Parliamentary debates: Thursday, 14 May 2026

09:00

It’s important for me to rise and remind everyone that this is a system reform bill. We heard a lot of debate yesterday that went well away from what this bill was actually trying to do. It’s trying to reform the system, and I think it’s very important that we remind everybody of that.

Most importantly, we’ve heard of a lot of great things within the Education and Workforce Committee and made great amendments with the recommendations from the officials. With that, I commend the bill to the House.

09:01

Mr Speaker, good morning.

Good morning.

Any Minister who is not prepared to put themselves on the line in pursuing reforms and trying to improve the system is really not doing their job, in my view, and any reform programme should be informed by ideology—that is, a political view about the way the world is and the way it should be. But, as legislators, we also have a responsibility, I think, to steward the public institutions to consider the long-term consequences of the policies that we promote, the good of the country, and the viability of those institutions, and on that score this bill and this Minister of Education fall well short. She, like many of her colleagues in this Government, habitually likes to present their reforms and their changes as technical adjustments that are sort of fine-tuning the system, which is often justified around administrative efficiency, but they almost always are deeply ideological. They betray a very particular political view of the institutions and the policies that they’re dealing with, and this bill is no exception.

The New Zealand education system is a complex beast. It is a partnership between educators and policy makers, and between public servants and parents who govern the schools. It has for a very long time put considerable weight on the professional expertise of educators. They are the people who get up every day and go to school and go to our educational institutions with one purpose in mind, and that is to give our kids the best possible learning experience that they can.

The talent and expertise of educators has been the reason that I think successive Governments have for a long time trusted them with things like the development of the New Zealand Curriculum and to guide the development of pedagogy. What this bill does is it undermines that and, taken together, some of the key changes in this bill amount to a sweeping change to the way that the education sector is led and to how power and influence is exercised within the sector.

Like so many other bills, this is not just a series of technical adjustments. It actually betrays a highly ideological world view, and I don’t mind that per se; I just disagree with the ideology. For the National Government, education is some kind of Punch and Judy morality play, where they politically try to position themselves as being the voice and the advocates of parents, and they see teachers and educators as being somehow the enemy—the enemy—who have to be neutralised and marginalised. That is, in fact, what they’re doing here.

I want to point, in the time I’ve got, to two of the provisions in this bill that are, I think, particularly troubling. One is the transfer of responsibility for teaching standards, registration criteria, the practising certificate criteria, and even the teacher code of conduct away from the Teaching Council to the Secretary for Education, who is the No. 1 public servant, who works for the Minister of the day. What does it mean? It means that there’s a real risk that teaching standards in our system become political instruments, effectively, in the hands of the Government of the day, with the Minister having their hands on the lever. It means that the registration requirements for teachers can shift with the ideology of the Government of the day, and it means that the independent, profession-led voice, which should shape our values and our expectations as educators, is reduced to being a compliance arm of the ministry. That is worrying.

The other key provision in this is that control of the New Zealand Curriculum—what our kids get to learn in school—basically, shifts to the Beehive under this bill. It gives the Minister sweeping powers to amend Curriculum statements, even without a review and without consultation, and it allows different Curriculum statements for different types of schools or groups of students. We should all, I think, take a deep breath and consider the implications of this. Are we now going to have a differentiated national curriculum, one that depends on the type of school or the type of student? It opens the door to a tiered public education system that perhaps reflects the hierarchical views of the members on the Government benches. It’s a very significant shift away from the spirit and the flexibility of the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum.

This is not partnership, and so the way that this has been done also reflects this top-down, controlling approach that is so characteristic of this Government. There’s no co-design here. There’s no alignment with Te Tiriti. This is centralised prescription and control—political control—from the Beehive, dressed up as efficiency.

I want to say something to the members on the Government benches and the National Government: this bill effects a shift to top-down control by the Minister of the day and the ministry. Now, if the members on that side of the House and the Ministers in this Government were true conservatives in the real sense of the word, they would think far more carefully about nurturing the people and the institutions and the practices and the culture of our system—in this case, the education sector—to preserve stability and to preserve what’s good in our system, but, no, they’re not. They’ve got all the political depth of a puddle. They’re not actually true conservatives.

That’s why centralism and political control is their first instinct, and, by politicising and centralising, they put at risk that voice and influence, which for a long time in the education sector has been decentralised, with a culture of collaboration across the sector. One of the virtues of that practice in the past and those decentralised institutional arrangements is that the education sector has a kind of stability that insulates this vital part of our society from the three-year political cycle and from the fads and the whims of whoever happens to be the Minister of Education on the day.

I say to the members across on the other side: consider this. It’s easy to let this genie out of the bottle—easier than it is to put it back in. Top-down control from the Beehive and from the top of the ministry might suit you now—you might like that now—but in a very short period of time there will be someone else sitting in the education Minister’s chair, at their desk. There will be someone else, and your particular ideology, I say to National Party members, a highly ideological and political view of the education sector, will be replaced by another view and another Minister with the same access to the policy levers and the buttons that you are now giving to this Minister. Think about that and think about whether the politicisation and the instability that you are introducing into the education system is good for our kids and good for New Zealand.

Before we go further, can I ask members to limit the conversations across the Chamber and also to make sure that you direct your comments through the Chair. I know you guys are all passionate about education; that’s a great thing for New Zealand.

09:11

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The challenge for the Opposition is that the Government is delivering in education. The challenge for the Opposition is to accept that this Government is being the voice for students and is achieving outcomes. The challenge for the Opposition is that this bill delivers the next step in actually achieving outcomes. I am sure that, across the House, we can all agree it is crucial that New Zealand has a world-class education system, and I’m sure we can all agree that every young person in New Zealand should reach, and should be given the opportunity to reach, their full potential.

Some of the things that enable that to happen are ensuring that the infrastructure of our education system works, and it’s hard for the Opposition to accept that we’ve gone from $1.2 million per classroom to $620,000. This bill takes the next step in that journey—creating the New Zealand School Property Agency. It’s about time the Opposition got onboard and supported us to take New Zealand education forward. I commend the bill to the House.

The next call is a split call—Georgie Dansey.

09:12

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. This bill does nothing to make things better for our children in our schools. This bill takes our education system backwards. This bill gives the Minister of Education too much power and too much influence over the curriculum, and this bill does nothing to ensure that our curriculum is by Kiwis for Kiwi kids. We want our kids to be proud of who they are. We want learning that is tailored to our Kiwi kids, and the best way to have education tailored to our Kiwi kids is to have the input of our Kiwi kids and input from those who spend the most time with our Kiwi kids—our educators and our parents.

This bill is not a tidy-up or tune-up of the system we know; it represents a fundamental philosophical shift. I want to talk about a few aspects of the bill today, the first one being school attendance and the removal of the exemption from attending schools based on walking distance or other reasons. Under the bill, principals can only grant attendance exemptions under rules set by the Secretary for Education, and parents can be fined up to $3,000 for non-compliance.

Earlier this year, my colleague the Hon Jan Tinetti and I visited Ka Puta Ka Ora Emerge Aotearoa, and part of what they discussed with us was a system that they are implementing, a multi-systematic theory (MST). This is a programme for high-risk youth aged 11 to 17 and their whānau. It’s a pretty remarkable programme, and they’ve been having excellent results. It’s whānau-centred and it gives whānau the tools to support the young people to have success. When they’re working with these people, it’s the high-risk ones, so they often are not in school, education, training, or employment. One of the key things that MST does is try and get that student back into the school system, because we know that if kids are in school and they have a good education, their outlook on life and their ability to achieve later in life is more successful.

I have some data from this programme. By the end of the programme, 78 percent of these students are in school or working, 85 percent have had no new arrests, and 94 percent stay living at home as the best place for them to be. We can all agree that those are good stats.

The reason I want to speak to this is because when we were having these conversations with the kaimahi at Emerge Aotearoa, they talked about how you get a student who’s probably involved in the justice system, is very disconnected from school and disconnected from their community, back into school. One of the ways they do it is by getting that student to attend school maybe once or twice a week. You can’t just say, “Right, here you go from 9 till 3; you’re at school every single day.” That’s not going to work. It might work for some kids, but some kids need to ease into it.

The issue I take with this particular piece of the legislation is that, with these high-risk youth, there is a huge success rate but it’s going to take a while to get them back into the school system on a permanent basis. If there are further repercussions for not being at school, if it’s harder to allow someone to attend the school only two days a week for a short period of time, that is going to further isolate these kids from the school. In addition, if a parent is charged $3,000 for non-compliance, which is unaffordable for so many of our kids, particularly those that are high risk, that is going to put such a huge barrier on whānau wanting to access and engage with the school system.

There’s so much to talk about in this bill. I’ve spent all my time talking about this one issue, and I could go on, but this bill has to change. It’s taking our education system backwards, and Labour does not support it.

09:17

I rise to take a call on the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill. I’m having flashbacks to the select committee process, where we were having one unionist after another come in, and I’m thinking, “Am I listening to the Labour Party speaking, or am I listening to the union speaking?” That is the difference, right? We on this side of the House listen to parents, and on the other side of the House, all they listen to is the unions. I commend this bill to the House.

09:18

That last contribution was really disappointing. It’s disappointing to hear that same old trope, “Oh, it’s Labour and the unions.” Who makes up the unions, Mr McCallum? The unions are made up of educators and teachers and people that work every single day on that front line. I am sick and tired, as are most of the people that work on that front line, of the absolute nonsense that comes out of that side of the House. We have people who know about education who sit within those unions. We have people that work there every single day. To have a contribution like that is incredibly disrespectful to our educators—the people that do the mahi and care about kids. It is absolutely disrespectful. I can tell you now, Mr McCallum, that they will be watching that contribution with utter disgust, as I was.

This bill, as we have heard today and last night, is a bill that is based in ideology that the other side fails to see is incredibly damaging to our education system. I have heard people yell across the House, “Oh, but we’re making changes that are for the better.” Based on what? The members on the other side of the House should go and look at those responses and those assessment measures that you are basing that on and see what the credibility of those assessment measures is, because they have no credibility with anyone that has any knowledge of assessment techniques in education. They are made-up assessment measures to prove what you think the result should be showing, and that is a dangerous position that we have in this country right now.

This bill should not be progressing in its current form. It is disappointing. It is handing far more power to the Minister, it is taking away—

Typical—typical of this Government.

Absolutely, you are so right my colleague over there, Rachel Brooking; absolutely typical of this Government who think that they know best—who think that they know better than the people. Rather than giving the support that our educators need to make the difference, they are taking that away and saying, “We know best.” And then they are here saying, “Oh, you’re there with the unions.” Well, we are standing with the educators, to be fair, and the people—

True—it’s true. We’re standing with the parents and the children.

Mr McCallum, I would like to know where your qualifications in education come from, because they’re certainly not—

OK. Can I encourage people to direct their comments through the Speaker and not to have these conversations across the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I shall carry on then. Thank you for that reminder, Mr Speaker. What I am saying is that we’ve got people on the other side of the House that think they know about education and absolutely have no qualifications, no experience, no knowledge of what is going to make a difference for young people in this country.

They think they know more than what our fantastic educators know. They think they know how to fix a system that already was doing well but needed the support behind it to make it into an excellent system. At the moment, we have a Government that’s taking it completely backwards, and they’re basing their idea that it’s going forwards on made-up results—they’re made-up assessment results. I’d like them to think about that one, and I’d like them to go and have a look at those assessment results to see whether they can find that there’s any credibility behind them, because I can tell them that there’s not.

As I’ve said, this bill is a terrible bill for education in this country, but I want to focus very much my contribution today on the proposed shift in this bill of the early childhood regulatory functions to the Education Review Office (ERO) in its current form. This is potentially a very dangerous part of the bill. Not only is it dangerous because it takes and splits that function away from the Ministry of Education but what it’s potentially doing is clouding the issue of where we’ve got supposedly an independent body who does the assessments in our schools and early childhood centres, now having a regulatory function as well. And that’s clouding a rather unfortunate issue there. I’m struggling to see why you would make that independent body have a conflict of interest. That’s exactly what this part of the clause is doing, it’s making a conflict of interest.

In the submission process, a number of submitters actually brought this up, and a common theme was perceived tension between ERO’s existing evaluation review function and the new regulatory responsibilities proposed for the Director of Regulation. With your indulgence, Mr Speaker, I’m just reading this from the departmental report because I do believe that this is very important: “Several submitters argued that combining review and regulatory functions within the same agency could compromise ERO’s independence and the perceived impartiality of its reviews of ECE service providers.”

One of the issues was that when this bill was put through select committee, it was a late and irregular way that this was done. So submitters didn’t even really know what they were looking at at this particular point in time. That seems to be a real issue with transparency, and I’m really, really concerned that we’re in a space where the Government’s talking about wanting to make a difference, but they’re not giving the sector transparency at all around what that difference is going to be. I think it’s highly unusual that we would have that sort of situation. This is what submitters brought up in the select committee process. This could have a huge negative impact on early childhood education.

The whole way through this Government has been in place, they’ve treated early childhood like it’s not part of the education sector. It’s almost been like it’s been part solely of the care sector rather than the education sector. That goes against every single piece of research that shows that education starts the moment that a child is conceived. Therefore, we should be putting in the best education system in the world right from the word go for our youngest learners. And this part of this bill is not doing that.

This part of this bill is an ideological approach to early childhood. That is a real concern. I cannot understand why people that say that they are wanting the best, have actually let this go through, because it is completely wrong to do that to our youngest learners.

Now, Mr Speaker, I know that you and many of my colleagues on this side of the House met with a member of Parliament from the New South Wales legislature recently who was the person that did the whistleblowing, really, or shone the light on the fact that over there they’ve uncovered some rather nasty things that are happening in their early childhood centres. And, unfortunately, they have had a number of cases, even horrific, of paedophiles that have been working in those centres. Guess what! What we are doing here and what we’ve done with regulations in early childhood is actually setting us up to have the same regulatory regime that they’ve got over there that enabled that to happen. That is why I’m concerned that that side of the House has not taken this part of this bill seriously.

As a Government, they should be standing up and saying no to this part. They should be putting the safety of our youngest learners right at the centre, and they are not. It’s not just the learning here, it’s the safety of our young people, and I am very, very concerned that we are setting this up—

She’s taking about the teachers registration council—

That’s the one, yeah.

—that keeps registering paedophiles.

Correct. Ha!

Listen to them over there. They are laughing about it. That is a concern. That is a huge concern. They see that that is not an issue, yet the figures elsewhere show that what we are doing here is putting those conditions in place.

This is a terrible, terrible bill. I want to end my contribution here. Only 1 percent of submitters generally supported this bill—1 percent. Eighty-five percent generally opposed the bill. That shows—85 percent—that the educators who submitted on this bill know a lot about the harm that it will do to our young people and to the system. It’s a sad time that we put a bill like this through that’s going to damage our education system. I condemn this bill.

09:28

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The second reading of the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill is an important step along this process towards more safety in our system for young children.

Imagine if the Medical Council of New Zealand said that they didn’t believe that patient safety was one of the core functions of their existence. Well, that’s exactly what the Francis report found about the Teaching Council. So the changes that we are making here will redirect and refocus the Teaching Council and ensure that children are safe and that their education is paramount. I commend the bill to the House.

The question is, That the amendments recommended by the Education and Workforce Committee by majority be agreed to.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Environment (Disestablishment of Ministry for the Environment) Amendment Bill and the Redress System for Abuse in Care Bill.

09:34

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Environment (Disestablishment of the Ministry for the Environment) Amendment Bill is an important amendment bill that supports the Government’s reform agenda in housing, transport, urban growth, and the environment. We are committed to bringing together the Ministry for the Environment, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, the Ministry of Transport, and local government functions from the Department of Internal Affairs into one coherent new agency. The Government wants this new Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport—which we’ll call MCERT—to be operational on 1 July. Of course, in order to do that, we must disestablish the Ministry for the Environment.

