Parliamentary debates: Tuesday, 23 June 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

Members, I have received a letter from Ricardo Menéndez March seeking to debate, under Standing Order 399, matters relating to Immigration New Zealand’s biometric capability upgrade project. In particular, the letter highlights the report on the project and allegations of withholding information from the Minister and from the Education and Workforce Committee. This is a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility. Parliament should protect its right to receive accurate information requested of public sector departments and entities. The strongest way to assert that right is on the floor of the House.

I’ve also received a letter from Ingrid Leary seeking an urgent debate on the decision to halt admissions to Ward 10A of the Wakari Hospital. This is also a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility.

There can only be one urgent debate on any day. Where the Speaker receives multiple applications for an urgent debate, they give priority to the most urgent and important matter. While both of these matters are important, there may be further opportunities for debate on both, but, for today, the failure to appropriately respond to a parliamentary committee does need a response from the floor of Parliament.

Therefore, following oral questions, I’ll call on Ricardo Menéndez March to move that the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. I would caution members, in making comment in that debate, to refrain from anything that may impinge upon a future consideration of this matter by the Privileges Committee.

14:02

Five petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

• Petition of Graeme Edgeler requesting that the House recommend that the Government amend the Official Information Act 1982 to allow people to request information held by Crown solicitors in their capacity as Crown solicitors
• petition of Aly Cook requesting that the House ban all advertising by pharmaceutical companies and of any pharmaceuticals on any New Zealand media
• petition of Tala‘imalo Simanu requesting that the House review the impact of the Immigration Act 2009 on essential workers and their families
• petition of Kelvin Anto requesting that the House condemn racial intimidation targeting Indian, South Asian, Chinese, and other Asian communities in New Zealand and review whether current laws adequately protect those communities
• petition of Zhide Zhao requesting that the House review the effectiveness and transparency of the Office of the Ombudsman, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, the Independent Police Conduct Authority, and the Human Rights Commission.

Those petitions stand referred to the Petitions Committee.

14:03

Ministers have delivered 14 papers.

• Interim response to Report of the Education and Workforce Committee on the Inquiry into the harm young New Zealanders encounter online
• Government responses to the:
  • declarations of inconsistency relating to extended supervision orders and public protection orders
  • National Infrastructure Plan 2026
  • report of the Petitions Committee on the petition of Benjamin Plows-Kolff
• Reserve Bank of New Zealand Monetary Policy Statement
• 2025-26 service agreement for the Accident Compensation Corporation
• 2026-30 strategic intentions for the:
  • Ministry for Regulation
  • New Zealand Defence Force
• 2026-30 statements of intent for the:
  • Accident Compensation Corporation
  • Serious Fraud Office
• 2026 statements of performance expectations for the:
  • Accreditation Council
  • Auckland Light Rail Ltd
  • External Reporting Board
  • Invest New Zealand.

I’ve received the report of the Audit Office entitled Report on our Controller function work for 2024/25. Those papers are published on the authority of the House.

14:04

Fourteen select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

• Reports of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee on the:
  • Commerce (Promoting Competition and Other Matters) Amendment Bill
  • review briefing on the 2024-25 annual review of Kordia Group Ltd
  • review briefing on the 2024-25 annual review of the New Zealand Tourism Board
• report of the Education and Workforce Committee on the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill
• reports of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the:
  • Infrastructure Funding and Financing Amendment Bill
  • Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations for the year ending 30 June 2026
• reports of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on the:
  • international treaty examination of the Free Trade Agreement between the Government of New Zealand and the Government of the Republic of India
  • Ministry of Defence long-term insights briefing 2026
  • petition of Marcelo Rodriguez Ferrere and petition of Bianka Atlas
• report of the Governance and Administration Committee on the Emergency Management Bill (No 2)
• report of the Intelligence and Security Committee on the Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations for Vote Communications Security and Intelligence and Vote Security Intelligence for the year ending 30 June 2026
• reports of the Justice Committee on the:
  • Crimes Amendment Bill
  • review briefing on the 2024-25 annual review of the Public Trust
• report of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee on the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill.

The bills are set down for second reading. The review briefings, long-term insights briefing, and international treaty examination are set down for consideration.

14:06

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

• Environmental Reporting Amendment Bill, introduction.
• India Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill, introduction.
• Te Here ā Nuku (Nelson Tenths) Bill, introduction.

Those bills are set down for first reading.

to the Prime Minister

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

Yes.

Does he regret promising a year of growth and prosperity, given GDP growth has fallen to 1.2 percent compared to a forecast growth of 2.8 percent before he fixed it?

Well, I think the member would agree the results that we saw in the last quarter of 0.8 percent growth, a restatement of the previous quarter at 0.5, and, actually, the last nine months growing at 2.1 percent is good progress.

Why has GDP per capita dropped to just 0.6 percent when it was on track to reach 1.5 percent before he became Prime Minister?

Well, I think the member needs to understand that we’ve been through high inflation, high interest rates, a recession caused by the actions of the previous Government. But this Government is actually working hard. We’ve got growth coming back, and we should be proud of it. I think it’s three times the size of Australia, twice that of the US, and two times what Treasury had forecast. The good news is, across the board, we’re seeing growth return to a number of sectors in our economy. That’s really exciting, and we should be celebrating it.

Why has unemployment risen to 5.5 percent under his watch when it was forecast to be 4.8 percent by now, when his Government took office, and does he still think that anyone in a job is a good thing given his Government’s put tens of thousands of people out of jobs?

Well, I think the member would join us and say that the Budget, which highlighted through the Treasury forecast that we’ll be growing this economy at 2.7 percent on average over the next four years, creates 220,000 new jobs and, most importantly, wages growing faster than prices. That’s a very encouraging thing. Along the way: paying debt down faster and getting to a surplus quicker so we can deal with the tripling of debt that that member drove up last time.

Why wasn’t the Prime Minister able to predict that a war would start in the Middle East, closing the Strait of Hormuz and doubling the price of oil for nearly three months?

Well, I’m close to God, but not that close.

I think anybody can answer that question.

Why does the Prime Minister continue to claim his Government is driving down debt and getting back into surplus faster when the latest forecasts indicate that the Government has borrowed more than $4 billion more than was forecast at this point before the election, and the surplus is two years further away?

Look, the member and numbers are not a strong suit. There’s an $18 billion hidden bill that he’s not following the money for. So let’s just take a step back. It’s good to see that we’ve got growth in this quarter. We’ve been growing this economy at 2.1 percent over the last nine months. The last three of the four quarters we’ve seen growth. We’re seeing it broadly across a number of sectors. Let me go through them: manufacturing, 1.9 percent—there’s 220,000 jobs and 8 percent of our GDP sitting there; that’s a good thing. Business services up 1.1 percent; retail and accommodation up 1.2; wholesale trade up 2.4; exports 3.1; business investment up 3.7 percent. We are making great progress. This is an economy that’s actually in recovery and coming through this, and we’ve managed this crisis well. The member doesn’t like it. He can talk down New Zealand as much as he likes, but, actually, he should be celebrating good levels of growth returning to New Zealand.

Can I just say to the Government benches that the question was to the Prime Minister; not the general support crew behind him.

So if everything’s going so well, why is economic growth today lower than it was forecast to be at this point before he became Prime Minister?

Well, we’ve just gone through a pandemic, we’ve had to clean up a hell of a mess with inflation and interest rates and a recession, we’ve gone through Trump’s tariffs, and now we’re dealing with a Middle East fuel crisis, but I think the member needs to acknowledge that it’s great to see growth coming back into our economy. Isn’t that something that he should be celebrating? This is a member that has an $18 billion hidden bill. Where’s—

That’s enough.

—the money, son?

That’s enough.

When every single one of his key economic indicators—growth, unemployment, inflation, and debt—is worse now than it was forecast to be at this point before he became Prime Minister, why is he continuing to say that his plan’s working?

Well, let’s go through it. Spending is under control—we don’t spend a billion dollars on consultants like the former Minister for the Public Service did. We don’t drive inflation up to 32-year highs, to 7.2 percent; we’ve got it at 3.1. We don’t drive interest rates up 12 or 13 times; we’ve got it down nine times under us—thank you very much. We’ve got growth coming back into the economy of 2.1 percent in the last nine months. We’ve got unemployment down 10 basis points, and we want to see a lot more progress there, but we’ve got jobs being created in the next four years because of outstanding economic management. Spend more, tax more, borrow more—that’s the prescription. Same old Labour; same old economic mess.

Does he stand by his Government’s and Minister Tama Potaka’s decision to make up to 60 percent of conservation land available for disposal, given that these lands are already confiscated Māori land?

Well, I’d just say that I’ve seen the reporting on that. It’s incredibly misleading; a lot of scaremongering going on there. Under our Government, we are not going to be selling off national parks or land of high value in the conservation estate. This is about getting rid of the borstal at Levin, this is about getting rid of the MetService building in Wellington, a couple of gravel pits in Selwyn, the Belvedere in Carterton, and grazing land that’s in the wrong place. So, I mean, like, it’s a pretty simple thing. There are lots of checks and balances. The director-general has to propose it. It’s got to be land of no conservation value—it’s pretty straightforward.

Does he accept that the bill makes it easier for private commercial interests to gain access to public conservation land?

No. This is about making sure that the Department of Conservation can resolve some very practical situations where it has land of no conservation value that it can sell. The funds from that can be used to actually make sure we’re investing back in the estate.

If his Government says it is protecting the conservation estate, why is it making it easier to sell, swap, dispose of, and commercially exploit parts of it?

Well, I refer the member to the answer to the earlier question.

Can the Prime Minister give assurances to Māori that the Conservation Amendment Bill will not undermine conservation commitments contained in Treaty settlements?

I can tell you that we honour Treaty settlements in this Government, but we actually make sure we’re not selling off national parks or land of high conservation value.

14:14 · 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.

Does he accept the Department of Conservation’s advice that conservation land status is one of the strongest protections we have for biodiversity and that without public ownership, the Government has “few levers to protect rare and distinctive species and ecosystems”, and, if so, why is he proposing to weaken protections for conversation land?

We’re not. There are strict criteria in place around the sale or disposal of any conservation land. First and foremost, it needs to be recommended by the Director-General of Conservation; secondly, it actually needs to make sure it’s not important for the conservation of threatened species or biodiversity—that’s good—and, obviously, it’s land that’s not regarded as a good example of the type. There are other protections and criteria in there. We’re going through a select committee process. If I can make that any clearer, I’m very happy to make an alteration to make that clear to everybody involved, but scaremongering and misleading information in the way that the member is presenting it is unacceptable. That is not what this bill is doing.

Why is his Government pushing ahead with weakening protections when the Department of Conservation explicitly warned his Minister of Conservation that “examples of areas that could meet the proposed test include beech forest areas in the Lewis Pass area … hill country tussock and grasslands on the east coast of the South Island … and podocarp forests on the west coast of the South Island”?

As I’ve said before, this is designed to help resolve some practical situations where the Department of Conservation has land of limited conservation or no conservation value—

That’s not what the bill says.

Does the member seriously want to maintain the MetService building here in Wellington? Does the member seriously want to keep the borstal in Levin? Does the member seriously want to keep the gravel pits in Selwyn? That’s what this is designed to do.

Does the Prime Minister consider beech forests near Lewis Pass, which the Department of Conservation have advised could meet the test for disposal, “bits and bobs”?

Well, I’ve explained this to the member. We will not be selling national parks or high-conservation land. That is not what this bill is intended to do. We will go through a select committee process. If there’s any way that I can strengthen that, or we can strengthen that, to make that even clearer, we’re happy to do so.

Does the Prime Minister consider hill country tussockland parks, which the Department of Conservation have advised could meet the test for disposal, “bits and bobs”?

No, I consider the Belvedere Hall in Carterton, I consider the gravel pits in Selwyn, I consider the borstal in Levin, I consider the MetService in Wellington as land that is not of conservation value and is quite OK to be disposed of.

Does the Prime Minister consider podocarp forests on the west coast of the South Island, which the Department of Conservation have advised could meet the test for disposal, “bits and bobs”?

No. As I’ve explained to the member—let me go through it again—the MetService building in Wellington, an old gravel pit reserve in Selwyn, the Belvedere Hall in Carterton, and various grazing land. Oh, and the borstal in Levin—let’s throw that in, too.

14:17 · to the Minister of Finance

What recent reports has she seen on KiwiSaver and retirement savings?

14:18

I have seen reports showing that New Zealanders are contributing greater amounts to their KiwiSaver accounts. On 1 April, default employee KiwiSaver contribution rates increased from 3 to 3.5 percent, matched by an equivalent increase from employers from 3 to 3.5 percent, meaning that workers can now receive 7 percent contributions to their KiwiSaver accounts, rather than the previous 6 percent. While Kiwi savers have been given the option to opt out of this higher contribution rate, I’m pleased to report to the House that 99.5 percent of KiwiSaver contributors have instead chosen to contribute at the higher rate. That means that many, many New Zealanders will now be far better off in retirement or when they go to use a deposit for a first home. I think this small change that makes a significant boost to KiwiSaver accounts shows that New Zealanders understand the value of greater financial security and resilience for themselves and their families over the long term.

What does the strong uptake say about New Zealanders’ attitudes towards savings?

It shows that New Zealanders understand the value of long-term financial security. Even while many households are still carefully managing their budgets, the overwhelming majority are also making higher KiwiSaver contributions in order to improve their future financial and retirement outcomes. This reflects a growing understanding that relatively small increases in weekly contributions can compound into very significant balances over time. For an example, an 18-year-old earning the minimum wage today, and whose career follows a typical path as their wages grow over time, is projected to retire with around $930,000 in KiwiSaver under the higher contribution settings committed to by this Government. That is approximately $190,000 more than they would have had under the previous settings. Of course, I want to note that actual balances will vary depending on investment returns and individual circumstances. Even so, the point is that relatively small increases in regular savings can make a very significant difference over time.

Why does the Government consider stronger KiwiSaver savings important?

Stronger household savings make families and the wider economy more resilient. New Zealand has historically had comparatively low household savings. In a more uncertain global environment, stronger personal savings improve financial security for families, support greater independence and retirement, and they also help build a deeper pool of domestic investment capital over time, which is good news for our economy. That’s why the Government believes helping New Zealanders build assets and long-term financial resilience matters.

Is the Minister aware that New Zealand First “opened the window” to compulsory superannuation in 1997, and again as recently as May 2026, to boost individual savings and deepen New Zealand’s capital markets?

Yes, you’ve opened the window, and now we open the door. Good things sometimes take time.

Does the Minister consider it “childish” to promote a policy that every baby born in New Zealand be provided with a KiwiSaver account and a kick-start payment, or are mum and dad finally listening now?

Well, I’m absolutely sure that the Minister agrees with me that putting a bonus payment into the account of every baby born will not only increase their retirement savings and the deposit available to them for a first time but, also, will grow financial literacy in this country. It’s a great idea and I hope that a future Government gets to deliver it.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I just want to welcome the question exchange that we’ve just seen and seek confirmation from you that questions from this side of the House to governing parties about their party political policy launches will not be ruled out of order.

I’ll have to think about that and come back to you—simply because I don’t recall, actually, the words that were just said. It’s an important point you’re making; there’s no question about that.

Yes. Ministers answer questions as Ministers of the Crown, not as spokespeople for their parties, but we’ve just seen an exchange where spokespeople for their respective parties were asking about party political policies. You allowed both the questions and the answers. I’m quite keen on this innovation, because I’d quite like to question them on some of the policies that they’ve announced. I’m hoping that the same rule will apply for both sides of the House.

Just a moment—just a moment. It’s not something we need a long period of time on, because I’ve said that I will consider it and come back.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. If we were to have such a change in the rules, wouldn’t it disadvantage parties that don’t have any policies of their own?

Did you see that coming?

Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker, I think the member makes a good point, except for the fact that the questions asked by the Rt Hon Winston Peters were along the lines of “Does the Minister agree?” All of those questions are perfectly in order.

Well, that’s something that I’ll obviously have to consider, as I’ve said I will.

How do stronger KiwiSaver balances benefit younger New Zealanders?

For many younger New Zealanders, of course, KiwiSaver is not just about retirement. Larger balances can also support first-home ownership, as people are able to accumulate the funds needed for a deposit on a first home. This has been taken up by many young New Zealanders, who are entering the housing market in a greater proportion than has been the case in many years. And, of course, as people make greater contributions to their KiwiSaver accounts, as has been able to happen with the policy changes of this Government, they will be able to accumulate a larger deposit for a first time. This Government wants more New Zealanders to have the opportunities and security that come from building assets over time.

14:24 · to the Minister of Health

Does he agree with the Director-General of Health’s statement at Health Estimates hearings that “the average length of stay for first-time mothers is around two and a half days”, and why is only $1.6 million appropriated for the three-day postnatal stay initiative in each of the first two years?

14:25

I am pleased to answer the member’s question again. The Government is committed to ensuring that mothers can stay in hospital or a primary maternity unit for up to three days after birth. That is why we’re progressing legislation and have provided funding in Budget 2026 to deliver on it. As I said as part of the announcement, the Government intends to phase the bill’s implementation to ensure the system is ready to deliver the entitlement safely. As I also said as part of the announcement, Health New Zealand will begin by using existing capacity and it will then work closely with maternity providers to meet local community needs. The funding will be rolled out through a staged implementation over three years, allowing time to grow both workforce and bed capacity. That is why the funding has been phased in the way that it has. In terms of the Director-General’s statement, I’m advised the average length of stay for a first-time mother is 2.1 days. This policy is about providing this entitlement to all mothers.

Could he please repeat the number of days that the average length of stay for a new mother is?

As I said in the primary answer there, in terms of the Director-General’s statement, I’m advised that the average length of stay for a first-time mother is 2.1 days. This policy is about providing this entitlement to all mothers.

Has he kept his promise to New Zealand women to give them a three-day postnatal stay in this term of Government where there is only an increase of entitlement to half of the women concerned?

As I said in my primary answer, as part of the announcement, the Government intends to phase the bill’s implementation to ensure the system is ready to deliver the entitlement safely. As I also said as part of the announcement, Health New Zealand will begin by using existing capacity and will then work closely with maternity providers to meet local community needs. The funding will be rolled out through a staged implementation over three years, allowing time to grow both the workforce and bed capacity. That is why the funding has been phased in the way that it has.

Is it correct that after two years, if more than half of the women want to use that entitlement, there still won’t be a bed for them?

As part of the announcement, we also confirmed that there would be implementation planning. There would also be a review after 18 months, and if there is going to be a need for more capacity, there will be more capacity provided.

Isn’t the Government’s new plan to amend the bill proof that, with this reduced entitlement, they have broken their promise?

No, what we are doing is we’re implementing the commitment over a period of time. We have received advice, which—[Interruption] The issue here is we are committed to a policy, which we are delivering as a Government—something which was not delivered under the previous Government—and we are ensuring that it’s implemented in a way that grows the workforce and grows capacity so that it can be delivered. I would note, the previous Government talked big about—

No, no, don’t talk—no, sorry.

14:28 · to the Minister for Infrastructure

What announcements has he made about the Government’s response to the National Infrastructure Plan?

Last week, the Government released its formal response to the National Infrastructure Plan. The Infrastructure Commission published the plan earlier this year. It sets out a 30-year blueprint for how we can improve the way we plan, select, fund, deliver, and look after infrastructure. The plan was a wake-up call for many people. The Government is determined to do better. That’s why we’ve supported all 16 of the commission’s recommendations. We also have work under way on all 10 of the priorities for the decade ahead, including time-of-use pricing, fleet-wide road user charges, a national adaptation framework, lifting hospital investment, integrated spatial planning, and up-zoning around key transport corridors.

What are the most important recommendations in the National Infrastructure Plan?

All the recommendations in the plan are important. Let me highlight a couple. Recommendation 2 is about reforming land transport funding. The Government agrees with the problems the commission has identified with investment, pricing, and delivery settings in land transport. We also agree that system reform is necessary. The second thing I’d highlight is recommendations 3 and 6 around asset management plans and long-term investment plans. The Government will introduce legislative requirements into the Public Finance Act and the Crown Entities Act 2004 to require these as a matter of law.

Will the Government’s response to the plan build a stronger pipeline?

Yes, over time it will. We need to move past the rhetoric of needing a bipartisan infrastructure pipeline, and instead build consensus on the right system settings to make sure we’re planning, selecting, funding, and delivering the right projects. Using these best-practice tools will lead to a stronger and more credible infrastructure pipeline. It starts with central government having asset management plans and long-term investment plans, and the changes we announced in April around infrastructure assurance will help ensure that those investment plans are good and quality for the Government to rely on.

What actions has the Government taken to build bipartisanship on the National Infrastructure Plan?

The Government’s been very deliberate about trying to build consensus on the National Infrastructure Plan. There were multiple briefings to all parties in Parliament from the commission. There was a special debate on the plan when it was released, and I intend to ask Parliament’s Business Committee for another special debate so we can discuss the Government’s response. I also want to say thank you and acknowledge the forewords from the Green Party and the Labour Party, who offered their support and broad direction of travel for the Government’s response to the plan. Some disagreements on the margins, but the point is now we have a plan that is broadly endorsed across all the serious grown-up parties in Parliament, and now we need to get on with it.

14:31 · to the Minister of Transport

Does he stand by all his statements and the Government’s policies in relation to fuel taxes?

In the context that they were made, yes.

Are the revenue forecasts in the Budget based on a cumulative 22c per litre increase in fuel taxes over the next three years?

The forecasts for the National Land Transport Fund are predicated on those assumptions, yes.

When households are already reducing spending on other necessities, such as groceries and electricity, to cover higher fuel costs, how does he expect families to absorb an additional 22c per litre?

The member neatly highlights the difficult trade-offs that confront the Government in relation to this issue. We have publicly signalled that it is unlikely that fuel taxes will rise on 1 January next year, and that is the current position.

When there are notable drops in things like supermarket spending, does he accept that, for many New Zealanders, filling the car already means cutting back on food and that his tax increase would make that worse?

In a broad sense, yes, which is why the Government has signalled that it is unlikely that fuel taxes will rise. However, I would also make the point that petrol tax has not changed—and, in fact, has declined by 20 percent—in real terms since 2020. The National Land Transport Fund is massively oversubscribed, as the member well knows, and roads and rail and public transport and all of the things that the National Land Transport Fund funds have to be paid for. Dollars that are not spent on those things have to come from elsewhere.

Does he accept that describing a 22c increase as “unlikely but still possible”, despite the fact that his Government’s books rely on it, gives households and businesses budgeting for next year no certainty at all?

Households budgeting for next year will, I think, struggle to know what the petrol price will be on 1 January 2027 anyway, because the situation when it comes to petrol prices today is markedly different and the outlook is markedly different to a month ago, which illustrates precisely the challenge that the Government is confronting at this time. Every day, when people wake up and turn on the news, they see a new piece of news out of the Middle East, which, of course, shifts the oil price and, of course, shifts the petrol price. Forecasting at this time is a difficult art for anybody, and the Government is just taking it as it comes. We have signalled publicly that it is unlikely fuel taxes will rise on 1 January. That remains the position, and we have to wait and see what happens in the next few months.

Can the Minister confirm that one of the early actions of this Government was to defer the petrol tax increases planned by the previous Government and to remove the Auckland regional fuel tax, which also would have added to motorists’ fuel bills?

Yes, indeed, I can confirm that when inflation was 6-plus percent—in fact, peaked at 7 percent—the Government took the view that it would not be an opportune time to raise petrol taxes. However, I also make the point that parties in this Parliament are very fond of transport-spending policy announcements, and, ultimately, transport funding has to come from somewhere.

14:35 · to the Minister for Regulation

What actions has the Government taken to reduce the burden of regulations on New Zealanders?

Regulatory burden is limiting New Zealand’s potential, making it harder to make and do, to innovate, and to create. The Government has set up the Ministry for Regulation to make life easier and the burden of compliance smaller, as well as address Kiwis’ complaints about the many stupid rules built up by successive Governments. We’ve gone sector by sector, looking at early childhood education, agricultural and horticultural products, and medical conferences, carving away stupid rules that have held back our potential for too long.

What has the Government done to reduce the regulatory burden on sectors starting with “H”?

Focusing on just that one letter of the alphabet, I’m happy to hoist a helping hand and hype up the hall of “Hs” that we’ve helped. There’s hemp growers no longer facing archaic restrictions and complex licensing processes. In health, we’ve expanded nurse practitioners’ and ambulance personnel’s ability to provide medicines, as well as making medical conferences viable in New Zealand. In hairdressing, we’ve eliminated all of the silly rules that they faced. The hospitality sector review is currently under way, and we’re halving the review time to bring new horticultural products into New Zealand. I could go on, but I’ll stop harping.

When will the Regulatory Standards Act come into effect?

Soon: 1 July. This will increase the transparency costs of new regulations in order that people can see how a new rule proposed by any Government will affect their liberties and their ability to use their property. The Regulatory Standards Board will be formally stood up, and you can go on right now and let them know about rules you don’t think measure up to the principles of good regulation. With so many regulators and so many stupid rules impeding people reaching their potential, there needs to be a sheriff in Government to cut that red tape away.

Can the Minister put a number on the benefits of these changes?

Yes, I can. Peer-reviewed analysis of the benefits of removing stupid rules has calculated the benefits so far at $223 million to $337 million over 10 years. The reason for the range of estimates is that we don’t know, for example, how many people will now take advantage of lighter regulations around growing hemp where they might have grown another crop and now make more money. We don’t know how many medical conferences will be hosted in New Zealand—only that they were almost certainly not going to be hosted here before. Interestingly, if you take the costs of the Ministry for Regulation, the benefit is calculated between $11 and $17 of benefit for every dollar spent. That doesn’t include many difficult to calculate burdens, such as being able to do probate on a will earlier, which none the less are extremely helpful to New Zealanders at difficult times.

Why is it important to reduce regulatory burden?

Because we, over the last 40 years, have seen our society go from a place where a lot of effort goes into making and doing to a place where too much time is spent asking permission to do work, checking that work’s been done, and getting permits. In other words, we spend more time in transactional activity and not enough time in transformational activity. The point of the Regulatory Standards Bill, the Ministry for Regulation, and this Government’s whole deregulatory effort is to allow people to spend more time making and doing, producing for themselves, their families, and their communities, and less time enduring stupid rules that reduce our ability to reach our potential as a country.

14:39 · to the Minister of Education

What update can she give on the Student Monitoring, Assessment and Reporting Tool?

14:40

In 2026, the Government introduced the requirement for schools to assess reading, writing, and maths twice a year for years 3 to 8 students, to show progress over time using one of three nationally consistent assessment tools. Alongside PAT and e-asTTle, SMART, which will replace e-asTTle by the end of the year, is one of the consistent curriculum-aligned tools in schools that can be used and next year will be the only one that is available in both English and te reo Māori. Since its introduction, over 221,000 individual students across 1,331 schools have completed assessments in SMART. I’m proud to have promised, announced, funded, and delivered SMART, giving teachers, schools, and parents more information about how their kids are doing as we continue our reforms of the education system with a laser focus on raising student achievement.

What is the purpose of SMART?

The purpose of SMART is to provide a free, nationally consistent, and curriculum-aligned assessment tool that monitors progress over time in both English and te reo Māori. From 2027, schools will have a choice of SMART or PAT to contribute to and moderate teacher judgment over time. Results from SMART and PAT help inform schools’ reporting to parents so that they know more about how their child is doing at school and how they can help at home. It’s about measuring progress so we can support students and intervene early, because we can’t address what we don’t measure. Assessment data that is nationally consistent will allow us to better respond to and resource the education system, better meeting the needs of students and teachers so we can raise student achievement.

How does SMART support reporting to parents?

To support reporting to parents, a SMART tool provides teachers with clear, consistent progress information and offers automated marking and reporting to save them time in the classroom and present both class and individual student progress. For parents, it gives them better insights into the progress students are making and provides clear information about progress against curriculum expectations, giving them greater confidence that their child’s learning needs are being identified early and supported across the year. SMART is just one part of a system-wide shift towards more consistent assessment, which includes the phonics checks, the year 2 maths and literacy check, the year 5 times tables check, and strengthened reporting to parents so they can be sure that we are raising student achievement.

How will the use of nationally consistent assessment address achievement and equity issues in education?

The Auditor-General’s 2024 report found that to improve equity, the ministry needs to access high-quality information to be able to identify which student groups have inequitable education outcomes and what factors affect their achievement and progress. The report found that there is no comprehensive and authoritative summary of student achievement and progress in New Zealand, especially for years 1 to 10 and in Māori medium education. The introduction of the SMART tool and twice-yearly assessments to measure that progress over time will create a system-wide view of student progress and achievement so that parents know more about how their kids are doing, teachers understand next steps in learning, and the education system can better respond to needs so that we are fixing the basics and building the future by raising student achievement.

14:43 · 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.

Does he agree with his Minister of Finance that extreme wealth inequality is a bad thing?

What I agree with is that the proposal I’ve seen from the Green Party over the weekend is economic lunacy.

No, hang on. Sorry, have another go. You can’t comment on—

Can she repeat the question?

Repeat the question.

Does he agree with his Minister of Finance that extreme wealth inequality is a bad thing?

Well, I haven’t seen the quote that you’re referencing.

Does the Prime Minister think that extreme wealth inequality is a bad thing?

I think what’s important is actually to create more wealth in this country, and I think we saw a contrast to that on the weekend.

Does the Prime Minister think that it is a problem when 150 rich people in this country hold as much wealth as half of the rest of the country?

Well, I just don’t think the answer to our economy is to penalise the wealth creators that are creating the jobs and the incomes for many other Kiwis. I just don’t understand how that actually helps move New Zealand forward or grow our economy.

Does the Prime Minister believe that the inequality between business class and economy is extreme?

Look, I think that given a previous interest, it’s an inappropriate question.

Does he agree with the OECD or the International Monetary Fund, who both say that inequality—for which we rank worse than the OECD average—erodes social cohesion and long-term economic growth?

Well, that’s why we are very keen to lift KiwiSaver contributions, and you’ve seen that, actually, in the last year, when we lifted it from 3 to 3.5 percent, and an 18-year-old earning roughly the minimum wage is about $190,000 better off by the time they get to retirement. We want to make sure that irrespective of your circumstances, you have a shot at the Kiwi Dream, and we actually set you up with retirement income and the ability to purchase a house.

Why, then, does the best available evidence show that extreme wealth inequality has gotten far worse under the economic decisions made by his Government in the past three years?

