Parliamentary debates: Tuesday, 26 May 2026

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

I seek leave to move a motion without notice or debate to acknowledge the passing of Dame Jools Topp.

Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There appears to be none.

I move, That this House express its sadness at the passing of Dame Julie (Jools) Topp DNZM; convey its deep sympathy to her family and friends, in particular her twin sister Dame Lynda Topp; thank her for her contribution to New Zealand comedy, music, and activism; and remember her love of rural New Zealand and horses.

I seek leave to move a motion without notice or debate to acknowledge the Auckland Football Club’s A-League championship win.

Is there any objection to that course of action? There appears to be none.

I move, That this House congratulate Auckland Football Club on becoming the first New Zealand club to win the A-League championship with their 1-0 victory over Sydney FC in the 2026 Isuzu UTE A-League Grand Final last weekend.

14:02

A petition has been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

Petition of Rene Astle requesting that the House legislate to end dental extractions and make non-surgical, needle-free, non-anaesthetic, drug-free, and non-invasive innovations the new standard.

That petition stands referred to the Petitions Committee.

Ministers have delivered two papers.

• New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology, annual report 2025
• Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Financial Stability Report May 2026.

Those papers are published under the authority of the House.

14:03

Nine select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

• Report of the Environment Committee on the report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Estimate of environmental expenditure 2025/26: Method and results November 2025
• report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the inquiry into performance reporting and public accountability
• report of the Health Committee on the notice of motion to approve the Misuse of Drugs (Classification and Presumption of Supply) Order 2026
• reports of the Justice Committee on the:
  • Department of Corrections, Long-Term Insights Briefing 2026
  • petition of David White MNZM
  • review briefing on the 2024/25 annual review of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, and the
  • review briefing on the 2024/25 annual review of the Independent Police Conduct Authority
• reports of the Petitions Committee on the:
  • petition of Darrin Cassidy
  • petition of Justice For All Incorporated, and the
  • petition of Tony Gore.

Those reports are received. No bills have been introduced.

14:04

Members, I have received letters from Chlöe Swarbrick and the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 the handling of documents requested under the Official Information Act from the Prime Minister’s Office. This is a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility. The matter appears to be of sufficient importance to warrant the attention of the House and there will be no other opportunities to debate it.

Where the Speaker receives two applications dealing with the same subject, priority is given to the application lodged first—Speaker’s ruling 216/2. Chlöe Swarbrick’s application was received first. Therefore, after question time, I will call on her to move that House take note of an urgent public matter.

to the Minister for Energy

What recent announcements has he made about securing New Zealand’s future resilience by supporting businesses to transition away from dwindling natural gas supplies?

14:05

The Government is fixing the basics and building the future of our energy sector. Yesterday, the Government announced that Budget 2026 provides for a Gas Transition Loan Guarantee Scheme. The scheme is one more practical and helpful initiative towards securing a reliable and affordable energy supply for commercial and industrial users, and it has two main purposes. The first is to improve energy resilience by reducing demand on New Zealand’s dwindling gas supplies. The more that large gas users reduce their use, the more gas there will be for those without viable alternatives. The second driver is about economic resilience. By helping businesses futureproof their energy needs, this scheme will help protect the jobs and incomes on which New Zealanders and their families rely.

How will the scheme work?

Businesses using more than 1,000 gigajoules of reticulated New Zealand natural gas each year—which is roughly the amount used by 40 households—will be eligible. They will be able to apply under the scheme for a loan to cover all or part of the cost of reducing their gas usage by at least 15 percent. The Government won’t be picking winners. Banks will be the lenders, retaining their usual commercial discipline. The Government will guarantee 80 percent of each loan under the scheme and, in return, borrowers will receive more favourable terms on their loan. The maximum value of any single loan will be $50 million, and the scheme will apply only to new loans, not refinancing. Up to $1.2 billion of loans could be written under this scheme.

Why is the scheme needed?

Because, unfortunately, natural gas is running low in New Zealand. It is becoming more expensive and contracts are getting shorter, which is a challenge for many businesses. At the start of this year, known remaining reserves of natural gas were 23 percent lower than at the same time last year. This is becoming a critical matter for many businesses in New Zealand, and with 12 of the 17 gasfields that are currently operating expected to stop producing within the next 10 years, it is only going to continue to get more challenging without future gasfields being found. The situation has been made worse by the previous Government’s decision to ban exploration for the oil and gas on which New Zealand’s manufacturing industry and New Zealand’s jobs depend, and the unfortunate message to overseas investors was that you’d better be wary about investing in New Zealand. The loan scheme will support businesses switching to a different energy source to entirely or substantially reduce their gas use through energy-efficient measures.

What response has he seen to yesterday’s announcement?

I saw the Auckland Business Chamber saying that the scheme addressed a pressing need for businesses across New Zealand and that it had the chamber’s full support. Business New Zealand said, “The announcement should prevent avoidable closures, retain capability, and reduce long-term costs to the economy. Aiding the transition to alternative fuels is a sensible step.” The Employers and Manufacturers Association head of advocacy, Alan McDonald, said he had just recently talked to a major gas user who couldn’t secure gas supply beyond the end of June. Late last year, another was looking to move all of their manufacturing to Australia. Mr McDonald said that the “scheme could make a real difference to a number of manufacturers and help arrest the recent trend of deindustrialisation”. That’s exactly what this Government wants to avoid. We want to protect New Zealand’s exports and protect New Zealand’s jobs, and to do that, manufacturers need reliable energy.

So why did the Government decide to scrap the gas transition plan which had been due for publication at the end of 2023, after they came to Government, which would have meant that we would be at least 2½ years ahead of where we are now on gas transition?

Well, the previous Government’s approach was to subsidise businesses, not through a gas transition scheme as we have outlined here today, but to, effectively, subsidise businesses, pick winners, and throw huge amounts of cash around like what was happening. We have come up with a prudent measure but, at the same time, we’ve reversed the ban on oil and gas exploration. We’re supporting further drilling to ensure we have more indigenous supply in New Zealand whilst addressing the very real needs of these businesses, who are struggling from the previous Government’s policies.

If the Minister is so concerned about “picking winners”, what then does he make of the Government’s decision to provide a $200 million taxpayer subsidy for the production of new fossil fuels?

Well, it’s about co-investing to ensure we actually get indigenous gas out of the ground, and, ultimately, this Government is actually backing business and backing industry. On that side of the House, they’re prepared to export—

No, that’s enough.

—our jobs. We—

That’s enough.

—won’t tolerate that.

Just general advice to the House: attacking the Opposition by way of a question is not part of the deal.

Can the Minister explain, perhaps in quite simple terms, the difference between subsidising or giving $200 million, compared with taking a stake in an investment which would later be repaid?

Well, the previous Government’s Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund was about, effectively, providing cash directly to a business; not in exchange for some sort of stake or equity share. Providing what the member has suggested is actually getting a stake or an equity share, which ultimately would require a return in the future. This scheme that we’ve allocated today actually has the banks making creditworthy decisions. They are the ones who ultimately have to determine the creditworthiness of each business on a case by case basis without the Crown pumping cash to businesses on a case by case basis, with Ministers making those decisions.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. By some calculations, this identical question has been asked over 30 times by the same member, and surely around about now you should rule it out for being tedious, boring, and repetitive.

Well, the Speaker has—[Interruption] Excuse me. Just a minute. The Speaker’s got a number of responsibilities, but one of them is not for ensuring that members can remember what questions they’ve previously asked. The Rt Hon Chris Hipkins—question No. 2.

14:12 · to the Prime Minister

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

Yes.

Who in his office received the 2024 briefing note prepared on behalf of the defendants in the Smith v Fonterra case, which proposed legislation to halt that litigation?

Well, it’s not in the public interest to identify specific members of staff, but I understand it was someone who left a while ago.

Were any meetings held between his staff and representatives of Z Energy or Fonterra in relation to the Smith v Fonterra litigation; if so, why is there no record of those meetings?

Well, as I’ve said, there is no record or recollection of that interaction from 2024. There’s nothing more I can tell you other than what I said yesterday. Ideally, there should be a record of it, and that’s why my office has asked Ministerial Services to make sure everybody understands their obligations.

So were any meetings held with representatives of Z or Fonterra by members of his staff?

Well, as I’ve said, we have no record or recollection of that interaction from 2024. Ideally, there should be a record of it. That’s why my office has asked Ministerial Services to remind staff of their obligations.

If his office has no record of these meetings, what steps has he taken since the existence of the briefing note became public to establish whether any such meetings occurred?

As I said, there is no record or recollection of any such meetings or interactions, but what action I have taken is that my office has asked Ministerial Services to remind all staff of their obligations about record-keeping.

Was Z Energy and Fonterra’s proposed amendment to New Zealand’s climate change laws passed on by anyone in his office to any other Minister, their staff, or any Government officials; if so, who?

Again, I’ve answered that: there is no record or recollection of any interaction in 2024. But, again, this was a Cabinet decision about this case. There are many Ministers who felt very strongly about this situation. Again, what we’re interested in is that it’s the State that sets the climate change framework—it’s not the courts; it’s not business. We don’t need a parallel system causing uncertainty. It was a pretty straightforward decision for many of us in this Government to make.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. That wasn’t an answer to the question or even addressing the question that I asked him. I asked him whether the proposal that was given to his office by Z Energy and Fonterra was passed on by his office to any other Minister, any of their staff, or any Government officials.

Well, he most certainly did address the question, so I think—you can carry on if you want to.

Was Z Energy and Fonterra’s proposed amendment to New Zealand’s climate change laws passed on by anyone in his office to any other Minister, any of their staff, or any Government officials; if so, who?

Well, as I’ve said to the member, there is no record or recollection of that interaction in 2024. Ideally, there should have been a record kept; there wasn’t. That’s why my office has subsequently asked Ministerial Services to remind staff of their obligations.

Can the Prime Minister confirm that the premise of the Leader of the Opposition’s question, that there’s a proposed amendment to New Zealand climate change laws, can’t possibly be correct because no court has ever found the existence of a so-called climate tort—the Government is proposing to act to prospectively amend the law to make sure that doesn’t happen?

That is why climate change frameworks have been agreed to by past Governments. It’s actually up to the State to administer them, not the courts, not business. We don’t want to see a precedent where there are claims of climate change harm being resolved through the courts. That is the responsibility of the State.

Can any New Zealanders who object to court proceedings against them directly request law changes from his office, or is that a privilege that is exclusively reserved for corporate lobbyists?

I reject the characterisation of that question.

Does the Prime Minister agree that Ministers in his Government, including this one, strongly support the Government’s position on this matter, despite never having heard anything about any of this so-called lobbying until it was brought up by muckrakers over there?

No, no.

Have a look at your bank account!

Question No. 3—

All of you!

—Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.

Point of order. Sir, I’ve sat through that particular question, and there’s a host of elements to the questioning that were borderline, but the member to my right—Waititi—screaming out “look at your bank account!” goes well beyond the pale. It hints that something corrupt and rotten has happened with bank accounts, and an allegation about what may or may not happen in meetings pertaining to Mike Smith’s tort case. You should rule that out and get him to leave this House right now.

Thank you for your advice on how I should proceed. I didn’t hear it; it didn’t come—

I did.

—over the very, very strong audio that I’ve got here. Just a minute. I’ll simply ask the member: did he make that statement or offer that accusation across the House?

Yep.

Then the member should either withdraw the remark or remove themselves from the House.

Withdraw.

Point of order. Does the Opposition leader want to ask another question about the member who actually wrote the bill in question and can confirm that he had no meetings with anyone or nothing was passed on to him?

No, well, look, it might have been an interesting observation from the member but it doesn’t make much sense in the context of what we’re doing. [Interruption].

Point of order. What the last member of Parliament is saying does make a whole lot of sense, because what he is saying is that months before that, he was presaging the same concern, and he wasn’t consulted and it wasn’t the result of a lobbyist meeting. He thought it just wise in the legal sense; that’s why it’s seriously relevant.

Well, I didn’t say it wasn’t relevant. Read the Hansard and you’ll see what I actually said. With all due respect, that wasn’t a point of order; it was a point of clarification. It wasn’t necessarily needed.

14:18 · to the Prime Minister

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

14:19

Absolutely.

What is his response to Radio New Zealand’s findings that more than $1.2 million in political donations has been linked to fast-track projects since 2022?

Point of order, Mr Speaker.

Right Honourable—the Hon Chris Hipkins.

Ah, Bishop.

I’m not sure which of us should be more offended.

Well, firstly, my apologies to the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins.

What about me?

My apologies to the Hon Chris Bishop.

Thank you very much.

And now we’ll hear from the Hon Chris Bishop.

The Prime Minister is not responsible for political party donations, as I think you know, and as I think the member probably should know; he is responsible for the actions as Prime Minister and for the Government.

Well, thank you for your intervention. I was going to intervene because he’s also not responsible for the editorial commentary from Radio New Zealand, sadly.

Does the Prime Minister think that our donation laws are fit for purpose?

Yes.

How can the public trust the integrity of the fast-track process when over 98 percent of these donations have gone to Government parties who exercise approval powers over fast-track projects?

Look, you can reword that in a different way if you want to, but that is effectively making an allegation—unsubstantiated. That cannot be done in question time.

Is the Prime Minister concerned that his office may have lost other important communications, such as Z Energy and Fonterra?

Not that I’m aware of, no.

Have any fast-track applications led to concerns of the Charities Commission into illegal donations to a political party undisclosed?

Well, in so much as the Prime Minister has—if he’s seen reports or whatever.

Not that I’m aware.

Does the Prime Minister accept that even the appearance of political interference damages public trust; and, if so, will he support an independent inquiry into corporate influence over his Government’s decision making?

Point of order. Speaker’s ruling 195 makes it completely evident that that question cannot stand. There is no political evidence when Ministers are exercising their statutory powers. That assertion is inversely related to the truth, and that question cannot stand.

That’s right. And the member was out of his seat with almost Usain Bolt - type speed—surprising as that analogy may seem—and I was not able to actually get to that point. But no, the question is not acceptable.

Sorry, I didn’t hear you.

You can’t ask that question. Ask a different question.

Is the Prime Minister concerned that Ministers such as Shane Jones are connected to fast-track projects—

No, no—hang on, how could he be concerned about that? He appointed him to that role. Ask a question.

Is the Prime Minister absolutely confident of the integrity of the fast-track projects in Aotearoa?