The purpose of this bill is to allow the Ministry for the Environment to integrate into MCERT alongside other ministries, agencies, and of these affected agencies, as I’ve stipulated, only the Ministry for the Environment was created by statute, and therefore requires us to gather here today to make the legislative amendments to disestablish it before it can become a part of the MCERT. Mr Chair, I’m happy to take questions from the committee.

09:36

Thank you, Mr Chair. I really appreciate being able to have some scrutiny on this bill today because the implications of it are quite serious, and the concern that we’ve had at the Environment Committee is the way that this bill has just been rushed through with such a truncated select committee process. I want to make the Chair clear that the literal time allowed at select committee to actually scrutinise the departmental report and the resulting bill was the entirety of 40 minutes. There are substantial concerns that have been raised by submitters—and, in fact, almost the entirety of submitters—and so I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to get some clear assurances from the Minister for the Environment about some really key aspects that I think everyone who put into this process is yet to hear.

The first one comes to the actual decision to go down this path of the establishment of the Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport (MCERT), and as part of that, disestablishing the Ministry for the Environment. I’m interested in what other alternatives were considered. This was particularly of concern because one of the academics who submitted very strongly on the bill was Professor Bronwyn Hayward from the University of Canterbury, and she made it really clear that she had very severe concerns about the actual Cabinet papers that went into this decision that actually talked about other countries overseas successfully integrating similar functions. Now, she found no evidence—sorry, this is to quote her from her submission, “no evidence of other countries that have successfully integrated such diverse oversight as environment with cities other than the Maldives and Kosovo.”, which she made clear have very concerning conflict of interest issues.

I’d really like to hear the Minister respond to that, because other similar democratic countries that we often compare ourselves to, the likes of Canada, Australia, even the UK, when they’ve merged the environment as a sector, as an agency—she’s pointed out, for example, that the UK had a Minister and department for Environment and Food; Australia had Climate, Environment, Energy, and Water; and Canada had Environment, Climate Change, and Nature. Her concern has not been resolved and has not been actually even adequately responded to, and it would be great to hear from the Minister what the alternatives were.

The other aspect that is of real concern with this megamerger is actually the purpose of MCERT itself. I’m interested to hear from the Minister what that is going to be set out as. The Cabinet papers make it really clear in the establishment of it—they talk about the purpose being to provide joined-up advice with a regional focus on deals and delivery, backed by a strong economic engine and rich data and insights. Now, there’s no mention of “environment” in that. I know that we’ve heard it insisted time and time again that because there’s an “E” in the title, “environment” is somehow still functional and relevant within that, but I’m yet to see any evidence of that, and I’d like to hear assurances from the Minister for all those submitters who clearly underlined those concerns. Those are my first questions to the Minister. Thank you.

09:40

I thank the member Lan Pham for her questions. Some were unrelated to the bill but were interesting, none the less. Look, I do appreciate the concern that the member raises. I think, as I said in my second reading speech, the environment is deeply loved and deeply embraced by New Zealanders as a whole. That is why, with the passage of this bill, we’re actually taking action—yes, to disestablish the ministry, the form of the ministry, but not the function.

I think, to the member’s point around the submissions that were received—and yes, I do acknowledge 588 submissions; I think it was 22 that the Environment Committee heard, and I want to acknowledge the work of the committee. There was some really useful feedback in that, and one of those was to strengthen the oversight, which is exactly what we’re doing here in this bill by transferring the responsibility from the ministry to the newly appointed Secretary for the Environment, who will be the chief executive of the new ministry.

As a response to that select committee process and to strengthen those provisions and to strengthen that oversight, that new secretary will now be obliged to report on progress under the imperatives of the Environment Act. Again, I want to be clear to this committee: this bill in no way, shape, or form changes the Environment Act. Everything that was a part of the Ministry for the Environment is now being uplifted and put under the responsibility of the Secretary for the Environment. I have absolute faith that this will not see an erasure or an erosion of environmental protections in this country.

09:43

Well, my first question is: how? I will get to that in some more detail—remembering, of course, that this did not have a regulatory impact statement, either, as well as the shortened time frame that Lan Pham has already talked about.

I want to go first to clause 4, “Long Title amended”, amending the Environment Act. At the start of the Environment Act, it says, “An Act to (a) provide for the establishment of the office of Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment: (b) provide for the establishment of the Ministry for the Environment:”—and that is being deleted; paragraph (b) goes. Then, in paragraph (c): “ensure that, in the management of natural and physical resources, full and balanced account is taken of (i) the intrinsic values of ecosystems; and (ii) all values which are placed by individuals and groups on the quality of the environment; and (iii) the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi; and (iv) the sustainability of natural and physical resources; and (v) the needs of future generations”.

A comment: I wish legislation that had wording like that was coming before this House at the moment, but it is not. That is our major concern: that this Government is so intent on destroying the environment that all of those “ensures” that I just read out—very good ensures—will be diminished and will not happen. My first question is: how will the Minister ensure that this new mega-ministry somehow holds up those “ensures” that I just read out, at paragraph (c) of the purpose of the Environment Act?

Then this relates to clause 5, which amends section 2, “Interpretation”, in the Environment Act. We see as well that the definition of “Minister” is repealed, and the definition of “ministry” is repealed, and then the definition of “secretary” is amended, but it relates back to the ministry. Clause 5(4) says that “Secretary or Secretary for the Environment means the chief executive of the Ministry”—but, of course, the ministry is not defined, because we’ve just deleted the definition of that above. I’ve got a number of questions on this particular point. Why is there no definition of ministry, even if it’s a reference to the mega-ministry or something else, or something that relates to those “ensures” that I just read out in the purpose of the Act? How does that all fit in? Should there, in fact, be a definition of a Minister somewhere? How does that relate?

Something that Lan Pham just touched on that I think other contributions will no doubt go into in more detail is this conflict of the roles. What we heard in submissions is that if there is no clear Minister—not a public official, a Minister—advocating for the environment—and somewhere in the select committee report it says, oh, well, advocacy is not something that’s in the Act; well, we can replace the word “advocacy” with ensuring that full and balanced account is taken of the intrinsic value of ecosystems—who is going to do that? That is my question for the Minister. How will the intrinsic values of ecosystems, as an example—how will the Minister get independent advice on that that is not mixed up with what the former Ministry of Transport might want in terms of roads, say?

We are very concerned that there will be further capture of that advice, because there’s no clear route for that advice to come through, and that in fact it will all be ignored. Those are my starting questions on clauses 4 and 5.

A more general question goes back to my first question of “How?” We heard the Minister responsible for RMA Reform say in the annual review debates a couple of weeks ago that the whole ministry will be doing better for the environment. Can the Minister tell us how that is going to happen?

09:47

Look, I thank the Hon Rachel Brooking for her questions. Again, I want to reiterate that there is nothing in this bill that removes or weakens a single statutory protection. All existing functions that the member herself as a former Minister oversaw remain intact. We have actually strengthened accountability by introducing that annual reporting by the secretary that I referred to earlier.

The member also asked a question about the fact that there was no regulatory impact statement. Well, that is because, very clearly, the bill doesn’t change any regulatory settings. It doesn’t impose any new obligations; it simply, again, restructures how existing functions are delivered. The focus will continue to be, as it always has been, on improving effectiveness, coordination, and not on altering the underlying regulatory framework of the Act.

To address the questions around ministerial responsibility and accountability: ministerial accountability under the Environment Act remains unchanged. We are not changing the Environment Act. Funding continues to support environmental functions. As the new Minister, I have a Budget Vote.

It could easily get lost in the system.

This bill does not remove accountability; it strengthens accountability through those additional reporting mechanisms and responsibilities. I hear some heckling over that side about getting lost in the system, and I think comments like that do a real disservice to Government officials who worked for the Ministry for the Environment, who are going through a time of change at the moment, and who will continue their role with the great passion and conviction and expertise that they’ve always brought to this role.

The point of bringing environment into a merged ministry like this is so that environmental imperatives are taken account of when we are dealing with big challenges like regional development, like transport development, and so on and so forth. So, actually, this gives the environment more of a voice.

09:50

Thank you, Mr Chair. Firstly, I want to pick up on the Minister’s comments about her role as the Minister, because I think the concern, and what was made so clear, again through the actual Cabinet papers that undertook this exercise, is that the intention was actually that there would be one single Minister for the Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport (MCERT), and we did not have it addressed at select committee whether there is a definite ongoing role for the Minister for the Environment or not. So it would be really great to have absolute clarity from the Minister that her Government is intending to continue the role of the Minister for the Environment rather than having one single Minister which is across all of these.

I think what really concerns me as well, from the Minister’s comments, is, you know, saying that some of my previous contribution was outside the scope of the bill. The point of concern—and thank goodness we have this committee of the whole House process here in Parliament—was that it was such a short time frame that we had to consider this, and, actually, New Zealanders want to know what the alternatives were that were considered before rushing into this, which they so clearly have.

Then asking about the actual purpose of MCERT and how environment will or won’t be captured is directly relevant to the bill. You know, just diminishing these concerns and saying, “Oh, it doesn’t change the function—it doesn’t change the function.” Well, quite clearly, the functions are constrained. The departmental report clearly spells out that there are 15 Acts in the environment sector which will be under the new responsibilities of the chief executive for MCERT. That same individual has to also balance and provide for 54 other Acts across the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, the Ministry of Transport, and the Department of Internal Affairs, in terms of local government functions, and these are not small things. You know, this is our Housing Act; this is literally our Land Transport Act, our customs law, and yet, the environment, the actual functions, although you’re saying they’re unchanged, the depth and contemplation and delivery of these are clearly constrained. It’s clearly a different beast and we’re going to be able to look at that more as we go through the clauses, but that’s the point we’re trying to make, Minister, and that’s where we’re seeking really clear assurance.

Now, I wanted to pick up, particularly, on the risks around this merger because we have this clear change from this dedicated ministry at the Ministry for the Environment (MFE) to MCERT, and we were provided—sorry, no, we weren’t provided at select committee. We had no information about the actual risks to MFE, and through an Official Information Act request we obtained some risk assessments and that raised real concerns that I’d like the Minister to address.

So you probably can’t see this very well, [Holds up paper] but what it says is across the board—all the red and the orange—there are high risks, high likelihood, and high consequences when it comes to things like competing priorities, undocumented relationships, resource capacity, risk, lack of clarity, unclear roles and responsibilities, business-as-usual systems affected by the change. These are all the actual risks, and the actual risks to the actual functions that the Minister keeps reiterating will not be changed. Well, these risks didn’t, presumably, exist before this merger was contemplated, rushed through, and will be undertaken. So I would like the Minister to address, very clearly, those risks. Thank you.

09:55

Thank you, Mr Chair. Still on these clauses 4 and 5, the Minister keeps saying that nothing has changed in the Act, but there are changes. That is why we are talking to a bill in front of us. She has not said how it is that those issues in paragraph (c) of the long title in the Act will operate in this new ministry. Would she consider making some reference, even if it’s just in the Hansard here, about how she expects the new ministry, all of the parts of that ministry, to work with that long title? That would be helpful.

Then she also has not answered my question about how the removal of the definition of “Minister” and “Ministry” then works with other definitions that referred to “Ministry” or “Minister”. So in clause 5(4) we have the “Secretary for the Environment means the chief executive of the Ministry”, and we assume that the “Ministry” means this new ministry, but there’s no definition to that point—unless she’d like to take me there.

Then if we jump ahead to replaced section 29, inserted by clause 9, which is “Secretary for the Environment responsible to Minister”: “The Secretary for the Environment is responsible to the Minister for—(a) the performance of their functions … and (b) ensuring compliance with section 32.” Minister, why is that not defined here? Those are some very basic questions.

So I have questions about those simple definitions and then the wider question of how this big new ministry is going to operate with that paragraph (c) of the long title of the Environment Act. It appears that, yes, there’s some mention of the Secretary for the Environment, but we don’t know what the relationship is with the other functions of this new “Environment” and who the Minister is. What is the “Minister”? Those are my questions there.

Then I’ve just got one further separate question and that is, again, relating to the “Secretary for the Environment means the chief executive of the Ministry”: what sort of delegations can that secretary make? This is important because if it is the chief executive of this new giant mega-ministry, then presumably they’re going to be really busy, and they will want to delegate those functions of the Secretary for the Environment. So how is that going to work in practice? And then, does it just all get devolved down to people at lower levels of the Public Service? That relates back to our general conflict question around how we think that the environment is going to be diminished.

We’re really looking here for the Minister to demonstrate to us that we are all totally wrong and what is going to happen is that this new ministry is going to be what Chris Bishop said and actually do better for the environment on all fronts of that ministry—every single limb: housing, local government, transport; everything is going to be suddenly focused on doing better for the environment. How is that going to happen, Minister?

09:59

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just responding to the questions around clause 5, yes, the bill changes the definition of “Minister” to align with the standard definitions that are actually outlined in the Legislation Act 2019, and that Act states that the Minister is the person who the Prime Minister has delegated is responsible for administering the legislation. That person is me.

The bill does not change references to the Minister for the Environment in other Acts, such as the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act (HASNO Act)—which you’ll hear more from me about later this afternoon. There will still need to be a Minister with assigned responsibility for environmental legislation and who will carry out specific statutory functions, like, again, those within the HASNO Act. So, again, I just want to reassure the committee that the responsibilities under the Environment Act will continue.

10:00

Thank you, Mr Chair. I know my colleagues will have specific questions on the clauses. I have two very specific questions on the departmental disclosure statement, because, as my colleagues the Hon Rachel Brooking and Lan Pham have highlighted, there is no regulatory impact statement. I also just want to mention that so far all we’ve heard from the Minister is reassurance, but not actually anything of substance or anything that can be substantiated by data, by numbers, or by statistics.

In terms of the departmental disclosure statement, I have two questions. I’m looking at 2.5 in terms of the extent of the impact analysis available, and it says that the “financial implications of the merger have been withheld”. Can the Minister please speak to why that financial implication has been withheld, if the Minister wouldn’t mind, because, again, this is a tangible thing that the Minister could respond to in terms of giving reassurances to the committee that, for example, the conglomerate in the Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport (MCERT) will have, let’s say, the similar ring-fenced funding to Environment, as we’ve seen so far with the Ministry for the Environment and that that level of funding would be comparable. I think that kind of reassurance is something that is tangible and substantial.

The second question I have—and this is more of a concern to me—is about 3.1, “Consistency with New Zealand’s international obligations”. Now, it says that the bill has not been assessed for consistency. That is a concern, because under our New Zealand - European Union free-trade agreement there are very specific and enforceable commitments around environmental protection as part of that agreement. Now, we have already heard from the EU counterpart their concerns with a suite of changes we’ve seen around climate targets, emissions targets, the fast-track proposals, the fisheries, etc. All of those are enforceable commitments that could have been challenged in the international space or even in a bilateral space by the EU on our involvement and our part that we play under the New Zealand - EU free-trade agreement, noting that this will have a significant impact for our exporters.

So I want to check with the Minister—what does it mean when they say the bill has not been assessed for consistency? Does that mean that there have been no conversations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade on our obligations under the New Zealand - EU free-trade agreement, and, if not, why not?

10:03

Thank you. Madam Chair. I too would like to urge the Minister to give us some responses to the various questions that have been asked, interrogating the first few clauses of this bill, particularly given the shoddy process of this bill through select committee, the arbitrary truncation of the time that the select committee had to consider this bill, the fact that 588 submitters made written submissions that—

Can you just repeat which clause you are speaking to.

I’m speaking to the main clause of this bill, which is clause 8, which repeals the Ministry for the Environment, and to the process, and a general comment, Madam Chair, around the process that this bill has been through, which then requires some detailed responses from the Minister that we have not been getting.

The committee stage is to interrogate the legislation, not the process, so can you please just refer your comments, your questions, to the bill.