Well, I just find it a little bit rich, literally, coming from a member who didn’t support tax relief for low and middle income working New Zealanders. You know, that was unbelievable—that, actually, if you care about low and middle income working New Zealanders, that party did not support tax relief for the first time in 14 years.

Can I ask the Prime Minister as to why he didn’t determine, of the 150 so-called rich, what proportion of their wealth was offshore or onshore in this country, or, second, is it likely that that mistake was the same that made $500 million sound like $500 billion—that’s a week ago—and then just last week $800 million in mistakes on the front page of the New Zealand newspapers?

Well, I don’t think the $800 million miscalculation in the policy was the worst thing about it. There are billions and billions of dollars that New Zealand will lose out. I just put it to the member: do you seriously think Rocket Lab, Halter, or Weta would stay in New Zealand when you’ve got a wealth tax, death tax, inheritance tax, gift tax, renter tax, and a 45 percent top income tax?

Yeah, that’s enough—that’s the end of that. Let me just make it very clear to the House that question time is to ask the Government questions about Government policy, and I think—as pointed by the Leader of the Opposition—it would be unfortunate if, each day, I’m having to rule on matters that are more about parties’ policies than Government actions.

14:48 · to the Minister of Conservation

Does he stand by his statement that he is “one of the hugest flagbearers for conservation, kaitiakitanga, and the environment”; if so, why?

on behalf of the Minister of Conservation: Yes, and, indeed, this very day I am down in the South Island celebrating the establishment of five new marine reserves, the largest increase in marine protection in New Zealand in recent years.

When he said to the Environment Committee last week that he will only get rid of “bits and bobs” of conservation land, what is his definition of “bits and bobs”?

On behalf of the Minister, my comments at the select committee, clearly, were in the context of the fact that the purpose of the Conservation Act will remain conservation. The amendment bill is simply modernising and simplifying its processes. There is no plan or programme for large-scale sale or other disposal, including exchange, of New Zealand conservation land. Subject to strict criteria, it may be from time to time—very infrequently—that low conservation land, or in fact land that is not conservation at all, except in name by being owned by the Department of Conservation, might be appropriately disposed of with net environmental benefit, and that’s exactly the regime that’s being established.

Will he guarantee that no parts of the Aotea Conservation Park on Great Barrier Island, the Cathedral Cove recreation reserve, the Remarkables Conservation Area, or the Catlins Conservation Park will be sold or exchanged as a result of his Conservation Amendment Bill?

On behalf of the Minister, I’m very confident that those iconic conservation locations that the member has listed will not be subject to disposal, sale, or exchange, including because, in some cases, they are under the categories that are explicitly excluded, such as national parks, national reserves, ecological areas, wilderness areas, sanctuary areas, nature reserves, scientific reserves, marine reserves, and Ramsar sites, otherwise known as wetlands.

If he has no intention of flogging off high-value conservation land, why is he changing the law to make it easier to sell up to 60 percent of public conservation land?

On behalf of the Minister, I am doing no such thing. The point about having a regime that simplifies and modernises a number of processes under the Conservation Act, including the sale, disposal, and exchange of land, is that the net environmental benefit would need to be established. The process would include the inviting of comments on any proposed or possible disposal by the Director-General of Conservation, allowing at least 30 working days for input; the public notification of that; analysis of impacts on Māori rights and interests; the question of whether it would likely be subject to future Treaty settlement negotiations, as well as existing rights of first refusal; and, as the Prime Minister set out earlier in his answers to questions Nos 1 and 2, it would also need to be the case that the land was not important for the conservation of a threatened species or ecosystems—[Interruption] listen and learn—that the habitat provided is not one of the best examples of its type, and the director-general would have had to recommend it. Even then, if all those criteria were satisfied, there might still be conditions imposed by way of covenant or easement.

How is he one of the “hugest flagbearers for conservation” when his record as Minister is watering down protections for the Hauraki Gulf, cutting the Department of Conservation’s funding, ending Jobs for Nature, and now changing the law to sell off New Zealand’s precious conservation land?

On behalf of the Minister, I reject the characterisation of all those different elements of the member’s question.

14:52

My question is to the Minister for—sorry, Trade and Investment. What recent reports has he seen—[Interruption]

Just a moment—just a moment. All questions are heard in silence, other than the person asking the question.

to the Minister for Trade and Investment

What recent reports has he seen on primary sector export growth?

14:53

on behalf of the Minister for Trade and Investment: I’ve seen the latest Situation and Outlook for Primary Industries, which shows our food and fibre sector continuing to perform strongly. Exports are on track to hit a record $64.3 billion this year. That’s up 6 percent, driven by strong demand and the hard work of Kiwi farmers and growers. This Government is backing that growth through new trade agreements and targeted investment, and we are on track towards our goal of doubling export value in the next 10 years.

What is driving that growth and what are the key trends in the sector?

We’re seeing strong global demand and prices, particularly for dairy and red meat, alongside excellent production conditions, like a bumper kiwifruit and apple crop season, which is boosting output. That’s translating into real export growth, with dairy expected to reach $28.6 billion, meat and wool up to $14.1 billion, and horticulture a record $9.5 billion. But, just as importantly, the sector is adapting and diversifying into new markets, maintaining supply chains, and, despite disruption, shifting towards higher-value products.

How is the Government supporting that growth?

We’ve taken a very deliberate approach this term to back our farmers and growers and set the sector up for long-term success. That starts with opening markets, including our new free-trade agreement with the United Arab Emirates, which is expanding access and cutting tariffs across key products. On top of that, we’re supporting on-farm innovation and lower-emissions technology, improving water infrastructure and land-use options, and backing practical support through services that connect farmers to advice and recovery.

Why is export growth so important for New Zealanders?

Let me count the ways—but mostly because exports are how we grow the economy, and the primary sector is underpinning that. The food and fibre sector supports around 12 percent of employment—over 360,000 jobs—so when it does well, a huge number of Kiwis benefit. That obviously flows into jobs, stronger regional communities, and higher living standards.

14:55 · to the Minister for Tertiary Education

Does she stand by her statement regarding Budget 2026 that “Funding is also being provided to meet additional forecast demand for tertiary education and training”; if so, why?

Yes. Budget 2026 provided a total of $320.4 million across the forecast period to fund 99 percent of forecast demand for tertiary education and training across the 2026 and 2027 calendar years and an additional 1,000 Youth Guarantee places per year from 1 July 2026.

How much of the $1 billion from fees-free was reinvested into the tertiary education system, and how much was not?

Well, of course, this Government, being a very responsible Government, looked at all the line items in the tertiary education budget, found an initiative that had cost over $1 billion during its lifetime, and found that it had not met the objectives of that initiative. As a responsible Government, we decided not to continue on with wasting $1 billion. We took some savings out of that to reprioritise into things like Youth Guarantee, into trades academies, and the remainder—and I make absolutely no apology for this—returned to the centre so that this Government could ensure that we reach a surplus earlier and prevent having to spend over $9 billion on interest for longer.

How many work-based learners and polytech students are impacted by scrapping fees-free?

Well, of course, it depends on how many would have been enrolled, but the savings is approximately $1 billion over the forecast period.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. That’s the second question—I’ve been quite specific in my first supplementary and my second supplementary—[Interruption] The first supplementary was specifically around how much of the $1 billion from fees-free was reinvested into the tertiary education system. I don’t think she answered that question, but I went on to the second supplementary, which was: “How many work-based learners and polytech students are impacted by scrapping fees-free?”. She did not answer that second question either.

Well, with all due respect, the first question was answered with the words “the funding was returned to the centre”. The second part is that it’s not possible for anyone to know what enrolments might have been or might not have been, and I think that was the answer that was given by the Minister, which is quite reasonable.

How will 1,000 Youth Guarantee places touch the sides when, under her Government, the number of people not in education, employment, or training has reached 100,000?

Well, of course, those that aren’t in education, employment, or training are supported across a very broad range of initiatives from Government programmes—including, of course, the Youth Guarantee support that’s given through tertiary, but also including the Ministry of Social Development, employment services programmes, and a number of other initiatives that enhance and support those young people.

Is she simply trying to pass the buck on to students when scrapping fees-free at the same time as hiking student fees for a third year in a row?

The Annual Maximum Fee Movement, the maximum fee allowed, after consultation, may well go to 6 percent. That doesn’t require any provider to lift by 6 percent; it gives them that opportunity. What it will do is align approximately with what inflation was from 2018 through to now. [Interruption]

Well, hang on a minute. I beg your pardon? That concludes oral questions. We’ll take a short break before I call on the member to move a matter of urgent public interest.

15:01

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to raise this urgent debate for the fact that this isn’t just an ordinary IT failure; this is an IT upgrade that was supposed to enable the sharing and collection of people’s biometric information—data that is extremely sensitive. As I noted, this is due to the fact that there was a failure by Immigration New Zealand to update Ministers and members of Parliament on the project. I would say that we can all agree that Ministers expect to receive reliable, accurate, free, and frank advice from their officials. This is fundamental to the functioning of democratic and accountable government here in Aotearoa. Ministers and MPs receiving misleading information from officials, denying Ministers and MPs accurate oversight of expensive and failing IT projects, undermines democratic and accountable government, and it is of great significance.

This botched IT project has quite a bit of a timeline. I just wanted to take us back to the fact that this goes all the way back to 2018, when Immigration New Zealand launched the upgrade to their biometric systems without first conducting detailed analysis. That already highlights concerns ranging from almost 10 years ago. In 2019, Immigration New Zealand developed two business cases for the upgrade programme, with optimistic assumptions, insufficient evidence, and incomplete option assessments, as noted by the review. In 2020, Immigration New Zealand rescoped the project to address project issues following COVID-19 cost pressures without doing due diligence, such as detailed business requirements or market testing, and this led to continuous delays, missed milestones, and increased evidence that the NEC—the company in question—solution was not fit for purpose.

Moving all the way back to 2025: after a series of concerns, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment paused, and ultimately discontinued, the project, with, effectively, no public notice, adequate briefing to the Minister, or, as we saw in March 2026, adequate transparency, when members of the Opposition, in this case Phil Twyford, asked for an update on where this IT project was at. I think that particular incident in 2026 highlights a broader concern about whether the processes that we have in Parliament to scrutinise Government officials over their use of resources and the enablement of Government programmes is actually fit for purpose if MPs are not able to adequately receive information that is accurate and fulsome.

Last week, we received, through the Minister during a scrutiny session, a report that highlighted the range of failures that were conducted by Immigration New Zealand in this upgrade. The Minister Erica Stanford at the time revealed to us that, effectively, the ministry deliberately withheld information from her about the failed technology upgrade; that Immigration New Zealand had released an independent report, which was kept from the Minister for several weeks; that it identified major flaws in the department and the handling of it—and more on that in a second—and that this project effectively included a $31 million write-off. I think that’s of concern to taxpayers as well, who would expect that that money would have been used responsibly. As of this week, we know that there is a Public Service Commission investigation, led by Michael Heron KC, into this botched system upgrade, and I look forward to the results of this investigation.

In terms of the purpose of this, the biometric capability update—BCU, which I may refer to it as later—was supposedly intended to modernise Immigration New Zealand’s identity management solution by upgrading the NEC, the software provider. I want to note, by the way, that this is a provider that is used by several other countries, including in the United States at the airport, as far as I’ve been able to ascertain from public information. So this is a company that is used quite extensively worldwide. The idea was to replace our old systems and replace the in-person enrolment IP component.

The thing that I want to tie here with something else that the Government is part of, is that—and I don’t think this has received enough, and adequate, public discourse on it—ultimately, what we do know is that this upgrade was put in place to basically better align us to our other Migration 5 pact nations. I think that’s quite important, because the biometric information that is supposed to be collected through this upgrade would have included information on refugees and asylum seekers, or immigrants. In the case of the former, we’re talking about groups of people who would have been fleeing potentially life-threatening situations. I would expect that members of Parliament, as well as the public, would want a robust system with adequate safeguards to ensure that that information does not land in the wrong hands. Already, there’s a lot of secrecy and lack of public information over the Migration 5 pact.

There are also concerns around, for example, what happens to that information once it lands in the hands of those other host countries. For example, we have very little oversight over whether that biometric information is used adequately by the likes of the United States, who currently have a Government that is very much targeting migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. This is related to the botched upgrade, because if you look at the report that the Minister dropped in the select committee session last week, we know that there were a range of cyber-security concerns.

I’m going to just quote some of the stuff that we received at the time. Now, in the report that we received, it was noted that “Cyber security remained a persistent and material issue throughout the project.” There were “Multiple attempts … to reach agreement with NEC on resolving [these] vulnerabilities”. The report goes on to say that “NEC was often slow or unwilling to address concerns raised by MBIE.” This report also noted that, all the way back in 2024, there were reviews on this security assessment “which identified numerous technical vulnerabilities, including seven rated as High risk.” There were attempts of remediating these issues with NEC that were deemed impractical, such as short notice, and the report goes on to talk about how, effectively, very out-of-the-box solutions had to be created in order to address this.

Now, this is particularly concerning, because we have an IT upgrade project relating to people’s biometric information where there were a lot of cyber-security issues attached to it. On top of that, Ministers and members of Parliament were not actually being updated over the risks that came alongside this programme. That raises huge concerns over what could have happened if this project had continued to go ahead with a company that clearly wasn’t actually up to standard. It raises further concerns about Ministers being kept in the dark over cyber-security issues that could have massively compromised people’s privacy or, worse, safety.

When we talk about biometric information from the likes of asylum seekers and refugees, like I said earlier, we’re talking about groups of people who are fleeing persecution. We’re talking about information that could be obtained through bad faith acts, by agents that seek to harm them, or the very same agents that they’re escaping persecution from. The fact that this report identified that there were humongous cyber-security concerns and yet Ministers were being kept in the dark, to us, raises humongous concerns and further questions that I think sit a little bit outside of the scope of what this review commissioned by the Public Service Commission is carrying out.

One of the things that I think is critical to ascertain from the Minister moving forward is what involvement we’re going to continue having with the Migration 5 pact. More importantly, what are the next steps in updating our biometric data gathering regimes in order to comply with the likes of those other nations? I don’t think we have had answers on the future of our IT systems in relation to biometric information from the Minister herself. So I think while we scrutinise this botched IT upgrade by Immigration New Zealand, questions remain over the future of our participation in the Migration 5 pact and whether we’re going to continue trying to move ahead with better complying with the expectations from our partners on automated information sharing of the likes of migrants’, asylum seekers’, and refugees’ biometric information.

I hope that, throughout this debate, the Minister will be able to clarify the future of this IT upgrade, our future participation in the Migration 5 pact, and that we’re able to also get clear answers from the Minister over the next few weeks and months over exactly what her expectations are when it comes to, for example, cyber-security, or how this information is handled by other countries in the Migration 5 pact, which this IT project was actually, effectively, for.

So I look forward to other members highlighting their concerns, but, more importantly, I look forward to Government members laying out their expectations over the future of our participation in these programmes, which ultimately led to a nebulous, secretive, and botched IT upgrade. But I don’t think that anyone, any service—certainly not taxpayers, members of Parliament, or the Minister—is involved in it.

15:11

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Before I begin, I’d just like to say I’m going to stick to the scope of this debate. There have been some wild assertions made by the previous speaker that are somewhat outside of this scope that I’m not going to address. They are for the future. I’m going to stick to the facts that we know so far, and also the scope of this debate today.

This is a project that has been going on for some time—in fact, since 2019—and really had its problems start from day one. It’s very clear in the report that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) commissioned that I was able to provide to the Education and Workforce Committee, which I’d only had two or three days before, that the problems with this biometric capability upgrade started on day one with a business case that was not up to standard. There are many questions that need to be asked through the Public Service Commissioner’s report, and I’ll go over those in a moment. But the history of this case goes back to that fatally flawed business case, and then fast-forwarding to 2020 when officials decided to drastically change the scope of the project from what, essentially, was an off-the-shelf biometric capability piece of technology into something much, much bigger—into, essentially, that merged with what is described as a workflow programme. Now, that, as far as I have been briefed on, was not something that had been done before by this particular vendor, and when you trace back all of the details, this was the second and also most crucial decision that was made to take something that, potentially, could have been delivered to something that, actually, probably never was able to be delivered.

The next range of things that happened were delays—of course, COVID was in there, but the eventual delays of the project and cost escalations because of the poor business case, over-optimism, and the fact that decisions had been made around that change to scope, that fatally flawed the project. It’s interesting to delve into that time frame because of the questions that now need to be asked with all of those changes to the cost, changes to the time frames, and decisions that were made around changing the scope.

The report was damning. It laid out the fact that, essentially, this project was being undertaken under the cover of darkness almost—those are my words, not the report’s words. Essentially, lots of decisions were made without any scrutiny, and I will run through the timeline. Importantly, it lays out three things. Firstly, that there was misleading information that was given to Ministers, and I would also put forward that misleading Ministers was not only in the form of the information that they got but in the fact that they were not given a lot of information, and I’ll go into that as well. The second thing was the claim of creative accounting to keep these escalating costs and the whole-of-life costs, as it increased and needed to go to Cabinet, away from Cabinet. I’ll talk about that. Then, also, the extraordinary claim of people who were raising concerns being moved sideways from the project, and who were not listened to. Those three things are really “the trifecta of terrible things”, as I have described this in the media.

The thing, obviously, that I did first when I received the report in my weekend bag was make a phone call to the Public Service Commissioner and, then, send him, very quickly after that phone call, a letter asking him to undertake an independent inquiry. The terms of reference of that inquiry have been released this morning with Michael Heron KC, who will be in charge of that.

Now, some of the things that I expect to be looked into are some of the things that were raised by the report that I tabled at the select committee but, fascinatingly and importantly, are all the steps along the way that officials were taking without the scrutiny of Ministers or of Cabinet. While I’m not passing any judgment, I’m just raising some of the things that will need to be looked at by the Public Service Commissioner. The original business case in 2019 with the whole-of-life cost of $19.49 million—as far as I can see, with all the information that I’ve asked for—was not signed off by Ministers. Now, at the time, as far as I understand, $15 million was the amount needed to have sign-off by Ministers. This was $19.49 million, and I can’t see any sign-out by Ministers.

Then, May 2020 was the second crucial point where the scope changed dramatically from an off-the-shelf product into a workflow product that was to be merged and eventually not able to be delivered. As far as, again, I can see—and I’ve asked for all information that was given to previous Ministers—that massive change in scope was not signed off by Ministers or not given to Ministers to sign out. Then, the whole-of-life cost starts at $19.49 million in May 2020; it’s $22.83 million. Again, no paperwork was signed out by Ministers because it exceeded its original whole-of-life cost. In July 2020, the whole-of-life cost had reached $30.75 million—not signed out by any Ministers. In July 21, there was still no sign-out by Ministers.

The first paper that I can find that had been delivered to Ministers to alert them to anything was in November 2021—two years after the original business case—where it simply said, “To Ministers, note that the whole-of-life cost is now $30 million”, and then, “approve another $22-odd million from baselines to keep the project going.”, which was approved. That was properly signed out by the Minister of Finance and the Minister at the time, Kris Faafoi, with Grant Robertson. That was, as far as we can see, the first time that Immigration had come to Ministers to say, “Hey, the whole-of-life cost is now $30 million.” That’s the first time they’ve said it has exceeded, as far as I can see, the original whole-of-life cost of $19.49 million. You will note, from what I’d said earlier, by November 2021, when I can find this first paper, it had already exceeded the whole-of-life cost and had already been at $30 million since July 2020. It wasn’t until November 2021 that a paper went to Ministers to say “not approve but just note that it is now $30 million”. These are some of the questions that I expect to be answered.

Of course, the project carried on, and then in July 2023, officials went to the new Minister of Immigration, the Hon Andrew Little, and said, “Look, again, costs have blown out, and time has blown out.”, and requested that it go from $30 million to $35 million—those whole-of-life costs. That was signed out. I think I mentioned in select committee that it was a pamphlet. It was literally two pages of scant information provided to the Minister. Then, one month later, in August of 2023, officials came back to Mr Little—not with a paper because I think he sent them packing before they could give him one—and asked for Cabinet to sign off an increase from $35 million to $40 million.

Now, I think that at that point the Hon Andrew Little said, “No, thank you. We’re not doing that.”, and from there, when I became the Minister—as I’ve already laid out, and I don’t need to go into it now—the information that I received was, as I think I have described it, diametrically opposed to the truth, which we uncovered very quickly by asking lots and lots and lots and lots of questions about the whole-of-life costs. We said, “No, we’re not taking that to Cabinet; you’re going to deliver it.”, and we asked for regular updates, of course.

But what the Public Service Commission (PSC) now needs to look at is those three things: how were Ministers misled, if they were; the information they were given; and, importantly, the information that they were not given, because, as I can see, over the last six years of this, Ministers were given scant information. Who was moved on and how were those creative accounting practices actually undertaken? I have a fair idea, but I’ll leave that to the PSC.

This spans multiple Governments and multiple Ministers. There are many, many questions to be answered. I’ve laid out some of the ones that I believe should be answered, and now I have faith in Michael Heron KC to undertake this review. Thank you.

15:21

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Last week, Minister Erica Stanford came along to Parliament’s Education and Workforce Committee and dropped a report that set out multiple, compounding failures by MBIE—the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment—in managing a project known as the Biometric Capability Update, a project that had been running since 2018. The report contains a litany of poor governance, mismanagement, over-optimism, and inadequate decision-making, but even more shocking than the incompetence on display in this report, to my mind, are the integrity issues that have been exposed: repeated selective and misleading advice to a succession of Ministers, creative accounting to keep the project below the $35 million threshold that would have triggered Cabinet oversight, and reports that MBIE employees who criticised or raised questions about the project were moved sideways or moved out.

The Minister has, rightly, asked the Public Service Commissioner to investigate, but I want to add to this debate another element. On 4 March, senior officials from the ministry came along to Parliament’s Education and Workforce Committee during the annual review hearings, and at that meeting I asked Nic Blakeley, the Chief Executive of MBIE, and Alison McDonald, the Deputy Secretary of Immigration New Zealand, about a number of reports and independent reviews that I understood had warned about delivery risks. I asked them to tell the committee what the key risks were that were identified and whether any milestones had slipped in the implementation of the project, and what I got can best be described as flannel: a long answer that, in my view, was dissembling. No facts that we would now recognise about the project were delivered.

I asked why the full review reports had not been released publicly, and Alison McDonald said, “I don’t know, actually, why they haven’t been, because the reviews have just kind of been of the programme as we’ve gone along to help and guide us, so we haven’t actually needed to have a public review as such.” We now know that the project had been completely disestablished at the very time that the officials were answering those questions. They had already apologised to a Minister who was on the warpath about this project because of the dissembling and the manipulation and the lying by omission. In no way did those very senior public servants answer the questions that I asked them in Parliament’s Education and Workforce Committee.

I believe that the acting chief executive of MBIE and the deputy secretary responsible for Immigration misled Parliament. They came along to this place to appear at hearings that had the very purpose of scrutinising the Government’s activities through the annual review and they dissembled. It’s fundamental—

Yeah, can I just—I think that the member can certainly talk of his experience, but because there are other considerations going on, it would be inappropriate to make specific allegations that might be better tested in another forum. I think that the member understands what I’m saying.

OK, thank you, Mr Speaker. It is fundamental to Parliament’s purpose to be holding the executive accountable for the spending of public money and the implementation of policies. This isn’t about an IT project and it’s not about some officials who have said this or that; it’s about whether our institutions remain worthy of the trust that people place in them.

New Zealand built the Public Service, which is respected around the world, in a tradition based on integrity, professionalism, and public service, and whatever our politics, that’s worth defending. The villain here isn’t the individuals involved; it’s the erosion of accountability and the erosion of public trust in Government, and it’s my hope that, in a non-partisan way, this House takes this issue seriously and applies sunlight as a disinfectant, and that the Public Service Commissioner does an investigation that’s thorough and that holds people to account.

15:26

Thank you, Mr Speaker. As the immigration spokesperson for the ACT Party, I was actually quite disappointed and concerned when we heard about this issue. We were in our scrutiny week, waiting for the Minister of Immigration to arrive, ready with our scrutiny questions about the Budget, when the Minister revealed this very serious issue of the failure of the Biometric Capability Update project. It was quite obvious that the Minister was really disappointed—disappointed on so many levels—and, as committee members, we were disappointed, as well.

I would have to say that it came as a shock because we know that select committees are the engine room of our democracy. In our select committees, we know that it is our role to scrutinise these different entities, and just three months ago, they had the opportunity to reveal this information to us, but Immigration New Zealand didn’t reveal the information to us that this project had been already axed at the end of last year. This project, which ran for around seven years, had had so many issues, delays, costs, and challenges with implementation, and there were so many things happening in the background. The Minister was unaware that the project was axed at the end of last year, and the select committee didn’t know that the project was axed until the Minister revealed this to the select committee.

The important issue is this: it’s not just one project that has failed that is a big issue. With any project we try to implement, sometimes—yes—there might be cases where the project will fail, but the issue here is bigger. Yes, I do want to give some consideration to the $33 million of taxpayers’ money that has been wasted—that is important, too—but beyond these two issues, which are that the project has failed and how much money has gone into it, this actually creates a bigger issue for us, because this is an issue of how our democratic oversight works and how our scrutiny works. We rely on our public servants to tell us the information and provide us with the information in the select committee process and provide the information that the Minister should be aware of, and, as the Minister has said, so many decisions were made without any scrutiny.

What is also very concerning is this: most of this money has already been paid out to external agencies, and so this money cannot be recovered. The money is gone for ever, and the money has been wasted. Seven years is a very, very long time. In our departments, if we take seven years to decide whether a project is working or not working, that is a very, very long time. If you’re running your own business, would any business owner wait for seven years to see if something is working or not?

That was the second issue that I want to raise, and then the third issue that I want to raise in this contribution is this. We were made aware that those staff who raised concerns about the failures of this project or concerns about this project were sidelined, and so what was happening in there?

There are a number of questions that need to be asked, and I am aware that the officials have apologised. They have publicly apologised to the Minister and have apologised in general to the public, as well.

I would say this: in this case, an apology is not enough. We are looking forward to the findings of the investigation that the Public Service Commission is doing, because there are some bigger questions that need to be answered. The questions are about the integrity of our Public Service; the questions are about our democratic oversight and scrutiny as well. Thank you.

15:30

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on this debate and, first, commend the Minister of Immigration for her articulate and detailed summary of the issues that are at hand in this discussion. This is a critically important issue around the faith and trust that the New Zealand public can have in our Public Service and in the processes that are followed in delivering projects and spending taxpayer money.

I think we’ve seen across this debate that there is violent agreement around the importance of a thorough and robust inquiry, and I don’t think that we need to litigate further the discussion points that have been raised. We have all collectively recognised how important this inquiry will be. The terms of reference have been released today, and the Public Service Commission have been proactive in appointing the head of that investigation. The fact that the Minister has proactively announced this information, and has been very forthcoming since coming into her role, around the questions that were asked and the scrutiny that was applied—she identified clearly where the failings had arisen, and now we’re awaiting the answers.

I think further litigation in this House is no longer necessary. The fact that we have all agreed that it is critically important that we, as members of Parliament, this House, and Ministers of the Crown, have total faith in the Public Service and the information provided to us and that all are acting in good faith and in accordance with their responsibilities. Therefore, I conclude my comments.

15:32

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think we can all see from the seriousness of this urgent debate this afternoon the importance of this matter and the gravity with which it’s being treated. I think there are two issues which I hope Michael Heron KC will be able to investigate as part of his investigation on behalf of the Public Service Commissioner, and that is, firstly, the historical background that led this project to where it is today, and the alleged purposeful avoidance of scrutiny. The second matter is, really, how Parliament and, in fact, the Minister, was informed when those key pieces of information came to light.

The Public Service is an integral part of our Government, and, of course, they act in a way that is politically neutral, but in a way that answers to the Government of the day. Although they are not party political, they are answerable to the Ministers who happen to be in office, and that’s because of the important way that our democracy works. The Minister and Mr Twyford and others who have contributed to this debate are right to be concerned when there is a question of whether that information that has been provided to Ministers over various Governments has been correct or not—or if, in fact, there was a situation where information was not forthcoming when it should otherwise have been.

I think this is a very serious issue. I have looked at this not so much from an immigration perspective but from the Public Service in general, and I think it’s very important that this matter is dealt with quickly. We do know that this matter has gone on for a very long period of time, but it is really important that the Public Service Commission, I think, has a review and instructs Mr Heron KC to do this in a way that can be done quickly and does not, ideally, go into a further Government, because I think the answers that the House needs and the public needs are more urgent than that.

There is something which I hope will not happen from this, and that is a greater distrust of advice. It is very difficult to see how a Government can work when they can’t rely on the information which is provided to them by their officials. We know that 99.9 percent, if not all officials, are always trying to do their best job and that it will be a tiny minority, if any, who would ever think of hiding relevant information from a Minister. We must not use this as a way of justifying smaller Government or distrust in the Public Service; we must see this for what it is, and that is a very serious failure to allow the proper scrutiny. Use of public money is hugely important within this. This is not a small amount of money—$35 million is not a small amount of money—and it does show the complexity of IT projects that the Government may undertake.

Now, many people come into this Parliament from many different walks of life and many different professions before they become parliamentarians or, indeed, Ministers, but the scope of the complexity of the way that the world is now with artificial intelligence and different platforms in terms of IT projects is very, very sophisticated. It does mean that Ministers do have to rely on expert advice. This is going to be a problem facing future Governments as well; how do you scrutinise effectively the very complex, very technical advice that is being put in place? The responsibility for that, I believe, lies with the officials to allow Ministers the opportunity to exercise their judgment and their scrutiny over that spending. In this case, it does not appear that that has occurred; that is hugely disappointing.

A final point is that we do need to make sure that when we have these big ministries like the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, the size of the ministry is not affecting the type of scrutiny or the type of reporting which is able to be provided to Ministers. I hope that that isn’t a more widespread issue, but it’s something that we need to be mindful of moving forward.

15:37

Look, I think it’s important to stand as the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee to speak to some of the technical aspects of the hearing in question. On 4 March, the committee scrutinised Immigration New Zealand as part of its regular annual review hearing process. This is in line with the annual review scrutiny. We had an in-depth, de facto review for three hours with Immigration New Zealand. That was, as mentioned by Phil Twyford, with Nic Blakely and with Alison McDonald, who acknowledged at the time that she was retiring.

