists close to where people live, work, and play, and close to where the jobs are, is one of the most significant things we can do to aid Auckland productivity. That’s what Plan Change 120 will do and the time, frankly, for the debate and discussion is coming to an end. We just need to actually let Auckland get on with it.

In response to Mr Twyford’s points: has it been a perfect process? No. The Auckland Unitary Plan process back in 2010 through 2012 and 2014 was not perfect either. No planning process is perfect. No system is anything other than messy. But what we need to do is get on and find a solution that the majority of people can live with. And, look, I’m yet to find a person who thinks that we shouldn’t upzone around train stations. I mean, there are a few of them out there, but they don’t talk to me.

They’re out there.

Helen White’s shaking her head—oh, no, you’re agreeing, that’s good. You are the MP for Mt Albert so there’s a bit of housing coming your way, I hope.

But is there any in Epsom?

So I’m yet to find people who don’t believe in that, and that is a bit of a sea change, actually, in the way in which we talk about politics.

Is there any in Epsom?

Yeah, there’ll be intensification—

If the member wants to ask questions, take a call and stand up.

There will be intensification in Epsom. There will be intensification in many parts of Auckland, but there will also be downzoning in areas in Auckland that are not close to public transport or where there are natural hazard areas. That’s another thing that we haven’t kind of covered tonight; maybe there’s a chance to. It’s really important that this plan change proceeds because there are whole swathes of Auckland that should be downzoned because they’re in flood areas. I know that Mr Twyford’s been concerned about this point in the past. In fact, I went to a public meeting with him three or four years ago around this exact point—well, maybe three years ago, post - Cyclone Gabrielle. That’s what the bill allows for, so it is important we get on with it, and that’s what the bill does tonight.

21:18

I’m just going to do a couple more questions on the submissions validity point. Do you know how many of those 10,000 submissions were from people who belong to mana whenua or local iwi within Auckland? Because I noticed that in the regulatory impact statement on this bill, there was no consultation undertaken with mana whenua, and my colleague Oriini made that point: where was that consultation at? I’m really interested to know what of their submissions—and if those won’t be expressly considered amongst all the other submissions, is there some other form of consultation that the Minister or the council might be instructed to do to directly work with mana whenua and consider their stance on the Auckland Unitary Plan?

The Minister responsible for RMA Reform talked about the medium-density residential standards (MDRS), and I really genuinely want to ask, because we’ve had the first and second reading now—and I just got the assumption that maybe some of his colleagues were under the assumption that the MDRS meant that tomorrow, three-storey townhouses would be put up everywhere, all over the show.

One of the concerns, I think it was, potentially, from Andy Foster from New Zealand First, was that one of the perceived flaws of the medium-density residential standards is that the infrastructure didn’t exist everywhere where that medium-density housing would be enabled, which is really tricky because this conversation is happening in isolation from the reality that the Government is actually able to capture the land value that is created through zoning to invest into infrastructure. And, actually, there are countries and cities, like Vancouver and London, who have made sure that their intensification, when it hits certain points or when populations grow or when housing is created, that it triggers a subsequent investment in the infrastructure required to support that housing.

Just interested to know: does the Government understand what MDRS actually is, because—I don’t know if you’re listening to the debate upstairs, Minister—but some of those speeches were acting like zoning means that the housing happens tomorrow. And we know that’s not true because we, together, have enabled heaps of housing in Wellington, which is awesome, but that housing isn’t out there right now, and that was what, two years ago? That’s not happening. I just wonder if there’s a bit of nimbyist attitudes that exist within the Government benches—obviously not you—that maybe need a bit of clarification as to what zoning actually is. I think Simon Court’s term was “SimCity planning nerds”.

Just one thing, you, in your answer, talked about infrastructure that already exists—

Please speak to the Minister, not directly to me.

Oh, yes, apologies, Madam Chair. The Minister talked about something around the plan that he is bringing forward is one that takes into consideration infrastructure that already exists. Yes? Fair characterisation?