Yes, I have—to the substance of this bill, which is clause 8, which repeals the Ministry for the Environment, which is why we here, which is what we’ve been trying to interrogate at select committee.

And your question is?

My question is: why will the Minister not respond to the many questions that have been asked about the substance of the changes that this bill makes? I have a particular question around the submission from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, where he lays out the concerns he has around trade-offs that will be missed or competing priorities that will not be able to be managed in a way that is appropriate by disestablishing this ministry. I’ll get to that in a minute, Madam Chair. But what I want to ask the Minister is whether she considered the recommendation that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has made in his submission, which was to leave out the Ministry for the Environment from the amalgamation of the Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport (MCERT), which is literally the reason why we’re here today.

This bill needs to go through because of MCERT subsuming the functions of the Environment Act and the Ministry for the Environment. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has laid out why he thinks that that should not happen. And I want to know, given there’s no regulatory impact statement and no real analysis of this bill, whether the Minister has considered leaving the Ministry for the Environment out of the merger.

Just to go over the rationale for that—and I won’t go over the whole thing; I’m assuming the Minister has read that. The point is, as we make decisions around the Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill, both of which are coming through—they are at select committee at the moment—there will be a significant need to manage trade-offs between the protection of the environment, the natural environment, and all of the other decisions that are made around cities and urban planning and growth.

The concern that he laid out was that those trade-offs will be managed by the secretary. Clause 8, repealing section 28, means that the functions of the ministry transfer to the secretary. That’s what the Minister says in a previous response. Is the expectation that the Secretary for the Environment will make decisions either unilaterally or with other officials, in this new mega-ministry, around the trade-offs that are inherent in those decisions, or will they be elevated to responsible Ministers? I’d like the Minister’s comments on that. I would like her to step us through the process that is envisioned as a result of the repealing of this ministry.

One last question I have is in relation to a number of submissions that point to the concern that people have that this new mega-ministry will actually lead to inefficiencies and inconsistencies, the likes of which we have seen with other mega-ministries. The Minister has said that it will not, but she has not told us what will give us confidence, given that we’ve seen this before, that this will not happen. The Minister has said that it will not lead to inconsistencies, but can she tell us how, given that the new secretary will have to be responsible for a large number of things and not just the environment, the natural and built environment? So can she give us some give us some confidence as to why she thinks that the natural environment will not be subsumed in this new mega-ministry?

10:08

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m just going to wrap a couple of those last questions together. As to the—oh, the Green Party member that’s not here any longer, the question—

We don’t refer to a member’s absence.

No—I know that. That’s why I didn’t name the person. There is no regulatory impact statement because there is no change to the function, as I’ve already explained. And to the question of why there was no international analysis, that’s again, I’m advised by Ministry for the Environment (MFE) officials who have spoken with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials, because there is no change to the function or those protections, so, again, I’m confident of that.

There’ a lot of rhetoric around the contestability of advice and whether or not the voice of the environment will be drowned out within this new merged ministry, and I understand those concerns on the surface. But, actually, again, I want to remind the committee that the functions of the Environment Act remain in place. They are transferred from the old ministry to the secretary, but this concern that highly capable, highly qualified, highly skilled MFE officials who will sit in the new Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport will no longer be providing contestable advice I think is really a moot point. Again, there are no substantive changes being proposed to MFE’s functions. Their responsibilities and my responsibilities as the Minister remain in place. We are still expected to be providing advice on environmental implications and decisions, and we must all comply with relevant statutory requirements.

10:10

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to start on those functions remaining in place, I want to really specifically ask about that. Given the fact that we’ve just heard that the chief executive’s role will be—yes—the 15 environmental Acts for which they have responsibility, plus the 54 other Acts across considerable sectors, how will the Secretary for the Environment examine and document how conflicts of interest between the four merged ministries will be identified and managed? We keep getting these assurances, but it is so clear that subordination happens within ministries when there are competing priorities and there are limited resources and decisions need to be made.

Now, I’m noting that we haven’t had a response from the Minister for the Environment about alternatives that were considered, instead of going down this path. Again, it was really disappointing that we didn’t hear it at the select committee—and, Madam Chair, I want to make sure that you know from your now coming in to the Chair that we had only 40 minutes of deliberations on this at the Environment Committee, which is why we’re seeking answers to these questions here. It’s directly relevant to the bill.

The other aspect that I wanted to address the Minister’s responses on was when we asked very clearly whether there will be an ongoing role for the Minister for the Environment, because the Cabinet paper clearly said that there was an intention for there to be one, single Minister. The Minister’s response just now has provided no assurance. She has simply said that there will be a Minister with responsibility for environmental functions. Can she please assure us and assure New Zealanders that that role is intended to be carried out by the Minister for the Environment? I think that that would go some way, at least at a very basic level, towards helping people understand that that will be a role that remains in place, particularly when it’s been so clear that this mattered to submitters in a unanimous way, apart from the one submitter who was in support of this.

10:13

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I don’t think—

Oh, it’s a very simple bill, Madam Chair.

Just settle, settle—give me a chance to even open my mouth. I don’t believe that we have explored the whole of the bill in order to take a closure motion, but in the short time that I have been here, I’m hearing repetition already, and so I do urge members to move on. You can ask questions of the Minister, but whether the Minister answers or not, I cannot direct, and so we won’t labour the point. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to go to this point, which I have raised in a different clause, which is the delegations of the secretary to the staff and talk generally, and then I’m going to move forward to clauses 9, 10, 11, and 12, which is where I’m at now. It’s a little bit confusing because it says “Part 2”, but it’s referring to Part 2 of the Environment Act, not Part 2 of this bill.

Now, the point is that what this bill has done—and it’s a credit to the Parliamentary Counsel Office; they’re very clever at drafting—is that they’ve said, “OK, well, we’ll just replace the ‘Ministry’ with the ‘Secretary for the Environment’.”, and that is why the Minister keeps saying that there are really no changes. But, of course, there is a change because the ministry is a big group of people and it has a secretary at its head, and what we’re saying is that all the talk about that big group of people is now just referring to the one individual.

My question is: how does that one individual then link back to a big group of people? Of course, we all acknowledge here—well, I’ve heard the Minister acknowledge it—that that big group of people are very important and they do excellent work. Some of them are also here, sitting behind the Minister while we’re talking about the disestablishment of their workplace, and so I have some sympathy for them being in that position. But my question is a structural one: when you move from a big group of people to one person, how does that work when there are already provisions relating specifically to that one person and what they do?

Back to the definitions: with the secretary, is that subject to delegation? Then, what we will have at new section 29, in clause 9, is that the secretary is responsible to the Minister, and then we move down to the functions of the ministry, which are now the functions for the secretary at clause 11, and there’s that replacement that I was talking about.

Then, at clause 12, it refers to section 32 of the Act, which is matters to which regard is to be given: “In carrying out the Ministry’s functions, every officer and employee of the Ministry, so far as is practicable,” shall have regard to the matters set out in section 17(a) to (g) of the Act. My question there is this. That clause is very much about that big group of people—the ministry, not the secretary—and where is the replacement for that? Do any duties apply to those staff who will be employed by the secretary, noting that the secretary is the chief executive and has all these other very important officials doing lots of different jobs under them?

I’d like the Minister to talk through how, by doing this clever thing that the Parliamentary Counsel Office has devised by just swapping out “Ministry” for “Secretary”, that then relates to when there were actually specific roles for the ministry staff and the switch-out doesn’t work because both already had provisions relating to them? We really want to know how those people in that ministry who are now part of the bigger ministry will still operate as a unit—which might be one way of describing it. I’ve asked the delegation questions in relation to clause 5 and also clause 9, which replaces section 29, and now I’m asking specifically about section 32, which is being amended. Thank you.

10:18

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I’m wanting to refer specifically to clause 6, “New section 2A inserted (Transitional, savings, and related provisions)”. In regard to the savings, Minister, I wonder if you can outline what savings are being referred to here. Presumably, in the amalgamation of these ministries, the Government is hoping to make some savings. What are those savings projected to be? Are those savings in the resource, expenditure, the staffing numbers—the allocation of ministerial staff, even? And if there are any savings to be made and any reductions in the resources put towards the specific responsibilities of the Ministry for the Environment as covered in the Act—the current Ministry for the Environment—how, then, can you disabuse the New Zealand public of their incredulity at the suggestion that there will not be a dilution of focus and resource put on the environment?

It seems obvious to us, Minister, whilst you are reluctant to specifically speak to this point, that if there are savings, a reduction in resources, reduction in staffing, and a reduction of ministerial focus and ministerial support, there will be a reduction in ability to uphold the Act. Can you please speak to that point. Thank you.

10:20

Yeah, just acknowledging the member and his questions, we’ve made no bones about the fact that there is incredible double-up and duplication across the bureaucracy of Government. I’m sure there will be savings, but the whole point of merging these ministries is to streamline and find efficiencies, yes, but, again, that does not mean, to use your word, the dilution of environmental preservation and protection. Metrics to improve the environment will not be worse off. As I’ve said to this committee on multiple occasions, we are bringing in stronger provisions to safeguard environmental performance. Of course, as I’ve outlined again, through the secretary’s functions, we’re providing more transparent public accountability. That creates a new and clearer line of sight, I think, on the outcomes that the ministry team within the Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport will actually be delivering on. Again, I, as the Minister, so long as I hold this delegation, am accountable to the House and, indeed, to the New Zealand public.

Look, we are open to continuing to refine the metrics that are being reported on. We do want to ensure clarity and confidence in the secretary’s environmental functions under the Act. I think, rather than condemning this thing before it even begins, we should be excited about the opportunities it’s going to bring to an entirely new integrated planning system where the environment is actually going to be at the heart and the centre of it for once.

10:22

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Minister. Clause 13 deals with committees, and on the surface of it, it looks fairly routine. It replaces references to the Ministry for the Environment with references to the Secretary for the Environment. Once again, when you step back, this clause highlights a bigger issue with the bill. That’s why I think it’s heading in the wrong direction.

Committees are one of the key ways that expert advice, independent thinking, and challenge are brought into environmental decision-making and where science and technical expertise and community knowledge can be tested and debated before decisions are taken. That’s especially important for environmental issues, which are complex, long term, and often quite politically difficult. By shifting everything from a ministry to a secretary, clause 13 further embeds those committees inside the executive instead of sitting alongside a dedicated environmental institution. Their work is now controlled through a single senior official inside a very large, multi-purpose ministry. That matters for democratic oversight.

The closer expert advice sits at the centre of a delivery-focused mega-ministry, the easier it is for that advice to be filtered out. That’s exactly why I put forward an amendment to clause 13A, which inserts new section 34. My amendment to section 34(2) will require the secretary’s annual report on their Environment Act functions to be provided to the Environment Committee and published as a stand-alone document. That might sound simple, but it’s very important. It creates a clear line of sight between what committees advise, what the secretary does, and what Parliament can actually see and scrutinise. It ensures that the environmental performance isn’t just reported quietly to the Minister but that it is open to examination by the House and also the public. Without that transparency, committees risk becoming an advisory in name only, producing work that disappears into the machinery of a large department with little visibility about whether it has actually made any difference.

The fact that the select committee added clause 13A at all tells us something. It shows that there was already a concern that accountability would be weakened once the Ministry for the Environment was disestablished. My amendment simply strengthens that safeguard and makes it meaningful. If clause 13 and clause 13A are read together, a pattern emerges. The bill centralises control and then adds reporting to compensate for the lost trust and visibility that centralisation creates. In my view, that’s a step backwards.

My two questions for clause 13 are: how can committees provide genuinely independent and influential environmental advice when their work is controlled by a secretary embedded in a large delivery-focused ministry? My other question, Minister, is: doesn’t the need for stronger reporting and transparency through clause 13A and my amendment suggest that democratic oversight is being weakened elsewhere in the bill, including by changes to those like in clause 13?

10:26

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is my first call on this bill, and I’d like to ask the Minister for the Environment about something she has brought into the debate and, actually, gave a very lengthy answer about with no specificity. That was when she talked about the inefficiencies in the current system. We heard a bit of a speech about why this was going to make things more efficient, that there was duplication, and yet in the whole of that very long answer, we did not hear one example of what that looks like.

Now, for viewers sitting at home, perhaps it could be a compelling argument, but without the evidence of that, it is utterly meaningless, so, Minister, please, can you give us some specific examples of the duplication and the inefficiency that you say underline the purpose of this change to the law, this fundamental change, that is going to sweep away, in one hit, an incredibly important institution that we have in New Zealand? Please give us some specific examples so that your speech doesn’t sound like hollow rhetoric and lines from a page and so that we can understand exactly what the efficiencies are that you are seeking to make happen here.

10:27

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I’m very tempted, but I will give other members a chance to introduce new material.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, I want to assure you, Madam Chair, I’m really keen to just step through with new material the entire time. Again, we have not had the scrutiny on this bill, so I really appreciate the opportunity to do that.

Now, firstly, just coming straight to clause 9, I think the fact that we haven’t heard assurance from the Minister for the Environment about an ongoing role for—as the Minister for the Environment, this is even more important because the Environment Act itself, given the changes that are proposed in this bill, so clearly establishes the position of the Secretary for the Environment and gives it that sound statutory basis. At the moment, while it repeals the establishment of the ministry, this is not actually replaced with an equivalent provision for the Secretary for the Environment themselves. It simply states, in new section 29, that the secretary is responsible to the Minister for performance of its functions. This was emphasised by the Environmental Defence Society, saying, “If you are”—and clearly the Government is—“disestablishing this clear role for the Minister, then there should be an equivalence.” That’s why I’ve proposed, in my tabled amendment, to put in that equivalence, which so clearly can be something that is pointed to that actually gives people assurance that this has a sound statutory basis.

Now, I want to come as well to clause 6, because those transitional savings and related provisions still remain unanswered. They are basic things about how many staff within the Ministry for the Environment right now are contemplated to be transferred over, and what is being contemplated when it comes to—again, this is information that was not provided to the select committee. It was obtained via an Official Information Act request, and it says that there is a high likelihood with high consequence of competing priorities in this contemplated merger. What is actually being done to address that risk?

What about the high likelihood, with high consequence, of resource capacity risks, because the concern there is the high workload and attrition that comes from any of these mergers. We know that large-scale, machinery of Government changes invariably not only result in loss of experienced personnel through redundancy or reassignment but specialists leave, and that’s why it needs to be addressed. Again, we’re given this blanket assurance that, no, it will all be fine, and yet the risks are documented here, and we members of the Environment Committee, who are talking to this right now, did not have this information.

Now, the Government may not be concerned about the risks, but I certainly am, and all of those who submitted are. They thought that this was a bad idea, and the table in this document tells us it is a bad idea. We want to know—and we want assurance from the Minister—whether she has seen the very real risks to the Ministry for the Environment that come from this merger, and what is being proposed when it comes to mitigating these, to working through them, and to being able to back up her constant assurance that everything is fine. We want to know that it will be fine, and so I’d appreciate answers to those.

10:32

Throughout the duration of this committee stage, I’ve been asked a number of questions that are operational and that are not within my remit to respond to, so I won’t be, but I do want to talk about this ongoing presumption that the disestablishment of the Ministry for the Environment and the transfer of its functions to the new Secretary for the Environment will somehow negatively impact the environment of New Zealand. I am going to continue to push back on that because I want to keep reiterating that the ministerial accountability—and I accept that there have been questions about whether or not the Minister for the Environment will continue. As anyone within this Chamber who has been a part of a Government knows, that role is entirely at the discretion of the Prime Minister of the day.