The thing about these three-hour reviews is that a structured agenda is given to the agencies in advance. Part 2 of the structured agenda was service delivery and very clearly stated “New IT systems and paperless applications”. It was very, very clear to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and Immigration New Zealand that there would be questions asked on those areas. It then comes to a part within part 2, and we can go back to the transcript, but I will just recount it from my memory. A question was asked about the biometric capability upgrade specifically by member Phil Twyford, particularly speaking to a couple of the reviews that we’d been made aware of around risks being raised with Immigration New Zealand and with MBIE. The question was asked around what has the agency done in response to those reviews.

Now, there was sort of a little bit of answering in the committee—not substantive—and I think this is the point where I say they were very much aware, in the structured agenda, that they would be asked about new IT systems. There was some light answering of the question. Now, we make a really good case—and I know that all of the members of the committee will agree—to follow up on anything that is not answered sufficiently in the committee. It’s on the transcript, in fact, where I asked for Immigration New Zealand and MBIE to make sure they follow up on that and that the secretariat take note of what hasn’t been answered and to follow up directly. Within the post-hearing written questions was a follow-up question asking about what work has been done in response to those reviews that raised risks about that particular software implementation. It’s worth noting that in the written responses to that question—and a number of those responses are quite long: multiple paragraphs, three, four, sometimes even five paragraphs. This was one, maybe two sentences that said, “extensive work has been undertaken”—not what has been done, but that extensive work has been undertaken. I think it’s worth noting that it says also that it has “positively guided a change in approach”, and then goes on to say, not in direct quotations, a system-wide change.

Look, I can’t comment as to whether or not they knew what they knew at that time. We know that a report came out in April. I can’t comment to that. I think the point that I want to make very, very clear is that they were very well aware in that hearing that they would be asked about the new IT systems. They were asked about the new IT system. In fact, it wasn’t actually that new, as we’ve made very clear—seven years—and they were asked in the committee and weren’t able to answer extensively, then asked in follow-up questions, and did not answer in depth. Look, there may be reasons for that, reasons that we would quite like to find out. We will discuss that as a committee.

I just want to make it very, very clear to the House and to anybody listening that our committee takes this very seriously. Like the Minister has raised and like everybody else has mentioned, we need to be able to trust the advice that we are given. We also need to trust that when we are scrutinising agencies, answers to questions that are genuine questions that require substantive answers are answered. So we are yet to report that back to the House. I think that’s worth noting. So the committee will discuss how we deal with that going forward.

I thought it’s very important for me to raise with the House, and for people listening, that technical aspect of that particular hearing and what was or wasn’t answered and what preparation that that agency had in advance of that particular hearing. Thank you. I’ll leave it there.

15:42

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to contribute on this debate, which concerns a matter of significant public trust, and to join with colleagues across the House in commending the Minister of Immigration for calling this out at her earliest opportunity to do so, and, in doing so today, also indicating that this appears to be a failure that has been occurring for some time. To also thank the Hon Phil Twyford for the issue that he’s raised, which, concerningly, appears to show that it’s an issue that’s occurred until very recently.

I come back to the issue of public trust, because, I’ve said it before, I think democracy is a very fragile institution and that there’s an obligation on all limbs of our democratic architecture to perform their functions with integrity. Now, in New Zealand, I believe we’re actually very fortunate in that when people have been surveyed about their personal interactions with the Public Service, there’s a very high positive rating on that in terms of people’s personal experience. However, in terms of their perceptions of how those public institutions function, we are seeing a divergence, and that is a huge problem whenever we hit one of these issues, because the Public Service brand is actually quite fragile in itself, very easy to damage, and very complex and difficult to restore.

So an incredibly important piece of work that we now see the genesis of and the terms of reference for the independent review have been released. I was reading through them earlier this afternoon and they do, in my view, thankfully, appear very broad. So there is a broad list of specific issues listed that relate to the report that we already have and what was and wasn’t told and given to the Minister. But the final point on the terms of reference is any other matters needed to meet the purpose of the inquiry. So just responding to my Green Party colleagues concerned that perhaps the terms of reference may not be broad enough, I suspect that there will be sufficient powers to investigate as is required.

Reading through the review of the project itself, again, like colleagues, I was horrified to see some of not only the timelines in terms of when some of these discrepancies had occurred, when information wasn’t provided, but the breadth. So it relates to governance, to the inadequacy of processes informing the Minister. It relates to things having to be escalated outside normal management lines. It relates to high turnovers of staff as well. So not only the period of time we’re talking about, just the scale of the errors that occurred here is troubling.

I did want to mention, again, I understand the sensitivities of what we have in front of us given the inquiry that’s now afoot, but this is quite rare for Parliament to be debating something of this nature. So without making any conclusions, I did just want to point to the potential parallel system that exists within the parliamentary architecture to examine issues like this as they come up. So, as members of Parliament, we know that there’s the ability of the House to find us in contempt if we produce information that isn’t adequate. Parliament also has the possibility of examining the conduct of non-members of Parliament and for that conduct to be referred to the Privileges Committee as well—the criteria by which that group of individuals would be considered as separate from members of Parliament. But that function is there.

Now, my view in this case is that it’s entirely appropriate for the Public Service Commissioner to be the one conducting this review or arranging this review independently. But there is a tether between that process and what could potentially happen in the parliamentary context if fault were to be found. The penalties there are fairly minor. There is, interestingly, a financial potential penalty of $1,000, but, again, I think that the appropriate place in this instance is for it to be dealt with in that separate way. I look forward to reading the conclusion of that report, which I understand may take us several months to receive at this stage, but, for the time being, again, I am grateful that the independent review has now been commissioned.

15:47

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a disappointing day when we have to be in the House here discussing a report and a process that has led a Minister not to have the information they need in order to make the right decisions for New Zealanders. We’re only talking about $32 million, which in the context of a Government Budget is not necessarily the biggest number, but it impacts Kiwis’ trust in Government, and that speaks to the heart of our democracy. In the scrutiny week discussions last week, I never in my mind, upon becoming a parliamentarian, thought I would be sitting in front of Government officials asking them to justify why a report in front of a parliamentary committee was suggesting, indeed stating, that there had been creative accounting undertaken in order for those officials or that department to continue with a project that it couldn’t face up to the fact had failed.

Right at the heart of this is trust. We have a Minister who was rightly focused on the fact that the information that she was being given was misleading. She took action very early to bring in an independent expert to report directly to her to ensure that she was getting updates about the project and actually understanding what was at the heart of this project and what was going wrong. Ultimately, the decisions that Ministers make are only as good as the information that’s provided to them.

15:49

Thank you, Madam Speaker. My colleague the Hon Erica Stanford, as the Minister of Immigration, has laid out the background to this very serious issue, an issue that has traversed not just this Parliament but two prior, which I think is deeply concerning. She has quite rightly fronted the issue and laid out the background in this House today, asked specific questions that she remains concerned about today, and has instigated an independent investigation by Mr Heron KC, and I know every member in this House looks forward to the findings of that. We take this matter seriously because trust and confidence in Government and public agencies is critical.

The time for this debate has expired.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

15:50

On 28 May, when the committee of the whole House stage of the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Amendment Bill was being considered, the result of the vote on the closure motion to Part 1 was incorrectly recorded as Ayes 67, Noes 44. The correct result is Ayes 67, Noes 43. The record will be corrected accordingly.

I move, That the sitting of the House today be extended into tomorrow morning for the continuation of the second reading of the Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill, and the amendment proposed to it, the third reading of the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill, a Government motion on appointments to the Intelligence and Security Committee, the second and third readings of the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and all stages of any Imprest Supply Bill, the committee stage of the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Bill, the second reading of the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill, and the second reading of the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill.

15:52

I’m delighted to rise in the House today to speak to Budget 2026, and the incredible Budget delivered by our very competent, capable, and confident Minister of Finance, the Hon Nicola Willis. This is a particularly important Budget, because it is the Budget that leads into a very important day and a very important decision for New Zealanders: a very clear choice on 7 November.

Let’s just take a look back at what the Government has had to grapple with in its third Budget. So reflect on the time that the Government—the coalition of three parties—came into office when the economy was absolutely wrecked. The damage was substantial. We had inflation—it’s hard to believe, really—at a record high of 7.3 percent. Thank goodness today we are at 3.1 percent. Imagine what it would be like with the current fuel challenge in the Middle East if inflation was still at 7.3 percent. So we saw that mortgage repayments at that time when we came in had absolutely skyrocketed. There were families and households struggling day to day to pay the mortgage because of those incredibly high interest rates. Wages had stagnated. There were hundreds of ram raids a year. Crime was out of control. What we saw was just terrible results in our kids’ education. I think the thing that most New Zealanders worry about the most is: “Are our kids doing OK at school?” Because, when they’re not, we know that they don’t have a shot at a great future.

Of course, what we saw was the number of people on welfare was absolutely plummeting. What was crazy: some of the time that the previous Government had overseen was when we had record low unemployment, and yet their jobseeker numbers escalated—60,000 in six years. That was an increase of 54 percent in a six-year period. I want to come to that in a few moments.

It’s very clear that our plan to fix the basics and build the future is paying off. Budget 2026 is a really significant part of our work to do that. We are absolutely relentlessly focused on growing the economy. Why is that important? Because a growing economy means—

Prosperity.

Absolutely—growing prosperity. When you have businesses that are growing, they are more confident, they take on more staff, the staff they have get the opportunity to work more hours, and wages lift. Do you know what the most important thing is that people must remember from Budget 2026? It’s that wages will grow faster than prices. That’s what means that New Zealanders will have more in their back pocket: when their wages are increasing faster than prices.

I want to go through a couple of the highlights in the areas that I look after that didn’t get a lot of air time in the immediate days after the Budget, but there are a couple in particular that I think are incredibly important. The first one is our continued work in welfare reform. In Budget 2026, we’re investing $93.3 million to support more sole parents into work. How do we address the number of children who are growing up in material hardship? Support their parents into work. This is a very, very focused campaign over the next two years of investing in sole parents so that 25,000 sole parents will be in case management. We know that case management is the most effective intervention that we can use—and the data and evidence tells us that. That’s why we’re investing in sole parents. What we do know is, on average, sole parents spend 17.5 years of their life on welfare. Now, Madam Speaker, you’ve heard us say on this side of the House that we don’t think that that many years on welfare is a great life. That’s why we are committing, we are investing, we are doing the things that we know work, and that’s case management.

Now, talking about doing what we know works, this is the first time ever a Government has put baseline funding into Food Secure Communities. I’ll say that again, because, again, the other side just failed to mention that in all of their Budget criticism. They failed to mention for the first time ever that Food Secure Communities have been baselined. So what does that mean? It means $38 million over four years to organisations who are providing infrastructure and distribution of food to regional and local food hubs. They support about 4.5 million meals a month—we have locked funding in. So no longer are they waiting year to year to see if they get funded. Also, for the first time ever, we have baseline funding for the KickStart Breakfast programme. That currently reaches about 46,000 children. Our side of the House knows what works and we’re investing in it. We’re investing in the areas that we know are incredibly important.

On that theme, again, one of the areas that didn’t get a lot of air time in the days immediately after the Budget, and that I’m sure the members opposite will be incredibly supportive of, is the response that our Government has made to the Dame Karen Poutasi report into child harm. There were 14 recommendations, and we’ve accepted every single one of them. We have delivered three of them already. But, most importantly, we have put money into ensuring we deliver. What happened on the other side? They got the report, sat on it, said nothing. They did nothing and invested in nothing. Unlike this side of the House, we take the protection of children seriously and we are funding across the board.

So where is that $90 million going? To strengthen the safety nets. The first: we are rolling out mandatory child protection training to over 20,000 New Zealanders. That is a step on the path towards mandatory reporting. But we know when there is significant change like this, we’ve got to focus on the front line. That is a significant investment in consistent, high-quality training for 20,000 children’s workers. That’s happening over the next two years.

We’re also ensuring that, based on that additional training, there is additional capacity to respond safely and effectively to more reports of concern, because we expect that will follow. Also, we’re supporting Health New Zealand to increase participation in the Child Protection Protocol. We are taking a phased approach. We know how carefully you must implement changes of this scale. That’s why the funding is over four years and in significant areas that we know will make a big difference.

Budget 2026 builds on previous Budgets where we focus the effort and we focus the welfare system on being more active. We are focused on our goals around child material hardship, which is our investment in sole parents and in food programmes that we know work, as well as in reducing child harm.

I do also want to talk about disability because, this Budget, $2.9 billion is the largest Disability Support Services annual appropriation to date. So it is an absolute myth that the other side continues to perpetuate that our side don’t care about people with disabilities. We care so much we are fixing the system that they allowed to be broken for years.

So is it easy? Absolutely not, but it is the right thing to do, and we have funded more in every Budget: $1.1 billion in Budget 2024; $1 billion in Budget 2025, and this is the highest appropriation ever. But unlike the other side, for us it’s not just about money. You actually need to make sure the system is fair, transparent, consistent, and goes to where it is needed—that the system performs, and it hadn’t been, and that’s what we’re fixing.

I also, of course, want to talk about tourism. We had a really ambitious target to grow the number of visitors into New Zealand because for every visitor that comes to our shore, they spend money in our businesses, whether it’s a local petrol station, a café, accommodation, a bed and breakfast, a campground, a rental car. They are spending money in New Zealand and that money goes into local businesses to support local employees. Growing tourism and hospitality supports one in nine New Zealand workers.

Second largest.

So that’s why—second-largest export earner. That is absolutely why we are focused on growing it, and it’s paying off. We are now at 94 percent of the figures that we saw pre-COVID, in 2019. Our goal, of course, is to get to 100 and I’m sure we’ll get there by the end of the year.

Let me give you one figure that just shows how rapid the growth has been, very deliberately based on actions our Government has taken. Compare the Chinese visitor numbers in April this year, compared to April last year: a 52 percent increase—52 percent—because of very consistent actions that we have taken to grow the number of visitors. The US market’s grown—it’s over 100 percent—so is Australia, and China is picking up, because we know for every visitor, they’re spending money in local business, and that is great for New Zealanders and great for our regions.

16:02

The last member who spoke from the National Government wanted to not only talk about the Budget but the National Government’s track record for the last 2½ years. So let’s go over the National Government’s and Nicola Willis’ record.

Now, Nicola Willis will tell Kiwis the economy is turning a corner, that things are getting better, but the people I’m meeting aren’t feeling that way. What they’re feeling is the squeeze, working hard while the costs continue to go up. They feel it at the checkout, they feel it at the petrol pump, they feel it when the power bill arrives. Christopher Luxon and National promised to fix the cost of living; it has got worse. They promise to grow the economy; it has shrunk. There are 40,000 more New Zealanders out of work than when National took office, and more Kiwis have left the country than at any other time on record.

Christopher Luxon stood in front of New Zealanders and said help was on the way. It never came. Here’s who did get help, though: landlords got billions in tax breaks, the tobacco industry got tax breaks, they found millions for ferries that still have not arrived. But when it comes to the things you actually rely on, their only answer is to cut. They won’t even tell New Zealanders what’s on the chopping block. New Zealanders deserve to know because, right now, everything is on the chopping block. New Zealand: you can’t trust National with your job, you can’t trust National with the health service. New Zealand, you can’t trust National with the economy.

Nicola Willis and Christopher Luxon have given up on New Zealand, basically. Three more years of this and nothing changes except New Zealand; New Zealand ends up worse off. When they tell you the economy is getting better, we all need to ask one simple question: better for who? If the vast majority of Kiwis are not feeling it, that means it’s not working, and three more years won’t change that. New Zealanders deserve a Government focused on what matters. National was elected to fix the cost of living; instead, they have made things worse and there was nothing in this year’s Budget that will provide any reprieve or glimmer of hope that things will get better under their watch.

I sat through a 15-minute hearing with the Ministry for Women’s Vote. Not much you can traverse in 15 minutes, but given the way in which this ministry has been minimalised under this Government, it quickly became apparent that there were very few answers on key issues impacting women that the Minister or the ministry were in a position to answer. Even the answers to pre-hearing questions were flawed; the first pre-hearing question: what outcomes does the Minister intend to achieve with the funding in this Vote and when are they intended to be achieved? Their response? “The funding is for improving the lives of New Zealand women, women nominees for appointment to boards and committees, support for the National Advisory Council on the Employment of Women, providing support for wāhine Māori claimants to participate in the permanent commission of inquiry in the Waitangi Tribunal judicial proceedings.” These are not even specific outcomes; they are largely outputs.

How can the Minister purport to improving the lives of New Zealand women, when a year out from being part of a Government that scrapped pay equity, the Minister for Women has said she has still not made any moves to monitor the impacts of the scrapping of pay equity. In fact, she not only has not sought to monitor it, she herself has not even read the well-traversed report from the People’s Select Committee hearing on pay equity.

I, like many others in the House, feel a real moral obligation to make sure that we do the mahi to ensure that women in these roles here in Aotearoa are paid what they deserve; they are essential workers. The demand on these women is not declining. When I listened to the Minister talk about increasing the number of women on the list of potential Government board appointments by 20 percent, I was dumbfounded. To what end? I’m a big supporter of more women on boards but what is the point of increasing the numbers of women on boards when they will then be confronted with a Government Minister who belongs to a Government that will not advocate for some of the hardest-working women in this country to get paid what they deserve?

With this Government in office, how can they possibly help improve the lives of women? How can they possibly improve the pay and working conditions for them and alleviate the many costs of living pressures they face? As Chris Hipkins said on the steps of Parliament the day that the Government announced their pay equity changes, Labour will reverse the changes that this Government have made to pay equity.

How will you fund it?

We are committed to paying women what they deserve and, as the members of the public can probably hear from the shouting from the Government benches, they are not committed to the same things.

A couple of weeks ago, I was supporting the Sunday Blessings initiative at the Ellen Melville Centre in Auckland City. Social services and food services take turns preparing and handing out dinner parcels on Sunday nights. That week, it was Fair Food from my electorate that were providing the support. We gave out 250 parcels that night, but there were still more people arriving at the end after the parcels had been distributed. Michelle from Fair Foods was reconfirming what many others had said in the health and social service sector: the demand has doubled in the last two years. Those lining up for food parcels were a mix of peoples from a mix of backgrounds, from a mix of communities: Māori, Pacific, Pākehā, Asian, Indian, youth, children, disabled, and senior citizens. I’ll say it again: National were elected to fix the cost of living. Instead, they have made things worse.

Many of these people were also homeless. What a slap in the face to all of these people and others that are in similar circumstances to then open the paper the very next day to an article where the Government was celebrating increases in declines to people who were seeking emergency housing. A decline in the rates of emergency housing does not reflect people getting into the housing that they need. What did the Budget hold for them? Nowhere near enough. There was some additional funding to help house some of the people that have been pushed into homelessness, some additional houses for housing, but very little in the way of support for additional public housing builds. This Luxon-led Government made the conscious decision to dramatically decrease the public housing build programme that the previous Government started and then refused to acknowledge that the dramatic increase in homeless Kiwis comes down to the decisions and choices that they have made.

I can’t speak to the issues of low pay, poverty, and homelessness without touching on jobs or the lack thereof. I participated in the Ministry for Pacific Peoples hearing during scrutiny week. One of the key roles of the population group ministries is to provide advice across Government agencies. For Pacific peoples, that surely must include employment, with an unemployment rate of 11.9 percent, double what it is for the general population. You’d think the Minister would be pushing his ministry into overdrive to provide advice to address the desperate situation of employment for many Pacific whānau, but no. You could hear the tumbleweeds rolling across the Parliament forecourt when I asked the Minister what advice he and his ministry had given the Minister of employment on the desperate rate of unemployment for Pacific peoples. This is off the back of a successful Ministry for Pacific Peoples employment programme being cut by the millions.

Everything has been on the chopping block for the Ministry for Pacific Peoples, a reflection of the way in general this Government has dismissed the needs of Pacific communities. I’m not going to shy away from stating on record that the under-resourcing and undermining of the ministry is a cynical attempt to prepare it for disestablishment in the future if the Government were to get another go. The Government will not get another go. New Zealanders do not trust them. They have gone back on what they have promised.

The member’s time has expired.

16:12

Thank you, Madam Speaker. What a privilege it is to speak in the second reading of the Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill, essentially known as the “Budget debate”. There is so much good stuff to talk about.

If there was an award for the loudest speaker on the Labour Party side, I’d have to give it to Carmel Sepuloni. She’d definitely get the “Loudest Speaker” award. If I was to give an award for the silliest comment from the Labour Party, it would be really challenging. If I had to give the “Silliest Comment” award to a member of the Labour Party, it would have to go out for the jury. It would be really tough, because there are so many silly comments that are made, but I reckon Ginny Andersen—

Back to the appropriations, thank you, Mr Hamilton.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ll come back to that in the education section.

We are rebuilding the economy. We inherited an awful mess, with high inflation. With inflation, that is the biggest driver of the cost of living crisis, and we inherited a 7.3 percent inflationary period. We brought that down, with restrained Government spending, to now 2.25 percent. The OCR has continued to drop it down and stabilise the inflation rate, and now, for the first time, we’re seeing job growth and wage growth outstripping inflation—i.e., it is cheaper to buy things than it was when we came into Government. It doesn’t feel like that for many New Zealanders right now, but they can have confidence that we are on track.

After three Budgets now, our Minister of Finance has delivered prudent, fiscally responsible, disciplined Budgets. We’ve been able to deliver safer streets, stronger savings, smarter investment, and we’re doing that now with a path back to surplus. In fact, our path to surplus is now one year earlier than we expected, coming back in 2028-29, which is just fantastic to see. The Budget can be quite an overwhelming process for the general public. In fact, the Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations is over 900 pages, and it can be a lot for Kiwis, even us humble politicians, to get our heads around. We’ve got a little blue book here which is actually really helpful, and it’s called Budget at a Glance.

It’s the “Ryan Hamilton Idiot’s Guide”.

Well, Duncan Webb, if you knew what you were doing, you probably wouldn’t retire.

There are some bullet points I’d like to go through and talk through the Budget elements. “Secures New Zealand’s future by getting back to surplus and reducing debt as a share of GDP.” For the first time, we’re seeing the debt curve bend, which is just incredible. We’re investing to drive better results in health, education, and law and order. If there was to be one winner out of the Budget, it would have to be health, under the great leadership of Simeon Brown. There are some incredible investments that I’d like to just quickly talk on. In fact, this Government has committed to investing new money in health every year since we came into Government, and this year is no different, with a $5.5 billion investment in health.

I have to put my glasses on for this: “A $5.5 billion increase in funding for frontline health services.” One of the special ones was the funding for post-natal stays. I’d like to acknowledge the member for Tukituki, Catherine Wedd, who helped as a catalyst for this, the genesis of this idea, by extending the stays for mums. Rather than getting kicked out one night, sometimes two, after childbirth, they can now have three nights, appropriately paid and managed, which is just fantastic. What a great start for mums and babies coming into this world. The other really special thing was special specialist palliative care, and a new specialist paediatrician is going to be implemented every year around New Zealand. That is a tremendous thing for parents with children who are suffering, inflicted with cancer and other conditions, which are just terrible to deal with. That is really something special.

“An additional $54 million for Pharmac”—you’ll recall, when we came into Government, that there were these things called “funding cliffs” and Pharmac had a $1 billion funding cliff. Pharmac is one of those things that we take for granted. It’s the bread and butter of medicine for New Zealand. It’s the important, the essential, pharmacological support. We understand the need for time-limited funding sometimes—you have to put things in for a short-term measure; we saw a lot of that around COVID, for example, maybe for Jobs for Nature—that sounds like a time-limited thing. But, for Pharmac, it needs baseline funding, and so one of the first things we had to do in Budget 2023-24 was correct that anomaly, and we’re continuing to invest wisely in that Pharmac infrastructure, which is just huge.

Of course, “$35 million to boost support for road ambulance services.”—a much-needed front-line service. They haven’t had a lot of funding, for a long time. They do an incredible job on the front line, and I’m really pleased to see them get the support they deserve out of this Budget.

Of course, the fuel crisis nobody saw coming, and we’ve talked about it. Thank goodness we’ve built in some fiscal buffer into our resilience. Thank goodness we’ve got a Government that has created resilience around fuel supply and security. We’ve invested $90 million to give us an extra three days’ additional diesel supply in Marsden Point, which is fantastic. Of course, talking about targeted, time-limited support, the $50 per week in-work tax credit for working families—time-limited—to help get through this period of crisis around fuel. It’s really important, and, of course, there is “$150 million for additional strategic fuel reserves”.

Infrastructure is something which I know we’re all passionate about on this side of the House. Roads of national significance—we love and we invest in, and, in fact, we had a lot all set to go in 2017 when the new incoming Government mothballed those. One of those roads was Cambridge to Piarere, one of the most dangerous stretches of roads in our country. I’m pleased to say, as a member from that region, that that is now completely funded: $1.7 billion. It’s an extra 16 kilometres of, I’d assume, 110 kilometres, which is always great. It’s safe, resilient roading infrastructure. Roads aren’t just about cars; it’s about productivity, it’s about safety, it’s about building this economy and this country.

The Opposition talks about electric vehicles a lot. They talk about the need to reduce fossil fuels, which we agree with, but the thing is that they still need roads to go on. We’re very much supportive of those sorts of things. Of course, Treasury tells us that for every $1 billion we invest, we’re going to see about 4,500 jobs, and we’re investing $7 billion in capital through the next Budget. Treasury is also saying, not just with the infrastructure investments we’re making but with the complete Budget forecast, with the fundamentals being reset, with the economy growing, that we’re looking at an additional 220,000 jobs over the forecast period. That is what we’re talking about: jobs, growth, employment, savings. It just keeps on going. It’s so good.

What about education? We just heard from the wonderful Minister of Education, Erica Stanford. There was a huge investment in packages to support infrastructure. The great thing is that not only do we invest money but we actually work out how we can do it better. The Opposition will spend more money and assume that means better outcomes. We know that’s not true. In fact, with school infrastructure, we’ve now got twice as many classrooms built for the same amount of money—twice as many. As the member of Parliament for Hamilton East, I was fortunate to see Hillcrest High School being one of those recipients, with eight new classrooms to meet growth and two new learning support classrooms, and, of course, for Knighton Normal School, as well, four new classrooms. It’s not just about the curriculum, the syllabus, and the way we teach, but it’s also about the hard infrastructure.

I was referring to Ginny Andersen earlier when she said, “If I was the Minister, I would not have mandated testing, as it is important teachers are working within their schools to understand what works for your communities.” In other words, the Opposition thinks that if it feels good, if it looks right, and if the vibe’s good, then they’ll probably be all right. Why would we test our students? To see if they’re not learning. Why would we test them? To assess maybe this isn’t working; maybe we could do something better. We test, we measure, we test, and we measure. This side of the House is pleased to see that influence coming through to the education area.

Another big area is defence, which is really exciting. When we talk about defence, it’s not just about our battleships and army; it’s about resources. It’s about the state and the conditions which our workforce is living in, down in Waiōuru and Linton and Burnham, and making sure that they’re in homes that aren’t cold and damp and wet, and reinvesting in assets which have been sweated and sweated for such a long time. We are investing in our defence force because, as our Prime Minister says, national security is economic security and economic security is national security. They are interlinked.

This Budget is just the beginning, but it’s wonderful. Our future is bright. The opportunity is there for us to grab it with both hands. It’s a bright future for Kiwis. The changes coming in KiwiSaver, the changes in education, the changes in our police force, law and order, and education—it’s terrific. We’re fixing the basics and building the future.

16:22

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I have been itching to get up and offer a contribution to this appropriations debate. My goodness! Budget 2026 from this Government showed absolutely no plan, no ambition, and no vision for our country. There was nothing in it, and we know that was intentional. Actually, they themselves even went on and on and on about—what is it?—no lollies and no scramble. Yep, that’s it—no vision, no plan, no ambition. The Prime Minister and his Government, in the meantime, can find billions and billions of dollars in tax cuts for landlords, tobacco companies, the wealthy and the sorted, and fossil fuel barons; even appeasing a president who is not our own to make sure that we are appeasing his commands to spend up large on military equipment but not actually supporting the actual workers on the ground of the actual defence force. That’s what we’re hearing from the people on the ground: shiny equipment but no actual support for the actual people. I would love to see you answer to that which we’re hearing from the ground.

Then we had more slashes of funding for protecting the things that make us who we are—the natural places, our taonga species, the tracks that we love and enjoy, the huts, the rivers, the forests, and the incredible coastlines that we all boast about; slashed funding year on year under this Government, because, actually, they do not see, and are moving away from, an actual purpose of conservation in the Department of Conservation—already under enormous pressure. The Budget documents actually show that the Department of Conservation is facing almost $400 million in unfunded cost pressures, but that is on top of the $194 million that this Government has cut from the baseline spending.

That’s not careful stewardship at all, it’s not ambition, it’s not vision, it’s not value, and it’s certainly not an enduring solution and looking ahead to the generations coming after us that we are responsible to. It is a structural deficit imposed on the very, very agency who is responsible for protecting one-third of the country. They determine the health of our native species. Our biosecurity programmes are all supposed to be properly resourced because they are there to protect us all, including whether pest control happens at the scale required, and those very fragile and very specific fundamental habitats that are unique not just to this country but to particular places around the country where you can find a plant in the North that does not grow in the South. These are very fragile habitats, and we’re a small country, and the fact that we have species and habitats that are special to specific places around our country just shows you how fragile they actually are.

Then this Government is asking DOC—the Department of Conservation—to do so much more with so much less. There are over 4,000 native species that are threatened or at risk of extinction. So what does this Government do? It slashes and cuts the baseline funding to them year after year after year. Biodiversity decline is not actually slowing down. Climate change impacts, including on living systems and habitats, are not improving.

Two of the most important areas that have been hit directly by this Budget and all the previous Budgets under National are predator control, which actually has been reduced by $7.5 million, and the asset maintenance, which has been reduced by $20.4 million. These are not marginal programmes; these are essential programmes. They’re the core business of our Department of Conservation, and they depend on the ability to protect native species and keep public conservation land accessible and safe. This is all about balance and correction to the habitat health that we so enjoy.

There were lots of cuts in taiao and in protecting our special places and our wild places alone, but I am absolutely wanting to pick up, in my contribution, on the changes that this Government is proposing, which are going to open up and enable development or disposal of conservation lands, and shifts the Department of Conservation mandate from conservation towards development. There are plenty of other agencies who have that mandate, but they’ve gone and taken it from the very agency who are supposed to be conserving our special places, moving away from conservation. I’m hoping that this Government and these members of this Government can see the rightful uproar that is happening across the country from communities of all natures. They’re not going to get sucked in by the lack of guarantee that the Prime Minister and the Minister are trying to sit on the fence about, are trying to gaslight people into saying, “You’re scaremongering.”, yet they offer absolutely no guarantee that these special places will not be sold off to corporations and bulldozers.