Yep.

When I talked to Auckland councillors, their argument is that Plan Change 120, or the Auckland Unitary Plan in its original form, took that into account. What it was a reflection of is where the infrastructure best exists in terms of where the transport exists, where the waste water is, where the libraries, the hospitals, all of the things that make up infrastructure, that was a key element of Plan Change 120 as they had already looked at the infrastructure capacity and enabled it. I’m just a bit confused as to why infrastructure is being used as an argument to further reduce housing capacity in Tāmaki from 2 million to 140,000—120,000.

1.4 million.

The other thing is the Minister talks about flood zones—I’m sorry that my numbers weren’t completely correct; we just found out about this two days ago—and natural hazard zones; the Minister also talks about the importance of a plan around where flooding might happen, in the context of Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland anniversary floods, but my understanding is that another key element of Plan Change 120 is to allow flexibility so that housing isn’t only built in places that are flood-prone. But by, you know, hamstringing these rich suburbs from doing their part, that means housing will be built in areas that are more prone to natural disasters.

So I’m really going to challenge you on the infrastructure capacity assumption you’re making, because that’s not what Auckland councillors and the mayor say about the infrastructure assumptions that underline the original Plan Change 120.

21:23

There’s an interesting series of contributions there. In relation to how many submissions were from mana whenua into Plan Change 120, I don’t know; you’ll have to go and ask the council that. They ran the submission process on that.

In relation to the medium-density residential standards (MDRS): it’s worth noting that they actually are in existence in every city in the country other than Auckland. And there was a reason for that, which was they were too one-size-fits-all for a city the size of Auckland. Again, going back to the point I made before around the social licence for density, you’ve got to find a planning system that makes progress and works for people. And if we end up in these endless intergenerational cultural wars about it, we never actually make any progress. I’m focused on cutting through the noise and actually getting some stuff in place. The MDRS have been removed from Auckland, but that’s not to say that we can’t do density in the right places in Auckland, which is what the National Policy Statement on Urban Development provides for, and this new plan will provide for through the City Rail Link station upzoning.

I think the member asked: do people understand how it works? I think, broadly, I mean, I could say the same thing about her understanding of economics. She’s the one promoting rent caps, which would be the single most destructive housing policy for Auckland ever, which would result in—anyway I won’t belabour that point. I think people broadly understand the point, which is that you can have development capacity, but whether or not something actually gets turned into houses depends on market economics, it turns on development economics, it turns on demand, it turns on bank finance, a whole range of other things, and the point that we’re trying to create is a surplus of development opportunity so that we have competitive land markets and competitive development opportunities. Some of those things will be taken up and some of them won’t be. That’s the market in action, and that’s exactly the purpose of the Government’s housing reforms and, partly, the purpose of this.

In relation to infrastructure, it is true to say that Plan Change 78 was flawed in that it dispersed housing all over the place in areas that were not well-calibrated to where the infrastructure already exists. That is just a statement of fact. The latest version of Plan Change 120, which will go through some iterations over the next few months as it gets landed next year, is better calibrated to the existing infrastructure, not only because of the City Rail Link, but also in relation to the Auckland waste-water and stormwater networks as well. There’s some analysis floating around, I think—done by the council, actually—that suggests that the zoning is better calibrated to where the infrastructure already exists. But the simple point is this: people say there’s not enough infrastructure, and that’s true in some areas, and if there’s not enough infrastructure, you can’t build. That’s the simple reality. You just can’t go and do it. You can have theoretical development capacity, but if there’s no infrastructure there and you can’t find a way to get around those infrastructure constraints, you can’t go and build. It’s just the simple reality.