Well, the fast-track process is transparent for everyone to see. Final consenting decisions are made by an independent panel. But the most exciting thing of all is that we have 23 projects that are job-rich, that are getting the job done on infrastructure, housing, renewables, mining, and quarrying. It’s taken about 118 days to get those decisions done. That’s the most important thing—Kiwis want us to get on and get things done and build in this country, and that’s what we’re doing.

Can the Prime Minister confirm that the statutory process for fast-track decision making is indeed just that, a statutory one, and that once a project is referred to a panel it is decided upon not by Ministers but by an independent, essentially quasi-judicial panel?

Correct. I think that’s well understood by all.

14:23 · to the Minister for Pacific Peoples

Does he stand by all his statements and actions?

Yes, including my statement at the Media Awards on Friday where I referred to the member as “my very good friend Carmel Sepuloni”, and I hope she won’t contradict me on that point.

Does the Minister have a target for reducing Pasifika unemployment, given an additional 14,000 Pasifika people are now unemployed compared to the March 2023 quarter?

Well, the Government is very focused, in the broader sense, on reducing Pasifika unemployment, and the best thing that we can do in that regard is ensure that the kids are at school and being prepared. So the good news is that since we came into Government, there has been a very significant increase in attendance amongst Pasifika students—from a terrible 32 percent in term 1 2022, to nearly 60 percent today. So that is a very powerful step.

Why did the Government cut $22 million from the effective Tupu Aotearoa programme, designed to get Pasifika youth into work, when Pasifika unemployment has doubled since the March 2023 quarter?

Well, there has long been a bit of a debate about whether funds should be better spent on a specific, separate Pasifika programme managed through the Ministry for Pacific Peoples or as part of the broader effort across Government through the Ministry of Social Development. There is a bit of a debate about what is best there, but our focus is, like I say, on making sure that Pasifika kids are well educated and that we’ve got a strong economy that can create the jobs for them to be employed by.

Why did the Government close the Tauola Business Fund that helped to support Pacific businesses at a time when over 3,000 businesses have been liquidated in the last year alone?

See, that’s an example of how the previous Government, in my humble opinion, was confused. They’d set up a small programme to focus on employment and yet neglect the fact that their broader public policy settings were leading to a collapse in economic activity and an increase in unemployment generally. Our approach is to say that, as is obvious to everybody across the economy, we have challenges but we have a plan to fix the basics and build the future, by having very clear settings to increase investment and productivity. We can go through those in great detail if they’d like to.

Has his Government been reducing the funding, the staffing, and, effectively, the effectiveness of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples to justify dismantling the ministry or merging the Ministry for Pacific Peoples with other agencies?

Well, we haven’t made any decisions around the structure of Government departments, but I think, if we look at New Zealand as a whole, there are quite a large number of them—39 of them—and there may be opportunities for improvements there. But no decisions have been made.

14:27 · to the Minister of Finance

Malo le soifua, manuia, Mr Speaker. Does she stand by all her statements and actions?

In context, yes.

How can she stand by her statement that her Public Service cuts won’t affect front-line services that people rely on, when she can’t say where those cuts will come from?

I simply look at the track record of this Government, in which people are waiting less time for elective surgery and in the emergency waiting room despite reductions in public servants at the Ministry of Health. I look at what is being achieved in education, with lifting rates of reading, writing, and maths occurring in our classrooms despite discipline about the number of public servants at the Ministry of Education. It is wrong for the member to equate how many public servants are hired in the back office with what services are delivered for New Zealanders.

Does she agree with the Salvation Army on her Budget’s social housing changes, that it will “mean increased debt, greater stress, and harder choices about how to get through the week in terms of the basics such as food and heating.”?

I acknowledge that rents rising for social-housing tenants will be challenging, but I think it’s important that the Salvation Army and others in this House note that a significant part of the housing reforms announced last week will ensure that 110,000 New Zealand families are better off by $15 a week.

Will her Budget provide relief for Kiwis who, as the KiwiHarvest CEO has said, “are getting to the point where it is around the cost to survive in New Zealand rather than the cost of living. Food is becoming a discretionary item with people’s budgets”?

I acknowledge that the cost of living is a challenge for many New Zealanders, particularly exacerbated by events in the Middle East, which have lifted the price of petrol, with effects throughout the economy. It is also the case that we have very recent history that shows that simply applying band-aids and administering sugar hits is not a way to make New Zealand more affordable in the long term. We saw that approach with the last Government. It saw inflation out of control for 33 months in a row, reaching a generational high. It has left deep scars on New Zealanders’ household budgets. Our Government’s approach is to be responsible and to ensure that we’re driving affordability, with lasting reform, whether that’s to our housing system, our electricity system, capping rates, ensuring that more jobs can be created, and yes, doing that by signing free-trade agreements with India, which will ensure more kiwis can be exported.

Will her Budget ease the pressure on families, when as the New Zealand Food Network has said, “Every day, our hubs see hard-working people who never thought they’d need support, double income families who can’t keep up with costs, and everyone in between.”?

Yes, I can assure this House that our Budget will forecast more jobs and income opportunities for Kiwis to get ahead in the years ahead, and I want to acknowledge the role that food distribution entities take.

14:31 · to the Prime Minister

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

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

Yes.

Has he requested any advice or assurances that his Government’s $200 million subsidy for new oil and gas exploration is or is not in breach of our free-trade agreements?

In answer to the first leg of the question, I reject the characterisation of that part.

Is the Prime Minister’s response to concerns that have been raised over the past year by independent King’s Counsel advice, and Lawyers for Climate Action just this week, that the Government’s climate policy changes risk our country breaching free-trade agreements, “Just trust me, bro”? [Interruption]

Sorry, even I didn’t understand the question there.

Is the Prime Minister’s response to concerns that have been raised by independent King’s Counsel and by Lawyers for Climate Action that his Government’s climate policy risks breaching our free-trade agreements, “Just trust me, bro”?

I’m confident we’re meeting our obligations, but I’m a bit confused by that question. I couldn’t hear it over the quacking from the other side.

Quack quack!

Point of order, Mr Speaker.

Chlöe Swarbrick, and no one else.

Point of order, Mr Speaker.

Yep.

I’d like to seek leave of the House to request another supplementary question, given that the Prime Minister couldn’t hear my previous supplementary because of the quacking from his side of the House.

Leave is sought. Is there an objection?

Yes.

Interesting. [Interruption] Supplementary?

We’ll hear the supplementary question in silence, other than the speaker.

Will the Prime Minister—

Away you go, sister.

Seriously? Will the Prime Minister seek any assurances whatsoever, from independent advice or from his own officials, that his Government’s policies are or are not in breach of our free-trade agreements?

I’m confident we’re meeting our obligations.

14:33 · to the Minister of Conservation

What funding from the international visitor levy has the Government committed to protecting New Zealand’s iconic landscapes and native environment from the spread of wilding pines, wilding conifers, and other invasive wilding tree species?

14:34

As part of the $79 million uplift for wilding control the Government announced on Sunday, we’ve committed $30 million of funding from the international visitor levy, the IVL, to wilding control over the next three years. This funding will make a real difference in the fight against wildings. It will boost control efforts in some of our most threatened landscapes, protect native biodiversity and productive land, and help stop vulnerable areas from being overwhelmed by the spread of wildings. This is an addition and buildings on the over $13 million of previous IVL funding over the past three years allocated to wondrous places like Rangitoto Island in the Hauraki Gulf.

Why is controlling wilding pines important for conservation?

Wilding pines crowd out native species, damage fragile habitats, alter water flows, and permanently change open natural environments. This investment will help protect some of our most environmentally significant and special areas for future generations. Shoulder to shoulder with Miles Anderson and Stuart Smith, I’ve borne witness to the degradation of iconic places such as the Mackenzie Basin, Molesworth Station, and Marlborough. Throughout our nation, my colleagues have highlighted the impacts wildings have had on their communities and our communities. With these funds, this Government is saying no more wildings.

What impact will this funding have on local environments and communities?

The funding will support large-scale removal and containment work across priority regions like Queenstown Tāhuna, and the Kaimanawa Ranges that are special to communities but are being devastated by wildings, to be protected and restored to a condition that means we and our tamariki and mokopuna can enjoy these areas for generations to come. This will support landowners whose stewardship of the land has been impacted by wilding, and will be able to ensure their land remains productive for the good of our country.

How does this announcement reflect the Government’s broader environmental policies?

This investment demonstrates the Government’s commitment to pragmatic conservation action that delivers lasting results, and I want to acknowledge Prime Minister Luxon and my Rangitīkei brethren, Minister Andrew Hoggard, for their leadership and unconditional support through the Budget process for this mahi. Protecting native biodiversity, preserving iconic landscapes, and preventing further damage to the conservation estate are critical to ensuring New Zealand’s natural heritage is protected and enhanced for future generations, and endangered species like this robust grasshopper continue to thrive in the Mackenzie country.

14:36 · to the Minister of Housing

Does he stand by his statement, “We want a system that supports people who need help”?

14:37

Yes, I stand by my full statement: “We want a system that supports people who need help, while also backing people to move forward where they can and making sure support is available for others who need it.”

How does he expect a pensioner in social housing to cover the average $31 a week increase in rent when this outstrips the recent annual increase to New Zealand super of $16 a week?

The Government is making changes to the social housing contribution that people make in order to improve the equity of the entire system. There are a variety of people in social housing who could manage a private rental in the private rental market because they earn enough, and therefore, we are trying to make sure that social housing is for those who have genuine and persistent difficulties, like people with disabilities or mental health needs, for example. It is also the reality that there are a variety of people who are in exactly the same situation as somebody else. The only difference is that one family is in social housing and the other family is in the private rental market, and the family or the person in social housing is considerably better off than the person in the same circumstances in the private rental market. The thrust of Government policy is to improve the fairness of that situation for everybody.

How does he expect someone unable to work due to a disability to cover the average $31 a week increase in rents when the recent increase in the disability allowance was only $2.50 a week?

The issue of disabilities is precisely one of the reasons why the Government is making changes to social housing. Very sadly, there are a group of people in New Zealand who are being failed by the social housing system. There are 19,000 families roughly, I think close to 20,000 actually, families or applicants on the social housing register, many of whom have quite significant needs, whether it’s disability or mental health or addiction or they’re victims of family violence, for example.

Well, what are you going to do about it!

At the moment, they’re not in social housing, partly because there are a range of people in social housing who have the income to support themselves in the private rental market. What we’re doing, Mr Jackson, is making changes, which I don’t pretend are easy, but rather than just look the other way and throw money at the problem and pretend everything can improve by money, we are actually making the structurally difficult decisions to improve equity in the social housing system for everybody and back Kiwis to get independent when they can.

How is he supporting those who need help when he is increasing rents for the poorest and most vulnerable people in the country after giving landlords a $2.9 billion tax cut?

Well, the member, very unfortunately, stereotypes everybody in social housing. I encourage the member to actually engage with the analysis that the Government has done. It is definitely true that there are people for whom social housing should be a house for life, actually; who need social housing; and they need the Government to provide a home for them. At the moment, actually, part of the problem is that that doesn’t happen—it doesn’t happen anywhere near well enough. But there are also people who can survive in the private rental market—in fact, 30 percent of people, roughly, who receive social housing assistance, now, earn enough to manage a lower-quartile private rental. What the Government is doing is narrowing the gap between the amount that people earn or pay in social housing, and what is available through the private rental subsidy, which is, essentially, the accommodation supplement, which (a) improves equity, (b) improves the incentive to work, and (c) makes sure we back independence, which is what this Government is all about.

14:41 · to the Minister for Biosecurity

What recent announcements has he made about tackling the spread of wild conifers?

On Sunday, the Government announced an extra $79 million over three years to escalate the fight against wilding pines. This takes the total to $109 million. This additional spending will mean Biosecurity New Zealand can back the crews, contractors, and landowners already doing the hard yards. We will get ahead of the spread instead of chasing it. It also means that we can get in and make a difference on some large infestations on public land. These seed sources are causing a huge headache for neighbouring landowners. Can I thank my colleague Tama Potaka, who, as we’ve just heard, has redirected the international visitor levy to help fund this. That’s this coalition Government: fixing what matters.

Why is controlling wild conifers important?

Wilding pines are a blight on productive farmland in the high country, and on some of New Zealand’s most unique and natural environments. This is an investment in rural productivity, but it’s not just that; wilding pines are also bad for biodiversity and for water supplies in sensitive catchments, and create fuel for wildfires as we saw in the Ōhau fire in 2020, where 48 homes were lost. More than 2 million hectares of New Zealand are affected by wilding pines and, left unchecked, the impact could reach $3.6 billion over 50 years. An independent assessment estimated the cost-benefit ratio at 30:1.

Supplementary.

Hold on, just one person only speaking while a question’s being asked.

How will the Government ensure that the control plan and funding are sustainable in the long term?

Well, getting on top of wilding pines for good will take time. I recognise that funding will need to be secured beyond this three-year horizon. That’s why Biosecurity New Zealand will be adapting the wilding conifer control plan into a national pest management plan. National pest management plans, like the bovine tuberculosis plan, have a good track record of successfully addressing pests over the long term. They can give us secure funding from a range of sources and bring national consistency to a patchwork of regional rules.

How can wilding pines impact river flows?

Well, thirsty wilding pines suck water out of the catchments. According to the Whakatipu Wilding Control Group, dense infestations could cut the flow into rivers by 30 percent to 40 percent, and they threaten four of our six biggest hydro catchments: Tongariro, Waitaki, Clutha, and Manapōuri. When those lakes run low, power prices go up for everyone. Controlling wildings isn’t just about the view; it’s keeping water in the lakes, and pressure off our power bills.

14:44 · to the Minister for the Public Service and Digitising Government

Does he stand by his statement, “This overhaul is about ensuring more resources reach frontline services”?

Yes, in the context in which it was given. The full comment was “This overhaul is about ensuring more resources reach frontline services and fewer are tied up in duplication and administration.” The Government’s fixing the basics in the Public Service, and building the future with better outcomes for New Zealand, and careful management of our spending.

Given that answer, can he rule out disestablishing the roles of customs officers who intercept methamphetamine, fentanyl, and child exploitation material at our border?

Well, we won’t be removing all our customs officers, obviously. The broad point that I would make around the public services is that the more efficient we can be with back-office delivery of functions such as finance and human resources and information technology—all those things—the more efficient we are with that, the more opportunities we have to invest in front-line services where they are required.

Can he rule out disestablishing any of the roles in food safety who keep contaminated meat, infant formula, and other products off our shelves?

My answer to the previous question is equally relevant to that question.