I cannot predict the future and I don’t know that my role will continue, but, for now, I am the Minister for the Environment. I continue to be accountable under the Act. Those accountabilities remain unchanged. The funding will continue to support environmental functions. As I keep reiterating to the committee, the functions of the ministry are now being transferred to the new secretary. They are new and stronger provisions that require that secretary to report annually to me—who currently holds the role as the Minister—and to the Parliament on that work. That was recommended by the Environment Committee, which that member is also a member of. There is now a stronger level of scrutiny that occurs than before, and I cannot reiterate that point enough.

I am reluctant to take any more calls, but I will have another go and see if we can move this on.

10:34

Thank you, Madam Chair. There’s still no answer on the amendment to section 32, in clause 12, and whether there is a duty on staff. That would be useful to know. Briefly, on clause 13, where “Ministry” is being replaced with “Secretary”, has there been any consideration of the new mega-ministry taking on that setting up of committees, rather than the individual of the secretary—short question.

Going on to page 5 of the bill, again, this bill looks a bit strange, but it’s clause 17, which inserts new Schedule 1, and this relates to transitional provisions. Clause 1 of new Schedule 1 says, “Ministry for the Environment disestablished.” Given the Minister’s comments about how important the environmental aspects of the new mega-ministry will be, would she consider rephrasing that to something that is more positive—that’s one question—rather than talking about it being disestablished—perhaps adding something like “the creation of a new ministry with environment at the heart of it”. I’m sure the Parliamentary Counsel Office can think of some better drafting than that. But would she consider some change there to turn it to the positive, rather than this negative word “disestablished”?

Does the Minister also agree with me, and not with the statement that she just made, that where statute requires there to be a Minister, the Prime Minister is constrained by the delegations that the Prime Minister makes towards what Ministers are required? Because that is the point—this legislation requires there to be a specific ministry and it defines the “Minister”. That is now being removed, and so it is a change. While that might apply to some other parts of the Government, in the 1980s there was specific work to create these institutions, with the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment being one and the Ministry for the Environment being the other. We were talking here about the Department of Conservation the other day, as well, plus the Resource Management Act. These are all a package, and so it is a change that the Prime Minister just gets to decide whether or not there is somebody with the delegation of Minister for the Environment.

My further question is going back to new Schedule 1 here generally and the transition period—and I know that we’ll talk about transition as well later in the title and commencement clauses. I know she’s talking about things being operational, but we do have huge changes in the resource management reform system, and there’s talk of the changes to local government, as well, that have come in since this bill was introduced. Has she given any consideration to the amount of change that is happening at the moment and the time frames for the transition, given that the first report must be made for the financial year that begins on 1 July 2026?

This new mega-ministry is, presumably, happening on 1 July 2026. With all this flux and all this change, some of which has been announced subsequent to this bill being introduced, has there been any advice or consideration on that point?

10:38

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that debate on this question now close.

Point of order, Madam Chairperson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Would you please let me take a call to address questions around the actual funding and expenditure of—

Sorry, I’ve already put the question.

Madam Chair, we are moving really clearly through the bill—we’re doing that. It’s new information that’s been raised—

I have already put the question.

The question is that Lan Pham’s tabled amendment to replace clause 9 be agreed to.

The Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan’s tabled amendment to clause 9 to insert new section 29(c) is ruled out of order as being outside the scope of the bill.

The question is that Lan Pham’s tabled amendment to replace clause 10 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s tabled amendment to replace clause 12 be agreed to.

Lan Pham’s tabled amendment to insert new clause 12A is ruled out of order as being outside the scope of the bill.

The question is that Lan Pham’s tabled amendment to clause 13A, inserting new section 34(2A), be agreed to.

The question is that Dan Rosewarne’s tabled amendment to clause 13A, inserting new section 34(2A) be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan’s tabled amendment to clause 13A, inserting new section 34(4) be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 13B be agreed to.

10:47

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am interested in the Minister’s view. Maybe it’s an optics question, but my question relates to the phrase “delete ‘for the Environment’ ” in Schedule 3. We see that in the amendments to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act in Schedule 3 of the bill: “delete ‘for the Environment’ ”—“delete ‘for the Environment’ ”. Then we go over to the amendments to the Resource Management Act. Again, in section 360K(4), it says to “delete ‘for the Environment’ ”, in clause 3(1)(a) of Schedule 1AA, it says to “delete ‘for the Environment’ ”, and then in clause 5(1) of Schedule 1AA, it says to “delete ‘for the Environment’ ”. Even in the amendment to the Waste Minimisation Act, we have “delete ‘for the Environment’ ”.

The question here is a very simple one for the Minister, and those people who are so interested opposite, and that is: is “delete ‘for the Environment’ ” emblematic of this Government?

10:49

Thank you, Madam Chair. What I’m really hoping for some response from the Minister on is the very clear concern that came from the actual disestablishment of the Ministry for the Environment (MFE). This came primarily from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, but it was echoed by many, many, many submitters. Because of this disestablishment, as we go forward into Budget and the expenditure that is associated with what would be the Ministry for the Environment, which is soon to be disestablished and then be part of the Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport, how will that impact on existing appropriations and transparency when it comes to those appropriations?

Now, again, at the Environment Committee we were not offered any assurance that there would be clarity about these ongoing buckets of money that will be directed towards MFE, which will no longer be MFE. What can the Minister provide in terms of assurance that the funding will be transparent, that the Vote, the appropriation, will come to the Environment Committee, or not? What kind of assurance can we provide to the many submitters that were concerned about the funding of these environmental functions becoming less transparent and harder to scrutinise? This is particularly important when it comes to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s role in actually assessing environmental expenditure. His concern around that is also of concern to myself and other members on the select committee.

Now, I would love to hear what the implications are and what the Minister’s understanding of the implications are, because this is something that just seems like a gaping hole where, again, we are provided with a response where there’s “nothing to see here” and “nothing changes”, but, actually, the question has been unanswered, and even clerks at select committee level were unsure how this will actually play out when it comes to expenditure.

So if the Minister could please address that, and I note that there are also outstanding questions when it comes to the actual costs of the merger and the so-called savings that are yet to be answered in this entire process.

The question is that Lan Pham’s tabled amendments to Schedule 3 be agreed to.

10:57

Oh, thank you, Madam Chair. I want to start with clause 2, which is the commencement, and that is “This Act comes into force on 1 July 2026.” Obviously, that is very soon, because we’re in May—May already. We know that a chief executive for this new mega-ministry has already been appointed, and I’m wondering if the Minister for the Environment is concerned at all by that appointment being made before this legislation has been passed, and that element of retrospectivity. That is my first question.

My second question relates to one that was unanswered in Part 1, relating to whether or not there had been any consideration of the larger changes that are happening to the wider environmental and resource management and local government systems, with changes that were just announced, I think maybe a couple of weeks ago, about local government and merging of local government. Of course, the relevance to the Ministry for the Environment and then this mega-ministry is that they are all the people in charge of resource management legislation, drafting it and then implementing it. We know that this Government has brought back the Resource Management Act and then is going to divide it into two: one that fits quite neatly with regional councils and one with territorial authorities. But that is a lot of upheaval, plus we have this local government upheaval that has only been announced subsequent to this bill going through the select committee process.

So has the Minister considered what the impact will be on the transitional provisions for all of that resource management and local government reform that this new mega-ministry will be also part of? It just seems like it’s going to be a very bumpy ride, and so my question to the Minister is about that bumpy ride. How is that going to be addressed? Can she give us any comfort?

Now I turn to the title. My question there is: if the Minister for the Environment keeps saying, and so has her colleague the Hon Chris Bishop, that in fact this is a positive change, that in terms of the environment, the new mega-ministry is going to take heed of the environment and be a more powerful implementer of good environmental things—those are my words, but they seem to be what the Ministers have said. Again, would she consider removing this word “disestablishment” and adding some positive words in there? It could be “This Act is the Environment (Becoming more Powerful by being the Central Consideration of the new Mega-Ministry) Act”. I mean, that’s a positive statement, isn’t it? The Minister’s nodding her head. I’m looking forward to the Government amendment that makes the title change here. If the Minister can confirm to me that that is her intention, let’s get it on the Hansardthat this is going to be the centre of a big powerful ministry and the environment is going to be where it should be—at the centre of all our economic decisions, because, of course, that is where our economy all comes from.

Or does the Minister think that it should be this negative? So rather than the Environment (Disestablishment of Ministry for the Environment) Amendment Bill, should it be the “Environment (Disestablishment of any Pretence of Care, of Thought, of Advocacy for the Environment) Amendment Bill”? Is that actually what this is part of? It’s part of the bigger picture. We’ve been here this week talking about the Conservation Act, we’re in select committee talking about the Resource Management Act, and it does seem emblematic of this Government that they just want to do worse for the environment. I’m giving the Minister an opportunity to give us all some comfort, to say yes, let’s change the negative Nelly name of this bill. Let’s make it—sorry to Nelly. I don’t know why I brought Nelly into this! I apologise to Nelly. Let’s be positive. Let’s be positive for the environment. Let’s do better. I’m looking forward to your response, Minister.

11:02

I’m so pleased to answer this question. It seems finally we’re in alignment because this is exactly what we want to be doing and where we want to be going. We are being positive for the environment. I just want to address the Hon Rachel Brooking’s earlier questions about whether or not I’m concerned about the chief executive’s appointment. In a word, no. The Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport (MCERT) was established separately by Order in Council on 1 April, and Mr Jeremy Lightfoot was then appointed as the chief executive. I have since met with him and am very comfortable and confident about the transitional arrangements that are in place.

But again, just to quote the member, the bumpy ride that she talks about, actually, this is an opportunity to get excited and lean into this change, and this is exactly why MCERT is being created—to make it easier to connect and to align these agencies and the people within them. Let’s not forget that it’s actually the people within them who are doing this work, and they are really looking forward to the opportunity, but I love this member’s newfound positivity about this change.

I’m always positive about the environment, just not the damage of it.

I’m probably not going to agree with her name change. However, I think we can probably all agree on the sentiment that we are here—yes, the Environment Act was created, and the ministry was created, back in the 1980s. In fact, I think it’s probably just about as old as I am. But what a legacy it has created, and so this is not actually about dismantling that legacy. This is a new chapter. This is a new story of environmental management in New Zealand. It is not the end of the story. Comments have been made about international examples, but, actually, New Zealand, historically, has been a leader in how it develops and creates public policy and indeed the agencies that drive that. As I keep saying, this is about updating the machinery of Government to reflect today’s challenges, where environment will sit proudly at the centre of it so that infrastructure development and urban development are all centred around the environment and are all deeply interconnected. I welcome the member’s positive attitude towards this change.

11:04

Well, look, if only greenwashing could get us somewhere—just imagine, we would be soaring, we would be in utopia right now, we would have solved it all. Sadly, the elements and the evidence of the environment ground us in our reality and we know that it’s not that, and it’s so far from that.

I want to pick particularly up on clause 2, because this Act comes into force in just a few weeks, and my request and plea to the Minister for the Environment is to consider the Act coming into force on 1 January next year. The reason why I’d love the Minister to seriously consider this, and, actually, her entire Government, is because not one party campaigned on this. You do not have the mandate as Government—sorry, not you, Madam Chair; the Government does not have the mandate to put this through.

Good save.

Thank you. It would do justice to the people of New Zealand to put the question to them—whether a dedicated voice at the heart of Government is something that they actually want—because, again, we already heard from submitters that that is what they want. And even more than that, it is so important to them. It matters to them and it matters to me. Personally, as a new member of Parliament, I could have never contemplated—

Get over it.

—to actually come here and be debating the disestablishment of the Ministry for the Environment. So I’m not just going to get over it, Ryan Hamilton, because it’s not something to just flippantly dismiss like that. And it’s really unfortunate coming from you when you’ve been—sorry, Madam Chair, from Ryan Hamilton, when he’s been sitting there, so-called listening to submitters. I think that’s the role of. Government members.

Have you read the bill?

Yeah, I have read the bill, thank you, Ryan Hamilton. Now, I would love that consideration, and thanks for the suggestion about what the title should be, because I also propose that the title would be more helpfully the “Environment (Forgot about the Foundation of our Collective Wellbeing and Buried it in a Mega-Ministry) Amendment Bill”, because that is the reality of what we’re seeing here. The dismissal and the lack of assurance that we’ve had the whole way through is absolutely astounding. I think the fact that there’s this constant dismissal is just telling. There’s such a misunderstanding and lack of comprehension about the implications of this, and that is really just telling for this Government—because like the Hon Rachel Brooking mentioned, this is part of a bigger picture. We still haven’t had any response about the actual risks. We still haven’t had any response about the purpose of the new mega-ministry—

We are debating clauses 1 to 3.

—which has so clearly been documented, and we really need assurances and we haven’t had them. I would love the Government to consider particularly the commencement date. I would love them to understand how much this matters to New Zealanders and how little support there is, because even though we’ve been through this process, that has not been heard, and it’s completely unacceptable.

11:09

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Lan Pham’s tabled amendment replacing clause 1 is ruled out of order as not being an objective description of the bill.

The question is that Lan Pham’s tabled amendment replacing clause 2 be agreed to.

11:15

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to start these proceedings by thanking the 168 individuals and organisations who submitted on the bill, including the 35 who made oral submissions to the committee. I want to specifically acknowledge the survivors of abuse in care who submitted and thank them for their courage and bravery and willingness to be part of the process.

Following the second reading, I wanted to make some clarifications on aspects of the bill after hearing some of the speeches from the different parties. Firstly, it was in relation to some of the speeches given by the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori, who made claims that survivors would be excluded from financial redress. If a serious offender wants to apply for financial redress, the bill creates an additional process they have to go through. The bill does not exclude serious offenders from redress. Survivors who are serious offenders are still able to access the personal apology, wellbeing support, access to care records, Survivor Experiences listening service, and other supports. Their applications will be considered by an independent, qualified decision maker who is a skilled legal professional, considering a range of factors, including submissions from the survivor.

It is expected that many serious offenders will receive financial redress after consideration by the redress officer. For context, so far, since 9 May, around 2 percent of new claims since that date have fallen into this scope, the presumption scope. We’ve seen from the Australian scheme that those who haven’t overturned the presumption are those who have undertaken rehabilitation and have gone on to reoffend. The Government considers that the payment of financial redress to survivors with convictions for serious violent or sexual offences could bring the State redress system into disrepute or adversely affect public confidence in the redress system.

Now, I understand that the survivors who are also serious offenders are victims too, but requiring these additional steps for the most serious offenders is necessary to ensure public confidence in the redress system. In some cases, people have gone on to significant serious offending, leaving behind them many victims of crime and ruined lives. We think this deserves a separate process, where an individual case is carefully considered. Putting this process in place will help to avoid a situation where financial redress is provided to a person who has committed the most egregious offending and public confidence in the redress system as a whole is undermined.

The additional steps will only apply to those convicted of the most serious violent and sexual offences and sentenced to five years or more for that offence. We acknowledge that this is a difficult balancing act. What happened to survivors of State care was horrendous, and we also acknowledge the royal commission’s findings about how some survivors ended up in the criminal justice system, but it’s also important to note that the combination of specified offences and a sentence of five years or more sets a very high bar. As New Zealanders know, only most serious crimes attract a sentence of five years or more. As stated in the House at the second reading, of the survivors who have lodged claims since May and completed a declaration and criminal record check, less than 2 percent have been identified as in the scope of this process. We know, from overseas examples, that of that 2 percent the vast proportion of those who go through the process receive financial redress. This is for the most egregious cases.

The apology provisions will support the redress agencies to make more fulsome personal apologies to survivors—apologies that acknowledge and take responsibility for harm that survivors experienced. The personal apology is a key component of the redress offered by the State system. The royal commission found that, while some survivors have received meaningful personal apologies, the majority have not. The legal protections are necessary to enable the agencies to make apologies to survivors, as they’ve asked for, and that they’re made in the context of a redress process that does not substantially test or investigate the allegations made by many survivors.