“Just change and amend the law” is what we’ve been asking for. If the Government members think that people and agencies are scaremongering, then they should rule it out, amend the law, and put them in a safe basket in the legislation. All of those solutions are available to those members if they are upset and using words like “scaremongering”. Put some teeth into it. Show the guarantee to the country that you are, indeed, going to protect those very special places. If leaders in this House had the courage to fix our broken tax system, then they wouldn’t need to be opening up conservation lands to enable development and/or disposal to mega-corporates. But that is because they have handcuffed themselves when it comes to unlocking the resources that we absolutely have—to make sure that everyone in Aotearoa can live a good life, to make sure that we are prioritising the protection of these beautiful taonga species and these beautiful natural environments that we absolutely all adore.

I have seen the members of this Government take pride in natural spaces in their own electorates, in their own communities. I have been on fishing trips with the members of this Government who take pride in these natural spaces that we all love. And, yet, where is the courage and the voice in pressuring your Minister to stand up and rule out the development or the sell-off of the most special places that are included in the scoop-up of this Minister’s bill? They have that option open to them. It’s still there; it’s not too late. They are able to show the communities who are rallying and organising and advocating right now that, instead of opening up our precious lands, they will in fact tap into the resources that we have, because Aotearoa does have enough. We just need to make sure that we can shift the burden of revenue for Government away from the ordinary working person—which is where it has been for a long, long time—and, instead, pay fair-share taxes. The super-rich and the megacorporates can pay their fair share, and we do not leave the burden simply on the shoulders of the ordinary working person.

I am proud that we have been showing the solutions that have been lacking in this Government’s Budget and, especially, to show how we can indeed protect and conserve our wild spaces. We do not need to rip them up and tear them open with bulldozers. If the members think that I am scaremongering, then, again, they have it on their shoulders to rule it out—to amend the law, to put all of those precious lands in a safe legislative basket where they will not be touched, because the people will be with you. They are rallying up and down the country. They are giving these Government members a clear pathway to show some spine and show some spirit for the beautiful taiao that we should all be good ancestors about and protect for generations to come. Kia ora.

16:32

It’s a pleasure to rise and bring this back to the debate that we are actually in today, which is the Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill. I listened to the previous member, Marama Davidson, and, I believe, at least half of her speech was not even on the Estimates debate.

The member was referring to spending on conservation throughout that last five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I wish to respond to the member with a simple statement, because, as I listened to her, something dawned on me, and that is that this member believes that money grows on trees. I wish to say to the Hon Marama Davidson that there is no magic money tree; we either get the money off other people or off future generations. She needs to own up and tell the public of New Zealand how they’re going to pay for their spending commitments. But I digress.

This Budget was about securing New Zealand’s future. It is a Budget that continues to enable this Government to fix the basics and to build the future. In this fantastic document called the Fiscal Strategy Report, it outlines the fiscal goals of our Government with this Budget to boost economic growth and, in particular, real wage growth, which is all about real wages adjusted for inflation. The good news is that in this Budget, real wage growth is forecast to be positive. This Budget reduces the role of the State on the economy. For years, since the previous Government, the share of the economy devoted to Government spending ballooned, and we are reining it back and the forecasts indicate that.

Thirdly, this Government forecasts a return to surplus one year earlier than forecast, and that is great news for those of you who are concerned about the level of borrowing and interest bill in this country. Fourthly, this Budget puts us on a downward trajectory with respect to our debt. For those of you on the opposite side who have actually read the Budget—and, in particular, the Fiscal Strategy Report—you’ll know that the debt is forecast next year alone to be $216 billion. That’s $216 billion that the New Zealanders of this country will need to repay. We know from the Budget forecasts that the amount of interest on that debt is set to be about $9.7 billion in the 2027 forecast year, and that is unsustainable. This Budget helps close the lid on the fiscal numbers and puts us on a downward trajectory to pay down that debt.

I do want to acknowledge the hard-working Minister of Finance, who’s been doing an outstanding job managing the impact of the fuel crisis. We, of course, announced, as part of Budget 2026, a $50-per-week increase in the in-work tax credit, there’s additional funding for front-line services, and $150 million is earmarked for strategic fuel reserves. No one knows how long this is going to go on for and so we best be prepared.

My colleague Ryan Hamilton talked about the great news in this Budget for health. I do want to dive down into the specific items that I’m proud of. The first is $35 million in extra support for our ambulance services. Our ambulance services throughout this country do a great job protecting our men and women, and they are delighted to receive this additional support, I know—very much.

Second, we’ve got $54 million in additional Pharmac funding for life-saving medicines. We’ve talked about the three-day post-natal stay promise, which we’ve just allocated $34 million for. What we haven’t talked about in this debate is something that Simeon Brown announced, which was the lowering of the bowel-screening age from 58 to 56. That’s actually going to make a difference to well over 200,000 New Zealanders per year.

We had really good, targeted support for education at the primary school level to boost reading, writing, and maths achievement, and for more teaching resources for our students to help with literacy and numeracy. But, also, I want to talk about this fees-free, because I have had a bit of feedback about this. We scrapped this fees-free—and, to be clear, why did we scrap it? It was making no material difference to the outcomes on enrolment numbers or achievement—

A billion dollars.

A huge fiscal hole and cost, according to Minister the Hon Penny Simmonds. But, as a result, we’ve allocated those funds and we’ve been able to secure 20,000 extra places for the successful trades academy. That is great news for people up and down New Zealand to get into a trade. Remember that quote from years ago: “Got a Trade? Got it Made!” We believe that, actually, to be able to earn and learn at the same time is great for New Zealanders, and this project will, and funding allows for that to happen.

Law and order was another winner in Budget 2026, with half a billion dollars for Corrections services: funds for new courthouses, new police stations—I understand Whanganui has got a new police station; that’s great news. We’ve got $21 million for tackling crime, as well.

There were a lot of other positives in this Budget, and talking and discussing this with the Minister of Finance, there were alternative approaches. If we didn’t make the tough decisions in Budget 2026 and in the previous two Budgets, that would have had a roughly $50 billion impact on the Government’s books. Looking at some of the alternative views from across this House around what they would have spent it on, it seems to me like there would have been a huge greater fiscal hole as a result. So we made some tough decisions around pay equity. The other side likes to talk about reversing that, but they need to be honest and upfront with the public about where they’re going to cut to fund those pay equity differences.

We’ve come out with our fiscal hole of $18.2 billion. For those of you who have actually dived down and looked at the numbers, you’ll see it not only includes pay equity but it also includes this Future Fund that the other side talks about. They haven’t even spoken to us and to New Zealanders about where they’re going to cut to fund that Future Fund.

This public transport cap—they’re not being clear with us about that either. We’ve just got to get that on record. I know it’s not part of Budget 2026, but it is a part of what else could have been done in Budget 2026. On this side of the House, we’re clear around our Government’s approach around strong fiscal management, getting the Government finances back to surplus, managing debt well and paying down our debt, and doing whatever we can to grow the economy because that is how we become a wealthier and a more prosperous society.

On that side of the House, they seem to think that this pie is stagnant. We don’t believe that the pie is stagnant.

Grow the pie.

You’ve got to grow the pie, as Ryan Hamilton said. In fact, every successful country out there manages to grow the pie. A Budget like this is targeted at making sure we can grow the pie so that all New Zealanders, no matter where they live, where they come from, can get ahead, can earn more income, and can provide for their family.

This is a good Budget. It is a Budget that secures New Zealand’s future, provides for growing real wages, a reduced state of the economy, a more prosperous nation; a country where we go out and back ourselves on the world stage, where we do trade with India and Middle Eastern countries, and every country out there, and people can succeed. It’s great for New Zealand. It’s all a part of our plan to continue to fix the basics in health and education and infrastructure, and also to build the future. We haven’t talked about KiwiSaver, but we will talk more in the future about KiwiSaver. We had a great policy announcement at the weekend, and I commend this bill to the House.

16:42

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to rise in support of the Budget 2026/27—or whatever the official name of the bill is. As the previous member was talking about, the Budget isn’t a lolly scramble. It’s not an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show. You can’t just hand out free stuff left, right, and centre. You know, that’s not how it works.

I’ve come here, to Parliament, from running my own business for 28-odd years, and I’ve always done a budget. The key thing about it is making sure you get the basics right within that budget, making sure you’re balancing, you’re investing in the things that are important. What are the things that are going to grow your business, and, in our case, what’s going to grow the economy? What is the stuff you just have to do? What are the key things that have got to be done year in, year out? That’s the key thing for a budget. It’s not about—and, you know, I’ve heard it in previous Budget debates—this attitude that everyone somehow gets something or their life is determined by what gets handed to them in a Budget. No, the purpose is for us to set up a structure that the economy can run and individuals can make something for themselves in this life, in this country, because they’re empowered to do it because we’ve got the settings right.

We have worked on that. We’ve got inflation down—under control from where it was; interest rates back down. These are key things. For any business to be able to flourish, you need those interest rates down, you need that stability; you don’t need out-of-control costs. So that’s a key thing that we’ve been doing over the last three years, and, obviously, we’re getting a lot better at it in this Budget now, as well. I think that returning to surplus a year earlier is absolutely so critical because you’ve got to be able to live within your means.

Now, I want to touch on three things that I thought were, particularly for me and the ACT Party, really important in this Budget. Number one is something that the ACT Party’s been talking about for a while now, and that is getting spending under control and right-sizing the public sector. You know, we’ve had a situation where the Public Service just exploded and blew out. It’s good to finally see that we’re making more cuts there.

We’re looking at consolidation. Obviously, in the ACT Party, we’ve talked about the need to consolidate more, to have less ministries, to have less Ministers, to make sure a ministry is directly accountable to a Minister, to be able to drive the efficiencies and the effectiveness of those Government departments.

We hear about that story of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), and, supposedly, I’m one of the few Ministers that doesn’t have a responsibility with MBIE. I think virtually every other Minister does have some sort of area where they control in it. That, to me, is so critical. You cannot have good outcomes and productivity where you’ve got a ministry that just doesn’t know who’s in charge, who’s calling the shots. You’ve got to have those clear lines of accountability—so important. Now, we’ll certainly be campaigning on more of that coming up, but, to me, that is really important.

I’ve heard some scaremongering out there, that it’s all going to be about cutting the front line—in particular, in one of my areas, biosecurity. No, it is not, because the key thing that people seem to miss is that those front-line services are cost-recovered. When you come back into the country and you pay—or maybe I think it’s people visiting us—that border levy, that’s what funds those people on the front line. So that service is dependent on how many people are coming through. If there’s lots of people coming through, we’ll get more money, we’ll need and be able to afford more people to do that work on the border. That’s how it works. Any cuts that are made or efficiencies that are gained will be in the back room, and there’s certainly stuff we are doing in biosecurity to look at how artificial intelligence (AI) can help to deliver things a hell of a lot faster. Import health standards are taking far too long to develop; AI offers great potential for us to streamline that and make it a lot more effective so our plant breeders can get new genetics into this country so much quicker.

The other thing I’m quite keen to talk about, and I think it was probably the really important thing in the Budget that didn’t really get the attention it deserved, is the $294 million that’s going into the implementation of the Resource Management Act—oh, sorry, the replacement of the Resource Management Act. That was one of the problems with the Resource Management Act: implementation was never done properly for it. We had all these courts and everyone else trying to decide what it meant and how it worked, and it led to the mess we’re in now. Now, this investment is going to go into ensuring that we’ve got an awesome IT network that sits behind all of these plans.

Now, an example that the Minister shared with me was if you want to know how can I do something in my district, my region, wherever? I mean, the example I used was if the neighbouring farm were to come up for sale and I was to purchase it—and, yeah, Mark, if you’re watching, I am still interested. At the moment, suddenly you have got to go and trawl through the regional council rules and regulations and all this other stuff and work out, can I do this? Often, people will go and hire a consultant and spend a whole bunch of money on a consultant to work out what they can actually do with this land or business or whatever it may be that you’re investing in. This system will enable you—assuming we can get it built right and done correctly—just to be able to go online and go, “What can I do? What are the rules? Can I have dairy cows on this bit of land?”, and “Yes, you can, and here are the rules you’re going to follow.” That’s going to make things so much easier for people to get into business, do things, get ahead, and create opportunities, rather than having capital just sitting in bank accounts waiting for consultants and all the rest, and going through rigmarole and process, That money’s doing nothing sitting in a bank account, but if we can speed this process up, then that money is moving through the economy, it’s doing stuff, and spending on other businesses who are also then spending and doing new things. That’s so important. We’ve got so much capital in this country that’s just sitting idle because we’ve got this culture of saying “no” around resource management. So that’s why I think that’s such a critically important piece of this Budget, that just didn’t get the attention it deserved.

Now, finally, the final point I want to talk about, and of course it’s my favourite, and that’s the $79 million that’s going to go into controlling wilding pines. So, yep, get your chainsaw started—in a safe manner, of course—or whatever works for you. Obviously, I’ve got a sore back, so standing upright works well. But, look, this is so critical. We’ve all heard about the challenge that wilding pines play across the high country. It affects 2.2 million hectares—I think was the number, or somewhere around that—could potentially go up to 7 million hectares of land. When it does this, not only is it cutting down the ability for animals to graze pasture, because it’s covered in wilding pines, it’s also impacting biodiversity. The member before was saying, “What’s this Budget doing for biodiversity?” Well, getting rid of these wilding pines is a huge win for biodiversity.

I remember visiting the Branch/Leatham station north of Marlborough, and just seeing—there was one valley that was absolutely choked with wilding pines. There was nothing—you could barely move through these trees, there was nothing in the understory. It just looked an absolute desert. Just these spindly little pine trees; everything was dry. Go over to the next valley: native bush, absolutely idyllic New Zealand scenery. That’s what we want more of.

It’s not just about the biodiversity; it’s also about our energy sector. You know, these trees can suck up a huge amount of the water that’s in a catchment. They’re very preeminent in the areas where we’ve got our hydro lakes. That’s taking water away from electricity generation, impacting the cost of living for all New Zealanders, but also impacting our irrigation for our agricultural sector and our horticultural sector. You know: they don’t have water, they can’t grow—that impacts food prices.

So, overall, I think it’s a great Budget. We of course would have probably gone a bit further with some of the cost cutting in terms of getting the right size of Government, but there will be more opportunities for that in the next three years, I hope. I commend this bill to the House.

The next call is a New Zealand First call. I understand it’s a split call.

16:52

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on behalf of New Zealand First for the Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill. What I want to highlight first of all is there has been such a clear example in this House today as to the reason we cannot let Labour hold of the purse strings again. Because their deputy leader stood up, and after two years and two Budgets of the “tax cuts for tobacco companies”, they still cannot comprehend the fact that you actually allow for reduced excise if you want people to stop smoking. That is the point. But that side of the House cannot seem to understand what is the difference between a tax cut and a responsible Budget. A responsible Budget allows for those conditions that you need to meet within your fiscals to deliver a Budget.

Therefore, I just think we need to get rid of this despair, get rid of this idea that we are in doom and gloom times and actually start thinking about—we all left the Budget debate and went to Mystery Creek. We stood in that space talking about our economy, talking about the hope, the opportunity that exists because this Government has done what’s needed to invest in growth. I think that is a fantastic message.

But I just want to use my few minutes to actually talk about some of the really positive things. Yes, we came in with a commitment to fix the cost of living, but we also came in with a commitment to get law and order back in control. That is exactly what we’ve delivered. We continue to deliver it, and this Budget did exactly that, with the $70 million investment into Customs to strengthen our border, to actually ensure we’re doing the things that matter to front-line services, to make their jobs easier and better. That is about upgrading X-ray equipment, strengthening security of Customs facilities and Customs controlled areas, new defence equipment and enhanced training for the protection of the customs staff, and increased capacity to store and manage seized illicit goods. These are the practical things that this Budget delivered that seems to get lost in this discussion. It is fantastic to see those initiatives being delivered.

We also touched earlier on the boost to ambulance services. Now, there will be the contract negotiations and the costing uplifts of the contract terms for ambulance services, but this was an additional $35 million delivering practical things. This is about establishing two ambulance hubs in Auckland—essential for those workers working in the front line to be as efficient and effective as possible. Deployment of electronic patient clinical records, additional training and support for ambulance communications centre staff, and additional clinical resource to improve safeguarding of patients. That is what this Budget does. This is the delivery of practical things that make a difference in the everyday lives of our hard-working Kiwi battlers that are out there making New Zealand the great country it is.

Then, just recently, we’d also announced the investment of an additional $75 million to the aged residential care providers. This is another uplift that has been delivered to the care sector to ensure we have a sustainable system moving into the future, as well as the work we’re doing on totally reviewing. But one of the other practical things that I think is a really positive step for recognising the importance and value of our older New Zealanders is about changing the SuperGold card into a primary form of legal ID—something that is practical, something that is usable by all of our seniors to make their lives just that little bit easier and a little bit safer. Those are the things that I think this Budget really is important to deliver.

We’ve also just a really small investment that is about this front line, about our communities, about our people that are out there making our communities safer and stronger. That is the investment that was being delivered by police into Community Patrols of New Zealand, Neighbourhood Support, and our Pacific Wardens. That investment is about those regional and small communities that actually rely on those volunteer services. It is fantastic, proactive stuff that makes this country what it is. We are tight-knit communities. We go in and we rally for each other. This investment is exactly that. We are investing in infrastructure—we’re building our police stations in Greymouth and Whanganui. There is great stuff in this Budget, and I am—without hesitation—commending it to the House.

16:57

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to take a call on behalf of New Zealand First in this Budget Estimates debates. Looking at it through my lens of Minister for Rural Communities, and, actually, as one of the many Members of Parliament that has just come back from the Fieldays—and if you want to see the recovery in action, you should have been at the Fieldays. The buoyancy there, the prosperity there that was on display through the incredible uplift in our exports from that critical primary sector, our rural communities, is absolutely thriving. If we look at it I think it’s 6 percent up above even what we thought back in December, the last time when the SOPI report—the Situation and Outlook for the Primary Industries—came out. So it’s absolutely fantastic. New Zealand’s economy is under way; it is coming over the hill in Red Bands, as it always does.

Look, in terms of the Budget, it was great to see us with a number of initiatives supporting rural New Zealand. A few were actually announced post-Budget at the Fieldays through the appropriations, some of them big. There was a $140-odd million land use change package where we’re going to work very closely with various sectors to look at how they can sustainably change land use into higher values while still protecting our environmental sustainability. A really smart, targeted investment to help us in our ambition to actually double our exports. You know, it’s great that we are up to $64 billion, we need to get that up to around $100 billion to fulfil that goal. So there’s still work to do, the trajectory is really encouraging, but we know that we’re going to have to keep investing strategically to help these sectors along the way.

Some of the smaller ones, though: the emergency management package—there was some funding in there for Taskforce Kiwi, and anyone that’s been involved in emergency response lately has seen the evolution of this new group of volunteers, primarily from a services background—Armed Services, Police, Fire—that are organising themselves into groups to help with the response to our severe weather events. So some funding for Taskforce Kiwi to help them in those endeavours, I think, was a really, really good spend. As was, as part of that package, our rural advisory groups that advise in the response and recovery: funding to upskill them to get them forward planning—to give them the capacity to forward plan as more of these events seem to be occurring.

Some of the bigger stuff within the Budget, in the time that I have left: the rural resilience; the roads—those six highways that we are upgrading: Awakino, the State Highway 2, the Tākaka Hill Road, State Highway 6 down in Haast, and a couple of others. That’s absolutely critical. They’re key choke points; they’re being hit by these weather events and are really impactful for our rural communities. So I’m very pleased to see that funding.

The 10,000 new jobs for the skills and trades academies, the pivot away from fees-free into actually building the skills that we need, particularly in our rural communities and our primary sector—things like chainsawing, so that Andrew Hoggard does know how to properly start a chainsaw. Tokomairiro Training in Milton is a great example, and I know—Minister Hoggard and I have actually been there, so I know he does know how to do it properly. But those sorts of initiatives are going to get increased funding and an extra 10,000 places. I know my colleague the Hon Shane Jones was very instrumental in bringing that forward.

But my very favourite investment was the $8 million from the Primary Sector Growth Fund that got invested into the Wool Source pigments, particles, and powders. I know tomorrow—oh, it’s the 25th, actually—everyone’s on tenterhooks to see the next bull auction. We’re going up, by the auction, 8 percent last week. We’re all on tenterhooks to see how it’s going to go tomorrow, but we have to get out of that commodity space. It’s a great trajectory we are on, but the pigments, particles, and powders is a game-changer for the wool sector, where we take it into a high-end bio-agent to go into dyes and inks and nutraceuticals. That’s in the hundreds of dollars a kilo opportunity. This could transform the wool sector and get it past our ambition of returning to a billion dollar industry for New Zealand. So much to be grateful for in the Budget. Thank you very much.

This call is also a split call.

17:02

I stand to support and commend the 2026/27 Budget announced by the National Government at the end of last month. Particularly this Budget, as noted on that cover, is securing New Zealand’s future. I think this is the important part, that, particularly given the condition we are in, the global uncertainty, and also the major disruptions that we have experienced domestically in New Zealand, we, as a country, need to look forward. We, as a mature Government, the National-led Government, need to be able to provide to New Zealanders that vision of security and a prosperous future. This is exactly what Budget 2026 is doing.

Budget 2026, announced by the National Government, is fixing the basics and building the future on many, many fronts, particularly, overall, the Budget is fixing the basics by returning the Government’s surplus one year before the forecast by Treasury. Budget 2026, and, in fact, the two Budgets beforehand, also led by the National Government, has, overall, $50 billion of savings across the three Budgets. Budget 2026 also has borrowing down by another $6 billion. This, in my professional work as a chartered accountant, is what I call fixing the basics for the books at the Government.

It is also building the future. It’s already seen in the work done by the National Government in the last 2½ years, particularly noting the latest GDP growth number issued by Stats New Zealand of a 0.8 percent growth in quarter one in 2026 before the oil crisis in the Middle East.

This is a Budget delivering for the security and the prosperous New Zealand future, but also by delivering investment projects and capital projects that would offer 220,000 new jobs for New Zealanders. Now, that’s 220,000 new jobs for all New Zealanders with the forecast that the average wage growth will outpace the average inflation for New Zealand. So that means New Zealanders are getting better security in having new jobs and a career path to grow, but also having better prosperity in future wage growth that would outpace the inflation.

Now, this Budget is also fixing the basics and building the future in health by investing an impressive amount of capital Government budget into front-line healthcare. That includes something that is very personal to myself, which is extending to new moms of newborn babies, a three-day post-natal care. As someone who has had the lived experience of a very horrific birth giving birth to my daughter, this is a very practical Budget policy and Budget investment that a caring New Zealand National Government is delivering for all new mums and new babies. That also includes the new capital invested into, for example, expanding or developing or redeveloping different wards for hospitals across New Zealand.

Now, this Budget, Budget 2026, is also fixing the basics and building the future for infrastructure. Like I said a bit earlier, the Budget, invested and committed by the National Government, will create 220,000 new jobs in the next four years and that is from ready-to-go, shovel-ready projects—in fact, for some of them, the construction has already started—in new roads, in new bridges, and, like I said a bit earlier, in the hospital wards, as well as solar panels for schools, and as well as, for example, building resilience upgrades and also upgrades to New Zealand rail. Now, that is what I call a Budget that is building for the future that New Zealanders need.

Now, this Budget is also fixing the basics and restoring law and order for New Zealanders by already exceeding our Government’s target of reducing victims of crime by 46,000 victims—that is 46,000 individual victims as well as their families and friends in the communities that they’re in. That’s what I call fixing the basics. But the Budget is also invested into building the future for a safer and more secure New Zealand in terms of better front-line policing, so they have the funding and the tools to continue to provide a safer community for New Zealanders; and expanding and building into more courthouses and also Correction services.

Now, very quickly: fixing the basics for education. As a mum of two young children, this is the most proudest moment that I see from this Budget, which is building the future for the younger generation in New Zealand by giving them extra classrooms, better classrooms, better teaching materials. So I commend this Budget to the House.

17:07

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to rise to speak on Budget 2026 and follow on from the great contribution from my colleague Nancy Lu.

Budget 2026 is about securing New Zealand’s future. It’s really easy to come to this place and spray money around, particularly when it’s not your money, and to promise the world and put lots and lots of funding behind it. But sometimes you have to be the adult in the room and sometimes you have to make the difficult decisions. Just like every New Zealand household is experiencing, we, as a Government, have to live within our means, and that’s what this Budget this year has focused on. It would be really easy to promise the world and to increase our taxes, increase our borrowing, but guess what? It’s my generation and the next generation that would have to pay for it. That would make us an Afterpay Government, and that’s simply not what we are.

Because decisions we make today impact future generations. If we increase our debt today, it’s my generation and the next that would then have to fund the borrowing that comes with those decisions and the repayments required on the interest associated with that. We, as a Government, have said, “No. We will put future generations’ interests at heart in preparing and delivering this Budget by making the right but tough decisions so that we can set our country up for success in the future.”

One example included in this Budget is the redevelopment of the Tauranga Hospital. We are now New Zealand’s fifth-largest city, and our hospital is in urgent need for an upgrade, and I’m delighted to be part of a Government that is delivering that redevelopment for our community. For so long, many people across Tauranga and the wider Bay of Plenty have cried out for the redevelopment of our hospital, and, finally, our community has got a Government that cares and is doing something about it.

The Budget focused on four primary things: create jobs with a growing economy and lift wages. In this Budget alone, wages will grow faster than prices, making life more affordable for everyday Kiwis. Our second focus was to keep taxes low by restoring fiscal discipline, so we avoid further borrowing and tax increases. We’re cracking down on crime: 49,000 fewer victims of violent crime across our communities. That’s 49,000 families who don’t have to put up with the disrepair and destruction that that violent crime has impacted on them. In our Budget—

Not counting domestic violence, of course.

It is part of this Budget, because we’ve increased funding for our front-line services. If we just think about one example, we are increasing the funding we’re giving to upgrade police stations in Greymouth and Whanganui, but, additionally, $34 million to go to St John and to our ambulance services across the country—

Oh, man, you’re giving me more material!

—the men and women who, every day, put on their uniform and run towards the danger—run towards the danger. The other side laugh—they laugh at the expense of our ambulance services across the country. They think it’s a joke—they think it’s a joke—that those men and women who put on their uniform every single day is a laughing matter. That is a disgrace from that side, that our men and women who work in our ambulance services are a joke to that side. They should hang their heads in shame—they should hang their heads in shame that they think it is a laughing matter.

Finally, the fourth priority of this Budget was to improve outcomes in health and education.

Oh, you’ve done nothing there!

If we want to make the greatest investment in our future generations, it wouldn’t be for Willie Jackson to resign; it would be for us to invest in our education sector. It would say to our future generations, “We care about you and we’re going to set you up for success.”

This Budget was fiscally responsible. Many will say, “Where were the sweeteners? Where were the lolly scrambles?” But many Kiwis are saying, “Thank goodness we’ve finally got adults in charge—those who know how to fiscally manage our country’s finances and keep us on the straight and narrow.” Not tax and borrow our way to prosperity, but actually live within our means and bring us a brighter future. This Budget is securing New Zealand’s future. We’re fixing the basics and building the future.

17:12

Well, when it comes to healthcare, the one measure that matters in this Budget is whether it makes it easier for New Zealanders to get the care that they need in a GP clinic. The fact is that the answer is no. In fact, since the Budget has been announced, there have been more cuts announced to health services in the central North Island. Thousands of jobs have already been laid off by this Government—particularly impacting those who look after the health data and digital systems—but now we’ve moved on to front-line cuts in the Te Manawataki part of the central North Island, where over 126 clinical jobs are set to go.

This Budget does not set New Zealand up for sustainable healthcare delivery. No, it is cutting healthcare delivery, and people are losing their jobs right now because of it—psychologists, cancer care workers, physiotherapists, social workers, counsellors. The Government promised no cuts to the front line, and that was a lie. They can find millions of dollars for tobacco companies and for landlords, but they can’t find money to make it more affordable to see the doctor or to make sure that our doctors and nurses in our public hospitals can continue to work there.

We’ve had women’s cancer care cut in the lower North Island. Women from this community are having to travel to Christchurch in order to get cancer treated. We’ve had efforts to cut maternity beds; we’ve misled mothers about the three-day stay policy—we absolutely have—and that is why the bill is going to have to be amended by the other side of the House. You’ll recall that the three-day post-natal stay proposal was for a three-day post-natal stay, but now that’s going to be amended so that it’s clear that they can’t deliver on their promise in the first two years to anyone except new mothers, and after that, only half of the eligible women will be actually funded to have a bed. If more than half want it, they won’t be able to get it.

I’d like to take my colleague’s points up about ambulances. Well, that was an unimpressive delay by the relevant Minister at Estimates hearings. She could not explain how on earth the small contribution—less than $10 million a year—was going to meet St John’s deficit between their operational costs and the amount they’re funded for, which is more than $100 million. She could not explain it, and yet that same Minister, Minister Costello, had made statements in the press, gloating about this announcement because it was more than 95 percent of St John’s costs covered. Absolutely not true.

You might have noticed that Christopher Luxon has stopped talking about the cost of living. He’s given up on fixing it. Well, Labour has not. We’re focused on what matters. Affordable healthcare: we know it’s got more expensive to see a doctor in the community under this Government; we know that costs of maternity scans are going up to $90 across the country—quite a lot when the average woman needs five scans throughout her pregnancy. We know that the cost of prescriptions means that 155,000 New Zealanders are not getting their prescription, and we know that cost remains a barrier to women getting their cervical screening. What did the other side decide to do about it? Nothing. Nothing but write mean things about Labour’s policy on the internet.

By the way, they are obsessed with Labour—they are obsessed with Labour, absolutely—but what they can’t justify is the fact that healthcare is getting more and more expensive. A lot of people are missing out. Before we get lectures from the other side about the fact that they want to see healthcare better targeted, well, go ahead—do it! You’re the Government. Go make sure that the 650,000 New Zealanders who can’t afford to go to the doctor, can’t afford to go to their community GP—go make sure that they actually get care. But you’re not: costs have gone up under your Government. Make sure that the 155,000 people who can’t afford their prescriptions get it: you’re not doing that either. You implemented a complicated policy that meant many working New Zealanders cannot afford their medicines.