There’s going to be more infrastructure built in Auckland over the next few years. Obviously, there’s a massive programme of work under way through Watercare now and there’s, probably, some improvements that could be made there, but also, members may remember my contribution in the House today around the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act, which is an attempt to build a development system in which infrastructure funding is not a constraint on development; it’s an attempt to build a system where there’s an endless supply of infrastructure as long as the economics stack up. And that’s, I think, kind of the key point: rather than have a planning system dictated by planners and by arbitrary urban containment rules or arbitrary rules around where and what you can build, what we’re trying to build is a flexible system where planning is as enabling as possible—within some limits, but as enabling as possible—and where the infrastructure system is as flexible as possible to enable the flexible development opportunities. If we get that right—and there’s a lot of hard work to do and a lot of complicated reforms will land in the next two to three years—but if we get that right, we can have one of the most agile functional housing markets in the Western world. And how good would that be for New Zealand?

21:27

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to note that there’s been quite wide-ranging discussion—I sound like you now, Madam Chair—on natural hazards and infrastructure.

The good thing about you is that I know that you’re going to bring us back to the clauses.

I would just like to say that I will want to talk about those issues in Part 2 of the debate, so don’t think I’m not interested in those points, is my point, but I do want to talk about the temporary exemption from requirements of the National Policy Statement on Urban Development 2020 (NPS-UD). There’s an exemption here—and it’s set out very nicely on page 8—where clauses of the national policy statement are referred to, and in brackets there’s an explanation of what those clauses are; I’ve gone and looked at them, and they all seem very fair. The questions are very simple ones in terms of: why is this exemption needed? Is it because the similar studies that are required under the NPS-UD about demand and development capacity and future development strategies—is that because that’s already been undertaken and is not needed? It’s the first question.

And then, at new Part 10, new clause 66 of Schedule 12, inserted by the Schedule of the bill, it says that when that exemption ends—and it’s the sooner of the following: when the NPS is updated and directs that these requirements are to recommence, or the timing of the 2030-40 long-term plan. It would be useful to know what that date is—because that’s the backstop date for the exemption—why it is that the exemption is needed in the first place if that analysis has all been done, and officials have looked at it? And also—and this is a question I’ll have in Part 2 as well—how this might link with changes to the Resource Management Act generally. With the Planning Bill, in particular, is there any thought about how that will work with these time frames? I have more specific questions about the other time frames in Part 2.

21:30

This is a relatively simple issue. The short point is that the National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD) requires the council to start doing a Future Development Strategy and a variety of different things soon, and we don’t want them to do that, because we’re in the process of doing this existing plan change and also the new planning system is on the horizon, and so—this has actually come from the council—the council does not want to start a process that will be defunct soon at some point. It’s just an attempt to try and save some time and money, which I think we’re all in favour of.

Likewise, in relation to clause 66(2), inserted into Schedule 12 by the Schedule, I mean, look, the point is 66(2)(a), which is “the date on which the new or updated national policy statement directs those requirements to recommence”. The point is that there is new stuff coming in relation to that, which may—there is going to be spatial planning, as the member knows, in the new system. We’re giving some thought right now—the committee the member is on is also giving some thought to this—to the blend of what’s in legislation and what’s in national direction and how that plays out in practice. Getting that sweet spot right between flexibility of national direction but some guard rails in the legislation, as the member will appreciate, is not easy. We’re giving some thought to that, as I’m sure the member is as well.

There will be an equivalent of the NPS-UD in the new system. That’s now baked into a lot of plans around the country. It was a pretty good start. My own view is it could go further. In fact, the Government has actually made policy decisions on extending some elements of the NPS-UD—more mixed-use zoning, for example; abolition of balcony requirements in apartments; and also minimum size requirements and things like that—all of which is designed to enable more housing choice and flexibility. We actually made those decisions in June 2024. We haven’t put them into place yet, because we wanted to do it through the new planning system.

There’s been a range of things that have kind of intersected together and collided together, which we’re now starting to bring to a close—hopefully.