The bill does not change a survivor’s ability to take their claim to court. I’ll say that again for the benefit of some people who, last night, claimed that this would: the bill does not change a survivor’s ability to take their claim to court. On that, I just want to make it clear to the member in the Chamber who made that claim last night, Helen White, that this is an alternative dispute resolution system that is full and final, but if a survivor wishes to go through the court system instead of the alternative dispute resolution system, they are able to do that.

But if they do choose to go through the dispute resolution system, the apology that is provided to them as part of their full and final settlement will not be able to be used as evidence in a court process, which allows the State to be more fulsome in our apology. What it means is that that apology cannot be used by someone else in a court proceeding that they choose to take—[Bell rung]

Did you, Minister, want to take—

Sorry, Mr Chair. Almost done—by someone else who is choosing not to use the alternative dispute resolution to be able to use that apology in court. I do welcome the opportunity here from the members of the House to answer their questions.

11:20

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to thank the Minister for that opening address. I also want to acknowledge members of New Zealand Collective of Abused in State Care Charitable Trust who are currently in the gallery today, watching the committee of the whole House stage as we go through this. I do have a couple of, I guess, simple questions for the Minister at the beginning, picking up on what the Minister said in terms of the ineligibility of serious offenders when it comes to redress or a redress scheme.

I want to start by looking at clause 3(a). My first question to the Minister is: what is the Minister’s understanding of a “legal presumption”? Because subclause (a) is very clear that the legal presumption is that they are not eligible for financial redress under the redress scheme. Yes, subclause (b) sets out the process, like the Minister has stated, but I want to check at the beginning of the Minister’s understanding of the term “legal presumption”.

My second question to the Minister—again, looking at the purpose of this Act and then following on from what the Minister said. One of the things we’ve heard from the select committee stage is when we are looking at—sorry, Mr Chair, we’re looking at Part 1, preliminary provisions—the ask was clear that what the survivors have asked for is a survivor-centric and survivor-led approach when it comes to redress. Now, the Minister mentioned before that there is independence, but can I check—just for the sake of argument, and also for the sake of what we’ve heard in the select committee stage, and then, also, as a part of the recommendations from the royal commission of inquiry—under the purpose of the Act, when you were looking at the legal presumption, when you were looking at the process set out in clause 3(b), how much of that is survivor-led and how much of that is appointees, who are independent, yes, but still an independent process as established by the Crown—aka, as established by the very people who abused these survivors in the first place?

Those are more two questions for clause 3(a) and 3(b). What is the Minister’s understanding of a “legal presumption” and is any part of the process in clause 3(b) survivor-led?

11:23

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to follow on from that contribution, specifically around presumption. I have tabled some amendments—they may have not come through from the House Office just yet on it. My proposal is that in clause 3(a), after “establish”, we remove the words that are currently there, which is “the legal presumption that serious violent and sexual offenders are not eligible”, and replace it with the new words, “a process to assess the eligibility of a survivor of abuse in care sentenced for a serious violent or sexual offence”. The royal commission into abuse in State care and the high-level design group and a vast majority of the submitters to the select committee advised survivors who had been sentenced to criminal offences or spent time in prison should be eligible for redress, including financial redresses. The presumptive exclusion goes against the established evidence about the connection between trauma, abuse, and harm, and criminal behaviour, which the Minister acknowledged in her opening statement. It removes the responsibility of the State to provide full redress to people that it harmed.

Survivors who have been sentenced for serious violence or sexual offences have been receiving financial redress since the first claims process was set up 20 years ago. The introduction of a presumptive exclusion will now disadvantage a very small group of people. These are the people who have been unable to engage in the redress process up until this point, meaning they are likely to be significantly traumatised, lack literacy, or have cognitive impairments or disabilities. This is highly discriminatory. Given so many settlements have been resolved, the presumptive exclusion will disproportionately impact on a disproportionately small number of people.

I spoke to this in the second reading, and I want to highlight for the Minister’s consideration in rewording that clause 3, the evidence that we had before the royal commission. In its report, Pathways to Prison, the royal commission found that imprisonment rates were higher for survivors of abuse and neglect in care. Previous research found that one in five and up to one in three individuals who resided in social welfare institutions during the inquiry period served a criminal custodial sentence later in life. This experience was even worse for Māori survivors, who were disproportionately put into social welfare institutions and prison. That is also noted in the Cabinet paper.

I spoke about the Whakapakari programme, where 100 percent of children placed in the Whakapakari programme by Child, Youth and Family ended up in the adult justice system. Survivors who have been sentenced have already received the punishment for this. They do not need to be punished further by being presumptively excluded from the financial redress. So my question to the Minister is: would she consider removing the legal presumption and replacing it with a process to assess the eligibility of a survivor of abuse in care sentenced for a serious violent or sexual offence?

11:27

I thank that member for her contribution and thoughtful speech that she gave in the second reading. This is something that we considered. This is something that Cabinet considered. There are a number of different ways that countries look at this issue. Some start from a position of neutrality and some start from a position of a presumption against. We did look at all of those. It was Cabinet’s decision that we start from a place of a presumption against. So I want to make the member aware that it was something that was decided on by Cabinet.

When we weighed and balanced this, we looked at the numbers. We know that a very, very small number of people will be caught up by the presumption—as I’ve already mentioned, less than 2 percent so far. Of those, the vast majority will receive their redress. We know this through overseas examples. This is for a very small minority of egregious cases. It’s worth noting that, yes, there were a number of people—a lot of people—who went through the prison system after being in State care, but the vast majority of them were not for serious, egregious crimes that meant that there was a prison sentence of five years or more. As I’ve already said, only a small number of these people are caught in the presumption.

Regarding the, again, thoughtful comments around the fact that we have been making payments for 20 years to everybody who has come forward—that is the case—however, there has never been a spotlight on our redress system and on survivors in State care and on this issue that is a dark stain on our past as there is right now. Yes, over the last 20 years, we have been paying out serious offenders who have left behind them a trail of victims and even potentially current ones who’ve done that very recently.

It is the view, though, of Cabinet that it is reasonable to expect that we take another look at those who have been caught up in the presumption by an independent, highly qualified person to take another look at that case to make sure, given the highlighting of this issue more recently and the considerable interest by the media and the public around this, that it is important that we safeguard the system and public confidence in the system, so that New Zealanders know we are taking another look at the very small percentage of people who have been serious criminal offenders and have been sentenced to five years or more for their criminal offending, which does create a very, very high bar. Cabinet believed that that was entirely reasonable, but I do want to state to the member that we were not oblivious to the fact that there are a number of different ways of doing this, but it was Cabinet’s decision to start with the presumption against.

In response to the first member’s questions, the legal presumption sets out a starting point that they are ineligible. It’s an assumption that law requires a court to make, unless there is enough evidence to prove otherwise. It sets out a starting point that they are ineligible, but it can be overturned if a redress officer considers, and those things that they should consider are laid out in the bill.

In relation to the second question by the first questioner, it sets out a very simple process, one that is easy to understand and that’s transparent. Survivors have a choice whether or not they choose to go through the process with the independent redress officer or if they choose not to; or if, in fact, they choose to wait and go through it at a later date; or, in fact, choose to go through it and then wait and go through it again if they are declined in the first instance.

11:31

Thank you, Mr Chair. I was interested in the comments made by the Minister when she introduced this process right now. One of her comments was that if people were excluded from this process, if they didn’t have any redress, they could go through the normal court process. I’ve been thinking a lot about the concern that I’ve got that this piece of law really denies responsibility for the causal connection between the abuse of people—often severe—and their repeating of those kinds of abuses in their later life, leading to imprisonment. Those things are not comfortable truths, but they are scientific. The reality is there is a connection, and that does not deny self-responsibility for such actions, but it is something that we need to understand as a society.

I’d like the Minister to comment first on whether she accepts that, despite there being issues about our own responsibility for harms that we do to others, there is also an undeniable connection between abuse that we don’t deal with, abuse that happens, and repeating those kinds of abuses in our culture and whether, in fact, we have a concern here where we are denying that.

I have a concern also that the 2 percent that we’re talking about in this situation are probably very likely people who have suffered even more severe abuse. Those are the people that have gone on to offend heinously. Those people are often, also, the most broken, and they are now going to have to rely on a system beyond this one, which is the normal court process. I’d like to know why that was seen as the appropriate channel for people who are probably the most inarticulate and probably the most broken, and whether it’s a cynical calculation that they won’t go on to take these cases in the normal court process.

I wanted to know, from the Minister, how she reconciles the fact that, in that further court process, if they make it through the gate, they are likely to receive a lot more money than through this process and they are likely to go through a process where what has happened to them is acknowledged and that the lack of causal connection that is true between what the Crown should be paying them to compensate them for unspeakable acts that happened to them and the fact that they actually perpetrated such acts against others is something that the normal court process, in its justice settings, simply won’t take into account, because it’s illogical. A judge looking at such a case of somebody who’s been through that process is not likely to look at this situation and say, “Oh, well, you committed an act to somebody else; therefore, the State owes you nothing.” They’re likely to do the opposite and make the decision without fear or favour on what the Crown does.

I’m interested in the decision in the second part of this clause by the drafters to say that the apology counts for nothing. This is another question for the Minister: is the Minister saying that the apology counts for nothing in those courts, because the court system and the Crown are expected to act in a way that tries to deny and minimise what’s happened to these people at that second stage? I’d just like a few more minutes to actually just explain why I am talking about this, and I appreciate I’ve only got 10 seconds to go, and I won’t take the whole call, but I’d like to finish this.

Helen White.

Thank you, Mr Chair. The concern I have is one I raised in one of my speeches on this. We had a situation where our Crown solicitors, for years and years and years, minimised the heinous acts of the State in these cases, and they did it, saying it was the right thing to do. We had a situation where we were in the public arena having a discussion about whether our Crown solicitors should have been doing that, should have been minimising in that way. There was a great kick-back at our Crown solicitors doing that to victims of abuse. There was actually a public reaction to that that found that behaviour hideous. We talked about whether the person doing that work should be working in our State, given that that was their instinct. We went through a public discussion about this.

What I want to know is why we would have any kind of separation out there of the act of apology and say we couldn’t use it. We either accept we did it or we didn’t. Are our Crown prosecutors, in those 2 percent of cases, expected to go hard and deny these events happened, given we now have six volumes on what happened to these people, given that we have had recommendations that we wholeheartedly apologise to people who this happened to, and given that we accept responsibility. Why would we deny that in this particular law and suggest it shouldn’t apply? Do we expect them to go through a system of minimisation?

I hope you understand why I wanted to finish this concept, because I think it’s fundamental to us accepting or otherwise the realities of the situation in where we go to from here under this piece of law. I’d like the Minister to confirm that she expects that those people will have full rights under the alternative, which is the normal court system, and what kinds of settings she expects them to face under her leadership as the Minister. Thank you.

11:39

Thank you. Many of the points that Ms White raised, I already spoke of, but I’ll go through them again. The presumption is focused on the most serious egregious offending. As I acknowledged in my opening speech, the connection between abuse and later offending is a very complex issue, but the redress officer process is focused on the offending and the subsequent rehabilitation, and laid out in the bill is the decision-making framework that they would go through in order to make their determination: the nature of the offending, the term of the imprisonment imposed at sentencing, the length of time since the relevant offending took place, any rehabilitation undertaken, any information or submissions put forward by the person, and any other matter the redress officer considers relevant. They will be looking at a range of documents that they will have access to, including sentencing notes and the like.

It is important to note that if a survivor is declined and the presumption is not overturned and it is upheld, there is the ability for the survivor to come back, multiple times, if their circumstances have changed: time has passed, rehabilitation has been undertaken, any other things that the officer deems to be relevant to make, potentially, a different decision. I acknowledge that there can be challenges with accessing financial redress through the courts and that is why the bill provides an opportunity for the serious offender to reapply to the out-of-court schemes after three years if their circumstances have changed.

This is a decision that Cabinet took for the reasons that I have already outlined, and a very small number of people will be caught up by this. As we’ve seen in overseas jurisdictions, the number of presumptions that are upheld are low and they are predominantly for those at the most egregious end, taking into account the framework that I’ve already gone through. This was a decision that Cabinet made because we want to make sure that the public can have confidence in the scheme and it doesn’t bring it into disrepute.

11:41

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just following up from my earlier question, I do want to thank the Minister for responding to the question I had around legal presumption. It is perplexing, because then it does actually contradict what the Minister said right at the beginning, because the starting point—yes, I hear from the Minister—is ineligibility, and they have to then jump through all of these hurdles to then apply to see if they can overturn. That’s a very different thing that is not applied to, for example, other survivors. I think that’s an important distinction that must be clarified.

I just want to check with the Minister if the Minister wouldn’t mind responding to the question around process. I specifically asked whether the process—I know we’re going to discuss more of the detail of the process, but how much of that process is survivor-led?

Now moving on to clause 3(c)(i) and (ii), and I will leave this call at clause 3 and I’m happy to move on to further clauses after this call. Now, I hear what my colleague Helen White has said and what the Minister has responded, but I do want to check that these subparagraphs (i) and (ii) aren’t referring to the redress for abuse in care, but what happens if survivors come into, I guess, contact with other parts? I’m specifically looking at clause 3(c)(i), because it’s not relevant to any determination of fault or liability, presumably of a person to a survivor. I want to check in terms of the wording for that. The question there is what then happens when the survivor comes into contact with other parts of our legal system as a result of abuse in care? Is that something that is touched on by this particular clause?

Now, the reason I ask that is while I understand, for example, clause 3(c)(ii), where the evidence of an apology is not admissible in civil proceedings seeking remedies because presumably the redress of this is providing that remedy and, therefore, civil proceedings may not be required. But what happens if you’re looking at not civil proceedings but criminal proceedings? Is that covered under clause 3(c)(ii)? Then, in that case, for example, how is the experience of a survivor as a result of abuse in care considered as a part of any criminal proceeding, and how would the apology come into contact with that?

Furthermore, in those contexts where a survivor of abuse in care is in front of a criminal proceeding or is a part of a criminal proceeding, how does that apology and this particular bill and this particular part of the Act interact with section 27 of the Sentencing Act around cultural reports? Are there any interactions, then, regarding the apology and any potential section 27 report?

So the question that is still outstanding from the Minister is regarding the process being survivor-led, and, also, the new questions around potential criminal proceedings and interaction of the apology with any criminal proceedings and section 27 reports. Those are my two questions at present.

11:45

I already answered the first question, but in terms of the second one, the apology, as is clearly laid out in the bill, only applies in relation to civil claims. It does not apply to criminal proceedings. But in a criminal proceeding, the evidence required would be retested and would be required, so there’s a much higher bar for that evidence to be produced than in a civil proceeding. So that should answer the member’s question.

11:46

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to ask a question about clause 4(a); that the purpose of this scheme is to “(a) recognise a person’s experience of abuse in care;”. I’d like the Minister to tell me why she thinks that the legal presumption against compensation, the denial of the acceptance that has been a problem here, and that there has been actions of abuse and an apology for that—why those things are consistent with recognising a person’s experience of abuse in care? Because I can see the other way around that that’s true. The purpose of the apology is to accept the experience of the abuse in care, but the denial of it can’t possibly be. I’d like the Minister to answer that.

I’d also like to ask the Minister what discussion she has had around a concern about the immorality of unjust enrichment through the scheme, in terms of that. My argument before the committee, when we were going through this discussion, was we’ve got these people who have conducted terrible criminal acts and they’ve ended up in prison and they often have gone on to victimise other people, but couldn’t we look at something where we recognise what’s happened to them and then we’ve moved into a space where that money perhaps gets ring-fenced for the victims of those other acts. Then we’ll be recognising our causal connection, and we’d be allowing people to show remorse.