We know that when people cannot get these basics—ambulance call outs, pharmacists, their prescriptions, access to cervical screening, to their general practitioner—looking after them gets more expensive down the line. That’s the problem with this Budget. It’s all short-termism, under-investment, kicking the can down the road—and I should add, by the way, that, for the first time, there’s no money in the out-years for increases in health-cost pressures. This Government is underfunding the health system.

17:18

We’re debating the Budget in the House, and I think it’s worth stepping back just for a minute to say, what is the Budget? Well, it’s the summary of initiatives, the economic and fiscal update—it’s numbers after numbers, after numbers, after numbers, after numbers. It’s all about the Government’s plans for the future, and it’s a dense set of numbers.

The Government has talked numbers. It’s talked about—and this was in a speech today from the Hon Louise Upston—getting inflation down. They say that they got it down from record highs. It’s worth remembering that when that Government took office, inflation following the pandemic had come down. It had come down by then, to a number that was still high—4.7 percent—and it was on its way down. Under their watch, inflation is now going back up, thanks to the decisions that that Government has made.

They’ve talked about their record on jobs and what they want to do for jobs. But under that Government, since they took office, 40,000 New Zealanders have lost their jobs—40,000 more people on their watch, when they are responsible for the books. There are 40,000 more people out of work. On their watch, when they are in Government, business liquidations are at a 15-year high. This is the Government that touts itself as being a responsible manager of the economy. What kind of manager are they when there are 40,000 more New Zealanders out of work and when business liquidations are at a 15-year high?

There was one very salient thing that one of the speakers spoke about. That was the money that was being put into the food distribution system. This is, in some ways, a good venture. It is money being put towards helping organisations gather and then distribute food to food banks. But, as I’ve said, when I visited Fair Food in Avondale, which does exactly that job—gathering food from supermarkets, from hotels, and from producers and then redistributing it to food banks—what it shows is that we have now industrialised our system of food banks. When food banks first started appearing, they were a temporary thing. They were run by churches to help out people in temporary need. They were small and low scale. These days, we have become so wretched in this country that we cannot feed our own people and we have industrialised the system for helping food banks to run. That is a huge shame. While that Government might tout the numbers it’s put in to supporting the food distribution system, it ought to be a mark of shame for our country that we have done so little to support our people and they must rely on an industrialised surplus system for food banks. The figure that was given was 4.5 million meals a month being assisted through the money that this Government is putting in there. That is a mark of shame. That is not a good thing at all.

What we need in this Budget was some signs of a vision for New Zealand, some signs that there was a plan to help New Zealand get on its feet again, and some signs that there would be assistance for ordinary, everyday people to deal with this cost of living crisis. Was it there? It was not. They say two things when we say, “What are you going to do to grow the economy?” One is they say they’re going to reform the RMA, but that just ignores the fact that they chucked out the five years of work that we had done on reforming the Resource Management Act and said, “Oh, no, we can do it better.”, and that it is still not being done. They wasted all the work that had already been done. Then they say, “Well, perhaps you could support the fast track.”, but we had a fast-track Act. If they didn’t like it, it was up to them to change the bits they didn’t like, instead of chucking it entirely out and bringing their own one in. That is a wasteful Government. It’s a Government that has wasted the time and effort of this House, that has thrown out good work that was already done because it was done by Labour, and that has gone its own way, ensuring that New Zealanders are doing it tough.

17:23

Look, we secure New Zealand’s future by growing a stronger economy This is what this Budget delivers, a responsible Budget focused on growing our economy and lifting wages, investing in the things that matter—health, education, and law and order. Budget 2026 forecast the economy to grow and shows that wages are growing faster than prices. What does this mean? This means that New Zealanders will have more to spend. It also projects 220,000 more jobs. On this side of the House, we have an economic plan, and that member, just then, spoke about plans. Well, on that side of the House, all we’re seeing are more taxes promised, more spending, and more debt. On this side of the House, we are all about fiscal management and responsibility, and that is what this Budget delivers.

Look, a personal highlight of this Budget for me was the funding for better post-natal care, supporting my three-day stay member’s bill, so that we get better outcomes for mums, families, and babies across New Zealand. Look, it was really disappointing to hear that the Opposition members are not in support of this, because it is really important that we do support better post-natal care for mums. This Budget invests $34.4 million over four years to expand post-natal care, maternity beds, and workforce support. This is a good thing. This means mothers matter. We want to support our mums and babies because having a baby is one of the most special moments in your life. But, hey, it can also be really overwhelming having to grapple with so many things when you have a new baby, and mums deserve that support. I was thrilled to see our Government supporting new mums and babies. As a new mum, you shouldn’t be forced to leave the hospital or a birthing unit when you aren’t ready. Having a baby is a really special time, and you need that support. This is what Budget 2026 does. It puts more support towards post-natal care, and I encourage members on the other side of the House to get behind this, because it means that mothers have choice and it means that we have better support for mums, families, and babies across New Zealand.

Let’s talk about the Budget’s record investment in health, especially health infrastructure. This is particularly exciting because Hawke’s Bay Hospital finally has the investment committed for the first stages of its upgrade. Our Government is the Government of infrastructure, and, wow, are we seeing roads, hospital buildings, and classrooms progressing at pace across the country—on time and on budget, I might add. In fact, it was wonderful to visit the Hawke’s Bay Expressway yesterday and see this project driving forward at pace, because this is the project that’s been talked about for years and years and years but no one has delivered it. Well, construction is well under way, it’s happening, and our Government is delivering it.

Now, we have the commitment to our Hawke’s Bay Hospital, another project that’s been talked about for years that, finally, we are committing to. We’re already seeing a wonderful upgrade of our radiology department. We opened that. Of course, the radiology department is the beating heart of our hospital. Then we’ve seen the construction of a 28-bed ward, which is also progressing at pace. It’s going to be so exciting to, very soon, be able to have a new linear accelerator cancer treatment machine in our region, which will mean that families do not have to travel to Palmerston North for their cancer treatment. We’re seeing a real investment in health from our Government. We’re putting patients first, and we’re wanting to see better outcomes for patients.

Education is also another huge area that we’re laser focused on—lifting performance in education—and it’s great to see a real focus on classrooms, on new infrastructure. Just this week, we’ve announced three new classrooms for Raureka School, which is going to be fantastic, a school in Hawke’s Bay. On this side of the House, we’re committed to fixing the basics and building the future.

Mr Speaker.

17:28

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You’re a bit early there, Willie. Look, I wanted to talk about a couple of initiatives from this Budget that really impact the Waitaki electorate. In the Waitaki electorate, we have the Otago Central Lakes region, and the Otago Central Lakes region represents 70 percent of the people who live more than two hours from a hospital, and they have been missing out on health services for quite some time. We’ve announced $180 million going into public health services in the Otago Central Lakes region. Phase two of this will be full maternity care, which is really important. Forty-nine percent of expectant mothers leave the area to have their babies because they don’t have the emergency care required when something goes wrong in the birthing process. Over the next three or four years, there’s going to be transformation in the Otago Central Lakes region. It’s going to make a big difference to Dunedin Hospital, which takes all those patients currently, and that’s going to have a knock-on impact for South Otago and North Otago, and they’re going to be able to get access to Dunedin Hospital much faster.

The second initiative that really pleased me is the announcement of an extra $79 million for the wilding conifer elimination and eradication process. In New Zealand, there are 2 million hectares of wilding pines. That’s an enormous area. Most of the wilding pines are on Crown property, and the bulk of them are on Department of Conservation (DOC) land. It’s estimated that 1,995 hectares are on DOC land. They currently spread at 90,000 hectares a year, which is an enormous amount.

They are problematic in so many ways. Not only are they gobbling up land, changing the landscape, but they also are water hungry. For example, the catchment of Lake Pukaki, which represents 43 percent of New Zealand’s stored hydro water: at the current rate of spread, it is estimated that anywhere between 30 to 50 percent of that water will now be gobbled up by wilding pines. That’s going to lead to some major hydro challenges just for the Pukaki catchment—and that’s just one lake. Tekapo, Ōhau, Hāwea, Wānaka, and the Waitaki hydro schemes are all at risk from wilding conifer.

There’s also a fire risk that is posed by wilding pines. We had a sneak preview of what the fire risk is like a few years ago when we had the Ōhau fires. Because of the topography of the country around where the wilding pines are spreading, it makes it very, very difficult to fight those fires. Access is difficult, the topography is steep in most cases, and a fire has the potential to burn for months and months and months.

The other area that wilding pines are really causing issues in is indigenous biodiversity. There’s a photograph—an iconic photograph, I’d call it, because I took it—that’s been in a number of publications, showing the difference between a fenced-off area of land, probably 400x100 metres square—

Get to the point.

I’m getting there, Willie—I’m getting there, Willie.

Let him have his 23 seconds.

Outside of that area, the area’s grazed. Within the fenced-off area where the wilding pines are taking over, there’s only one native species. Outside of that area, there are 18 native species. So that’s an indication of what the wilding pines are doing, not only to our—

The member’s time has expired.

17:33

That’s a hard act to follow. That was riveting stuff from that member. I want to thank him very much for that brilliant speech. It’s sad, as we’ve listened to some of the speeches today, how naïve this Government is in terms of the damage that they’ve been causing in terms of our Māori, and not just Māori communities—I’m going to talk about Māori development, obviously—but in terms of our communities right across the country who have suffered because of this terrible, terrible Budget.

In terms of Māori, things couldn’t be worse. We’ve got 11.5 percent Māori unemployment at the moment; we’ve got record Māori youth unemployment at the moment; 60 percent of the homeless are Māori; homeownership in terms of Māori is at a record low; Māori health outcomes are getting worse by the day. So it’s a sad state of affairs that, when we turn and we look to who should be supporting us—and it surely has to be our Minister for Māori Development, our Minister for Whānau Ora, the Minister of Conservation, the Minister for Māori Crown Relations, Minister Potaka. But what have we found in terms of Minister Potaka? He’s trying to sell off as much conservation land as he can before anyone notices. It’s as simple as that. He’s taken the self-interest of Shane Jones’ Fisheries Amendment Bill and applied it to our conservation land for the mining interests and property speculators.

It’s sad what’s happening. The Government’s coalition policies have negatively affected all Māori institutions, our te reo, and every Treaty-related issue. Funding decisions have disproportionately harmed Māori communities, so much so that Minister Goldsmith’s previous Minister, Chris Finlayson, is now hanging his head in shame at the work of this coalition Government. He came out very clearly the other day—

You’re always complaining.

You know this is right, Minister Goldsmith. Chris Finlayson was very clear: the Māori-Crown relationship is at an all-time low. Why? Because of this useless Minister Goldsmith over here and Minister Potaka, who’s been a disgrace in terms of what he’s been delivering for Māori. It’s all culture-war politics, and Tama Potaka has sat there while his fellow Ministers are watering down Treaty causes, and while his fellow Ministers are taking funding away from Māori in the housing area and the health area.

The question’s got to be asked: what has Minister Potaka and these other Ministers delivered in terms of Māori over the last three years? The reality is virtually nothing. Yes, maybe $12 million for the next 12 months—$12 million from the Minister for Māori Development for the interests of Māori. Absolutely disgraceful. Where is the money for Māori housing? Transferred out to the mainstream fund. Where is the money for Māori health providers? There’s nothing happening. All that’s happening from this Government is constant attacks, in terms of Treaty clauses, watering down Treaty clauses; attacks on the Waitangi Tribunal; attacks on the language, te reo Māori—and we have a Māori Minister, aided by Minister Goldsmith, aided by useless Māori MPs on that side who sit by and do nothing in terms of these attacks on Māori. It is a shameful state of affairs.

The books may balance, but families and the whenua don’t. That’s just the reality. The Government has money for roads but not for people. This coalition is spending billions while delivering less. You have to ask the question: what are you doing for Māori? Rather than supporting Winston Peters’ nonsensical strategies with regards to te reo and Māori words, how about supporting Māoris in their communities? Shane Jones had to dump his Fisheries Amendment Bill because it was so full of fish-hooks that it was just nonsensical. How long will Minister Potaka’s privatisation of Department of Conservation land last before he is forced to do the same?

That’s the reality. People are denying it out there. The reality is, in terms of a Māori development budget, it has been virtually zero. Māori people are rising up, Pākehā people are rising up, communities are rising up. Look at the polls; look what’s happening. We’re going to get rid of this useless, rotten Government. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

17:38

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare, otirā ka tū atu awau hei kīnaki i ngā kōrero a Hōnore Jackson. Heoi anō rā, nā te tini o ngā aituā puta noa i te motu, tēnei te mihi atu ki ngā mate huhua o tēnei wā. Haere, haere atu rā koutou. Heoi anō rā hoki mai rā ki a tātou te hunga ora.

[Greetings, Mr Speaker. I stand in support of the words of the Hon Willie Jackson. Furthermore, in recognition of the many deaths around the country, I acknowledge the many who have passed at this time. Depart, depart. Now, I return my attention to the living.]

Aotearoa are warming up to Matariki. Like Matariki—the promise of a new year—Budgets should also promise new hope. This Budget is absolutely bereft of hope. All we’ve heard is numbers straight out into the air—ideas, promises. We already know this Government promised to fix the cost of living. You only need a stroll through your electorate to see you’ve failed. This Government have not fixed anything, in spite of all the ideas thrown out there, all the promises.

Just to add to the list of broken promises in the last 2½ years, you know what we haven’t heard? People. We haven’t heard how this is going to impact whānau; grown families who are moving back in with mum and dad, with their children, in spite of working. There are whānau in Wainuiōmata who are taking their growing families and moving back in with their parents because, in spite of working, they cannot afford to live in the Aotearoa governed by this National-led coalition. We’re not hearing about whānau in the Hawke’s Bay who are watching services close and leave their communities, whānau who are telling us that when costs increase, so does domestic abuse, and yet they are seeing services close and leave their communities.

We’re not hearing about whānau in the Wairarapa who are noticing an increase in homelessness. We are not hearing about the support for farmers still devastated by the recent weather events in Tairāwhiti and Wharekahika. We’ve heard ideas and promises that allude to all these things, but never people-centric policy or people-centric spending.

I just don’t think you were listening.

Oh, no, don’t worry, I was listening and so was Aotearoa. Worse than listening, member for Napier, people are living it. People are living the broken promises of this National-led coalition. They are listening with their hearts and their souls because they are suffering.

Now, you know why this Budget is also flawed, further to the fact that it is not people-focused. I’ll give you an example, and that is the Māori economy, which is often lauded in this House, an economy modelled, number one, on whānau, people, whakapapa, longevity. Not just three-year ideas about projects for now and for another three years, if you get that far. It’s focused on whenua, and our connection to it. In this Budget, you hear a lot about land use—the use of land. You don’t hear about the connection and the value beyond financial outputs in this Budget. That’s why it’s flawed. That’s why people around Aotearoa are hōhā, and that’s why I’m so proud to stand with the many across Aotearoa who opposed the potential sale of bits and bobs of whenua around this country—whenua that may seem like bits and bobs to members opposite, but represents significant value to whānau.

Of course, there’s whairawa—whairawa. Naturally, people can make money. The Māori economy has proven that—$126 billion; it’s probably actually worth more. We need to measure the value that our Māori businesses and iwi put into our economy more effectively.

The point is, that’s why whānau across Aotearoa are hōhā—they’re exhausted—because every promise that we hear from this National-led coalition is bereft of hope, and it is not focused on the people who actually build and sustain an economy.

Heoi anō rā, hei whakakapi, he aha te mea nui o tēnei ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata [In conclusion, what is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people]—and I would like to welcome Te Maringi Haerewa, the newest member of the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti team, servicing the Tairāwhiti from Pōtaka to Ūawa. Tēnā koe e te Māngai.

17:43

Look, it’s a great opportunity to speak to this wonderful Budget, on behalf of the people of Hawke’s Bay and northern Hawke’s Bay. Following that performance from the member opposite, I can talk about the things that are in here for everyday families and people in Napier, Wairoa, all the way up to Poverty Bay.

This has been what I think is a really substantial, back-to-basics Budget. No frills, not saying, “Oh, we’re going to do this big spandangled Budget.”, and then not deliver it, which we’ve had from previous Governments. We have got an extra $5.5 billion of funding into healthcare. We don’t hear that from the Opposition because that’s not convenient for them.

Let me take you through some of the amazing things that we are seeing for everyday people. Look, on the surface, it might sound like this is for councils, for property developers—they build houses for people; they build houses for people and family to live in. So, look, I’m going to take you through some of these highlights.

Financial incentives for council to consent more housing growth. Who benefits from that? Everyday Kiwis looking for homes in their communities. We are going to incentivise development and growth in our regions. This is a big deal.

Another one that I think is key, especially for the people—

Grown-up thing to do.

Yeah, I know, isn’t that nice?

I want to see more spending in education in Hawke’s Bay, and look at that, we’ve had it—a huge increase in funding for education across New Zealand. In fact, that is the future economy for our entire country. The better educated our Kiwi kids are, the better that we succeed. Now, this is a massive spend in secondary achievement, but also across the entire sector. We’ve got primary as well as secondary, but we’re having the roll-out of the change from NCEA to the New Zealand Certificate, which is going to make a massive difference. The better we have a global benchmark for our students, the better they can achieve. But one thing I’ve been saying, and I really think is important, is we want global standards for our kids, but we want those global opportunities to be in New Zealand, and, more importantly, I want those global opportunities to be in the Napier electorate.

The other thing that’s going to make a big difference for everyday Kiwis is pushing the banks to pay more for financial regulation. Now, on the surface that might seem like a sort of bureaucratic financial change, but that is one less thing for everyday Kiwis to have to pay for. We don’t want to put up taxes. We are the party of less taxes. So guess what? We see banks making profits. We make them pay for the services that they benefit from.

More changes across social development and employment, across healthcare. Now, part of that $5.8 billion of extra funding into health—let me talk about the redevelopment design for Hawke’s Bay Hospital.

That’s not for people, is it?

It is for people, Cameron Luxton. Now, Hawke’s Bay Hospital— we’ve actually had a really contentious conversation over the last wee while as to whether we redevelop the current site of Hawke’s Bay Hospital, which is on Omahu Road, or whether we go for a greenfield option. While greenfield sounds like a really exciting option, the best value for money for everyday Kiwis, and the best promise of constant—sorry, “continuity” is the word I’m going for, thank you very much—is expanding the site that’s there. We have a wonderful footprint. We have just invested in the radiology department that has recently been opened by Minister Simeon Brown. We have got a 28-bed inpatient unit being built at the moment, which is being delivered on time, under budget, which is really exciting. All of these things are part of that master plan and that programme. This Budget saw money for the redevelopment design for the Hawke’s Bay regional hospital. This is a big win for Hawke’s Bay.

We’ve got additional funding for resilience work. Now, access to—

Very important.

Yeah. Access to Gisborne, the Poverty Bay flats from Ōpōtiki, the Waioweka Gorge State Highway 2 is incredibly vulnerable; we’ve seen that under recent weather events. The Government has committed more money to ensuring that the resilient access to infrastructure, to economy in Gisborne prevails. Now, that effects the entire region, but, of course, we saw an immediate impact when those weather events shut down access to that area. We want to make sure that people can get places, access education, access healthcare, access business, and move food around the country.

Another thing we did was double the trades academy places for high school access to industry. Now, this is massive. We’ve been to the Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT) a number of times and EIT is a huge part of Hawke’s Bay, and we have schools—

Great polytech.

We do, Minister for Tertiary Education, Penny Simmonds—a fantastic polytech that is really delivering outcomes for our regional industries. They want to see more trades places at trades academies. We are delivering that as part of our Budget.

In my final few seconds, as a new mum, there is a 1.5 percent increase to early childhood education (ECE) subsidy rates, which means a lower impact on young families putting their kids through ECE so they can get back to work.

17:48

Budget 2026 is about fixing the basics and building the future. It is a Budget to support New Zealanders at every stage of life, from birth through to retirement, while investing in the services and infrastructure that will strengthen our country for generations to come.

It begins with giving every Kiwi the best possible start in life. This is why Budget 2026 funds three days of post-natal care for new mums and their babies. Those first few days are critical and this investment ensures families receive the support they need during one of life’s most important moments.

As our children grow, education becomes the foundation for their future success. This Budget continues our education reforms, including changing the NCEA—reforming NCEA, building more classrooms, and ensuring young New Zealanders leave school with the knowledge and skills they need for success in a changing world. We are also investing $69 million to double trades academy places to 20,000 alongside free trade training, creating more pathways for young people to gain critical skills and build rewarding careers. Of course, skills and qualifications must lead to opportunities. This is why Budget 2026 forecasts the creation of 220,000 new jobs over the next four years. These jobs will be driven by major infrastructure investments in roads, rail, hospitals, and other projects that not only strengthen our economy but improve the lives of everyday New Zealanders.

At the same time, vocational and skills-based—[Interruption]

Members down the back, if you’re going to have a conversation, please leave the Chamber. OK, thank you.

At the same time, vocational and skills-based pathways will ensure young Kiwis are ready to take these opportunities.

As people build careers, raise their families, and contribute to our economy, they deserve access to quality healthcare. Budget 2026 delivers an additional $5.5 billion for front-line health services, helping reduce pressure on our healthcare system and improving access to care. We are also investing an additional $54 million for Pharmac to purchase medicines, ensuring more New Zealanders can access the treatments they need. Looking to the future, this Budget also includes capital investment to support planning for a potential fifth public hospital in Auckland to ensure our health infrastructure keeps pace with our growing population.

Besides health, a strong society also requires safe communities. This is why Budget 2026 provides an additional $50 million for front-line policing, helping to keep our streets safe and supporting the officers who work every day to protect New Zealanders. These investments contribute to New Zealand being recognised as the second-safest country in the world. Let me repeat: the second-safest country in the world.

As we move into middle age, preventative healthcare becomes increasingly important. This is why this Budget extends eligibility for the bowel cancer screening programme to the age of 56, helping detect illness earlier and improving health outcomes for thousands more New Zealanders. When New Zealanders reach retirement, we continue to support them. Budget 2026 invests another $36 million to make the SuperGold card an official form of identification, making it easier for seniors to access services and participate fully in their communities.

This Budget follows New Zealanders through every stage of life, from birth through to retirement, from supporting mums and babies to educating our young children, creating jobs, strengthening healthcare, building safe communities, improving preventative health, and supporting our seniors. It is a Budget that fixes the basics while building for the future. It is a Budget that invests in people. Like the previous speaker said, “It’s all about the people.” This Budget is about the people. It’s about creating opportunities and it helps ensure that every New Zealander can look forward to a brighter future. We are here to fix the basics and build the future. I commend this Budget to the House.

17:53

I would like to know if there is just one thing in this Budget that helps Kiwis with the cost of living—just one thing. Because I’ve listened to all of those speeches, all of those points from that side of the House. I’ve been listening really clearly, and I haven’t heard one single thing that would help New Zealanders struggling right now with the cost of living—not one thing to help with buying food at the end of the week when there’s not enough money to buy bread for the school lunches, to pay rent or go towards your accommodation costs. There’s nothing in there that helps Kiwis pay for their rent and their accommodation costs that continue to go up. There’s nothing for transport, at a time when transport costs have got higher and higher. Nothing to help New Zealanders pay for getting to and from work, to and from school, to and from training—nothing in there for those New Zealanders. There’s nothing in there for those parents who are struggling to even buy clothes for their kids in winter as it gets colder. There is nothing in this Budget at all that helps New Zealanders with the cost of living.

It goes dead silent over there, because all we’ve heard so far about what this Budget has evidently done for New Zealand is somehow make the economy better. But it hasn’t—it hasn’t. Because, if we look between the forecast for 2023 and the forecasts that we’ve got right now in 2026, we can show a stark contrast in the economic deterioration that has occurred under this Government’s watch. GDP growth went from 2.8 percent in 2023 to 1.2 percent in 2026. GDP per capita growth: 1.5 percent to 0.6 percent. Unemployment: from 4.8 percent, now to 5.5 percent under this Government’s watch. Inflation: 2.2 percent to 4 percent. All the while, debt $4 billion higher than forecast when this Government came into action. So not only did this Budget not give Kiwis anything to help with the cost of living pressures that they’re currently struggling with, but it didn’t even do what they promised, which was to make our economy better. It has actually deteriorated under their watch.

What I think has occurred is National’s actually given up. They’re walking away. They’ve given up on actually even trying to address the fact that the cost of living is a problem for New Zealanders. That is really sad, when there are so many families out there who are just struggling to try and get by. There is no actual change to what’s happening right here in the Wellington region, where we have seen record numbers of liquidations. Businesses that actually withstood the global financial crisis, businesses that withstood the shocks of COVID, have folded under this Government’s watch.

In my main street, in Jackson Street, I’ve visited businesses that cannot any longer survive the economic downturn that has occurred in Wellington due to cuts and the downward spiral of our local economy. People know that. People know that that has happened under this Government’s watch. It has detrimentally impacted, whether it’s a hairdresser, a restaurant, a cafe, a nail technician—all of those small businesses that rely upon Kiwis having a bit of money in their back pocket have had to close their doors permanently because there is nothing here to help New Zealand get going again.

When I think about whether or not National has given up, we only need to look at their conference that happened on the weekend that was held in the Hutt. When Chris Bishop himself was asked about the seat of Hutt South, he said, “Well, that’s traditionally a Labour seat.” Case in point, they’ve given up—they’ve given up. They’ve even conceded in this own area. National has not given one piece of evidence of how they are delivering on the cost of living crisis for New Zealanders. That speaks for itself.

Because when we meet people in the street, when we talk to the mum trying to make lunches out of no food, when we meet with the kids who need an extra pair of shoes but mum or dad can’t afford those things, when we see those people, those elderly seniors, who can’t afford to buy anything except a can of soup and some crusty bread that they’re eating day after day because that’s all they can afford to purchase and their nutrition goes down because that’s all that they can afford to buy, this Budget gave nothing to those Kiwis that are struggling to be able to just feed themselves, to be able to make basic repairs on their homes after a weather event, to be able to get on a bus and get into town, to be able to keep themselves warm in winter. This is a heartless Budget, because, at a time when New Zealanders are suffering more than they have ever done before, there is not one scrap thrown out to those people who have got their hands out waiting for something. What they’re waiting for, I think, is a change of Government before they will ever get a decent cost of living response from people who care.

Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30.

Good evening, members. When we broke for the dinner break, we were debating the Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill. The next call is the second half of a split call.

19:30

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ve been thinking about the way that New Zealanders have trust and confidence in Governments. Today, we’ve spent our time in the House talking about the Public Service coming along to Parliament and giving answers that New Zealanders can have faith and confidence in, and, at a time when around the world elections feel increasingly tilted and major parties aren’t speaking to the concerns of people, it is incumbent upon not only public servants but all of us in this House to maintain the trust of the people and make sure that we are governing in their interests. That is why it’s hard to sit on this side of the House and listen to backbenchers on the Government side reading their speech notes about all of the good things in this Budget that they say will change New Zealanders’ lives.

Ordinary New Zealanders are pretty reasonable people. They will give you a fair go if you are defending your Budget and the idea that austerity will be the thing that will help them, because that is part of a story which we also, as New Zealanders, are telling ourselves, which is that we have to pull up our socks in times of global uncertainty but that things will be hard. There are New Zealanders out there who are working harder and longer hours to pay for their bills, and they believe in having this Government deliver for them because they are told that if they work hard, they will be able to afford the groceries and the power bills and they believe that they will be able to save enough for their families to get ahead and for their children to buy houses.

We hear these speeches that tell us that small, incremental change for things like maternity care will make up for the deep and lasting cuts to our Public Service, and for the most vulnerable people in our society who need it the most right now, it’s pretty hard for them to stomach that, and it is pretty hard to look at our Government and find that trust and confidence that we need people to have in Aotearoa. This was a Budget that was balanced by shifting cost on to the people who are already three steps behind.

Young people are out of work in record numbers, one in five of them—100,000 New Zealanders are out of work, most of them young. There is nothing in this Budget for those working people who are putting in hundreds of job applications now that they have been laid off, or who are paying to go to job interviews with petrol that is more expensive or buses that are more expensive because of this Government’s choices.

There is nothing in there for the disabled people who will lose access to the vital care and support that they need in our community, and the Government has responded by putting up rents for social housing tenants. Who is that? That is the man I met on Sunday who was in a wheelchair, living in a social house—a Kāinga Ora house—with his disabled son. The Minister has said that this Budget will make it easier for him to get a house, and so he is earnestly looking to Government MPs to tell him how, when a Government Minister is cynically making that comment, knowing that he has put up his rent by $31 a week, and that will make him worse off.

Just to win the argument, and just to make a good speech, the Minister has said that 30 percent of these tenants in social houses can afford to pay more. That is a cynical assessment based on one night of census data. When we need people to have trust and confidence in Government and to fill in the census truthfully, he has used that data at an aggregated level to make decisions about what he thinks people can afford. This is the same Government with Ministers who have said that these people had “effectively won the lotto”, and it is shameful.

Youth homelessness is at an all-time high, and those things are connected. Last week, there were two brothers who were dropped off by one of their family members to sleep under the eaves of the Methodist church. There is nothing in this Budget that helps them. We were lucky to have LinkPeople assist them and reach out to them, and they saw this as being urgent because they told me it was a matter of days before they would be injecting meth. Meth because it’s cold and meth because that is the best thing in their lives, if you are 17 and 20 and you are brothers who are sleeping, homeless, on the streets in South Auckland. There is nothing in this Budget that will help them.

What could this Budget have done? It could have addressed rising grocery prices, which we know are a problem in our economy. They’re a chokehold on small businesses, as well as on the people who rely on the grocery duopoly to get by. It could have addressed petrol price shocks, which are hurting workers and manufacturers. It could have addressed insurance costs, which are rising. It could have addressed personal debt, which is papering over the cracks for too many families.

Is anything in our economy more affordable now than three years ago? From a Government that stood at the election hustings and said, “We will fix the cost of living.”, this is one more thing where ordinary New Zealanders, who are doing what they have been told to do—they are saving as much as they can and they are working more hours—look at their institutions and say that it’s not true any more. The deal is being broken, and they’re the ones who are being asked to pay for this Budget.

I understand that this is a split call.

19:35

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Budget 2026 by this Government is a far cry from what the people of Aotearoa truly deserve. On one hand we see a Government that is pandering to the super-rich by their tax cuts for landlords, their tax cuts for tobacco companies, their tax cuts for offshore oil and gas companies, and by their selling off Aotearoa one piece at a time with Investment NZ.

