Parliamentary debates: Wednesday, 24 June 2026

09:00

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise today on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill. I might start by saying that a previous speaker has opened up the whole debate around our political economic approach to this kind of management of the economy, and, since that has been brought up, I felt like we needed to defend ourselves somewhat in this debate, and then we’ll get back to the bill, like others did. Aside from the personal attack on one of the members in the National Party—we’ll look straight through that and straight past that, because it’s not really relevant. But we’ll try and get some of the Greens out of their locked-in little echo chamber. I’ll start with a saying, a famous saying: “Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.”

Let’s just have a little look at the Green Party’s approach to this debate yesterday. Let’s talk about tax—wealth tax, trust tax, what you commonly know as inheritance tax, otherwise known as death tax—[Interruption]

Just for the member to note, because I was in the Chamber last night where the Speaker did want members to focus on the bill, you can reference things that were said by others in the debate, but I would then ask the member to quickly go back to the bill itself. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I feel the right of reply is needed considering we were actually criticised last night.

Yes, a nice quick one, though.

If we’re looking at a range of tax—well, we know that certain members of the Parliament don’t like boomers very much, but you have worked all of your life to get to a tax-free position in owning your house and someone wants to tax you for that. It’s called a wealth tax. It’s not only wealth tax when you think about it for farmers. Think about that in terms of how hard they have worked all of their lives with their hands—not much with their mouths, right?—getting to a position where they actually have made a success of their life. So that’s just fantastic, isn’t it, when they work so hard to get to that position and, “Oh, hello, let’s have a crack at their wealth tax; let’s have a crack at their inheritance tax; let’s have a crack at the trust they’ve set up for their families for the future. Actually, tax, tax, tax, tax.”

Small business, you’re not exempt. I’m sorry, small business, you’re in trouble too, because you’ve worked hard on your small business and got it to a position where you’re actually not owing that much money—oh, wealth tax. Savers, you’re not exempt either. You’ve been saving diligently all of your life, putting your money away, and you’re actually going to be subject to a double tax. Not only have you had your income taxed and you have saved; they want to tax your wealth at the end of that, as well. So they’ll tax you when you save, they’ll tax you when you succeed, they’ll tax you when you work hard, they’ll tax you when you’re alive, and then they’ll tax you when you’re dead. Right—this is not a good story. This really sums up the communist Green manifesto, and the outcome that they want to achieve is that we will all be equal—we’ll all be equally poor. That’s the end of that kind of approach.

Now, listen, I can equally take on the Labour Party with their political economy, even have a debate with my friends from the ACT Party about their political economy. We’re not going do that because the Speaker has told me to get to the point—thank you, Mr Speaker. But the one final thing I will say is what you have here—the sum of that—is what the economists call a dead weight on the economy. It’s a dead weight on initiative; it’s a dead weight on work; it’s a dead weight on innovation, and, actually, you need to go and see what some of those people who have succeeded actually provide in benefits towards the economy through jobs, through growth, through opportunity. We’re about growing the economy. That’s what we want, and you can watch this space, because we’ll show you how to do it.

This bill, really, is about things like ensuring that everybody gets their winter payments and superannuation keeps going. It’s a tidy-up for the Budget; business of Government—practical, demonstrated, prudent. Thank you, Mr Speaker. We commend the bill to the House.

09:05

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will do something radical in this debate and actually talk about the bill. I want to turn, in particular, to pages 22 and 23 of the appropriations where I’ll be concentrating the bulk of the remarks on my speech.

The first thing that I wanted to concentrate on is the departmental output expenses on the Government Digital Delivery Agency—the appropriations that have been selected for that. I think that Budget line enables me to talk about what the Government Digital Delivery Agency is being set up to do, which is to facilitate the rollout of digital technology in the Public Service, including the use of artificial intelligence.

It’s a really hot topic at the moment, artificial intelligence, and rightfully so. There’s contested debate around artificial intelligence (AI), including the role of data centres and the potential negative environmental impacts of AI use, including water consumption, energy consumption, and things of that nature. I think those are all valid critiques that people have. Another aspect of the critique around the use of AI has also been the potential for automated systems and artificial decision making to override human decision making, which would be a dangerous precedent. I think one of the things that people do rightfully have concerns about is the role of accountability when an AI makes a decision. I mean, we’ve seen, at least with human decision making, when someone makes a mistake, there is usually a chain of custody. There’s usually a chain of responsibility for people that are then able to be held to account. We saw a classic example of that yesterday when everyone in the House—all the parties—united to condemn how the House had been misled, effectively, by Immigration New Zealand around the issue of the biometrics processing. I do think that people were able to be held responsible on that because it was made by humans, fundamentally.

When we do shift to a system that is run by, or that AI have a better hand in, the chain of responsibility gets more complicated. If an artificial system makes a mistake, if automated decision making makes a mistake, do you hold to account the Minister who transitioned the Public Service to artificial intelligence? Do you hold to account the chief executive who let that happen? Do you hold to account the staffers that generated the prompt? Or do you hold to account the company that uses these large language models to make these decisions? It’s a really contested field, and I do think, while we don’t necessarily support the replacement of public servants with AI, the Government Digital Delivery Agency, we acknowledge, has a role to answer some of these tricky questions and develop guidelines for artificial intelligence use within the Public Service, because it is something that we can’t bury our head in the sand about. It is increasingly going to become rolled out right across the country, and it will increasingly become one of the most contested terrains of the future. We already saw the Trump administration block the export use of Fable, one of the most powerful models developed by Anthropic.

Now, what that does do is raise questions around the issue of data sovereignty, as well. If, through the use of AI in the Public Service, we are outsourcing our AI capacity to private companies that can then withdraw from the Government this capacity that we have paid for, because of pressures from foreign administrations, for example, then that could potentially grind our entire Public Service to a halt, just from a single action. When we are considering the use of AI in the Public Service, when we are considering AI technology as it gets deployed across the board, we need to keep these questions in mind. The Government Digital Delivery Agency is rightfully the place where that will get rolled out and thought about across the Public Service.

I also encourage colleagues across the House to engage with the issue of artificial intelligence, because this is an issue that is not going to go away, and this is an issue that increasingly we, as legislators, will have to grapple with. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

09:10

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak on this imprest supply debate. I know a lot of people at home will be wondering—

It’s the appropriations supplementary estimates bill.

Sorry. That one, Mr Speaker. I know a lot of people will be wondering—

It’s just as exciting.

Ha, ha! Yeah. There has been a lot of Budget talk, Mr Speaker, and it’s got me a bit excited. But what people at home might be wondering is what this bill does. It’s all about unlocking the proposed Budget; the execution of that spending. Of course, it’s very important, because the authorisation of that money needs to be spent and allocated through budgetary purposes.

I guess, firstly, one thing this Budget does is really focus on financial sustainability, closing the fiscal gap, and the fact that we’re now able to achieve a surplus a year earlier than forecast. It’s great news and great financial leadership from the Minister of Finance, this being her third Budget. It’s certainly one where we’ve been clear that it’s not about sugar hits; it’s about robust planning frameworks. It’s about restrained spending; it’s about closing and getting that debt curve down.

We also know it’s not about taxing more and spending more. We’ve always said that New Zealand doesn’t have a tax problem; it has a spending problem. Yesterday evening, Julie Anne Genter talked about our debt. Our debt to GDP is—I think we’re trying to get it down to about 40 percent debt to GDP. Last night, Julie Anne Genter said, “Why don’t we just spend more and invest more in infrastructure?” In fact, she used Japan as an example, which has debt to GDP of 250 percent.

Now, Japan might have a lot more privately owned domestic funding, but the more you borrow, the bigger the interest bill. Our current interest bill is around $9.5 billion. Why getting back to a surplus—

How much principal does that pay off?

—not much. We’re not paying any off at the moment; that’s the problem. Because we haven’t got to a surplus, we’re not even paying any of our principal back wholly. The purpose of getting to a surplus is so we can pay down that debt, and $9.5 billion is enough, as we know, for the whole New Zealand Defence Force, Corrections, Police, Customs. It’s an incredible amount of money and it just goes on treading water. That’s why we’re really, really focused on making some savings.

I thought it would be good to provide some examples of savings to show that we can make cutbacks in appropriate ways and still deliver better services. In fact, the Minister of Finance has said, “Let’s make 2 percent additional baseline savings this year and an additional 5 percent and 5 percent the following years.”

A couple of examples: in the Department of Conservation, over the next three years we can save $118 million. The Department of Internal Affairs is saving $80 million. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet is saving $10 million. Inland Revenue is saving $197 million. Land Information New Zealand is saving $26.4 million. The Ministry for Primary Industries is saving $164 million. The Ministry for Regulation: $5.3 million. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: $170 million. The Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport is saving $125 million. The total for 12 percent baseline reduction over the next three years: $2.388 billion.

You can see it’s not just about spending but saving. It’s about good fiscal management. It’s about stewardship. Some might say kaia-titanga—

Kaitiaki.

Kaitiakitanga—stewardship of what we’ve got. Stewardship of our resources is very important.

It was Marama Davidson yesterday who also talked about—we talked about the investment in the defence force. I said that it’s not just about spending on weapons, it’s about investment in our workforce, and she denied it. I wanted to show to the viewers that the defence force remuneration is $120 million over four years. In our summary of Estimates, it reads, “This initiative provides funding to enable the New Zealand Defence Force to provide remuneration uplifts for its workers and to meet additional non-discretionary remuneration increases.”

Of course, for housing, in the Defence Capability Plan, we’ve got $3.4 million. The initiative provides funding to enable planning, detailed design, and delivery of modern residential dwellings for military personnel and their families at Trentham, Ōhākea, Linton, Woodbourne, Waiōuru, and Burnham. Our investment in defence isn’t just in terms of improving our fleet and all that very important stuff which is part of our national security; defence force is about the people, because they have a very important role on the front line. It’s important that they are looked after, as well.

The great thing within the Budget—we know that our parties spoke a big game around health, infrastructure, law and order, fuel response, and education. These things are all critical and we’re delivering for all of them—$7 billion in capital investment over the next 12 months, and an estimated 4,500 jobs for every billion dollars of infrastructure investment. Over the forecast period, we’re looking at 220,000 new jobs across the economy. That’s significant.

Of course, Cambridge to Piarere, the road of national significance, one of the most dangerous spots in New Zealand—we’re investing in that. That will improve about 16 kilometres of roading infrastructure. It’s very important—very important for productivity, for connectivity. An extra special bonus if it gets to 110 kilometres an hour, because that’s my favourite speed of all, especially on cruise control, listening to AC/DC.

Education is very important, as well. Obviously, we talked about some of the investment and the hard infrastructure. We’ve done a lot of investment in the curriculum and the syllabus restructure, supporting our front-line teachers. I was privileged in Hamilton East to have Hillcrest High School get an additional eight new learning classrooms and two new learning support classrooms, as well as four new classrooms at Knighton Normal School. Of course, we’re now able to deliver the infrastructure at half the cost that was previously being delivered under the last Government—half the cost. You get two for one. Isn’t that amazing? Just with good, practical financial stewardship, discipline, and going to the market with competitive tenders. Obviously, the prefab-type modular building is really key to all of that, as well.

The other thing, of course, is the Resource Management Act reform, which was given a boost of money to help that transition. I stood on the Environment Committee with Catherine Wedd and Cameron Luxton here in the House. It’s quite a robust process. We’ve gone through changing something first introduced in 1991 to two new planning bills, and that’s going through the process. Of course, it needs finance and it needs time to embed, but that’s really about unlocking productivity in this country. We’re working with councils and working with the water entities to enable us to cut through red tape and green tape just to get stuff done. We want more renewables in this country, but it’s just been too hard. The process that we’re working through will help to unlock and enable that.

The Budget is also predicated on what our Prime Minister gave in what was probably a speech of the nation, really. One of the journalists who would probably normally be quite critical of him said it’s probably the best prime ministerial address in the last 20 years—

Ha, ha!

Best in the last two years.

—and he talked about national security being economic security—the last 20 years. That’s right. That’s a long time. I’ll send you a copy of it, Shanan Halbert.

The Government understands that in an increasingly uncertain world, security is more than just a fence alone. It is not just about national security; it’s also about economic security and the two go hand in hand. Energy security and social cohesion: every major decision we make should be tested against whether it strengthens New Zealand in one of those areas. National security, increased defence investment, tougher law and order measures, and protecting critical infrastructure and resilience, and, of course, our relationship with other countries—we’ve done a fuel agreement with Singapore. We’ve worked in collaboration with Australia. We’re really strengthening our place in the bottom of the Pacific, which is critical. Economic security: Investment Boost came through in the last Budget, and, of course, we’re continuing that through. Trade agreements and export growth; support for business investment and productivity. Energy security: the need for reliable and affordable electricity; supporting renewable generation and grid resilience—the importance of avoiding energy shortages that undermine growth.

Of course, then you bring in infrastructure. Underpinning all of that security—national security, energy security—is infrastructure, and our $7 billion capital programme goes a long way to help New Zealand to prosper. Roads, schools, hospitals, water infrastructure, and energy networks are all foundations of economic growth and national resilience. Every billion dollars in investment by Treasury is, as I said, estimating an extra 4,500 jobs. At a time when many countries are being forced to choose between growth and fiscal discipline, this Government is demonstrating that both matter. We’re investing where it counts, maintaining a path back to surplus, and strengthening the foundations of New Zealand’s future, fixing the basics, building the future.

09:21

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s great to be able to stand and take a call on this, the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill.

Before I get started, I just wanted to acknowledge a couple of the funny wisecracks that the previous member, Ryan Hamilton, got into his contribution this morning, the first being a claim about a commitment to renewable energy, which is great, especially coming from a party who want to spend a billion dollars on a liquefied natural gas terminal! I really enjoyed that one. I also enjoyed hearing the claim that the Prime Minister had recently delivered the best speech any New Zealand Prime Minister has delivered in the last 20 years. What I want to say to that is it’s fantastic to hear that Christopher Luxon has finally found a speechwriter! I do look forward to the opportunity to review that speech and make my own assessment of whether it is, in fact, the best speech delivered by a Prime Minister in New Zealand in the last 20 years. I would say that that would be a minority opinion. I wouldn’t want to poll it.

It’s not all fun and games in this debate. This is, in fact, a serious debate about what is in this, the Budget that was delivered in the House at the end of last month, and I think it’s important to look at that in the context of where we’re at economically in New Zealand at the moment and where we were forecast to be at. What we have seen is the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update in 2023, which was the first from this Government, and now what we’re looking at is the forecast for 2026. This is the context in which we need to look at this bill and at this Budget. GDP growth was forecast at 2.8 percent; it’s now 1.2 percent. Unemployment of 4.8 percent is now forecast to be 5.5 percent. Inflation was meant to be 2.2 percent.

It was 7.3 percent under you.

It’s now forecast to be 4 percent, Mr Hamilton. Government debt is now $4 billion higher than forecast. Those are the numbers. That’s the context that we need to look at this Budget in. What’s really interesting, as we look through those appropriations in the Budget, is what has then happened in some of the areas and across some of the portfolios that are explicitly covered in this bill. Particularly, I’m really interested in the ones that are—and I’ve folded down the page so that I can find it easily—across pages 8 and 9 of the bill, when we’re looking at, really, the investment into business, science, and innovation. That’s some of what I wanted to explore in my contribution to this debate.

When the Minister of Finance came to the House and delivered her opening speech on this, she talked about the difference between money coming from the ether and money coming from the back pockets of New Zealanders. I think it’s also very important that we remember that; this Budget is the money from the back pockets of New Zealanders. It is not money that has come from the ether. On that, I agree with the Minister of Finance. If we look across the portfolios that I was able to examine in scrutiny week, last week, the broadcasting and media portfolio Minister, Minister Goldsmith, came and spoke to us about what’s happening there, but, really, that was a conversation about what’s not happening there. It was a conversation with a Minister who promised to take immediate action in the broadcasting and media space and has since presided over a series of cuts, quite deep ones, in the appropriations in this Budget across the broadcasting and media sector, which will have a direct impact on the media in New Zealand being able to be independent and being able to carry out the important role that they have.

I did wonder, during those hearings, when we asked the Minister questions, whether it wouldn’t have been better for us to have Minister Seymour in the seat, because, in the offer of immediate action, if you look at specific journalists disappearing, if you look at CEOs being told their time is up, if you look at the Broadcasting Standards Authority being wound up, those have all been calls that have been made by other Ministers, Ministers other than the Minister for Media and Communications. Of all the things that have become reality in his time as the Minister, the most frustrating is when we’re talking about what supports the Minister is working on, what legislation the Minister is bringing to the House, so that we can ensure the financial viability of our independent news and current affairs media sector in New Zealand. The Minister could only say that he’s continuing to watch closely what’s happening in Australia, which he has been watching closely for close to two years now and taking absolutely no action on here. I want to convey my frustration at that and how that’s reflected in the appropriations, but, also, the frustration that is relayed to me, from across the media sector, at the lack of action taken in this space.

The other area that’s covered really comprehensively in these appropriations, and that I wanted to look at where we got to with asking probing questions about priorities, both for the restructuring within the sector, which is our science, innovation, and tech sector, and, also, at the disruption caused to funding—and, therefore, to the pipeline of projects that should be coming through in our science, innovation, and technology sector. Let’s not forget, we are the best in the world at this, absolutely the best at innovating, inventing, and exploring new ideas and new thinking, but what we have at the moment is a hugely disruptive set of restructures and a freezing of funds that is seeing some of our best and brightest not being able to invest in our future and instead having to invest in tickets to take flight and leave New Zealand. This science sector, this innovation sector, tells us that it’s not just a holiday they’re taking; it’s potentially departure for the rest of their careers, the rest of their lives. That leaves a massive, massive gap in our science, innovation, and tech sector future and in the pipeline and ecosystem we need to see being created in that space.

My first question to the Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology was whether she believed in science, and it might sound like a funny question, but it is actually a relevant question when she is presiding over so much disruption in that space, which we are seeing through the appropriations in this Budget—further disruption, further confusion, further lack of certainty. What might surprise you even more is that the answer wasn’t “Yes, absolutely, 100 percent”, which is what you would expect from the Minister; instead, it was “I hope so”. As we know, hope is not a strategy, and an answer as disconcerting as “I hope so” is both disturbing and frightening for a sector that is calling out for certainty. We see that across some of the amazing blue-skies research that is really not a priority for this Government. If we’re looking at an ecosystem—which we need in our science, innovation, and tech sector—you are, essentially, cutting off the very beginning of where our best ideas come from. Very little funding, if any, is available in that space; “Let’s only focus on commercialisation.” There’s nothing wrong with that, but, in isolation, that is the most short-term strategy you could possibly bring.

I don’t have time to go into some of the other concerns that I have: the lack of understanding around the gaming development sector rebate, which has seen an 86 percent revenue growth across the gaming sector in New Zealand—an industry that we lead the world in and where we are fantastically empowered by our geographic isolation, because we’re not talking about putting products on ships; we are simply talking about people around the world downloading the brilliant games and entertainment offerings that we create in New Zealand. This year, this sector has gone over a billion dollars in revenue, and yet the Minister is not prepared to take the baseline funding that sits there and make the rebate ceiling slightly higher to ensure that we keep some of our biggest companies here in New Zealand—really disappointing to see some of those future-focused opportunities missed.

I haven’t even had a chance to get into some of the deeply concerning gaps in understanding strategy and budgeting for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) across the public sector. AI is not free. It is an amazing, powerful tool that has huge productivity potential, but only if governance is good and only if investment is made to ensure that we have the best possible products here to serve New Zealanders. That’s not what the appropriations in this Budget do. It’s not what I’m hearing in the speeches from the Government MPs in the House.

09:31

Listeners at home wouldn’t have really noticed that we’re actually here discussing two bills today. The first is the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the second is the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill. Both deserve scrutiny, and we’ll, on this side of the House, do that job. The others will just go to their talking points. But first to the imprest supply bill.

Just to explain for the House and for listeners at home—all two of them—what the Supplementary Estimates bill is about. This bill is about ensuring that any changes through last year’s Budget in the appropriations are authorised by the House, and it’s Parliament’s job to scrutinise those changes for New Zealanders.

Why on earth do we have this bill before the House? Well, simply put, the Budget is dependent on a range of forecasts and assumptions, and those forecasts and assumptions are outlined in the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update. You wouldn’t want to be a forecaster in this time of day. With all the external and internal uncertainty, those forecasts have a huge amount of uncertainty. Last year’s Budget actually indicated that those uncertainties were real, in the wake of external events like Trump’s tariffs and the impact of those tariffs and also to this year and the impact of one certain war in the Middle East, the war in Iran. Then there are a range of internal events that make a difference to the economic assumptions—things like natural weather events, the recession that New Zealand has been in, caused by a Reserve Bank - induced hike in interest rates from the inflation that we had under the previous Government.

There’s a range of uncertainty out there when those projections are put forward in the Budget. Those projections, there’s unders and overs, but they ultimately have material impacts in terms of Government services and in terms of revenue.

Essentially, the Supplementary Estimates bill reflects the changes in the 2025-26 Budget that have been spent or reductions in revenue, and that is why we are here today discussing that. It really demonstrates the responsiveness of our Government that we bring this bill back to the House to retrospectively give authority to those changes in expenditures. That is important in terms of accountability. It’s important in terms of oversight and in terms of fiscal management.

Where does this all sit? Well, it all goes back to the Public Finance Act. On the Finance and Expenditure Committee, we’ve had a really good review on public performance and accountability reporting, and that will be actually coming to the House for discussion very soon, I understand, making some suggestions around how we improve accountability and financial reporting for Parliament and for the public. That is my remarks on the first bill, the Supplementary Estimates bill.

The second bill that we’ve got before us today is the imprest supply bill. As was indicated in the speeches yesterday on the Budget, this Budget is really all about securing New Zealand’s economic future, making sure that we boost economic growth, boost real wage growth, reduce the role of the State on the economy, and pay down the debt burden that the previous Government left us with.

Let’s just remind members on the opposite side the level of debt that we inherited from the previous Government. We not only inherited debt; we also inherited one of the largest fiscal deficits in the OECD, OK? We’ve actually got, this year alone, this forecast year, $216 billion of nominal Government debt as a result of the poor decisions of the previous Government. Why does it matter for New Zealanders at home? It matters because we have a mounting interest bill on that debt that is forecast to be, in this Budget alone, $9.7 billion—$9.7 billion. That is astronomical. We know from the Treasury forecasts for the next 20 to 30 years that debt and the interest bill on that debt is only going to grow higher because of superannuation and because of healthcare.

We’ve got some parties in Parliament today that wish to put their heads in the sand and say, “No, we won’t make any changes to superannuation.”—and we’ve got realistic, pragmatic parties like National, who have always advocated for pragmatic, sustainable fiscal changes to our pension system to make sure that it’s sustainable in the future.

I wish to turn the attention to some of the really important things that were announced in the Budget which the imprest supply bill, essentially, gives effect to. We’ve got targeted support for health, things like $35 million extra for our ambulance services—great news for Northcote and communities right up and down New Zealand. We’ve got $34 million funded for our three-day post-natal stays, allowing newborns and new mothers to remain in hospital for up to three days. It’s great news. We’ve got a lowering of the age of free bowel care screening from 68 to 66. That’s going to make a material difference for well over 200,000 New Zealanders per annum.

Education—let’s go now to education. If there’s one really wasteful spending that we cut and that the previous Government had, it was the fees-free, which had no material impact on outcomes at all in terms of enrolment and in terms of educational achievement. What have we been able to do with that? We’ve cut that funding and we’ve reallocated it for what is a great programme, the Trades Academy programme, and we’ve got an extra 20,000 places so that we can get people into trades, earning while they’re learning—earning while they’re learning. It was—

And it was a billion dollars over four years.

It was a billion dollars over the forecast period. It was a huge amount of wasteful money, and thank goodness we in the National Party and our finance Minister made some changes in that area.

We’ve got more money to strengthen reading, writing, and maths achievement in our schools, and we’ve got continued rollout of the structured literacy and mathematics, which is going really well, according to all of my schools in Northcote. They’re doing really well, and I wish to thank teachers right across the country for really picking up and running with structured literacy and structured maths. The feedback I get right across the sector is positive, and the evidence, we know, is clear: that it makes a difference. Those of you who are parents know how important it is to get your kids a better chance in life through education. With that, I think there’s some really good things in the Budget around education and healthcare.

Law and order: remember three years ago, members, how common it was to have a ram raid, two ram raids a day—two ram raids a day. That’s down 85 percent under this Government. This Budget puts $500 million extra into corrections facilities, so making sure that our communities are safe. We’ve got new police stations in places like Wanganui—

That’s right—fantastic new police station.

Fantastic new places. Actually, the Police Commissioner himself said that in the history of New Zealand, we’ve never had as many front-line police officers as we do now. Isn’t that great news?

It’s all part of our plan to fix the basics and build the future. Fix the basics in healthcare, in education, in law and order, in infrastructure, in transport; fixing the basics in our Government finances; and building the future, so that my son, your kids, all of our future kids and grandkids can stay here in New Zealand, they don’t have to up shoots and leave like they have done for decades. So with that, I commend both of these bills to the House.

The next call is a split call.

09:41

This Budget, after 2½ years, was essentially the National Government’s last chance to show New Zealanders that they were willing to do something about the cost of living crisis, that they understood the pain that people are feeling. But that moment has passed, and people have given up on this Government—you hear that everywhere you go in New Zealand; that’s what people say.

You can see the cost of living crisis on the faces of the people that I represent in West Auckland. The effect of the National Government’s austerity policies—you can see it on the streets of Henderson, in Massey, in Rānui. People aren’t eating so well; they can’t afford to. The stress of trying to get to the end of the week to pay the bills is taking its toll—that feeling of working harder and harder and going backwards.

For the most vulnerable in our communities, the most basic of safety nets has been ripped away by this Government. People turn up at my office on a Friday afternoon with the kids in the back of a car and they say, “We don’t have anywhere to sleep tonight.” It’s not very long ago that you could send them to Work and Income down the road and they would be guaranteed a roof over their heads. Under this Government’s policies, they’re basically given a lecture about personal responsibility and told to get out. That is what happens. It happens every day, every week in the community that I represent. That’s why there is record homelessness and people sleeping in their cars. It is directly attributable to this Government’s policies.

The effect of this Government’s austerity policies is taking its toll on the health of the people. The emergency department at Waitākere Hospital is absolutely clogged. Why? Because people can’t afford to go to the GP, so they go along to the hospital emergency department, and that’s why the delays are so long—also because this Government refuses to employ our nursing grads, and there simply aren’t enough nurses in the hospital.

For the most vulnerable people, they are feeling this in their health. A public nurse told me the other day that there is an outbreak of scabies. Skin disease is the canary in the coalmine for poverty: people who are not properly fed, who cannot live decent lives because of poverty and poor living conditions—skin disease is where it shows. What an absolute indictment of this Government’s austerity policies.

What is this Government’s answer? What does this Budget say to those people? It gives them a lecture on fiscal policy—by a Government that gave huge tax breaks to landlords and tobacco companies and to the well off, and has increased borrowing. It’s increased borrowing, not actually reduced it. They’ve slashed the Public Service, close to 10,000 jobs, which will inevitably affect front-line services. And what does that mean? It means longer queues, fewer border security checks, and clogged courtrooms.

This Government promised to fix things because Christopher Luxon was the business guy. He was going to run New Zealand like Air New Zealand, as if the country was a business—that was the promise: we’re going to fix the cost of living.

They’ve just run it down.

Yep, the self-proclaimed economic geniuses on that side of the House have presided over record business closures, higher unemployment, a collapse in business confidence, and a downgrade from the ratings agencies. That’s their record. Blissfully ignorant of decades and decades of economic history. What happens when you get rid of thousands of people out of paid employment? What happens when you cancel and delay hundreds of construction projects in transport and housing, and you have this magical thinking that somehow the private sector is going to step into the breach and make all of the investments and make the economy grow? Well, what happened? Investors and consumers stopped spending. This Government’s economic policies that are embedded in this Budget have caused a crisis.

09:46

It gives me no great pleasure, on a Wednesday morning, to stand here and take a lecture from Phil Twyford, the man who couldn’t count to 100,000. He couldn’t get past a couple of thousand, and yet he wants to stand here with his short-term thinking and going, “Forget about that—forget about that—it’s the other guy’s fault. It’s their fault. Don’t worry about what I did or didn’t do, it’s the other guy’s fault.” Kiwis have not forgotten—Kiwis have not forgotten. Who remembers the Chinese-sounding surnames? Remember that? No contribution or mention of that in his speech, and yet here we are on a Wednesday morning.

We’re actually here to talk about two things: one, it’s the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, and also the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill. Now, these bills are standard, but they are an important part of the parliamentary process. If we start with the appropriation bill, which is the Supplementary Estimates, it seeks Parliament’s approval for changes to the current year’s appropriation. My colleague Dan Bidois, our resident economist on this side of the House, actually highlighted really clearly why that was so important. Then he went on and talked about the imprest supply bill, which provides the necessary interim authority for the Government to continue delivering services until the main appropriation bill—

He can’t even count.

—for 2026-27 is passed. And the irony, here, is I get heckled from the other side.

Aw, they don’t understand.

They don’t understand the financial literacy—or illiteracy on that side—that actually these bills play and the important role.

The Supplementary Estimates reflect a Government that is focused on responsible fiscal management while continuing to deliver for New Zealanders. They show where additional investment has been required and where we’ve also needed to reprioritise spending, as my colleague Ryan Hamilton outlined in his earlier contribution. As a Government, we were elected to get the basics right, to restore the discipline to public finances. We have to remember the Government doesn’t have any of its own money; it has New Zealanders’ money. If we are to increase taxes or borrowing or anything of the sort, it is everyday New Zealanders that will pay the price for that, and we must justify to them why that is the case, and at the moment there is a clear void, particularly from the other side, as to the justification for the need to do so.

We, as a Government, just like New Zealand households across this country, must live within our means. There is no magic money tree. Remember when the other side said—and they were asked: “Oh, where would you get the money from?” “Oh, we’ll just appropriate it—we’ll just appropriate it.” Do you know what that means? It means future generations will have to pick up the tab of the credit card. It’s future generations that will pay the increased interest and tax bill that that side of the House wants to put on everyday New Zealanders.

We, as a Government, in this year’s Budget, have said, “No, we’re not going to take that path. We’ll make the tough and difficult decisions that everyday New Zealanders voted for us to do.” However, we can still do that and invest in critical services. Health: where we’re reducing wait times. The Minister for Mental Health has just released figures today, which show the incredible progress we are making in that space. There is still work to do—there is still work to do—but our investment in health and in mental health is having a positive impact to New Zealanders.

We’re supporting infrastructure that will help grow our economy and create jobs—220,000 new jobs—but we’re also providing targeted cost of living relief where it’s needed most. Remember, when the fuel crisis started a few months ago, how easy it would have been to just open up the hose and spend taxpayers’ money left, right, and centre and spray it around. That was the easy thing to do, but it wouldn’t have been the right thing to do. Now, looking back, we made the right decisions.

New Zealanders expect the Government to manage public finances prudently, while still delivering on the services that they rely on. That’s exactly what these bills do. Both the appropriations and the imprest supply are part of our plan to fix the basics and build the future. Thank you.