None of that seemed to be acceptable. What we ended up with was the money staying with the Crown. That seems to me to be an unjust enrichment. So, “I cause an act which causes you harm, but I’m off the hook because I proved you harmed someone else.”—that, to me, seems like an unjust enrichment of the State. While I accept that there is a possibility—we don’t know how remote—of coming back and asking for this money at another time, it doesn’t seem a reasonable outcome in terms of public sentiment that the State is enriched by this.

I would like the Minister to answer that question in terms of the purpose of what we are doing here, which is to recognise this abuse and that it happened. Thank you; I’d really like your answers.

11:49

Thank you—I’d love to give them. In relation to clause 4, there is a recognition of a person’s experience of abuse in care through the supports that they receive, the access to their records, the survivor listening experience through the Survivor Experiences Service, and, of course, the apology. As I’ve already noted on a number of occasions, there is the ability for the person who is caught up by the presumption to come back multiple times and test whether or not they can have the presumption overturned.

In relation to the member’s second point, about finding the victims and using the funds that are potentially not paid out to someone who falls within the presumption, this was considered. As you can imagine, we considered a range of different things. It is extraordinarily complex, not only to find victims—and there have been attempts to run this kind of process in the past, through other mechanisms in other areas, and it hasn’t been particularly successful—but I think the thing we came down to was also that the person is able to reapply after three years, and then again and again and again when their circumstances change. It would be an unusual thing to do to use the redress to pay out a victim and then have to pay out redress to the survivor, potentially, in three years, and again and again and again. We certainly did consider that, but on balance we decided to make sure that the person caught up in the presumption was able to reapply on multiple occasions.

It’s also important to note that it’s not a saving by the Crown. There are many victims of State abuse in care. As you know, we have a backlog that we’re trying to address through the money that we’ve put in through the last Budget, but every dollar is going into the redress scheme and to paying victims the redress.

11:51

Thank you, Mr Chair, and thank you to my colleagues for the issues they have been exploring with the Minister and for her responses. I did want to ask the Minister whether she would actually consider changing the reference to “serious violent and sexual offenders” and replacing it with “a survivor of abuse in care sentenced for a serious violent or sexual offence” in every instance that it appears throughout the bill. It does appear in clause 3.

Did you put an amendment in on this?

Yes, that is a tabled amendment.

Do you have a number?

I don’t have a number on the one in front of me, sorry. It’s the one on the top of my pack. It’s in Part 1, Part 2, Schedule 1—it’s throughout. I’m talking to clause 3, where it is the first reference to “serious violent and sexual offenders” in clause 3(a).

The rationale for this is that labelling them throughout the bill as “serious violent and sexual offenders” reduces them to the criminal act that they have committed at some point in time. It’s erasing the entire person and their experience of abuse through a label such as this. It is pejorative, and it undermines their mana. The royal commission and high-level design group recommended that restoration and healing for survivors, their whānau, and communities was a paramount priority for a redress system. The question to the Minister is whether she would consider replacing references to “serious violent and sexual offenders” or “serious violent and sexual offender” with “a survivor of abuse in care sentenced for a serious violent or sexual offence” in every instance.

The other thing I wanted to add to the apology section—and it is new, Mr Chair—is another tabled amendment that I have, which is to clause 3. The amendment is that a new subparagraph be inserted—clause 3(c)(ia), it would be—which says that an apology must be developed in partnership with the survivor in order to apologise in a way that is meaningful to them, as part of their wider healing.

The reason for this is that developing an apology with a survivor is a recommendation from the royal commission’s redress report HePurapura Ora, he Māra Tipu. This is because survivors have different needs and expectations from an apology, and working with them to discuss these and develop the apology will result in an apology that has meaning to a survivor. Meaningful apologies can help survivors heal and move on with their lives.

Given that there is the proposal here that that apology then limits any ability to take civil proceedings—and I understand that the Minister clarified around legal—but in the civil case, the strong recommendations of the royal commission were that these things be done with the survivors’ participation being meaningful and addressing part of their wider healing. Those are just two matters for the Minister to consider before we move well off clause 3.

11:55

In response to those two—I’ll cover the last one first: at clause 3, insert new (c)(i), we have considered this, but we won’t be supporting it. We believe it’s best covered in the guidance that will be developed as part of the common apologies policy.

What was that, sorry?

We won’t be supporting it. We think it’s best covered in the guidance that will be developed as part of the common apologies policy. The Government is also still to formally respond to this recommendation from He Purapura Ora, and so it would be premature to codify it in legislation.

In relation to the other amendment, which I hadn’t seen but I’ve just looked at now, there is a legal definition of “serious sexual and violent offenders” already in law, and changing that would be highly problematic. I can assure the member that we’ll be very careful in our communications and guidance that is put out and soften our language, but in terms of the bill, it’s really important we stick with the legal definition.

11:56

Thank you, Mr Chair. I am going to be speaking on Part 1, clause 3. I know it has been spoken about, but I just wanted to clarify some of the kōrero that has already happened, particularly the comments around the public’s confidence in the scheme. Understanding where that clause 3(a) establishes the legal presumption that serious violent and sexual offenders are not eligible for financial redress under a redress scheme, what advice did the Minister receive that upholding the recommendations of the royal commission of inquiry into abuse in care that all survivors receive that financial redress—I am really interested to know what advice there was around the public not having confidence if they were to be given that financial redress. Acknowledging the survivors who are in the gallery with us today and everyone who is listening and reading this, we know that the effect of this presumption is that everybody who applies for redress is going to have to do a criminal check.

No, that’s not correct.

Is that not? OK. The Minister has just indicated that that’s not correct, so that’s great to know. The advice around where this could potentially bring it into disrepute—I think the Minister also talked about examples of schemes overseas where this was used, as well. I’d like to know where this decision came from in terms of assuming that is something that has been done for a really long time and that New Zealand will now bring it into disrepute. That would be great to know.

Also, just in response to the Minister’s kōrero on clause 4 around there being an ability for a survivor who has had financial redress denied because of the ability in clause 3(a) to reapply every three years, and then over and over and over again, what advice has the Minister had on that success internationally? If we’re modelling it off a redress system that’s already out, we did get some advice on that in select committee, and it was a tiny, tiny proportion—a tiny percentage—of survivors who had been denied that and who did reapply.

Leaning back on that feels like it’s a bit insincere, because it’s probably not going to happen. We’re talking about survivors who’ve been through the worst of the system, had so little trust, and fought so hard to be recognised and to have this apology, only to then be denied, and then to say to them, “Oh, but you can come back in three years.”, and that being used as a reason why this is moral or legally OK when we know that they’re probably not going to reapply.

Two questions there: one around clause 3(a) and what advice did the Minister receive that the public would think that financial redress would bring the system into disrepute; and the second is around the international evidence for reapplying every three years after being denied, and what advice there was that this would actually be effective for those survivors. Thank you.

12:01

Just clearing up one of the misunderstandings: not all survivors will have the check undertaken. The redress agency has discretion as to whether to undertake a criminal check. Survivors who make a declaration saying “Yes”, or if they are unsure about having been convicted of one or more of those offences, they will continue through the criminal check process. Survivors who make a declaration saying “No” will not automatically be checked. There will be a randomised check carried out to protect the integrity of the process.

As I’ve already mentioned a couple of times now, these decisions were very finely balanced. We do know that only a very, very small number of survivors will even be caught by the presumption. At the moment, it’s less than 2 percent, and the number who will continue to be caught by the presumption after going through the process is even smaller, but they are the most egregious cases, based on the criteria that the redress officer will use.

Cabinet took the approach of the fact that there are other victims out there, and potentially recent victims. As I’ve already mentioned, the fact that there is much more of a spotlight on the apology and the process and redress and this dark stain on our history, the cases where these very few—very few—serious criminal offenders are paid redress could well bring the scheme into disrepute. That was a decision that was made by Cabinet.

There are countries overseas that we have looked at. There aren’t that many who have such a scheme. We looked at Australia and we looked at Scotland, and they are very different than our scheme—theirs have different complexities than ours—but we can look to some of those schemes. Our scheme is very different, so it doesn’t necessarily correlate—some of the outcomes of their presumption cases will not directly correlate here. We can only sort of use it as some learnings.

We are trying to create something that is bespoke for our country, with a Cabinet that believes that if you are a perpetrator of a serious criminal offence in the sexual or violent areas, and with the process that the redress officer will go through—we believe that it’s important to make sure that we are acknowledging the other victims of those crimes out there to make sure that the system is fair, and that we’re taking all of the different aspects into consideration through the independent redress officer.

We are getting a little repetitive with some of these questions.

12:04

Thank you. I want to look at, first of all, clause 4A, which is the decision that is an amendment, and it is that we are going to exclude issues where there has been torture.

I’d like the Minister to explain why there was a decision made that the public would not see this as an issue, if somebody had committed an action, etc., that was criminally liable at that kind of level, and the torture would be that flashpoint that would change the public response. I’d like to know why we’ve made this exception, and why there is a line drawn in those situations.

I’d also like for the Minister to have a look at the interpretation clause, and in particular the interpretation’s definition of an apology. I can see, from my reading, that it’s very easy to look at what people have landed on as core elements of a sincere apology. To be brief, they involve clear responsibility—accepting responsibility—specific validation, and absolutely no conditions; you cannot make conditions on the apology. It can’t be an “apology, but …” It’s got to be clear, no deflection—you don’t bring up external circumstances and stressors—an expression of empathy, an offer to repair, and change to behaviour. There’s often just a belief that it is very important in the case of an apology that our actions speak louder than our words. That is important, in terms of where we’ve all landed—in terms of the wisdom of what a real apology looks like.

Now, if I look at the definition of apology in the Act, it says that it “means an acknowledgment or an expression of sympathy or regret … includes any statement of facts on which the apology is based” and “may include an admission of fault”. That’s very interesting terminology. It might include an admission of fault. I think it probably does—it probably has to, right? If you look at that definition of apology, I’d like the comment of the Minister on whether she agrees with what I just read out, which I don’t think is an unusual—I haven’t gone out searching for a definition of “sincere apology” that matches my thinking. That’s pretty mainstream.

If she looks at this, does she agree that this definition of apology in the Act lacks the elements that most of us as a society need to be there in order to consider it sincere? And then, also, how does she reconcile that with the huge “but” in this legislation, which says, “We hurt you, but … We caused your life to be destroyed, but …” And then we don’t do that for torture, but we do do it for somebody who’s been raped. It’s a really sincere question. How are we reconciling that?

What I’d also like to know from the Minister is whether she thinks that the public, whose opinion she’s referring to in this, would actually be at all worried about the lack of correlation with sincere apology in our legislation and what we do today? Thank you—I’m very interested.

12:09

When the Government agreed to introduce the presumption against financial redress for serious offenders, it agreed that the redress scheme for survivors of torture at the Lake Alice psychiatric hospital and adolescent unit would be excluded from the scope.

Now, this recognises that the response to torture at Lake Alice is a discrete process—separate—relating to New Zealand’s international obligations. The response to torture is primarily driven by our obligations under the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The Convention against Torture requires States to ensure that any victim of torture obtains redress and has an enforceable right to fair and adequate compensation, including the means for as full rehabilitation as possible. Torture, to date, has only been acknowledged at the Lake Alice child and adolescent unit. However, the Government agreed that should torture be acknowledged in any other context or an individual be successfully prosecuted for torture under the Crimes of Torture Act 1989, any redress provider would not be covered by the presumption. Redress for torture in other contexts would be provided outside of the existing State redress schemes as covered by the bill.

The Hon Willow-Jean Prime—I’m aware that, as I entered to the Chamber, the previous Chair had said that we have been starting to get a little repetitive, so I would like these to be questions, rather than speeches, on specific issues that maybe haven’t been touched on before.

12:10

Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. That was in relation to clause 3. We are now moving into clause 4.

If it’s not repetitive and it’s a new clause and it’s just a question rather than a speech, that’s OK.

Well, I’m going to talk to my tabled amendment. It requires a bit of an explanation.

Yeah, you can explain.

Thank you. My question to the Minister is: would she consider this tabled amendment? Talking to clause 4 and my proposed amendment, which I understand is on the Table in a bundle, and they don’t have numbers specifically allocated to them. This is one in there on clause 4, and it is around inserting new paragraph (ab) with the words “aim to heal and restore individuals’ mana, tapu, and mauri”.

The reason for this is that there are three components to the royal commission’s first recommendation in the report He Purapura Ora, he Māra Tipu. The aim to heal and restore individuals’ mana, wellbeing, sacredness, and life force is core to what a redress scheme is about and what survivors need. The other two components were acknowledgement and apologies for the abuse and harm and trauma and taking decisive and effective steps to prevent further abuse. For a bill that legislates for a redress system, it is my submission that it should have this aim at its core. The question to the Minister is: would she consider inserting new paragraph (ab), which includes the words “aim to heal and restore individuals’ mana, tapu, and mauri”, coming directly from the royal commission’s redress report?

While the Minister gives that some consideration—oh, are you ready?

12:12

Thanks. We won’t be supporting this. These changes are inconsistent with Cabinet’s decisions on the purpose of redress. The Government has also declined the He Purapura Ora, he Māra Tipu recommendation 1 and said it would not implement recommendation 2 in the way the royal commission has suggested. I want to point out that, in section 4(b)(iii), there is counselling and other wellbeing support that is provided to survivors to ensure that they get the support that they need in order to heal.

12:13

That is unfortunate that Cabinet doesn’t believe that restoring or acknowledging that the purpose of the scheme is to heal and restore individuals’ mana, tapu, and mauri, but that is the response that the Minister has given.

My next tabled amendment for clause 4 is whether the Minister would consider inserting additional paragraph (ab), which would give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. This was the royal commission’s second recommendation in Whanaketia. The royal commission considered that the redress system should be explicitly required to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. This was because of the disproportionate number of Māori in State care and affected by abuse, and due to their findings of multiple ways Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations had been ignored or not fulfilled by the people and systems responsible for the care of children, young people, and at-risk adults. The question to the Minister is: would she consider including a paragraph which inserts “giving effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi”?

12:14

I already answered that in my previous answer.

Sorry, are you saying that Cabinet has already made a decision not to support specific recommendations in He Purapura Ora, he Māra Tipu? One of those is the Treaty—sorry, I don’t have it in front of me, so if the Minister could just—

I’ll read out exactly what I said again. The Government has also declined He Purapura Ora, he Māra Tipu recommendation 1 and said it would not implement He Purapura Ora, he Māra Tipu recommendation 2 in the way the royal commission has suggested.

12:15

Just to also be clear: that is a rejection of He Purapura Ora, he Māra Tipu, but have they taken further decisions on all of the recommendations throughout Whanaketia, which makes references to the importance of including Te Tiriti o Waitangi in the Government’s response? Sorry, the Minister’s nodding her head, but I think she should answer.

Just keep asking the questions and she will answer.

Sure. While the Minister takes further the advice on that, the next tabled amendment pertaining to clause 4 that I would like the Minister to consider—sorry, it is quite a separate topic, Madam Chair, and I think the Minister would probably want to hear me—

We’ll make sure that she gets the question. So that’s fine—keep going. We’ll make sure.

Sure—sure. The next clause, which I believe the Minister also needs to give some consideration to, is inserting a new paragraph, which would be clause 4(b)(iv), and that would be to consider putting in the words “assistance with accessing care records”. That would also be in clause 5, where, under the definition of redress, a new clause could be inserted around “assistance with accessing care records”.

The explanation for this one is that for many survivors of abuse in care, getting their official records is an important part of understanding what happened to them and helping them to heal. Records are often necessary for survivors to be able to make claims for services or access other information or opportunities. The royal commission found that records were sometimes not kept, were inaccurate, destroyed, or otherwise difficult to access for survivors. Providing assistance to access records was part of recommendation 25 of the royal commission’s He Purapura Ora, he Māra Tipu report, and this is a key part of the redress. Before the Minister perhaps responds to that particular paper, I am keen to get that clarification on Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

12:17

In relation to the tabled amendment in the name of Willow-Jean Prime, the access to care records, National will be supporting this amendment, and thanks to the member for giving it to us in advance so that we could take a really good look at it. Assistance with access to care records is an important part of the State redress system, and we agree it should be explicitly recognised in the bill. For many survivors, information related to their placements and time in care is a critical part of building their understanding about what occurred to them.