This is not just us saying it. As we saw in the National Business Review just last week, the wealthiest in Aotearoa, collectively, have added $27 billion to their assets in one year. What does that mean in context? Minister Nicola Willis has said that we need to tighten our belts and we need to have austerity measures, and, therefore, the net operating package in Budget 2026 is $2.1 billion for the entirety of the country, while the wealthiest, who own more than more of half of the people in Aotearoa New Zealand, added $27 billion—more than 10 times this Government’s operating budget—in one single year. That is disgraceful. Those are the decisions—and they are political decisions—that this Government has made. Those are the political decisions that this Government has made, on one hand pandering to the super-rich, and, on the other hand, punching down on those who need support from this Government the most. We have seen them punishing our beneficiaries over and over and over again while giving tax cuts to the super-rich.

We have seen that in Budget 2026. To give a specific example in one of my shadow portfolios, if we are looking at education, we have seen further centralisation and further politicisation by this Government when it comes to education. We have seen that, once again, the budget for the operational fund for schools has not met inflation. For schools, they received a 2.5 percent increase when inflation in the Government’s own fiscal strategy is going to increase to a peak of 4 percent, not to mention that it’s even higher for schools when you’re looking at a fuel crisis.

When looking at the previous year, the Budget had an increase of 1.5 percent for operational funding when the forecasted Consumers Price Index (CPI) was 2.3 percent. This year, for early childhood education, the increase was 1.5 percent when the CPI was 4 percent, and so we continuously see that the Government has undercut, underfunded, and, effectively, cut our education budget—not to mention that to match operational funds with the CPI was a National Party election commitment in 2023, and they couldn’t even meet that. That is disgraceful.

We have seen that the changes that this Government has made with KiwiSaver have meant a $700 million fiscal hole in its Budgets both last year and this year. This was confirmed in this year’s Budget when it did not factor the KiwiSaver cost pressures for teachers as part of that, and so another $160 million needed to be added in this year’s Budget for that fiscal hole by the Government changing the KiwiSaver settings.

We have seen that this Government, effectively, has punched down and has screwed over teachers, nurses, doctors, public servants, lawyers, academics, workers, students, women, migrants, Māori, young families, disabled communities, and rainbow communities, not to mention the environment. So who is this Government really here for?

The working people.

Apparently not, because what we are seeing is that this Budget does nothing for the working people. We are not seeing any of those benefits going to the working people.

What we need to see—and the Green Party has developed it—is, therefore, a tax system that is for all of us. We need to have an education system that is for all of us, a health system that is for all of us, and public infrastructure and digital infrastructure that are there for all of us. We’re not seeing any of that in this Budget, so the Green Party will not be supporting Budget 2026.

19:40

Thank you, Madam Speaker. We have seen further evidence, from this Government, through the Budget, of the chaos, the confusion, and the clear incompetence of the Government, and I don’t say that lightly. In line with this Government’s fascination with fossil fuels, the Government decided to reallocate funding from the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund to ensure we funded the liquefied natural gas (LNG) procurement process. The high spot prices from 2024 revealed clearly to the Government something that they simply weren’t aware of before—surprisingly, that we have a dry year occasionally. Their first response was to say “hard cheese” to industry and to manufacturing. It was to say “hard cheese” to those people in the regions losing their jobs. It was to say “hard cheese” to those people facing unemployment. Little by little, it seems to have clicked that this is not a winning strategy for votes. It’s not a winning strategy for votes in the region. It’s not a winning strategy if you want to get re-elected.

That’s when LNG became the solution for a Government bereft of ideas and unwilling to lead, for a Government tied to the fossil fuel sector, and for a Government that campaigned on electrifying New Zealand but is actually seeking fossil fuel molecules instead of our renewable electrons that are available if we only went looking for them. The Budget tells us where we’re going with this Government, but you can’t drive to the Rapture in an SUV.

During scrutiny week, the Minister for Energy clearly stated that, whether the power companies wanted it or not, the Government will require them to buy LNG—no ifs, buts, or maybes. It’s guaranteed. You’ll be required to do it. When they are compelled to pay, they’ll pass that cost on to ordinary Kiwis, who are already struggling with the cost of living. We’ve heard from the big power companies that they don’t have any need for LNG. They have firming secured till 2035. There is no need for LNG. The Sapere report by David Reeve, Stephen Batstone, and Corina Comendant has also rubbished the LNG proposal for the electricity sector. It’s a rushed response by this Government, who really doesn’t know what it’s doing. The Concept gas market outlook report says that the electricity sector is in good condition with the forward curve indicating no expectation of dry-year stress at least until 2029. Yet the Minister is seeking to force the gentailers to pay for LNG when it’s not wanted and it’s not needed, at a time when the orange narcissist who squats in the White House continues to cause chaos with his warmongering, threatening fossil fuel deliveries. Kiwis aren’t fooled by this Government’s claim that the power companies will somehow not pass on the LNG cost to consumers. Kiwis aren’t fooled by that. If the Government forces them to take LNG, of course that cost will be passed on. This Government seems to have become high on the fumes from a gas well.

Winter is hitting hard in the South, and those working at the front line report more energy hardship than anywhere else. Sumaria Beaton-Sikisini, the general manager of Awarua Synergy in Invercargill, said that “showing up in cold homes, constrained budgets, and tough choices between heating and other essentials”, that’s where hardship is shaping up. I have been into numerous homes in the deep South. I’ve been into homes where the black mould was like paint in the bathrooms. I’ve been into homes where there are holes in the floor where there needs to be repairs done. I’ve been in homes where people are really suffering, and yet this Government claimed $8.5 million of savings from the Warmer Kiwi Homes programme in this year’s Budget. That’s $8.5 million taken from the people most at risk. That’s $8.5 million taken from our most vulnerable. Not only are we condemning Kiwis to greater hardship; we’re going to push more hardship on them.

19:45

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This year’s Budget is a credit, I think, to Nicola Willis, who has delivered a very sensible Budget at a time where it could be tempting to offer some lollies and some excitement for the general election. This has been a very careful Budget, and when I say “careful”, it’s because this is a time in the world where there is uncertainty and national security is at risk all around the world. Our Prime Minister has explained our strategic plan to make sure that we are playing our part in the world, that we are securing our own future, fixing the basics in our own place, and securing our place and building our future so that we can contribute further.

One of the ways, actually, that we need to be self-sufficient and secure in our future is in our energy sector. The previous member speaking claimed some strange things about the energy sector, but it is important that New Zealand is aware that this Government is delivering more renewable energy projects than has been delivered in the last eight to 10 years. It has, in this Budget, committed to co-paying and funding more electricity generation through Genesis Energy. We have committed to the Solar on schools programme, reprioritising some funding from the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority on to the schools so that they’ll have solar panels and batteries or other ways of redistributing electricity within their own schools to reduce their bills but also to improve the security of the electricity in their communities. For them, across the country, having a wide, distributed solar system is very important. We’ve got more investment into geothermal, into wind farms. It’s how you set up the system to be able to enable those that is very important and practical.

In this time of uncertainty with fuel supply, we’ve also put aside money just in case more disruption occurs; $450 million has been put aside as a contingency in case we need to extend and fund more initiatives because of fuel insecurity; $150 million is for families who are getting the in-work support payment. That’s continuing on until we get to a point—and we’ve been very careful to define a time and a targeted population of people who get this money, and we’re being very careful to explain when it will come to an end. Once fuel prices get below $3 a litre for more than four weeks, that subsidy will end. We’ve also funded for more fuel to be landed in New Zealand, so we’ve got an extra nine days, I think it is, with 90 million litres of diesel that’s onshore. All of those things that we are doing are creating security of our energy supply, whether that be for driving our industries or for heating and warming our homes.

Energy is the absolute core of our security as a nation, but also so is our defence force. That’s why we’re increasing our budget, looking after our people within our defence force, looking after them by making sure that they stay working for us. I’m hoping that that will mean better working conditions and pay—but also where they live, the homes for them, and their working conditions and where they work on bases. We’ve already had a process of updating facilities within our bases. Glad to see some of those happening, including some in Burnham Military Camp where I used to work—the medical treatment facility has been upgraded there, not from this Budget but from previous. So these are continuing on and it’s important that we fix these basic requirements within our energy sector and our Defence Force so that we can continue to be safe and secure here at home, and develop our industries, but also contribute overseas. That’s another way that National is fixing the basics and building the future.

19:50

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s great to be able to stand on behalf of the Government and support the Budget that was sent through the other week. It was a good Budget; a confident Budget from a party and a Government and a country that is turning around and fixing the basics and building the future. It was a sensible Budget. It’s always tempting at this time of the cycle to go spraying money around, and we’ve seen that happen. But we are a sensible Government and we know that that isn’t the way to fix things. The consequences of that sort of recklessness will be incredibly damaging. We’re about fixing the basics, Madam Future—we’re about building the future, Madam Speaker. My apologies.

It was a good Budget for Tauranga—and that’s a confident region, if I’ve ever seen one. It reminds me every time one of our Ministers from Wellington comes up and he says, “Sam, this is a fantastic electorate. I can just feel the positivity—people out there building stuff and getting ahead.” We saw the Tauranga Hospital redevelopment—desperately needed for a growing city. People keep coming because it’s so good. You’ve seen the GDP growth in Tauranga almost double the national average since 2000, significant population growth as well. We saw $1.8 billion into the Cambridge to Piarere, which will connect it to State Highway 29. We need to keep going, and I can promise you I’m going to keep pitching for a tunnel through those Kaimais as well, because we need to boost our productivity.

We’ve got the best port, the biggest port in New Zealand, and we need to be able to get those goods from the port out to the rest of the country, and, more importantly, our world-leading primary produce from the Waikato and from our horticulture regions into the port and out there to the world. We are New Zealand’s gateway to the world, and, frankly, the Port of Tauranga also needs its berths approved. That needs to be extended, and I’m getting pretty sick and tired—I know a lot of people are too, and it’s having a significant economic impact on us at home and it’s holding up our country. But I was back in Tauranga on Friday. I got back to see the Young Grower of the Year awards. You want to see how good positivity looks? You get into Tauranga and you go and chat to young people working in horticulture. They are smart and they are innovative and they are the next generation. We’re up at $6 billion now, kiwifruit, as an industry. It is going from strength to strength, and its industries like kiwifruit that are going to help us double our exports by 2035.

Now, what was in this Budget for health? I can tell you what was in there: a significant amount. Building on record investments from previous Budgets, a $5.5 billion increase in funding to front-line services from a Government and a Minister. Thank you, Minister Doocey, as well, for all your work and some incredible mental health statistics coming out there from our first mental health Minister.

We are making sure that we focus the money on the front-line services. We’re delivering for patients. That is what we are focused on. A number of new hospital rebuilds and redevelopments; I’ve already mentioned Tauranga, but there’s a few others in there as well. I know Dr Reti was instrumental in the Whangārei Hospital redevelopment upgrade, and he’ll be very proud of that legacy as he is soon to depart this House. Thank you, Dr Reti.

Law and order also got significant investment, and you don’t see it in the news any more like you did three years ago because the problems are nowhere near substantive as they were previously. If you don’t have a country with law and order, well, what happens? It slips away; people don’t want to be there anymore. We’ve got that under control.

I also want to give a brief mention, in this short five- minute speech, to our wonderful education Minister Erica Stanford, and all that she has done. She was up in Tauranga recently, and everyone loves her wherever she goes around the country. She continues to invest, and we’ve seen it through this Budget—$131 million in teacher and learning support, a $74 million package to support the implementation of refresh curriculum. Frankly, Minister, if it wasn’t you, it wasn’t our Government in charge of education, my wife and I would be seriously considering where we send our kids to school. Our kids are all at State schools; we’re very proud to have them there. But I wouldn’t have that confidence if it wasn’t a National-led Government and Minister Stanford in charge of it, because we saw the mess that we had previously, the horrid declines of a future of New Zealanders, a generation of New Zealanders’ potential left to waste because the Government didn’t care and didn’t fix the basics, didn’t lay the foundations. Well, our Government is laying the foundations, whether it be in the economy, whether it be in the export space, whether it be in health, law and order, defence, education, the National-led Government is fixing the basics and building the future.

19:55

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I often think it was one of my greatest privileges to start my political journey when Grant Robertson was the Minister of Finance. He understood the value of Budget documents, that they are more than the numbers on a page. He called them “moral documents”. He said that “A strong economy is important, but we must not lose sight of why it is important, and it is most important for us all to have better lives.” It’s not just an accounting exercise; it’s a statement of priorities and values. The inverse is also true. When we see what isn’t funded, that tells us what’s being devalued, what this Government does not value.

Today, I want to talk about priorities, because the Government is making decisions here. They are continuing to support some questionable priorities at the cost of other expenditure. There is an ongoing choice to give tobacco companies a 50 percent reduction in excise on heated tobacco products. So that’s lost revenue—lost revenue which I believe is in the millions of dollars—that could otherwise be spent on areas to address the cost of living. It is a choice to prioritise the tobacco industry. Members of the Government benches talk about lollies being given out or not, and say they’re not giving out any. There are lollies being given out. This is simply a choice.

One of the things that the Government has, unfortunately, very sadly chosen to devalue is our natural environment. Now, I’m an MP based in Waitakere. It’s beautiful. We live in the Waitakere Ranges; it’s an area that Bob Harvey refers to as “the lungs of Auckland”. In New Zealand, we’re extremely fortunate to have such a rich and diverse natural environment. But what we know in the area, in the Waitakere Ranges, is that you cannot just assume environmental protections. They need to be legislated for, they need to be budgeted, and our community champions on the ground need to be supported to continue those protections. But, sadly, we’re seeing the opposite—in successive Budgets, and now in this one.

We’re seeing the disestablishment of the Ministry for the Environment. Government members will argue that that function is being rolled into the superministry and that we’ll see better outcomes in terms of housing and transport and environmental outcomes. But that claim, I would argue, is hollow after more than two years of sustained cuts to environmental staffing, funding, and programmes. It’s also quite revealing when we have Ministers who will use the words that “the pendulum has swung too far towards environmental protections”. What happens when budgets are amalgamated is we have a budget blur, and what I will be watching very closely is what happens to the allocation of spending on environmental priorities versus other spending of that “mega ministry”. As Forest & Bird have already pointed out, this year’s Budget delivers an additional $38 million in baseline conservation cuts. Now, that’s following a $1 billion cut in the previous Budget. This affects specific programmes, including things like the National Predator Control Programme. Our environment is suffering.

But, as are our social services, as are the people who are doing it worse. I visited Haumaru Housing in Green Bay, and these are people who have served the community well, as teachers, as engineers, as people in our community who are struggling now, who the Government is asking to pay an additional $30 in their social housing. These are not people who already buy cheese and have to cut that out of their budget. They talk to me about the very real costs that this means for them on their weekly grocery bills. They are suffering now. They see that this Government is not considering the cost of living issues that are very much hitting them and their whānau, and they know that an election is coming up around the corner. What they want is a Government who are focused very squarely on addressing cost of living priorities, and that is what a Labour Government will do.

20:00

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m standing to take a call on the Budget debate, and I think it’s worth remembering, at the beginning of this call, that this is a Budget that was delivered by National, who promised New Zealanders they would fix the cost of living. That was the promise they made, and the reality is that they have made it worse. The further reality and the further insult is that they’ve done it consciously. The choices they’ve made in this Budget will make the cost of living harder for New Zealanders.

Now, I want to start by talking about one person, because it’s very easy when we talk about Budgets for us to talk about hundreds of millions or billions of dollars that have been spent on one thing or the other. It’s also very easy for us to forget about the individuals in our community who are deeply impacted by the choices we make in Budgets and by the choices that are made in this House.

One of those people is a woman called Mary, who came to a street-corner meeting I had in Linwood. She brought her power bill with her, because she wanted to show me her power bill and she wanted to ask me how she could be expected—or anyone could be expected—to be able to afford to pay for their power bill with all of the other costs that she has every week, every month, coming into her home. She also wanted me to know that it’s not just her that struggles with her power bill, that there are people in her street who can’t afford to keep their homes warm, who can’t afford to heat their homes, who will go to the library down the road and sit in the library for the day because the library is heated. She wanted me to know that there is a woman on her street who will get on the bus and spend hours a day on the bus riding around Christchurch because at least, on the bus, she knows that she’s safe and she knows that she’s warm.

That’s the New Zealand that we’re living in at the moment. That’s the New Zealand that this Government promised that their pain, their challenge with the cost of living, was going to be solved. Then was delivered the Budget that we have seen, and the deep cuts to many of the supports and services that people like Mary and hundreds and thousands of others rely on.

We’ve had a big game talked up by Christopher Luxon and by the National Party and about this Budget. At the same time, in this term of Government, we’ve seen business liquidations at a 15-year high. We’ve seen 40,000 more people out of work since National took office. To come back to Mary, who brought her power bill to me, we’ve seen power bills go up by 18 percent. If I ask members on the other side of the House, who brought this Budget to the House and who supported it, to find me the line items in that Budget that support people like Mary who are struggling with the cost of living, which is the issue you promised to fix going into the election and the issue you—not you, Madam Speaker, but the Government, the National-led coalition Government—have made worse, then I find it unbelievable that anyone from the other side of the House would choose to support this Budget. But you have—you have.

Not only did you come into the last election promising to fix the cost of living, you have now, in fact, instead—not you, Madam Speaker—

I was just about to remind the member.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I must be getting used to doing that, because I was able to remind myself on that occasion. But not only did the Government come into power at the last election on a promise to fix the cost of living, and not only has the Government made it worse, but in this Budget there are more cuts and there is more pain and there is less action on addressing the cost of living for hundreds and thousands of New Zealanders.

20:05

I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

This debate is adjourned and is set down for resumption next sitting day.

20:06

I present a legislative statement on the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill.

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

I move, That the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I’m proud to speak to this legislation today and the difference this Government is making to educational outcomes for children and young people in this country as we lay the foundations for a world-leading education system that is focused on raising achievement and closing the equity gap. The bill is focused on lifting school attendance, identifying and supporting struggling schools earlier so that we can respond sooner, and the better measuring of system performance and outcomes to focus the system on raising student achievement.

The bill makes significant changes to how parts of the early learning and schooling systems are regulated. It transfers regulatory functions for early childhood education, school hostels, and private schools to the Education Review Office, bringing key regulatory functions into one agency to reduce duplication and improve efficiency, and to ensure the right tensions and accountabilities exist to deliver high-quality public services.

The bill establishes the New Zealand School Property Agency—NZSPA—as a Crown entity to manage, plan, build, maintain, and administer the education property portfolio. The NZSPA will drive essential changes to ensure the system delivers effectively for schools and for students, including delivering warm, safe, dry, and functional classrooms and schools with a value-for-money approach to investment so we can continue to deliver more classrooms, upgrades, and maintenance projects.

The bill also focuses on ensuring the system is set up to deliver a high-quality curriculum, alongside significant workforce changes to support a high-quality teaching workforce. High-quality teaching must be grounded in a high-quality, nationally consistent curriculum. The bill proposes to make the curriculum more effective and to futureproof it by requiring regular rolling curriculum reviews and updates and providing for one type of curriculum statement. Having regular reviews will provide more certainty and predictability to the sector and will avoid this overly disruptive complete overhaul every 20 years of the entire curriculum, which is incredibly disruptive for the sector.

I want to address two main concerns that were raised during the select committee process—and, indeed, since—as misinformation has been spread. The first is the incorrect assertion that the bill gives the Minister a new power to change the curriculum at will, and the second is a claim that there are insufficient requirements for the Minister to seek expert advice and evidence. Both of these things are, in fact, the opposite of what the bill is doing. Since 1989, legislation has enabled the Minister of Education to make, amend, unmake, and revoke the national curriculum. This is a largely unconstrained power that can be exercised at any time, and, indeed, has been on many occasions.

This bill constrains and limits this existing power by adding more criteria on how the curriculum is made, including the five-yearly, predictable cadence of rolling reviews and updates. The new provisions say the Minister can only amend a curriculum statement if they consider the Secretary for Education’s report; information about the educational achievement of students in that learning area, subject, or wāhanga ako; and relevant evidence—for example, from new developments in educational research and international practice relating to the setting of curricula. This change means that there is more accountability and more transparency in the system and, in fact, a limit on the Minister’s ability to make changes—more so than there has been for many decades.

The proposal combines the separate curriculum statements into one type of curriculum statement, called the national curriculum statement. Currently, the Minister must split what is to be learnt from how the curriculum is to be taught, learnt, and assessed into two separate curriculum statements. This can make the curriculum difficult for schools and kura to use.

The bill also introduces the ability for curriculum statements to vary by different groups of schools, instead of having to apply as a blanket requirement across all State schools. For example, it may be appropriate for schools with a special character to have different curriculum requirements.

When I introduced this bill, it made significant system reform changes to the regulation of the teaching workforce. The bill did this by transferring responsibility for professional standard setting from the Teaching Council to the Ministry of Education, bringing us in line with many other jurisdictions, including England and Singapore.

A large body of evidence in recent years has shown that our teachers enter the workforce with variable levels of knowledge and preparedness. Too much has been left to chance in ensuring teachers have the necessary knowledge, skills, and experience in the classroom to be effective and to support students to reach their full potential.

Currently, responsibility for initial teacher education is split over multiple agencies, and the Minister has limited ability to affect change or drive improvements. Shifting responsibility for standard setting to the ministry will drive improvement in initial teacher education, which the sector has been calling for for many, many years. This will be through setting high standards for initial teacher education and ongoing teacher practice, making sure that these standards align with the changes in the curriculum, best practice and evidence, and other Government priorities.

In alignment with this, the bill gives, in fact, more powers to the Teaching Council in monitoring and assurance of teacher education providers, giving them the tools they need to work with providers to ensure that programmes are meeting the standards. Setting high standards for teacher preparedness will only bring improvement if those standards are implemented with fidelity and consistency. I know how important it is that the Teaching Council is supported to effectively carry out their role in teacher registration. These changes provide better tension and accountability in the system.

Finally, the bill also works to streamline the council and enable it to function effectively by reducing the size of the council and ensuring the appointment processes put people on the governing council, and ensuring the appointment processes include people with the necessary skills and experience, including governance in regulatory practice. The profession deserves a professionalised board that will not only have people with sector experience but also have experience in regulatory functions, disciplinary function, and governance skills, as well.

These are important changes which will drive improvement in the council and teacher regulation. However, since the bill was referred to select committee, I’ve received two reports, and both have highlighted serious shortcomings in the Teaching Council’s previous leadership, culture, purpose, and priorities—these were the Debbie Francis report and the Public Service Commission review. I’m particularly concerned about findings that show the council has an inadequate focus on child protection and safety, which should be its top priority.

To address these concerns, during the committee of the whole House stage, I introduced five further changes to the Teaching Council. The first of these changes elevates the role of child safety—as you would expect—within the Teaching Council’s statutory purpose. The Teaching Council needs to be focused on safeguarding students through its core statutory role of teacher registration, competence, and conduct oversight. To achieve this, the council’s statutory purpose statement will be amended to clearly prioritise the safety and interests of students in the care and oversight of teachers. Secondly, there are changes to strengthen the council’s reporting and monitoring arrangements to provide external oversight and ensure it operates effectively and delivers on its priorities.

The third change replaces the existing requirement for the council to “have regard” to relevant Government policy statements, with a requirement to “give effect” to them. This supports system coherence by aligning the council with Government direction and policy. However, I acknowledge that it is important that the council retains its independence when making decisions, with the scope of its regulatory functions on individual cases. To make this clear, the bill confirms that the Minister may not intervene in or give any direction in any specific case relating to registration, competence, or disciplinary decision-making.

I’m also making further changes to the council’s governance structure, moving the council membership from seven to nine members, to be all appointed by the Minister. The Debbie Francis report emphasised the importance of maintaining a high standard of governance. To give proper effect to this recommendation, I’m making the change to introduce stronger levers to address the poor performance of the council members and to be able to hold the council to account. At the same time, Amendment Paper 583 requires that three of the appointed members hold a minimum of five years’ education sector experience each. I know how important it is for the council to be grounded in sector expertise and responsive to the voice of the profession in carrying out its regulatory functions.

The changes place a limit on the term of the council’s chief executive, in response to the recent findings that have highlighted the need for leadership of the council to be responsive to emerging challenges and focused on carrying out core functions. Applying term limits to this position will be a useful tool to allow a periodic refresh of leadership style and approach. Together, these changes will ensure that the council prioritises child safety alongside the effective quality assurance of the professional teaching workforce.

This is a package of reforms that builds on the work already under way by this Government to ensure that we have a world-leading education system underpinned by clear, coherent, and accountable structures that deliver for every learner. I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

20:16

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. As parents, we all want our children to do well, we want them to succeed in life, and we want the best for them—I don’t think that’s under debate at all—but this one-size-fits-all approach will leave many children behind, and that is our fear on this side of the House. The changes that have been swept through will risk, severely, meaning that many kids don’t keep up, aren’t having their needs met in the classroom, and fall further behind in school.

Let’s have a look, to start with, at the changes that have been put through under the curriculum. What this legislation provides is that there is a specification never seen before in terms of the level and detail of this curriculum. A good example to demonstrate the level of prescription that we will be heading for in New Zealand under this model came from the Minister’s own visit, when she took a group of principals to Australia to look at how explicit learning and how this type of curriculum would be operating in Australia. In one classroom, it was reported back by more than one who attended that visit to see a model example of a classroom of how we were heading, that children sitting on the floor looking at images on a screen were required to repeat back the image, and if they got that correct, a dog clicker—a dog instrument—was used to indicate that they’d got that correct. This is where we are heading—it’s unsatisfying to many parents that there are instances where this type of teaching is being pushed out into New Zealand, where teachers are being given scripts, and parents lose control of what is actually happening in our classrooms and of having input into what’s happening.

What happens, I’m interested to know, when a parent who has a child who we know has either learning diversity or neurodiversity and we’re in a curriculum where you’re expected to meet an exact fact on an exact page in an exact time—and if that child isn’t keeping up, what happens? I asked that question to some of those providers. I asked some of them the question “What happens if the child’s not keeping up?”, and the answer I got was “You turn the page—you turn the page and you keep going.”, and if that child can’t keep up, that’s the way it goes.

What we want to be able to have is— I would like my child to have a relationship with their teacher, where they get them, where they understand them, and where, if my child wants to be learning, the teacher has a way of reaching them and an understanding of what keeps them interested and gets them reading and gets them learning. Reading from a script and teaching off a PowerPoint presentation is moving away from an ability where parents get our children being taught to and explained to and understood in terms of what they’re going through. There is no room for that in a curriculum that directly prescribes, step by step, how things are going to be happening in a classroom, and in a world where you can walk along the corridor and every classroom has the same picture and the same thing on the board as you walk down that corridor, where there’s no artwork on the walls—in some of these examples, there’s no artwork on the walls because that might distract the children.

The second point I’d like to make is Kiwi content—where is the Kiwi content in this whole system? The benchmarking of this curriculum was not even offered up as a contract to New Zealand providers. We know that there are very willing and able New Zealand providers who are able to deliver the curriculum that is being prescribed in this bill, but they never even got an opportunity because that went to Learning First in Australia, who have already told us that they helped source the curriculum information. They helped source that information, and it was dumped at the Ministry of Education, and that is what our children are learning under this bill.

That is what is being prescribed in this bill: that the Minister’s control over the curriculum is unprecedented in New Zealand’s history—absolutely unprecedented—and not only that, but we have an Australian outfit who’s been generating the information for our curriculum. We have an Australian tool, the Student Mentoring, Assessment and Reporting Tool (SMART) which is coming in to check it, and it’s also going to be putting in the data from all those schools, and where is that data kept? Well, if we look, as parents, at the parent information about that SMART tool, it says it’s kept safe here in New Zealand, but the information going out to school leaders says it’s stored in Australia, and so I’m still at an odds to know as a parent where my child’s data is going to be stored.

In terms of Kiwi content, we should be proud to be New Zealanders. We have content where our children are learning that they are proud to be who they are, we know our stories, and this should be part of our education system. This bill moves away from a system where we are Kiwis and we’re proud to be Kiwis and we teach our children about our history and who we are and our place in the world. All of that has been removed from our curriculum, and, sadly, it takes us backwards.

I believe—I genuinely believe—that education is more important than politics. I do believe that it’s greater than that, and that is why seeing the changes that have been made by the Minister to the Teaching Council and also to the Education Review Office (ERO) is absolutely astounding. We know for a fact that the Minister attended the farewell of the new appointee to the Teaching Council, David Ferguson, and we’re still unaware how someone who was so deeply conflicted could have remained in that role for such a long period of time. Someone who received well over $5 million of Government funding to set up his own private teacher-training institute was able to sit in on meetings deciding whether initial teacher education (ITE) providers were going to be able to carry out their teacher training. The whole shift under teacher training away from ITE and into on-site training happens to have really favoured someone who’s done a lot of work for the Minister in making these reforms actually occur. So we still don’t know. I think the conflict’s got so great, and that’s why David Ferguson was moved from the Teaching Council into ERO.

Before we move away from the Teaching Council, I would like to highlight that the Amendment Paper tabled—there was the one that held everything up because the home-schooling bit didn’t go down so well. The other bit that probably shouldn’t have gone down so well was the part that removed the last three democratically elected positions from the Teaching Council without any consultation with anybody. It didn’t even get to go to select committee for submitters to be able to have their say about that. Those last three democratically elected positions were removed by the Minister in her Amendment Paper at the eleventh hour, without any input or any submissions from the New Zealand public. No parents, no teachers, no students—no one got to have a say on that.

After that occurred, we had the announcement that, instead of David Ferguson being head of the Teaching Council, he was going to be moving to ERO—the Education Review Office. So this is the new, I guess, enforcer of the way that we’re going to be moving forward under this bill, which is that those schools that aren’t complying with the boxes and the ticking off in the curriculum and meeting all the requirements that kids have to do on each day, and meet those things and fix that—if they’re not doing that, they’re going to be ranked. New Zealand is going to have all these schools ranked, and those schools that are not achieving—those schools that aren’t meeting those metrics that will be set down—will be publicly labelled as schools of concern. Instead of assisting schools or providing resources with attendance, and providing resources with supporting our communities to help assist, we’ve got this punitive way of penalising those communities even further.

I think it’s important to note that it is those communities that are struggling with the cost of living more so than any others. Those communities are already having a tough time being able to pay the bills and being able to make ends meet. Their lives will be made even worse under legislation which is actually determined to punish people who are having a really tough time.

We know attendance is part of that. We know from good information and research that some of those kids at high school actually go out and have to work a second job to be able to make ends meet and be able to pay rent and pay for food. So, instead of actually addressing some of those underlying drivers of why children might not be attending school, this system looks at penalising them and driving them down further.