21:32

Thank you, Madam Chair. For me personally, this is quite an important bill, as the Green MP who is based in Epsom. Now, I want to actually start with clause 3 in terms of the principal Act, in Part 1, because I know we haven’t quite touched on that particular bit. I guess the question is, if you’re looking at this bill in its totality in its ability to amend the Resource Management Act—the RMA—one of the key things we discussed in Part 2, which I won’t touch on, is in terms of the reduction. For example, plan 78 and plan 120 allow for the same capacity, which is 2.07 million new dwellings. Then, overall, in terms of this bill, I want to check this specifically in relation to the purpose of the Resource Management Act, in section 5 of the RMA, which is around, in section 5(2), that the “sustainable management” in terms of the Act refers to: “which enables people and communities to provide for their social, economic, and cultural well-being and for their health and safety”. I wondered, overall, as a broader policy question, noting that the capacity could be at 2.07 million new dwellings, would a reduction meet the threshold of the purpose of the RMA? That is my first question specifically on clause 3.

In terms of clause 4 in this section, again, I think my colleague Tamatha Paul raised a really important point in terms of the difference between plan 120, plan 78, and also the kind of submissions and validity of submissions that come from that. I agree with the Minister responsible for RMA Reform that plan 78 doesn’t allow downzoning, whereas plan 120 does, and I think that’s an important quality-of-life change in terms of that plan. I think a lot of the submitters have mentioned that. But I wondered if those people are able to, as the Minister says, amend their submissions to match the new bill that we’re seeing in front of us—noting that they won’t have the opportunity to make a submission on this bill.

My first question is: I would assume that the reason we’re going through this under urgency through all stages is that the Minister would assume those people will make those submissions or make those amendments to their submissions on plan 120 instead—is that a reasonable interpretation of one of the reasons why we’re not going to see a select committee stage on this particular bill? If we’re looking at “Nothing in the amendment Act affects the validity or status”, will, then, there be an expectation on Auckland Council to open submissions, or, indeed, if the submissions are still currently open, to allow people to also submit in response to this bill, in light of the select committee stage that we won’t have on this bill—is that a feasible request? That’s my two questions on clause 63 of the Schedule.

My final question—which might be a really simple answer, because, again, this is the first time I’m seeing this bill, and the explanatory note doesn’t cover any details around the Schedule—is if the Minister would just let us know why the applicable date in clause 65(6) has been selected as 9 October 2025. I was having a look in terms of the submissions, etc., but I couldn’t find any reference to a 9 October, so if the Minister wouldn’t mind just enlightening us.

21:36

Look, the member Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan shouldn’t overthink it. In Part 1, clause 3 says the Act amends the Resource Management Act 1991. There’s not a lot of debate to be had about that. That is what it does, so don’t overthink it. The bill amends the primary Act. That’s pretty straightforward.

The member’s second question—I’ve dealt with the process around the submissions already, and the validity, extensively in response to his colleagues.

Questions in relation to the date around 9 October—I’ll have to come back to the member. Maybe I’ll take one more from Rachel or Arena.

21:37

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just seeking clarity from the Minister responsible for RMA Reform—he’s been very helpful on the process of submissions, because that is the messy part. I think we can all reflect on the difficulty that central government and local government find themselves in when there is back and forth while the process is open. That’s what I’m seeking to ask the Minister about now.

Given his comments around saving time and money on this, and the sort of laughs that he must have when the Greens and the Labour Party are standing up and saying, “We’d love more consultation”—a staple of every right-wing politician and local government on any planning bill who knows that the best way to do this sort of thing for the villa-loving constituents is to ask for more consultation. But that’s what you’ve got on the left tonight, so enjoy it for a bit.

What we’re asking here, perhaps, is for you to explain whether there is an opportunity to save some time here. What we’ve ended up with is, on 26 January—perhaps the 27th or the 28th—the Prime Minister comes out and he says to media, “We have taken on board the submissions of Aucklanders and we are responding. We are going to back away from the 2 million number.” Obviously, he had heard some submissions.

Do you want more intensification in Hillpark? What about the villas in Hillpark?