The royal commission found that record-keeping was often sporadic, at times inaccurate, and that obstructive and bureaucratic processes around accessing care records increased distress for survivors. In some instances, records were deliberately destroyed, and some survivors have had to take court action to try and access their records. Including assistance with access to care records explicitly in the bill makes it clear to redress agencies that this is a key part of the redress process, not a secondary consideration.

The amendment also complements the changes that were passed in the first bill that responded to the royal commission that the enhanced power of the Chief Archivist to monitor record-keeping across agencies and require improvements where necessary. That bill also empowered the Chief Archivist to conduct earlier re-audit of agencies identified as having poor information management and to require timely improvements to record-keeping. It clarified that Archives New Zealand may inspect all stages of agency record-keeping and increases transparency through mandatory reporting. Again, I thank the member for bringing the amendment forward. We considered it at length last night and agree it’s a good amendment, so we’ll be supporting that one.

On the Treaty provision, there are a range of Treaty findings and recommendations that the Government has responded to or not yet responded to. The relevant recommendation for this definition is He Purapura Ora, he Māra Tipu, recommendation 2, which the Government has agreed not to implement.

12:19

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m speaking to Part 1, clause 4. I do want to acknowledge the work that the Minister has done for the survivors of Lake Alice. Many of them have talked about the process and the access to redress as being part of that healing process, and I know that the Minister has worked really hard on that.

I want to ask around the further work that will be done there—I guess, how this law is going to be applied to other institutions where there was also torture—and then, acknowledging that many survivors never go on to offend, but, for those that do, and those in the serious offender category, who are going to be denied that financial redress, we know that many of those survivors have ended up with criminal charges because of the inappropriate standards of care, misdiagnosis, and mistreatment. We know a lot of those survivors were misdiagnosed if they were schizophrenic or if they had a neurodiversity, and then what has resulted has been severe neglect and harm, which could be interpreted, in a legal sense, as torture.

I would like to know what advice the Minister has had, particularly around those who were misdiagnosed, those neurodiverse kiddies, those kids who had schizophrenia, those mental health needs that were misdiagnosed, and then went on to have terrible treatment, which could be classed as torture. Has any work been done in that area which means that some of these survivors who have these serious criminal charges would then be excluded from that clause in Part 3 because it would then be classed as torture?

It would be really helpful to know what work has been done in that space, because I know that the work that’s been done with Lake Alice has been a pathway to some healing. It would be good to know that those people who are in our prisons because of misdiagnosis and mistreatment and, potentially, torture could also benefit from this clause here. Thank you.

12:23

To the very first point, what is happening around torture and other areas is not in the scope of this bill, so I’m not going to make a comment on that.

As I’ve already outlined, torture is not included in this bill, and I’ve already outlined a number of times now that we acknowledge that the connection between abuse in State care and serious criminal offending is extraordinarily complex, which is why we have a very descriptive decision-making framework that is laid out in the legislation for the redress officer to use when they are deciding whether or not the presumption should hold. I already mentioned those: the length of time since the offending; the nature of the offending; any sentencing notes will be taken into consideration for rehabilitation; any other submissions put forward. There is a process to go through to make sure that the legal professional who is taking this into account uses that framework to make their decision.

As I’ve already said, less than 2 percent of people, at this stage, are caught up by the presumption, and we know from other jurisdictions and from this decision-making framework that the people who will have the presumption held will be a very, very small number of people who have committed the most egregious crimes, taking into account the decision-making framework.

12:24

Thank you. I’m conscious that there have been people watching in the gallery, and there are also people watching at home who would have some questions that we have not traversed, and so I want to do that.

Just be mindful that this has also had a select committee process, so a lot of this actually won’t be new information to some of those people, as well. Thank you.

One of the things that I would like the Minister to address is why the list in clause 5—under “redress scheme”, there’s a list of institutions that we are looking at here. We are looking, basically, at State care ones, not church ones, even though the inquiry looked at both. Could the Minister explain what would happen if you were in one of the other institutions? Then there’s also the exclusion of Lake Alice, which has its own process. If the Minister could explain why those two things are being treated separately, thank you—I’d be grateful.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime, just ask your question while the Minister is being briefed. I will make sure that the question gets to the Minister.

12:26

Sure. I am now moving on to my proposed amendments to clause 5. The last ones that I did all covered clause 4, and these are still the preliminary provisions.

In clause 5, would the Minister consider, in the definition of “abuse in care”, deleting “arising from, or relating to, acts or emissions [of the State] that occur”, in clause 5(a), definition of “redress scheme”, and replacing it with this: “the abuse of children and young persons in the care of Oranga Tamariki”?

They weren’t in the care of Oranga Tamariki. It was Child, Youth and Family.

That’s right, and so my proposal is that the Minister consider replacing it with “the abuse of children and young persons in the care of a predecessor agency of Oranga Tamariki”—given that the Minister for Children Karen Chhour over there can see the issue with having the definition to something that actually is a newer organisation than we are referring to. So you can leave the words “Oranga Tamariki” in there, but referring to “a predecessor or agency of”.

The clause as currently drafted could now require claimants to prove that the abuse they suffered was a result of an act or omission by the State. This is a shift from the current practice, and this creates a requirement for payments to prove that their abuse occurred due to an act or omission, placing further burdens on survivors. In the definition of “redress scheme”, it is not clear why Oranga Tamariki and its predecessors are treated differently to other agencies. There should be no differential treatment. This was one of the major issues the royal commission found: that survivors were treated differently by different agencies’ redress schemes.

So, for the benefit of the Minister for Children, this is the tabled amendment in the package of them, which includes 10, when you get to clause 5. It might be that the Government wants to take a bit more time to consider that one. I don’t want to jump right ahead, therefore, to clause 10, because there might be other contributions that others might want to make.

No, just keep going.

Well, I’ll leave it there, because that’s one amendment—

Well, if the Minister is ready to answer, we’ll let the Minister answer, and then we’ll get you to clause 10.

12:29

I’m just going to refer back to Helen White’s question around why we’re not talking about non-State redress. The Government hasn’t taken decisions yet around non-State redress. Those are future decisions yet to be taken by Cabinet. This is around the existing State redress system, and so, of course, in that instance you would expect not to see any mentions of non-State redress—for example, the church—in this bill. We’ve made that clear in the past, and the member should know that.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will move on while I await an answer on the tabled amendment; I’m hoping that they will give that consideration.

Before getting to 10—Madam Chair, you might have been a bit excited that we were really moving along.

The member referred to clause 10.

I did.

It wasn’t me that started that conversation.

I did think we were at 10—clause 9. I have a tabled amendment for clause 9. It replaces clause 9 with a new clause that states that the State must assess exclusion from financial payment. The proposal there is that a survivor of abuse in care sentenced for a serious violent or sexual offence is eligible for financial redress under a redress scheme unless the redress officer appointed under section 10 determines, section 19, that financial redress should not be made available to the person. So that is our proposal—to replace the current clause 9.

Actually, we’ve just had a regroup up here. Clauses 9 and 10 are in Part 2.

Oh, OK—sorry.

We’ll wait for the Minister’s answer and then I do intend to move on to former issues.

I have got so many tables in front of me. Yeah, my next amendments are to the next section, but are you saying, Madam Chair, that we can’t move on to the next section until this one’s—

No, we’ll just wait until we close off the section. We’re just waiting for the Minister—if she wants a little bit more time just to make sure her answers are correct, that’s fine.

12:32

Sure. Look, there are several issues with the amendment. We’re not going to be supporting it. The definition of abuse in care reflects current eligibility criteria for the State redress schemes and redress must be related to some fault on behalf of the State, so it would be difficult to remove that. Their suggestion is to refer to “care” rather than “care, protection, and control” could actually narrow that definition.

Madam Chair?

Madam Chair?

Too late, Mr Costley. I’m going to take a call from Helen White. You may wish to be a little quicker next time. I can’t close in the absence of a closure motion, but Ms White beat you to it.

12:33

Thank you. It’s really nice to be able to have the Minister respond and then be able to draw on things that we’ve talked about so that it’s a real debate.

The issue there with the rejection of the definition of abuse in care is it goes to a point I tried to make earlier and I didn’t really get a response to, which is the issue about the nature of the restriction on apology. The restriction on apology includes a “may” accept fault, yet this, when the Minister was talking about the reason, is the acceptance of fault in the terminology around abuse in care—that we accept it. So I haven’t had an answer on this as to why we’re using the term “may” in relation to fault, because surely we should at least accept fault here, with an uncategorical fault acceptance. We seem to be trying to do that in the definition of “abuse” but not doing it in terms of what our apology is, and our definition is cagey as. Can I please have an answer as to why those things are not in alignment? Thank you.

12:34

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to clause 5 set out on Amendment Paper 569 be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Willow-Jean Prime’s tabled amendments to Part 1 replacing the phrases “serious violent and sexual offenders” and “serious violent or sexual offender” be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Willow-Jean Prime’s tabled amendment to clause 3(a) be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Willow-Jean Prime’s tabled amendment to clause 4, inserting new paragraph (ab) relating to Te Tiriti o Waitangi be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Willow-Jean Prime’s tabled amendment to clause 4 inserting new paragraph (ab) relating to the restoration of an individual’s mana, tapu and mauri be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Willow-Jean Prime’s tabled amendments to clauses 4(b) and 5(1) regarding access to care records be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Willow-Jean Prime’s tabled amendments to clause 5(1) amending the definition of “abuse in care” and “redress scheme” be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Willow-Jean Prime’s tabled amendments to clause 5(1) replacing “redress officer” with “redress panel” be agreed to.

The question is that Part 1 as amended stand part. All those in favour say Aye—

Aye!

—to the contrary No.

No.

The Ayes have it.

Noes have it. Party vote, please.

No, it was called—too late.

I didn’t hear the call.

No, they didn’t call.

Party vote, please.

Well, I’m sorry, I didn’t hear it. But obviously there are two members actually saying that they did call—

They didn’t.

No, Kahurangi did.

Yeah, I’m going to take their word for it, and I’ve got someone here that actually heard it. So I’m going to actually take that vote again.

I will say on that point that next time there is a vote, I would like to hear it, please. Also, to members, when you’re standing up to take calls, make sure that you’re effectively taking them with haste.

12:44

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to know a lot more than I do about the redress officer position. One of the issues that I’ve got is in clause 10(1)(a), and then the options that are available for the appointing of that officer. There is an officer who is supposed to be either “(i) a retired Judge; or (ii) a King’s Counsel;”, and then there is “(iii) a lawyer of not less than 7 years’ legal experience;”. Now, my experience is that’s a really big gap between King’s Counsel and a lawyer of not less than seven years’ experience. That is a gap in terms of the recognition of competence and the reality of experience. I’d like to know why seven years was landed upon as adequate competence, and whether, given the financial difference between hiring a King’s Counsel or a retired judge and a lawyer of seven years’ experience or more, we may get a tendency to hire at that lower financial band. What consideration went on in terms of choosing that category?

I would also like to know about the nature of that work in terms of anticipating whether it would be exclusive as a role. A lot of those roles that we have—and I think some of those people in those roles are wonderful—are full-time roles. I appreciate what the Minister said about this being a small category of people. Would this be anticipated to be a full-time role for those people? If not, how are we dealing with the potential conflict that might occur between the rest of their work? Given the list of competencies here, how are we going to deal with that if they’re not exclusively working on this? Because a King’s Counsel with experience in the criminal justice system and an understanding of victims’ rights, etc., will be in hot demand and they’ll be earning a lot of money beyond this work. So is it acceptable for them to do this job and work with people who are charged with criminal offences or victims, etc., alongside it? Is that seen as something that will enrich the work that they’re doing or conflict with it?

I do see the point in the fact that at those higher levels of experience, people have a depth of knowledge of the realities of the situation, but I’d love to know more about what’s envisaged there, given the amount of work required and how many hours on the ground somebody like this is supposed to put in. I also would like to know what training is envisaged for them. We already have huge issues with training in understanding particularly abuse and the psychology of abuse, and then the issues around sexual violence. These are all really important issues. If they’re going to be dealing with the victims of this violence, who are our most vulnerable, and that’s recognised under this law itself—I’ve seen reference to the vulnerable adults that we’re dealing with—what training will be given to that person? My worry is that we’ve got this single person that we’re relying on to be a lot of things at once, and it’s really important that we have somebody who’s doing that job very sensitively. I don’t mean to be disparaging of anybody who steps into that role. I have met extraordinary people doing roles like this. I just want to know what is envisaged in terms of making sure that they’re up to date.

I take the point and I’d just like to finish my point, but I promise it won’t be the full call.

Make it quick.

OK. If the Minister has a look at the clause, for example, of the criteria, we have that this person has to have the ability to make a balanced and reasonable judgment of community expectations. That is actually quite the unpacking that needs to happen. What do we expect from them in that way? How are they going to be armed and supported to do that job? What will they have to do in terms of making inquiries into that area in a time where there are changing norms around this, and the legal profession has very much been part of the problem rather than the solution at times? I would genuinely love some answers to those questions. Thank you for your indulgence.

Just for the benefit of the speakers to my right, the member did seek the call, and I gave her an extended time to take.

12:50

Thank you. I’ll go through those one by one.

As I’m sure the member knows—because I know she’s a lawyer—lawyers of more than seven years’ standing are eligible for appointment as a judge, and it’s commonly used in appointment provisions. I’d also point her to clause 10(1)(b), with all of the criteria set out for the person that they would have to have, because we do want to get the right person. I think this was covered in the select committee—around the fact that this is unlikely to be a full-time role given, as she’s already raised, that a very small number of people will be caught by the provision.

As she will also be aware, in the bill there is the ability to appoint an alternative redress officer. It provides a way to deal with any conflicts of interest. But, as you can imagine, conflicts of interest obligations would apply.

Around the comments she made around whether the person would be up to date, I think if she just reads clause 10(1)(b), that answers her question.

12:51

Thank you, Madam Chair. In terms of Part 2, of course, this is the part with the substantial section around the presumption that we discussed in Part 1. We’re not going to discuss clause 9, because I think that’s well-covered as part of Part 1. But the detail is what I would like to cover, starting with clause 10.

I’m hearing what my colleague Helen White has mentioned, and I’d just also note to you as well, Madam Chair, that the Minister has yet to address my question around survivor-led process. When it comes to clause 10, as well—if you look at clause 10(1)(a), the Minister must appoint a redress officer who is a retired judge and all of those. I hear what my colleague is saying, but the issue we have is looking at that presumption and the fact that you are asking for a redress officer that a survivor has to then deal with, being one of those people.

I think it’s important that, at this stage, we remind the House that as part of the apology, Crown Law and the Solicitor-General came out and apologised for the role that Crown Law has played in all of this trauma that has been placed on the survivors over the last X number of decades. Yet we’re seeing over here that the redress officer is part of that same system that traumatised the survivors and actually went against the experience and the stories and the narratives and the voices of the survivors in the first place.

I guess my question to the Minister is: how does the Minister expect survivors who need to challenge that legal presumption to trust the redress officer, when the people who are appointed as redress officer were part of the problem to begin with? I think that aspect of trust is really important. I understand why the Minister would do all of those, but I think that is a genuine question that the survivors really deserve a response to.

I also want to check—this is something that I heard the Minister refer to quite a bit in Part 1, which is that “This is not my decision; it was part of Cabinet”. I also want to acknowledge the Minister’s challenge as the coordinating Minister, which requires a lot of other people’s buy-in. But it is also important to check with the Minister: how has the Minister played her role as the coordinating Minister in pushing for a more survivor-centric approach in all of this, including what we’re currently seeing in Part 2? If the Minister wouldn’t mind elucidating the House on the active role that she played, despite potential opposition from Cabinet. What has she done to ensure what the survivors asked for is being met?