Can he rule out disestablishing the roles of social workers responsible for protecting our vulnerable children; if not, why not?

I'm afraid we’re not making much progress here because the answer to my first supplementary is equally applicable to that one.

Can he at least rule out disestablishing the roles of civil defence and emergency management staff who coordinate the response to natural disasters?

Well, at the risk of repeating myself, the simple purpose of our reforms—and I just remind people who are tuning into this debate up and down the country and listening in on their crystal sets that the Public Service had 47,000 core employees back in 2017 when Bill English and John Key, in the previous National Government, left. It grew to 65,000 in the month after we took office—a very, very significant increase of around 18,000 extra public servants. The reality was that that is not sustainable. It’s one of the reasons why we are borrowing a lot of money as a country and why we’re running a deficit. This Government is trying to return to historical averages in terms of the overall size of the public service, and our focus, of course, is on ensuring that we’re efficient at the back end of the office so that we can free up as much resources as possible to deliver good front-end services.

14:47 · to the Minister of Justice

What action has the Government taken to protect New Zealanders from stalking?

As of today, the Crimes Legislation (Stalking and Harassment) Amendment Act has commenced into law. Stalking is now a criminal offence punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment. For years, this has been raised by many people very concerned with the fear and intimidation that stalkers create. The previous Government had different priorities; this Government has focused on actually delivering. We’re fixing the basics in law and order so as to build a future where New Zealanders feel safe in their communities. [Interruption]

Ask a question. Don’t call out like that.

What does the Crimes Legislation (Stalking and Harassment) Amendment Act do to protect New Zealanders from stalking?

Well, the Act creates a new offence of stalking and harassment, punishable by imprisonment for up to five years, where an offender undertakes a pattern of behaviour which the offender knew was likely to cause the victim fear or distress. The pattern of behaviour is defined as two specified acts within a two-year period. It includes activities such as following, loitering near, obstructing a person, recording or tracking, or other specified acts.

Why did the Government take action to protect New Zealanders from stalking?

Well, because there had been widespread calls for this action, and we are committed to ensuring there are real consequences for crime and that the victims are at the heart of our justice system. It underpins all the work that we’ve done to fix the basics in law and order, and it’s part and parcel with the efforts that we made also to end permanent name suppression for adult sex offenders. There’s also—part and parcel—the effort that we did to restrict the amount of discounts offered in sentencing, because if there are not consequences for crime, the Government and the people of New Zealand are not sending a clear message to the stalkers and to others who cause mayhem on our streets that this country doesn’t tolerate that activity.

14:50 · to the Prime Minister

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

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

Yes.

Why is his Government making 129,000 families an average of $24 poorer per week to subsidise landlords?

No, look, you can ask the question, but the last part is not in the spirit of the Standing Orders, but we’ll let it go. The Prime Minister can deal with it.

In answer, well, we’re not doing that.

How does he square increasing the rents of tens of thousands of public housing tenants by 20 percent with his “laser focus on reducing the cost of living”?

Because people in similar circumstances should receive similar support, whether they are in social housing or private rentals.

What does he say to Palmerston North beneficiary Kathryn Dixon, who said, “I can’t think of another scenario where we say, ‘Here’s a group who are really doing it tough, so let’s make the kind of OK people suffer more.’ ”?

The purpose of the reforms are to make it fairer for people in similar circumstances, as I said to the member in answer to the first question. The second objective is to make sure, where possible, we’re helping people into a pathway of independence, and the third objective is to make sure it’s better targeted so we generally can get housing to those in need.

How does he justify leaving thousands of low-income home-owning families $42 per week on average worse off while his Minister claims $1,000 per week that goes towards a property they own?

No, I’m not going to allow that question.

I’ll repeat it in a way that is hopefully more acceptable to the Speaker.

Well, it’s to the House actually.

To the House. How does he justify leaving thousands of low-income home-owning families $42 per week, on average, worse off?

Because I would put our record in this Government on housing up against the Labour-Greens’ record any day of the week. Housing is more affordable, rents are stable or down, we have taken about 6,000 people off the State social housing wait-list, and, importantly, we’ve dealt with the blight—the real problem that we had in emergency housing. It’s all very well pontificating and asking questions, but show up with some ideas. You had your go, and you failed abysmally. [Interruption]

One voice!

What does he say to public housing tenant Agnes Magele, who was responding to the Minister of Finance’s statements in the media and said, “There’s nothing lucky about choosing between food, power bills, to pay rent, transport or sitting in emergency housing with babies, wondering how they’re going to get through tomorrow.”?

I’ll just say to folk that are sitting on the social housing wait-list, thank God they’ve got a coalition Government that cares about them and does something about it.

That concludes oral questions. We’ll take a short break for those who need to leave the House to do so. I’d ask you to do it quickly and quietly without conversations on the way. Just move with a bit of speed and without the conversations.

14:54

I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe; tēnā koutou e te Whare. Regular people, regular New Zealanders, don’t get to give secret documents and have backroom conversations lobbying the Prime Minister’s Office and officials to then have the law changed in their favour.

What we are debating today is something that I think is worthwhile spelling out the chronology of. In 2019, there was a court case brought by Mike Smith, who is the climate change lead from the Iwi Chairs Forum, against some of the biggest greenhouse gas polluters in the country. Those greenhouse gas polluters argued that the responsibility that they had for those greenhouse gas emissions shouldn’t exist within the common law but should be those that are dealt with under legislation. Mike Smith won the case in the High Court because, as was clearly argued in the court, and as the court found, our legal frameworks currently provided for under parliamentary law are not adequate to deal with all of the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, let alone the question of who pays for the clean-up—an issue that I will get to later.

In March 2024, we now know, as of the news that has broken over the past week, that Fonterra and Z Energy—two of the defendants in that case, who then went on to appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court—met with the Prime Minister’s Office to advise on their concerns around the Smith v Fonterra case. Both Fonterra and Z Energy provided a briefing document—a written document—to the Prime Minister’s Office regarding the case; a document that we now know contains arguments and rationale which are being repeated almost word for word by Ministers and the Prime Minister of this Government.

Then, in March 2025, this information was actually requested by the Environmental Law Initiative through an Official Information Act request—very specific Official Information Act requests—to the Prime Minister’s Office to try and discern whether anything like this had occurred. Those Official Information Act requests ended up coming up blank. It was not declared that these secret backroom meetings or these secret documents, which ended up resulting in a successful law change on behalf of some of our biggest polluters in this country—they were not declared.

Then, a year later, in March 2026, the defendants in the Smith v Fonterra case were ordered to release documents related to their lobbying efforts. It was only then, through a court discovery process, where the polluters, who had been actively lobbying this Government for the law change that they successfully got over the line, themselves gave that evidence before the courts. And then, hey presto, in May of this year—this month—the Government announced that they would be changing the law to benefit those big polluters; to prevent them from being able to be sued, to find liability in tort, from climate damage.

I think it’s actually really important to run through just how egregious this situation is, just how abnormal this situation is, because it is actually really unusual to have a Government deciding to interfere with active legal cases; to effectively depart from the principle against retrospectivity and the rule of law. It has been enacted four times by this Government over just the past 2½ years. Firstly, they did it with the bill that, obviously, was announced this month—the fourth piece of legislation that they have introduced with the intent of cutting off the legal rights of New Zealanders to hold powerful people and companies to account.

Secondly, with the Equal Pay Amendment Act last year: if we all recall, just a week or a few days before the Government’s Budget last year, they announced—surprising everybody, least of all the 300,000 lowest-paid working women in this country—that they would cut off their rights to pay equity. Then there was the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) (Customary Marine Title) Amendment Act 2025, which, of course, was also retrospective with regards to the powers exercised there. And then, with regards to the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Act 2025—

Hang on. The member has asked for the House’s time to debate a very specific topic, as contained within the requirements of the Standing Orders. Please come back to the topic.

Yes, Mr Speaker. The point that I am making here is that this is not happening in isolation. This is a pattern of behaviour by this Government using their powers to cut off the rights of regular, hard-working New Zealanders to hold this Government and their corporate mates to account.

Now, the Prime Minister, as he has tried to do in just the last few days, is attempting to shrug this off as though there’s nothing to see here—this is just business as usual. For anybody who is tuned in watching Parliament TV—those poor dozen souls or so—who may be hearing how aggravated—

Oh, so much hot air—so much hot air.

That’s enough.

—the Government is with the idea that we would debate this issue with transparency, the Prime Minister shrugging this off should worry all of us, because we should not normalise behaviour that is seeing corporate lobbyists engaged in secret lobbying behind the scenes successfully ending up with law changes that benefit those very corporate lobbyists.

I wrote the bill; they never met me—they never met me, and I wrote the bill.

I guess, just to unpack some of the rationale that we’ve also heard from—

That’s the last time I will require the member to be quiet.

As I’ve also heard in the arguments from the Minister of Justice, who’s just resumed his seat, when I actually asked him in the House a week or two ago about whether he, by proxy or directly, had engaged with any of the defendants in this case, any of those major corporate polluters—it’s on the public record; people can go back and watch it or they can look at Hansard themselves. He ummed and ah-ed and said that it was relatively normal for Government Ministers to engage with corporations who had an interest in our economy; but we now have it exposed in the last week that there was that direct engagement through the Prime Minister’s office with those corporate lobbyists who ended up getting the law changed in their favour.

Now, the argument that we have heard from the Government is that this is to be dealt with in Government legislation and in climate change frameworks that the Government puts forward. They’ve said that it’s to be dealt with through the likes of the emissions trading scheme—lest we remind everybody, let alone this Government, that this Government has also been successfully lobbied by corporate powers to completely exclude the dairy and agriculture industry from ever paying under the emissions trading scheme.

We are once again left with the ultimate question of who pays. Who pays when climate change - charged weather events devastate Aotearoa New Zealand? Let me remind this Government that we are currently in May of 2026; in just the five months alone that have passed this year so far, we have had 21 states of emergency—all of those states of emergency and all of that weather far more extreme, far more frequent, and demonstrably as a result of climate change, which the Government is now moving at pace to legislate the active protection of those major polluters from.

The question that that leaves all of us with is: who is this Government really here to serve? They show us every single day as they decide to cut support from the lowest-income New Zealanders instead of making those at the top pay their fair share, those who are profiting handsomely: the gentailers, the supermarkets, the many corporations who they so clearly are here to serve.

Our final call, our call that I would hope actually every member of this Parliament can agree with in the interests of upholding transparency and the integrity of our democracy—some really basic and important things, I would say, for all members of Parliament to believe in—is for every party in this House to agree to an independent, urgent inquiry into exactly what happened and who knew what when. If the Prime Minister wants to shrug this issue off, if he wants to tell us all that he has clean hands, then he has the most vested interest in backing this inquiry—to clean those hands. Otherwise, we are left with allegations of corruption, and those allegations need to be taken seriously. [Interruption] We call on all members of this House, especially the members of this Government who are currently heckling me, to support that independent, urgent inquiry. Let’s get this over and done with. If you’ve got nothing to hide, then let’s put it all out in the open.

Thank you—

Oh, he’s texting Fonterra!

Now, just a minute. That is also completely uncalled for, so we won’t be having any more of that. The Hon Paul Goldsmith—starting again.

15:04

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think the primary claim being made by Chlöe Swarbrick, and in the House, is that there was a briefing from a couple of parties—Fonterra and Z Energy, I think is what she said—to Government officials in early 2024 in relation to a case, and that led to the law change which the Government has announced two years later. I think most people listening in would be sort of puzzled about one thing automatically leading to another, because the Cabinet made a decision in April, I think it was, to progress with legislation to clarify our view that Government, through Parliament, should set the regime for climate change policy and how to respond to it, as we have through the—

You’re not doing that either.

—emissions trading scheme (ETS). The member on the other side can argue and debate about how good we are at doing that, which is a perfectly legitimate question to raise, and that’s something for Parliament to discuss, but for better or worse, we’ve done it. What we didn’t want to see by allowing this case to continue would be the risk of a parallel regime being created by the courts. Why would we be concerned about that? Well, we’d be concerned because then there would be a great deal of uncertainty when it comes to investment.

Now, if I was to step back and sort of say, “Well, why does investment matter?”, we all want to have higher living standards in this country and we want to do well and be prosperous and have money to invest in education and health and all those sorts of things, and so, how do we get economic growth to sustain that? Well, you get economic growth, fundamentally, through investment. Somebody, somewhere decided to—

Sorry, I did interrupt the previous speaker saying, “Come back to the point. The House is giving its time for the discussion of an urgent matter.” You’re getting very wide of what that urgent matter is.

Yes, well—yeah, perhaps you’re right, Mr Speaker. I was just trying to‍—

No, no. There is no “perhaps” about it.

You definitely are right and so I will come to the point more swiftly, which is to say: to get investment one needs to have an element of certainty around the law and what it applies to and what it is. So, fundamentally, what the Cabinet and the Government of the day is trying to achieve is some clarity for the law as regards to climate change going forward: to say that it is what Parliament has set through the ETS regime, not a situation where a business could be compliant under that regime, doing everything that the law requires, and yet still be liable somewhere else for another regime that’s been developed through the courts. That’s what we set out to achieve to do.

Now, the fact that somebody—a party that was involved with that litigation—contacted people in the officials of the Government two years before, I would not think would be a disqualifying matter for actually progressing that legislative change. That would be a very odd thing to do. It is absolutely regrettable that there was no record kept of that meeting from 2024, or the information that was sent through, and, as the Prime Minister has indicated, he’s not happy with that and he’s sent a message to Ministerial Services to reinforce with workers in the building and staff to be more accurate with their record-keeping. I think that’s appropriate and we take that on the chin, and that’s absolutely right—we should have; but I think it’s a huge leap from that to say that this opinion or view or approach somehow means that the Government can’t go about making a rational decision on what I think is a very important public policy matter.

I mean, we hear from a range of voices. Mike Smith, for example, is part of the Iwi Leaders Forum, which the Government has met with on a number of occasions over the last couple of years. I don’t know what exactly has been raised in the room, but he’s been part of the climate change discussion group, and discussions would have been had, and so there’s a wide range of—

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire! We’ve got the smoking gun!

Where there’s—so perhaps we should not have talked to him in any way shape or form, I’m not sure. Conversations have been had in our small little country with all sorts of people, and the views of all parties involved in this litigation are widely, publicly known. We’re aware of that, we’re conscious of that, and we engage with many people—not in some nefarious, secret way that Chlöe Swarbrick refers to; it’s just the nature of doing things in this Government and our small country. Ultimately, what the Government has to be is accountable for its decisions. The decision that we’ve made, and all the papers and Cabinet Papers and the advice that we’ve seen have all been released under the Official Information Act. Papers that I’ve had as Minister of Justice looking at this matter, getting advice over the last two years and then deciding to press ahead with the changes that are being made—all that has been released, people can see it, and people can make a judgment as to whether this is a wise thing to do or not, and they will, no doubt.