We will see that as a result of this bill, once they are ranked, those ones at the bottom who are schools of concern will be able then to be taken over by charter schools. This legislation also makes the amendment that charter schools can now start up a chain. You can purchase a whole lot and have a chain of charter schools, and do you know what? I think the Minister is going to get her wish of the increased Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores, which are New Zealand’s international rankings, because all those schools, once they are charter schools, will fall off the bottom. That will mean that New Zealand will rise up in the PISA rankings, and we will hear “Oh, we’re all doing well, aren’t we?” Well, there’s a bunch of other kids who aren’t even getting their basic needs meet.

There is nothing in this bill about addressing inequality. There is nothing in this bill about addressing the equity, because if you really want data and if you really want to use the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, the one story it tells is that the big driver is inequality in New Zealand. That’s what stops educational achievement. The sad thing is that this bill drives a wedge right down the middle of New Zealand and it says, “If you’re all right, if you’re doing OK and you’re well and you’re great, big tick—go to the top.” In fact, we’ll give you an A+ under our new system of NCEA—no B+, no C+, but you guys get an A+, and the rest are left to make it even harder and struggle even further. That is why this is a sad, one-size-fits-all bill that does not serve the needs of New Zealand children.

20:26

Thank you. Madam Speaker. The Green Party will not be supporting this bill because not only is this bill deeply problematic from its inception but it’s also full of ironies.

Let’s start with the curriculum. The Minister talks about the fact that they’re not introducing anything new in this curriculum, but let’s look at the wider context. Every week, we get emails from teachers, experts, and principals saying how the junior curriculum isn’t working, how it is full of mistakes, and how it is written by AI and by people from overseas. There is no clarity on what is happening to Phase 1 and Phase 4 of the curriculum development while Phase 5 is going. We get correspondence from secondary schools, teachers, principals, parents, and experts saying, “Why are the curriculum changes happening at the same time as what we’re seeing with the qualifications and the scrapping of NCEA?”

That’s just one example. Isn’t it ironic that the Minister is talking about how she’s doing anything new, and yet she has stopped listening to the sector to the point that anything she has put forward has zero trust from the sector. Isn’t it ironic, don’t we think? A little too ironic—[Interruption]—and, yeah, I really think so.

Let’s continue on and talk about other parts of this. Let’s talk about the Teaching Council. On the one hand, the Minister and the Government talk about how much they care about our teachers and what amazing jobs our teachers are doing. Well, first of all, let’s just refresh the fact that in the entirety of the media stand-ups the Minister did on certain parts of this—the NCEA refresh being one of them—she didn’t mention teachers once. I have been calculating, and I have been counting, but she didn’t mention teachers once. If you really trust our teachers, why would you—

What about students?

She also didn’t mention students, by the way. There’s no part in any of this where students were involved. Also, I’m not the Minister, but if you were to make me the Minister, yeah, I would mention more students. But isn’t it ironic that at the same time she talks about how much teachers are doing, she is taking the last ounce of independence away from teachers and the Teaching Council? We are seeing the most egregious attack on the teaching profession that we have seen in Aotearoa in a long time.

Isn’t it ironic that the Minister keeps on quoting the Debbie Francis report as if somehow it is a gospel on why or how she substantiates the changes she’s made to the Teaching Council? But let’s bear in mind that the Debbie Francis report had no terms of reference. It had no specific methodology. It was written as if the recommendations were premeditated—and somehow that person can magically get appointed on to the Teaching Council. Who knew?

Isn’t it ironic that you are looking at a Government who talks about how much they are doing in education and talks about how much they are doing in phonics, and yet it is the same Government who knows only how things are pronounced but not what they mean?

Isn’t it ironic that when we should be looking at evidence-based decision-making and listening to our experts, what we’re seeing is decision-based evidence-making by this Government in education?

Let’s move on to other parts of this bill. One part of this bill is moving the Director of Regulation—which, by the way, there is now only possibly a permanent member as the Director of Regulation; previously it was the Acting Director of Regulation—without even knowing what this role is going to do. This role has been expanded and given more power and has been moved from the Ministry of Education to the Education Review Office. That’s not good policy decision-making.

Isn’t it ironic when the Government talks about student achievement, but, at the same time, in the last curriculum insights report, and the latest report in general, we have seen that there is the fear that under the current Government’s curriculum, maths achievement will go down, because of the way that they’re looking at standardisation and perpetuating the one-size-fits-all model that doesn’t really help our students most at risk, particularly from marginalised and vulnerable communities?

Isn’t it ironic that the Government talks about attendance and, in this bill, is taking away principals’ ability to exempt students for genuine reasons for not attending school at the same time as we’re seeing enjoyment of mathematics and enjoyment of literacy has gone down and we’re seeing more people are leaving the State sector?

Isn’t it ironic that the Government keeps on talking about how well they are achieving, and yet they will never disclose their figures? How often have we heard in this House the Government talk about “Well, we heard from one person. One principal has told me, in this one very selective email I’ve read.”, and yet, in all of the emails and correspondence to the Minister that we as education spokespeople in the Opposition have also been privy to and privileged to be CC’d into, we haven’t heard any mention of those correspondence.

Isn’t it ironic that this Government and the Minister talk about how much they are trusting the sector and how much they are doing, while, at the same time, they are micro-managing the sector through these sweeping system reforms that potentially contradict the Cabinet Manual at paragraph 3.26—and, yes, I have done my research.

Isn’t it ironic that this Government talks about how well they are doing for Māori, and yet they forget and neglect 97 percent of ākonga Māori that are in the English medium and have made sure that they’d never succeed as Māori but only for Māori?

Isn’t it ironic that with any country we are looking at that has a world-leading education, it is a country that ensures that education is non-partisan, is not politicised, and is not within one particular ministerial grasp to be able to micro-manage the entire sector, but, in fact, it is trusting the sector and trusting the unions to get on with what they are experts in?

Isn’t it ironic that when the Government talks about how much we’re failing in terms of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests and Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) and all of those system-monitoring tests, which are now mandated under this bill, at the same time it is forgetting that in TALIS reports, one of the things that Aotearoa New Zealand scored the lowest on is teachers’ autonomy and decision making?

Isn’t it ironic, the fact they talk about PISA results but don’t take into account the broader social and economic factors, and the fact that other countries don’t take PISA seriously? In fact, they game PISA results, because those kids are selected to take PISA tests because those kids are doing after-school classes to 11 p.m. six, seven days a week, and yet they are treated like they are doing the same kind of work as everyone else. That is not the kind of benchmark that we should base our decision making on, and the people who invented PISA said so themselves.

Isn’t it ironic that the Government talks about knowledge-rich, but not analysis-rich and not critical thinking - rich? In fact, everything they are doing now—though it’s important for us to have that solid foundation—will be replaced by the very tools that this Government is promoting, when it comes to AI and ChatGPT, which I know that Government members themselves are possibly using.

Isn’t it ironic that we expect our students to answer questions, to do assessments, and to do tests in an external exam situation, and yet I have never seen any Ministers take a Cabinet Manual exam or a Standing Orders exam in three hours in a closed-book environment? At the same time we’re telling our students to answer truthfully and correctly, this Government spins and will say, “Well, what I’m telling you is that one plus one”—you can ask them “What’s one plus one?”, and they’ll be like, “What I’m telling you is two plus three equals five.” Is that where our education system too should be at?

Finally, it is ironic when we have experts and the ministry giving advice to this Government, but then the Minister didn’t answer and didn’t take those answers. Who would have thought? It figures.

20:36

Thank you, Madam Speaker. One of the things about the song “Ironic” is that Alanis Morissette did do a great ear worm there, but so many of the examples were not irony. The fact that that the member Lawrence Xu-Nan just gave a whole list of which more than half were not actual irony shows that maybe our education system has been failing for a lot longer than was previously thought.

It is ironic that the member stands up and talks about how terrible a one-size-fits-all regime in education is but doesn’t support charter schools—kura hourua—which find places for students and children in New Zealand who haven’t fitted into the mainstream system. Isn’t it ironic that the member, who talks about needing a solution to this one-size-fits-all mould, can’t bring himself to support a great idea like charter schools?

In this bill, we have the multi-school charter school contracts, which enable successful schools to roll out and provide their services to more students and help more Kiwi kids get an education, while providing another solution. The unions and their mouthpieces don’t like it, but it is working.

One other thing that I’ll just quickly draw the House’s attention to is setting up a school property agency. Schools are an important part of communities, and having it properly planned and managed enables the resources to build new schools to be opened up. In my neck of the woods, Ōmokoroa has required development, but it has been held up by the need for a school. When you have to have houses to supply students to a school and a school that needs to be existing before people want to buy those houses, you get in a catch-22. This Minister has done a great job of making sure that the buildings that are supplied are no longer these architectural masterpieces but are being done at an affordable rate that means we can build more schools, get more communities built, and have a place in New Zealand where students can get the education that they need. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

20:38

Thank you, Madam Speaker. New Zealand First has always believed that education is an investment; in fact, that concept is one of our 15 founding principles, so it’s been around for quite a while with New Zealand First. We believe that education is a lifetime investment. It’s an investment in the futures of the individual learners and it’s also an investment in the future of our country. We want to make sure that young New Zealanders are able to support their own future but also able to contribute to a better and more productive society, because we’re all about productivity.

The data is very, very clear that educational outcomes have been going backwards—until this Government took office—for an extended period of time. Now, the Opposition on the other side thinks that everything was fantastic and they just want to keep on doing the same thing. In fact, time after time when we have debates on education, they keep on defending the status quo, but the reality is the status quo has been failing our young people, and so we have to make some changes.

Under this Government—and I have to give particular credit to Erica Stanford—the results are turning around. This bill is about continuing that process. We are lifting participation. It’s not easy, but we’re doing that bit by bit because we need our young people at school. You can’t learn if you’re not there to learn, and we are lifting achievement. Now, there’s some jostling going on amongst us as friends at the moment, but we stand firmly shoulder to shoulder in fixing these basics—focusing on the basics—and the core skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic. [Interruption] Yeah, I know. See, that got them fired up. But the core skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic are the basics in education, and, of course, science is on the way. We are really keen to see that, and we will need the skilled teachers to deliver that.

We’re also making sure we’re investing in supporting those with learning challenges. That’s why $750 million has gone into learning support. We’ve already passed legislation to focus the education system on, first and foremost—God help us—on education. What a radical thought! But the Opposition, of course, opposed that as well. What is really important here is that the education system teaches vital skills and vital knowledge, and we want education, not indoctrination. We want people to be able to be taught how to think, not what to think—those things are very, very important—and to be able to intelligently question what is in front of you.

Some of the things specifically in the bill, and the Minister has already mentioned this, include the process for reviewing the curriculum. We’re setting out a rolling, five-year process, and that makes a lot of sense—very sensible. Secondly, there is the requirement to inform parents about the contents of proposed health education curriculum and specifically for the parents to be able to withdraw their young people if they feel that is appropriate. That’s very important to New Zealand First because, obviously, we’ve had some issues there about indoctrination as opposed to education, which concerns us.

The bill provides a place for micro-credentials. That’s something that many employers are keen to see and have talked to us about as well. We also note the place of industry-developed courses in schools in the new certificate of education qualification system. That is very, very welcome as well.

Look, if I just want to make one observation about the system as a whole, what seems clear is that every section of the education system says that the one before it has failed. So the employers say that the universities are failing to deliver what they need, the universities are saying that secondary schools are failing to deliver what they need, the secondary schools are saying the primary schools are failing to deliver what they need, and the primary schools are saying the early childhood education system is failing to deliver what they need. So something needs to be done to join these up and to make sure that each sector has a clear set of outcomes that it is required to achieve to be able to deliver for the ongoing education of our young people.

The bill also clarifies the oversight process for schools having difficulties, clarifies and strengthens the charter school model, and makes some changes to the Teaching Council. Look, I do want to just touch on this because it’s really, really important. You can’t have an education system that works properly if the teachers are not equipped to do the teaching in the first place. It was interesting, if I look at the skill requirements of the council, that one of the things I don’t see in there is any requirement for knowledge about skills and teaching, and I do wonder if that’s a gap in the system. I do like, though, the new section 478(c) in clause 35, which says that one of the purposes of the council is to “provide assurance about the quality of the initial teacher education programmes and their providers in order to ensure that graduates are prepared for the workforce.” Now, that really is a reflection that that is not always happening at the moment. That is critical. We must get that right because if we don’t teach the teachers properly, how can those teachers then teach the young people.

I have two other things to finish off with. First of all, the bill provides for the establishment of the New Zealand School Property Agency. Look, it makes complete sense to have a specialist agency to do this. It’s not an area of skill for the ministry nor for school boards and principals. We’ve seen that for many, many years. It’s interesting that as I chair the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, the Minister for Infrastructure stands in front of us and the Infrastructure Commission itself—they come in front of us and they say, “Well, look, a lot of these agencies don’t actually have the skill to deliver.” The Ministry of Education is one of those, and so it is good that we set up a specialist agency with the skills to be able to deliver those really, really expensive and important property outcomes, because it’s really important that we get it here that value for money is absolutely critical.

We’ve got the Crown Infrastructure Delivery agency, which is now able to help agencies like health and education and so on. I do note that the cost of delivering a class from under this Government is now half what it was under the last Government, which means that we can deliver twice as many classrooms as they could for the same money. That is good. That is good value for taxpayer money, and it has to be celebrated. I’m not sure that the Opposition’s ever given any credit whatsoever to the Government for doing it.

If I can just finish off with one particular area, because it’s an area which is not in the bill. It’s an area which is not in the bill any more, and that, of course, is that after the bill was reported back from select committee, the Minister, I understand, on the advice of the Ministry of Education, introduced Amendment Paper 583, and that included the powers to promulgate regulations to govern home-schooling.

Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but we got really, really strong feedback. I had over 2,000 emails, which is quite a lot. It’s almost as many as on the Palestinian issues. That’s a lot of emails saying that people were concerned about this, and they were not angry; they were articulate and they were constructive. They gave us feedback. They told us their stories. They told us why they did home-schooling and why it worked for them.

I really thank all these people who’ve sent these emails, but they were really concerned about, however inadvertently, the bypassing of the democratic process—the bypassing of their ability to make submissions to a select committee, to be heard, to be considered—even though the intention was that subsequent regulations were to be promulgated and consulted on. They said, “No, no, no, we need to be heard in the primary legislative process.”, and we thought that that’s fair enough. They had real concerns about what those regulations—whether it was under this Government or any future Government—might do and what impact they might have on them and on their children.

Of course, what that, in a sense, says is that there’s a level of trust in Governments. It doesn’t matter whether it’s blue-led or red-led, but people are not always fully trusting. There was real desire from those people for them to be properly consulted with, and so New Zealand First engaged with the home-school community. We agreed with them, we pushed back on the Minister, and I want to say thank you very much to Erica Stanford for pulling the plug on that particular element of this bill and for going back and thinking about that again.

Democracy is not always quick, but there is an African saying that “If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together”. I commend this bill to the House.

20:46

Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka, otirā tēnā rā tātou e te Whare. E tū ana au ki te waha i ngā kōrero mō Te Pāti Māori mō tēnei o ngā pire, the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill.

Ko ētahi o aku kaupapa kōrero i te pō nei e hāngai pū ana ki ngā kura kaupapa Māori, ngā wharekura, waihoki ngā āwangawanga i roto i ngā akomanga, the waiting list, ētahi o aku pātai ki ngā Minita i tērā wiki kātahi anō ka pahure, ki te pātai atu mō ngā penapena moni ka whakawhiwhia ai e mātou, e ngā kura kaupapa, waihoki ngā kaiako hoki.

[Greetings, Madam Speaker, and all gathered in the House. I stand to voice the position of Te Pāti Māori with regards to this bill, the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill.

Some things I have to say tonight pertain directly to kura kaupapa Māori, wharekura, and the concerns within the learning spaces, the waiting list, and some questions that I asked of the Ministers last week, about the money savings that we gained, that is, by kura kaupapa and by teachers.]

Speaking on the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill, I often talk about the fact that Māori education has only ever received 1 percent of the Budget consistently, no matter who is in Government, and yet we’ve achieved 100 percent pass rates, like kura at Ngā Taiatea and Ngā Tapuwae within the electorate of Hauraki-Waikato and throughout the motu. We have been consistently underfunded and under-resourced, and yet we are over-excelling in the results that we have, and they relate directly to this education and amendment bill that I’ll be touching on in the debate tonight.

There’s a huge demand for tamariki and rangatahi attending kura kaupapa, yet there’s a lack of supply and support from the Government or the system as a whole. If we’re talking on some of the points within this bill, it is talking on property and infrastructure. Last week, when we had scrutiny week, I asked the Ministers, Minister Erica Stanford and Minister David Seymour around following up on questions from this term around that there was a $30 million gap of underspend that could have gone towards catering to the 45 kōhanga reo classrooms that have not been yet developed.

The reason why that’s so important is because kōhanga reo classrooms are often underfunded. They lack installation, they lack heating, and they lack Māori classrooms. It’s hard for our tamariki to actually get into kōhanga reo, purely because there’s 2,000 tamariki on the waiting list throughout the whole country, and that’s often due to property infrastructure needs. If we are setting up a property infrastructure committee and ohu and rōpū, often tamariki in kura kaupapa Māori are put at the bottom of the list. For example, in this term, we saw $1 million go to one school, and yet that was the overall budget for all kura kaupapa. So the inequities do show in this.

We also asked about the curriculum. I followed up with the Minister of Education around the $74 million put into the curriculum, and yet what was that actually going to in terms of Māori knowledge and developing Māori curriculum? Not so much the translation of curriculum—that already exists, like in mathematics. Those are things that should be happening anyways—regardless. It’s not a tick-box for tamariki Māori to have; we want our own knowledge. We want to be in charge of how we deliver those and where we can deliver those curriculum subjects like taio, civics education, and localised education, and also be iwi-led. We’ve just talked today with some of the Mātauranga Iwi Leaders Group and their manifesto and how they want to carry that out.

We’re also looking at how a one-size-fits-all model does not support kura kaupapa Māori. This has never worked for us. We know that small changes have been made across this term, such as, for context, the removal of Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, changes to the history curriculum in schools, less professional learning and development for teachers in bilingual and mainstream education, and the environments in those barnyard-style classrooms. There is the removing of NCEA assessment, with 2023 data showing that we have excelled in that with 100 percent pass rates, and yet there is the lack of consultation with iwi leaders and Māori education leaders in partnership, and the removal of Te Tiriti o Waitangi at a board level and also Te Tiriti in the Education and Training Act 2020.

Taken altogether, that is a one-size-fits-all model, and, on top of that, it is taking away the ability of what kura kaupapa Māori was established to do, and that was our ability to wānanga through our reo, our knowledge, and our education systems. Slowly, one by one, all of this legislation has been taken out in places like the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill that we have here today. Nō reira, tēnā koe, Madam Speaker.

20:51

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am thrilled, happy, and enthusiastic to be speaking against this bill, and I’m thrilled, enthusiastic, and happy—despite what my tone of voice and demeanour might suggest—for two reasons. The first is that this is not a great bill. It’s No. 1—it’s the main reason that I’m thrilled, happy, and ecstatic—but the second reason is that we are polling at a record high right now. We are at 13 percent, or 17 MPs—the most MPs we’ve ever had. That shows that the Government did not get a Budget bounce from their Budget. This bill is emblematic of why this Government is losing support because of the way that they’ve introduced such undemocratic measures and have sought to bypass the democratic will of the people through Amendment Paper 583, which is something that happened during the polling period, when the polls were taking place. That’s the connection to this.

I want to acknowledge the home-schooling community for the massive effort that they made against the unilateral effort that Amendment Paper 583 would have made to set regulations in a unilateral way, without going through any select committee process and without asking the people affected and the parents, the teachers—well, the parents are the teachers in the home-schooling case. But the parents, the community, and the students were most affected by this change.

We have some further concerns around this bill that have been echoed by various submissions on what this bill potentially enables, and I’ll pull up the feedback from one of the select committee submissions around this. One of the things we’re most concerned about is the changes to the Teaching Council. Now, when the bill first went to select committee, we were already opposed to the proposals, and some of the submissions referred to the fact that the changes at that stage would reduce the number of elected representatives on the Teaching Council, but it’s got worse as it’s progressed. We’ve gone from reducing the number of elected members on the Teaching Council to having none at all, and, from our perspective, that is very concerning.

It’s very concerning within the context of the potential for politicising the sector through appointments to the Teaching Council, and also through the changes in the bill which would give the Minister greater power to set the direction of the school curriculum—this was the insertion of new sections 90A and 90B in clause 10, when the bill was still going through the select committee at that stage. We’re concerned about the politicisation of what should be something that is set through expert independent advice, because we know that the politicisation of the education system and politicisation of the science system can lead societies down very dark paths of potential indoctrination and potential controlling of the curriculum to suit people’s political agendas. We have opposed that, and we’ve been consistent in opposing that.

One of the other concerns that we also share with the people who have submitted is the changes to the School Property Agency. Now, it’s not like we’re inherently opposed to the changes per se. To continue the theme of my colleague Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, we just think that it’s a little bit ironic that this Government, which has prided itself on public sector consolidation, is actually creating, at the same time they are consolidating so many ministries into the mega-ministry of the Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport, all these random agencies like the School Property Agency, the Ministry for Regulation, and—what’s the other one?—the Charter School Agency. It’s kind of an ironic inversion of it. At the same time, as well, when they’re complaining about public sector reform and public sector overreach, they’ve gone and created this new ministry, and so we’re opposed to this.

20:56

Look, this bill is building on the work that we have already done to lift achievement—

Fixing the basics.

—that’s right—provide a knowledge-rich curriculum, and provide warm and safe classes. It’s all part of our plan to fix the basics and build the future—there we go. I commend the bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. There we have it: 15 seconds from the National Party chair of the Education and Workforce Committee—15 seconds. Incredible!

Tonight, Labour opposes this—[Interruption]

I’m trying to hear the person who’s making his speech, please.

Thank you. I’ll start again, Madam Speaker.

I’m trying to hear some common sense.

I don’t know how you would hear, Minister, as there’s so much noise behind you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is the third reading, and there’s a lot of heckling coming from the other side—including from the Minister of Health—and the 15-second contribution that was made by the chair of our Education and Workforce Committee, Katie Nimon.

It’s incredible that at this point of the Government’s cycle, they’re putting forward a bill that really doesn’t speak to the average New Zealander. It does nothing to make things better for children in our schools and kura. It takes our education system backwards. We’ve talked about things that are ironic, but this Minister of Education is one of the most controlling, power-grabbing Ministers that we see in one of the most controlling, power-grabbing Governments that this country has ever seen. For the next few minutes, let’s “Grip it up, everyone”, in the words of the Minister, and hear me out.

The thing that’s important is that after all of the debate in this House and in select committee, after mixed consultation and a lack of consultation, and after all the speeches, the fundamental questions still remain: how will this legislation improve the experience of our children sitting in the classroom tomorrow, how will it improve the lives of our teachers that are struggling with their workloads, and how will it help a principal trying to meet the needs of every learner in their school’s community? The Government, across this process, has never ever convincingly told us the answers to those fundamental questions.

When I go out to my schools in my community in Northcote, nobody is asking me for a restructure and nobody is asking me for education to be controlled by a Government or by Wellington. Parents are asking whether their child can access the learning support that they need and whether they can access it quickly enough. The teachers are asking how they can spend more time teaching and less time dealing with the administration and the bureaucracy that this Government is putting on top of them, principals are asking how they can attract and retain the great staff that are in our system now, and families are asking how we make sure every child gets the best opportunities so that they can succeed. So, when we talk about having a knowledge-rich curriculum, we’re actually talking about having a narrow curriculum that does not meet the needs of every learner that that principal, that family, or that kura or school are trying to achieve the outcomes for.

I visited Kauri Park School last week. They support children with additional learning needs, whether it be behavioural, whether it be literacy, or whether it be other issues—pastoral care—that they are needing. They support students arriving with diverse language backgrounds and they support families dealing with the cost of living pressures that this Government has promised to fix, but it hasn’t fixed them, but what they actually need is a whole lot of support. They need to know that this Minister and this Government are listening to the things that they are wanting them to achieve. Instead, Minister Stanford today is offering and responding to them with system reform, a restructure, and centralisation back to Wellington.

This bill does say a lot about this Government’s priorities: more power concentrated at the centre, more ministerial control, less trust in professionals—less trust in our teachers, who deliver education every day. Minister Stanford likes to talk about accountability, but accountability should start with outcomes. Are more children getting the support that they need here and now, are teacher shortages improving, are schools better resourced than ever before, and are educational inequities reducing?

I come back to the point, and my focus and the Labour Party’s focus in education is about ensuring that all tamariki—every single child—are able to be at their best and to do well in a world-class education system.

When I heard the discussion tonight about the school property management component, this is the part of this legislation that I’m semi-warmed to. Do I think that it’s top of mind for schools? No, I don’t. Do I think that we need to invest better in infrastructure—

Clearly, you’re not speaking to enough schools.

Well, more than your MP, I am. So when I go around and look at the ways that we build schools, I heard from a New Zealand First MP that modular buildings are just something that came in under this Government. Where have you been? Where have you been, New Zealand First, because the reality—

Oh, I didn’t say anything about that. I said it’s half the price that you lot managed.

—you did so—is who is the client here and who is best to inform about the best learning environment be created in their school community? It’s the school. It’s the schools that have designed these environments with the Ministry of Education, and that’s really, really important to retain. Where we can do it cheaper, we should do that, and there are ways that have been explored over consecutive Governments in order to achieve that.

This Government is fascinated with charter schools, and, yes, we applaud every single school that is about raising achievement for our kids—those are the things that we want to achieve. But do I believe that this child in our education system should receive more funding than that child in a public school? No, I do not, and I stand against that, because—

Were you even at scrutiny week last week?

Carl Bates, if you add up the money, mate, of charter schools going into your public Whanganui schools—do the calculation for yourself. It’s unfair, it’s unjust, and it doesn’t enable the opportunity for every child in our system.

The schools of serious concern: the Education Review Office (ERO) has done this for a long time, and that’s fine. When a school has been identified as having areas of concerns, issues, or things that need to be changed, then they need the support to enable them to make those changes. What this does is it’s a punitive measure to publicly name and shame those schools so that—what happens? The roll goes down, the resourcing reduces, and, eventually, that school is no longer in a position to improve itself. That’s the reality of a punitive measure like the schools of serious concern.

Then we get to the Teaching Council reforms. It’s important to see or track the leadership of the Teaching Council into ERO, and I will be watching—I will be watching—how a principal from the North Shore goes on to lead the Teaching Council, and then goes on to lead ERO, because somewhere in there, that person and this Minister have to be accountable for their decisions. The changes that are enacted in this bill to the Teaching Council take away representation, it takes away important voices from the sector, and it reduces membership and representation from 13 members to about seven to nine. It increases the Minister’s influence and the overreach. Whoever the future Minister is, she appoints more members to that council, and that doesn’t enable good representation from the sector or at grassroots. So the question that remains tonight is: are these changes creating better outcomes for every single child in our system?

21:06

What New Zealanders want is not an Opposition spokesperson and a Green Party Opposition education spokesperson pontificating about educational outcomes; they want a Government that is delivering them. That is what this Government is doing. We are fixing the basics and building the future. I commend this bill to the House.

21:07

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. E tū ana ahau ki te whakahē i tēnei pire o te Kāwanatanga, ki te whakahē i ngā mahi o te Minita o te Mātauranga. E tū tautoko ana ahau i ngā kōrero o tēnei taha o te Whare, e whakahē ana i tēnei pire, e whakahē ana i ngā mahi a tēnei Kāwanatanga. E tautoko ana tō mātou kaikōrero tuatahi a Ginny Andersen pau te kaha. Ngā kōrero katoa i roto i tana tekau mineti, e tautoko ana ahau i tana kōrero. E tautoko ana ahau hoki ngā kōrero o Shanan Halbert, kei runga ia i te komiti. I whakarongo ia ki ngā tono a ngā kaitono maha e whakahē ana i tēnei pire o te Kāwanatanga.

E hiahia ana ahau ki te kōrero ki te wāhanga e pā ana ki ngā marautanga tuatahi, ā, ki te Matatū Aotearoa, arā ko te Teaching Council. Nā, mō te marautanga, tēnei Minita e kōrero ana ia, e mahi ana ia, ānō nei he tohunga ia, he kaiako ia, he mātau nōna ki te tuhituhi i ngā marautanga. Kei ōna ringaringa te pene whero. I mahi a Jan Tinetti i tērā? Te tuhituhi i runga i ngā marau mō ngā tamariki i roto i ngā kura? Ahakoa he tumuaki o mua ia? Kīhai ia i mau i te pene whero me te tuhi i runga i ngā marautanga. Kahore tērā e tika ana, engari ko tēnei Minita e hiahia ana ia ki te tuhi i te marautanga mō ngā tamariki i roto i ngā kura.

Nā, i kaha whakahē ngā kaitono ki tērā mahi a tēnei Minita, me ētahi o ngā āpiha i runga i ngā komiti, pērā i a Elizabeth Rata mā, me ō rātou whakaaro mō ngā marautanga. Nā, i panaia, i panga atu Te Mātaiaho, nā te mea ko Te Tiriti o Waitangi kei roto i Te Mātaiaho. I panaia hoki Te Tīrewa o Aotearoa. He aha Te Tīrewa o Aotearoa? Ko tērā te marautanga hou mō Aotearoa mō ngā kura kaupapa Māori, ngā kura ā-iwi, me ētahi o ngā kura auraki e whakaako ana i roto i te reo rua me te rumaki. I tuhi tērā marautanga i raro i a Jan Tinetti me Kelvin Davis.