09:51

Tēnā rawa atu koe e te Māngai o te Whare, otirā tēnā rawa atu tātou katoa i tēnei ata.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker, and my greetings to all this morning.]

I want to acknowledge the very lengthy explanation one of the members opposite gave about this bill. While I suspect he was doing that to take up some time, what I can guarantee you is while he was delivering that explanation, Aotearoa heard nothing. That meant nothing to the people who we serve. What Aotearoa wanted from this Government—that they promised—is that they would fix the cost of living, and they have not.

The latest appropriations represent the culmination of a billion dollars slashed from targeted Māori investment—investments like Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga. We’ve heard from across the House that they acknowledge, “Oh, housing is important.”, etc. A whare, a kāinga, doesn’t just represent four walls. If you want your kids to do well in school, they’re going to do much better if they’ve got somewhere warm, safe, and dry to live. We want them to be healthy; that also comes from having a warm, safe, dry home. Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga went beyond that. It actually supported development of whenua, giving whānau who live in those houses not just the shelter—the physical shelter of four walls and a roof; it gave them the connection to their whenua, it built up communities by ensuring tamariki got to go to these amazing new educational institutions the Government is purporting to provide, and it gave them meaningful contribution and connection to their whakapapa and their communities. That investment, in these appropriations, is gone.

What you won’t see in these appropriations are Māori development programmes, development investment that supported programmes like the business hub in Wairoa. We’ve talked about regional investment and regional jobs—where are these 220,000 new jobs, by the way? That’s a great number. We should be excited by it, but as I traverse Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, I’m seeing people losing jobs and seriously considering—those who haven’t already—leaving Aotearoa. Now, leaving Aotearoa doesn’t just mean leaving your whānau. Again, it’s the connection to whenua I talked about; that’s what we’re risking here. We are risking isolating people from their whakapapa, their whenua, their communities, and, ultimately, investing in our country’s economy, which is what I understood this Government wanted.

Back to talking about Wairoa. In spite of the cuts, thank God there are organisations like the Wairoa Business Hub, who are supporting people not only to get into business, to thrive, but supporting them in staying where they live, where they come from, where they want to be. Now, we heard that that’s what this Government wanted: to drive the economy, get people—we’ve heard it—off the couch and thriving; to get them into mahi. What a great idea. Imagine if we had something like the progressive procurement fund to support that. Wait a minute! We did, and this Government cut it. That contract represented a reinvestment of over $900 million from Māori business into this economy, into our communities, into regions, and this Government cut it. We heard the Minister say, yesterday, that this is all about making it easier to do business here in New Zealand. Easier for who? Why are we providing better opportunities for people offshore? Of course, there’s a place for that, but why would we take away a programme that was working and helping build business in our communities and contribute to the $126 billion Māori economy? That’s what’s missing from these appropriations.

Another member opposite talked about the fees-free being wasteful spending. I took a phone call this very morning from someone who works in a tertiary education institution. It’s interesting: when the economy is struggling, that’s often when people will decide to retrain and reinvent themselves to get themselves back in the workforce. That’s what this supported. We know that there have been jobs slashed across Aotearoa, and so some people are looking to retrain. This fees-free would have supported them. The feedback from actual students impacted by this—the feedback from people actually impacted by this—who the Government members clearly don’t care about and don’t want to hear is that this is taking away their choices. This is taking away their choices. They already know you don’t care. They are taking away the choices and taking away another tool that would have gone to supporting the rebuilding not only of the economy of New Zealand, but also the impact on the back pockets of New Zealanders who regret voting this National-led Government in and will have great joy at bidding it farewell.

Campaign on it. If it’s so good, campaign on it.

Here’s the irony—here’s the irony: the member who is now interjecting was complaining about interjecting.

Yeah, can I ask members not to have these rowdy conversations across the Chamber? Let’s go to Cushla Tangaere-Manuel; you may continue.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Let’s move, now, to another area that’s having a direct impact on the economy of people’s households, and that’s Public Service cuts. Like I said, nobody heard the explanation of the member opposite, because all they know is that this Government promised to cut the cost of living and they have not. Now, we’ve got cuts to public services. Already, whānau often have to travel, sometimes over 100 kilometres one way, to see public servants. Now, with the increase of petrol costs and further cuts of public services, this is just overwhelming for a lot of whānau. A lot of them will not be able to access the services. Once again, people are feeling the pinch, feeling the crunch, much, much more from the cuts of this National-led coalition Government.

That said, I come from Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, where we bring the light every day. I want to acknowledge the innovation of our communities who, in spite of many, many cuts, continue to care for the vulnerable in their communities. I’ve heard some examples, again, just this very morning, of disability services in Tūranga-nui-a-Kiwa Gisborne, who are struggling because of the cuts they’ve had to make. That said, they are working hard to maintain some form of service for the vulnerable whānau that they support.

I want to acknowledge people throughout Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and Aotearoa who continue to serve the communities in spite of, as I’ve said, the $1 billion of targeted funding—that’s just to Māori—that has been taken away from our communities. I also want to commend the innovation that I get to see as I traverse Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, from Wairarapa to Wainuiōmata, Kahungunu whānui, tae noa atu ki Te Tai Rāwhiti []extending to the East Coast.

Speaking of which, another thing we won’t see in these appropriations is any targeted response for the Tairāwhiti. We hear a lot of kōrero about farmers—excellent; we want farmers to do well. However, there is still a portion of very vulnerable farmers in Wharekahika who had a visit from Government Ministers and are still waiting for any response, and, sadly, they are not seeing it in these appropriations.

As I’ve said, all Aotearoa knows right now is that while the Government can budget—again, a third underwhelming Budget; probably the most underwhelming—they are still living with the broken promise that the National-led coalition made to ease the cost of living. Whānau out there are not feeling it.

I just want to mihi to you all out there, e hoa mā, e hika mā, kia kaha tonu koutou [friends and colleagues, remain strong]. You don’t have to endure this for much longer, e hoa mā. Haere, enrol, me pōti []vote. Use your ultimate mana motuhake to change this Government and have a Government that is inclined to listen to you.

10:01

Madam Speaker, it’s great to see you. I rise in support of two bills, and, for some of our New Zealanders who have turned on TV just now, let me be very clear: there are two bills. Particularly, we are on the second and the third reading of the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, and also the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill.

Now, these are very technical bills, but I think it’s very important to lay out the foundation, which is to underpin the fundamental principle of our democracy, and that is that the Government cannot spend a single cent in our Government Budget without the authority of this Parliament. This is particularly important because every single dollar that this Government spends is a dollar that is earned by New Zealanders through their hard work. It comes from the workers that are doing the early shifts in the morning, like tradies and farmers. It comes from nurses and doctors who are doing their night shifts, taking care of New Zealanders. It comes from the small businesses that take on risks to invest, to open up, and to serve our community. It comes from the tradies, the retirees, and it also comes from families who are managing a very tight family budget, as well as large companies who are employing tens, hundreds, and thousands of New Zealanders around the country, who ultimately pay their tax dollars into Inland Revenue. Therefore, it is for our Government to be responsible and to fix the basics on many fronts in New Zealand but also to build the future for our New Zealanders around the country.

Now, these bills are part of that responsibility that our Government—the National-led Government—is very serious about. We know that with this hard-earned taxpayer money paid by New Zealanders, they are expecting that this Government will be the mature parties in this House that will spend wisely and invest wisely and that will fix the basics in our core public services, including education, health, transport and infrastructure, and in restoring law and order, to provide better, more efficient, and more productive public services.

New Zealanders also expect a Government that is mature, disciplined, careful, and relentless in delivering the outcomes from their hard-earned taxpayers’ money. New Zealanders are also expecting that the National-led Government is a Government that will deliver for the future of New Zealand, for many sectors and many of the hard-working New Zealanders who I’ve mentioned already but, also, for our younger generation and the future generations, including our children and our grandchildren.

This is why it’s particularly important for me, I think, to talk not just about the Budget of 2025-26 but also the current Budget that we have in front of the House and in the public domain, which was released at the end of last month. We need to also remind New Zealanders who have tuned in about what we’ve done as a Government for the last three Budgets.

Remember, we are a Government that has inherited messy, messy Government books. Before coming into politics, I was working as a professional chartered accountant, and I’ve never seen a reckless Government performance like what we had and what we inherited, because in six years of the last Government, the debt for New Zealand had risen 20 times—20 times. I don’t believe that New Zealanders would be OK to think that their mortgages have risen 20 times in six years, and that comes with the consequence of paying, now, the interest bill. Just servicing the loan—not even paying down the loan but just servicing the loan—is more than the combined Budget that we give to five core public sectors, including justice, police, customs, and defence.

It was actually quite astonishing for me when I came in as a member of Parliament, and now, while serving New Zealand, to see how reckless the last Government was. But in the last three Budgets, what we have delivered as the National Government is that we have found savings across many Government departments, including up to about $50 billion in savings across our last three Budgets. That is savings that we have found, line by line, by our Ministers and in their ministries, by cutting down administrative costs or costs that are deemed to be unproductive or not servicing New Zealanders well, and by still reprioritising some of the Budget amounts to the front line. For example, we are providing more policing funding, providing more funding to nurses and doctors, and making sure that we are providing the healthcare that New Zealanders need. This is what I call a Government that is disciplined, that is mature, and that is servicing New Zealand.

Across the Budgets, we talked a lot about reprioritising and being disciplined in how we spend, but this Government, through the last three Budgets, has also put in a lot of emphasis on capital investment—particularly into building the future—because, ultimately, as a nation that has over $100 billion in debt, we are not going to grow out of that debt or return to a Government surplus by taxing everybody. That would drive down productivity and that would force capital to leave New Zealand. We are now having to find the extra money or reprioritise the extra money to pay and service our debt, but what is our plan to actually reduce the debt and return the Government books to surplus?

This is why we say building the future is particularly important for New Zealand and all New Zealanders. That’s why our Government has a plan and it is on track to deliver that plan—early, actually, in my opinion—to double the export value of all New Zealand exports in the next 10 years. We have already seen that there is a record in our primary and red meat products’ export value. We have now seen a record in the fibre and food export products, and this is how we are going to build a future for New Zealand, grow the Government books, return to surplus, and actually have money and have capital. This is a Government Budget where we can provide and prioritise servicing New Zealanders in education, in health, in justice, and in building the infrastructure that we need in New Zealand so that people can drive safer and better and be more connected between cities and rural towns, and that we actually have the infrastructure to accommodate the future growth of this country.

If you look around the world in all this global uncertainty, New Zealand is often the most-researched country, above any other international countries, because we are considered as safe. We are a very safe country. In fact, just a few weeks ago, New Zealand was ranked the second-safest country on earth, and that was a comeback for New Zealand, because that wasn’t the case six years ago. I remember opening my phone every day and reading that it will be ram raids here, someone losing a finger here, and cars ram-raiding into your shop. I visited, actually, a liquor store in the area that I live in, in Pakuranga, just a couple of streets away from my house, and they were ram-raided four times in six months—four times in six months. When I visited them, they were in tears, because they had no hope for the future. They just wanted some peace and certainty that they would be able to run a business, provide a living for the family, and actually not be hurt or killed in those ram raids.

It took us some years—it took the National Government some years—to restore that law and order. We reduced 46,000 victims—much earlier than even our original target, our original plan. That is, we reduced 46,000 victims and protected them from any harm, protected their family and their local communities. This is what we call fixing the basics, and one when we have a safe and certain environment where families feel happy and safe to go to work and come back to work, and for businesses to have the interest and, also, the courage and confidence in investing.

That’s why we now see so many New Zealand businesses taking on the core concept of Budget 2025-26, which is Investment Boost. It’s that tax incentive that this Government, the National Government, have provided to New Zealand businesses to get the 20 percent tax deduction from investing into machineries or tools and equipment that will unlock productivity, that will help the businesses to grow and to regain business confidence. This is why, even in the global uncertainties, even when our neighbouring countries are not doing so well politically or economically, we are seeing business confidence coming back. We are seeing that New Zealanders and people are interested to move to New Zealand, because they can see a brighter, better future with the National Government.

Madam Speaker.

Shanan Halbert was the first person to call.

10:12

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, today here we are discussing the Budget and appropriations. The reality is that the National Party and Christopher Luxon promised to fix the economy and provide cost of living relief. I ask every New Zealander in this country: have they done that—have they done that?

This Budget was the last chance for the National Party to demonstrate that they are actually listening to New Zealanders, that they could provide solutions that ease the pressure to the cost of living challenges and the increased costs that Kiwis are experiencing on a day-to-day basis. New Zealanders had a little bit of hope in this Budget that come election year, this Government would stand up, put some good solutions on the table to tell them how things would get better, how things would get easier, and that the outcomes of difficult day-to-day lives would be changed.

Instead, the National Party and this Government have decided to cut deeper, to build an economy that is about cuts—cutting it back to the bone. That’s not good economics, because when people are unemployed, they spend less money in our economy; they spend less money in local businesses; they tend to stay home, and, therefore, less money is spent out in our communities.

We heard from National Party MPs. One says that she’s a chartered accountant. The other one says that he’s an economist. Well, let’s talk to the numbers today, because under the National Party’s watch, in the half-year economic update, GDP growth of 2.8 percent is now 1.2 percent. Unemployment of 4.8 percent is now forecast to be 5.5 percent. Inflation was meant to be 2.2 percent; it’s now forecast to be 4 percent. This is an interesting one, because they went on and on about the expenditure of the last Government and that the last Government, under Labour, borrowed money. They easily forget that under their watch and Nicola Willis, they have borrowed more money. The question for the chartered accountant and the economist is: does that make sense—does that make sense to you? Is that the advice that you would ask?

Tom Rutherford was blowing smoke on his colleague Dan Bidois, MP for Northcote, and his speech and comments that he was making. We know in our Northcote community that people are doing it tough, that they have found things more expensive as a result of this Government’s choices. Dan Bidois talked up the police count in Whanganui, but he failed to say that there’s actually less police on the North Shore under his watch. He talked about the introduction of structured literacy in schools, but he failed to acknowledge that it was under Jan Tinetti’s watch that, in fact, those schools in our community started teaching structured literacy. He failed to mention that under his watch, the attendant service for young people in our community has been scrapped. He’s lost it. Under his watch, the women’s centre has closed and Poutama Rangatahi has lost money by the hundreds of thousands.

How is that for leadership of any community and how is that fiscally responsible? We come into this House to make the lives of our people and our communities better, but under this Government, under National, Christopher Luxon, it has got worse. It has absolutely got worse.

Now, hear me out on fees-free, because this is a numbers game again. The chartered accountant and the economist, here’s the numbers for you. Labour’s investment was $1.1 billion in reducing debt for young people and next generations, investing in the skills that young people need for our future workforce. The promise by New Zealand First was to reinvest that money into a more targeted approach. What did they do in this Budget? They committed to Trades Academies.

Very good.

It is good, but it’s a loss to tertiary education, and that’s a reinvestment of that money going into compulsory education—a net loss.

The other point there is that when we talk about the second initiative and youth guarantees—1,000 Youth Guarantee places—well, that’s good. But when we look at the numbers, we have 100,000 young people not engaged in education, training, or employment. Remove the additional 1,000 places, and the number left for this Government to answer is: how are you responding to the needs of 99,000 young people that still remain and you haven’t provided a solution for?

If we add the Trades Academy numbers and we add the Youth Guarantee numbers, that’s 11,000 people that are impacted positively by this Government. But you look at what fees-free achieved: that impacted the lives positively of 40,000 young people. Let’s do the maths. That’s 29,000 young people that lose opportunity under the National Party’s watch. The chartered accountant and the economist—please do the numbers for me. How does that improve the lives of young New Zealanders in this country, and how does it improve upskilling our future workforce?

I’m still waiting for an answer, because when tertiary education loses $1 billion of funding, where has that been redistributed to—where has that been redistributed to? The reality is, a net loss is a net loss—less young New Zealanders being impacted positively by your decisions and less money going into the real things that matter. That’s on top of the thousands of apprentices that this Government has lost. That is on top of the 30,000 less apprentices, should I say, and 10,000 less young people that have accessed the Apprenticeship Boost scheme. In fact, in this appropriation and this Budget, they don’t even spend the Apprenticeship Boost money, and they blame the downturn of the construction sector, which was their choice in the first place. The reality there is that, whether you’re the chartered accountant or whether you're the economist, do your maths. Do your maths, because the reality is that your numbers don't stack up, and I will challenge that every day.

My last point here was around the exchange with Minister Potaka in the Whānau Ora space. For a length of time, we talked about a new data-capturing system. We know data is important. I celebrate that and acknowledge that, but the reality is that this Minister didn’t use that data to inform the Budget when I asked him. There’s a net drop, a net loss in the amount of funding, a small amount sliced off the bottom—which is not much anyway—but the question I asked him is, “What data are you actually using to inform this Budget?” No response. My second question was, “But surely providers tell you what their wait-list numbers are for the number of whānau waiting to access Whānau Ora services?” Doesn’t know. That really speaks to the reality of this Government, how out of touch they are, how they say, “Look over here.”, when, actually, the reality is over here.

Because no matter where you live in New Zealand, no matter where you are in Aotearoa, you know that the political choices of Christopher Luxon and this Government have created worse outcomes no matter what community that you live in, unless you’re a landlord, unless you’re part of tobacco companies, because the reality is that that’s who this Government backs. They don’t back young people, they don’t back learners, and they certainly don’t back the average New Zealanders out there.

Carl Bates was first on his feet. I just need to inform the member that this is not a full call, because this debate will expire in around five minutes and four seconds.

10:22

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take the call in this important debate. I think Shanan Halbert’s accounting and approach to numbers would be described as more creative than Immigration New Zealand’s approach to managing an IT project.

He doesn’t understand that, actually, removing fees-free doesn’t change the spend that this Government is making in tertiary education. He doesn’t understand that, actually, the spend in tertiary education doesn’t change. It just changes the portion that already the number of students in New Zealand—the most supported students, from a government perspective, in the Western world—get from Government. It doesn’t change the amount of money that actually gets spent within the tertiary system. That’s because the Opposition basically doesn’t understand accounting. They don’t understand numbers. They don’t understand that their $100 billion of increased debt is being paid for every day in this country by New Zealanders today. It means we can’t spend money on social services, on education, on healthcare, on things that New Zealanders need today, because we’re paying for their economic mismanagement. One million dollars every hour of every day, every year, is being spent on the interest bill that that Government—that Opposition Government—created. Nine billion dollars in interest—$9 billion in interest. That is $1 for every $2 we spend on secondary school education. Just think about how much more this Government would be able to spend today if it wasn’t servicing their debt.

The Opposition and the Opposition finance spokesperson from the Green Party like to make announcements, but they don’t understand that, actually, you’ve got to follow that announcement up with money, and then you’ve got to use the money to deliver the outcome. Let’s take mental health. The last Government committed $1.9 billion to mental health, and what did they do with it? Nothing. They couldn’t even find where to spend it, let alone achieve outcomes. On this side of the House, we not only understand how to invest Government money effectively, we understand that you have to connect that to an outcome. Today, we released the mental health targets for the last quarter and they are fantastic. We have a Minister for Mental Health who is actually achieving outcomes by spending Government money, investing it, focusing on achieving that target, and this is what this Budget’s about. Across my region, Taranaki and Wanganui, I think there was only one target that was marginally below the target for those mental health outcomes. That was outstanding.

Talking about the wonderful Wanganui electorate and this Budget, the last Government said, “Hey, let’s build a new police station.” Did they fund it? No. Did they build it? No. Did they try and claim online that the fact that we’ve announced and we’re going to build it under this Budget is a result of the last Government? Yes. But if they committed to it and if they put the money behind it, where is it? I tell you what, it is not there. It didn’t get built because the Opposition know how to make announcements, but they don’t know how to follow through. Under this Budget, the Whanganui police station, along with the Greymouth one, will be built.

I’ll give you another example. Chris Hipkins, as Minister of Education, said, “Hey, let’s change the high schools in Hāwera. Let’s build a new high school.” Did he fund it? No. Did he deliver it? No. But under this Budget, as announced last week by Minister Stanford, Te Paepae o Aotea in Hāwera gets the funding it needs to have the condition upgrade of that school that has been desperately required by that community, and as the local MP for Wanganui, I am very proud that it is this Government that not only says we will do things but we actually do them, commit the money, and ensure that the outcome gets delivered. This is a Budget that is fixing the basics and building the future.

The time for this debate has expired.

Those bills are set down for third reading immediately.

10:28

on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) Bill be now read a third time.

10:29

on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Imprest Supply (First for 2026/27) Bill be now read a third time.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Bill.

10:31

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just to kick off proceedings this morning, I’ll take the committee back a few months to when we were at the second reading and we traversed the purpose of this legislation and the outcome of the Environment Committee.

During that time, we talked a little bit about how many members in this House have been engaging with stakeholders, the likes of which include the Game Animal Council, New Zealand Deerstalkers Association, and other various hunting groups and foundations. The consistent response from those groups has been twofold. One is that hunting is an important part of the recreational and social lifeblood of our country; that our valued introduced species have real meaning and a really special place in the hearts of many New Zealanders who hunt those animals for food to put on the table, and also for their recreational and social value. The second part of that is also that there are certain herds around the country that are worth managing for their hunting value and not just managing for the impact that they have on the wider environment. Of course, if you manage animals for their hunting value, you will inevitably end up with fewer, healthier herds. That is not only good for the environment but also good for our hunting community. Part of that is the idea of herds of special interest, which was introduced in the Game Animal Council Act in 2013.

Now, since that Act was introduced over a decade ago, no herds of special interest have been designated. The Government has indicated that it is going through the process of designating herds of special interest, but the hunting sector has raised consistently what could be an apparent contradiction in the existing National Parks Act with the herds of special interest process. That is the part of the National Parks Act, which is section 4(2)(b), which requires introduced species in national parks to be exterminated as far as possible. I think it actually can be consistent, but on its face, it contradicts the Game Animal Council Act, which allows a herd of special interest to be designated in a national park. Of course, when you do that, you would then be managing that herd for its recreational hunting value, managing its numbers down so that you have healthier, stronger, better value animals, rather than exterminating them completely. There is an argument out there in the community that if you didn’t make a change to the Game Animal Council Act to take out the requirement to fully exterminate those animals, any sort of management process undertaken in a national park could only be done if you were doing it with the determination to exterminate animals—unless the conservation authority says otherwise.

This bill is a very, very simple, short, straightforward bill that outlines that if a herd of special interest is designated in a national park, the requirement to exterminate as far as possible animals in that herd does not apply, and instead those animals will be managed in line with a herd management plan, which takes into account the ecological value, the social value, the recreational value, and input from stakeholders such as Forest and Bird, local iwi, local rūnaka, local hunting communities, and the hunting foundations, in order to better manage those herds. Ultimately, what we want with these herds and in those areas are animals that are healthier, that have better trophies, that produce more meat, but that are fewer in number and so put much less pressure on the environment. That is the purpose of this bill in totality.

Clause 4, in this part, is the operative part of the bill; it does all of the heavy lifting. It is the part that says that when designating a herd of special interest, section 4(2)(b) of the National Parks Act will not apply to that herd. It may well still apply to animals outside of that herd. There may well still be management processes in place for other animals and other introduced species that will be managed down and potentially eliminated—for example, goats. However, this part, clause 4, is the bit that does the heavy lifting. I think I’ve outlined in as much detail as possible what it does, because it is quite straightforward and simple. It will bring a lot of relief to the likes of the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation, who have been successfully managing animals in the Fiordland National Park for over 20 years now, to the point where the environmental outcomes in the areas they manage in the Wapiti block are actually better than in areas that are not managed by the foundation.

I think this is a good, sensible compromise in terms of the management of our game animal species in New Zealand. It celebrates the fact that hunter-led conservation makes a huge contribution to our conservation estate, and I look forward to its passage through the committee today.

10:36

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Minister for Hunting and Fishing for laying out quite clearly what this bill does and what the genesis of this legislation is. I will make just a couple of points in response to the Minister’s overview, and then I will get into some very specific questions.

While the Minister makes the point that this is a short bill—and I agree with that—it is quite an important change. It signals a significant shift in the way that national parks will be managed when it comes to protecting introduced browser populations, and I do want to tease that out, to ensure that there is some comfort that various implications have been thought through, because this was quite a rushed process to date, and there were a number of people who submitted on this at the select committee stage, as well.

I want to start, I guess, by pointing to a really good piece that the Department of Conservation (DOC) produced in March this year, which lays out what the Minister ended his contribution with: that this is about hunting and conservation. I also want to make it very clear that the Labour Party’s opposition to this bill is not opposition to hunting per se. I went on the parliamentary hunt, as many other colleagues have done over the years, to learn a little bit more from the Game Animal Council, and I know, from listening to hunters, that many tell us this is how many of them were first introduced to the bush. They laid out that this a way to spend time with family and friends, that often it is how New Zealanders learn to connect with the bush, and I accept all of those arguments. Many talk about the mental health benefits of being out in the bush and the fact that hunting takes them there as well. The Minister made the point that it is to hunters’ benefit when animal numbers are low, because they are then in better condition. To an extent, I accept that as well.

This piece goes on to lay out, though, that while hunters do value healthy ecosystems, and that many see their role as recreation and stewardship, there is undoubtedly an increase in the number of introduced browser species in New Zealand. Deer, pigs, tahr, and goats are all becoming more widespread and abundant. DOC’s own piece talks about the fact that they browse heavily on seedlings and understory plants, and this over time changes the forest structure. That is, essentially, why we’re here today debating this bill. Currently, more than 7 million hectares of public conservation land is already available for hunting. What this bill does is make a change to the National Parks Act to allow browser species, browser populations like deer, to be able to be protected within our national parks. That is the reason why this bill, while small, is incredibly problematic, and I’ll lay that out in a minute.

Many submitters said to us, and I agree, that this bill undermines the national park status. National park status is the highest protection that is accorded to areas across Aotearoa New Zealand that have specific biodiversity values, scientific values, scenic beauty—

Is there a question?

—ecological systems that shouldn’t be destroyed. The inherent tension in this bill is between hunters wanting to protect deer populations in a protected area and the bill that removes the protection.

I will just point to the specific parts of this. The change that it makes is, ultimately, to—so section 16(3) of the principal Act is where Ministers may designate herds of special interest. It lays out where and what considerations the Minister needs to take into account. The introduced areas specifically say, “If a herd of special interest is designated in a national park, section 4(2)(b) of the National Parks Act 1980 does not apply…”. That is the issue that everybody has.

It says, “To avoid doubt, section 4(2)(b) of the National Parks Act 1980 does not limit the Minister’s power to make a designation under subsection (1).”

Is there a question?

What it does, though, is to say that section 4(2)(b)—this is what 4(2)(b) says, Madam Chair—

Yes, I’m going to take another call from the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan, but before I do, to those speakers on my right who are asking for a question, it’s fully proper for an Opposition spokesperson to be able to outline what they’re thinking about the bill before they actually go into questions. I know that the member has indicated she’s going to do that soon, but she’s been outlining her reasoning.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Section 4(2)(b) talks about how national parks need to be preserved. Section 4(2)(b) says, “except where the Authority otherwise determines, the native plants and animals of the parks shall as far as possible be preserved and the introduced plants and animals shall as far as possible be exterminated:” That is the crux of this bill. This bill allows herds of special interest to be developed, cultivated, or protected in national parks. For removal of doubt, it says that they do not need to be exterminated, whereas all other predators, as the Minister has said, will continue to need to be exterminated from national parks.

The issue here and the question that I want to ask the Minister is: does the Minister accept that this is a fundamental shift in terms of the protections accorded to our national parks? I think it’s about four national parks, including Fiordland, that are within Te Wāhipounamu World Heritage Area. When UNESCO nominations were made back in 1989 by the Government of the day, part of the rationale for protecting that was to exterminate predators as far as possible. Now, this bill changes that and puts our international reputation in jeopardy.

Firstly, does the Minister accept that while this is a short bill, it is a fundamental shift in the way that we protect the highest of our public conservation lands, which are national parks? Secondly, it does say in that particular section 4(2)(b) that the New Zealand Conservation Authority has a role to play in this. This bill undermines their authority when it comes to them having a say in what should be protected and what should not be protected within the national park. The New Zealand Conservation Authority themselves have come out and said that this legislation undermines their statutory role. What considerations did the Minister give when making a decision to remove or undermine the Conservation Authority’s role in this?

I know that other colleagues may want to touch on this as well, but iwi and hapū have also submitted to say that there is no requirement in this legislation for their views to be taken into account. Much of this is within Ngāi Tahu’s takiwā, and they have opposed the ability to designate the herds of special interest and particularly also to undermine the status of national parks. When, currently, hunters can continue to hunt in 7 million hectares of public conservation land, why, Minister, do we need to reduce the protections for national parks?

10:45

Thank you, Madam Chair. There’s quite a bit in that, but first of all, I’ll push back against this idea that herds of special interest are designed to protect animals. It’d be an interesting definition of “protect” if a mechanism was put in place to reduce the number of animals in an area. I don’t know how that’s protecting a herd when you’re actually reducing and limiting the number of animals in the area. It’s a strange concept of protection, but I know that’s their talking point and that’s what they’ll push to try and justify their opposition to it all the way throughout.

This change doesn’t signal a shift in the way that national parks are managed; it clarifies the status quo. The status quo is that under section 16(1)(b)(ii) of the Game Animal Council Act, you can designate a herd of special interest in a national park. That is the status quo. Secondly, section 4(2)(b) currently provides the authority an exemption against the complete possible extermination of animals—any animal in a national park. The Conservation Authority already has an exemption itself to pull back from the so-called protections that are in place for the national park. All this does is clarify that possible tension between designating a herd of interest—which you can already do under the existing legislation which was passed back in 2013 and not amended by any Government since—and the requirement to exterminate as far as possible.

Now, if you took the wording in that part of the National Parks Act to its extreme, you would not be able to do basically anything in a national park that fell short of exterminating every introduced animal you saw. Everybody in this House knows that is an impractical and impossible obligation to put on any department. What it would do is that it would basically eliminate the resource required to manage species down in a managed, practical way, an adaptable way. Essentially, the country would give up because it would be such an impossible task. Then you would have much, much, much worse outcomes in national parks if you were to take the statute to its extreme.

All this does is it clarifies the existing regime. You can already designate a herd of special interest in a national park. It’s in there in the statute: section 16(1)(b)(ii) of the Game Animal Council Act. The Conservation Authority can already provide an exemption to the elimination or eradication or extermination—whichever word you want to use—as far as possible.

Now, in terms of the claim that it undermines the Conservation Authority, they may well say—and, of course, any organisation that sees its ability to make decisions or have influence shifted will obviously say that. But the problem is that if you then go and look at section 16(2) of the Game Animal Council Act, the Conservation Authority is expressly named as a group that has to be consulted on when a herd of special interest is developed, which is why they’ve made these comments in the first place.

Then the Game Animal Council Act is listed in Schedule 1 of the Conservation Act. The Conservation Act is subject to Treaty obligations under section 4, and so rūnaka and iwi are also consulted throughout the herd of special interest process, which they have been in this instance, and which is why the member knows about Ngāi Tahu’s opposition and the views of Tūwharetoa and iwi up in the central plateau.