Part of what it’s fixing the basics of when it comes to the rule of law and the legal environment that we operate in is being clear about that. Clarity in the law, as a bedrock of investment, is one of the most important things that underpins a successful economy.

Great. Thanks.

OK, well—I think I’ll leave it at that then, Mr Speaker.

15:11

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a serious matter, and it was good to hear the Minister of Justice stating that it’s a serious matter. However, it was somewhat undermined by those on the opposite benches beside him joking about, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”.

Now, the reason that I say that this is a serious matter is because there are a few issues that need to be resolved, and I don’t accept what was proffered by the Minister—that the issue here is that people had conversations with the Minister. That is not the issue. Of course that happens in our democracy. The issue here is that it was not recorded, and the transparent processes that we have associated with the Official Information Act (OIA) have clearly, in this instance, been breached. It has left the Government open to questions about their transparency and their accountability. These are serious matters.

There’s also another serious matter that I want to raise, which is the decision in the first place for the Government to—

Sometimes you can record too many things.

It’s very important for the Government to answer for the fact that they’ve decided to overturn an existing case. We heard earlier, in question time, the Leader of the Opposition try to get some clarity from the Prime Minister. Unfortunately, that wasn’t forthcoming, but I do think there are outstanding questions for him.

The first alarm bell, in this case, is that we have a case in front of the Supreme Court that is ongoing—it’s been ongoing, as previous speakers have said, since 2019—and the Government, prior to the resolution of that case, has decided to step in and legislate the right to take the case away. We heard Chris Bishop say that no court has ever decided that this was the law, and therefore the Government isn’t changing the law. Well, the High Court determined that this should not be struck out and that there was an arguable claim, and they have managed to take this claim all the way to the Supreme Court. Now, if this was just vexatious litigation that had no basis or sound argument in law, it would not reach the Supreme Court, so I think it is incorrect to say that this is not affecting the law in New Zealand. It’s affecting the common law as being able to be stipulated by the Supreme Court, and it is taking away a New Zealand citizen’s right to be able to have that case heard in the Supreme Court.

Now, that in and of itself is unusual and it is alarming, and the facts that follow just add further questions to it, unfortunately. What we’ve seen in this case is we’ve seen—I think, the claimant in this case feels that the Government’s response has been very, very similar to the arguments that corporate New Zealand has put against this case. Now, it’s not surprising that these corporations are against this case, because, of course, it might mean liability for them; it might mean they have to change their operations; it might be costly for them. This is, in fact, criticism directed at the office of the Prime Minister and the way that he has handled this claim. What has happened in relation to the OIA is that, actually—the first instance, as I understand it, was that this OIA was referred to another Minister, the office of the Minister for the Environment. Then and only then was it responded to by the Prime Minister’s Office, and these briefing documents were not included. The briefing documents of course, as we’ve heard from other speakers, stipulated the exact same response to this—which was to essentially legislate away Mr Smith’s claim—as was in the briefing documents. Now, it has taken until May—this very month—for the court to order that these briefing documents be made available. Now, that is an extraordinary thing to happen in a transparent democracy, for us to have to wait for a court to order that something be released that should have properly been released under the Official Information Act.

There are questions for the Prime Minister and his office. He said today that he doesn’t want to name names as to who received that, and I respect the fact that he thinks, as the employer, that he doesn’t want to put the staff member in the firing line. I think the person responsible—and I agree with him in this—is himself: the Prime Minister. But we do need to know whether this was this a ministerial staffer or was this a public servant, because different codes of conduct apply. Whether it was a ministerial staffer or a public servant—that fact should be made clear. We want to know who else in his office knew that this information existed. Did public servants know? Was it only ministerial staffers?

I also should note before I finish that this did not happen once. This happened to two meetings and two briefing documents, and so there are serious problems in the Prime Minister’s office that need to be answered.

15:16

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I wanted to take a call in this urgent debate because I agree with one thing the Opposition have said: it is potentially important. We don’t want to live in a society where people get special access to power in clandestine ways or pay for policy. That happens in some countries. I’m proud to say I don’t believe it does happen in New Zealand, and it’s worth preserving that.

I think, really, there are three questions that have been raised by the Opposition: what should the law be, who should make the law, and how is the law made? As far as the question of what the law on climate change should be, I think the Opposition actually agrees. They passed the emissions trading scheme. They passed the zero carbon Act. It was those parties that put these laws in place. If they felt those laws were inadequate and that individuals should be able to take court cases against companies for polluting, they could have actually made laws like that when they had the chance. Actually, I think the whole of Parliament, if we really think about, agrees that the right way to make climate law—

The case was taken against the Labour Government.

—is to have an emissions trading scheme where you have a cap and trade, and if you emit, you pay, and if you absorb carbon, such as by planting a forest, you are able to be paid under that cap and trade. That’s an orthodox policy for dealing with environmental problems around the world, and it has gone a bit further than the ACT Party would like, but that is what the law should be and all parties have actually supported it, and this gentleman over here from the Green Party, Steve Abel, has helpfully said the case was taken against the Labour Government. Well, he’s absolutely right, and that’s the point. What the law should be is settled across the Parliament, and it’s one individual who wants a totally different law.

That brings me to the second question of who should make the law. I’m going to quote the Labour Party constitution, or thereabouts, because there’s a principle in it that I really like, which is that all political power should be exercised by those who are subject to regular, free, and fair elections with a secret ballot. I like that value; it’s probably the only Labour Party value I do like. But it is important that the laws are made here in Parliament, democratically and openly, by people who can be voted out if the people don’t like what we do. I’m not suggesting to the public that that’s a good idea this year, but that is the underlying principle, which is that Parliament makes the law, not some court deciding that they can start inventing novel concepts.

It’s worth noting that most of the courts that have had this before them—the High Court and the Court of Appeal—have said they shouldn’t be inventing these novel concepts, and that they shouldn’t be adding new ways to deal with climate change by legislating from the bench. It’s only slipped through in one exception, and so I think that it’s right that the policy should be as it stands, and it’s right that Parliament—not the courts—should make it.

Now, that brings me to the question of who should make the law, and the allegation is that there is some sort of clandestine idea behind the scenes that is influencing the Government. I can tell members of this House that I happen to be the Deputy Prime Minister, and I hadn’t heard anything about any of this until it came up in the media. I came to the conclusion about what the law should be and who should make the law by something called reading and thinking and reasoning about what the policies of New Zealand should be so that you don’t actually require these clandestine processes to get to the conclusion that I got to; you’ve just got to believe in good, orthodox economic policy, like a cap and trade, and parliamentary democracy, which you can find in the Labour Party constitution.

That brings me finally to this question of the Official Information Act and the recordings—I think it came out in Camilla Belich’s speech. The main thing that she’s concerned about is that they didn’t record that a piece of paper, that hasn’t actually influenced most of us, got somewhere somehow. That’s all she wants—better recording. The Labour Party knows this because they record everything. If you’ve heard some of their rehearsals, sometimes they record a little bit too much, such as recording how to answer duck-horse questions. If it’s simply an argument about recording, the Prime Minister’s already said there should be more recording.

But what I find most interesting is the mover of this debate, Chlöe Swarbrick, the climate change warrior who says we should all emit less and who says that there’s some shadowy corruption going on that is influencing politicians’ policy; and yet it’s the exact same member who flew business class to London—the most you can possibly emit, flying on a plane—and paid for by corporate lobbyists when she did it. Oh, the irony! I wish—I wish—more people could appreciate just how ironic that is and just who she really is. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

15:21

Thank you. I take a stand to bring to rise what this kōrero, I understand, is really about. I’d like to, first of all, remind those that are listening that this is about a critical piece of legislation that affects our taiao. We are a nation that has been experiencing huge amounts of environmental, climate, and weather changes. What we have is someone—Mike Smith—who stood for the national Iwi Chairs Forum in 2019 and won his case. Now, the national Iwi Chairs Forum matters just as much as the Z Energies, the Fonterras, and all those others who are lobbying the Government. We know that those relationships happen. There’s nothing wrong with those types of relationships, but what we have here is a question of transparency.

On the question of transparency, we’re being asked to believe, all of a sudden, that the Prime Minister has staffers—we’re not sure if they are ministerial staff or his own staff—who have lost a piece of information that belonged to a court case, and we only found out about it because of a court case. Now, this is really unusual, and even trying to get the questions from the Prime Minister today and not being able to get answers is really concerning, because this is somewhere where we should be able to be extraordinarily transparent when we’re talking about the future of our mokopuna’s environment. We have been asked to believe—and this is the real hard part; and we’re hearing that even this Government’s voters are contacting us, really concerned, because they are being asked to believe that a document was lost; a document not just from Debbie down the road but a document from Z Energy and Fonterra. Now, these aren’t small people; these are major organisations, corporates, that belong here in Aotearoa. We’ve been asked, in the first instance—ordinary New Zealanders have been asked—to believe that that paper was lost. Then, we’re saying, “Well, how come you don’t lose any other papers that are affecting us? Why is it that every other piece of paper that comes across—however it does—has been found, and it comes through the Official Information Act (OIA)?

This then leads us to the question: should we be concerned about the OIA process? When we start to wriggle and create a lack of transparency in these sorts of things and are being asked to take a leap of faith and believe in the Prime Minister that this was just coincidentally lost, that’s a big ask for all New Zealanders—even for his own voters who are making comments. The transparency of this doesn’t sit well. Then, we’re being asked to believe that the two sentences that were changed around—and that we also heard copied and coming out of Minister’s mouths—is a coincidence. Coincidentally, a piece of major information, a briefing document, was lost—from not just anybody; from two major corporations—and then we’re being asked to believe that the changes that happened were, coincidentally, just part of another Cabinet discussion. See the maths—one plus one. We’re just being asked to believe and take, again, a leap of faith. Then we’re being asked to say to ourselves here, “OK. This was lost.”—maybe—“This is being changed to materially almost reflect word for word what those two major companies were lobbying for.” Then we have to say to ourselves, “Who benefits? Who is benefiting from this change, from this lost document, from this lack of transparency, and from the two sentences? Who benefits?”

That’s where it really comes down to the purpose of this debate—those who benefit are two major corporations, two major polluters, one in oil and minerals and one in dairy. We’re being asked for all of those submitters that are around here and constantly, constantly in battle with them—as was represented by Mike Smith—to believe, and that’s really what it comes down to. We’ve been asked to believe that a document was lost. We’ve been asked to believe that the material changes just happened to reflect what those lobbyists or what those corporations were lobbying for, and then we’re being asked to believe that may be the case, that they are benefiting but that it was already on the Government’s radar. That doesn’t sit well with us, and it’s not sitting well with this Government’s voters as well. Government has to show that it is in there for everyone, that it is governing for everyone, that it is above reproach, that you are transparent, and that you’re doing everything possible to show that transparency. When things like this go out, it creates mistrust of the highest form. There should be an inquiry into this, but if not for anyone, for the Government’s own sake. Kia ora rā.

15:26

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I see three themes running through this debate this afternoon, three issues that have been discussed off and on by various speakers. One is that a right has been removed, and it’s been removed because businesses need certainty. The second is around what exactly happened to the information that was handed over to the PMO, to the Prime Minister’s Office. A third is the claim that, when it comes to legislating, in actual fact, it’s up to the State to create frameworks and not up to common law. I want to just work through each of those in turn, as the themes that have been raised by various speakers in this debate today.

First of all, we know that this Government has decided and has announced that it is going to remove the right, or remove the capacity, for a person to sue under tort law—I think it’s under tort law—around climate change. You cannot claim injury through climate change. The Government announced that about a week ago now—maybe 10 days or so ago. Since then, it has come to light that people have lobbied around it. But let’s just go back to that first issue. The Government is justifying removing that right to sue under tort because it says that businesses need certainty in which to operate. The Minister of Justice further added that businesses need certainty because, in an uncertain state, they cannot justify investment, and so the economy is at risk and so on. This we see as a problem in itself—that the Government has announced that it is going to remove the right to sue while there is a court case under way. The Government could have acted and said it was going to remove future rights but not this particular right. It’s actually a particularly important case because this sort of case is being tried around the world to try to understand where liability for climate change might lie, so it’s a real shame that this Government is not allowing our highly respected courts to proceed with this very difficult discussion. If the Government didn’t like the outcome, they could have legislated afterwards. There are other possibilities. It’s a real shame that this case will not be allowed to proceed. Why? Because businesses need certainty, which—

Hang on. We’re not debating that. The House has set aside time to discuss the issue of the missing document.

Indeed, and I will move on to that right now, Mr Speaker.

In terms of whether a document has gone missing or whether a missing document—this document is highly unusual. It was handed over on two separate occasions, we have found out, in two separate meetings, we think, with the Prime Minister’s office, and it was handed over in hard copy. Now, who uses hard copy these days? Stuff tends to be handed over electronically. There’s usually a record of it. It’s actually very unusual to hand a document over just in hard copy. Now, that seems a bit odd in the first place. Why not create the electronic record?

Certainly not in my world, but anyway, carry on.

But then we are being asked to believe that somehow this document, that was handed over from two quite important entities, was somehow just not recorded—it was lost. I mean, really? What else are we expected to believe? There is something very odd that has gone on here, so we do need some answers on that.

But the third claim that was made in this debate by the Deputy Prime Minister was that it is up to the State to legislate. Now, let’s be quite clear about that. We actually have a long tradition of law arising from two sources. One is from legislated law, the other is from common law or case law. It is often common law—case law—where these difficult cases are sorted through, where they are tried out, and where people try to come to some conclusion. This Government, by acting on those memos which have been conveniently lost, is actually refusing to allow that process to continue. It’s refusing to allow the discussion to continue, and that is a real shame.

15:31

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Democracy is, in truth, a very fragile institution. It lives or dies on the basis of trust, and, really, transparency is the mechanism through which that trust can thrive or that it doesn’t. The problem we have now is that, regardless of why we’re in this situation—whether it was an active breach of the Official Information Act (OIA) or it was a mistake—it does impact trust, and the public will be asking questions about what has happened here. Government members have given the public a series of dots, and they will be looking to connect those dots. That is simply what is going to happen in the public space, so I just want to talk back through those dots.