Obviously, he had access to what we now know are 10,500 submissions. I can hear the former local body member for Hillpark heckling me that he wants us to listen to more submissions from Hillpark, so perhaps that’s what he had. Perhaps when he was advising the Prime Minister on 26-27 January, in fact, lots of people had submitted to the Auckland Council before Auckland Council had even had a chance to consider the first—

Is there a question here for the Minister?

There is—there is, Madam Chair. At that point when the Prime Minister was representing to the New Zealand public that he had considered the submissions of the people that the member for Pakuranga is advocating for, he hadn’t seen those submissions. Then it became clear in that week, the last week of January, that those submissions were not accumulated by the council. At that point, they couldn’t even tell us how many there were. Now the Minister has said that there are 10,500 of those submissions, and you would expect the council to know now that they have closed. But then we’re still, I think, about in the point where we’re in the back and forth ways, where there are counter-submissions. I want the Minister to clarify where we’re up to in that submission process.

It’s also unusual that elected members met on 10 March—and I went back and I found the council minutes of this, where they were able to discuss those submissions. But it’s very unusual for local body members—and, actually, in the bill, they are prohibited from taking a position before they have been able to consider submissions. I would also find it helpful if the Minister could clarify—they have obviously taken a position here and written to him and told him that Auckland councillors have a level of comfort around enabling some of that development; 1.6 million was the number that they were able to write to him about, but that was also before the submission process was closed. I’m not saying that submission process—that is lengthy—is the right one. But I am saying that if the Minister is going to advocate for saving some time and money around that consultation process, then why is it that the independent hearings panel will now consider those submissions for up to a year?

Why was it fine for the Prime Minister to go out at the end of January and say that he had heard Aucklanders and that he was making a decision? Why was it then the appropriate place for the councillors to get around the table on 10 March and know that they were having a discussion at item 6.3 of their meeting about what number would be appropriate before they were able to consider those submissions? And why are we still in the situation where the submission process has not been completed, and yet we are now mandating a minimum number—not a target but a minimum. What is the status of those submissions in the first place, and if we’re not going to pay any attention to a submissions process—like the left would love, in some of these planning decisions—then why would we spend this further time? Why would we not expedite the process and get on with it, as he says?

21:41

Well, I’ve dealt with this issue a couple of times now, maybe even three times: the submissions that have been made are valid; that is one of the provisions in the legislation and they will be listened to. There will be an opportunity for people who’ve made a submission to update or amend their submissions in light of the revised maps. There eventually will be maps.

I’ve got a map.

Yes, there will be maps; love a good map.

Mapgate!

Mapgate. Hopefully, mapgate will not start up again, but there will be maps eventually and there will be an opportunity for people to make submissions in relation to that. But, basically, cutting a long story short, we have created a bespoke process, and officials have engaged quite extensively with Auckland Council around this. It is important that people are able to have their say. This is a city-shaping decision and it is important that local communities and local boards are able to input into that from a council point of view.

All those Chatswood voices.

The member raises an interesting point, which is a bugbear of mine, which is this ridiculous notion that councillors and local board members are not allowed to have views about things that they are elected to local councils to do. The judicialisation of—that’s maybe not a word—but the—

Maybe litigation?

Well, it does sometimes result in litigation but there’s a word that means the overly legalistic way.

Litigious.

It’s not litigious but thank you for the spelling lesson. This whole idea that councillors who run on platforms are not allowed to then implement those platforms and are told by non-elected members that they’re not allowed to express a view on anything in case it comes to the council or the local board is, frankly, ridiculous. It is denuding our democracy in terms of why we have local councils in the first place. If we need to make—and mine is a personal view—some changes down the line to actually let locally elected members have a perspective and not get told off by unelected bureaucrats that they risk ending up in judicial review because of it, we should do that, in my view.