I would note, for the record, that just because one part of Ngāi Tahu says that they believe something doesn’t mean that every part of Ngāi Tahu believes that. It doesn’t mean that every Ngāi Tahu member believes that. If you’re going to go out there and say that, “Well, we’re going to take the view of some members of Ngāi Tahu or some rūnaka as gospel, representing the views of every single tribal member.”, including those who actually value hunting and actually go out there and use it to gather meat off the land, then you’ve got to take that with a bit of a grain of salt. Looking around the room, I won’t speak for everyone in the room, but I can count at least one Ngāi Tahu member here who supports this legislation. If we’re talking about those views that the member raised, I think we can tick those off.

There were a couple of final ones in there. The last one was the one raised right at the start where the member said that this has been a rushed process. The bill was introduced in May last year. It had a full select committee process. It’s been awaiting its committee of the whole House stage since November of last year. There’s been over a year—12 to 14 months, I think—of consultation on the herd of special interest designation process. If anything, I think probably Mr Luxton would agree with me that there are members out there in the hunting sector who have said that this process has gone on too long and we need to get on with actually helping hunters lead the conservation effort in those parts of the country where they actually not only go out and take animals off the land but they set traps, they clear tracks, they restore huts for every New Zealander to use. I think that addresses those questions for now.

10:50

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I appreciate the opportunity to take this call, as a hunter and as a conservationist, but I also would like to make the point to the Minister for Hunting and Fishing’s point that hunters are conservationists—some are, but some aren’t. The reason we see fallow deer in the St Marys Range in Otago is because they’ve been introduced for hunting. The reason we see wallabies south of the Waitaki River is not just that they hop across the bridge; it’s because some people have introduced them. Hunters have introduced wallabies south of the Waitaki River. The myth, Minister, that we are going to see a fantastic conservation result from the herds of special interest (HOSI), I think, is something that we need to—

We’re already seeing it.

—challenge, because we are not already seeing it. We are seeing spot examples of good practice in a wider space where things are totally out of control. That’s what this bill is about. It is a small bill, but it is significant, and that’s why we oppose it.

Green Party policy and our position is that we must remove or eradicate, where possible, large, non-predator invasive species in areas where they threaten important ecological values. It’s pretty straightforward. This supports our national parks. It supports the work to retain what is so precious to our community. We have seen the response from Ngāi Tahu and from other iwi in relation to this legislation, so I just want to ask the Minister, in particular, about the stakeholders that have been engaged with. We’ve heard the Game Animal Council’s considered a stakeholder.

He speaks for Ngāi Tahu.

I’m interested whether iwi are simply considered a stakeholder—

I heard that, and I don’t.

—or whether they’re considered a Treaty partner. Then I’m particularly interested in what might happen when we move to a space where the Game Animal Council is designating the management of these herds of special interests in different areas. If the Game Animal Council can overlay existing rights, existing Treaty obligations, how is it that that’s going to happen? What Government responsibility is there to make sure that Treaty agreements and partnerships have been upheld, if the Game Animal Council is going to come in here and decide what exactly is going to happen in a particular area?

I’m thinking, in particular, there’s a very good submission from Ngāti Rongomai from Ngāti Tūwharetoa, who talk about the challenge that they see where they are a Treaty partner with specific legally binding rights and responsibilities over the management of land in their rohe. What this bill will do is take that away. That’ll take that away. It’ll give it to the Game Animal Council to manage the land and manage what happens to the herds of special interests that have been designated in that area—to manage that, over the rights of Ngāti Rongomai. How does the Government manage when it has overridden its Treaty partnership and Treaty agreements? How does the Minister see this will work? Does the Minister think that this is going to be a smooth ride all the way through when we are putting the Game Animal Council over the Treaty partnerships, giving them a right to designate HOSI and how HOSI is managed in that area?

That’s an opening question. Minister, we have quite a number of questions because we’ve got the myth, here, that we have hunters who will deliver conservation benefits. We heard through the Environment Committee from so many hunters who said that this is the wrong way to go. As a hunter myself, I’m very aware of how hunters are incapable of delivering better conservation benefits, because it doesn’t happen.

10:55

I mean, well, this ridiculous assertion about this myth that hunters do nothing for conservation—well, I’d talk to Scott Willis and just say, what would the state of the Fiordland National Park be if the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation hadn’t spent the last 20 years managing animals in that area? It’s an absolutely disgraceful contribution to say that hunters make no contribution and there’s a myth that hunters are doing nothing out there to help the conservation estate. They’re the ones that are going out there and laying the traps to help protect the blue duck; they’re other ones going out there maintaining and fixing the tracks. When was the last time anyone on this side of the House actually got out in the Fiordland National Park and actually went down and checked some traps and maintained some traps? There you go: one hand; silence from the rest of them. It’s absolutely disgraceful that you’d say that, and, in fact, it shows that you know nothing about the bill.

It’s not the Game Animal Council that designates the herd of special interest; it’s the Minister. It’s the Minister for Hunting and Fishing that designates a herd of special interest. It’s not the Game Animal Council that necessarily manages a herd of special interest; it’s the Minister who decides who manages the herds of special interest. I think the member needs to stop getting too far ahead of where he is and focus on the bill at hand.

I heard the snide remark from Shanan Halbert who sat there before and said, “Oh, the Minister purports to speak on behalf of Ngāi Tahu.” Well, no, I’m not so arrogant—like you are—to think that one individual speaks on behalf—

I’d never do that to my iwi. Go back and check your Hansard.

—of an entire set of people. I would never be so arrogant to presuppose that my individual view on this actually speaks for an entire group or an entire people. To sit there and to snipe away and to sit and assume—like the way, like that is your ideology, where you say that we all think the same; all Māori think the same—we’re one homogenous group and we’ve all just got one attitude towards this, and if only we all fell in line, we’d be good little boys and girls—

The reality is you’ve ignored the Treaty once again.

—well, that’s a horrible attitude, Mr Halbert, to have, and when he goes back up North later on today, he can go and talk to his people about the arrogance that he’s shown here today.

Now, back to the bill at hand—back to the bill at hand. The bill does one thing: it says that when you designate a herd of special interest, section 4(2)(b) of the National Parks Act, which requires the extermination, as far as possible, of all introduced animals, including those in herds of special interest, must be undertaken—all this does is it says that when a herd of special interest is designated in an area, the animals in that area will not be subject to the extermination requirement; they’ll be subject to the management requirement of a herd management plan, which is developed in consultation with a number of individuals and groups, and which for the record of the House I will read out right now. It includes the Minister of primary industries, the Department of Conservation, any relevant regional council or local councils, the New Zealand Conservation Authority, relevant conservation boards, and relevant organisations that the Minister considers appropriate.

I think the members in the Chamber also need to be careful about the terms they throw around, because when you’re talking about the iwi that are involved in here for the Fiordland area, you’re talking about the rūnaka. With the way that the tribal structure works in Ngāi Tahu, it’s not Ngāi Tahu that makes these decisions. It’s not a top-down approach from Ngāi Tahu; it’s the rūnaka that have the say, it’s their area, it’s their takiwā, and they’re the ones that have the say. Te Rūnanga o Awarua, Waihōpai Rūnaka, Te Rūnaka Ōraka-Aparaima, and Hokonui Rūnanga—they are the ones that make the decisions on behalf of their groups and their people.

I had a meeting with them in Invercargill, and I reflected, then, this very fact too: that although they hold their view as a group and they hold their view as a people, they do not represent the view of every single hunter and every single member of their tribe and every single member of their hapū. What I do is I go there and I represent the views of every New Zealander and I try and make changes that will improve the conservation estate—changes like this that allow hunters to take a lead in the conservation area and bring the results that the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation have brought over the past 20 years, that the Central North Island Sika Foundation are undertaking, that the Rakiura Whitetail Trust down in the Deep South are undertaking. They are the ones that are out there on the land doing the management, doing the trapping, doing the hut restoration, doing the track maintenance—not the people in this Chamber; the people who get up at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning to go out and shoot some venison and then spend the rest of the day clearing the traps. The ones that get out and take their kids out when they’re 8 or 9 to show them what the bush is like and to actually get them out in the outdoors, not sitting at home in town on an iPad, getting them out in the outdoors, going fishing, going hunting. They’re other ones that are actually out there doing the work, and all we’re doing is providing a little bit of support, a little bit of encouragement. They’re not the villains, and they’re not the myth, here, that Scott Willis talks about.

That’s what we’re doing here on the side of the Chamber, and we’re proud to do that, and we’ll continue to be proud to do that for the rest of the morning, as long as it takes to get this bill through.

I’m going to take the next call from Cameron Luxton, but before I do, I just want to make a comment that this process is about asking questions to the Minister for Hunting and Fishing, not making comments from the sidelines about the Minister. The Minister was provoked and had a full opportunity to respond to those comments, so I’d like the members to focus on the legislation, please.

Point of order. Thank you, Madam Chair. I attempted to take the call to have the right of reply to the Minister for Hunting and Fishing in his commentary regarding myself. He made the suggestion, assertion, that I was arrogant in the commentary that I made—

Well, look, I’m not taking that as a point of order, because the Minister was provoked by a comment that you made as a member from the side seat. I think we’ll just sit down and we’ll tidy up from here on in, and I’m taking a call from—

Thank you, but was actually in response to his comment in the first place.

Yeah, but you actually attacked directly towards the Minister, so I’d ask the member to sit down at this point.

11:00

Madam Chair, thank you very much. To the Minister for Hunting and Fishing, you’ve talked about a fulsome process, and I must say, as a member of the Environment Committee, it was a fulsome process, when you have one operative page changing one part of the bill. It is an important part of the bill, as members of the Opposition have said, but to say that this has been a truncated process where views were not heard just shows the attack lines that were dreamt up from the very first day that this was introduced. I have to say to members of the Green Party who are asking questions that are completely off the mark, we just went through a whole select committee process where we heard these, we debated about it. I can’t believe the myth-making that is happening right now.

Minister, you’re right. It is a small bill addressing one part of the statute, section 4(2)(b) in the National Parks Act, the 4(2)(b) provision, which means that it’s been incredibly difficult to get herds of special interest over the line. During the select committee process, we understood about why this was needed, why Parliament’s come in. We don’t need to go through the history of what’s been going in the courts previously to try to get us to this position.

I did actually put an alternate view on behalf of the ACT Party into the report back on this bill, in which I raised some concerns that I have about the term “overriding considerations” and its use in section 16 and section 19 of the Game Animal Council Act. The concern that I have here, Minister, is we went through this full process to try and make it possible to be able to designate herds of special interest and have the management that hunters have proven that they care about and that they’re able to provide at an extreme financial benefit to the Crown. To be able to do that, they’ll need to be able to actually establish these and maintain them at a level where the overriding considerations don’t mean that the hurdles that have to be jumped through are so high it makes a herd of special interest too difficult to either establish or maintain.

Minister, I’m asking this question of you because I hope to hear you speak about what you see, for the record, “overriding considerations” mean so that when herds of special interest are designated, if there was to be some kind of court process, it would be on record to make sure that it has been read into the Hansard of this House, that people can look back on and say, “This is what Parliament intended. Parliament intends to create herds of special interest.” so that hunters leading management can get on with the job they have proven they can do and not to be held up in vexatious or judicial processes to try and kibosh that noble aim. I hope you can speak to that, Minister.

11:03

I think the core point that Mr Luxton makes is a good one. There were, throughout the select committee process, I think, very valid concerns raised about to what extent would the requirement to be consistent with overriding considerations essentially render any herd of special interest null and void because of the high bar that would set. I’m confident, and the advice I’ve received consistently from officials has been that going through the process separate to this of designating a herd of special interest outside of this particular bill, there are multitudes of national parks plans and area plans and things you have to get through, but draft herd management plans that have been developed so far—every step of the way, the advice that I’ve had is that they have been consistent with the overriding considerations of the Conservation Act and various plans.

Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t people out there who take a different view. I think towards the end of last year, when the bill came out of the Environment Committee, we looked very closely at the potential for making further changes to help address some of the select committee’s concerns. I think we all probably know that the narrowness of this bill has meant that being able to make slightly larger changes to areas around overriding considerations—whether or not you’re consistent with or have regard to—was outside the scope of this bill. But it’s certainly something I think that is worth looking at, because ultimately you want to have a process where the end goal is better conservation and better hunting outcomes. You don’t want to have a process which has been built into statute—and has been built into statute for over a decade now—rendered void by a strong or an extreme interpretation of what overriding considerations might be.

We can’t make those changes today, and it wouldn’t be appropriate to make those changes in this bill, but it’s certainly something worth looking at. If the legislative timetable allowed, we could do some more work on that, but perhaps it’s something that like-minded people could go out there in the next couple of months and advocate strongly for—that clarity in the law around that.

I’ll close on the final point in that I understand you’d like this for the record so that future litigants might be able to reflect back on it. My warning to future litigants would be—I’ve always held this view—don’t take what parliamentarians say in the House as gospel. Read what it says on the paper as to what the intent of the words may be.

11:06

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to take my first call on this and really just to set the scene on what we’ve been told is going on here versus what Labour sees is going on here, which is we’re being told that clause 4 is a technical clarification. I think the Hon Dr Duncan Webb summed it up in the first reading speeches when he said what this is really about is trophy hunting. I’m glad that the Minister for Hunting and Fishing has just, in his recent contribution, clarified that it is not the Game Animal Council that makes these determinations but the Minister for Hunting and Fishing, noting—not casting any aspersions, but just noting—many members of this House have gone on those parliamentary hunts, and noting that the Minister himself was promoting the Game Animal Council hunt on 31 October 2025 on his Facebook page and also 20 August 2025 in the Otago Daily Times, particularly hunting herds which now Forest and Bird are saying are potentially subject to this change in legislation, so that’s an interesting connection.

Where I would like to interrogate the Minister is really about the process, saying it’s clarification versus a fundamental change in the law, because the Government’s own process shows that the change was introduced without the evidence base, consultation, or testing that Parliament should expect, and that is to do with some of the documentation that is missing. For example, there’s been no inquiry, no review, no evaluation, no regulatory impact statement, no further impact analysis, no cost-benefit analysis, very little external consultation—it’s really only been through the select committee consultation—and no testing of the proposal.

For us, as has been said by my colleague the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan, the problem is not hunting. I agree with the Minister’s sentiment that it would be great to find a balance, but the question is: where does that balance lie if this is to be enacted, and also what doors does that open for future Ministers to be able to change thresholds or allow other species which could do further damage? What we’re really seeing is clause 4 asking Parliament to legislate first and then make assessments later, due to that lack of scrutiny.

My question to the Minister is: why is he justifying clause 4 when his own disclosure statement says that there was no publicly available inquiry, no review or evaluation that informed the policy, no regulatory impact statement, and no further analysis. That’s said in Part Two of the disclosure statement, at section 1 on page 4. Given that happened, what inquiry, review, or evaluation does he have to support this change? Given that there was no regulatory impact statement, how can he conclude that clause 4 is a clarification rather than a fundamental change in the law which, we have heard from submitters, they are saying is what’s happening, and which appears to be what’s happening on the face of the words? How can he make that conclusion without a regulatory impact statement to evidence his contention?

We also see in the disclosure statement, in Part Two, section 4, page 4, that there hasn’t been an environmental impact analysis. Where is his environmental impact analysis, or what documentation is he relying on, and has that come only from the Game Animal Council or can he point to other sources of evidence; if so, could he please table those in the House? There’s no cost-benefit analysis. How do we know that the benefits of clause 4 to hunting either strike a balance, as he has contended, or outweigh the risks to the conservation estate? These are statements that he’s making quite boldly in this committee without the evidence to back that up, and so if he could please present that to the committee, that would be really useful. The other thing is: why have herds of special interest outside national parks not been tested, as the New Zealand Conservation Authority has suggested?

I’m going to leave my initial questions there. I do have some Amendment Papers which are around providing some safeguarding and scrutiny within the legislation itself, which is abundantly missing, but it would be really good to understand the evidence base for the Minister’s contention that this is a minor alteration rather than a fundamental change to the law, as we have heard from submitters.

11:11

Well, I can come to those conclusions for a couple of reasons. The first is that the Ministry for Regulation determined no regulatory impact statement was needed because there are no or limited economic consequences, and the second is that I can read legislation.

If the members actually take the time to either rewind the clock about 15 minutes to what I’d said at the start of my contribution and actually read the legislation—I can point them to it again, as I said at the outset. If they go to section 16(1) of the principle Act: “The Minister may, by notice, designate any species of game animal in a specified area on public conservation land to be a herd of special interest if … (b) The Minister has regard to— … (ii) the status of the land, particularly the designation of the land as a conservation area, national park, or reserve;”.

So it’s quite clear in the Game Animal Council Act that, first of all, you can designate a herd of special interest in a national park, and so that is the existing law and that’s status quo. If the members want to argue against that, if they are privy to some special argument which would enlighten me as to the fact that, you know, the statute doesn’t allow a herd of special interest to be designated on a national park, then do tell me because that’s not what the statute says.

Then, secondly, section 4(2)(b) of the National Parks Act says that in so far as possible, any introduced animal, which would be an animal, which would be a herd of special interest, must be exterminated as far as possible. Now, the argument is that there’s a clear contradiction there, because to designate a herd of special interest, you must have a herd management plan. A herd management plan could not be “exterminate all animals in that herd”, because that would not be the point of a herd management plan for a herd of special interest. Therefore, to clear up that possible contradiction, you could have an interpretation of that which would say, well, obviously, the requirement in section 4(2)(b) to exterminate introduced animals as far as possible would be interpreted in light of a herd management plan to not mean eliminate or exterminate every single animal, because otherwise you’d have in one statute saying one thing and one statute saying another thing. So that is the existing law.

To clarify beyond all doubt—and to actually take care of some ongoing litigation which is happening in the deep South—we have decided to make it very, very clear to everyone in the country that when you designate a herd of special interest, you can do so in a national park, and the requirement to exterminate, as required in section 4(2)(b), will no longer apply to an animal in a herd of special interest because it would contradict the purpose and the nature of a herd management plan. I think that is the clear reason for having this change in here. It is a simple clarification of the existing law.

It’s a shame that we have to have this clarification because, you know, it is subject to challenge in some parts of the country. So, for all avoidance of the doubt, if a herd of special interest is designated in the future, it is clear in the statute that it can be designated in a national park, and the requirement to exterminate, as far as possible, will not apply.

11:14

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ve got a number of questions for the Minister for Hunting and Fishing. I rise to speak as the associate conservation portfolio person in the Green Party, but I also rise to speak as a mother of hunters. It’s not quite as good as “Mother of Dragons”, but “Mother of Hunters” will do me.

I think we need to reflect on the history of conservation in this country before we come to the detail of what the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Bill actually does. There’s a proud history. There are National Ministers like Denis Marshall, who really set up the conservation estate, and, more recently, the Rt Hon John Key led off with the predator-free strategy. But despite the protestations of Ministers—most recently, I believe, Minister Bishop, at the Environmental Defence Society, said, “Environmental protection is at the core of the National Party.” Well, I can tell you that the audience erupted in laughter at that point. This very short bill cannot be seen in isolation from the other parts of the war on nature.

I would like to now move to some questions, before the Chair frowns at me, and—

Well read, Ms Wade-Brown.

First of all, I’ve got some examples of what’s going on outside our national parks, and I just wondered if the Minister might reflect on some of this in his response. For example, we’ve got Wild Deer Free Northland. [Scott Willis helps hold up a flyer] Thank you, my beautiful assistant. Wild Deer Free Northland actually promotes this, even to real estate agents, that the values of Northland are better protected without wild deer.

Very few deer in Northland—that’s why.

And isn’t that great? Next, once upon a time, there weren’t any wild deer anywhere, and I would like to show the Minister and other members and anyone watching a couple of examples. [Holds two large photos] This comparison: this is Te Wharawhara/Ulva Island taken in January 2026. Beautiful dense undergrowth; wonderful place. Same latitude, same month, same weather, same ecosystem—Rakiura/Stewart Island. Too many deer. Now, you can’t blame the pigs here because there aren’t any wild pigs on Rakiura, but I think the contrast between those pictures shows exactly what happens when we have too many deer.

I would also like to ask the Minister to reflect on the outcomes of the Ruahine deer pilots. They compared recreational hunting in the Ruahine Ranges with the Department of Conservation’s helicopter culling. They found that the recreational hunters did not reduce the herd sufficiently. It kept growing, and the only way to get the numbers down—not necessarily to zero, but to get the numbers down—was helicopter culling. I will seek leave shortly to be able to table these photographs.

I also would like to ask the Minister if picking the national parks, rather than the forest parks, or, of course, if hunting’s available on private land—we welcome not only my two sons but other people from the Wairarapa to come and hunt on our place, and I am delighted when they get rid of deer and pigs. But does promoting the national parks as the best place to have herds of special interest mean that we are trying to attract just the richest overseas tourist trophy hunters and that, potentially, we are going to exclude the average Kiwi hunter? Some of them work on the conservation estate as well and some do not.

I have more questions. [Bell rung] Point of order, Mr Chairperson. May I—

Leave is sought—are you seeking leave to table those?

I’m seeking leave.

Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There’s no objection.

Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Thank you.

I will just say that you have indicated more questions. You’ve done some very good contextual work, and I’d expect much more nuanced contributions in the future.

11:19

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m not sure there were too many questions about the actual clause, but to address the contextual stuff—I mean, the member makes pretty good points. If you want to talk about the Ruahine programme, it seems like a great justification to have better, more structured management of deer control, such as identifying a herd in an area which we might want to take an adaptive management approach to. We could almost call that a herd that has particular value to the people in that area, almost special value, and we could come together with a local operator—the Department of Conservation, the Game Animal Council, iwi—and put a management approach in place to manage those animals.

Well, you just described a herd of special interest. That’s what the idea around the herd of special interest proposal is—in the central North Island, the Sika Foundation, in and around the Kawekas and the Kaimanawa Forest Park areas. The reason for the focus in this bill on the national parks is that there are national parks in our country where there are active balloted blocks and active areas where hunters go and hunt. Take the Wapiti block area in Fiordland National Park; you’ve got tahr all through Tai Poutini National Park; up my way in the back of South Canterbury and mid-Canterbury, you’ve got tahr through there; you’ve got white-tails and reds down in Stewart Island / Rakiura. I mean, I’ve been on Ulva and I’ve been on Stewart Island, as well, and so, I think, again, this is another example of why you might want a strategic adaptive management approach to managing the numbers down on those islands.

I’ll tell you what, if you go to Stewart Island and you go to the locals and you tell them, “Sorry, but as of next week, we’re going to be nailing every single part of this island with whatever control measure we have to remove all the deer.”, you’re not going to be welcomed back on Stewart Island. You’re not going to be welcomed back with much fanfare. Try telling the people that live in those areas and that rely on those resources that you’re going to go and eliminate every single animal in that area. It’s not practical. It doesn’t actually engage with what the community wants down there.

Now, the member raised a whole bunch of other issues, too. I’ll just touch on a couple of them. Should we do more about encouraging hunters to get access to private land in order to help them with their animal problems? Absolutely. New Zealand Deerstalkers Association (NZDA) have a landowner access programme where they can partner experienced hunting groups with landowners to go do management on their property. The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) are working with Department of Conversation (DOC), Game Annual Council, NZDA, and landowners in the Hurunui, Wairarapa, and the Rangitīkei on feral deer control programmes at the moment. The Fiordland Wapiti Foundation, of course, as part of their management programme, remove animals by what’s called wild animal recovery operations—WARO—which are helicopter operations; they fly in, take out animals, fly them out, and do venison meat recovery.

All of these things that, I think, members are thinking are novel approaches to game animal management are in place. The purpose of a herd of special interest is to recognise that a piece-by-piece approach that we’ve taken for the last 10, 20, 30, 40 years doesn’t work. When you look at what does work—when you look at what the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation have done down in Fiordland, and you look at the data that was presented to the Environment Committee, which showed that the browse levels in areas controlled by the Wapiti Foundation is far, far lower than areas outside of that, that shows that when you take a managed-control approach to this, it leads to good hunter and good conservation outcomes.

Now, I’ll touch on the final point, because I can’t let this go on the record. Hunting in these areas is not about, “It’s all for the wealthy.” In fact, it’s very difficult, if you had unlimited amounts of money, to do any kind of hunting in that area, because you can’t land helicopters. You’ve got to get concessions for this kind of stuff. If you enter the Wapiti ballot, it’s $100 to enter the ballot and $200 if you’re successful. I’ve been to the ballot down in Fiordland in Te Anau, and I’ve seen the immense excitement on the faces of people who win a ballot spot because they’re so precious to come by, and they get 10 days to hunt in the wilderness by themselves. If they’re lucky—if they’re very, very lucky—they’ll come across a trophy at some point. If they’re not so lucky, they’ll come across a hind or a doe and they’ll take some venison off the land to take home. But you’re not talking about people paying millions and millions of dollars—although that’s a great idea, and I think if we extracted more economic value out of our hunting sector, we could pour more back into the trapping programmes and the track management programmes and the hut restoration programmes.

I’ll just leave it on this: I mean, we talked about these animals being introduced, we talked about deer-free Northland—I think everyone in Northland, and everyone in the game animal sector, agree that deer-free Northland is a good thing. You actually need different management approaches to different parts of the country, because in Northland, they don’t want deer; that’s fine. They’ve got other animals to hunt down there. But in my part of the world, in mid-Canterbury and South Canterbury, we want red deer, we want fallow; in Central Otago, they want white-tails; in Fiordland, they want wapiti. They want these animals, they want these resources, because it is a part of their culture and it is a part of what it is growing up in New Zealand.

I’m sorry to break this to people, but most of us in in this room—looking around, I’d hazard to say half of us and our families and our ancestors in this room—came to New Zealand after the first herds came to New Zealand. Basically, Governments introduced deer herds into New Zealand as far back as 1851. I mean, good on you if you’ve got ancestors, like I do, who came to New Zealand before 1851, but some of us have not been here as long as some of those deer have, right, and so, it’s all well and good to say, “Well, we draw a line in the sand. They weren’t here in 1850, so, therefore, everything after 1850 should go.” Well, that’s not a very palatable policy pitch, I think, to any New Zealander who likes to hunt, who likes to fish, and who actually thinks we can do this in a pretty well-intended and managed way.

I think we’ve got to draw back from the rhetoric on this a little bit and actually look at what the change does. The change just clarifies and confirms in the law that a herd of special interest can be designated in a national park. That’s all this bill does. It doesn’t guarantee a herd of special interest is designated; it doesn’t guarantee that the management plans will be perfect or will work; it doesn’t guarantee that hunting outcomes will be beneficial for everyone across the country. I happen to think they will, but that’s not what the statute does. The bill makes it clear in the law that designating a herd of special interest in a national park can be done. That’s all it does. That’s it.

I will note that, by ranging even wider than Ms Wade-Brown did, the Minister for Hunting and Fishing has opened up several new topics.

11:26

Thank you, Mr Chair. You’re absolutely right: the Minister for Hunting and Fishing has opened up a fair few points that we would like to debate today, but I want to, firstly, seek some clarity around the role of the New Zealand Conservation Authority (NZCA), and then I will move on to new areas.

In his previous contribution, the Minister laid out very clearly—and I thank him for that—the inherent contradictions between the Game Animal Council Act and the National Parks Act. The Minister pointed out, also, quite rightly, that the Minister, through legislation, has the right to designate a herd of special interest. We’re not actually here to debate whether that’s right or that’s wrong. That is already there in legislation. Whether that’s right or wrong is a debate for another day and we will defer, in terms of our views there.

To my previous question around the role of the Conservation Authority, the Minister made the point that the Game Animal Council Act requires herd management plans, and through those plans, the NZCA is consulted. The point that I’m trying to make, and the clarification that I’d like from the Minister, is this: this legislation expressly allows for section 16 to override section 4(2)(b) of the National Parks Act. That’s why we’re all here today. Now, section 4 of the National Parks Act lays out across its various subclauses how national parks will be maintained for the purpose of preserving their perpetuity as national parks, and goes on to all the distinctive features of national parks and so on and so forth.

Section 4(2)(b) basically says that the parks need to be maintained such that indigenous plant life and animals are protected, “except where the Authority otherwise determines.” The Minister has responded to the second part of that clause, which is the part about animals and plants being exterminated as far as possible, and has clarified that that cannot be possible because of the objectives of the Game Animal Council Act. I accept that. That’s not the bit that I am relitigating, Minister. It is the first part of that subclause that I’m asking the Minister a question about. The New Zealand Conservation Authority (NZCA) themselves have said that, previously, they had a decision-making role there; that the protection supported by the National Parks Act had to be followed unless the Conservation Authority determined otherwise. That is what’s being overridden through this legislation that we’re debating in the House today, and I would like the Minister to confirm whether that is his view. Is what he was saying previously, that that is replaced by the consultation that is required through the Game Animal Council Act through herd management plans—is that what the Minister is saying? Can he confirm that, previously, there was a decision-making role for the NZCA that is now being replaced with consultation through herd management plans? That’s my first question.

The second bit that I would like a response to—and if there is no response after this, I will leave it and move on—but Te Wāhipounamu is a Unesco World Heritage area. Does this change in the bill, which now reduces protections for national parks, affect that particular designation of Te Wāhipounamu, which is also home to the Fiordland National Park? My third question is, the Minister has made the point quite clearly—and I also want to put on the record, the Minister has implied that members on this side of the House consider hunters the villain. We do not. We have been at pains to say, through various contributions, that we do not consider hunters to be villains. That is not what we are arguing. What we’re arguing is what DOC themselves have argued previously: that we need a toolkit of responses, of which hunting is just one part.

Relying on hunters to provide conservation value is flawed, because the primary motivation of the Game Animal Council Act and hunting in this context is to maintain a herd for hunting purposes. The primary motivation is not to increase conservation value. That may be a byproduct of what hunters do, and I don’t disagree that it often is. However, what herd number is low enough, Minister? That is the question that I would like to ask the Minister. Given that he wants to protect introduced species to a certain population level within national parks and is reducing protections supported through the National Parks Act, what number is low enough such that the conservation value of national parks will also be protected and not just the interests of hunters?

11:31

Section 4(2)(b) will not apply to a herd of special interest. The requirement to exterminate as far as possible is something that the authority can give an exemption to. In theory, if a herd of special interest was designated and there was an argument that the herd management plan would then require extermination as far as possible, the authority could then provide an exemption to that. What this does is say that the exemption to that requirement to exterminate will be provided by the designation of the herd of special interest rather than the Conservation Authority. Of course, the Conservation Authority still maintains the ability to provide exemptions for every other animal that may exist in an area.

The second question was around reducing protection to national parks. It does not reduce protection to national parks. This clause simply clarifies that a herd of special interest can be designated in a national park, as has been the law since 2013. The third question was around what herd numbers would be. The determination of something like herd numbers or browser levels are outlined in the herd management plans, a draft of which is available and has been consulted on since about October or November last year.

11:32

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m really appreciating the fulsome answers from the Minister for Hunting and Fishing, who has indeed opened up a number of questions. Sitting here listening, my impression is that the Minister certainly does know a lot about hunting.

My questions have been around the process, the official parliamentary and executive process, and evidence base for the decision making, and I haven’t heard many answers to that. In fact, what I’ve heard is that having a more piecemeal approach that has more flex might be better, but I haven’t heard what the safeguarding is around that, so my questions will interrogate that.