The first one Minister Goldsmith spoke to, and he talked about the Government’s active consideration of this very issue in Cabinet, so looking at overriding the legislative decisions in lower courts and intervening with primary legislation. This was in front of Cabinet. It was a live issue. It’s also a very significant issue. In terms of what comes in front of the Government to change, legislating to obstruct future litigation is huge. It is akin to a movie plot in many ways.

The second thing we know is that, on two separate occasions, two extremely large companies supplied written briefs to the Prime Minister’s office. Just a fact. It’s a dot. We know that.

The third, the Prime Minister answered for us this afternoon. He said that there are no records kept of either of those interactions and no one in his office recalls those documents or whether meetings occurred.

The exercise the public will now be engaging in in terms of connecting those dots are asking questions about what is tenable. Is it tenable to suggest that no one knew about the existence of those two—I would call them important—documents? Because the context is that this was a big issue in front of Cabinet at the time. Is it tenable to suggest that no one else knew? The second question: is it tenable to suggest that those companies didn’t seek a meeting with anyone in the office? Again, I won’t answer that question. These are questions that the public will be asking. The third is: is it tenable that major company’s lobbying in terms of this space, if they were read, was not taken into account when the Government made a decision to bring in this legislation?

The impact of this is huge. The impact of this, regardless of what actually happened, is big, and I do wish that Government members would recognise the importance of compliance with the Official Information Act and not just wave it off as a mistake, because mistakes, if that’s what it was, also matter. Geoffrey Palmer wrote an article in Newsroom recently titled “Open government requires transparency”, and it began with the words, “Within the modern workings of New Zealand’s constitutional framework there are few statutes more important than the Official Information Act.”

If we look at the Act itself, its purpose is to progressively increase the availability of official information to the people of New Zealand. It was put in there as the first of what was intended to be many building blocks, not for a Government to offhandedly dismiss the fact that it has been breached, whether a mistake or otherwise. I also worry that what we’re hearing, in terms of the flippant way in which Government members are handling the Official Information Act, is a signal—is a signal—and it’s potentially a signal to the New Zealand public that this is a Government who want to change the Official Information Act.

Now, we know the Minister of Justice has asked officials to examine the costs associated with the OIA request.

How is this relevant?

This is a fact. This is a fact. And he notes that he wants to know what revisions could be made to make the Act more efficient and practical. Now, this suggests, in my view, that the Government may be looking at limiting the information that’s available to the media, the information that’s available to the public. These are not things I am making up. These are dots that you are giving—sorry, Madam Speaker, that the Government is giving to the public. They should not be surprised if the public begin to join those dots.

15:36

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to take a call on this important debate. Regarding the documents that were lost by officials representing the Prime Minister—

Point of order. Madam Speaker, I believe that the Green Party don’t have another call in this urgent debate.

I’ve sought advice on that, and I took advice from Mr Speaker before he left the House that if the call is available and a party chooses not to take it, that Mr Abel is entitled to take his call. Speeches can be transferred in this case.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is extremely important for there to be no doubt in the public’s mind that our democracy is truly transparent and that it truly works in the interests of the public. What is more, it is similarly important for our national reputation that we are truly a transparent and open democracy.

Where we are dealing with a company—the biggest company in New Zealand, Fonterra—making direct bids to the highest office in this country for actions to be taken legislatively that cut down citizens’ rights to recourse through the courts, then it is certainly a matter of significant national interest. Because are we expected to seriously believe that no official working in the office of the Prime Minister, or working for any senior Minister in this country, was not aware of the significance of a document handed to them by Fonterra and Z Energy in regard to requests to specifically take action to stop the course of a court case that was a threat, as they saw it, to their businesses?

I echo the point of my colleagues from the Labour Party, both Vanushi Walters and Deborah Russell. Since when do we deal in documents only, but not in electronic exchanges of documents? It is absolutely no accident that Fonterra’s lobbying effort was presented in physical form so that it would not be on the public record. That is what I put to the House, and it is not tenable or credible for the Prime Minister’s office to have no record and no recollection and no recall of a correspondence from the biggest company in this country regarding a matter that they are concerned about, so much so that they will only print it on a piece of paper and hand it to an official. The public deserves to be disabused of the perception, as my colleague Chlöe Swarbrick put it, of the “allegation of corruption”. That is a serious allegation, because we all value the idea that we have a reputation internationally, and the public should have a faith locally, that this is a transparent and a true democracy where information is freely available to the public, should they wish to criticise determinations made by any Government.

It is notable, the matter which the biggest company in this country were lobbying on; because it is a matter involving the recourse of a citizen, as part of their democratic rights, to the courts, where they perceive that subsequent Governments have failed to act sufficiently to protect them from harm. That is the exact nature of the Mike Smith case; it is where he perceived that the Climate Change Response Act, that the emissions trading scheme, were not sufficiently dealing with the harms that were being caused to his whānau, his hapū, and his iwi by climate change. He sought recourse to the courts, and the Supreme Court deliberated at length whether he had a right under tort law to take those companies for negligence, and the fact that their pollution was impacting him and his family. The Supreme Court agreed there was a case to be heard.

Now, no one questions that the executive have the final word, but the principle is that a case should be allowed to run its course through the courts, and if the Government doesn’t agree with it, they hold the final pen to then change the law to correct a decision that they perceive the court has made that’s incorrect. But to shut down that court process is anti-democratic in itself, and it is a denial of citizen rights. The fact that Fonterra are lobbying the Government to do that against its own citizens is a scandal.

15:42

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is an extraordinary day that we have when a corporate lobbyist is more transparent than the Prime Minister of New Zealand; and it is of real concern that the best answer that the Prime Minister of New Zealand can give about what’s going on in his own office is, “I have no recollection”, which is what we have heard from him.

Transparency is one of the pillars upon which our democracy is built. The idea that we have lobby groups, major corporates, and their Government relations arms coming to Parliament—and there’s nothing wrong with that; that’s part of our democratic process—but that they hand a document to the Prime Minister’s office, and it’s disappeared? This isn’t Hogwarts; things don’t disappear. We want to know where that document is now, and if it has been shredded, say so and tell us why. But, at the moment, all we’ve got is, “I have no recollection”.

Now, I accept that we don’t want to pin this on some staff member who’s doing their job, because responsibility does go to the lead Minister in that office, which is the Prime Minister, who needs to answer some questions; not to duck and say, “Oh, it would be good if my staffers better understood their obligations”, because that document’s still there. We need to know what exactly happened. There will be an Outlook calendar with a meeting date in it. We want to know that meeting date. If this Government was up front about this, that would be all out in the open right now. But this is not a Government that’s up front; it’s the opposite, and this isn’t the first time there’s been a mysterious document that’s cropped up and ended up as Government policy. If that’s the kind of Government we’ve got, it’s a Government which does not help us when our rankings as a good democracy are slipping. This is exactly the kind of thing which undermines the faith and trust in this House and this Government. It’s shocking, and it shouldn’t be allowed to continue.

Look, we know that ministerial officers have an obligation to keep good records. In fact, even under something as anodyne as the Archives Act, you’re not allowed, and it’s improper, to take a document and dispose of it and say, “I don’t know where it went”. That is a ministerial record that needs to be stored for the very purpose that it can then be examined. The fact that this document, which contains a draft clause to change legislation to extinguish a claim in court against those parties—

It’s outrageous.

—is absolutely outrageous. You’re right.

It’s been called “corruption”.

It’s been called all kinds of things, and there are only so many explanations for them. One of them is incompetence, one of them is a lack of transparency, and the other ones don’t bear mentioning in this House. It’s good to hear that the Ombudsman has now opened an inquiry into this case. I hope the Ombudsman looks deep and hard and asks those difficult questions. The Ombudsman, of course, will be able to go to the staff in the Prime Minister’s Office and find out what actually happened.

But it just does not compute that there is an important document that results—or that a Government announcement mirrors, and all of a sudden, “We have no recollection of it. It’s disappeared. I don’t recall any meetings.” This is an important part of policy, and to say that this has suddenly disappeared is not credible. This is a Government which lacks transparency, which needs to be up front with New Zealand, and if it’s going to go into the election this year with this kind of obfuscation, it’s a deeply concerning proposition for the people of New Zealand.

15:47

Thanks, Madam Speaker. We know—as a Government, as Ministers, as MPs—that there is a lot of engagement with all walks of society. That seems to be being seen as an evil by the Opposition in this debate. Obviously, engaging with major businesses—and Fonterra and Z Energy are major businesses, by anybody’s standards; they’re major employers; they are major generators of export revenue; they are really, really important. Why would a Government not engage with them? I don’t think there’s any great issue in that. We don’t know what was in the documents. We’ve already heard from the Deputy Prime Minister that he didn’t know what was in those documents because he wasn’t party to those; we’ve heard from Joseph Mooney, who has written a bill dealing with this particular issue, that he didn’t know either; so the allegations which seem to go to that there was something dodgy going on certainly, I think, are unwarranted.

I just thought it might be worth us thinking about what sort of engagement might have gone on, and if there was some engagement, they might just be saying, “Oh, they were concerned about the litigation which is going on”—that would not be rocket science to work that out—“and what can they do to try and make sure that this doesn’t continue.” Because otherwise, effectively, what we could have is that every single one of us contributes—whether individuals or businesses—in some way to emissions, and that means anybody could be sued by somebody for this. That is the sort of concern you can imagine that they would be articulating.

Just to finish off, I do recall that those of us who were new in terms of the relationship with the court, and those of us who were new MPs this time—and I understand this was a new thing—were invited to go down to the Supreme Court. We heard from the heads of every single layer—Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Court, and District Courts—we heard from every single one of them, and we heard very, very clearly that if we, the Parliament, do not like what it is that they have done in terms of a decision, that it is Parliament’s right to be able to correct the law to make sure that that decision is corrected.

Correct the law after the case. Not shut down the case.

That is exactly what is being suggested. That is exactly—that’s a slightly more efficient approach, but the Greens don’t know what efficiency is. That’s what they told us and that is what I think this is in line with. I will end my contribution there. Thank you.

The time for this debate has expired.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

15:49

I move, That the sitting of the House today be extended into the morning of 27 May 2026 to consider the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill, committee of the whole House stage; Building and Construction Sector (Self-certification by Plumbers and Drainlayers) Amendment Bill, committee of the whole House stage; Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill, committee of the whole House stage; Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill, committee of the whole House stage; Public Service Amendment Bill, third reading; and the Environment (Disestablishment of Ministry for the Environment) Amendment Bill, third reading.

15:50

I move, That the House approve the issue by the Minister for Regulation under section 7 of the Regulatory Standards Act 2025 of the Regulatory Standards (Excluded Legislation) Notice 2026 presented as parliamentary paper G.77 on 20 April.

This notice excludes classes of legislation from the requirements set out in the Regulatory Standards Act 2025. Classes of legislation are excluded for reasons such as, but not limited to, practicality or appropriateness. The Regulations Review Committee has considered the notice and recommended that the House approve it. I would like to thank the committee for that consideration.

The Regulatory Standards Act establishes a benchmark for responsible regulation through a set of regulatory principles based on good lawmaking. The Act aims to reduce the amount of unnecessary and poor-quality regulation by increasing transparency and making it clearer where legislation does not meet those standards. It intends to bring the same discipline to regulatory management that New Zealand has had for a long time in fiscal management under the public sector Act. It supports accountability of the executive to Parliament for developing high-quality legislation and exercising stewardship over regulatory systems. It also strengthens Parliament’s scrutiny of legislation by setting out principles for responsible regulation and setting legislative requirements for agencies and/or responsible Ministers to identify and transparently report on inconsistencies in most new and existing legislation, and the reasons for those inconsistencies. It establishes an accountability mechanism in the Regulatory Standards Board and it supports the Ministry for Regulation’s oversight role. It was enacted on 18 November last year. It comes into force on 1 July.

I think that is a very important change in the way that we govern in New Zealand. If a law or regulation is going to impact on a person’s rights or property, then we should ensure that it is as clear and transparent as possible to the people what those impacts are, because by reducing the costs that voters face and monitoring the activities of politicians in Government, it is far easier for a democracy to function and for voters to identify who is making laws that affect them and how. That is exactly the kind of pro-democracy, pro - property right, and pro-prosperity legislation that I am so proud that this Government has brought to this House, that this House has enacted last year, and that will become the law of the land from 1 July. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

15:53

Never to go untested—David Seymour’s version of whether this is pro-democracy or not. But it is a pleasure to rise and give a call as the chair of the Regulations Review Committee, which has carefully considered this order and has recommended by consensus, as is the tradition of the committee, to recommend it. I want to first start by thanking the Minister for Regulation for making his officials available for that consideration, which was tightly managed by the Regulations Review Committee.

The notice excludes large categories of legislation, as well as named pieces of legislation. In our report to the House, we assure the House that we have considered each piece of legislation and that there is nothing unusual about which pieces of legislation have been excluded, as well as the classes. In practical terms, though, when we zoom out and consider what is being proposed here, the Minister for Regulation is deciding which kinds of laws and regulations will not need to go through the new responsible regulation consistency framework created by the Act.

Labour supports this because exclusions from that regime are good, and this is a notice which excludes pieces of legislation from that. They’re broad. They include things like the emergency powers that are important in many pieces of legislation. Those are not technical. Emergency powers for Parliament are closely scrutinised by the public after they are used, and it’s important that a different sort of scrutiny regime applies to those. That sort of scrutiny regime, like Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Act orders, remains untouched by this.

Trade agreements are also excluded by this. They are a special type of legislation which is scrutinised in a different way, and that is also untouched. There are also other things like constitutional matters, legislation involving iwi and hapū agreements, Reserve Bank exemptions, Commerce Commission exemptions, tax and social security instruments, and other administration-of-Government sorts of regulations which are excluded and are included in the notice that the Minister has given.

It’s important that we understand what we are debating here. The Minister is asking Parliament to agree with his officials’ view of what sort of regulation should be within the realm of the Public Service to decide whether it is appropriate for New Zealanders to not have the sort of oversight that he has provided, and a special sort of category of legislation will then be subject to the new regime.

The key issue for us, as the Regulations Review Committee, was not whether every exclusion was individually unreasonable, but it was an issue of institutional clarity. The alternative to the regime that is being proposed, and now enacted, by the Minister for Regulation is not no scrutiny. The alternative is scrutiny by different mechanisms of Parliament. Whether Parliament should remain in control of whether regulations are enacted in a way which is fair and reasonable for ordinary New Zealanders is something that I believe in, and the mechanism for Parliament to do that is the Regulations Review Committee. Parliament has that scrutiny system for delegated legislation through the Standing Orders and through the work of that committee under Standing Order 326.