Hei tā te Minita i roto i tēnei Whare, kāhore tētahi kupu i tuhi mō . Kāhore tērā e tika ana. I hangaia tētahi marautanga hou, arā, ko Te Tīrewa o Aotearoa te ingoa. Nā tēnei Minita, i maka atu tērā ki te taha, me te hou mai i tētahi marautanga hou. Ko te whakahoutanga o te marautanga, nō hea tērā kōrero? Nō Ahitereiria. Tētahi kamupene nō Ahitereiria e tuhi ana i tētahi marautanga mō ngā kura auraki me ngā kura kaupapa, kura ā-iwi hoki. I rongo kōrero ahau, nā rātou i tuhi ētahi o ngā kōrero, nā Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga i whakatikatika i ētahi o ngā mea, me te puta i tērā kōrero. Nō tāwāhi tēnei marautanga. Te Marautanga o Aotearoa

E mihi ana ahau ki Te Akatea, ko ngā tumuaki Māori tērā; ki Te Pourewa o Ngāpuhi, ki Te Rūnanga nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori o Aotearoa; ki Ngā Kura ā-Iwi; me ērā atu i tono ki tēnei komiti e pā ana ki ēnei whakarerekētanga a te Minita i roto i tēnei pire me ētahi atu o ngā mahi tinihanga a tēnei Kāwanatanga, arā, te tango i te section 127 mai i te ture mō Te Tiriti o Waitangi, te panga atu i ngā kupu o ngā pukapuka o , te poro i ngā pūtea mō Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, te maka i ngā Tīrewa o Aotearoa me Te Mātaiaho hoki, me ngā mema o te ao kaiako i runga i te kaunihera mō ngā kaiako, arā ko te Teaching Council. At the Marae

Kua pau te wā ki au i tēnei wā. Ahakoa he roa aku kōrero e pā ana ki tēnei, kāhore mātou e tautoko ana i tēnei pire, he kino mō ā tātou tamariki.

[Greetings to the Speaker of the House. I stand in disagreement with this bill of the Government and disagree with the activities of the Minister of Education. I stand in support of the argument of this side of the House in objecting to this bill and disapproving of the activities of this Government. I fully support, without reservation, the sentiments of our first speaker, Ginny Anderson. Everything that she said in her 10 minutes—I support her sentiments. I endorse the words of Shanan Halbert, who was on the select committee. He heard the submissions of the many who objected to the Government’s bill.

I wish to talk firstly about the curriculum and about Te Matatū Aotearoa, the Teaching Council. As for the curriculum, this Minister says and acts as if she’s an expert or a teacher and knows how to write curricula. She has a red pen in hand. Did Jan Tinetti do that? Write all over the curriculum for children in schools? Even though she is an ex-principal? She didn’t take to the curriculum with a red pen. That is not right, but the Minister wishes to write all over the curriculum for children in schools.

The submitters strongly disagreed with the Minister’s activities—even some of the members of the committees like Elizabeth Rata and others—and with her thinking pertaining to the curriculum. They have dismissed Te Mātaiaho, as Te Tiriti o Waitangi is embedded in Te Mātaiaho. They have also dismissed Te Tīrewa o Aotearoa. What is Te Tīrewa o Aotearoa? It is the new curriculum for kura kaupapa Māori, kura ā-iwi and for some mainstream schools that teach bilingually and full immersion in New Zealand. That curriculum was written under the oversight of Jan Tinetti and Kelvin Davis.

According to the Minister in this House, she has never penned anything about the New Zealand Curriculum. That is not right. There was a new curriculum created, called Te Tīrewa o Aotearoa. This Minister has thrown it aside and brought in a new curriculum. Where did the discussion about renewing the curriculum come from? From Australia. There is an Australian company who is charged with creating a curriculum for mainstream schools and Māori-medium schools and kura ā-iwi. I heard rumours that corrections were made by the Ministry of Education, and that they also released a statement. This curriculum is from overseas.

I would like to acknowledge Te Akatea, that is the New Zealand Māori Principals’ Association; Te Pourewa o Ngāpuhi; e Rūnanga nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori o Aotearoa, Ngā Kura ā-Iwi, and others who gave submissions to this committee about the Minister’s changes to the bill and other devious activities of this Government, such as removing section 127 from the law about Te Tiriti o Waitangi, removing text from the At the Marae book, terminating funding from Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, discarding the Tīrewa o Aotearoa and Te Mātaiaho, and removing teaching members from the Teaching Council.

My time is up. Although I have spoken at length about this, we do not support this bill; it is harmful for our children.]

21:12

When the Labour spokesperson for education got up and spoke a little while ago, the really disappointing thing for me, as a listener and an observer, was that it was clear that she had not even read the bill and didn’t even know what the bill contained. She referred to the bill only twice in her whole speech. That’s a shame, and that’s actually scary, going forward, that that’s the calibre of their education spokespeople.

On this side of the House, we’re fixing the basics of the mess they left us with for our children, and we’re building the future. I commend this bill to the House.

21:13

Well, the calibre of that last speech was quite questionable, as well. I would have to say that from someone that criticised the spokesperson for not mentioning the bill, I have no understanding of the bill from that particular speech.

At this point in time, education is in turmoil in this country. We’ve got morale that’s really low, from our educationalists. We’ve got change after change after change that is hitting the sector in a major way. We’ve got a narrative that’s coming from the other side of the House that says these changes are necessary because we’re making changes that are increasing student achievement. Now, on this side of the House, if we could see that and if we could see that change was leading to a really good student achievement uplift, then maybe we would be in favour of that, but, unfortunately, we are not.

We’re actually seeing a decline, and that is of huge concern to the children and the future of this country. What does this Government do and what does this Minister do? They bring in a so-called systems reform bill which is going to take things even more backwards than what we are currently seeing. It is of huge concern that we are seeing these changes being put through the House that are going to minimalise our educators’ voice in the system; that are going to question and put pressure on the public education system, rather than support it; that are going to put pressure on our early childhood education system; and that are putting ideological changes at the heart of what should be evidence-based decisions being made in the education sector.

It is of huge concern not only to this side of the House but to people that we are seeing on a daily basis that the education system is going backwards. While the other side—[Interruption] I knew that we might get that response, and so let’s have a look and see what the latest results are actually showing: less than half of five-year-olds passed phonics tests after their first full year of schooling. The other side of the House has said that this is all about bringing equity into play. When we see that less than half are passing those tests, children in schools facing the most socio-economic barriers had a pass rate of just 25 percent. Huge disparities are happening and are actually getting wider under this Government’s reforms.

So just don’t measure it—is that your solution?

Then, when we hear them say over there that this side never measured it, who was the Government that introduced structured literacy and testing? They conveniently forget that it actually started with us.

So you like testing, or you don’t like testing?

Mr Bates—through you, Madam Speaker, I would like to answer the member on that side of the House who said, “So you like testing?” We like to have the right assessments for the right children that will mean that they will actually learn more and that the teachers will know what they have to teach their children through the formative assessment approaches, rather than to have solely summative assessment approaches, which is what this bill is actually enforcing. This bill is a backwards step in education.

One of the biggest concerns that I have seen from this bill is the changes that are being made to the Teaching Council. This is actually really hugely concerning, in that we hear the Government talking about how they value teachers, but what they are, effectively, showing in this bill is that they do not value the professionalism of teachers at all. They are taking away teachers’ say in their own profession.

One of the issues that we have in this country—and we have been through this many, many times—is the place of the Teaching Council. The Teaching Council was set up to be the professional body of teachers, but the other side of the House, when they are in Government, consistently minimises that and undermines it by taking away the teachers’ right to vote for the people who are going to represent them. It’s this pendulum that we have. It goes from here, and it swings around to there, and that is a huge concern that they do not see teachers as professionals—

It goes National, achievement; Labour, backwards—National, forwards; Labour, backwards.

—and the Minister of Finance is just confirming that with what she has just said. They do not see teachers as professional and being able to be in charge of their own profession. What an absolute shocker, coming from that side of the House, and that’s exactly what this bill is doing: it is taking away that professional knowledge and that professional ability for teachers to see themselves as professional and be in charge of their own profession. They have no understanding of how to build the education sector and system, rather than what they’re doing, which is just using an ideological approach that is not based on evidence, whatsoever. There is not one piece of evidence that backs up their approach—not one—and that is the biggest concern that we have about this bill.

There are so many other things in here, but I do want to talk about what’s happening in the early childhood sector and the regulatory functions that this bill takes away from the Ministry of Education and places in the Education Review Office. Now, not only is this a conflict within the system—it’s an absolute conflict to see that position come away from the Ministry of Education—but the whole way that this was done in this bill was really dodgy.

When people were asked to look into this and to submit on this, they had no understanding of what this looked like because it wasn’t included in the bill at that stage, and so it was a really odd way of doing it. The whole legislative process was wrong, and the scrutiny that couldn’t happen because of that legislative process being wrong just upset the sector in a major way. It meant that we didn’t get the really broad viewpoints from different groups of people who would have otherwise given this a lot more scrutiny than what it got.

We on this side of the House see potential and merit—maybe—in better aligning review and regulatory functions if it was done transparently with full sector consultation. Unfortunately, we didn’t get that full sector consultation, and so we can’t say that this is something that’s going to make a positive difference, because it seemed to come from nowhere and we didn’t get that full oversight of what could happen. We didn’t get the academic input and we didn’t get the sector input at great detail, because we just didn’t know what we were looking at and we didn’t have that transparency.

What is happening with the regulations in early childhood education is of concern. It is of huge concern that regulations—full stop—are being minimised, and this is adding to the concern that the sector has for the safety of children. This is a terrible bill, and we do not support it.

21:23

It’s a pleasure to be the final speaker in this debate on the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill. This is aiming to strengthen the performance and coherence of the education system, and by performance, we mean strengthening educational outcomes. National is fixing the basics and building the future. I commend the bill.

21:25

on behalf of the Prime Minister: I move, That, under section 196 of the Intelligence and Security Act 2017, this House endorse the following as members of the Intelligence and Security Committee: Vanushi Walters, nominated by the Leader of the Opposition under section 195(1) of the Act and in accordance with section 194(2)(c) of the Act, replacing Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan; and Hon Chris Penk, nominated by the Prime Minister under section 195(2)(b) of the Act and in accordance with section 194(2)(d) of the Act.

I understand it is the Government’s intention to introduce an imprest supply bill.

Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill, introduction.

The bill is set down for first reading immediately.

I move, That the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill be now read a first time.

The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye.

Aye.

To the contrary, No. The Ayes have it.

No. The Noes have it.

I’m sorry, but nobody called No, and I had declared the Ayes had it.

I called No.

No, after I declared the Ayes have it. You can seek leave to amend your vote, but nobody called No.

Point of order. I appreciate what you’re saying, Madam Speaker, but I repeated myself and it was then that you heard me say No, but I had already said No.

Would the member like to record a vote?

Yes, please.

OK. Is that the point of order—that you would like to record a vote?

Yes, thank you.

OK, I’m going to allow the member to record a vote, but I will ask you to be much more quickly on your feet next time. So you’re calling a No vote?

Yes.

OK, and you’ve called party vote?

Yes.

Right, I did hear that bit after the event, but next time please call the vote louder, because I did not hear a vote come from you. Thank you. OK, so a party vote will take place, please, Clerk.

This bill is set down for second reading immediately.

21:28

I move, That the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill be now read a second time.

It was only a few weeks ago that I stood here to deliver Budget 2026, and now the House turns once again to dealing with the approval of Government expenditure. The imprest supply bill provides for the first three months of the 2026-27 financial year, providing authority for Government spending until the appropriation Estimates bill is passed. As its name reveals, this is the first imprest supply bill for the year. There are, of course, two bills we are debating here today. The second bill is the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, which looks backwards at Supplementary Estimates for the year that’s been. Can I thank the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee for their prompt scrutiny of and report back to the House on the Supplementary Estimates—great committee; excellent chair of that committee.

There is not much to say about these two bills other than, once again, an opportunity to remind members of this House from whence the funding for the decisions that we make comes. There does seem to have been quite a break-out in recent times of a belief that when Parliament appropriates money, it can appropriate it from the ether. In fact, when we, in these bills, appropriate money, we take it from one place, and that place is the back pockets of hard-working New Zealanders.

When we make decisions to spend money, we have a solemn duty to those New Zealanders to ensure that the way we are spending it is not only maximising outcomes today but is also proportionate to what may be required tomorrow, and that is to remind everyone that the country is in deficit. To get out of deficit and to climb over the debt mountain that we are in, it is essential that we spend very carefully indeed, but it’s also essential that we grow the economy. Growing the economy requires us to make this an easier place to do business and for work and effort to be rewarded—and that is a particular message for Julie Anne Genter, whose party seems to think that the way we will make ourselves wealthier is by saying goodbye to all those who have created jobs, incomes, and opportunities for the rest of us.

The two bills stand as they are. They reflect this Government’s ongoing approach to fiscal discipline, to managing taxpayers’ money wisely, to growing our economy, and to ensuring that New Zealand can be a more affordable country and a place where people can get ahead with rising incomes, with wages that rise faster than prices and in a sustainable way, with public services that they can rely on, and with a Government that takes very careful care of their precious dollars.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

21:31

Madam Speaker, thank you for this opportunity to speak on this legislation, which is the two bills that we are discussing tonight.

They’re actually, in many ways, highly technical bills. Of course, imprest supply, as the Minister of Finance has just told us, enables the Government to actually pay its bills for the next few months, until the official Budget bill is passed, and so that’s a very technical thing to do.

The Supplementary Estimates are a little different. The Supplementary Estimates come from last year’s Budget. Last year, the Minister of Finance set the Budget, the House debated it and passed her Budget—albeit with some of the House voting against it, as is usually the case—and that Budget was what gave the Government the authority to spend money and it was then what gave, from Ministers through to departments, the capacity for the departments, ministries, and Government agencies to engage in the work that they’re supposed to engage in.

But as it turns out, in setting a Budget in May 2025 for the year ending 30 June 2026, things come up and things happen. Stuff changes and the Government does need to respond to events, and also people make mistakes and sometimes those need to be corrected. At other times, it just simply can’t be forecast exactly what money might be spent and how it might need to be spent, and some of that money is not actually the sort of money where there can just be put a cap on it. This bill, in a sense, is the House authorising that expenditure in arrears, instead of doing it in advance.

Now, again, there’s no problem with doing that. This House is entirely capable of doing that, and this is a regular process that happens every year. But for those at home to get a real sense of what might be going on, what we’re doing in this bill is thinking of a circumstance. Say, for example, there might be a budget for an overseas trip of $33,000 and the Minister might in the event spend $63,000, and this would be a way of authorising that expenditure and ensuring that it was actually authorised by the House.

There are other sorts of bits of information that we need to go through that I will go through at present. The Minister made a very interesting point, and I do want to address it before going into some of the detail in the imprest supply bill. She said that Governments take money out of the back pockets of hard-working New Zealanders, and so it is the “solemn duty” of the Government to spend that money carefully and seriously and to take very due regard for it. Well, yes, I do agree with that sentiment, but I think it is a very thin sentiment as to what Governments do. It is a very narrow construction of what Governments are doing when they ask New Zealanders to contribute to the common pot and when they spend that money for the common good.

Another way of thinking about what goes on with the imprest supply bill and with the Budget bill is that it is about us, as representatives of New Zealand and as representatives of New Zealanders, trying to work out how best to work together as a country to achieve the goals we want to achieve as a country and how best to raise the money and engage in the activities that further those goals. There’s a real sense—I guess that I’m going to characterise the two positions. There is the position—the rather thin position set out by the Minister of Finance—that New Zealanders pay for services from their Government. I think the rather better way to think of the Budget, and the rather better way to think of what it is we do as a Parliament, is to think in terms of us as all being in this together and to think that New Zealand does better when we look after all of us, and not just the payment for services. What we are doing here is looking after all the citizens of New Zealand.

There are two quite different conceptions as to how we’re going about this budgeting process, and I guess the reason that this side of the House prefers the conception that we’re all in this together, that we’re all trying to look after all New Zealanders, and that we’re working out the best ways to do that is because New Zealanders can’t be fired. Every single New Zealander is the object of our concern. From the smallest child to the eldest great-grandfather, these people are all the objects of our concern. Whether they pay tax or not, they all matter to us, and so we do our best for all New Zealanders. It’s a rather richer concept of what we’re doing in this House.

I want to turn to the imprest supply bill and some of the actual numbers sort of sitting in here, because the Supplementary Estimates of Appropriation is some 900 pages. It’s quite a lot of detail.

We spent some time at Finance and Expenditure Committee having a look at some of that detail and going through some of the issues and asking for explanations. Now, the way that that is achieved, as is usual with the examination in the annual review process for each Government agency, is that some very senior people from various agencies came through to discuss what was sitting in this with us. It was a disappointing process. On the Opposition side, we had some pretty serious questions to ask about some of the items that are included in this imprest supply bill, and, unfortunately, the people who were there, even though they were quite senior people from the various ministries, weren’t really able to give us explanations. So it does suggest that, as a committee—and you’ll see this in our report—we do need to think about how we can do this better in order to give a bit more time for officials to actually come up with some answers to questions, instead of saying, “Ah, we’ll get back to you.” So we’ll see how that goes.

I want to talk to the particular issue that we really felt was not addressed, and that is that some of the extra money that has been spent in a particular area, and extra money which was not really all that discretionary for the Government—because it’s money that’s legislated, and it has to be paid. I’m talking about the extra $72 million that was spent on accommodation assistance, the extra $85 million that was spent on New Zealand superannuation, the extra $86 million spent on sole parent support, the extra $41 million spent on student allowances, the extra $69 million spent on the supported living payment, the extra $24 million spent on the winter energy payment, the extra—if I can find it; it’s a little hard to find it in these reports—quite a substantial amount more spent on jobseeker, and so on. We asked the obvious question: why? Why was this extra money being spent?

Now, the explanation we were given—actually, it was from the Ministry of Social Development—was that they rely on Treasury estimates and forecasts; once Treasury gives a forecast of job numbers and so on, then they can work out the amount of money that needs to be spent in each area; Treasury did not necessarily forecast the state of the economy and the state of the jobs market and the state of people needing assistance as well as they might have; and once they’d got an updated forecast, they just pumped the numbers through their model and out came the extra spending. Well, that was a very technical answer, but it didn’t get to the “why”, as to why there was extra money being spent on assistance for our fellow New Zealanders—for the people who are in this, together with us.

The “why” is actually quite damning of this Government. The “why” is because the economy is not doing well. The “why” is because 20,000 jobs have been lost in construction. If it were only the 20,000 jobs in construction, perhaps we might have managed, but the trouble is that those jobs in construction supported the small businesses in their communities, and so jobs were lost in the small businesses as well. At this stage, we have the highest rate of business insolvencies there has been in 15 years. Why? Because that side of the House undercut the economy. Because they took away some of the mechanisms that were supporting our economy.

Now—sure, some changes could have been made. They nevertheless have done it too hard, too fast. They’ve cut too deep. They say that we’ve got to get Government expenditure under control. The trouble with cutting and cutting and cutting is that, sooner or later, cutting and cutting and cutting cuts to the bone, and that Government has cut to the bone.

21:41

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I am really glad that the Minister of Finance specifically shouted out me and the Green Party’s recently released tax proposals, because I think it gets to the heart of what’s going on with this Government, which is that fundamentally they don’t understand that what we invest in together is actually what enriches us. They’re totally ideologically committed to a system that enriches a few and that is coming at the expense of the rest of the country. We don’t have to have this trade-off. I don’t know if they genuinely believe what they’re saying, if Nicola Willis genuinely believes she’s doing the responsible thing or whether she’s just so practised at the lines, but I think she fundamentally misunderstands what is going on.

Public services, public infrastructure—all of that is fundamental to what we are able to develop as a country economically. She’s saying we can’t afford to invest in these things because we have to rely on some billionaires and the jobs they create. That’s not how this works. Billionaires don’t create jobs. They’re siphoning off the surplus that is generated by all of the workers and the resources of this planet, which, frankly, everybody should have some right to.

Who pays the workers’ wages?

I think it’s just a paradigm shift. You just have to back up and understand that this current economic system doesn’t need to be like this. It’s not the billionaires that are gifting us jobs. The billionaires are siphoning off a surplus that has been created by all of the people doing the various work they do, some of which is paid and some of which is unpaid.

If we go back to former National MP Marilyn Waring, who wrote a really important book—and I still don’t think most of the people on that side of the House have read it or understood it—our GDP, our Government accounts, the whole lot of it, isn’t counting a whole bunch of important work that actually supports the wealth and wellbeing of the country, that supports the commercial economy. It’s the unpaid work, which has predominantly been done by women, and a lot of the caring work that is through the funded sector, which deserves to be paid more, has been underpaid. That was about to be rectified through the pay equity process that the last Government put in place, which National MPs like Nicola Willis and Erica Stanford voted for but then ripped out because they said we couldn’t afford it.

They’ve just got it backwards. Government is just what we’re doing together because it’s in our common interests and good. If we want to be better off as a country, we have to invest in our people. We have to invest in our infrastructure. This whole line about how in debt we are is ridiculous because most of the countries we would aspire to be like have more debt relative to their GDP than New Zealand. They’re using some of that to wisely, hopefully, invest in infrastructure that then supports the ongoing activities and livelihoods of the people in those countries. Just look at Japan, for example.

The other thing in the Minister of Finance’s speech that I have to point out here is that she claimed we have to be fiscally responsible, that the Government’s being fiscally responsible. It’s just not true. That is factually inaccurate. The Government is proposing to take on even more debt for projects that will not generate growth, that will not do anything to improve the productivity of our country. The Warkworth to Te Hana four-lane expressway, which they’re going to sign us up for in a public-private partnership, which is just a more expensive version of borrowing to deliver a project that will cost—I mean, we already have roads up there, and we need to improve them. We need to make sure the Brynderwyns stop getting closed. Warkworth to Te Hana won’t do that. It’s not going to do anything about that.

Can we bring it back from—you’ve outlined your general theory around policy. Can we actually bring it back to the bill. Thank you.

She just hates roads.

I will respond to the little person over there who’s interjecting, because that’s the best this Government can do: make these weird accusations about hating something, when all I am saying is it’s not worth the money that you’re going to borrow to pay for it. There are better uses of that money to get the outcomes we want for people driving on roads, the outcomes we want for moving people and goods, and the outcomes we want for the people of Northland. If we took the entire four-lane roading project to Northland, it’s the equivalent of $250,000 per household in Northland. We would get much better economic returns from just giving people $250,000, which they could use to pay down their household debt or invest in education and other things that are going to benefit them. The lines that are coming from the Government cannot be taken seriously.

I will refer specifically, in the Supplementary Estimates, to the fact that it is evident their “economic plan” is not working, because they’ve had to adjust the funding levels to pay more for jobseeker support because they made decisions. They cancelled a bunch of high-value projects, which meant that public home builds weren’t going to be built. That affected the construction sector. They cancelled a lot of really high-value, low-cost transport projects that would have improved walking and cycling and public transport. All of those things in our towns and cities are actually fundamental to productivity, because the more we can move around without having to pay for cars, and the oil and diesel to run them, that’s a direct productivity gain to New Zealand, not to mention the cleaner air, not to mention the benefits in terms of reduced crashes and fewer emergency department admissions. I think it’s up to 50 percent of emergency department admissions that are related to motor vehicle crashes.

Here in the Government’s books, it is obvious that their plan isn’t working, that their ideology has failed, that they are more in touch with extremist, right-wing politicians overseas than they are with ordinary New Zealanders who are trying to make ends meet. When I go out and talk to businesses, they are struggling, and it’s because of decisions made by this Government. In Wellington, business owners certainly know that. They know—they can see the difference since the Government came in—what impact it has had on local business here in Wellington. As much as the Government might mean well, and some of them probably do, and some of them don’t, they’re fundamentally mistaken about what it will take to ensure that every New Zealander has what they need to thrive.

Most people know that our tax system is at the heart of that. Our tax system isn’t distributing the benefits of economic growth—when we have it—to enough of the people. The more we distribute it to everyone, the more everyone has a chance, everyone has an opportunity, the better off we’re going to be as a country. We can’t do that if our tax system is funnelling and concentrating wealth in the hands of a smaller and smaller group of people. Those people are not creating jobs; they’re taking the wealth out of the country.

The member has drifted away from the bill again.

Madam Speaker, I think what I’m saying is far more relevant to the ordinary people—

Yeah, but it’s not a general debate.

Well, it was for the Minister. The Minister did not speak to the specifics of this bill. The Minister attacked me, attacked our tax policy, gave her theory of economic growth—

Yeah, and the member has done that, and, now, I’m asking the member to finish with some details around the actual piece of legislation that she’s got in front of her.

This legislation is about the changes in funding relative to what was budgeted, and it’s also enabling temporary authorisation of spending until the Estimates bill is passed. What it will do is nothing for the country, because this Government’s economic ideology has failed, and that’s reflected in the polls. Every time I go out and talk to ordinary New Zealanders out there, they can see more and more that the National Party, the ACT Party, and the New Zealand First Party are speaking for corporate interests, for the very wealthiest people, and they have a blind ideology which is taking us in the wrong direction in almost every area. I am really, really looking forward to seeing the end of this Government.

21:51

The ACT Party supports these bills, the appropriation and the imprest supply bills. These bills finalise spending for the year, and they provide authority for Government to continue operating into the next financial year. You don’t want to be spending money that you don’t have or that you’re not authorised to spend, do you?

Now, for ACT, what matters even more is what that money is being used for because, far too often in New Zealand, it takes longer to get permission to build something than it takes to build it—whether that’s a house, a road, a power project, or other essential infrastructure. Delays and compliance costs end up being paid for by households and businesses. That’s why I’m proud—as well as being an ACT MP—as the Under-Secretary to the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, the Minister and I have secured almost $300 million to deliver the implementation of the resource management reform.

It’s one thing to stand up in this House and announce policies and say you’re going to tax and say you’re going to spend and to signal intent. Well, that’s not what this Government is about; we’re not signalling intent simply by saying we’re going to replace the Resource Management Act with a system based on property rights. We’re putting money down to make sure that the national direction that will tell councils how to plan and how to resolve conflicts between the environment and people who want to build things is funded and in place so the system can begin operating immediately in 2027, and be completed in the next couple of years.

It’s also really important that these appropriations support housing infrastructure and energy security. There is significant allocation of capital and other allowances in these bills to major projects. What we’ve seen, over the past decade or so, is that significant infrastructure deficit continued to grow across New Zealand’s public sector infrastructure. If you think about Defence housing, I remember going to visit a friend on the Waiōuru army base in the 1990s, living in what looked like a fairly reasonable, three-bedroom timber house, not too different from any State house you’d see anywhere around New Zealand. But it turns out that Defence personnel and their families are still living in those homes that have been patched up time and again, and it’s no place to bring up a family, particularly in a cold place like Waiōuru, also known as Waiberia, I understand, to people who’ve served there. It’s not really sending a good signal for New Zealand when we invite the Singapore armed forces, the Australian or the US armed forces, or from Britain or from Fiji—God bless them—to come and live in some draughty barracks with rusty water flying out of the shower head. That’s why I’m proud we’re part of a Government that’s putting significant capital investment into our Defence assets.

Now I just want to refer back to the previous member’s speech. Julie Anne Genter, Green MP, said that billionaires are syphoning off a surplus. That member is engaging in the diabolical populist politics of envy. The messages coming from that member—I wouldn’t say that’s unparliamentary language, but, sadly, it’s to be expected from a party which has lost its way and is no longer the primary advocator of environmental values in this country. In fact, that is the coalition Government—

Ha, ha!

—that is advocating to reinvest in the conservation estate, while that Green member cackles maniacally. We’re going to be reinvesting in the conservation estate. We’re going to be allocating capital—I’ve got it here, I’ve got it here—to the Hump Ridge Great Walk, because one thing that this Government, and particularly the ACT Party supports, is access to our conservation places, and in building infrastructure that makes New Zealand an attractive place for tourists to come and spend money, and for Kiwis thinking, “Should I go overseas on my next trip or should I go to the Hump Ridge Great Walk?” They can hump a backpack on a new track and good on them.

Now, billionaires syphoning off surplus. Who are these people, these billionaires that member accused of essentially stealing from New Zealanders? Well, I tell you who they are: they’re people who create jobs. Graeme Hart is one of those billionaires; started work as a tow truck driver, a good, sound blue-collar job—not that any Green member would have ever had one of those. Having left school at 15, completed an MBA at the University of Otago. His approach was to buy poorly performing businesses; strip out waste and inefficiency. You know, this coalition Government is doing that every day in the public sector, but of course the private sector has to do this to survive. They can’t just rely on taxing people more as the Green Party’s advocated this week. Stripping out waste and efficiency, consolidating the assets that had value, and refinancing the business and either selling it or actually scaling up that business to produce more and hire more people.

I tell you the businesses that Graeme Hart has not stripped or syphoned a surplus from: Whitcoulls, a business that he saved and has reinvigorated and you’ll still find in every shopping mall. In fact, there’s one down here on Lambton Quay I’ve been into recently. Carter Holt Harvey: it was a forestry company with some packaging assets that wasn’t doing that well and he purchased it, reinvigorated that business, closed a whole lot of old sawmills that were a liability. I know this because, in my time when I worked as a remediation engineer cleaning up some of New Zealand’s most hazardous sites, we worked to remove the timber treatment equipment, removed the contaminated soil, and cleaned up those sites so they could be repurposed as industrial and commercial facilities. In fact, there’s one of those facilities in Mount Eden which now has a residential building honour.

What about the Mowbrays? They built up a toy business from scratch. What about Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, those darlings of the left who built an intellectual property and film infrastructure business? In response to Julie Anne Genter’s comments: those billionaires are not syphoning off surplus; they’re building businesses that hire people and pay wages. They pay taxes to the Government so that a responsible Government like this coalition Government can reallocate those taxes collected from successful businesses into really important infrastructure and social services.

Now that I’ve disabused members and those listening at home of any notion that billionaires syphon off surplus, I just want to return to my conclusion. What this Government is funding through these two bills are practical measures that deliver economic growth, reliable energy, housing infrastructure, and a planning system that will say yes far more than it says no. New Zealanders currently need more than 40,000 consents a year. Where I live in West Auckland, the council will demand a consent for a retaining wall more than a metre high. That’s lower than the bench that I’m speaking from. Can you imagine that: you just want to do up your back garden, you might want to fix up the front of your property, and the council says we need to consent for that retaining wall, there’s some environmental risk. Absolute rubbish. In the new system, those types of demands will be gone.

Minister Bishop and I intend the number of consents that are required every year will be not much more than 20,000 initially, and I can envisage with the use of digital planning tools and AI that tells us how we’re really managing risks—that’s part of what we’re investing in—that, over time, the number of consents that actually should be needed by Kiwis might get back to what they were in the 1990s: maybe 5,000 a year. Now, New Zealanders expect their Government to focus on the basics and spend money carefully. That means prioritising projects that make the country grow, rather than just expanding the bureaucracy like the previous Government did. These bills continue that work. They support the infrastructure and energy and planning reforms needed to make New Zealand a place where people want to build, want to invest, and want to raise a family. That is why I commend this bill to the House.

This debate is interrupted. The House is suspended, and I will resume the chair at 9 a.m. tomorrow for the extended sitting.