I also want to ask the Minister if he stands by what he said in the first reading: “this bill further supports our Government’s view that the hunter-led and community-led conservation effort is the key to improving and protecting our nation’s biodiversity.” That seems to contradict what he’s saying today, which is that hunting plays a part in it, and I’m wanting to understand from the Minister what his final position is on the role of hunting in the conservation space.

I’d also like to just draw your attention, Mr Chair, to the fact that we have more questions on clause 6, which we haven’t embarked on, and my five tabled amendments, but my short, specific questions, to tidy up this last part—which are different from the previous speaker’s, around the New Zealand Conservation Authority—are really about the submission they made, where they say it contradicts “long-standing legislation and statutory provisions designed to protect New Zealand’s most treasured conservation lands and waters, namely National Parks.” They also say they’re “concerned that this proposed amendment erodes its responsibilities without specific consultation with the Authority.”, and, critically, they say, “The Authority was never given the opportunity to make that decision.” That’s on pages 3 and 4, paragraphs 8 to 16, of their submission. My questions are: why are we legislating instead of asking the New Zealand Conservation Authority to exercise its existing statutory power? Indeed, the submission from the former member of this House, the Hon Eugenie Sage, says there are existing provisions that could have been used. Why are we legislating?

That opens up, also, the question that the Minister himself brought into this debate, which is that he referred to some litigation happening in the South Island and said this is around clarification. I’d like to understand from the Minister: is this bill in response to litigation? Is he comfortable with this House becoming involved in law-changing while litigation is under way? That does seem to be a philosophical difference between our side of the House and his. We have seen bills entered into the House with the deliberate intention of overriding the courts, and the Minister, as a lawyer, will appreciate the jurisprudential issues around that. Yes, there is parliamentary sovereignty, but I’m really wanting to understand the role that that litigation has played. If he can, please, advise who the parties in that litigation are and when that case was taken. Is that case still currently before the courts? I think that’s a really problematic situation that needs further discussion and debate, if that is indeed the purpose of this bill.

I’d also like to ask the Minister: if the existing pathway was available through the New Zealand Conservation Authority, why hasn’t he used it? How does he respond to concern from multiple submitters that clause 4 removes independent oversight? I will hopefully get a call on my tabled amendment to correct that if he is insistent on putting this bill through the House.

Finally, how does he respond to the fact that although he’s saying this is a clarification, many submitters are saying that clause 4 is fundamentally inconsistent with the National Parks Act? We’re hearing from the Minister that there are good, practical, and common-sense reasons why there should be a patchwork of responses across the country. We have not heard from the Minister the legal and official and evidence-based procedural response to how he justifies this overriding of that Act by this bill. We need that to be satisfied this is not a Government that thinks it knows best, because it knows a lot about hunting, and that there is an evidence base for the bill that’s currently before the committee. We will have questions on clause 6, as indicated, Mr Chair.

11:37

Yes, I stand by my comments in the first reading. Hunting plays a part in the conservation estate—a very key part—because the hunters who go out there and take animals off the land also maintain tracks, traps, and huts that recreational users who enjoy our great outdoors use very often.

The member Ingrid Leary says that it contradicts legislation in the National Parks Act. Well, if that were the case, the ability for the Conservation Authority to provide an exemption to the extermination of all animals would itself be a contradiction. I assume the member is going to put up a member’s bill to fix that one as well. She said it removes independent oversight. It doesn’t remove independent oversight. All this bill does is clarify the existing law, which is that a herd of special interest can be designated in a national park.

In my reference to ongoing litigation—a publicly known challenge that Forest and Bird has brought to the management of wapiti down in Fiordland, around the community agreement—it’s nothing to do with herds of special interest, but that challenge over the years has raised a number of issues as to whether or not a herd of special interest could be designated in a national park, given the arguments being made by some of those litigants. The hunting sector has raised those concerns often and frequently. They are fearful that well-financed, highly powerful, determined, motivated, politically well-supported litigants would challenge the good conservation work that they’ve been doing in and around Fiordland for two decades and that all of the hard work they have done to improve the conservation value of the outdoors they so dearly cherish would be undermined by court battles. It has informed what we would think about how a herd of special interest might apply in areas like Fiordland and areas like Stewart Island and areas like parts around my patch, but it is not to interfere with or to make any difference to whatever stage that litigation might be at down in Fiordland.

Ingrid Leary, you’ve indicated you’ve now got some specific questions. We’re at the stage now when we’ve had some pretty broad issues covered here, so we’re ready for some reasonably nuanced questions.

11:39

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d just like to ask the Minister for Hunting and Fishing if he would consider, since he seems determined to progress with this bill, some safeguarding that would provide some more assurance around the conservation aspects that he is claiming it has.

I have proposed an amendment which would insert a subsection (4) after new section 16(2), that the Minister must not designate a herd of special interest unless satisfied that the proposed herd management plan contains measurable ecological objectives for the protection, preservation, and restoration of indigenous biodiversity within the relevant national park, and also, that the measurable ecological objectives must have indicators for monitoring progress towards them, and that there should be specified management actions to be taken if those objectives are not being achieved.

This is really to respond to the fact that the Government’s own disclosure statement shows that there wasn’t the consultation. I’m not going to go back through that. I’m happy to take a seat and ask the Minister about my next amendment, unless he would like me to proceed.

11:40

Thank you. No, we won’t support that, because in section 16(1)(b) of the Game Animal Council Act, the Minister is already required to have regard to purposes of both the Wild Animal Control Act 1977 and, in subparagraph (iii), the overriding considerations. Then, down in section 16(3), the notice designating herds of special interest must also outline “the expected benefits to be gained by managing the animals for hunting purposes”. In section 16(1)(c), a herd management plan must also be made under section 19. It’s hard to get too specific about these things, but I’d be surprised if a herd management plan didn’t have some sort of guidance about what the outcomes of the herd management should be. In fact, if the member wants to go and look at the draft herd management plans for both the wapiti herds of special interest and also the sika of herds of special interest, it is full of all sorts of numbers around browse levels and around canopy levels that must be attained. I’m confident that there is sufficient in the statute as it is.

11:41

Just in the interests of back and forth and given that this is not my area, as the Minister for Hunting and Fishing has pointed out, can I take it from the Minister that he would be comfortable to at least have on the Hansard his expectation that not only the anticipated benefits would be recorded but that there would be some kind of monitoring of those benefits?

I’m comfortable being on the Hansard, but the Hansard has no legal force, so I suggest that people who are developing herd management plans need to look at the statute and the laws that Parliament passes and regulations they pass, and not the passing comments of politicians on the debating floor.

11:42

Given that, could the Minister then please consider my alternative amendment, which is to replace section 16(3A) with “The Minister must not designate a Herd of Special Interest in a national park unless—… the New Zealand Conservation Authority has first provided written advice to the Minister on the proposed designation; … and the Minister has had regard to that advice before making a decision” That would mean it would include whether the proposed designation is consistent with the purpose and principles of the National Parks Act 1980, the likely effects of the proposed designation on indigenous biodiversity and ecosystem health, the likely interaction between the management of the herd of special interest and the pest animal controls undertaken by the Department of Conservation, and any conditions the authority considers necessary to avoid, remedy, or mitigate adverse ecological effects.

Given that the Minister himself has said the Hansard is not good enough, that, in my view might answer some of the concerns we have. Would he entertain, please, amending the bill to include new section 16(3A)?

11:43

No, because section 16(2) of the Game Animal Council Act says, “In determining whether a species of game animal is of special interest to hunters and can be managed for hunting purposes, the Minister must have regard to the advice … of—(e) the New Zealand Conservation Authority;”.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I’ll give a challenge for some new material to come from speakers.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I do have a new question that has not been traversed before to ask the Minister, but just before I do that, I want to ask a further question of the Minister for Hunting and Fishing on the previous point that he made, which I have then gone and looked up. I asked the Minister: what is the optimal herd number? The Minister spoke a fair bit about the fact that the aim through the Game Animal Council Act is to lower the number of deer in a herd of special interest, for example, because that benefits hunters as well. I take your point, but if the Minister is also saying that conservation values will be protected, which is what the legislation also says, then what is the tipping point or what is the optimal number?

The Minister said that’s in the herd management plans. I’ve gone and looked at the herd management plans. We’ve heard through various select committee submissions that—basically, all of the peer-reviewed evidence, the Department of Conservation’s own scientific documentation that exists, basically shows that there is no actual number. The herd management plan itself says, basically, that the herd needs to be of a sustainable number. It doesn’t talk about ecological thresholds in relation to a number that would both be suitable to hunters but also reduce the impact, ecological impact, on national parks. I’d just like the Minister to clarify that.

My new question to the Minister is, basically, that we’ve also heard from many that there are no international jurisdictions where such a change has been promoted. If you look at various countries that we generally compare ourselves to, including the likes of Canada, their general stance is not to allow any populations of pests or introduced browsers in areas with significant ecological value. We’ve heard from many around Australian national parks, for example, where—Australia, the US, and Canada are the examples that we’ve heard as a select committee—there doesn’t seem to be a narrative there that there is any herd size that would be small enough to not then lead to damage to ecological value. We don’t see this being promoted anywhere else in the world, as far as we’ve heard. Does the Minister have any evidence and has the Minister received any advice that will point out to him that it is possible, I guess, to strike that balance that he’s talked about between a herd of an optimal size for hunters but also a herd at such a size that it doesn’t reduce the ecological value of national parks?

11:46

The herd management plan has browse levels. That’s the measure that much smarter people than I use to monitor whether or not the health of the ecosystem is in a good state, and browse levels correlate directly with the number of animals on site. In terms of what other countries do overseas, it’s all very interesting, but, of course, other countries have browsing animals as native animals, so there are multitudes of countries around the world which actually have very high protections in place for those animals, and I don’t think it’s a comparison for our ecological system to draw on the management practices of other countries as to what’s in and what’s out. We should do what’s right for us, and what’s right for us is to pass a bill which clarifies that you can designate a herd of special interest in a national park without any more confusion.

11:47

Thank you. I wanted to follow up that particular answer. First of all, I agree with the Minister for Hunting and Fishing that our ecosystems are unique, and I hope he would agree with me that deer are not moa. I just wanted to follow up a little bit about his comments about browsing levels. If you are not a botanist, it’s very easy to see there is still some greenery there; the browsing levels are fine. The fact that it’s all crown ferns or all horopito or all some other unpalatable species is not necessarily plain to the average person out on the hills. I just wonder if the Minister feels confident that there will be enough resources for the Department of Conservation to do the more precise monitoring of and comparisons between exclusion areas, because that’s quite expensive.

The other question I have for the Minister relates to how the ecological impact would be measured, with his level of understanding and perhaps his expectations of the hunters’ understanding that there are a number of species, particularly of insects, that are completely dependent on one or two other species. The browsing levels if you take the number of plants might be fine, but if the ice cream species have been picked off by the deer, that doesn’t just affect that species; it affects all of the web of other species that are connected. Thank you, Mr Chair.

11:49

Given that this bill doesn’t designate any herds of special interest, there’d be no advice or discussions about whether or not resourcing is available for a herd of special interest, because all this bill does is clarify that a herd of special interest could be designated in national parks as well as the existing law. It just provides that statutory clarification. But if a herd of special interest was to be designated, I’d be very confident that the Department of Conservation would have the resources to undertake the adequate ecological monitoring required.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendments to clause 4, section 16, inserting new subsections (2A) and (3C) be agreed to.

The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendments to clause 4, section 16, replacing subsection (3A) and inserting new subsection (3C) be agreed to.

11:53

Thank you, Mr Chair. I cannot stress strongly enough what this part does. This part inserts a section into the National Parks Act which tells anyone reading that Act, if they’re interested, to go and look at the part or the clause or the section of the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Act that we just voted on. That’s all this part does—the entire part. It says, “If you’re reading the National Parks Act and you’re interested in this particular area, go and have a look at the Game Animal Council Act. You’ll notice that we’ve inserted a section providing that a herd of special interest can be designated a national park.” That’s all it does.

11:54

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ve just got a question around clause 6 in Part 2, because although clause 6 could be seen to be technical, it is actually the mechanism by which the law gets to operate differently.

The main concern I have is whether the Minister is satisfied that this part of the bill has adequate safeguards to stop there being further exemptions and carve-outs under the bill. The question from the Hon Eugenie Sage in her submission was the slippery-slope argument. It’s easy to see that this bill does that, because there is a fundamental change in the decision-making hierarchy. I’m wanting to understand from the Minister, how can he be sure that this is not the beginning of a change to our national parks, where we’re going to see more and more of these exemptions apart from just trophy hunting?

11:55

Well, unless the slippery slope is a procession of sections which tell people to go and look at other statutes, the only thing this clause does—and I can read it out; new section (3), inserted by clause 6: “See section 16(3A) of the Game Animal Council Act 2013, which provides that, if a herd of special interest is designated in a national park, subsection (2)(b) does not apply to that herd.”.

The only thing that this part does is it inserts a section in the National Parks Act that tells people, “If you’re interested in this area, go and look at the Game Animal Council Act.” It has no other operative provision, and it is inserted in there as a response to the select committee’s view that this might provide some helpful clarity or direction to people who are reading the National Parks Act. That’s all it does. It has no operative provision and doesn’t change the law in any way—it just tells Ms Stevens, when she’s reading the National Parks Act, “Go and look at the Game Animal Council Act if you’re interested in a good time.”

Thank you, Mr Chair. Yes, that’s correct: it makes a reference or strengthens, I guess, the link between the two pieces of legislation, the Game Animal Council Act and the National Parks Act. However, the Minister made the point earlier on that the whole reason for this change and the subsequent strengthening of this provision at select committee was the legal uncertainty around the status of the current community agreement for Wapiti between the Department of Conservation and the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation. This is something that was traversed, in a sense, at select committee. However, I do want to ask the Minister what advice he’s received on the, I guess, necessity of this part and of this legislation, because we had heard—and again through Eugenie Sage’s contribution to select committee, which is very detailed.

What she says, and I want to test this with the Minister, is that there is already an alternative that is available that doesn’t require this legislative change under the status quo—she says, of the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation applying to the New Zealand Conservation Authority for an exemption. This bit refers to the Game Animal Council Act, which refers back to the exemption to section 4(2)(b) of the National Parks Act. But through that, there could have already been an exemption, which would then satisfy both camps: the hunters who want the exemption to maintain a herd of a certain size within a national park, and the conservation activists who want to protect, as far as possible, the ecological benefits and values of the national park.

Can the Minister share what advice he has received on the rationale for this whole bit, and why he thinks that the status quo exemption was not strong enough?

11:58

In relation to this part, I received some advice from the Environment Committee, who recommended that, to help make clear the effect of the bill’s proposed amendments—which we have voted on before—we should insert a cross-reference in the National Parks Act to direct humans reading that Act to the Game Animal Council Act.

I’d just like to ask the Minister if he has given any consideration, or would, to my suggestions of a new clause 7 in this part. I’m not going to read them out—they’re quite detailed—but the first one essentially inserts a provision that would review the operation of herds of special interest. The second one would provide details of annual ecological monitoring and reporting. The third one would simply, basically, be a sunset clause on the bill at five years, so that the bill would be deemed to be out of time and probably needing reconsideration at the end of five years, unless there were good reasons to keep it in place.

These are all the safeguarding provisions that we don’t see currently. The Minister seems intent on progressing this bill; could he please adopt those amendments so that we have some safeguards in the bill?

11:59

No, I won’t be adopting those amendments, because there’s already a five-year review requirement in the Game Animal Council Act to review any designated herd of special interest. That’s section 19.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

A quick question to the Minister: has the Minister received any advice that would point to anywhere in Aotearoa New Zealand where recreational and trophy-hunting management has been successful in controlling animal numbers in such a way that it protects forests, shrub land, and alpine grassland, given that we’ve been talking about the differences in priorities and motivations between the two groups?

12:00

Well, it’s not directly related to the section of this part, which inserts a section to refer people to look at another Act. I’ll refer the member to the select committee report, which I’m sure she’s very well aware of, which has some—or the departmental report has some very good information there about the effects of the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation’s work.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 7, new section 4A “Independent review of operation of Herds of Special Interest provisions” be agreed to.

The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 7, new section 4A “Review of operation of Herds of Special Interest provisions” be agreed to.

The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 7, new section 4A relating to annual ecological monitoring and reporting be agreed to.

Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 7 relating to the expiry of amendments is ruled out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

12:06

Thank you, Mr Chair. This is the part of the bill which tells us what the title is, when it starts, and what Act it amends. First of all, the title of the bill—which will be the title of the Act—will be the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Bill. That’s because it amends the Game Animal Council Act and it’s because it’s to do with herds of special interest. The general view around titles is it should describe what the bill does, and that’s what it does—it means the primary Act in relation to herds of special interest.

It’s probably best to skip to clause 3, which actually outlines what the principal Act is. It says that this bill amends the Game Animal Council Act, and that’s what it does. Then back to clause 2. Clause 2 is the commencement clause and it says that the Act will come into force on the day after Royal assent. That will be the day following the date on which the Governor-General provides Royal assent to the bill, and then it will come into force.

12:07

Thank you, Mr Chair. I feel that a more appropriate title for this piece of legislation would be the “Game Animal Council (Not Possible to Both Protect Herds of Special Interest and Ensure that National Parks are Protected to the Highest Possible Level) Bill”. Therein lies our opposition to this bill, because this amendment bill ultimately overrides the protections that are in the National Parks Act for a reason. They are there to provide for the control of introduced browsers while ensuring that we preserve national parks, which ultimately is a status that is accorded to some of our most stunning landscapes and significant ecosystems, which are also scientifically important for us.

This is the highest level of protection that we can accord an area, and this amendment bill, which we are here debating at committee stage, just does one short thing. It sounds really simple, but it changes the protections to our national parks, and that is why the Labour Party opposes this bill.

I will say this again, because there have been a number of implications from the Minister that we consider hunters to be the villain. So, I will say this again: we do not consider hunters to be the villain.

We absolutely accept what the Minister has said, which is that in various parts of the country there is a culture of hunting and that communities in those areas choose to hunt—that is a fact. What we do oppose is changing the law to reduce protections within the national parks, wherein the status quo would have required the New Zealand Conservation Authority to have a say in how much of indigenous plants and animal life is protected, and the fact is that introduced browsers must be exterminated. This bill changes that, and our interpretation of it, and the interpretation of many who have submitted to the Environment Committee, is that that change weakens the protections for our national parks and that there is no actual need for that. The Department of Conservation themselves have said that there’s about 7 million hectares of public conservation land that hunters can hunt in. There is no need now to override protections to protect a specific herd of introduced browsers within national parks just so that they can be hunted there.

That’s why I believe that the title is not quite reflective of what this bill does. The Minister for Hunting and Fishing has been quite clear that this is not to introduce or to increase the population of introduced browsers massively. That’s not the point of this legislation. The Minister has said quite clearly that it is to control the population size to an optimal level such that it’s protected for hunters but will also improve conservation value, but he hasn’t been able to then articulate what that size is. He has said that it’s in herd management plans, but I don’t see it in there. There isn’t a focus on biodiversity measures within herd management plans, just the requirement to manage them to a sustainable level, but we were trying to tease out what that means.

That then again points to the point that I’ve made, which is that it’s not possible then to protect both—to protect a herd to a sustainable level and to increase conservation value in national parks. All of the evidence that we have seen and we have considered says there is no scientific evidence to say that you can do both and that the acceptable level of introduced browsers to improve conservation value and national parks is zero, which means exterminating as far as possible that particular population, or all introduced pests basically. I take the Minister’s point that all the others can still be exterminated, just not this one that the Minister designates for the purposes of hunting, but the acceptable level is zero. I will end where I began. This should be the “Game Animal Council (Not Possible to Protect Both Herds of Special Interests and Improve the Conservation Value of National Parks).”

12:12

Thank you, Mr Chair. Following on from that excellent submission, I think that’s a worthy title. However, I think I have one better for the Minister for Hunting and Fishing. I do think it is worthy of the Minister’s consideration because we have heard of the tensions that exist in the conservation estate from managing a herd. We’ve heard from the Minister of the excellent work of the Wapiti Foundation, but we’ve also heard through submissions of the impact of invasive browsers, even within the Wapiti Foundation area, degrading our conservation estate, even within what is possibly going to be designated a herd of special interest area in a national park. The title that I’m proposing for the Minister is a very simple title, and it is the “Game Animal Council (Herds of Invasive Browsers in our Conservation Estate) Amendment Bill. Now, I think that is a very accurate designation of what this bill is about.

As my colleague has just mentioned, this is essentially, as the Minister has said, about controlling or maintaining or having a sustainable level of invasive browsers in our conservation estate. We don’t yet know what that means. We’ve heard that it can’t be done, but the Minister wants us to believe that it’s possible. Let’s make this really clear: this is what the Minister is asking us to support. This is what the Minister wants the public to understand. This is the “Game Animal Council (Herds of Invasive Browsers in our Conservation Estate) Amendment Bill”.

If I think about what’s happening here, we’ve seen today where known deposits of so-called critical minerals can be found on our public conservation land. It’s small surprise that this Government is seeking to sell conservation land to enable its exploitation. What we’re seeing is more exploitation of our conservation estate by this Government. It’s really good to see the New Zealand Deer Stalkers Association joining with Forest and Bird to protect public conservation land, and I’m pretty sure that there’s an understanding here that what we are also protecting are invasive browsers on our conservation land—invasive browsers that we know can’t be managed in a way that sustains our unique flora and fauna of this nation.

For the Minister, I’m proposing we can have a sensible title for this bill, a bill that does a lot to make sure we can have invasive browsers in our conservation estate and a bill that will enable hunting in our conservation estate and trophy hunting in our nation’s conservation estate rather than eradication and limiting the number of invasive browsers as far as we can possibly go. For the Minister, I’m aware that the Government is engaging in an attack on our conservation estate all over the space. It’s quite remarkable that Minister Christopher Bishop was laughed off the stage at the Environmental Defence Society today for talking about National Party’s conservation values. Let’s come back to clear language; let’s come back to stating it how it is; let’s come back to some honesty in legislation. Minister, let’s call this the “Game Animal Council (Herds of Invasive Browsers in our Conservation Estate) Amendment Bill”. Let’s just make sure that that’s as clear as day from the Minister. Thank you.

12:17

My question is around the commencement, and I’m really grateful that the Minister for Hunting and Fishing, in the chair, has alerted me to, indeed, the ongoing litigation that has caused this bill to come out of a Cabinet process. My question, really, is whether the Minister is comfortable with passing the bill after the Royal assent when that ongoing litigation is occurring, rather than changing clause 2 to say, “once the High Court judgment has come through.”?

When I look at the legal principles involved, it feels to me that this Government doesn’t have much regard to the role of the courts and the separation of powers. As lawyers, I know the Minister and I both probably passionately defend the separation of powers to make sure that there isn’t too much power vested in one estate of the democracy. That is a fundamental element of our democracy. When I look at this legislation, which, indeed, is currently before the courts, what the bill will do is it will change the framework of the way that our conservation and our special interest herds are managed while the previous process is being tested. That’s a really serious thing to do. Yet if we look at this Government’s track record, we’re seeing that with the Equal Pay Amendment Act—33 claims that were upended with one stroke of a pen, done in a very covert way by the executive in this House, by the National Government. This term, we’ve seen the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Customary Marine Title Act 2025. Again, when that was going through a court process at great expense of the claimants, this Government decided it knew better and it was going to change that and talk about the will of Parliament, even though the framework had not been tested adequately. We have the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Act, which has been favouring the big banks over small claimants in New Zealand.

Relevance.

This is very relevant because, once again, we see this trajectory of bills brought to the House where the Royal assent is enough and the Government shows its arrogance, I think, in saying, “We know best. We know how to do this best.”

Throughout this committee stage, we have heard a great deal about what the Minister knows about hunting, and, indeed, he does know a lot about hunting. We heard very little, if anything, about the evidence base and the process—the correct process—and the correct governance for making a fundamental law change to how these two bills interact. Now, the courts are really well placed to do that, and that is, in fact, what is happening. I looked up the famous case of Forest & Bird and the Department of Conservation and the wapiti partnership. The place to do that is in the courts. That is exactly what is happening, and yet this Minister has insisted on bringing this bill before the House and saying that it will go through before too long and we will have the Royal assent on it, and then it doesn’t matter that the previous framework hasn’t been tested.

That also shows that the resourcing required to make quite a significant change has not been given due regard either, because when we’ve asked about resourcing and we’ve asked questions about what kind of changes would need to be made or what kind of monitoring of the impacts would happen, there was a bit of a disregard. We were pointed to some of the management plans. There was no appetite from the Minister to require tracking and require reporting on that of what the real impacts were, rather than the expected impacts, and I’ve proposed a number of amendments that would have provided that safeguarding.

If the Minister was genuine about wanting to strike that balance, then he would have accepted some of those amendments, because currently there is no safeguarding. The real worry, I think, of this bill was articulated by the Hon Eugenie Sage, our previous colleague, who has said that it does open the door up to a whole lot of other changes that are going to erode the conservation status of our conservation land. So, Minister, please, can you consider doing the right thing: change clause 2, under the title and commencement, to make this bill pass once we have had a final determination from the rightful place to make these determinations, which is the courts.

Finally, I’d like to suggest a title myself. I think we should probably call it the “Game Animal Council (Overriding New Zealand Conservation Authority Powers) Amendment Bill”—you could add an “Explicitly” if you wanted there—or we could have the “Explicit Override of National Parks Act”.

12:22

Thank you, Mr Chair. We won’t be changing the commencement date, mainly for the reason that the litigation the member refers to has nothing to do with herds of special interest. It’s a challenge around community agreements. You could make the commencement date 2056 and Tom Rutherford can sign it into law, but it wouldn’t make any difference to that litigation, because it’s to do with community agreements and not herds of special interest. So, the commencement date—we don’t agree with changing that.

In terms of changes to the title, I think they are some interesting titles. I’m sure that the members think they’re serious attempts to rename the bill, but we think that the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Act is a good name for the Act.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I reject the accusation that they are not serious attempts to improve the title. I think the previous offer was a very relevant option for the Minister, but I do have a second offer, given the Minister’s unwillingness to accept my first offer. I think this is really speaking to the point that we’ve heard repeatedly that this is about ensuring hunters have access to trophy animals in our conservation estate. One of the risks that we see in the Conversation Amendment Bill is its directive to the Department of Conservation to enable the use and development of public conservation land to the greatest extent practicable, which elevates commercial intent and activities above conservation values and habitat protection.

One of the things that I am concerned about, as a hunter, is that this bill is going to, essentially, be an enclosure of our commons. It’s a new colonial approach to enclose our commons and to deny access to hunters, to hapū, to people who want to enjoy our outdoors, and to people who want to go into our outdoors and do all kinds of leisure activities. My proposal for the title—which I think is an accurate representation from what we’ve heard from the Minister—is the “Game Animal Council (Trophy Hunting in our Conservation Estate) Amendment Bill”, and that really reflects what this is about.

When we think that we’re going to have the herds of special interest, as the Minister calls them—when we’re going to have sika, when we’re going to have wapiti, when we’re going to have tahr, and when we’re going to have white-tail protected in our conservation estate for hunting purposes, protected and managed in a way that will enable the invasive browsers to reside in our conservation estate for the purpose of trophy hunting, that demonstrates where this Government’s direction lies. It is concerned with the economic return, and not the protection of our conservation estate, not the respect for our native flora and fauna, and not the respect for our taonga species. This is where the Government is heading.

For the Minister, I would like the Minister to give some serious consideration to entitling this bill and giving it a title that reflects what its intent is. The “Game Animal Council (Trophy Hunting in our Conservation Estate) Amendment Bill” is exactly what this bill is about, and that fits the purpose and it fits this Government’s direction. I think it will help the public understand what this Government’s intent is with this bill and with its new direction in the Conservation Amendment Bill, which is opening up the conversation estate to everything else that we might want to do to it, including mining in our conservation estate.

For the Minister, I would hope the Minister will give some serious consideration to my title, rather than simply writing it off as an attempt to distract. This is—

Frivolous.

It’s certainly not frivolous—that is exactly what this Government is. This Government certainly is frivolous in dealing with the most serious of issues: trying to sell off our conservation estate. This is far from frivolous. It is something that I want the Minister to consider and respond to, please.

Before I take the next call—and it’s going to be a call with some content in it—just for members’ knowledge, the Minister has addressed the issues around title changes, and so I’ll just note that for the committee, as well. He has also addressed the issue around the commencement date as well, and so I am looking for new material. Otherwise, the train is leaving the station.

12:27

Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s really just to ask the Minister about his response when I talked about the Forest and Bird case, which he probably knows more about than I do, but it is clear that when that judicial review occurred, the herds that we’ve been discussing today with the designated herds were not anticipated. Then they were anticipated, and now they do actually fall directly into what would be impacted by that court case.

I’m just wanting clarity from the Minister as to whether he is saying that that is only about a community claim and that that particular case has nothing to do with why this particular bill is in the House. If that’s the case, what is the legislation that he referred to in his earlier reply that has led to the Cabinet paper and then this bill coming before the House?

12:28

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

12:33

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill. Labour strongly opposes this bill. Christopher Luxon and his Government are out of touch: cutting women’s pay, and it’s harder to see a doctor or nurses, as prices have been pushed up. He promised to make the cost of living better; it is not. This specific bill, in this context, shrinks the role of local government—a very important role throughout Aotearoa. It shrinks it to such things as pipes, roads, and rubbish; ignoring the wider needs of communities.

The Minister’s made the decision to remove the four wellbeing provisions—very important provisions within local government—so that councils need to refocus, across the country, with regards to their core functions. The Minister advised that the changes would help restore discipline and transparency and would push councils to focus on things like roading, core infrastructure, water, and rubbish. By refocusing those, those cuts to council budgets still mean that Kiwis will go without important decision making for their local communities.

The four wellbeings—social, economic, environmental, and cultural—were reintroduced by Labour in 2019, after being removed by the previous National Government in 2012. Councils are now required to prioritise core services when managing finances and setting rates. Labour would argue that the removal of the four wellbeings undermines councils’ ability to act on climate, equity, and cultural priorities. We would argue that this bill sets up central government control over local priorities through these new regulatory powers. This is not a devolution; it’s a centralised control from Wellington, and it’s a fundamental shift, this bill, deleting those references of wellbeing from the purpose and the functions of local government—i.e., localism.

The problem is that it changes the purpose of those protections that communities had, eroding the participation of those communities. It narrows the definitions of community outcomes, to infrastructure, to public services, and to regulatory functions only. The problem with that is that it does not prioritise for councils to take into account their community aspirations. What is important about community aspirations is that, in the structure, or under this amendment bill, it creates the reduction of community voices, diverse voices across the country for those specific councils, narrowing and focusing on the bricks and mortar stuff—which is important, we understand that, but community voice and participation is absolutely critical in the way that councils are run. It applies to the new amendment bill in terms of the refocus, as the Minister has stated in his contribution, but what it also does is that the frameworks—it dilutes the aspirations of communities across the board.

It is really important that communities across Aotearoa, through the council frameworks, have the opportunity to provide input. Whilst the councils will have the specific role of determining those things for their local councils, when you don’t have a community voice, you will not get the participation; you will only put out publications, you will only advise of the costs and the acquisitions and the importance of why the council has to focus according to legislation. However, the important principles and values and wellbeings that were described before in the legislation—it is important for residents to understand the why: why council officials make decisions, the importance of information that comes out to the community; it is required to have the continued value input in every community.