In December 2025, that committee reported to the House and then made a submission to the Standing Orders review about the risk of overlap between Parliament’s scrutiny role and the new, executive-created regulatory oversight mechanisms. The committee’s position was this: that parliamentary scrutiny of secondary legislation belongs to the House and its committees, not to executive-created bodies. The difference is that in the ideology proposed by the Minister, he would have a certain set of regulations which were always going to be administered—and complaints administered, as well—by a part of the Public Service.

That is not what we have now. We have accountable members. We have people you can stop in the street. We have people who you can book a meeting with at their electorate office, or go along to their Friday electorate clinic, who are responsible for the function of delegated legislation. It doesn’t always work perfectly, but you can bring a complaint about regulations which affect you. If you are a nurse and you are charged more in any given year by your professional regulatory body, you can bring a complaint. If you are a plumber and the rules don’t make sense about what kind of work you can do and what kind of work you can quickly do under self-certification, you can bring a complaint. That is the way that the system has worked, and that is a system which I will defend.

The committee also warned in that report that any future executive body with an advisory or oversight role could unintentionally dilute or overlap Parliament’s existing scrutiny responsibilities. This is the first time a framework has been proposed in this House where some legislation and categories of legislation are excluded from the broad oversight of the Regulations Review Committee. That is not actually, in my view, the legal case. The Minister can’t exclude provisions from the oversight of the Regulations Review Committee, but now we have a group of legislation and regulations which have both of these pathways available for oversight—both the Ministry for Regulation and the Regulations Review Committee. This creates a problem in our system and it is yet to be tested.

The Ministry for Regulation is also said to be developing guidance and administering the framework, shaping the exclusions, and helping to define the practical scope of the Act. At the same time, we have our own jurisprudence, as the House, through the work of the Regulations Review Committee, which has developed these principles since the early 1980s. Those standards will not be Parliament’s standards if the Ministry for Regulation develops it on their own. They might have some deference to the Regulations Review Committee or they might have deference to the Legislative Design and Advisory Committee, but they might not. That is not hard-wired into the legislation and that is not the intention of the Minister. We hope—we only hope—at a parliamentary level, that is the case. That is the committee’s concern, in a nutshell, that this concerns the right amount of executive oversight, the sort of administration that we have created by doing it in this way, and parliamentary scrutiny not being clear enough around whose job is what with legislation which is not included in these exclusion orders.

I also want to speak about what this means for ordinary New Zealanders. They’ll never read the exclusion notice that we’re debating now, but the rules that we are talking about—the secondary, delegated legislation—will impact on how benefits are set; how social housing is administered; how financial markets operate; who’s in, who’s out for exclusions. They’ll impact on health workers, how they can get registered, what they pay; for teachers administering their powers under the education Act; it will impact on tax administration.

Everything that New Zealanders do that has some touch of the State is usually impacted by secondary legislation, but there is a clear mechanism where most New Zealanders understand that they can bring a complaint to their local MP. They might not hit the right MP—the right MP is me—but it will eventually make its way to a committee where people that they elect are empowered to do something about that concern. That is an important function of our Parliament. It hasn’t always been used; it should be used more. A Minister who is passionate about improving regulation in this country and giving New Zealanders a sense of democratic control over it should be the Parliament’s biggest advocate for that committee.

I also want to make the point that in reference to the Minister’s decision making and the Cabinet papers around this: they point to the policy intention to have a broad-based Regulatory Standards Act system, and that model creates this compliance process across Government that is not necessarily going to be as effective. In the situation where you have a deep and lateral complaints process, where a member of the public can bring a complaint about regulation to the Regulations Review Committee, not every issue will be covered but that particular issue will be delved into deeply by some of the most talented regulatory counsel that we have in this country, through Parliament’s processes. That is a deep power that means there is a very high standard for public services to always maintain.

When we move to this system, which is essentially an exercise where the Ministry for Regulation will set a sort of framework or a piece of paper which public servants have to fill in to ensure that they have met the requirements, that is not the high standard that is currently required by the complaints process. The broad coverage actually makes it less efficient and less clear when public servants have to meet these guidelines, and it isn’t the most effective or cost-effective way—and this was acknowledged in the Cabinet paper—to ensure there is regulatory scrutiny across all of the departments which make this kind of secondary legislation. I could go on; I am passionate about this—

You could, but you’ve got 15 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I seek leave for another two minutes.

Not granted.

I’m sorry, but this is important. We commend it to the House with those reservations.

16:03

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I also rise on behalf of the Green Party to support this particular notice of motion. Like the previous speaker, Arena Williams—also, who is a fantastic chair of the Regulations Review Committee—has said, the reason that the Greens are supporting this as well is we feel like the more bills that are being excluded from having to be involved with the Regulatory Standards Act, the better it is. But there are also obviously sensible reasons for that as well. Before we do that, I think it’s really important to understand the context of the notice of motion that is being presented in the House today.

Now, as we know that notice of motion was specifically being brought by the House under Standing Order 330, which is around affirmative resolution procedure. But it’s also important to note that this is a particular part of Standing Orders that doesn’t normally gain a lot of attention of the House. Indeed, in this term, there’s only—when we’re looking at that particular section of the Standing Orders, between Standing Orders 325A to about Standing Order 331, I believe, that we’re only looking at a few instances where—particularly 329 to 331 and 332—have been triggered. Last year, for example, Standing Order 329 was triggered as a potentially—particularly when it comes to disallowance of secondary legislation, and that was around the tikanga Māori that also triggered a particular debate in this House.

I think when it comes to the examination of secondary legislation, it is really important that we do have those kinds of checks and balances in place by this Parliament, and particularly by the Regulations Review Committee, to be able to hold the executive and also the Government accountable. I think that’s an important aspect when we’re looking at the separation of power between the executive, the judiciary, and also the legislature. As we have heard today already, there has already been blurred lines and certain overstepping of the executive into the judiciary but also into the legislature in the form of the Regulatory Standards Act.

This is where we had the initial issue and, again, something like this being brought to the House with this particular notice of motion is that blurred line; less so between primary and secondary legislation but more to do with how secondary legislation is scrutinised here in Parliament and also potentially by the Regulatory Standards Board.

Now, as the previous speaker mentioned, this is something that we try to grapple with as part of the consideration for the bill itself when it’s going through the House: who then is responsible for secondary legislation because, understandably, as a democratically elected House of Representatives and as a committee of this particular House, as well as empowerment through the Legislation Act, for example—I saw Standing Order 326—the Regulations Review Committee does already have the power. When we’re looking at the Regulatory Standards Board adding another level of bureaucracy on top of that, it is a lot of extra red tape when we’re looking at duplicating of roles and functions between the Regulatory Standards Board and also the Regulatory Review Committee.

Ostensibly, when we’re looking at the Regulatory Review Committee, like I said, it is a committee of this House and there are representatives in some ways equally between different political parties in this House whereas, as we all know, with the Regulatory Standards Board, they sit squarely under the ministerial guidance of a particular Minister, which takes anything—anything that you get with that takes away the independence.

When we’re looking at some of the additional Standing Orders requirements as well—and I already mentioned some of the Standing Orders that are empowering or have empowered the particular consideration of this bill with regards to Standing Order 330—but also like I mentioned when we are looking at the ability for the Regulatory Review Committee to consider secondary legislation but also uphold any complaints around secondary legislation, we can already be able to do that under Standing Order 327, which lists the number of grounds that people are able to make those complaints. Complaints can range from anything from fees and levies to the way that particular secondary legislation could have been drafted that’s unexpected or unusual use of regulation-making power, as in power through our primary legislation. Indeed, as we see, probably the most recent example that’s been publicised or is immediate is around the curriculum review, which is again a secondary piece of legislation under the Education and Training Act, section 90.

It is really important that the Regulations Review Committee maintains the ability to scrutinise secondary legislation but also be able to look into the regulations that, for example, have been exempted by this particular order or by this particular notice. When it comes to this particular notice, I think there are a few interesting observations that deserve some highlighting. As the previous speaker Arena Williams has already mentioned, when this was brought to the House, under Standing Order 330—under the affirmative resolution procedure—it must be sent to an appropriate select committee, in which case it was the Regulations Review Committee. The Regulations Review Committee have 28 days to be able to report to the House. This is different—when I mentioned in terms of disallowances, under Standing Order 329, which is actually only 10 days.

So 28 days does allow the committee to have some sort of idea, and with that, I do want to thank the Minister for Regulation and the office for being prompt with the responses and being at least transparent with the document that has been provided. I think that is an important part, for the Regulations Review Committee to consider this particular notice fully.

However, one of the things that we did look at as part of the Regulations Review Committee, noting that under other parts of section 7 of the Regulatory Standards Act, it already allows for certain exemptions to certain Acts. This is not necessarily secondary legislation, but things around emergency management, imprest and appropriation Acts, and Acts relating to Māori-Crown relations, particularly around Treaty settlements, as well as other Acts—for example, relating to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. They already give allowances, but in this particular case the notice is to exempt certain primary legislation, but essentially a substantial—I say “substantial”, but it is a portion. We know there is a lot of secondary legislation through various departments, and a portion of that secondary legislation has been exempted as a result of this.

One of the things that I think has not been responded to in a satisfactory way is particularly around the idea of what is considered administrative or what doesn’t hold any particular kind of public interest. I wanted to point out that when we were even going through the Cabinet paper, one of the challenges that even the Cabinet paper hasn’t really elucidated is around what the criteria are when determining what secondary legislation should be exempted as a result of this. Is there any particular framework that was used? Based on the information that the committee has been presented with, it does seem somewhat arbitrary—the way that this decision was made.

Drawing attention to the specific list over here: for example, the WorkSafe New Zealand Act has been exempted as a result of this legislation, but it’s not the only Crown agency. I guess that in some ways, WorkSafe does interact with emergency situations, but the fact that the whole Act has been exempted does raise some questions.

I do want to mention, for example, obviously, my favourite Act, the Education and Training Act. Section 66 is exempted as a result of this, which is around mid-term start dates; sections 162 and 163, I think, are around the lease of school land, or leases and contracts, which you would think would have a substantial impact in certain areas; whereas other things like section 90, which I mentioned before, is not considered as a part of this, or indeed other sections as well of the Education and Training Act. Again, this is one of the things that, unfortunately, the Regulations Review Committee, within the time allowance—possibly, of 28 days—hasn’t been able to fully tease out.

Furthermore, just in the final 30 seconds, one of the things that has been raised—I think this is an important point to make. As part of this, Cabinet did say that this is going to be able to provide more cost savings in some ways because of the administrative burden. Again, like I’ve said, this is the red tape that’s been placed on various agencies in terms of them having to now upskill themselves and be able to meet the framework—whatever the framework will be for the Regulatory Standards Act, and however this exemption is going to lighten that load. It also says nothing in here in terms of what’s going to happen in light of the 9,000 Public Service positions that we’re going to be seeing cut. But, with that, the Green Party will support this.

16:13

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s good to take a call to speak on the motion to approve the Regulatory Standards (Excluded Legislation) Notice 2026. It’s not the most high-profile debate we’ll have in the House and some of it is quite technical, but it’s still important, and it affects a wide range of how laws will be treated behind the scenes.

As other speakers have alluded to, excluding legislation from the Regulatory Standards Act is something that we support. The notice decides which type of legislation should not have to meet the full set of requirements in the Regulatory Standards Act under section 7 of that Act. The Regulatory Standards Act, which was passed last year, was proposed to set out a framework for how legislation should be tested and to set up processes for review and scrutiny over time. This notice creates a set of exceptions—and, as I’ve mentioned, more exceptions would be welcomed by this side of the House—and it clarifies in law that for certain kinds of laws, those checks as included in the Act won’t apply. Before this notice of exclusion can take effect, under section 7(3), that motion has to be approved by the House, and that’s what we’re doing today.

The starting point here is quite straightforward and understandable, which is that this legislation shouldn’t have to go through every step of the framework and there are situations where applying the full process would not make sense. The notice before us today sets out some of those situations. Just to note those, it includes legislation dealing with emergencies, as other speakers have already discussed. In crisis situations, Governments need to act quickly, and there are other checks and balances on those processes.

It also includes implementation of international agreements, including trade deals. Again, there are other areas of our legislation that that can be reviewed within. Also to note that it includes dealing with constitutional matters, or it requires consultation with the judiciary areas. It also includes legislation that gives effect to agreements between the Crown and iwi and hapū. Also, it includes a large—

I’d just like the member—I realise it’s a technical bill and there are a lot of things in here that require you to be exact, but just a little bit less reading and a bit more speaking to the House, please.

Yeah, OK. I can do that.

Thank you.

You wanted a little bit more—OK—looking at you, while I’m reading.

Thank you. You don’t have to look at me, but you can look at the House.

OK, I’ll pick up my papers then. It also includes a large amount of legislation that is administrative.

In principle, having these exclusions is sensible. It’s not the House simply approving a technical list, but we’re, in fact, approving the first major set of boundaries around the new regulatory standards regime itself.

I don’t sit on the Regulations Review Committee, but it was interesting to read in the report on this notice that that the committee considered particularly questions about how the list of exclusions came about. From reading the report, I see that there were about 40 agencies that were consulted, and questions arose for me around what that consultation looked like. I know that local government was informed what that looked like. Those are some of the things that came up for me when I was reading that, including the request that agencies discuss the proposals with other relevant Crown agencies in that space.

I understand that the Minister for Regulation also said that there was meant to be a high bar and that laws should only be excluded when there is a clear and good reason. The categories in the notice seem to line up with those principles, and I see that the committee did not raise any major concerns and has recommended that the House approve the notice.

The committee’s position was that parliamentary scrutiny of secondary legislation belonged to the House and its committees, not to executive-created bodies. The committee was concerned that any future executive body with an advisory or oversight role could unintentionally dilute or overlap with Parliament’s existing scrutiny responsibilities. I believe that Parliament should retain its own independent scrutiny standards under the Standing Orders.

While the Labour Party supports this motion, this along with everything else that we consider in this House must be considered in the context in which it arises, and so I want to step back for a moment and just have a look at the bigger picture that this motion sits within. That wider system is the system built around the Ministry for Regulation, and that is where there are real concerns from this side of the House. The Ministry for Regulation was set up with a clear promise that it would improve regulation, cut waste, and bring discipline to lawmaking, but what we’re seeing does not match that promise.