In terms of some of the other criteria for clause 10(1)(b), in terms of who has all of this knowledge and understanding, my understanding is this is something that was added on as part of the select committee process. Again, what I’m not seeing as a part of that—knowledge and understanding is important, but, at any point, has the Minister considered the role if anyone who is a retired judge, a King’s counsel, or a lawyer of not less than seven years of legal experience also would have had an experience as a survivor? Genuine lived experience is not the same thing as knowledge and understanding. There is a difference between being empathetic and being sympathetic. I want to check with the Minister, as well, if experience was ever considered as a part of the criteria in clause 10(1)(b).

Sorry, Madam Chair—oh, you’re just listening. I thought you were going to say something.

No, no—I wasn’t going to say anything. I’m just waiting for your question to finish so the Minister can answer it.

My final question to the Minister for the time being is in clause 10(2), the Minister may at any time appoint an alternative redress officer—oh, look, it’s under clause 10(3). I’m happy with this.

Those are the main questions I have for the Minister under clause 10(1)(a) and 10(1)(b).

12:56

Right. I’ll be taking those, hopefully, in order. I disagree wholeheartedly with that member’s point that a retired judge, a King’s Counsel, or a lawyer of not less than seven years’ experience are part of the problem. I would point out to that member that many survivors have legal representation using lawyers that they trust. These are highly respected people and, in clause 10(1)(b), have to have a range of experiences to be able to do this job.

I’d also point out that when we went through a process that I am particularly proud of, the torture redress scheme, we appointed Paul Davidson KC, the most exceptional human being that you could meet. That process went extraordinarily well, and the survivors of torture in Lake Alice that I spoke to said to me that “You could not have picked a better person.” So I disagree wholeheartedly with his statements that these people are part of the problem. They are, in fact, part of the solution. Paul Davidson is an exceptional human being, and we will look for another exceptional human being to run this process—hence why we have inserted clause 10(1)(b).

Members, the time has come for me to report progress.

Progress to be reported.

12:57

Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Environment (Disestablishment of Ministry for the Environment) Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. The committee has also considered the Redress System for Abuse in Care Bill and reports that it has made progress on the bill. I move, That the report be adopted.

Members, the House stands adjourned until 2 p.m.

The House adjourned at 12.59 p.m. (Thursday)

14:00

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

14:01

Members, I am sure you will want to join with me to wish a welcome to His Excellency Thongsavan Phomvihane, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and his delegation, who are present in the gallery.

Next week, the House will consider further stages of the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill. The hours of Tuesday will be extended into Wednesday morning for Government business, and Wednesday afternoon will be a members’ day.

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

Business interrupted.

14:02

Point of order. Can I ask as to why there are so many flags flying outside of this Parliament at the moment, and visiting delegations from other countries are given a secondary position? How did that arise, and what’s the authority or mandate for that?

No, they’re not given a secondary position; they’re either side of the parliamentary steps, which is the primary position. The other flags on the forecourt are the New Zealand flags, and then flags that represent a particular—I can’t remember exactly what they are, but they traditionally have been flown for quite some years on this particular date. There is no intention to offer any slight to anybody. The two flagpoles that are either side of the parliamentary steps are the premium sites for flags and to welcome visitors.

14:03

Ministers have delivered two papers for presentation.

• Government response to the Petition of Consumer NZ
• report of the Attorney-General under section 7 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 on the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill.

Those papers are published under the authority of the House. No select committee reports have been delivered.

The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of two bills.

• Social Security (Jobseeker Support and Accommodation Supplement) Amendment Bill, introduction
• Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill, introduction.

Those bills are set down for first reading.

to the Minister for Energy

Does he stand by the Hon Simon Watts’ statement that “Rooftop solar will play a crucial role in supporting energy security”; if so, what, if anything, has he done to make the installation of solar affordable for New Zealand households?

14:04

In the context it was made, yes. Rooftop solar will play a significant role to ensure New Zealand has secure, affordable energy, and that is why this Government is making it easier for Kiwis to get it on their roofs. We’ve scrapped the building consent requirements for most home installations, saving households around a thousand dollars and weeks of red tape. Where consent is still needed, councils now have to process it in 10 working days, not 20. We’ve widened the network voltage range so families can export more power back to the grid and install larger systems. We’re better rewarding consumers who are providing solar to the grid to help meet peak demands. Networks are now required to offer a rebate for electricity injected back into the grid at peak times. And we’re launching a review into the installation of solar to make installation in New Zealand the simplest in the developed world—practical, common-sense changes that help put Kiwis back in charge of their power bills.

Does he agree with Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) advice in September 2025 that the Government’s regulatory changes to solar policy will only deliver small reductions to power bills?

MBIE provides a lot of advice from time to time to the Minister for Energy, and what we’re focused on is making practical changes—$1,000 off installation is quite a significant amount considering installations could be between $10,000 and $20,000. That’s a significant cut in the cost for people putting solar on their roofs. We’re increasing voltage range so that people can export more back to the grid. It all makes a difference. I welcome the member’s support.

Is he satisfied that small reductions in power bills are sufficient given the current cost of living pressures on households?

Our focus is on affordable and reliable energy for New Zealanders, and that’s why we’ve made a number of decisions as a Government. We’ve stopped work on the Lake Onslow boondoggle, which was having a chilling effect on our renewable generation. We now have the biggest renewable boom under way. We’re seeing lower power prices in the wholesale market and Australian Securities Exchange futures. Of course, these changes around solar make it easier for people to put solar on their roofs to further lower their power bills. It’s all making a difference. I welcome the member’s support.

How many additional households does he expect to install rooftop solar, as a direct result of the Government’s solar regulatory review, over the next 12 months?

Many.

Has he received modelling advice to tell him that “many” will?

Look, I just know that we’re seeing a significant increase in rooftop solar, year on year. I think, last year, we had one of the biggest increases in rooftop solar, and if we can remove some more red tape, I’m sure many more will.

Are there specific initiatives to enable more people to access solar in the upcoming Budget?

We don’t talk about the Budget. I think it’s two weeks away. That’s about 14 sleeps or something or thereabouts.

16 for some.

Minister Potaka says, “16 for some.” But we’re very focused on making sure we have affordable and reliable power for New Zealanders.

When Simon Watts said we should “watch this space” on solar, should we still be watching, or is this it?

We should always keep watching.

14:07 · to the Minister for Social Development and Employment

Has the number of declined advances to pay for power bills increased since she became a Minister; if so, how many people had their application for an advance for electricity costs declined in the last quarter?

14:08

We acknowledge that winter months bring higher power bills for Kiwis. Around 900 applications for advances for energy costs have been declined in the last quarter. At the same time, more than 6,700 applications have been granted, totalling nearly $4 million in payments. The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) regularly help people with a range of urgent needs and work with them closely to ensure that they are getting the assistance they are entitled to. We encourage people to talk to Work and Income and discuss their situation and the support that they may be eligible for. Our Government is focused on building the economy to ease the costs that New Zealanders face.

Is she aware that Work and Income declined an almost record number of advances for power bills last quarter, between June and September, and will she ensure this does not happen again this winter?

Well, there haven’t been any policy changes around advance payments, and MSD make decisions at the front line to assess an individual’s situation and their needs. Particularly with advanced payments, there is a caution because, obviously, when payments are made in advance, that means there are less in the following weeks for a beneficiary to look after their costs with.

Why are more people declined for assistance for power bills despite rising power bills and rising energy hardship demonstrating a clear need?

Well, the member is conflating a number of issues. I’ve just stated that there have been no policy changes around advanced payments for energy. We do know that, over winter, it is more challenging for people to pay their costs. That’s why we have assistance like the winter energy payment.

Will she direct Work and Income to use their discretion to ensure that nobody living in poverty goes without power this winter?

As I said, I would encourage anyone who is facing costs that they’re unable to deal with to approach MSD and see if they are eligible for additional assistance and support.

Is she confident that everyone in energy hardship is getting the assistance they need from Work and Income?

Well, there’s a number of things that contribute to energy price and, therefore, the subsequent energy hardship, which I’m not going to address here. What I would say is that the winter energy payment is the main mechanism by which taxpayers provide assistance to those with energy costs, and over a million New Zealanders receive that support.

How is the winter energy payment fit for purpose when, since it was introduced, electricity prices have surged 28 percent while the winter energy payment hasn’t increased a cent and a very high number of people got declined last winter for power bill assistance?

It’s been traversed in this House on multiple occasions. If you look at the contributing factors to energy costs, that member might want to look in the mirror.

14:11 · to the Minister of Health

What recent announcements has he made about improving specialist paediatric palliative care support for children and families across New Zealand?

Today, the Government has announced that through Budget 2026, we will establish a nationally consistent specialist paediatric palliative care service, helping ensure seriously ill children and their families can access compassionate specialist support closer to home. For families facing the unimaginable reality of caring for a child with a life-limiting illness, knowing the right care and support will be there can make an enormous difference. This initiative establishes dedicated specialist teams in both the North and South Islands, helping more children receive care in the comfort of their homes and communities, surrounded by the people they love most. Through Budget 2026, we’re investing in the services that matter most to families, building a health system that delivers dignity, compassion, and support during life’s hardest moments.

Why has improving specialist paediatric palliative care been a priority for the Government?

Ensuring children have access to nationally consistent specialist paediatric palliative care services is critically important to not only the Government but also to the many families who, unfortunately, face these circumstances. That is why, today, we’ve prioritised this initiative, because no parent should ever feel alone while caring for a seriously ill child. Families going through these circumstances are carrying an immense emotional burden, often while navigating complex medical needs and long hospital stays. This investment is about wrapping greater support around those families and reducing the emotional, physical, and financial strain they face. It means more children can spend precious time at home creating memories with their families rather than away from loved ones in hospital. This is exactly the kind of compassionate healthcare New Zealanders expect and deserve.

What will the new specialist paediatric palliative care service provide?

The new service will include specialist paediatric palliative care physicians, clinical nurse specialists, nurse practitioners, social workers, and clinical psychologists working together to support children and their families. Importantly, these teams will also support and train local healthcare providers across New Zealand, helping ensure families receive consistent, high-quality care regardless of where they live. The investment also provides funding for national service coordination and one registrar training position each year to help secure the workforce needed for the future so that this service can continue to grow over time.

How does this investment reflect the Government’s broader priorities in Budget 2026?

Well, Budget 2026 is about securing New Zealand’s future by making responsible investments in the services that matter most to New Zealanders. Supporting children with life-threatening conditions and the families who care for them is one of the clearest examples of why careful fiscal management matters. Because we’re managing the Government’s finances responsibly, we can invest in compassionate front-line health services that provide comfort, dignity, and support to families during the most difficult times imaginable. Every child deserves the very best care possible, and every family deserves to know they will not face these challenges alone. That is what today was about.

14:15 · to the Minister for Māori Development

What specific actions, if any, is he taking to improve the Māori unemployment rate, and what measurable targets, if any, has he set to bring that rate down?

The Minister for Māori Development is not solely responsible for delivering employment services or setting operational labour market targets. These functions sit with agencies such as Te Manatū Whakahiato Ora the Ministry of Social Development and Hīkina Whakatutuki the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. However, I am taking action through system-level stewardship, monitoring, and advocacy supported by Te Puni Kōkiri, and one of the statutory roles of Te Puni Kōkiri, as the member should know, is monitoring and liaising with Crown entities to ensure the adequacy of training and employment. We do this by maintaining quarterly visibility of labour market outcomes, identifying and highlighting where system settings are not delivering for Māori, advocating to responsible Ministers for changes to systems settings, and, of course, working across agencies.

How does he explain the fact that Māori unemployment has climbed while his Government has been cutting back programmes for Māori, and does he accept that those decisions have made things worse?

Thank you for that question. Yes, the numbers are challenging for our whānau, communities, and country, but that’s one of the reasons why we call on the member and his colleagues across the Opposition to support this Government’s efforts for fast track; to support a variety of Māori owned, operated, and managed projects—whether or not that’s Rangitoopuni in Minister Penk’s rohe up there by Riverhead, or Hananui Aquaculture down near Minister Simmonds’ place next door to Rakiura, or indeed a range of other opportunities up and down the country. I won’t stop there—I’ll go to Nelson, too, and the Mahitahi project, which Minister Bishop has announced previously is fulfilling the needs for fast-track approval. That’s another reason why we call on the Opposition member and his colleagues to support the tourism and events kaupapa that Minister Upston is sponsoring, because when you support kaupapa like Homegrown in Hamilton East, you actually create a lot of jobs for riggers, for security folks—for a whole bunch of people, kaimahi, in Hamilton to work. That’s what we call on the Opposition to support, and that’s one of the things that we are doing to help support employment across the country for Māori.

Can the Minister point to a single credible Māori employment initiative of his own that has actually shifted the dial on Māori unemployment?

One of the data points and data references that I can refer to today is that Māori exits from jobseeker and into work have actually increased by nearly 7,000 in the quarter ending March 2026. This is a good trajectory, and it’s something that we want to make sure is durable. What we’ve done, since the member left his previous role as the Minister for Māori Development, is we actually continued to support and scaffold significant housing opportunities across the country. Now, social housing and Māori housing wasn’t made up by the previous Government; that’s been going for decades. What we’ve done is made sure that we continue, where credible, housing opportunities built by Māori for Māori and for New Zealanders. That’s what we believe in. When I went up to Ohakune recently—

Yeah, good—brief.

—and opened those ten houses, the Ngāti Rangi iwi absolutely congratulated me on that effort. [Interruption]

That general barrage has got to stop.

When the Government decided to not fund Māori trades training, did he think that conditions would get better or worse for Māori, or did he just think that whānau just wouldn’t notice?

There’s a range of trades training initiatives throughout the country—and education initiatives and employment initiatives and, indeed, project initiatives that members of this coalition Government are absolutely spearheading. One of the things that I like, and I absolutely encourage, is the work that Minister Stanford and Minister Brown have been undertaking to ensure that we get credibility in the cost of building things like schools and hospitals. When you do that right across the country—when you actually reduce the per-classroom costs—that helps generate more pūtea to reinvest in schools, to reinvest in education, and to actually create the jobs that the member is speaking about right now, rather than wasting money on $1.2 million classrooms right up and down the country, which actually can strip the range and number of jobs out there. Minister Stanford, and Minister Brown in Health, have been absolutely focused, deliberate, diligent, and professional, and prudently managing the fiscals.

Why did the Minister not support Māori trade training when the evaluation of the programme said that Māori trade training exceeded expectations?

We’ll have a much briefer answer this time—something to match the question.

It was like Groundhog Day. I do support Māori trade training, and what I also support is making sure that the reset of Whānau Ora actually encourages more navigators than the previous Government encouraged. That’s what we believe in—making sure that the money that taxpayers provide this Government is used in a constructive, efficient, and effective way. It’s their money, and we have the privilege to look after it; it’s not the Government’s money to spend at will.

How can he claim that he’s doing a good job when there are 2,400 more Māori not in work than the last time I asked him a question?

I would recommend that the member sends his data reference points to my office with the appropriate written question. But what I will do is reinforce that nearly 7,000 Māori have exited from jobseeker into work in the last quarter, and I absolutely acknowledge and applaud the work of Minister Upston and others who are doing the mahi to get more Māori into mahi.

Point of order. I’m wanting to find out how you could possibly allow that last question, which ended when he said, “between the time I asked the last question”, which was actually a minute before that, so how he could assemble that information is beyond me.

We get pretty quick statistics.

Just a moment. I took it that the member had said, “between the last time I asked the question.” If I misheard, I’m sorry. I just thought, well, I’m surprised he asked that, because it would obviously be a very long time.