This Government promised to fix the cost of living. The Prime Minister promised to help Kiwis to get by, and we don’t see that in my local area. The Minister has advised that local government have drifted from their core responsibilities; they need to focus on the essentials and deliver to their community, and that, by refocusing councils, they will help deliver better value for money and help reduce the cost of living.

The bill has other reforms: new financial performance measures for council, with a requirement for regular public reporting; mandatory disclosure of contractive consultant spending; stronger transparency and accountability requirements; and regulatory relief to reduce unnecessary compliance burdens. Look, we agree with those things; however, I come back to the point I made earlier: the community aspirations, the community voices are really important in planning and in those regulatory focuses.

Another component that is important, I think, in councils is the removal of obligations for council to consider tikanga Māori when appointing CCO directors. This is a direct bad point that CCOs—council-controlled organisations—do not need to have the understanding of tikanga. There was a lot of opposition in that provision being removed, and the reason being is that, through the select committee process, the submissions that were pushing against it were from iwi groups and councils themselves, because, in this new process, there will no longer be the legal mandate to make things specific, which require the assessment during that recruitment process. What that means is you can get any individual who may not have a deeper understanding of why tikanga process is really important. Iwi and legal groups highlighted how these legislative changes will fundamentally reshape Māori representation in decision-making rights at that local level. The erosion of Te Tiriti is stripping tikanga provisions which fits into the wider legislation process; it reduces the statutory declaration of Māori rights, weakening Treaty-based protections in local governance.

It is really important that when councils are looking at members of the community—the business community and the wider community—to appoint them on council-controlled organisations as a member of that governance role, those individuals have an appreciation, have an understanding, as to why tikanga is really, really important. It is really important that they have an inclusion of the whenua but, also, the understanding of why iwi do the main things and do what they do. They specialise in the area.

Labour really pushes back on the weakening in this legislation. It is important that when we have individuals that are sitting on those governance boards, they are acting in the best interests for that community. It is important that when you are representing the people of your area in a council framework, that you have that understanding, because if it is not a requirement in the law then it opens the door to a number of things.

Through the select committee process, there was strong representation from iwi groups, from councils, that that is an important requirement for the people of that council area. As a member in my local community who had the privilege of sitting on different groups within the council framework, I got up close and personal in that deciding body to have an appreciation of mana whenua importance, the tikanga, but also the history of that whenua—so that when we are making decisions in that framework and that body, you have an understanding of the aspirations of mana whenua, and not just from last year or 10 years ago, but that you actually have a critical understanding of five centuries ago, of iwi who came on to that whenua.

Labour opposes this bill, because when you remove those important provisions from legislation, it places the burden on bricks and mortar for councils and does not look at its people and the rights that they have.

12:43

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand on behalf of the Green Party in opposition to this bill. I wasn’t part of the first reading or the select committee process and I’m, obviously, now the primary speaker for this bill in the Green Party. I do have some knowledge within local government, serving as an elected member in Christchurch City for nine years. I know there’s a number of MPs that have been city or district or regional councillors, or committee board members, including the two to the left of me that have together served, I think, around 50 years. That’s actually a massive effort—and both as mayors of Wellington City. You don’t do that for the pay check; you do it because you know the importance of local government and what local government can deliver for communities.

Centralism over localism doesn’t work. It’s a robbery of power and control from local communities, and central government shouldn’t be running roughshod over local communities. They are the words of Christopher Luxon before he was Prime Minister, and what we’ve seen since is pretty much the opposite. Very clearly, there are many attempts to remove the ability for local councils to democratically decide on local Māori wards. Local speed limits were removed; local signs that are in te reo, all gone. What we’re now seeing is the biggest reform in local government since 1989. The sector, actually, and many people around it, accept that reform is needed. Unfortunately, what we’re seeing once again is a Government that has taken a top-down approach and are doing it to the sector instead of with the sector.

With this bill, the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill, it’s pretty much saying that the four wellbeings are bad and, because of that, rates are going up. Yet, there’s absolutely no evidence at all that would ever say that having four wellbeings in the Local Government Act is putting pressure on rates and making them go up.

The primary policy objective of this is to reduce the pressure on rates, yet, really, the bill doesn’t address one of the biggest issues with councils, and that is funding. If this Government was serious about helping local government, they’d actually look at some of the funding mechanisms, including the potential of GST sharing. I look at a city like Christchurch that went through significant—

Great policy.

GST sharing? Yes, excellent policy.

Yeah, it was an ACT policy.

Thank you. It went through significant, significant damage from the earthquakes and had to rebuild. The ratepayers, the citizens of Christchurch, through their rates, have spent billions of dollars. The GST has all gone to central government. The revenue being gathered because of their rebuild is also significant, and the GST, once again, goes to Government. GST on rates—surely the GST from rates could be shared back with councils to help with infrastructure. But no, this Government knows best and, therefore, is just going to punish councils for trying to serve their community. The reality is that local government is the voice of community, and this Government is trying to silence that voice.

It’s really interesting, when you read through this bill and what they’ve done, that as well as removing the four wellbeings, they’re trying to prescribe to councils what their core functions are. The select committee has softened that, but through this process they’re still putting core services that miss so many things, including, actually, economic development. And, once again, when you look at a city like Christchurch with Te Kaha, the council’s book can no longer help fund that. Who is going to be the one with the responsibility of helping in some of these spaces: climate mitigation, heritage, art galleries, community funding? The list goes on and on and on. If this bill passes, it will leave gaps in our community at a time when Government is limiting social supports and cutting funding for community organisations.

What we’ve seen just recently, earlier this month, was the Minister’s announcement that they were putting an amendment to this bill to stop councils having non-elected members appointed to committee with voting rights, something that has been happening for as long as I can remember. Audit and risk, health and safety—it has never been an issue until now; never. Democracy in local government is that, every three years, you elect your city councillors or your district councillors and those councillors can democratically create committees. Often, they’ll put specialised people with skills on to those committees that make recommendations to council to make the final decision. That is good governance—that is good governance. They have voting rights and they have the quorum.

One thing we know, from after the Minister announced it—Minister Matt Doocey came on declaring that National has changed the law so the unelected councillors of Environment Canterbury (ECan) can’t vote on the council’s committee. The unelected ECan councillors he’s referring to are the two mana whenua reps. Now, unfortunately for Matt Doocey, he did not know the amendment that well, because he’s completely wrong with that fact. They’re not on a committee; they’re on the actual council, but it clearly showed that Matt Doocey was very happy that they were going to remove Ngāi Tahu’s representation on ECan. We know that there have been members of ACT-aligned councils down South that have obviously been pushing to remove mana whenua representation.

Now, I’ve been trying to get answers from the Minister of Local Government, like: how many complaints are you getting from councillors? He’s been fobbing me off a bit, and he’s saying, “Oh, it’s not in the public’s interest to do this.” I managed to get a little bit of an answer from him, and, basically, he’s received one request to utilise these powers in relation to the Far North District Council—and we know that’s another ACT-aligned councillor not liking mana whenua representations on committees. It’s a very common theme that we’re seeing, that people are getting very upset that we have mana whenua representation sitting on council committees, which is really, really concerning. One could only describe this as political racism when we’re seeing a Government stopping councils having their rights to actually decide who sits on their committees to help make recommendations to the council, who have the final decisions.

I do wonder if some of the people on the other side of this House—and I know Andy Foster knows—what councils actually do and what councils actually spend their money on. I implore you just to have a look at what you do in your daily life. From the moment you get up to the moment you go to sleep, you are using resources and facilities that are provided by the rates that are paid to councils. To say that councillors and councils are just trying to lift up rates as much as they can, don’t care about rates, is absolute rubbish. The councillors across the country try as hard as they can to keep rates as low as possible, but we’ve had this culture where councils are continually criticised for increasing rates. So while they try to keep rates down, infrastructure in the ground continually gets worse until it bursts, and then proactive councils, councils that want to do the right thing and fix that damaged infrastructure, then get blamed for lifting rates to do that.

Then we have a Government that is completely failing in every space using council as their kicking bag to distract people from the real failure in New Zealand at the moment, which is this Government. This Government needs to actually accept the good things that councils do for their communities. They are the voice of their community. They are elected democratically every three years. This Government needs to have faith in local government and start working with it and stop dictating to it what it should and shouldn’t do. The Green Party opposes this shocking bill.

12:53

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s great to see a Government working with local councils on things like regional deals and on things like infrastructure funds where councils who consent more can get more, and that’s what this Government has provided.

On this specific bill, refocusing local government’s core purposes has been laid out in new section 10 in clause 6, which is going to be making councils focus on democratic, local decision-making, which the member Mike Davidson, who has just taken his seat, seems to have a big problem with—democratic accountability. It’s going to focus on infrastructure that’s cost-effective and delivers for the future needs of communities, public services that do the same, and providing regulatory functions, all at the same time supporting economic growth and development by performing those functions. That’s what the bill says. It doesn’t say all that lack of or the extra stuff that the last speaker, who seems to have so many problems that are so undefined, had to say for himself.

They want lower rates.

People in New Zealand want lower rates. They also want democratic accountability for the use of those rates.

I’d just like to point out in my contribution a version of—the last speaker from the Greens talked about political racism. What is that? He left it undefined. Perhaps it could be people being appointed for their ethnicity, with voting rights, alongside elected councillors to make decisions on behalf of local communities with their lives and with their ratepayer dollars. That might be what the member was referring to. He left it so undefined that it’s hard to tell.

But there is good news on horizon. The Minister of Local Government has made it clear in a press release that he’s putting forward an amendment to this bill—I think we should be able to see it at the committee of the whole House—which will remove unaccountable, unelected positions on council subcommittees from future councils being able to put that in. I think that he should be applauded for that. I’d like to point out that that’s what I’ve been lobbying him to do since September last year. I’ve got a member’s bill in the tin to make sure that exact thing happens, and I’ve also had Amendment Papers drafted up for the committee of the whole House, which I hope the Minister has had a good look at when he’s made his decision.

He’s also—and I’ll just make a comment, Mr Speaker. The Minister has also referenced removing the Independent Māori Statutory Board; that is something he’s interested in. I think if he was to accept my member’s bill and amendments, he’d find that the actual requirement for those seats on the Auckland Council would no longer be required and it would be superfluous to carry on, but hey, look, let’s see what the Minister comes back to us with after mentioning publicly that he’s interested in doing that.

Local council is the interface that most New Zealanders have in their daily lives with government and public services—being waste, roads, parks, libraries, community facilities. Those are all core functions that are considered in performing the role, and new section 11A in clause 7, maintains those, along with things like civil defence, public transport, and other things to do with network infrastructure.

The hyperbole we’ve heard from the other side of the House this afternoon has been quite farcical. New Zealanders want to have an accountable and efficient local government that provides for their needs and the future needs and desires for the community that’s been built with them and around them. That’s what this bill provides. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the lunch break. The House will resume at 2 p.m.

The House adjourned at 12.57 p.m.

14:00

E te Atua kaha rawa, ka tuku whakamoemiti atu mātou, mō ngā karakia kua waihotia mai ki runga i a mātou. Ka waiho i ō mātou pānga whaiaro katoa ki te taha. Ka mihi mātou ki te Kīngi, me te inoi atu mō te ārahitanga i roto i ō mātou whakaaroarohanga, kia mōhio ai, kia whakaiti ai tā mātou whakahaere i ngā take o te Whare nei, mō te oranga, te maungārongo, me te aroha o Aotearoa. Āmene.

[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 and humility, for the welfare, peace, and compassion of New Zealand. Amen.]

14:01

Members, I have received a letter from the Hon Phil Twyford raising, as a matter of privilege, matters concerning evidence given to the Education and Workforce Committee by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment on 4 March 2026. I’ve also received a letter from the Education and Workforce Committee on the same matter. The conduct complained of could amount to deliberately attempting to mislead a committee, which is given as an example of a contempt of Parliament in Standing Order 418(b). The Speaker does not inquire into the veracity of the evidence presented or conduct of an inquiry into the allegations. That is the role of the Privileges Committee. The Speaker’s role in such matters is to determine whether the facts alleged could amount to a breach of privilege or a contempt of the House. I find that a question of privilege does arise and the question stands referred to the Privileges Committee.

14:02

A petition has been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

The petition of Grace Haden requesting that the House establish an independent statutory authority to carry out all the regulatory functions currently assigned to the New Zealand Law Society.

That petition stands referred to the Petitions Committee. No papers have been delivered for presentation.

A select committee report has been delivered for presentation.

Report of the Justice Committee on the petitions of Sam Troth and Jacinta McGregor.

No bills have been introduced.

Before the House comes to oral questions, can I just respond to the issues raised by the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins yesterday. I want to make it very clear that it is not appropriate for parties to discuss party political positions ahead of something like the general election that we are going to shortly. Question time is for Governments to be held accountable for their activities. It is appropriate for any Minister to be asked for an opinion, but that opinion, when offered to the House, should be constrained by decisions about Government policy. As we go into the next four months—about 10 and a half weeks of the House to go—there will be a great temptation to stray into these territories. I’d ask the House, generally, to show some restraint and stick to the Standing Orders, as we have for many, many years.

The first oral question is in the name of Dan Bidois.

Point of order, Mr Speaker.

Point of order, Ingrid Hipkiss. Sorry.

You wouldn’t be the first person to do that, Mr Speaker.

I know, but if you knew the opinion I hold Radio New Zealand in, you’d find it most strange. Ingrid Leary.

Seeking your guidance, Mr Speaker. I received confirmation of a lodged urgent debate motion from your office this morning, and I’m wondering when we might expect a decision on that.

Well, shortly.

Thank you.

14:04 · to the Minister of Finance

What reports has she seen on New Zealand’s recent economic growth?

I’ve seen reports confirming that New Zealand’s economy had real momentum at the beginning of this year. Stats New Zealand figures released last week showed GDP grew by 0.8 percent in the March quarter. That is more than twice the rate that Treasury forecast at Budget 2026. That means the economy has now grown for three consecutive quarters, with total growth of 2.1 percent over the past nine months. New Zealand’s growth in the March quarter was also stronger than that experienced by Australia, the United States, and the OECD average. These figures show New Zealanders’ hard work is paying off and that the economy was tracking in the right direction before recent global instability created additional uncertainty.

What does the GDP result show about the nature of the economic recovery?

What was encouraging was that growth was coming from across the productive economy. Manufacturing grew 1.9 percent in the quarter—a very healthy level of expansion. Wholesale trade grew 2.4 percent, and exports increased 3.1 percent—thank you, farmers. Business investment was also strong, with investment in plant, machinery, and equipment contributing to a 2 percent rise in gross fixed capital formation, undoubtedly supported by the Government’s Investment Boost tax policy. Importantly, GDP per capita rose by 0.5 percent. That means the economy was becoming more productive, not simply larger through population growth.

How does stronger-than-forecast growth affect the Government’s fiscal outlook?

Well, a larger economy supports stronger Government revenues and improves the country’s fiscal position over time, in addition, of course, to supporting additional jobs and better incomes for New Zealanders. The fact that growth came in materially ahead of Treasury’s Budget forecast reinforces that New Zealand was tracking toward recovery and back towards surplus before recent international events disrupted global conditions. That matters because stronger growth supports jobs, lifts incomes, and helps the Government continue reducing debt while investing in front-line public services and infrastructure.

What is the Government’s outlook for the economy from here?

The Government remains realistic about the challenges both behind us and ahead of us. The conflict in the Middle East and volatility in global oil prices will weigh on short-term growth and create uncertainty for households and businesses. We do not expect that the figures for the second quarter GDP will be as sunny as those in the first three months of the year. However, recent easing in fuel prices and lower international oil prices than Treasury forecast at Budget are encouraging signs for the future. Treasury continues to forecast growth strengthening over time to 2.3 percent next year, and 3.2 percent the following year, alongside 220,000 more jobs being created over four years. The Government’s job is to stay the course, restore the country’s finances, and continue creating the conditions for sustainable long-term growth that improves New Zealanders’ living standards and makes this a more affordable country.

14:08

E te Pīka, tēnā koe. Tāku pātai ki te Minita Take Mātauranga, Erica Stanford—[Interruption]

[Mr Speaker, thank you. My question is to the Minister of Education, Erica Stanford]

Hold on. What’s that all about?

Well, he started it.

No, he was making a polite address to the Chair—something you should take on board.

to the Minister of Education

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Will any kura kaupapa Māori receive funding as a result of the Government’s recently announced $62.5 million infrastructure investment in education across the South Island?

14:09

Not in that particular tranche of funding, but we have a strong focus on building and strengthening the kura kaupapa network in the South Island. There are five kura kaupapa Māori in the South Island. Two have been addressed through previous Budgets. We’ve bought a new site for Te Whānau Tahi in Christchurch to get them out of their leaky site that was built on a rubbish dump—and I’m going to be making further announcements about that very soon; it’s really exciting—and I am advised that construction will start soon at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Waitaha in Canterbury. The final one, Tuia te Matangi, in Nelson currently has enough space to grow.

Does the Minister accept that the 2.9 percent of tamariki Māori in kura or Māori-medium education in Te Waipounamu is not because of a lack of demand but rather a lack of investment in capacity?

As I already outlined, we have had a particular focus on making sure we are building up the network. Importantly, this Government is working alongside Te Matakāhuki on a network plan for kura kaupapa Māori, the first of its kind. It ensures that our investments are targeted at where they will have the greatest impact, strengthening local choice and making sure that communities have the education infrastructure they need for the future. Since 2024, this Government has invested $233 million across all kura kaupapa and Māori-medium education.

Is the Minister aware that many Māori-medium providers in Te Wai Pounamu continue to face significant infrastructure challenges, including overcrowding and ageing facilities, and if so, what are your plans to remedy these longstanding issues?

Back to my answer to the primary question , there are five kura kaupapa Māori in the South Island; two have been addressed through previous Budgets. As I have said, a real concern I had was for Te Whānau Tahi, who, for 20 years, have been built on a rubbish dump. We’ve purchased them a new site, which was the site of a private school that was exiting, and we are going to be moving them on to that site. They were a leaky school as well. Also, as I already said, for the fourth one, I’m advised that construction will start soon at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Waitaha, in Canterbury, and the school in Nelson currently has enough space to grow.

Is the Minister comfortable with kura such as Te Pā o Rākaihautū continuing to operate in earthquake-damaged, leaking, and mould-affected facilities while $62.5 million is invested elsewhere in Te Wai Pounamu?

Well, is that a Te Rūnanga Nui school? We’ve got an issue here, Mr Speaker, because the question was specifically about kura kaupapa Māori which sit under Te Rūnanga Nui, and the school that the member has spoken about, I don’t think—I need clarification, though—is included in the primary question.

Considering Māori-medium education and kura kaupapa Māori result in significantly higher academic achievement for Māori learners, what is the Minister’s plan to grow the capacity and number of these kura to enable Māori whānau to participate throughout Te Tai Tonga?

Going back to my answer to the second question, for the very first time in the history of this country, we are developing a network plan alongside Māori, and as I have already said, Te Matakāhuki are, for the first time, working alongside the Ministry of Education in our network planning so that we can offer more choice and target the investment where it needs to go, to make sure that we are building kura kaupapa schools in the right place so that we have the ability to make sure that young people can go from either puna reo or kōhanga reo all the way through, but we can’t get that without a network plan. We are for the very first time, as I have already said, developing that network plan for Te Matakāhuki.

14:13 · to the Minister for Auckland

Does he stand by all his statements and actions?

Yes, in the context of fixing the basics and building the future.

Does he stand by his statement that his Government’s target is “to grow the New Zealand economy, lift productivity, increase job opportunities”; if so, why has unemployment in Auckland doubled since the March 2023 quarter?

Yes, I do stand by the statements that I have made. The context, as the member will be aware, is that unemployment is a lag indicator, and what we are focused on, on this side of the House, is ensuring that we have got economic growth flowing through to the Auckland economy. What is positive to see with the economic growth indicators that have come out is that Auckland is growing, and that is an important signal that ensures that Aucklanders have the bow wave of economic growth behind them to support higher-paying jobs and more opportunities. We are going to continue to do that work.

Will he acknowledge that his Government’s cancelling or delaying of Auckland infrastructure and build projects, including more than 1,500 State houses and 58 school upgrades, has contributed to job losses en masse in Auckland?

I don’t wish to embark on a conversation around failed or stopped projects in Auckland under prior Governments, because we all know the implications they have caused, but what we are doing as a Government—one thing we have done is sign the Auckland Deal, and the Auckland Deal very clearly identifies areas of economic growth for Auckland, and we’re working constructively with Auckland Council to make sure that those areas of economic growth and focus for the city are unlocked. When Auckland does well, New Zealand does well.

Does he stand by his statement that he is “aspirational for the opportunities for Auckland”; if so, should the 35,000 additional Aucklanders now unemployed since three years ago be comforted by his aspirations?

Well, absolutely I am aspirational for Aucklanders, and I am aspirational for the opportunities ahead for Auckland because this is a Government that’s getting on and delivering—focused on economic growth, delivering opportunities. While we acknowledge that what we inherited was difficult and challenging, we are taking action to turn that around. The actions that I’ve outlined, on top of everything else, are going to help Aucklanders be more prosperous in the future.

How many of the almost 3,000 business liquidations in 2025—a 15-year high—were Auckland businesses, and how does this reflect his Government’s Going For Growth strategy?

Well, as the member will be aware, about one-third of Kiwis live in Auckland; 40 percent of New Zealand’s GDP is derived from Auckland. Again, liquidations are a lag indicator of prior periods of fiscal and economic management. I don’t have to look too far from where I’m standing to look at who’s responsible for those outcomes.

Does he agree with the Prime Minister that the Government was elected to “get Auckland back on track”; if so, why has Auckland’s GDP growth lagged behind the rest of New Zealand two years running?

Well, if the member looks at the most recent economic growth indicators from Auckland, she will be aware that economic growth has increased 0.2 percent in the March quarter, an increase on year-on year-growth. Economic growth is a good thing. On this side of the House, we are focused on ensuring that economic growth is sustained. When Auckland grows, New Zealand grows, and that’s good for everyone.

Why should Aucklanders have any confidence in his Government when, under them, unemployment has doubled, critical projects have been delayed or cancelled, and as a direct result of their decisions many businesses are struggling to stay afloat?

Well, because what Aucklanders want is to see a clear plan, and this Government has a clear plan to deliver for Aucklanders. You’ve already seen the economic growth aspects that are flowing through to Auckland—you’ve seen a reduction in interest rates, you’ve seen a reduction in inflation—and that all helps the back pockets of hard-working Aucklanders. On this side of the House, we make no apology to be relentlessly focused on economic growth, prudent fiscal management, and actually being aspirational for Auckland. Because, again, when Auckland does well, New Zealand does well.

14:18 · to the Minister of Health

What recent progress has been made towards the Government’s health targets?

The Government is focused on fixing the basics and building the future of our health system. Yesterday, the latest quarterly results for the Government’s five health targets were released, showing continued improvement across every target compared with the same quarter last year. More New Zealanders are being seen and treated sooner, with elective treatment wait times improving, more patients receiving special assessments within four months, higher childhood immunisation rates, improved emergency department performance, and faster access to cancer treatment. These results demonstrate our Government’s focus on delivering timely, quality care and improving accountability across the system. It is making a difference for patients.

What progress has been made around access to elective procedures?

The results show real progress in getting New Zealanders the care they need sooner. The proportion of patients receiving treatment within four months has increased to 64.9 percent, up from 57.3 percent 12 months ago. During the quarter, more than 51,000 elective procedures were delivered, a 5.5 percent increase on the same quarter last year. While our targets are measured in percentage points and numbers, what they represent are New Zealanders getting their life-changing operations sooner, spending less time waiting in pain, and getting back to their families, work, and everyday lives sooner. I’d like to thank the health workforce for everything they’ve done to deliver these results.

What do the results show about the volume of care being delivered across the system?

The results show that more care is being delivered across the system: 178,349 first specialist assessments were completed during the quarter, an increase of 7 percent on the same quarter the year prior. More than 51,000 elective treatments were delivered, up 5.5 percent on the same quarter last year. Almost 4,800 people received their first cancer treatment, and almost 12,000 children were fully immunised at 24 months of age—both up since the same quarter last year. These results show what happens when the system is focused on delivery with patients at the centre, with every percentage point increase representing real people who have waited less time to receive the care they need.

Why are the Government’s health targets important?

Well, the health targets are about ensuring the system remains focused on what matters most to New Zealanders: getting timely access to healthcare. They provide clear accountability, transparent reporting, and a strong focus on results. After years of growing wait-lists and declining performance, this Government is focused on fixing the basics, rebuilding performance, and ensuring patients receive the care they need when they need it. While there is still more work to do, these results show we are making steady progress and heading in the right direction.

14:21 · to the Minister for Māori Crown Relations

Te Arawhiti: Does he agree with the Hon Paul Goldsmith that the Māori-Crown relationship is in “good shape”; if not, why not?

Absolutely agree with my exemplary colleague Minister Paul Goldsmith, who’s audaciously progressed a number of Treaty settlements to their logical conclusion over the last three years and also assisted in ensuring that Treaty obligations arising from settlements over time have moved, from 2024, from around 76.7 percent to 85.1 percent and delivery issues arising from Treaty settlement obligations from 4.9 percent down to 1.9 percent. I’d also like to acknowledge the work that the Matua and myself and others in this House have done to ensure the largest ever investment in marae by any Government in the history of this country. Kia ora tātou.

Is it a sign of the relationship being in good shape when the iwi chairs have described this Government as the most racist, anti-Māori Government ever to come to power, and, if so, how?

People are entitled to their opinions and also are responsible for their actions, and it wasn’t too far in the past where the member opposite and his party were not invited to National Iwi Chairs Forums. However, what I would say is that yesterday in Ōtākou, down at the Ōtākou Peninsula, Kāti Te Ruahikihiki of Ngāi Tahu were absolutely energised by the presence of this Minister to support marine reserves that were started under the National Government, under John Key, 13 years ago, well before the time of the previous text writer and text recaller, and the work that we have done as this Government, the National-led Government, to ensure those marine reserves come to come to life, Te Umukōau kei te haramai [Te Umukōau is on its way].

We’ll stick to the rule and go for three—Hon Willie Jackson.

If the Māori-Crown relationship is in such good shape, why did the National Iwi Chairs Forum label Budget 2026 and its approach to Māori employment as a form of economic apartheid?

As I mentioned before, people can have very strong opinions, but I would note that many iwi leaders were absolutely enthusiastic about the fast-track process and ensuring that nearly 25 of the Schedule 2 projects were actually fast-track projects owned or co-owned by Māori. That’s across a range of industries and a range of sectors, whether or not it’s property development, aquaculture, or, indeed, in the resources process. Whilst there are some strong opinions, there’s also a willingness to work together, to do that mahi tahi between the iwi and the Crown, and that’s something that I absolutely enjoy. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

If Mr Jackson’s penultimate question is correct, why have the iwi leaders asked to see me?

The rangatira has spoken. Kia ora.

Can the Minister name one iwi, one hapū, or one iwi Māori organisation that has publicly said that the Crown-Māori relationship is in good shape, or is he the only person making that claim—him and Paul Goldsmith of Ngāti Epsom?

I did not see Ngāti Epsom on the list of iwi in the Fisheries Act. However, what I will say is this: tomorrow we will have the first reading of the Te Here ā Nuku (Nelson Tenths) Bill, which will ultimately resolve the longstanding fiduciary and property claims of Rore Stafford and his relations, a matter that the previous majority Labour Government actively opposed and rejected.

Mr Speaker—[Interruption]

Just wait for the House to compose itself.

Does he agree with former Treaty Minister Chris Finlayson, who said Christopher Luxon’s Government has gravely hurt the Crown-Māori relationship, and, if so, why is he progressing with removing Treaty clauses, knowing full well it will be harmful to the Māori-Crown relationship?

In response to the comments around Treaty principles references, these continue to be a work-on under the diligence and professionalism of Minister Goldsmith, and, of course, ensuring that we’ve got clarity around what Treaty of Waitangi principles references mean is very important to everyone in this Whare—and, actually, all New Zealanders. In relation to the other matter, we’ll let that lie.

14:26 · to the Minister of Education

What announcement has she made on strengthening trades pathways?

This Government recently announced that we are doubling places in our trades academies from 10,000 to 20,000. The investment supports our wider qualification reforms, which are creating stronger vocational pathways for young people and ensuring they have access to meaningful real-world learning opportunities while still at school. Vocational subjects will be fully integrated into our national qualification system and developed in partnership with industry. I’m proud to be part of a Government giving parity of esteem to trade pathways.

How will strengthened trade pathways support the labour market and help fix the basics and build the future of New Zealand?

Strengthened trade pathways will help ensure more young people leave school with practical skills, industry experience, and clear options for further training, apprenticeships, and employment. This is why Budget 2026 invested that additional $69 million to double the trades academy places. It’s also why the Government is investing a further $15 million for industry skills boards to develop new vocational subjects as part of New Zealand’s new senior secondary qualifications. That means students are better prepared for the pathway that they choose, and New Zealand has stronger vocational pathways into the workforce.

How does this help grow the economy?

Well, growing the economy requires a strong education system and requires young people to leave school with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in their chosen field. Through our investment, students will be finishing school with meaningful qualifications, allowing them to enter further training or work. Strengthening the trades pipeline means we’ll have more skilled workers to deliver the Government’s infrastructure agenda and more tradies to build all the classrooms that we’ve funded.

What feedback has she received on this announcement?

Well, the Employers and Manufacturers Association said that the additional 10,000 trades academy places and new trades-focused courses are a good use of funding and could help fill future skills gaps while improving the work readiness of young people. Retail NZ also welcomed the expansion of trade training opportunities, recognising the role it can play in helping more young people become active participants in the economy. Agribusiness and schools adviser Melanie Simmons has highlighted that greater vocational learning opportunities can open career pathways, complement academic learning, and improve employability.

14:29 · to the Minister for Social Development and Employment

Does she stand by her statement that “I absolutely stand by our target of 50,000 fewer people on the jobseeker support by 2030”; if so, why?

Yes. Jobseeker numbers will reduce as economic conditions improve. That’s what we’ve already seen in Taranaki, Canterbury, and Southland. I don’t shy away from an ambitious target to get Kiwis off welfare and into work, and a target provides a focus across Government. It’s also important to note that the latest figures from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) show that more than 85,000 people exited a main benefit into work in the year ending May 2026. We are ambitious for all New Zealanders. That’s why we have created a more active welfare system to support more job seekers into work.

Is the Treasury wrong when it forecast jobseeker numbers to be 200,000 by 2030, as shown in the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update for Budget 2026?

There is a difference between what Treasury forecasts and MSD, and I think it’s useful to put that on the record for the House. The Treasury forecasts include, for the Jobseeker Support and Emergency Benefit, an annual average over the fiscal year July to June. It also includes other benefits that fall under the Jobseeker Support and Emergency Benefit appropriation, such as the Emergency Benefit, the Emergency Maintenance Allowance, and the Jobseeker Support Student Hardship. The MSD target and the MSD forecast on the MSD website has more detail and shows the average number for each month. That is why there is a difference in 206,000 and 194,000 for the month of June 2030.