The Ministry for Regulation replaced the Productivity Commission. The Productivity Commission had about 22 staff and it cost around $6.5 million a year. Today, the Ministry for Regulation has grown to around 93 staff, more than four times the size of the agency it was set up to replace, and its costs are sitting at about $16.6 million a year. At the same time, it has spent nearly a million dollars on contractors doing ongoing roles that could’ve been filled permanently, and should’ve been filled permanently. The Ministry for Regulation has spent more than $860,000 on consultants to carry out core work, including regulatory reviews, which is exactly what the ministry was created to do itself.

We know that even Treasury advised against this expensive project—advised against setting up a stand-alone department—saying that a smaller unit within an existing agency would be cheaper and easier to establish. That advice was ignored in favour of the most expensive option, the Ministry for Regulation. The Hon David Seymour has repeatedly attacked other Government agencies for wasteful spending and bureaucratic bloat, but his own ministry ignored official advice to choose the cheapest structure, grew far beyond its stated size, and relied on expensive temporary staff rather than hiring permanently—the exact behaviours he criticises in others. If you set up a ministry to lecture the rest of Government about efficiency and better regulation, then that ministry has to meet those standards itself. Otherwise, it starts to look like there’s one rule for everybody else and another for the Government.

Labour’s position is clear. We do not support the Ministry for Regulation in its current form, and so this notice of motion excluding aspects is something that we do support. We don’t think that the Ministry for Regulation represents good value for money, and we would not keep it as it is. That is not, of course, the question in front of us today, but as I mentioned, it’s important that we look at the wider context around this. Today, we’re asked to make a much narrower decision, and the question is around whether these specific exclusions make sense, as the committee has thoroughly explored, and I thank the committee for doing so.

When you look at the categories in this notice—just to finish up—the emergency laws, the international agreements, constitutional matters, and administrative rules, it’s a pragmatic call to exclude these, and Labour supports this notice of motion.

Madam Speaker.

16:23

Thank you very much. Usually, the saying goes “age before beauty”, but in this case it’s beauty before age—thank you, Doctor. I rise on behalf of Te Pāti Māori in support of this notice. This notice will exclude certain classes of legislation from the Regulatory Standards Act’s requirements. Our position is that all legislation should be excluded from the Regulatory Standards Act. We will repeal the Regulatory Standards Act when we are in Government, and I know that’s the same commitment the Labour Party and the Green Party have made also.

The draft notice explanatory note states that its purpose would be to exclude selected classes of legislation from the Act’s requirements based on it not being practical or appropriate for the requirements to apply. The notice would exclude legislation that—just bear with me, Madam Speaker—provides powers to respond to emergency situations, implements existing international trade agreements, gives effect to specific bi- or multilateral agreements, updates the text of international agreements once New Zealand has accepted changes, relates to specified constitutional matters or that requires consultation with the judiciary, implements agreements between the Crown and iwi and hapū, is issued by independent Crown entities or the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, and provides exemptions from legislative requirements as administrative or having no ongoing public impact.

This notice is a reminder of what this Government has done to te iwi Māori, to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and to the very constitution of Aotearoa with the Regulatory Standards Act. Instead of erasing the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi through the Treaty principles bill, the Regulatory Standards Act was the first step in overwriting them. Over 160,000 people wrote submissions on the bill—99 percent opposed it. The next step is the Treaty clause review, which will water down Treaty obligations across all laws until they have absolutely no power.

We support this notice because excluding any piece of legislation from the Regulatory Standards Act is a good thing, but it should go further. All laws should be excluded. The Regulatory Standards Act should have been thrown out with the Treaty principles bill. This notice will exclude laws for climate emergencies—this is a good thing, but what about the housing emergencies? What about the poverty emergencies? The Regulatory Standards Act will make it harder for our whānau to be housed and to live with dignity.

This notice will also exclude laws where it would be too expensive to meet the Act’s requirements, but what about the laws that impact the price of kai? We should be striving for an Aotearoa where everyone can afford to eat, and we cannot allow regulatory standards to get in the way of this goal.

During question time today, we asked the Prime Minister about the millions of dollars this Government has received in donations from corporations. The Regulatory Standards Act is exactly what they paid for: less regulation, less responsibility to our taiao, and more exploitation. All the Public Service job cuts that we are seeing are a result of a regulatory standards thinking. They have already cut 10,000 jobs, and they’re planning to cut 10,000 more. This is the first Government to campaign on cutting jobs instead of creating them. This is regulatory standards thinking.

David Seymour thinks that we don’t need public services to look after those in need and we don’t need the Government to look after the environment, because in his mind these are all issues of personal responsibility. Never mind the decades of colonisation that have left our people landless, poor, and sick. Never mind all the experts who are telling us that corporations are destroying the planet. Something needs to be done—for him, the answer is to give the corporations more power.

Te Pāti Māori believes that there is only one regulatory standard in this country, and it is Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We already have a benchmark for good regulations in Aotearoa, and, like I said, it’s called Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We never needed the Regulatory Standards Act to overwrite it. Te Tiriti o Waitangi protects all people in Aotearoa from exploitation. It is our blueprint for equality and justice, and we should be looking at all laws through the lens of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, not through the Regulatory Standards Act. Kia ora tātou.

16:28

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Madam Speaker.

You’re a bit slow, the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, but I know that you do want a call on this bill because you’ve tried about three times—you’re just a bit slow this time. I will take a call from the Hon Dr Duncan Webb.

16:29

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for that. You’re right; I had tried to take a call earlier in this, because this is an important piece of secondary legislation. One of the things that I did, actually, was to go through all of the legislation here that is going to be excluded. It’s interesting, because if the argument is that the Regulatory Standards Act is a necessary check on legislative quality, then I’m interested in—and it would be great if the Government members took a call to explain this—why some of these are in fact being excluded from this so-called quality check.

Of course, there are two aspects to the quality check, and I think it’s really important to say that first—the so-called quality check. One is the compliance statement that has to be done, which is a little bit like a regulatory impact statement; and the other is that it’s subject to the Regulatory Standards Board.

If we look, for example, at clause 2(1) in Schedule 1 of the notice, it relates to “Secondary legislation under section 14 or 15 of the International Terrorism (Emergency Powers) Act 1987”. Now, that power is actually a power to prevent publication of information relating to terrorist threats, and so it’s a free speech fetter and there’s a reasonable question to be asked as to whether that should, in fact, be subject either to the compliance statement or subject to the Regulatory Standards Board.

Importantly, under the Regulatory Standards Act, you can get a free pass from the Minister for Regulation from the compliance statement anyway, and so if you’re doing something, you can go to the Minister and seek to, essentially, be excused from any compliance statement. But there is an argument to say that if the Regulatory Standards Board is so important as a quality check and is able to give feedback in a kind of positive, virtuous feedback loop into Government, when you’re doing something like limiting free speech—they’re the party of free speech, the ACT Party, apparently—why would you put this into the “you don’t have to, it doesn’t apply” category?

The other one I looked at, which was also in Schedule 1—and so we’re heading to clause 2(2), which is the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Act 2023. That was the response to Cyclone Gabrielle, and I went to have a look at that to see what regulation-making powers were there—

Very broad.

Well, in fact, they’re all repealed. I was perplexed as to why, and I know the Regulations Review Committee is excellently chaired and not a bad committee, by and large, but—

Still in force.

It is still in force, but you can’t make any regulations under it, and so I was just curious.

The other thing is this, and it may be that the Minister can move an amendment. I’m not sure whether I’m able to move an amendment to this, but in clause 2(2), it doesn’t say, “Secondary legislation under the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Act 2023”; it just says the “Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Act 2023”. Now, that’s perplexing to me, because emergency Acts of Parliament are already excluded from the ambit of this legislation. It may well be that there should be some additional words and it should be made clear that what we’re talking about is secondary legislation made under that Act.

Yep.

And the chair of that committee says that, yes, that’s right, and so that’s a slip. The problem now is that if you exclude the legislation, it doesn’t actually refer to delegated legislation.

Whilst we’re on that, I’ll go to clause 8 of Schedule 1, as well, which simply states “COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Social Assistance Urgent Measures) Act 2020”, but it doesn’t say, “Secondary legislation under”, and so, once again, you’ve got a slip. It appears that it should say, “Secondary legislation under the COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Social Assistance Urgent Measures) Act 2020”, and it doesn’t actually say that.

It does look like the Ministry for Regulation has just gone to the other ministries and said, “What ones do you want excluded?”, because we then have a large list from the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI): the Animal Products Act, the Biosecurity Act, the Fisheries Act, the Food Act, the National Animal Identification and Tracing Act, and the Organic Products and Production Act. What’s excluded there is a raft of emergency powers which relate to, essentially, MPI taking steps when there is an outbreak of some kind, but we all know also that this can be extremely difficult for members of our rural communities. Remember Psa and all the vines that were pulled out? Remember Mycoplasma bovis and all the herds that were destroyed? The question becomes: who is able to review regulations made under that Act?

Now, I get that you don’t necessarily have to do the upfront compliance with your regulatory standards checklists and so on, but the Regulatory Standards Board cannot inquire into any of these regulations, even after the emergency has abated. If there was an emergency declared of some pest or fungus and all the vineyards in Marlborough got pulled out, it turns out it was a not a threat at all, and the regulations were poorly constructed and poorly consulted on, that’s exactly the kind of thing that David Seymour says the Regulatory Standards Board should be looking at.

The other one I was really perplexed by, if I can find it—and you’ll see that I actually did get them all out here—was the Building Act one. Clause 5(1) of Schedule 1 of the notice says, “Secondary legislation under section 133BQ(2)(a) of the Building Act 2004”, and that just doesn’t make any sense, because section 133BQ says that “(1) A responsible person may inspect the exterior and interior of a building” and the “assessment must be prepared—”, and the paragraph (a) bit is “in accordance with the methodology … approved by the chief executive;”. I mean, it’s a really mundane statement about how you assess a building after an event. To me, it’s questionable whether it’s secondary legislation, at all. It’s just a methodology approved by the chief executive, and it strikes me as falling quite outside the ambit of secondary legislation.

As we go on, there’s a couple I’ll get to—crikey, is that the time already? I’ve got so much more to talk about. Well, there’s a couple more here, because the other one is “Secondary legislation under section 4 of the Petroleum Demand Restraint Act 1981”. Now, 1981 was a bit after the fuel shocks of the original Iran crisis. All it does is it gives the Government powers—in fact, probably the very powers they’re now contemplating using—to put constraints on how petrol is sold. It actually talks about the equitable distribution of fuel in the community.

It’s a pretty heavy-handed piece of legislation. The interesting thing is this: it does not require an emergency to trigger it. You’ve got a schedule which says, “Legislation that provides powers to respond to emergency situations”—in fact, that’s how this was contemplated in the original legislation—and then you’ve got this Petroleum Demand Restraint Act, which simply says, “to maintain prudent supplies and equitable distribution”. I mean, I’ve got it in front of me here, and that’s roughly the framing in that piece of legislation.

The other one—well, there are so many more, or there are a couple more I really wanted to touch on. The other one is the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Act, which is, apparently, excluded because it relates to international treaties, but, in fact, all it does is set up an appropriate framework and rule-making powers for recognition to ensure that, for example, qualifications as an accountant in one country—in Australia—are the same as qualifications here.

Now, I’m not sure why that is excluded either, but, certainly, if we go through all these, there are lots of questions that could and probably should be asked. It’s a very detailed list and it actually deserves a lot of scrutiny.

16:39

Kia ora e te Pīka. Ngā mihi nui. I rise in support of the motion before the House to approve the Regulatory Standards (Excluded Legislation) Notice 2026.

I want to begin by thanking the Regulations Review Committee, chaired most ably by my colleague Arena Williams. It is also a committee where we usually agree on most things. I’d also like to thank the contributions of other members of the select committee: Miles Anderson, Nancy Lu, Joseph Mooney, and Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, who is actually a member that attends most of our select committee hearings, as well.

This is the first notice ever issued under section 7 of the Regulatory Standards Act 2025. It is worth pausing on that point, because we are debating this section for the very first time and it will, actually, reflect on how we will deal with notices like this, it will set the precedent for various notices like this in the future, and the pattern of how we deal with things that follow on section 7.

I’d like to speak a little bit more about what this section actually means. Section 7 of the Regulatory Standards Act 2025 is a delegated power. It allows the Minister for Regulation to issue a notice declaring that the Act does not apply to specified classes of legislation, but—and this is the constitutionally important point—section 7(3) provides that a notice can only be issued and take effect after it has been approved by the House of Representatives. In other words, the executive does not get to say the final word on what is excluded from the Act’s consistency assessments, the law’s review obligations, or scrutiny by the Regulatory Standards Board—Parliament does.

There are three things that I’d like to note about section 7, and they are as follows. First, it is a House resolution, not a regulation made in the ordinary course of how we have regulations-making power in this House. That distinction matters. Second, under Standing Order 330(1), every section 7 notice of motion stands referred to a select committee. In this case, that select committee will be the Regulations Review Committee. That gives the House the benefit of detailed scrutiny before the question is put on any section 7 notice. Third, the notice itself is secondary legislation. While approval is by resolution, the instrument that takes effect carries the full legal force of delegated legislation. This on its face is a robust parliamentary check; however, whether it operates in this way in practice will depend on how seriously we in this House take our responsibility every time a notice under section 7 comes through, and today is the first test of that.

Now, turning to the substat—substantial. Sorry, my Tongan sometimes overtakes! Under the substantial notice of the notice itself, section 7 would exclude eight broad categories. I’ll only speak about four of those. It will exclude legislation providing powers to respond to emergency situations, legislation implementing existing international trade agreements—we in the Labour Party agree with these exclusions. It will exclude legislation implementing agreements between the Crown and iwi and hapū—again, very important. The last exclusion I’ll speak of is the legislation that is administrative or has no ongoing public interest. What we know from some of the papers that we’ve read in our select committee is that very last category is by far the largest one, because schedule 8 of the notice alone tells us that it would exclude about 175 instruments on the basis that they are administrative and have no ongoing public impact.

I just want to note that these are not minor categories—all eight of them, even though I didn’t speak about the other four. They include emergency powers, trade implementation, Crown-iwi agreements, and the operational instruments of our independent regulators. But I do want to say that around the end of April, our chair, Arena Williams, wrote on behalf of our select committee to the Minister, asking various questions, including: how did the Minister and his ministry come up with the eight that they have actually said will be excluded? We wanted to know what information sat behind the decisions that were made. The Minister responded to our select committee towards the end of April with Cabinet papers, Cabinet minutes, and papers. What we found was that the Ministry for Regulation consulted with more than 40 public sector agencies. Those agencies were asked to discuss the proposals with the relevant Crown entities and various other organisations. Government agencies were asked to identify legislation under four buckets. These four buckets are emergency response, Crown agreements, intrusion into parliamentary judicial and independent affairs, and legislation where the costs of compliance outweigh the value.