Local boards have a totally legitimate role in this, as do the elected members of Auckland Council. It’s not as if Auckland councillors have been backwards in coming forwards about their views about various different numbers for Auckland housing. The point is this: the submissions are valid. I’ve dealt with that two or three times and I suggest we move on to Part 2.

21:44

I move, That debate on this question now close.

21:46

Madam Chair, thank you. A few questions for the Minister responsible for RMA Reform to answer for the committee: why is the Government reducing Auckland’s housing capacity requirement by 32.5 percent, from 2.2 million to 1.4 million dwellings? What evidence did the Minister rely on to walk back the target number of enabled dwellings to 1.4 million? Can he confirm that earlier work was done on the basis of a of a target of 1.6 million; if so, what evidence can he share with the committee to justify further scaling back the target from 1.6 million to 1.4 million?

Was there, in fact, any evidence or data to support this policy change, other than the fact that his own ministerial colleagues—Simeon Brown and David Seymour—were openly undermining his policy, publicly and in this Parliament? Isn’t this bill that we are dealing with tonight simply the result of pressure from his ministerial colleagues who are opposed to intensification in their electorates? Is he aware that the effect of Auckland Council’s unitary plan has been to create a doughnut city where the suburbs on the periphery, particularly in West Auckland and South Auckland, have carried an unfair burden of intensification, while the North Shore, East Auckland, and parts of the isthmus have largely been spared the requirement of enabling intensification? That is an inefficient urban form, and I know that the Minister understands that.

Is he confident that this bill and Auckland Council’s plan change will address the doughnut urban form of Auckland that has placed such an unfair burden on West Auckland and South Auckland, created an intrinsically economically inefficient urban form that distorts the competitive urban land markets that the Minister believes in? Is he confident that given that Auckland Council advise that their work to comply with the National Policy Statement on Urban Development, and one or two other things, means that they have already enabled something like 1.7 million dwellings in their plan, and that setting a legislative target so much lower than that enablement, effectively, makes it impossible for the people at Auckland Council’s governing body to argue for significant shifts now in the way that intensification is distributed around the city?

Is he confident, further, that the substantial Government investment in the Eastern Busway, an investment made by the taxpayer, will have the economics of that investment significantly undermined unless there are appropriate levels of intensification—that is, apartment dwellings along the catchment of that busway—acknowledging that, notionally, that is within the purview of Auckland Council? But the process that he has led now, effectively, makes it very, very hard for people within Auckland Council to make those significant changes, given that they’ve already enabled way over the target that this bill puts in place.

21:51

Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka, otirā tēnā rā koe e te Minita. [Thank you, Madam Chair; indeed, thank you, Minister]. Ko taku pātai [My question]—and just for the constituents watching at home, we are debating the Resource Management (Auckland Housing) Amendment Bill, and we are in the committee stage, under urgency—I just want to come to clause 6(6), new subclause (9) of Schedule 3C, the exclusion of city centre capacity. And also picking up that with Oriini holding the Tāmaki Makaurau Māori electorate seat and myself holding the Hauraki-Waikato electorate seat, our seats also cover into the Papakura and South Auckland area. So can the Minister responsible for RMA Reform explain which communities are expected to absorb the reduced capacity? That is question one.

Also, why were the 19 mana whenua of Tāmaki not embedded as partners in this process? Was any equity analysis done on impacts for South and West Auckland? Also, further than that, were there any analyses done on the borderlines or electorates, such as Hauraki-Waikato, when we look at the infrastructure builds in Ōhinewai and Te Kauwhata, when Auckland can’t handle the capacity, and so the overflow and overhaul comes into my electorate, into Hauraki-Waikato, whether that be South Auckland or the north of Waikato?

Does the Minister accept that this clause protects wealthier suburbs from changes? I also note that for whānau in South Auckland and Papakura, in the electorate that I serve, and in West Auckland for Oriini as well, there’s already cost pressures of $170 to fill up a petrol tank at the moment, and whānau are really feeling the pressures of the cost of living crisis. Knowing that, and with all of this in place, what does the Minister have in place for communities like that?