How will she hit her target when employment confidence is at its lowest point in over 20 years and unemployment is likely to rise further still?

As I said in my primary answer, what we are seeing is the result of regions of New Zealand where we are seeing economic growth: Taranaki, Canterbury, and Southland. We do know that the number of people on a jobseeker benefit is a lag indicator. What we’re seeing in those three areas gives me great optimism and promise in terms of reducing the number of people across the country on the jobseeker benefit.

How many people who have exited into work since she became Minister have gone back on to jobseeker?

I don’t have that data in the House with me, but I’d be happy to provide that for the member. It is really important to note, and I think it is really encouraging—

You talk about that number—85,000. How many have gone back?

Yeah, 85,000. I think it’s a great number.

How many have gone back?

It’s a great number of people who have left welfare into work.

How many—

That’s enough. Thank you.

Will she accept that jobseeker numbers will continue to rise higher than forecast when working people at places like Kinleith Mill, Smithfield meat works, and, as reported this morning, Northland Mill continue to lose their jobs, with no hope coming from the Government?

No, because we have seen the peak in the jobseeker numbers in December last year, so we have come off those highs. That has been as a result of significant work. As the Minister of Finance has said, we’ve seen growth in the March quarter, higher than Australia, higher than the United States, which is really encouraging. Budget 2026 says 220,000 jobs will be created, and I’m amazed that that member is not celebrating that.

14:33 · 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?]

on behalf of the Prime Minister: Āe.

Does he accept that changing the purpose of the Conservation Act to include economic development is a fundamental shift away from the reason the Department of Conservation exists, which is to protect and restore nature?

No, we don’t accept that at all. That’s short-term thinking. The reality is that it’s an enormous part of the country, and where it can be used in the interests of expanding the wealth and security of ordinary New Zealanders, then we will do so. This bill protects our conservation land; think Kepler, Taranaki, Fiordland, Abel Tasman, and more. We are talking about gravel pits being sold, not Great Walks, so when did the Greens start caring about industry?

Is it his view that 60 percent of conservation land is of low or no value?

Again, that’s the kind of calculation you do when you don’t know mathematics. We’re talking about pieces of land within the 60 percent, not selling the 60 percent. That’s the kind of misinformation the public doesn’t want to hear. That’s just being deceitful in the extreme. The bill is currently being considered by the select committee, and we’ll change it if we have to. The bill stops the department from selling any land—the bill stops the department from selling any land that is “important for ... threatened species or ecosystems”. So, the Labour Party and Green Party are safe.

Point of order. Mr Speaker, seeking your guidance. Given that I have been punished in this House a number of times for inferring and stating that Government members are lying, I would like to understand what your punishment will be for one of our co-Deputy Prime Ministers stating that the Green Party is being deceitful.

Good, I’ll—[Interruption] Why is there a conversation going on while we’re dealing with a point of order? I appreciate the point that the member has made, and I will consider the Hansard and come back to the House.

Why, then, is he proposing that 60 percent of the conservation estate should be opened up for disposal or commercial activity if he does not consider that this land is of low or no value?

Again, that is a total misrepresentation of what the 60 percent means. It means that, within the 60 percent, there are gravel pits and other things which may be better assigned somewhere else. That’s a totally different picture. It’s not misrepresenting the House; it’s not lying. But here’s the point: the Greens won’t be happy until 100 percent of the land is State owned, and we all know what that is called. We don’t want to take advice from the dancing tussocks over there.

Thanks for the ad campaign.

One voice while a question’s asked.

Does he recognise the significant public opposition to this bill, including the 24,000 people who submitted on this bill just on the weekend alone, and if so, will he reassure New Zealanders by ruling out the sale of conservation land and putting this bill in the bin?

The reality is there are, for example—take the Belvedere Hall. If an Historic Places Trust group of people say, “We wish to look after that hall ourselves. It’s 142 years old.”, why would that sale be adverse to New Zealanders’ interests? That is happening all over the country. The reality is, of course—

That can still be done.

No, no, and here’s the point—OK, here come the Māori people over there. Let me ask you this: what happens when iwi show up with a right of first refusal to buy land? Will the Greens stop them from buying the land? Look, the fact is that the Greens like to touch grass, but only when it’s rolled.

I think that’s a good example of what we don’t need in the House. The member might like to withdraw that comment.

You want me to withdraw that?

Yeah, I’m pretty soft.

I can’t: half of it has been smoked. Ha, ha! I withdraw—I withdraw.

Does economic development already take place on the conservation estate—like ski fields and guided walks and grazing—and can we further activate economic development, like car parks and charging for the use of carparks, and charging international visitors to access some tracks, to then reinvest in biodiversity in New Zealand?

The answer is most certainly yes, yes, yes, and also tens of thousands of New Zealanders depend on it for their employment. But no, no, they want to stop everything—like, stop the world; I want to get off!

Does he stand by the statement of his Minister of Conservation that “National is the party of conservation”; if so, how does he reconcile that statement with his Government’s actions to allow commercial fishing in a marine protected area, enable the killing of kiwi, cull $165 million from the Department of Conservation, and provide protection to invasive species?

The reality is that, when Mr Potaka said that, he meant the coalition Government. He didn’t just mean the National Party; he meant that all three political parties are very conscious of their responsibilities. As for the other matters raised here, when it comes to fishing, ordinary New Zealanders are entitled to be able to buy their own fish in their own shops at an affordable price. Under their regime, if they ever had power, there would be no supply of fishing at all to ordinary New Zealanders.

Can the Minister confirm that between 2020 and 2023, the majority Labour Government failed to pass the Hauraki marine park protection Act?

No, no, the Minister has no responsibility—[Interruption] No, no; Mr Peters, sit down. There is no responsibility for the Minister to answer that question, so it won’t be part of the Hansard record. Moving now to question No. 9.

14:39 · to the Minister of Education

Does she stand by her statement that “This curriculum has been written by Kiwis for Kiwi kids”; if so, why?

14:40

Yes. However, noting that the Ministry of Education wasn’t checking the residency or citizenship of the status of the hundreds of writers, they were more concerned with the quality of the curriculum, not the nationality of the person who wrote it. The member should also note that we are writing for Kiwi kids, but we’re also writing it for the Pacific Realm countries: Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau.

Why was the open tendering process bypassed and a contract directly awarded to Australian provider Learning First when there are New Zealand providers, such as the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, who have the experience and the ability to internationally benchmark the New Zealand Curriculum?

These matters are operational for the ministry. They make decisions on who they contract. Questions, I know, were put to the officials at the recent select committee inquiry, and, as I’ve said, those matters are operational and not for me as the Minister.

Why, then, did her adviser directly engage with Ben Jensen, chief executive of Learning First, about what services they could provide, such as receiving advice on how to use data to win “the hearts and minds of New Zealand teachers”?

Well, these are questions that the member could have put to the officials—

I’m asking you now.

—while she was in the committee. I can’t answer those questions because I don’t have the answers, because those are questions that should have been put to officials during the meeting.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. Maybe the Minister misunderstood my question. It was: why did the adviser from her office engage with Ben Jensen from Learning First about the content of what the contract was?

Yes, I did hear the question. Look, the other thing that’s worth noting is that our Standing Orders mean that Ministers do answer to the House for operational matters because officials can’t, and so there are some aspects that that answer would be acceptable in and others that aren’t. But the Minister might like to address the question that’s been asked.

Yeah, I apologise; I misunderstood. We get lots of unsolicited and solicited emails in my office, and I don’t read all of them. They go to my officials, and so I don’t always see all of those. I don’t know the ones that the member is referring to. This question wasn’t put on notice; I don’t have them in front of me. If she wants to put a written question to me about this, then she’s welcome to do so, but I can’t come down to the House and answer questions on things that aren’t on notice in this level of detail.

When Pauline Cleaver, Deputy Secretary for Curriculum, explained that Learning First was directly awarded the contract because “the Ministry was already working with them”, was there already a contract in place between the Ministry and Learning First, and, if so, for what services?

I’m advised that there was a contract signed with Learning First in—they started work on benchmarking work with the Ministry of Education in August 2025. That’s the information that I have to hand.

Did she meet with Ben Jensen, the chief executive of Learning First, for a coffee on the Gold Coast before or after they got exclusive rights to benchmark the New Zealand Curriculum?

Well, this is an interesting story that the member might like to listen to, but, actually, I was introduced to Ben Jensen from Learning First by the ministry—by, in fact, the Education Review Office (ERO)—when Dr Ben Jensen was invited here to New Zealand as part of some of the regular meetings that ERO holds between Australia and New Zealand to learn more. They introduced me to him, and then, when I happened to be in Australia for other matters, we had a coffee. I have coffee with many people, but in this instance the ministry or the Education Review Office were the people who introduced him to me, and not the other way around.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to table the exchange of emails from the Minister’s office—clearly, from her adviser—and Ben Jensen that was going on before the request for procurement exemption. I’d like to table both those documents. Neither are publicly available

Where did the member get them?

They were both obtained under the Official Information Act.

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

Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

14:44 · to the Minister for Mental Health

What announcements has he made about delivering faster access to maternal mental health and addiction support?

14:45

The Government’s mental health plan is delivering faster access to support, more front-line workers, and a better crisis response. Recently, I announced significant investment into maternal mental health and addiction services as part of Budget 2026. Funding will support specialist maternal mental health and addiction services while growing the front-line workforce. It also includes funding for community NGOs to increase support in their communities. One of the most important periods of a child’s life is the first 2,000 days. By supporting families early, we can help build a stronger future for our children.

What steps is the Government taking to strengthen peer support for mothers experiencing mental health and addiction challenges?

We know that connection can be a powerful form of support. Mothers can benefit from talking with someone who has lived experience and understands what they are going through. That is why this investment includes funding for new peer support positions to provide practical and emotional support and help build stronger local support networks for parents. Behind every one of these roles will be more families getting the support they need earlier.

How will access to specialist services for families be improved?

This Government is focused on strengthening prevention and early intervention. Investment will boost funding for specialist maternal mental health services and increase specialist maternal addiction services. We’ll also deliver new regional Supporting Parents Healthy Children Coordinators to strengthen family-focused approaches and improve coordination of care across services. This investment will increase capacity and help women and families access support faster during pregnancy and the year after birth.

What additional support will there be for bereaved families?

Losing a child is an unimaginable grief. This is why we are delivering mental health support as part of the Perinatal Bereavement Care Pathway. Funding will provide dedicated mental health support to better help families through baby loss. This investment will help ensure families are better supported during some of the most difficult moments of their lives.

14:47

Point of order. I seek leave to amend an answer to question No. 9.

You’re seeking leave?

Yes, I’m seeking leave.

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

I said August 2025 for Learning First contracting with the Ministry of Education. It’s actually April 2025 that Learning First first signed a contract with the Ministry of Education.

14:48 · to the Minister for Disability Issues

Does she accept the Human Rights Commission’s criticism that the Disability Support Services Bill is inconsistent with core human rights obligations, including the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities?

No. Over the past two years, we’ve taken urgent action to stabilise the system and improve support for disabled people and carers. This bill is the next step. It will provide a legislative framework for disability support services. It will make the system more fair, transparent, consistent, and sustainable. Over the last 18 months, we have consulted the disability community as part of the work to stabilise and then strengthen the system. This consultation has informed the principles and purpose of the bill. There is also consultation under way on how improvements can be made to areas of the system, including better planning for life changes, greater flexibility, and easier navigation of services and support. Over the next three years, Disability Support Services (DSS) will continue to undertake consultation on key improvements that will strengthen the system for thousands of disabled New Zealanders and their carers.

What is her response to former National Party MP Dame Marilyn Waring who said in her submission to the Social Services and Community Committee this morning of the bill, “New Zealand will now have to enter reservations on Articles 3 and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights because we cannot comply. This is a significant step and has an impact on our human rights reputation and our ability to make judgments of other nation States and their human rights records.”?

Well, I quite simply disagree. If you look at the independent review of DSS, it found that without a legislative framework, DSS’ mandate was drawn from Cabinet or ministerial decisions that do not provide adequate direction on a range of areas, including the role of Government in supporting disabled people and the purpose of DSS. It is absolutely critical that disabled people have certainty, clarity, and consistency in terms of the supports that are available. There is no legislation currently that underpins that. That is what we are fixing. If there was a right for disabled people we should be honouring, it is their access to very critical support and services and ensuring there is legislation that enables that and provides for it.

Can she commit to ensuring no means testing for individualised funding, which is currently the case, as a result of the Disability Support Services Bill (DSS bill)?

I said in my answer in the Estimates hearing last week that there is no intention to introduce means testing in the DSS bill. All it is doing is currently stating what occurs today. I will state again for the record: there is no intention to introduce means testing for flexible funding or anything in the DSS support that is currently provided that doesn’t have means testing.

Has she received any advice that this bill could leave more disabled people living in poverty in New Zealand?

No, because the DSS bill does not change any eligibility, does not introduce means testing, does not change any support that any disabled person or their carer receives today.

Will she commit to ensuring no disabled people are worse off as a result of the Disability Support Services Bill or any secondary legislation?

As I said in my answer to one other supplementary, it is quite shocking that $2.9 billion of investment into Disability Support Services has no legislative framework. That is what this bill fixes. What that means is—

That wasn’t the question.

If the member wants to hear an answer, I am very happy to answer it. I think it is very important to put things on the record where there has clearly been misinformation spread within the disability community. In terms of the question around ministerial programmes, they are no different than what we have in the social security legislation that are called welfare programmes. Over the next three years, DSS will have support programmes or ministerial programmes that cover all of the support that is currently available. I have said publicly and on the record—and I’ll state it again now, as Minister—any programme that is introduced will be consulted on with the disability community.

14:53 · to the Minister for the Public Service and Digitising Government

Does he stand by his statement that “our focus is not on frontline services” when it comes to public spending cuts?

Yes, the Government is not focused on cutting front-line services. As I said multiple times to the member at the select committee last week, public services did expand very significantly in recent years. Between 2017 and 2023, it grew from approximately 47,000 to over 63,000, which was unsustainable, in our view, and our focus is to deliver better public services that grow smarter and are not simply larger, as New Zealanders expect. The Government has asked each of the core agencies to conduct an exercise to consider how they operate and consider what reductions in staff numbers are feasible. Agencies have a different mix of front-line and back-office staff, and that is the point of the exercise.

Does he, then, agree with the mental health Minister’s refusal to rule out cuts to the Suicide Prevention Office?

Well, I haven’t seen those comments. The purpose of the exercise is for the agencies to consider how they fit within the broader efforts, but in terms of teachers, doctors, nurses, police, they’re outside of this process.

Does he agree with the conservation Minister’s refusal to rule out cuts to the Aoraki / Mount Cook rescue team?

Well, there are many hundreds, if not thousands, of people employed across the Department of Conservation, and, like every other department, they will be looking at the whole of the entity and recognising the Government’s statement that it is focused not on front-line services but on back-office operations in particular. If we look over the last couple of years—the two years to June 2025, for example—there was a 15 percent reduction in the number of clerical and administrative roles, a 6 percent reduction in managers, and a 10 percent reduction in policy jobs right across the Public Service and, at the same time, there was an increase in regulatory officers, such as corrections officers and so forth. We are able, as a Government, to distinguish between the front line and those who are supporting them, recognising that we value all workers in the public sector, but we are asking for efficiencies in those operations. I think all New Zealanders will understand that it is very easy just to hire lots of people and go on a hiring spree like the previous Government did, but ultimately, we have to pick up the bill, and that is part of the issue we’re facing as a country and why this Government is doing things differently.

Given his answer that he is able to distinguish between the front line and the back office, does he agree with the workplace relations and safety Minister’s refusal to rule out cuts to the Labour Inspectorate, which investigates exploitation of vulnerable workers?

There is an element of repetition to these questions and, indeed, my answers, which is to say that each Government department is tasked with the overall task of reducing its numbers back to somewhere closer to historic norms, and they are going through that exercise.

Does he, then, still stand by his statement that his focus is not on cutting front-line services, when he has acknowledged today that several of those front-line services are still at risk?

We’re going through a process, as a Government, of asking Government departments to reverse some of the hiring spree that went on under the previous Government, and we’re giving them the ability to do that, but we’ve also sent a clear signal that when they’re doing that, they shouldn’t be focusing on the front line; they should be focusing elsewhere. We have every confidence that the ministries, across the board, will be able to do this, recognising—and I just repeat it again for the benefit of the House—there were 47,000 in 2017, and under the six years of the previous administration, that blew out to more than 63,000. That’s one of the reasons why the finances of this country are under considerable strain. We can just carry on as we were and face the consequences of that, or we can address the situation, which is what this Government is doing.

14:58

Members, I received a letter from Ingrid Leary seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 the decision to halt admissions to ward 10A of the Wakari Hospital. This is a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility. As I indicated yesterday, this is an important matter, but I note there are other means of addressing the issue in the House. In her application, the member set out a series of questions she wishes to have answered. Those could be answered through oral questions. Members also have the Budget debate this afternoon, which is very broad in scope. In the very near future, the Estimates debate will be a further opportunity to question Ministers on their plans for health provision. Accordingly, I do not think the application has reached the point of urgency that warrants setting aside the business of the House today to debate it.

14:59

Budget 2026 is built around a simple but important concept: fixing the basics and building the future. It is a Budget that secures New Zealand’s future by backing the people who create growth—our businesses, our workers, and our communities. This Government understands that you cannot build for the future unless you fix the basics first. That means restoring discipline to the Government’s books, it means bringing inflation under control, and it means creating an environment where businesses can invest with confidence.

A personal highlight for me, and one which Kiwis can take much confidence from, was the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update, the BEFU, announced on Budget day. Let me just take you through some of the highlights there. Treasury forecasts growth averaging 2.7 percent over the next four years. Treasury also forecasts that 220,000 new jobs are expected to be created. The books are forecast to return to surplus in 2028-29, one year earlier than previously forecast. Inflation is contained and interest rates are easing, and debt is expected to trend down over time. Those are not just economic statistics, they are the foundations of confidence, and confidence is what small businesses tell me they need.

As Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing, I spend a lot of time on the shopfloor and on the factory floor. These people I meet are very practical people, and they don’t ask for favours. What they ask for is stable settings, sensible regulation, and an economy that rewards hard work. Small businesses account for 97 percent of all enterprises in our great nation. We are a country of small businesses. Around 700,000 Kiwis work in small business. They sponsor local sports clubs, they support charities, they employ apprentices, and they keep our towns and communities alive. That is why fixing the basics matters so much. Small businesses are often the first to feel the effects of inflation, high interest rates, and economic uncertainty, and they are also the first to invest when confidence returns. Budget 2026 backs those businesses by restoring stability and creating the conditions for investment. This is a Budget that understands prosperity is built from the ground up.

In the March 2026 quarter, manufacturing grew by 1.9 percent, as Statistics New Zealand revealed last week. Overall GDP growth for the first quarter of this year was 0.8 percent. Manufacturing grew at more than twice the national rate. In many cases, it was leading the charge. These are New Zealand businesses investing in equipment, taking on apprentices, exporting around the world, and creating highly skilled and well-paid jobs. Manufacturing is proof that, when we create the right economic conditions, New Zealand businesses compete with the best. This Government backs manufacturers, because we back New Zealand making things. That’s why, when we announced a $1.2 billion Gas Transition Loan Guarantee Scheme, it went down very well. It will help businesses to reduce or eliminate their dependency on gas. The Crown will guarantee 80 percent of eligible bank loans, so businesses can access lower interest rates to switch fuel sources. It’s a great policy.

Building the future also means building the workforce, and one of the most exciting parts of Budget 2026 is our investment in vocational education. University is one path; trades and vocational skills are another. Both deserve equal respect, and in this Government, both get it. Budget 2026 invests $68.9 million to double the trades academy places. We are growing from around 10,000 places today to more than 20,000 places by 2030. That means more young people learning practical skills whilst still at school, and that includes my own local high school in Upper Harbour, Massey High School, which is a leader in trades academies, with kids there literally building Kāinga Ora houses on the school campus. We are investing $15 million to establish at least eight new industry-led subjects in secondary schools, as well.

Subjects like this are coming into our secondary schools: construction and specialist trades, food and fibre, manufacturing and engineering, energy and infrastructure, electrotechnology and information technology, transport, services, education, and health and community. These are practical courses that are being designed by our industry skills boards and aligned with real jobs. I know that our manufacturing advisory group has been meeting with the industry skills board to work on that manufacturing and engineering course. Employers have also been asking for this. In fact, they’ve been asking for a long, long time. They want apprentices, they want welders, they want electricians—they want people graduating with skills that businesses actually need.

It’s this Government that’s committed to vocational training, and it’s this Government that is investing in young people to get there. This Budget delivers exactly that. Vocational education is simply not an education policy; it’s a small business policy, it’s a manufacturing policy, and it’s a building-the-future policy. I see the benefits of this Budget in my own electorate. Growing communities need growing skills—schools, and skills.

It was a pleasure to take the Minister of Education, just a couple of weeks ago, around the new Ta Pae School—the brand new Ta Pae School near Westgate, a brand new primary school that will be open for term 1, 2027. She also announced in my electorate, as well as across the whole of the north of the North Island, many more classrooms: 20 more for Upper Harbour, and an upgrade to Massey High School. So, real investment in Upper Harbour when it comes to education, more schools, and more classrooms. The same principle applies across New Zealand.

Budget 2026 makes targeted investments into education, health, law and order, and infrastructure. These are the fundamentals that support families, communities, and businesses. Better infrastructure means businesses can move goods more efficiently; stronger public services create stronger communities; and stronger communities support stronger local economies.

What I like most about this Budget is that it has confidence in New Zealanders. We are backing New Zealanders; we’re not getting in their way, we’re getting behind them. Confidence in the tradesmen, confidence in manufacturers, confidence in the small-business owner, confidence in our next generation. This Budget is about fixing the basics above all, and it’s about securing the future.

I want to finish up, again, on the BEFU forecasts. The BEFU forecast that the Minister—

What does BEFU stand for?

That stands for—as you well know, Dan Bidois—Budget and Economic Fiscal Update. Dan’s still reading it; he loves rereading these documents. It was released on Budget day, and it shows Treasury’s forecasts. Another 220,000 jobs are expected to be created—another 220,000 jobs. Treasury forecasts growth averaging 2.7 percent over the next four years.

You’ve got another one minute and 15 seconds to go.

The books—while the Labour Party can yell, the books are set to return to surplus in 2028-29, one year earlier than previously forecast. Debt—here’s one that the Labour Party wouldn’t have ever heard of—debt is expected to trend down over time. After we inherited all that debt, threefold—threefold debt going up. It is now, as we go through this decade, expected to start trending down.

Inflation is contained. Oh, the Opposition won’t like hearing that: inflation is contained. Of course, it got to 7.3 percent under the giddy heights of Labour. And, of course, interest rates are easing, making home ownership and making the cost of living even more affordable. These are not just economic statistics; they are the foundations of confidence. Confidence is what gives small businesses and manufacturers what they need most. This Budget is about the basics, and, above all, securing New Zealand’s future. I commend this bill.

15:09

This was this Government’s last chance, in this Budget, to prove to New Zealanders that they got it—whether that be New Zealand households that are sitting at the table thinking: “How am I going to pay my bills? What am I going to do when the car breaks down? How am I going to make ends meet?”; or New Zealand businesses that are struggling to stay afloat. They did not deliver this in Budget 2026.

This is a Budget that delivers so much, that even one of the newest members of their ministry struggles to make a 10-minute speech about that Budget. There is nothing more sure of a Government that is on the slide than when newly minted Ministers give speeches that concentrate almost exclusively on their own electorate, trying to shore up their own seat because they know where the party vote is going; they know what is ahead of them.

The previous speaker talked about all those indicators that were glowing for small businesses. Well, what he did not talk about was business liquidation being at a 15-year high. What we’re seeing for New Zealand businesses—small, medium, and large—is that they are going under at a greater rate under this Government than they have at any other time. This is because this is a Government that is not delivering for them.

What happened when National came into Government? The half-yearly economic update, the first one that Nicola Willis, the Minister of Finance, received in 2023—compare it to what she delivered with this Budget. Well, GDP growth projections of 2.8 percent that she received in that first half-yearly fiscal update are now 1.2 percent. So growth is lower than it was going to be. Unemployment is higher, though. Unemployment was forecast to be 4.8 percent; now 5.5 percent. Inflation was meant to be 2.2 percent; that’s now forecast to be 4 percent. And Government debt is now $4 billion higher than forecast. Under any indicator that you look at, you can see a Government that is failing on the business front.

But I do want to talk about the fact that we had the Minister stand there and say that this was—I wrote it down—a Budget that was delivering for ordinary New Zealanders. Now, let’s have a look at where some of these “savings” in this Budget came from. I want to talk about the $195.6 million of “savings” that this Government has extracted by decreasing the amount that someone who cannot pay, who is in a situation where they simply cannot afford to buy food, they cannot afford their rent, and they cannot afford childcare—$195 million is being taken out of those people’s pockets, in the form of the changes to the temporary additional support payment. The Government know—they will have been told—that this will increase poverty, this will increase food insecurity, and this has the potential to render people homeless. These are the kinds of savings that we are seeing in the lines of this Budget.

We are also seeing the changes that are being made to State houses. Now, I’m not just talking about the changes made to the income-related rent supplement levels; I’m talking about the messages that were given by the Minister of Housing, Chris Bishop, around the fact that they’re going to start kicking people out after a certain period of time. I have had a steady train of people through my office—in fact, I’ve had people stopping me when I’ve been doing my shopping, crying about the fear that they now live in that they are going to be kicked out of their homes. This is real. This is what this Budget means to people.

Some of these people voted for National at the last election on a promise of $250 a fortnight in tax cuts that were going to make them better; not one of them has received it. The Government cannot point to one single family in this country that receives enough. I have lost count of the people that have said, “The National Party told me I was going to be better off, but things are harder, things are worse, and there is no way out of this. And I certainly won’t be making that mistake again.”

This was the last chance for the Government to prove to New Zealanders that they have their interests at heart, and they certainly have not delivered that. They have delivered more pain for businesses and for households, and they certainly did not deliver hope.

15:14

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. Well, this is a terrible Budget, and when we look at why that is, it is a Budget that has not provided hope for people around the community and the country. It certainly hasn’t provided a lot for people in Palmerston North. It is a terrible Budget.

This was a Government, in the National Party, that was elected, as they say, to fix the cost of living, and the reality in communities all around the country is that they continue to make it worse. They’ve already made it worse; this Budget continues to make it worse. It was, as my colleague the Hon Dr Megan Woods has said, the Government’s last chance to respond to the cries of help that people have been calling out, based on their own experience in communities and in households, and they have failed to deliver.

It is yet another example of Christopher Luxon being completely out of touch with the experience of the hardship that communities all around this country are experiencing every single day of the week. Of course, that comes as no surprise when this is a Government, when we reflect on their priorities—yes, it is a Government that wants to focus on billions for tobacco companies and for property speculators, as well.

When we look at the context of the bigger picture, unemployment continues to rise, particularly for our Pacific community. The costs when it comes to people’s electricity bills, rent, food—all of these things that people need to meet the costs of, they continue to go up. We have people in households who are going cold during winter because they know that they cannot afford to turn on adequate heating. Petrol costs are going up. How much it costs to go to the doctor is going up.

Twenty-thousand people who were employed in building and construction in this country have moved on from their jobs. Why? Because this is a Government that has continued along the path of cancellation when it comes to Kāinga Ora housing in our communities.

This is a photo that was taken in the Government’s first year of office, and this is land in my electorate of Palmerston North in Church Street where there were 63 one- and two-bedroom homes that were proposed and funded, with resource consent granted for them to be built.

Where are they?

Well, Camilla Belich, I’ll tell you where they are. They’re not on Church Street because the bollards continue to be there.

This was a Budget that provided an opportunity to send a really strong signal to people in communities like Palmerston North and elsewhere around the country, that we acknowledge and we understand that there are issues and we are prepared to fix them. To the people of my community that will continue to travel past Church Street and see that those more than 60 homes are still waiting to be built: not under this Government. It is an absolutely terrible Budget, and that’s not just in my community; that is in communities all around this country.

Perhaps for the rural school buses, there was hope that maybe Erica Stanford and the Government would see the light and return to providing alleviation in terms of cost pressures that households are dealing with right now. Oh no, there’s nothing in the Budget when it comes to supporting households in that particular light.

When it comes to public transport, the day before the Budget, I implored the Government to think about what they were going to do to address the concerns about public transport. Were they going to perhaps have a $20 fare cap for Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch, and $10 everywhere else? Oh no, they weren’t. They had the opportunity in their Budget, but it was not forthcoming.

When it comes to fuel excise and road-user charges, just yesterday the Government did not rule out—they did not rule out—the fact that those increases were still going to come. That is yet another example of a Government that is out of touch, where they do not understand that households all around this country continue to do it tough. Fuel tax increases and road-user charge hikes are still on the cards under this Government, and, in actual fact, their revenue forecasts in their Budget depend on those increases. They’re baked in, and that will be another direct hit on households that this Government is not prepared to simply rule out.

Our communities were looking to the Government to provide some certainty for them. Kiwis need certainty right now. They crave certainty, and that’s what we’ve provided in ruling out things like the fuel tax increase for next year.

In transport, again, it’s disappointing that it’s not likely that we will have a Government policy statement on land transport in the lead-up to the election, probably because the suite of projects of roads of national significance is over $56 billion and climbing. There’s no sort of plan for how that’s going to be funded under the current Government.

The priorities in this Budget under the National Government provide nothing for households. It provides nothing for communities that continue to do things tough right now. That is why this Budget is a terrible one.

15:20

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Look, for those listeners and viewers today having to experience Tangi Utikere and Megan Woods, the conclusion they would come to is that it’s the same old Labour; nothing has changed. The crocodile tears come out, but, in fact, what the public wants is just an apology—an apology for the state they left the country in three years ago. The rose-tinted—or should I say “red-tinted”—glasses are out for what was comprehensively a failed socialist experiment. If those members want to talk about affordability and the pressures of affordability on everyday Kiwis today, all I need to point to is the 7 percent inflation rate under that last Government. Inflation is a thief in the night, and under them, affordability went backwards for everyday Kiwis.

Tangi Utikere talked about housing. Think about KiwiBuild, an absolute failure: trying to build 100,000 houses. They even had the nerve to talk about education, where, under their watch, 50 percent of our kids were not going to school. You’ve got to listen very clearly to their language, because what they’re starting to frame this as is the need for Labour to intervene in your life. That’s their modus operandi: State planning and socialism. They want to get into your life and make the decisions for you, whereas, on this side of the House, we want to create the economic environment and the economic settings, and then get out of your way so that you can go on and flourish.

Nothing was more emblematic of the last failed socialist experiment of that Labour Government than mental health. Remember the $1.9 billion? The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, in their last report for the last Labour Government, said that despite the $1.9 billion for mental health, it had made no material improvement. Last week, this Government welcomed the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission report on the performance of this Government. They found significant improvement. Waiting times had come down, access rates had increased, workforce vacancy rates had come down, and the number of people in the workforce had increased. Workforce diversity had increased as well.

It shows you that it’s not just how much money you spend; it’s where you spend it—targeted investment—and that’s why, under Budget 2026, I welcome the targeted investment into better mental health. Over $100 million is going in to better support the Government’s mental health plan, faster access to support, more front-line workers, and a better crisis response.