I talk about these things because, after the select committee looked through the advice and the recommendations from the Minister and the Minister for Regulation, we came to the conclusion that we would be unanimous in our support of section 7. We had no concerns to draw to the attention of the House. We considered that the classes specified in the notice were practical and appropriate to exclude. We found that the Minister’s consultation processes were appropriate. But I do want to say this: I would like to place on notice in its broader context that the Labour Party opposed the Regulatory Standards Bill. We opposed it at first reading, at second reading, and we also opposed it at third reading. We did so because we considered—and we continue to have this consideration—that the Act elevates a particular ideological value of property rights and individual liberty above the collective interests that this Parliament—all of us members of Parliament—are elected to protect. In our opinion, these are Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the environment, public health, and the role of the Public Service in carrying out those obligations.

When people put through their submissions to the main Act, 98.7 percent of those submissions to the Finance and Expenditure Committee opposed the bill. That opposition has not gone away simply because the Act has commenced. I want to be clear that Labour’s support for the select committee’s recommendation today is not an endorsement of the Regulatory Standards Act; it is a recognition that while the Act is on our statute book, section 7’s exclusion mechanism is a safety valve that should be used and should be used well. Excluding emergency powers, Crown-iwi agreements, and constitutional instruments from the Act’s reach is sensible in our opinion. It is the bare minimum of what we should do as parliamentarians. But let’s not mistake this vote today from the Labour Party as a vote of confidence in the Regulatory Standards Act itself—no, not at all. That debate is for another day and another Government. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

16:48

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is, That the House approve the issue by the Minister for Regulation under section 7 of the Regulatory Standards Act 2025 of the Regulatory Standards (Excluded Legislation) Notice 2026 presented as parliamentary paper G.77 on 20 April.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am pleased to be able to take another call on this referral motion to speak to my colleague Duncan Webb’s additional amendment that he put forward, which was, I believe, to delete the words after the date referral. This is particularly—Mr Speaker, I’ll just ask if the clock has been—thank you. This is important because move-on orders are a particularly important piece of legislation that changes the way that the Government deals with people who are not only acting in a way which is considered to be disruptive, but also this particular bill covers the fact of begging, and it also covers people who are rough sleeping.

It is a departure from what has previously been put forward. I did mention previously that we are a very busy committee in the Justice Committee, so I think that letting a normal process, which is, essentially, what Duncan Webb’s amendment would do, is exactly what should be put in place. Lawrence Xu-Nan has put an amendment which has a specific date, which I am also more supportive of and which I have already spoken to, but this would actually take it back to a normal policy process that would allow the Justice Committee to go through it in a decent period of time.

We do know, and obviously it goes without saying, I suppose, that the elephant in the room is the fact that we have an election coming up. However, I think that Duncan Webb’s proposal, which importantly sets out that the normal procedure would take place, would allow either this Government or the next Government to take advice and to have a full select committee process without having to rush the submissions process too.

We do know, and I spoke last time, about the parliamentary staff, but I also want to acknowledge the staff that work at the Ministry of Justice, who, I understand, would be providing advice on this bill. Now, the Ministry of Justice has probably had the highest number of bills referred to it for its advice, and they give very good, candid advice. They advise the Government of the day, which is their job, but it must be seen within the context of having such a significant workload that making any shortened report back would impede the advice which they have been providing. I did previously speak about parliamentary staff, but I do think that perhaps, more importantly, the ministerial staff in place should be considered. They have so many bills that, actually, it is going to be a little bit problematic.

I won’t take the full 10-minute call, as I’ve already contributed to this debate, but I didn’t have the opportunity of speaking to my colleague Dr Duncan Webb’s amendment, so I just wanted to put on record that I am supportive of that. I do think it takes it back to its original purpose. There are additional considerations that we have to have in terms of the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill, which I think the committee should take into account.

The other thing I think it’s really important to know is that this isn’t something that touches just on justice; this is also something that touches on our strategy towards homelessness. I know my colleague Kieran McAnulty, who is the Labour Party’s justice spokesperson, has a contribution he wants to make from that perspective, and that is almost equally important because of the nature of this particular bill.

I won’t use the full 10 minutes, being respectful of making sure there isn’t any repetition. I am wanting to put on record that I support Dr Duncan Webb’s amendment that we need to consider the Ministry of Justice in making sure that they have the capacity to be able to respond in a thoughtful way that New Zealanders would expect in such a departure from the existing policy in relation to dealing not only with perhaps what we thought this bill would be about, which is about antisocial behaviour, but additionally with the additional measures of rough sleeping, homelessness, and also an important matter which I covered in my contribution to the House in the first reading, which is the fact that it impacts children.

The Hon Kieran McAnulty, bearing in mind—I hope you weren’t set up by your colleague Camilla Belich—that this is very much on the instructions to the select committee, not the wide range of topics that were indicated by your colleague.

16:53

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am keen to make a contribution on this debate on the instructions to the select committee because the nature of this bill warrants a particular level of contribution from the community, such is what has been proposed by the bill. As was indicated by Camilla Belich, there is primarily a justice angle on this. However, I’m coming at this from a housing angle, and indeed, actually, that is how most people are looking at this, because, on the one hand, we have the Government saying that this is essential to address unruly behaviour, but, on the other hand, their insistence to include rough sleeping in the criteria means that, actually, this bill is about addressing rough sleeping and homelessness.

Now, why that’s important to ensure that there is a full process here is that if we consider the context that homelessness has grown to an unprecedented level—it is the worst it has been, ever, according to the Wellington City Mission. Now, keeping in mind how long they have been servicing the Wellington city, that is quite a significant statement to make. Now, those that are involved in this are not prone to hyperbole; they are saying this because it is reflecting what they are experiencing.

There is a very important point to make here, in that when the Government first indicated that they were wanting to do something along the lines of move-on orders, there was a response to that, which is natural. Now, one might assume, in something of this nature, you would get a mixed response, but, actually, there’s been Sunny Kaushal and Viv Beck in favour of it, and, basically, everybody else opposed to it.

Every relevant agency that was consulted by the Government raised material concerns about this, and three—the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, Ministry of Social Development, and Police—on the specific point of rough sleeping. The fact that the Government have ignored that advice from their own officials and have included rough sleeping shows that the move-on orders aren’t actually about antisocial behaviour. The fact that the Government is proposing to limit the opportunity for the public to have a say on that is at the core of this debate that we’re having now. How many proposals that have gone through this Parliament, that have had such a clear opposition not just from the public but also from Government agencies—in fact, I haven’t been able to find advice from any Government agency that says the inclusion of rough sleeping is a good idea.

Clearly, that is something that the public would want to have a say on. Is the public comfortable with the idea of a 14-year-old rough sleeper being moved on and fined $2,000? That is what has been proposed, and now the opportunity for the public to have their say on that is significantly reduced by the instructions that this Government has moved to the select committee.

Now, an important point of process—and it is relevant to this instruction—is that, on numerous occasions, as is indicated by the public minutes of the Business Committee, select committees have had to seek permission from the Business Committee to extend the time in which they have been allocated to consider a bill. On every single one of those occasions, it’s because there was a motion from the Government, an instruction from this House—opposed by the Opposition but supported by Government parties—to restrict the time that select committees consider bills, in the instruction that they’ve moved. That is poor process.

There’s been a clear indication that there is clearly a trend that people are getting sick of it, and, actually, we could avoid that if the Government simply allowed a full select committee process to flow through. Why that is significant not only from a parliamentary procedural perspective but from a rough sleeping perspective is that, given the Government’s decision to no longer continue with the census, that was actually the only formal, recognised measure of homelessness in this country. Now, in the absence of the census, we, as a country, have no other measurement in terms of the level of homelessness except for the testimony of those on the front line, who, as I said earlier, have indicated that it’s now at the highest level it has ever been. But the combination of the removal of the only official measure and a restriction on the public’s ability to have a say on this bill means that front-line providers are universal in their opposition to this and they have talked about the significant impact that this will have on those people who literally have nothing and are facing a $2,000 fine because they have nowhere else to go. Also, the public should have the opportunity to question what measures are in place to actually address that level of homelessness. Keeping in mind that this has been billed by the Government as an anti - disorderly behaviour mechanism, their insistence to include rough sleeping does warrant a full select committee process.

Where are these people going to go? There are trusted agencies in this country, like the Salvation Army and the City Missions, that have been around for decades—for generations—that have built tremendous goodwill over that time. When they speak, people listen and they trust them. When these agencies say that all this will do is shift the issue from the centre city into people’s suburbs—into their front yards, essentially, and the areas where they live, work, and play—and in front of suburban shops instead of city shops, that is a significant consequence of what is being proposed in this bill, and the Government is now proposing to restrict the public’s ability to have a say in that.

When we’re talking about, on one hand, this as a response to the growing level of homelessness that actually will not house a single person, that will move the issue into—

This is repetition.

The Minister is talking about repetition. Perhaps he might want to listen. Perhaps he should have listened when he tried to include this when he was an Auckland City councillor, and even John Banks as mayor was too ashamed to pursue it. But he’s finally got his chance. He shouldn’t be too concerned about repetition; he should be concerned about listening to the public. That should be the Minister’s focus here. But instead, he has shamelessly indicated that he will move an instruction to the committee to limit the public’s ability to do that.

Shame.

That is shameful. It is shameful because it is yet another example of this Government wanting to bypass proper parliamentary process. It is shameful because they want to restrict the public’s ability to have a say on this, and it is shameful because they want to pretend that the homelessness that their policies have created doesn’t exist by shifting it out of the centre city. In the Prime Minister’s own words, he doesn’t want tourists to come in and see homeless people on the streets. Well, let’s not grow the number of homeless people. That is the best way to address that concern. There are many concerns about this, including that the Department of Corrections have flagged that this bill has the capacity to increase the cost to Corrections by $300 million.

Now, we’re about to have a Budget this week, and there will be measures that are a fraction of $300 million that the Government will want to go around the country crowing about how great it is and will want the public to have their say on that. But they don’t want the public to have a full opportunity to have a say on a bill that not only impacts those who are the poorest and most vulnerable in our society but also, through the words of their own department, could have a fiscal implication of $300 million, and this instruction that this Government has moved will limit the public’s capacity to have a say on that. That is why we are opposing this instruction.

17:03

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that the amendment in the name of Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan be agreed to.

The question is that the amendment in the name of the Hon Dr Duncan Webb be agreed to.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill, the Building and Construction Sector (Self-certification by Plumbers and Drainlayers) Amendment Bill, the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill, and the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill.

17:09

Members, the House is in committee on the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill, the Building and Construction Sector (Self-certification by Plumbers and Drainlayers) Amendment Bill, the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill, and the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill.

We come first to the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill. When we last considered the bill, we had finished the debate on Part 1 and were voting on the relevant amendments. A number of amendments to Part 1 remain and must be voted on. I will now put those questions to the committee.

Members, the Hon Ginny Andersen’s five tabled amendments to clause 46 will amend new Subpart 4A of Part 6 to make participation in the monitoring studies voluntary. They form a single alternative proposition and, therefore, under Standing Order 315(3)(b), I will put a single question on them.

The question is that the Hon Ginny Andersen’s five tabled amendments to clause 46 be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 46 replacing “must” with “may” in new section 618A be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendments to clause 46 replacing “must” and “must ensure” with “may” and “may ensure” in new section 618B be agreed to.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 46 amending new section 618B(2) is out of order as not offering a serious alternative form of words.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 46 inserting paragraph (ba) into new section 618B(3) be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendments to clause 46 replacing “The Minister may grant the exemption only if” and “The Minister may grant” in new section 618C be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 46 inserting subparagraph (iii) into new section 618C(2)(a) be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to new clause 46A amending section 619A be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to delete clause 47 be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendments to clause 47 replacing reference to the chief executive and the Education Review Office in new sections 621A and 621D be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 47 inserting paragraph (ha) into new section 621B(1) be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendments to clause 47 deleting subsection (3)(b) and (6A) of new section 621D be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 47 amending new section 621D(6) be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 48 inserting subsection (1A) into new section 628 be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 48 replacing “at any reasonable time” in new section 628(2) be agreed to.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 48 replacing “remove” with “obtain” in new section 628(2)(c) is out of order as not offering a serious alternative form of words.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 48 deleting new section 628(3) and (4) be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 48 amending new section 628(7)(b) be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to delete clause 50 be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 51A amending section 651B(1) be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Ginny Andersen’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 51A amending section 651B(1) be agreed to.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendments to clause 55 are out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 57 amending Schedule 20 be agreed to.

17:30

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to take this opportunity to have the first call on Part 2 of this bill. Now, in Part 2 of Schedule 2, when you’re looking at “Amendments to Secondary Legislation”, there are a few that I want to address. Obviously, the most substantial one is the changes to the Education (Hostels) Regulations 2005. I want to start by asking the Minister of Education about the changes. When you’re looking at the changes to how the hostels are going to be able to be adjusted—this is also a part that was in the Minister’s Amendment Paper 583—but also we’re looking at changes to the role that moved from the authority—i.e., the Ministry of Education—to the Director of Regulation and, now, sits under the Education Review Office (ERO).

My first question to the Minister is: how is the Minister going to ensure that the Director of Regulation, as an individual, is going to have the expertise but also the support? Not only has the function moved from the ministry to the Director of Regulations, but the director, now, has also moved under ERO, so what assurances are there to ensure that some of these regulations—particularly pertaining to things like registration, non-compliance, etc.—are going to be done in a way that is going to ensure students’ safety? I’m going to start with that question, and I do have a follow-up question regarding specific regulations named under here in relation to the changes that function from the authority to the Director of Regulation.

17:32

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I’d like to speak to tabled amendment 5.11.06, which proposes—in the name of my colleague Dr Xu-Nan—after clause 56, and clause 57 of Part 2, “Schedule 20 amended”, and this tabled amendment amends the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill and also suggest that all students should be entitled to attend a co-educational school. He provides the example there of the Epsom electorate, where there is no available State coordinated educational school, despite there being eight secondary schools. In terms of the primary legislation, going to clause 57, it amends the principal Act. I’d be really interested in the—[Cellphone makes noise]