I’m going to take a call from the honourable Minister, and looking at the answers to his questions, I’m going to assume that he understands what the “Auckland doughnut” is, because I don’t, Mr Twyford—ha, ha!

21:53

I’m happy to comment on that. Let me deal with the member who resumed her seat, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke. The first question was around housing capacity in the CBD, and the point there is the city centre was dealt with through a separate plan change process. The reasons for that are lost to the mists of Resource Management Act (RMA) memory. We are dealing with everything in Auckland within the National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD) areas and not including the city centre. I’ve started an investigation into unlocking some capacity in the city centre, which is an ancillary process, but related partly to this. But just to focus the debate, this bill is not really about the city centre—maybe it should be, but it isn’t.

In relation to mana whenua issues at Auckland Council, those questions, to be honest, are best directed to Auckland Council rather than to me.

Let me deal with Mr Twyford’s substantive contributions. The first point to note is the advice is that the minimum legal capacity might say in law that it will be 1.4 million, but once you take into account the legislatively required upzoning as a result of the City Rail Link (CRL) and the NPS-UD walkable catchments, you roughly get to about 1.6 million. That is likely where Auckland Council will land, and so that deals with a couple of issues, and it also means that councillors are sitting there saying, “Well, this is all pretty frustrating.”, and I get it. But, you know, the principles that they have adopted as a governing body and the process from here that they’ve adopted in relation to the upzoning and the making of decisions, they can just charge on with that.

Actually, part of why we are legislating is to settle the issue through legislative clarity and certainty and to say to the council and the local communities of Auckland local boards, “It’s over to you. We’ve set some guardrails. You’ve got to do the NPS-UD, you’ve got to do the CRL, you’ve got to do the metro centres. But, beyond that, you know your local communities best, and we don’t want Ministers getting involved in the minutiae of individual streets and individual suburbs. You just get on with it. You know best how to do that through the independent hearings panel.”

It is true that the Auckland Unitary Plan was a substantive step forward for Auckland, but not perfect. I had a discussion in the House during the first reading with the list MP based in Northcote, who seemed to be in denial of the evidence that Mr Twyford was quoting around the Auckland Unitary Plan. The Auckland Unitary Plan was good but not perfect. It has been an enduring frustration, I know, to that member, and indeed to me, that we have struggled to make progress on updating the plan in recent years. This is the latest attempt to do that, and I fervently, fervently hope that we can just get on with it, because it is significant reform for Auckland.

The member is right, I think, about some of his critiques of the so-called doughnut city, and the new plan calibrates the density and the intensification to the right places, far more so than the Auckland Unitary Plan does—far more so. I mean, even the idea of having walkable catchment around rapid transit stations and busways in Auckland—that is not in the Auckland Unitary Plan. To some extent, there’s smatterings of it, but it’s not in the plan, and so we are going to get that as part of this plan.

Parliament actually legislated for mass upzoning around the City Rail Link, because it was not clear to us that the council would have made those bold decisions, and they are going to have to comply—that is in the law, that is in the RMA right now, and it will continue as a result of this plan change. And that is really, really important.

Competitive land markets are not just about Plan Change 120, and partly, actually, what I’ve been trying to indicate, to some limited success, is that the debate around creating competitive land markets in Auckland, and, actually, Wellington and Christchurch, for example, is not just about the zoning rules in particular parts of Auckland; it’s actually about what I was talking about before, which is the ability to do new big greenfields on the city fringe that suppress land prices in the city centre and make housing more affordable over time.

I know the member understands that point, but being able to actually build on the fringe is a critical component as long as the economic cost of infrastructure can be recovered. And that’s the system that I know the member understands and that he was trying to build, and that we are also trying to build. We’re building on what we were left with and trying to make that a reality. It’s complicated stuff, there are barriers every which way you look, but we are making progress, and this is part of it but it’s not the whole solution.

Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair. The committee is suspended until 9 a.m.