That’s why, in Budget 2026, we’re investing for the first time into a new registration—one of the first health registrations we’ve see in New Zealand in over a decade; I’m going to meet those students in the middle of July at the University of Canterbury—that’s the new psychology assistant role. They’re hitting campuses around New Zealand, and they’ll hit the workforce next year. That’s why, through this Budget 2026 investment, we’re funding an extra 150 full-time equivalents of psychology assistants at the front line.

On top of the 11 percent increase we’ve seen in the mental health and addiction workforce since coming to office, there is a 19 percent increase in the child and adolescent mental health workforce. Why? Because the Ombudsman said to the last Government, “You have no plan for the mental health workforce.” We published ours in our first year and $44 million went into it. We’ve seen clinical psychology double, psychiatry increase by 50 percent, and an 11 percent increase in the front-line workforce.

Not only that, there is faster access to support. The data is out today for quarter three of the financial year: 83 percent of Kiwis are accessing primary mental health and addiction support within one week, and 82 percent of Kiwis are accessing specialist mental health and addiction support within three weeks. That’s been a real game-changer.

What did the last lot do? Their approach to the postcode lottery—remember it? They took a wrecking ball to our health system in the middle of a pandemic, put all of the control in Wellington, and said, “Wellington knows best. Wellington knows better about your health system than local communities.”

What has this Government done? On 1 July, we’re returning local decision-making to the front line to decide about service delivery, budgets, and workforce. That’s why we’re investing more into one of the most important times in a parent’s and child’s life—that’s maternal mental health—not only to increase the investment into our specialist services but also to roll out new roles of peer support, lived-experience workers in our maternal mental health services. That will be a game-changer. On top of that, we have further investment into community and NGO services for better maternal mental health support. That’s our front-line NGO community and iwi providers, who know their community, know how to engage their community, and know how to make a real difference.

When you look at our third priority—faster access to support and a better crisis response—sadly, in New Zealand, quite often when you call 111 in a physical health crisis, you get a health response, and in a mental health crisis, you get a criminal justice response. That’s why this Government is rolling out 10 new mental health co-response teams across the country, so that in a time of need in a time of mental health crisis, if you call 111, you will have a mental health professional coming out to your house.

But it can’t just stop there. When you go to the emergency department (ED) under this Government, you no longer wait hours in the emergency department—brightly lit, noisy, with a lot of people—with two police officers with taser guns; you are fast-tracked within one hour of getting into an emergency department, to be seen by mental health professionals. But it doesn’t stop there. Too often, people are stuck in emergency departments after being assessed because there is no availability of beds. That’s why, under Budget 2026, there’s significant investment into opening up a number of mental health in-patient beds.

Would you believe that when we came into office, there were dozens of mental health in-patient beds sitting there unfunded, and they weren’t open to respond to the need and that demand. You’ve got to question: where did the $1.9 billion go? No one knows where it goes, and I’ll tell you what. Typical of a Labour Government, they raised expectations for some of the most vulnerable Kiwis and then failed to deliver. As the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission said, it was $1.9 billion with no material improvement. Only a former Labour Government could spend $2 billion and not make a difference. That’s why we’re opening up more in-patient beds—to ensure that people get faster access when they come into ED in a time of crisis.

I do want to highlight one more investment out of Budget 2026: forensic mental health. It’s probably an area that does not get the profile it deserves. Sadly, we have too many prisoners who need specialist mental health support and who wait too long.

Budget 2025 has $51 million to open up more beds, not only in our forensic mental health facilities—I opened a new forensic in-patient facility in Waikato recently because of that $51 million investment—but also stepped down here, in the community. We continue with that investment in forensic mental health today with Budget 2026, investing a further $36 million. That will provide more forensic mental health in-patient beds. It will also deliver more prison in-reach, which is mental health support for our prisoners in corrections facilities who need that specialist support, as well as court liaison for those going through the court system.

There is a lot to do in mental health, but I would point you to the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission report last week that said that there was significant improvement. I’d point you to the data today that shows Kiwis are accessing mental health faster than ever before. I’d point you to the continuing investment of Budget 2026.

15:30

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. Budget 2026 is not a Budget of transformation; it is a Budget of maintenance. Most—much of what—I’ll try these, shall I? [Puts on reading glasses] Yes, there we go. Much of what has been presented as investment is simply the redistribution of existing funding. Money is moved from one pocket to another, repackaged as progress, and sent out for the headlines. It’s all smokescreens and mirrors.

This is a holding-the-line Budget. Growth is forecast at around 1.2 percent this year. The Government is running a deficit of approximately $12 billion. Government debt is projected to rise from around 42 percent of gross domestic product to 46 percent next year. At the same time, inflation remains elevated and the cost-of-living pressures continue to bite. Those realities matter because Budgets are ultimately about choices.

If you are wealthy, this Budget asks very little of you, but if you are a family already choosing between food and power bills, or are unemployed, Māori, or a woman, you are helping fund this Government’s pathway back to surplus. The Government has chosen to prioritise fiscal restraint while expecting households to absorb more of the burden.

Nowhere is that burden more visible than in Māori communities. Māori unemployment has risen to 11.5 percent. Māori under-utilisation now sits at 22.3 percent. Nearly one in four Māori rangatahi aged 15 to 24 are not in employment, education, or training. For Te Tai Tokerau, it is what we call poverty in paradise.

Our midwives are increasingly supporting māmā who cannot afford adequate nutrition throughout their pregnancy. Appointments are missed because transport costs too much. Medication is delayed because every dollar has already been spoken for. These realities breed environments for domestic violence. This intensifies the risk for māmā and pēpe. Addiction levels are rising, and babies are more frequently born pre-term, where survival is a struggle.

I want to discuss this in the context of the four-page child poverty report in this year’s Budget, where one of the pages is a diagram, and nowhere within is the word “Māori” mentioned once.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Considering our tamariki were not mentioned once—that’s you and I, Dan—in that report, I will take the chance now to say that around 25 percent of tamariki Māori live in material hardship. That represents approximately 77,000 Māori children.

Nationally, around 170,000 children are living in hardship, meaning households are going without essentials such as heating, food, healthcare, clothing, and keeping up with the bills. A nation that tolerates 170,000 tamariki in poverty is not short of resources, but, rather, political will. The question is not whether we can afford to end child poverty, but, rather, if we’ll choose to, because the cost of hardship does not disappear; it reappears elsewhere. It has appeared in this year’s Budget for health, corrections, and social services. Those figures suggest a system that remains heavily focused on intervention after harm has occurred, rather than preventing harm in the first place.

Across multiple Votes, I questioned Ministers and officials in the recent scrutiny time about performance measures relating to Māori outcomes. Increasingly, those measures are being removed, narrowed, or absorbed into broader reporting frameworks. Without transparent reporting, Parliament loses its ability to assess whether public spending is actually improving outcomes for Māori communities, but it also tells us who is expected to carry the burden while those targets are pursued.

I agree with Ganesh Nana that the brunt of this Budget sits on Māori whānau. Mō Te Tai Tokerau, tēnā tātou.

[For Te Tai Tokerau, greetings to us all.]

15:35

Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka. Otirā tēnā rā tātou e te Whare. I rise today to speak on the outcomes of Budget 2026. Budget is where every citizen in this country gets to see where their taxpayer money is going. Right now, across the world, so many countries are experiencing what we call a polycrisis: multiple crises happening at once, when we think of fuel, shelter, food, and climate devastation.

Now, when this happens, we should have Budgets produced by Governments and a tax system that can quickly relieve short-term pressures and create long-term solutions, not making it harder. These crises are felt internationally on the international indigenous scale, but also felt here on a national scale and into our local communities: the polycrisis of food, fuel, shelter, climate—tangataTiriti, taiao, and tahua.

When it comes to food, this country can make $450 million worth of food productivity for the rest of the world, and yet the 5 million that live here in this country are in food poverty and can barely afford the $11 butter that is at the grocery store. For many whānau who work in AFFCO, Tegal, and Fonterra, who make the food on our whenua with 87 percent of the diary and meat being exported across overseas, it shouldn’t have to be a luxury to buy the food that you make on your own whenua and land.

The wider Waikato region exported approximately $14.4 billion worth of goods in 2025. Hauraki-Waikato is consistently over-delivering in this country’s economy. It is 10 percent to 30 percent cheaper for New Zealand meat over in Australia than here at home in Aotearoa. All GST should be removed from the receipt of your grocery shop spending when it comes to food, and we should see our own country starting to have conversations on how we can break down the supermarket duopoly.

When it comes to fuel, around 44 percent of the petrol price is taxed. Nearly half of what you pay at the pump goes to the Government. During a fuel crisis, this Budget and Government should have made public transport free and removed road-user charges temporarily. That’s why you see the majority of people in Hamilton going to the NPD on Tuesdays and Thursdays, because that’s when it’s on a freeze.

When it comes to shelter and housing, during this winter, we saw this Government come out with move-on orders, which literally translates to “People can arrest you if you haven’t moved in a certain location, even if you’re homeless.” This is not a supply issue. There are enough houses in this country to house every single person in Aotearoa.

When it comes to climate, we have never had so many states of emergency in this country due to climate crises than in the first three months of this year, and after three months of work, consistently, we’ve only seen one out of the 19 fast-track projects that were detrimental to Hauraki-Waikato in the mining and fast-track projects be cancelled.

So with those four crises outlined in this year’s Budget, what was actually done by this Government to relieve those pressures of all these crises happening at once, for our whānau and communities, who suffer the brunt? Now, when it comes to crises, it affects our most vulnerable, and that’s when our system shows how unfair it actually is. The New Zealand tax system literally protects 150 people who own more than half of this country’s wealth. They are the top wealthiest 1 percent of the country, who pay only 9 percent in tax and earn over $26 million a year, while the rest of the country pay 22 percent to 33 percent in tax. We are not saying to bring the rich down; we’re literally just saying that they should pay their fair share.

These are our teachers, nurses, the people who create the food for our country’s economy globally. These are our front-line workers. Now, what have they gotten out of this Budget in 2026, and where has their taxpayer money gone to? Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka.

15:40

Excellent—thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of this Budget because it’s helping secure New Zealand’s future by getting us back to surplus earlier, while still investing in the drive for better health and education and law and order outcomes.

The Opposition wants us to get out the cash bazooka and spray money around in every direction. I’ll answer that directly, because that rests on the confusion in this country, that we can no longer afford: a confusion between spending money and solving a problem, and that is exactly what we can do. Anybody can open the books and absolutely empty them out. It takes no courage to hand out what you don’t have. It takes no wisdom to call a debt a gift. But let’s be honest about what un-targeted funding actually does: it pours money indiscriminately into the economy, which actually drives prices up—exactly what we are trying to fix. It doesn’t fight the fire; it feeds it. Why would you treat the disease with a larger dose of poison?

Let’s be clear what we’re actually doing here: we are making sure that we are building a solid foundation for New Zealand so that our wages and job growth can outpace the cost of groceries and our prices. That is the way we’re going to help New Zealand. We need to help the families in front of us, and not penalise the future generations that are coming along.

Let’s start where we plan to continue. Let’s start with health, because, of course, the last Government did a restructure of the healthcare system during the pandemic. What we saw was wait-lists balloon, we saw people waiting for knees and hips for far too long, we saw people not being able to access their GPs. Well, we have added an extra $5.5 billion into the healthcare budget.

For the first time in New Zealand’s history, we have a 10-year health infrastructure plan so that communities around the country can see what is coming. Because a number of our hospitals are well over 47 years old, we need to make sure we have a programme in place to actually replace that. We are lowering the age of bowel cancer screening to 56 so that cancer is caught early and not more later. It strengthens our ambulances, because, of course, many New Zealanders know that in times of need, we need ambulances to get out and help.

It funds more medicines through Pharmac. In previous Budgets, we’ve already increased Pharmac funding by $604 million; this Budget is adding another $54 million to that pot. These are medications that New Zealanders can access—33 new cancer medications already. With a total of 57 new medications approved, we’re going to see even more medicines. These are going to affect the life of all New Zealanders. This Budget also gives new mothers the right to stay where she is cared for, rather than being sent home too early. As I say, this is the first time in New Zealand’s history that we’ve got an infrastructure plan: a $55 billion increase for health funding.

Now, let’s move to education, because, of course, our children are the future of this country, and if we can get the basics of our education right, then the future of New Zealand will be well suited. There’s another $470 million of capital investment to redevelop up to 10 schools, deliver 232 additional classrooms, and also buy land for new schools. We are putting education as a priority for the country, and it is going to pay off handsomely in the future for our children. We are doubling the number of trade academies to 20,000 people, because, as I said, the children are the future of this country. We need to fix the basics now to build for the future.

A Government is not judged by how loudly it spends money or how much cash it blows without actually having results; it is judged by the reforms that it can drive and that we can actually deliver these services for all New Zealanders. We’ve had more spending in the law and order space, defence, and foreign affairs. This is a Budget which is fixing the basics and building the future. It is going to secure the future for New Zealand. Therefore, I commend it to the House.

15:44

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. This debate is about the Budget that is before us, the Budget that is for the year of 2026-27.

Just as a brief explanation for those viewing at home, people may think that once the Budget has been read by the finance Minister, the money is there ready to be spent. Well, that is not quite the case. We actually go through quite a process, and enacting the bill that we are debating is actually what allows the Government to go on and do its spending that it releases within the Budget. Another part of the process is actually the imprest bill that was read, or spoken to, prior to this. We need that bill there to allow the Government to be able to spend money between the time of the end of the financial year and when this bill comes into enactment. That’s just a very basic “101” of what we’ve been doing in recent times here.

One of the areas that’s of extreme interest to me is the role that I play as chair of the Māori Affairs Committee. Within Māori affairs, we have just recently conducted some scrutiny hearings with regards to Te Tari Whakatau, which is the Government department that deals with the Treaty settlements; but also Māori development, which is in the spheres of Te Puni Kōkiri (TPK). They have different Ministers for both of those particular entities.

But I do want to briefly talk to Te Tari Whakatau with regards to the settlement. As a little bit of an update, the Government of the day has completed just north of 100 settlements, and, of those 100 settlements, the high 80s are actually do with iwi. We have settlements that are of a non - particular singular iwi basis, which are with the likes of Taranaki Maunga, where there’s multiple iwi; the Whanganui Awa; the Te Ureweras; and all that type of stuff. There are settlements associated with pan-iwi on most occasions that are not specifically a singular iwi settlement, but of the iwi of New Zealand, we’ve currently settled about just north of 85 of those. There are quite some more to come. They say that there are up to another 50 settlements still to be enacted there, but progress is being made, and, of course, every Budget actually allows for that journey to continue.

With Te Tari Whakatau, they also have the takutai moana determinations within it also. There is allowance within the Budget that is associated with helping our iwi to be able to go through their process with regards to takutai moana.

With regards to Te Puni Kōkiri, I’d love to actually mention one of, what you might call, their ethoses, or the ways in which they conduct their businesses, and it’s said by the line of “whānau-centred, locally led, Government-enabled”. That there is, basically, where Te Puni Kōkiri goes out on the whenua, out to hapū and whānau, and endeavours to enable them to succeed. But it’s very much a bottom-up scenario, rather than a top-down scenario, and it works.

I heard a speech from a member on the Opposition there about how it’s endeavouring to use data to look at the success of some of the programmes that are happening within TPK. It’s great to see that they’re capturing data. It’s going into the IDI—the central government data-capturing centre—and, hopefully, that is going to help in securing more funding for some of these great programmes that are there in this space.

I look very simply with regard to the Budget. I think about my own homestead, my own family, my wife and I, and about how we actually budget for ourselves as we traverse through our life and that, and it always comes down to choices. The choices are dictated by the revenue—the amount of money that we earn as a couple—but we most definitely have to make choices.

I think it’s fair to say—and I hear it across the House—that there are many spaces that we would like to spend more money. This is primarily in Public Service with regards to health, education, law and order, and all the necessary stuff that we all play to. But, simply, we have choices to be made with what we are generating. We are not a Government of wanting to tax more and to borrow more. We are wanting to get to a point of surplus to repay debts and to make our country far more better-positioned to handle some of the catastrophes that we deal with from time to time. This Budget is most definitely about fixing the basics and building the future. I commend it to the House.

15:49

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak to the Appropriation (2026/27 Estimates) Bill. This bill demonstrates a long-evident agenda of this Government to cut funding to environmental protections. Specifically, over the course of three years, we see $165 million in cuts to the Department of Conservation (DOC). Similarly, we see in this bill, expressed a greater funding of what is labelled “Regional Infrastructure Fund”. You can read between the lines on what a Government’s agenda is through the likes of an appropriation bill like this. So soon after the Budget, we see in other legislation before the House the manifesting of that agenda, which is one that sees DOC have its funding cut at the same time as there is legislation that is brought to open up DOC to commercial exploitation—i.e., our conservation estate.

I wonder how much of the Regional Infrastructure Fund in the appropriations bill will go towards the mining of our conservation land. I wonder how the Department of Conservation, with its cuts to its funding, will be able to actually deal with the concessions it is expected to deal with for mining facilitation—the mining consents that are no doubt going to be applied for. We see today the extent of the mineral deposits—those listed by the Government as critical minerals that it’s interested in extracting. We see how much of those are on Department of Conservation land in a map released today by Greenpeace.

Now, is it any accident that that exploitation of conservation land coincides with an appropriation that drops the funding to the Department of Conservation? Is it a likely pathway to DOC becoming a mining facilitator, rather than a protector of the conservation estate? Indeed, the language in another bill before the House expects that the Department of Conservation should be focused on exploitation to the greatest degree practicable of that conservation estate. So this appropriation paves the way for a Government that has been the most radically anti-environmental Government in certainly my lifetime and possibly in New Zealand history.

But I wonder if it will become the last Budget of this Government, because they have misread the room on the extent to which New Zealanders value our conservation estate; the extent to which we expect the Department of Conservation to be appropriately funded to take care of the extraordinary species, the taonga species that exist within those estates; the extent to which we appreciate the ability to enter those magnificent Gondwanan forests, to walk through those crystal clear rivers, to hear the birdsong of the kōkako and the kākā, and to know that we can enjoy those without them being exploited or risked or sold off or dug up for mining by a foreign mining company. Those are not the expectations that New Zealanders have of how any Government should fund that extraordinary asset that is something that we are all obliged to care for and treasure, because it is, indeed, the inheritance of our children and our grandchildren. This Government seems intent on running that inheritance down through its failure to properly fund environmental protections and specifically our Department of Conversation. We have to wonder if their intention is to sell it off because they are not funding the care of it. Here, telegraphed in this appropriation, we see that intention demonstrated.

It was about 16 years ago that a Government proposed to open up the conservation estate to mining, and they got a pretty big shock when 40,000 people marched up Queen Street against that proposal. It seems that the lessons of history that are not learned: those who do not learn them are doomed to repeat those lessons. Here we have a Government that has not learned the lesson of how New Zealanders expect our conservation to be cared for, not to be exploited and extracted from.

I also wonder, when we understand that there is a clear ideology around what economic development looks like, that sees a massive rise in our cost of living, that sees an underfunding across the board of our public services, a decline in the ability of those public services to deliver the most basic needs and expectations of New Zealanders: good healthcare, accessible education, good housing, good public transport—all of those things that are actually a benchmark for a thriving country. Instead, we see a greater polarisation of wealth inequality. We see the highest rates of homelessness that we have ever seen in our history. We see one-in-seven children in poverty—the highest rates of poverty that we’ve ever seen in this country. And what do we have? A Government that has been—how should we put it?—miserly with its willingness to actually protect those who are most vulnerable and those who are most in need of being cared for in our society.

My final point is that one feels that the coalition has let the flanks of the major party drag it to more extreme focuses. It has failed to actually represent what most New Zealanders think are the appropriate focuses of any Government: that birthright of all New Zealanders to swim in clean rivers, to fish in abundant oceans, to walk in healthy native forests, and to live in a society where everybody thrives, no matter what their background, no matter what their circumstances of birth. That is a thing that this appropriation fails to step up to. That is a thing that this Government has failed to meet in the basic values of New Zealanders. It is my sincere belief that this will be a one-term Government for the exact reason that a Budget such as the one before us has not dealt with the essential values and principles that New Zealanders stand for. Thank you.

15:57

Thank you. I respect the views that have just been shared about this Budget. What I would say is that my own instinct when I saw the Budget played out and the legislation that came into urgency, was that it was very, very lacklustre. It’s interesting that the Government seems to have decided its new word is going to be “ambition”, after “temporary”, “targeted”, and something else. There’s no ambition in this Budget. There’s actually a defeat in this Budget for ordinary people. There’s just nothing there for them.

So I wanted to talk about why I thought that was particularly important in terms of what I’m seeing in my electorate. I’ve got this really wonderful market in the electorate called Wesley, and it’s not a farmer’s market like Matakana; it’s a farmer’s market with growers bringing in cheap carrots. It has lots of women—Chinese women—selling little amounts of things that you couldn’t get anywhere else because they’re used by the Chinese community, so quite different vegetables and they’re very cheap. They sell duck eggs and other really quite special stuff, but the big thing about it is it’s very cheap in comparison to our supermarkets. I talked to those people who are coming to that market, scratching out what they’ve got, and they’ve all got stories about why it is that they’re not earning a lot of money—and they’re not. They’re not earning much money at all. A lot of them haven’t been able to find jobs.

There are people who have come in as part of the refugee quota or they’ve come in from war-torn countries, like Afghanistan, and they haven’t been able to find work for a long time, and young women who’ve done all the right things—they’ve gone, and they’ve studied, and they’ve become engineers—can’t find work. That’s the environment which means that there just isn’t enough money to make ends meet at the moment. I’m proud of the fact that Labour has a policy that addresses just that direct need that people have—particularly the one about public transport, because I can see those women and those people being able to lock in the expense of public transport at $20 in Auckland. That will make a big difference to our students, etc.

I just can’t see anything, in this Budget, coming to help people with things like energy bills and food bills. I just cannot see it. I was thinking about one example of this, which is the decision the Government made to up the rate that it gave home-care workers when they drove their cars to places. That was an upping of the rate to 82c from 62c. Now, that was proudly described as “temporary”. It was only going to happen for a short time. How much do we get, as parliamentarians, for our mileage? We get $1.20 or $1.30 and it’s not temporary. That’s how much it costs. That’s how much it actually costs, because that’s what the AA says it costs. We don’t prioritise, at the present time, a group of workers who are on about $25, maybe $32, an hour. They help people, like my parents, to stay in their home, and they’re gold. They’re people who we need doing that work, and we’re paying them peanuts. When we look at them under stress because of a fuel crisis, what this Government decides to do is to give them 82c temporarily, back to 62c the minute we see a shift. That’s what these people have been given.

There’s a lack of values in the decisions this Government is making. There’s a kind of punitiveness towards anybody who wants to help anyone in their work. That’s apparently not what we’re after. We’re after a class of people who are supposed to produce a lot, which is all supposed to trickle down to the others. The others, who are all of us, really, are seen as some sort of parasite rather than the heart of New Zealand. For me, those people are the heart of New Zealand. I am grateful, every day, to those home-care workers who go in and help my 95-year-old father and my mother with dementia survive in their own home. This Budget doesn’t give those people enough

16:03

E mihi ana ki a koe e te Māngai o te Whare, otirā tēnā tātou katoa. I want to reflect on this year’s Budget and Whānau Ora. What we know in this Whare, in this House, is that Whānau Ora works because it backs whānau. It doesn’t back bureaucracy; it trusts communities and whānau to know what support is best for their people out there. When families are struggling with housing costs, with food prices, with health needs, and with rising unemployment, the answer is not less investment in Whānau Ora; it’s more. One of the honours, I guess, of working as the Opposition spokesperson for Whānau Ora is that there is some connection between this side and that side, in that we agree, most of all, that Whānau Ora works. I honour our kahurangi Tariana Turia for the work and the idea that has forged the pathway through to today.

Over the past few months, I have visited Whānau Ora providers on the ground at grassroots to hear directly from them about the issues that whānau are presenting to them. The things that they tell me are that things are getting more expensive for people out there. More people are presenting on their doorsteps, but, most of all, they’ve seen shifts in the increasing number of rangatahi that are turning up on their doorsteps.

In this Budget, what they wanted to see is a little bit of hope. They wanted to see additional funding that recognised the needs that they have communicated to this Government. They didn’t want to see how a wonderful data system can inform Budgets of the future. They wanted to see how this Budget in 2026 can create the change and help they need tomorrow. The reality of this Government is that while they’ve taken an axe to all things Māori, almost, in this term, with Whānau Ora, there was the opportunity to put some backing behind our kaiwhiriwhiri, our navigators. Instead, this Budget asked them to do the same—to do more with less. That says, “Hopefully, one day we’ll be able to expand the reach out into different communities, out in the regions.”, but that day is not today, because our fantastic data that we talk about hasn’t informed this Budget.

On top of this, the Minister tells me that there hasn’t even been any recognition of the wait-list that Whānau Ora providers have told him about. That response says that there are at least 90 whānau out there that have presented since back in October and that are still on that wait-list, waiting to access the service and waiting to access the help that this Government is responsible for delivering. The reality is that these providers, in good faith and with goodwill as good Māori and Pacific people, are out there providing the services over and above without the resources that they need to do their job to connect individuals and whānau with the Government services that they need.

What we wanted to see was increased funding, even a lift to increase the number of navigators and kaiwhiriwhiri to engage directly with those whānau. It’s not necessarily additional resources; it’s putting people in jobs to help connect these individuals with the services and support that the Government is responsible for providing. That is not what our Whānau Ora providers have seen. There’s not additional investment in Whānau Ora, a kaupapa that works, a kaupapa that we know changes lives and outcomes of not just one individual but of the whānau that live in our community.

16:08

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a great privilege to speak in this Budget debate, and it’s actually, essentially, what you would expect: we’re singing its praises, and, of course, the Opposition is not. I thought I’d reflect on what’s actually happening on the ground. Mr Speaker, I know you’re a follower of these things, and it’s really important to get the feedback on how this Budget is going down and what the mood in the country is.

If I start at the Fieldays, I know a number of colleagues across the House attended the Fieldays, and it was a really good opportunity to take the pulse of the nation and certainly the rural nation. It was magnificent. Actually, people were really buoyant. They’re confident, and they, I think, were enjoying their time in the sun because it’s been a long way back for a lot of them. I don’t know whether the tools were ringing that much, but, certainly, farmers are paying down debt, and that mood went right across it.

It was great to actually come across the wilding pine trust at the Fieldays. Mr Speaker, I don’t know if you got a chance to go along there and look at the great work that was done there, but I thought I’d tell you a little story about that. Years ago, one of the most famous or infamous—depending on which side of the House you came from—politicians, Sir Robert Muldoon, wrote a letter guaranteeing that if wilding pines got out of control, the Government would do something about it. And at last, we are. It’s been a long time coming.

We only got in this position, Mr Speaker, as I’m sure you’re aware, because the old Forest Service and the catchment boards decided they were going to stop erosion, and really stop a natural process, and they were going to plant all these trees. They’ve, unfortunately, planted trees that would thrive in New Zealand, but their seed is so light that, actually, the wind-blown seed rain—it’s called—is causing havoc in New Zealand. So to have that $109 million over four years—I think it is—is a magnificent step in the right direction. It’s a heck of a job to get on top of it, but on top of it we must get.

The positive feeling in the rural sector went on when I went to the Taimate bull sale, and that’s in my electorate just north of Ward, and the Hickman’s are great farmers there and they set a New Zealand record for their bull at $168,000. I thought, “Wow, that was great.” It was a magnificent animal. But then, of course, Kaharau sold a bull just this week for $220,000 and set another record. Now, that’s fantastic. And that’s on the back of the demand for beef, for our beef. Of course, to have beef, you’ve got to have bulls. It’s magnificent for the rural sector, but it’s great for those guys that put everything on the line, and they stand there that day and that’s the only day they earn their money. So if it goes well, they have a good year. And believe me, I’ve been to a few where it’s been quite sad. So to see farmers doing really well is great.

The SOPI report, the Situation and Outlook for Primary Industries, has come out recently and is predicting $70 billion of agriculture exports by 2030. So, you know, everything’s up: dairy’s up $27 billion, up by 16 percent; horticulture’s up by $8.4 billion, which is 19 percent, which is a huge uptick largely led by kiwifruit, of course; meat and wool are up $12.3 billion, up 8 percent.

It’s not all happy days; the wine industry is going through a tough time at the moment. I was at Grape Days in Marlborough in Blenheim on Monday, and, you know, the industry’s got itself to where it is at the moment, which is that supply has grown faster than demand. But despite what the rest of the world is doing, in the report that Philip Gregan, the retiring CEO of New Zealand Winegrowers, gave on the market, it’s clear that while demand is slightly reducing in most of the markets, in all markets we sell into, New Zealand wine demand and sales are going up. So it’s a positive story. But we do have to get that supply back in balance with demand, and that’s what drives it—it’s an immutable supply and demand story, and it’s just a pity it got out of whack. But it’ll come back and there is some sign of that, but quite a lot of grapes are being pulled out around the country and I really feel for those people involved. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

16:13

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, it is with real privilege I rise to support this Budget. It’s an excellent Budget. It’s a responsible Budget in difficult times, and I hope I wake up the member over there, she’s yawning a bit, but that’s OK, I’m sure by the end of it she’ll be awake.

It’s a Budget that’s about fixing the basics and building the future. Look, one of the areas we’ve spent up large has been in the health area. We really have put a lot of money, extra money, into health. For example, we’re looking to spend $5.8 billion over the next four years—extra—on top of what we’ve been doing in the past, which is significant. And in the Northland area, areas that have actually benefited from this, is the new oncology and cancer unit hospital in Whangārei, which I was privileged to attend the opening of the other day. It will benefit Northlanders so much, because, currently, what they have to do is travel all the way to Auckland for treatment and back. For some of those people in the Far North, that is quite a journey and a long time to spend away from their whānau. So it was really good to have that, and I have to pay credit to the retiring Hon Dr Shane Reti who helped drive that project, I really do.

One of the other areas—I recently also attended the 70th anniversary of the Dargaville Hospital, and we actually have provided extra funding into the Dargaville Hospital to extend the care hours. So extend the hours during the week till 8 p.m. at night and also during the weekends—open during the weekends, during the day. The difference that makes, as one of my friends and colleagues who’s involved in motocross explained to me—Colin said that now if we have someone that gets injured in the weekends at the motocross event near Dargaville, they no longer have to go all the way to Whangārei base hospital during the weekend, they can initially go to Dargaville Hospital for assessment. That is quite a big improvement, and it’s great to see that.

Another area where we’ve been spending a lot of extra money is in the area of education. In education we’re looking to spend quite a bit more on new classrooms and a new school in my electorate. They’re building a brand new kura in Kaiwaka. We recently had the blessing of the site, which was great. I, unfortunately, couldn’t attend, but the Minister of Education, Erica Stanford, did attend, and it’s been really well received. In many ways, it’s long overdue because this little school has been operating down the end of the Oruawharo peninsula for many years in a set-up that has not been acceptable. So they are really excited about having their own brand new school in Kaiwaka.

Then there’s also been new classrooms for Kerikeri High School, where you’ve seen the huge growth in demand in that area for new education facilities. That was really well received. Then, actually, one of the most exciting discussions I had was with the new principal in Dargaville High School who’s taken over a school that was struggling, but he’s doing a great job and getting the community on board. The school was very old, tired, and run down. We’re putting new funding in to actually upgrade the classrooms in the school, which has been very well received, as well as building two new specialist classrooms for some students.

Now, it would be very remiss of me if I did not stand up here and talk about roading infrastructure and the importance of that to the Northland economy and Northland. As an example, there’s been a commitment in the Budget to build the new highway from Cambridge to Piarere, which is great—over a billion dollars—and actually coming up soon, we are looking forward to progressing the next stage of the four-lane highway all the way to Whangārei, of which the next stage will be through to Te Hana, which will be great. That will make a massive difference to the people of Northland, who are really looking forward to that.

For my area in the farming sector, one of the really great announcements, whilst not a lot of money but huge impact, is the increase of base funding for the Queen Elizabeth II Trust. The second biggest national park in this country is on private lands. That is really great to see, and as chair of the Bluegreens and as a farmer with much bush on our land, it’s great to see that our Government is so committed to the environment in this country.

It’s a great Budget and it’s a Budget that is fixing the basics and building the future, and I commend it to the House.

16:18

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. This was the Government’s last chance with their Budget to get things right for struggling Kiwis.

Last chance.

Last chance! And they have failed. National has been busy trying to distract New Zealanders from their failures and they’ve actually forgotten about the human cost of their poor choices. Let’s go over them: one-in-three households struggling to access food; one-in-seven children suffering from material hardship; unemployment reaching decade highs; food banks being under immense pressure never been seen before; and Kiwis leaving the country in record numbers—all under National’s watch.

Just today, I’ve seen the sad news that in my own rohe of Te Tai Tokerau, one of Kaitaia’s two mills will close down, with no certainty about the future of the second mill. I attended a public meeting in Kaitaia recently, and we know that there are up to 200 jobs on the chopping block. I want to firstly acknowledge those whānau who have lost their jobs and others who are still waiting for certainty on theirs. This is an incredibly difficult situation, and my aroha goes out to them and their families. We are talking about dozens of families with children and households facing the pressure of cost of living and, now, uncertainty about whether they even will have jobs. This is all while the Government has failed to keep its promises of fixing things, all while choosing to give billions in tax breaks to landlords and tobacco companies.

Day by day, Kiwis lose their jobs under National. It becomes even more shameful that National refuses to own up to their collapsing jobseeker target, despite the Government’s own Budget forecast showing that there are going to be over 60,000 more people on the jobseeker benefit. National’s target wasn’t sabotaged by officials or inherited from previous Governments. They said it, they promoted it, and now they are failing to deliver it. You can’t talk tough about people being on benefits while presiding over an economy where more than 1,200 people are applying for one single cleaning job in Auckland. That’s not a failure of job seekers; that’s a failure of this Government not creating enough opportunities.

I put these serious questions to the Minister Louise Upston in scrutiny week, and she refused to take responsibility for a failure of her own making, resorting to blaming everybody else. It’s been almost three years, and Kiwis are sick of the excuses, sick of being talked down on, and sick of being treated as disposable by this Government. The least the Minister Louise Upston could have done was acknowledge the reality. The fairytale target that they sold New Zealanders is failing horrendously, and refusing to take responsibility for it won’t help a single person into work.

I want a better future for our children, one where we can feel confident that they will be able to build a future here in Aotearoa New Zealand. Therefore, it absolutely beggars belief that the Government is continuing to invest money, tens of millions of dollars, into the failed boot camps experiment. It completely boggles the mind to think why on earth we are still having this conversation. The first pilot failed, and now the Minister will not even answer questions about how many participants are in the second military-style academy. We have been here before, and it’s insanity to see history repeating itself. At a time when we are hearing stories from front-line providers—prevention services, counselling services—all put at risk under this Government’s funding cuts, we have a Government more worried about pouring tens of millions of dollars into a failed boot camp experiment. Our children deserve better. Our whānau deserve better. This Government isn’t making things better; they are making it so much worse. If the Government can’t even get it right for our youngest, how do we expect them to get it right for everybody else?

Labour is focused on getting it right for our future generations. We are backing them to thrive here in Aotearoa New Zealand, and come 7 November New Zealanders will get a chance to vote this Government out.

16:23

Thank you, Mr Speaker—

She’s awake!

—for this opportunity to talk on the Budget. Wide awake, Mr McCallum! Does this Budget focus on the cost of living? No, no, it does not appear to. Does it focus on the great city of Dunedin? No, doesn’t do that either. How about the environment? Is it focused on the environment? No, no, not that either. There is some money for some implementation of some new environmental laws or planning laws that this Government is doing, ones that are going to create a whole new industry of people involved in regulatory relief and do much worse for the environment. So that’s not a good thing, is it? No, it is not.

What else do we have for the environment? Have they brought back the fund for the environmental legal assistance? Nope. How about those environmental hubs that were building up communities and doing such great work? Nope. Jobs for Nature? No—no, not there either. And, of course, the cynical use of the waste levy, funding now a huge proportion of Vote Environment so that that money’s not coming across from the consolidated fund. So, not good for the environment.

I will, in a surprising move, talk about one positive thing, and that is the work that we did—that the Hon Willow-Jean Prime did, particularly, when she was the Minister of Conservation, that followed many other Ministers of Conservation, as well, across both sides of the House—to increase marine protected areas with the south-east marine protection area. I was very pleased yesterday to celebrate Te Au Roa o Te Rakihouia with Edward Ellison, who’s been involved for a long time in that, and that these marine protected areas are happening from 1 July. Willow-Jean Prime and I, in October of 2023, announced that we had signed off as the Ministers all the work required for this, we’d found the funding for it, and now—almost three years later, but better late than never—the Minister of Conservation has signed them off and they will be in effect from 1 July, and some co-management is happening here as well. It’s a beautiful thing to see. I was able to, at Ōtākou Marae, meet some of the kaitiaki rangers who are going to be working in this area. It’s great stuff. So that’s one positive thing. Thank you, Willow-Jean Prime, for that work.

Let’s talk about Dunedin now, of course—wonderful electorate, wonderful city. That’s right. I might ask my colleague here, Ingrid Leary, if she’s noticed any funding for those Kāinga Ora houses that were all ready to go—41 units ready to go on Carroll Street. You see anything?

No.

No, not there—

There is a hospital being built.

—they’re all still being built. Oh, I’m hearing across the aisle about the hospital build. Is there anything to make up for the 18 months that it was on pause in this Budget? No. Have the timelines been totally blown out because this Government, that National Party that promised they would do more than Labour, heaps more than us, then said, “Oh, maybe it’s in the wrong place. Maybe it should be prefabs. Maybe we’ll put it in Cromwell.” That is what people said in the urgent debate that we had on this topic. So, no—no, Mr McCallum; that’s still not good and it’s still broken promises from this Government.

Port Chalmers, the houses at Port Chalmers—what’s happening with the land there? Oh, Kāinga Ora keeps trying to sell it off.

And if I’m talking about selling off land and the environment, well, we’ve had an interesting week on that discussion, haven’t we? Rather than paying for public conservation land, the Minister wants to sell it. That is how environmental things are going to be funded by this Government, and it is just not on. Generations of New Zealanders have built up that conservation land, and it is not for sale for this greedy National Party.

What would’ve been good to see in the Budget is something like a $10 public fare cap, as Labour’s promising to do in cities like Dunedin—very good thing—a capital gains tax to fund three free GP visits, free maternity scans, and free prescriptions. These are good things that this Government has chosen not to do, and they need to be voted out.

16:29

Unlike others, I don’t break the rules. I am very happy, and I feel actually quite privileged, to be able to have these five minutes to say what—there’s so much to say about Budget 2026, but what I’m going to start off with is just to take us back a few years ago to when the Hon Chris Bishop stood in this House lamenting one of the Labour Party’s past Budgets, in the dark ages—God help me get through this. He said that they are throwing around taxpayer money like confetti. I want to thank our taxpayers. I want to thank them for working so hard to help put together this pool of funds where we are able to do what we’re doing in Budget 2026, on the back of Budget 2025 and Budget 2024, to deliver meaningfully, respecting taxpayer money, for my neighbours in Takanini and for our loved ones all around New Zealand.

Now, what I’ve heard throughout this Budget debate—from the ones that can’t turn their frowns upside down, on the other side of the House—is a number of them say: “This Government has failed to deliver.” Whoa. This is where we need to look at what are the perceptions of delivery, because they’re pretty different on this side of the House. On the other side of the House, delivery is reducing the number of prisoners in jail by a target of 30 percent. On the other side, delivery seems to be spending hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money on bridges—bridge designs that went nowhere; on light rail, which not even a metre of track was built for. On that side of the House, they think that delivery is announcing people will get a lot of free stuff, but not really knowing where the $18 billion is going to come from. On this side of the House, “delivery” has a whole different meaning. Maybe—maybe—some of them may just listen and learn a little bit.

On this side of the House, delivery looks like an 85 percent reduction in ram raids from when that lot were in power; 46,000 fewer victims of violent crime—that’s what delivery looks like on this side of the House—66 new medicines funded, including 33 cancer medicines; approximately 2,000 nurses and hundreds more doctors employed; 24/7 online GP care. Cell bans—cellular phones banned from our schools so that our children can focus more; structured literacy and mathematics—we’re seeing the results in a small amount of time, so just imagine what it will be like in the future; and so much more. Not to mention, the free-trade agreement with India that Chris Hipkins mocked—mocked—Christopher Luxon about, saying, essentially, that we’ll never be able to achieve it. Well, guess what? We’ve achieved it, because here, results and delivery are actually tangible.

What I’d also like to talk about, with delivery—because we’ve been quite careful with taxpayers’ money over the years, and this Budget continues to reflect that. For the first time ever, New Zealand has a Minister for Mental Health. This week, results came out with respect to access to mental health and addiction services. Anyone with a heart will probably have tears well up in their eyes, because we know that in New Zealand mental health is such a stigma on our society that we have not been able to address. And the over a billion dollars of taxpayer money that the Labour Party poured into mental health—with no direction and no targets—meant that nothing was achieved. Access to specialist mental health and addiction services within three weeks of referral—we’ve gone above target in Counties Manukau: 88 percent of people. Access to primary mental health and addiction services within one week: 84.7 percent.

I received from Flatbush Police yesterday, as well, figures about crime in Flatbush going down and down and down, thanks to the tools we’re giving police and the funding we are sustaining in our Budgets, including Budget 2026. I am really proud of this. We will continue to fix the basics and build the future so that life can be more affordable for my neighbours all around Takanini. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

16:34

Thank you, Mr Speaker. When our Government came into power in 2023, we came upon an economy that was perilously weak, and a law and order situation that had people feeling unsafe and New Zealanders all over the country feeling quite unsafe. We wanted—we needed—to focus on fixing these basic things and looking to the future and building for the future. We needed to get the economy going, first and foremost. That meant allowing for people to get from point to point. That meant infrastructure growth and building. It meant investing in roads that the country relied on. We needed to have people feeling safe to be out and about and getting from where they needed to be to and from, and, also, the goods that they were producing where they needed to be.

It meant backing hard-working New Zealanders and creating job opportunities all across the country, pushing for exports, and creating the opportunities and the pathways for exports to grow all over New Zealand. We have invested in rural and regional roads. We’re also investing over a billion dollars in the Cambridge to Piarere Expressway. This is really meant to get the flow of goods to and from the producers to the market very quickly. Protein is trending globally, and it happens that protein from milk is the best, most easily assimilated protein into the human body, and so the demand for protein is growing. We are helping our dairy industry to produce as much as they can and get these products to other countries through the many free-trade agreements, including to India, for all other export goods.

I’d also like to focus on the improvements in healthcare. We have invested $5.5 billion in front-line health services. This means that emergency departments have started flowing much more quickly. More patients are being seen much more quickly. Elective surgery has moved very quickly; 51,000 people were treated in just this year alone, just from the elective wait-list. More specialist assessments; cancer being diagnosed much more quickly, and the opportunity to get to treatment has been very much improved. For actual persons who are going into very uncertain ground in terms of their health, if diagnosed with cancer, this meant that people could be diagnosed more quickly and treated more quickly. That meant humans—actual people—would be able to get to their families, stay for that one more birthday and experience hope going forward.

We’ve also invested in adding 30 percent on mileage rates for community support workers and people travelling for specialist treatment. We have also strengthened the ambulance service with an additional $35 million over four years. This is what fixing the basics and building for the future means. On top of that, we have enabled KiwiSaver to be paid for all children born in New Zealand, and for 65-year-olds who want to carry on working to continue to have them. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

16:39

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is an absolutely disappointing Budget. It is particularly disappointing because members opposite campaigned long and hard in 2023 about easing the cost of living. Yet decisions that they have made—including a decision to borrow and blow billions of dollars on tax breaks to one tobacco company and property speculators—has meant that people today, that New Zealanders today, are struggling more than they have before the 2023 election when this Government campaigned to ease the cost of living. They have made it actively worse. One-in-three households today face food insecurity. That figure goes up to 82 percent when you factor in a disabled person in a household.

This is a Government that claims to be backing small businesses, but company liquidations are at a 15-year high. The number one issue that I hear from small businesses up and down the Maungakiekie electorate is the fact that sales are down, that it’s one of the toughest years that they have done. They are asking locals—and I back this—to support small businesses as and when they can, but this is not a Government that supports small businesses.

Unemployment: there are 40,000 fewer jobs today than when this Government took office—20,000 of those alone in the construction sector. They’ve stopped, en masse, building. Members opposite wax lyrical about the fact that they’ve invested in roads and so on and so forth. The construction industry is on its knees because of this Government.

As a result of all of this, people are struggling and making some incredibly tough choices. CCS Disability Action describes this Budget as one that risks further isolating disabled people, stating that it “makes disabled people’s lives more restricted, harder to live in their own communities, and less visible to the rest of the country.” That is the implication of successive Budgets by this Government. They’ve outlined some of the detail in this: a disability allowance with the baseline in long-term decline; Total Mobility—that has been cut—a scheme that has been reduced by this Government, leading to a 40 percent increase in out-of-pocket expenses for taxi trips for disabled people who cannot take public transport; cuts—of course, further cuts—to Whaikaha, reducing the voice of the Ministry of Disabled People under this Government’s watch.

The most egregious thing is the fact that part of what they gloat about in terms of an investment in disabled people is actually an expense transfer of funds that weren’t spent. It was an underspend over the very years where they restricted access of disabled people to support to such a point that the disability community has outlined this in terms of trauma and suffering that disabled people have experienced. That is now an expense transfer of an underspend.

I want to also quickly touch on what this Government’s doing to the environment. My colleague the Hon Rachel Brooking pointed out some piddly sums in this Budget that go towards improving the environment. But the overall story is very different. We’ve seen multi-year funding cuts to the Department of Conservation (DOC) across successive Budgets, and that’s continued in Budget 2026, as well, to the tune of almost $38 million. I did a quick back-of-the-envelope accounting exercise, and it’s pretty much to the tune of $196 million that this Government has stripped from the Department of Conservation alone. That’s not taking into account their very cynical spending of the international visitor conservation and tourism levy (IVL) that they increased—

Oh, tell that to the wilding pines!

The wilding pines was good—I’ll give you that—but it was tiny, and it was work that we’d done, as well. It’s kind of neither here nor there in that sense, but it’s good. Look at it in context of what’s been stripped out of the environment, though. IVL funding increased. It was meant to be a top-up. It was meant to be additional spend to offset the impact of tourism on conservation, but, no, it’s being used to replace Crown spending on the Department of Conservation. All they have achieved is the watering-down of protections for the Hauraki Gulf, the ending of Jobs for Nature, the disestablishment of the Ministry for the Environment, and now the enabling, through a change in law, of the sell-off of up to 60 percent of public conservation land and a change in DOC’s fundamental purpose in order to focus on economic development to the greatest extent practicable on conservation land.

This is a Government that continuously fails its people, the economy, and the environment, and, come November this year, people can vote them out.

Mr Speaker!

Go ahead—

Ingrid Leary.

—Ingrid Leary.

16:44

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s appropriate to be talking in this House about mental health. I did request an urgent debate, earlier today, which, unfortunately, was declined. When I looked at the Budget, the issue that I wanted to discuss is very relevant to it, because we see that the Mental Health Commission this morning has released a road map calling for improved crisis response, workforce growth, reduced coercion and seclusion, equitable access, and better outcomes for people with the highest needs. Yet we haven’t seen anything in this Budget that speaks directly into what that road map is advocating.

This is presenting as a real problem in the neighbouring electorate to mine, the wonderful electorate of Dunedin that my friend and colleague the Hon Rachel Brooking looks after, which is at Wakari Hospital. I have an interest in this both as a mental health spokesperson for Labour but also as someone who has constituents who are impacted. The hospital is the only place in the lower South Island that has the facility to look after a very particular group of vulnerable New Zealanders who are those with mental health issues over the age of 18 with a disability, in terms of intellectual disability, and a conviction or, if not a conviction, a demonstrated propensity to cause harm to themselves and others.

What we have seen come out in local media recently is a sudden decision by this Government to close Wakari Hospital, even though it made a Budget announcement last year to refurbish ward 10A. They’re now closing ward 10A, and, not only that, they’re also moving patients out of that highly specialised ward with no disclosure of where those patients are going to go. This has been very distressing for the families of those people who they love and who should be given the same level of dignity and reference to their human rights as any other New Zealander. Yet, despite repeated questions and also articles in the Otago Daily Times, we have not been able to get answers from the Minister for Mental Health.

What I would like to understand is, if the Minister is not going to prioritise things like this in his Budget, can he at least rule out that there have been no cases of abuse, of cruelty, or of torture at Wakari Hospital? Why won’t he rule out an independent investigation? That might be a good use of the Budget spend, because this comes on the back of his offer this week to apologise to the family of an autistic girl who was 11 and who was sedated and restrained and incorrectly identified in the mental health service. It comes on the back of real issues at Hillmorton Hospital with rat infestation and with issues at Nelson Hospital of facilities that are not fit for purpose. I’ve had people contacting me from a hospital in Napier with the same kinds of issues and poor resourcing and poor facilities. Then we’ve had very recent media coverage of Palmerston North Hospital and a litany of issues that were brought out by the forensic work of a brother of a man who tragically died of suicide in that facility.

We’re seeing a systemic problem at the very high, specialised, acute needs end of mental health. These are the people who are the most vulnerable in our system and who have the least visibility and the least voice. What we are not seeing is any kind of investment, in this Budget, to that part of the mental health response. Nor are we seeing answers to our questions about where the patients at 10A Wakari Hospital are being relocated to. Are they going into corrections facilities, which are highly inappropriate for most of them? Are they being expected to be cared for by their families, and do the families have the resources to support them? When will ward 10A reopen, or will it reopen? What happens to ward 9A, given that they were expecting to be refurbished to take on some of the people in the 12 beds in ward 10A? There’s a whole plethora of questions and lack of transparency that is just deeply worrying. We have no regard for that in the Budget, and, now, we have no regard for the anxiety of the families of people impacted by what is happening at Wakari Hospital and, indeed, facilities all over our country. This is not a good Budget, and there’s a lot to be answered.

16:49

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Before discussing the Budget announcements, I’d just like to acknowledge the extraordinary contribution the rural community makes to New Zealand. The numbers are very impressive. More than 360,000 New Zealanders work in it. Roughly one-in-six New Zealanders works in the food and fibre sector. That’s the farmers, the growers, the foresters, the contractors, transport operators, processors, etc., etc. Seventy-thousand businesses up and down the length of this country, from the top to the bottom, are associated with the food and fibre sector. Over 80 percent of our export income and 15-plus percent of GDP comes from the food and fibre sector. This year, the food and fibre exports are forecast to reach a record $64.3 billion; that’s the highest in New Zealand’s history. Dairy revenue is forecast to increase by 5 percent, meat and wool by 14 percent, and horticulture by 7 percent.

Those earnings do not just simply benefit rural communities; they generate the tax revenue that helps pay for our hospitals, our schools, our roads, our police, our emergency services, superannuation, and the public services that New Zealanders rely upon. When rural New Zealand succeeds, New Zealand succeeds. My word, the confidence is high. Unlike the minus 66 percent confidence when the previous Government was in power, we’ve had the biggest turn-round since that farmer confidence survey was started in 2008—100 percent turn-round in confidence—and you can feel it. I was actually at the primary industries awards last night in Auckland. You could feel the confidence and excitement in the room, and particularly about the anticipation of the India free-trade agreement. Everybody is really looking forward to that.

It’s really important to look beyond the headlines of the Budget and examine what is actually being delivered for our regions, our farmers, and our rural communities. The Budget is built around a very simple principle: creating the conditions for growth, because growth matters. It’s not just growth in export earnings and not just growth in productivity, but growth in opportunity, resilience, innovation, and leadership. One of the most significant investments is the Government’s commitment to accelerating the adoption of new farm technologies through AgriZero; $100 million is being jointly invested through an early adoption accelerator programme that will help bring world-leading technologies on to New Zealand farms faster. Up to $51 million of this will be contributed by Government. For farmers, this is not just simply about reducing emissions; it’s about improving productivity, profitability, and competitiveness. It’s about ensuring that our New Zealand farmers remain at the forefront of global food production.

Alongside this, the Government is investing in smarter land-use decisions. A package worth over $140 million across the lifetime of six major commercial projects, including $59 million from Government and over $84 million from industry, will support innovation across dairy, sheep and beef, horticulture, forestry, aquaculture, and Māori-owned land. These projects recognise that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to land use. There never has been; different regions face different opportunities and challenges. Providing that flexibility will allow landowners to respond to changing markets, environmental expectations, and emerging export opportunities, while also maintaining profitability. In the Budget, we’re also seeing targeted investment in Māori agribusiness. More than $5.3 million is being invested through the Māori Development Fund to support horticulture and aquaculture projects in Hawke’s Bay, Raupunga, and Akaroa. These investments unlock the potential of collectively owned Māori assets, create jobs, and expand export opportunities, while strengthening regional communities.

Importantly, Budget 2026 is not only focused on productivity; it’s also focused on people, because thriving farms require thriving communities. That’s why I welcome the creation of the Rural Wellbeing Champions Programme. An investment of $98,000 will help train and support 100 rural wellbeing champions through a partnership between New Zealand Young Farmers and Farmstrong. Those champions will help lead conversations around wellbeing, support their peers, and strengthen those community connections. This initiative recognises something that every rural New Zealander understands: resilience is not just about infrastructure, it’s also about people. We’ll also continue to fund the good work of the Rural Support Trust. It was only last night that I attended the Primary Industries New Zealand Awards, where Neil Bateup, the previous chairman of the Rural Support Trust, was recognised for his significant contribution to the Rural Support Trust. One of the women leaders in agribusiness, Sarah Donaldson, was also a nominee as well from the Wairarapa. I’d just like to acknowledge the great work that they do for the mental wellbeing of their community up and down the length of New Zealand.

This Government is also backing the next generation of rural leaders. The new Minister of Agriculture Future Leaders Scholarship will support three emerging leaders every year across agriculture, horticulture, and forestry, because investing in leadership today means investing in the future capability of our sector for tomorrow. Likewise, New Zealand Young Farmers are receiving support through one-off grants of $1,000 to 60 clubs nationwide, alongside $585,000 in Rural Wellbeing Fund initiatives to strengthen physical, mental, and financial wellbeing. Those investments will ensure that the next generation will remain engaged, connected, and optimistic about a future in the primary sector.

Resilience is another key theme running through the Government’s investment. Recent years have reminded us how vulnerable rural communities can be to adverse weather events and natural disasters. To strengthen that preparedness, the Government is investing $160,000 to enhance the capability of New Zealand’s 16 rural advisory groups, $50,000 to support Taskforce Kiwi’s rapid deployment during emergencies, and $50,000 to build leadership capability and future resilience planning within rural regions. These are practical investments that will help communities prepare for challenges before they occur.

This Government has also recognised the vital role played by catchment groups. Across the country, catchment groups are delivering practical environmental improvements, while helping farmers share knowledge and solve problems collaboratively. I would liken it to a continuation of the investment that rural communities have made in their environment. I would just point out the 186,000 hectares of Queen Elizabeth II National Trust covenants in this country, 2.8 million hectares of woody vegetation on our farmland, as well as 23,000 kilometres of waterways fenced off on our dairy farms as well—that’s actually 100 percent of waterways fenced off. It’s great to continue backing them with wider investment exceeding $40 million. The catchment groups will now benefit from baseline funding agreements that will provide certainty and allow them to focus on delivering outcomes rather than chasing funding applications.

That certainty matters, just as certainty matters in another area that remains a major priority: resource management reform. For far too long, farmers and rural businesses have struggled with excessive compliance costs, delays, and regulatory complexity. Our commitment to replace the Resource Management Act remains one of the most important productivity reforms currently under way. Whether it’s building infrastructure, improving water storage, developing farm systems, or investing in regional growth, rural New Zealand needs a planning framework that enables sensible development while protecting environmental outcomes. Progress in this space will deliver benefits long after any individual Budget announcement. The Government’s also continuing its commitment to tackling one of the most significant environmental and economic threats facing many rural regions: the dreaded wilding conifer. Through a $109 million investment in wilding pine control over the next three years, work will continue to protect productive farmland, our ecosystems, our water resources, and our iconic landscapes from the spread of invasive wilding trees.

For the record, rural New Zealand is not an afterthought; it’s a cornerstone of our nation’s prosperity. As long as the food and fibre sector continues to grow, innovate, and compete on the world stage, the benefits will be felt in every town, every city, and every community across New Zealand. National backs our farmers 100 percent as we fix the basics and build the future.

Tākuta Ferris will now take his call, which he missed before.

16:59

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. We’ve heard the Government describe Budget 2026 as “responsible”, but for the whānau I represent in Te Tai Tonga, it’ll be remembered differently. It will be remembered for one simple question, and that is “Who matters?” Budgets are never just numbers; they’re decisions, they’re choices, they tell us who is invested in and who is expected to wait. Once again, Māori are expected to wait.

Across Te Tai Tonga, whānau are facing rising rents, rising costs, rising food, overcrowded housing, barriers to healthcare—the list goes on and on. Too many can’t see a GP when they need one, too many rangatahi can’t see a clear pathway to education and work, and too many whānau are working harder than ever, only to fall further behind.

Yet in this Budget, we do not see transformational investment in Māori; instead, we see $3.5 billion more invested in defence and intelligence, on top of $12 billion last year. We see half a billion dollars for Corrections to expand prisons. The Government is investing heavily in managing consequences. So I have to ask: what about the causes? What security exists for whānau sleeping in overcrowded homes; for kaumātua waiting months for healthcare; for rangatahi locked out of housing, work, and support? The greatest threats in our communities are not foreign powers; they are poverty, preventable illness, poor housing, addiction, intergenerational disadvantage, and this Budget does far too little to address them.

Instead of investing in solutions, the Government continues to invest in systems that manage failure after it occurs. It fails to invest properly in kaupapa Māori health. It fails to invest in rangatahi Māori. It fails to invest in housing that people can actually afford. It fails to invest in Māori education.

Just weeks ago, the Government announced $62.5 million for classroom and school expansion in Te Wai Pounamu, yet not one dollar was specifically targeted to Māori-medium education capacity—not one—despite demand being up, despite wait-lists, despite ageing and unsafe buildings in many kura, and despite the fact that 2.9 percent of Māori learners in Te Wai Pounamu are in Māori-medium education. That is not due to a lack of aspiration; that is due to a lack of investment. When kura Māori are delivering stronger outcomes—strengthening identity, language, and achievement—why are they still treated as an afterthought? Kura, like Te Pā o Rākaihautū in Ōtautahi, are outperforming national NCEA averages, and won the Zayed Sustainability Prize for their world-leading mātauranga Māori innovation. But that excellence is still being delivered in mould-affected, leaking, unhealthy buildings that no tamaiti should have to learn in. Imagine, if this Government invested equitably in Māori-medium education, what our tamariki could achieve in safe, proper learning environments that match their excellence.

The truth is that the solutions already exist. They exist in education, in health, in social services, in housing. Solutions exist everywhere that Māori have developed kaupapa Māori initiatives. The persistent problem is that they are simply not funded fairly. So I ask: why must Māori continue to fight for equitable funding for equitable outcomes? The answer is: priorities, and the Government have made that very clear. They found billions for defence, they found billions for prisons, but couldn’t find meaningful investment into Māori-medium education or Māori development or kaupapa Māori health. That tells us everything we need to know.

Te Tai Tonga is not asking for charity; we’re asking for fairness, for investment, for opportunity, because the greatest asset in this country—in our country—is not a warship or a mega-prison; it’s our people. Our people are our wealth. When Māori succeed, Aotearoa succeeds. When our tamariki thrive, the whole country thrives. That’s a future worth fighting for. That’s a future of Te Tai Tonga, where investment is equitable and comes before crisis, where Māori solutions are funded for greater success, and where the people of Te Tai Tonga are empowered to determine their own futures.

Nō reira, kei te mihi ake rā ki a koe otirā ki ngā iwi o Te Tai Tonga. Kia kaha, kia māia, kia manawanui. Kia ū kia mau, ākuanei tō ai a Kino, me he rā.

[Therefore, I acknowledge you and all the people of Te Tai Tonga. Be strong, be brave, be courageous. Be resolute, be firm, as Evil will soon set, as the sun does.]

17:04

When it comes to Budgets, ACT asks a simple question: if we’re going to spend money, where does it come from? Too often in this House, we hear parties proposing billions and billions of dollars in spending, as though these decisions don’t have consequences, as though deficits don’t matter, as though debt is free, and as though taxpayers are committed to unlimited sources of funding. These things are not free, and that is why ACT believes that every dollar the Government spends is a dollar earned by somebody else, and we apply that rule to every decision that ACT makes as part of this coalition Government. That means making choices. It means deciding what matters most.

We’ve heard from members of the Opposition today, Priyanca Radhakrishnan included, that the Government shouldn’t consider whether land under the control of the Department of Conservation, that might include a works depot, a shed, a paddock that’s been grazed for 100 years—why that couldn’t be exchanged for money to reinvest in biodiversity in the conservation estate.

That is the difference between this Government and the Opposition. The Opposition will pretend that all problems can be solved by taxing more and spending more and failing to make trade-offs. This Government, and ACT in this Government, will continue to reinforce—

Oh, that’s what you call a “trade-off”. A cut isn’t a trade-off.

—the Hon Rachel Brooking, while you sit there yapping from the Opposition benches, where you’ll stay for a while—that these things do require hard trade-offs. But we have the courage—ACT has the courage—and we will continue to focus on fixing what matters.

There’s nothing compassionate about spending money you don’t have. There’s nothing progressive about handing today’s bills to tomorrow’s taxpayers. There’s nothing responsible about pretending the trade-offs that I’ve described do not exist. That is why this Budget matters.

Over the last few years, New Zealanders have had to tighten their belts; Government has had to do the same. We’ve started to move in the right direction. We can go faster. But Budget 2026 builds on that progress.

This Budget takes a different approach to the past. New Zealand is now forecast to return to surplus a year earlier than anticipated. That matters because deficits do not exist in a vacuum. Government borrowing—

When? After other anticipated forecasts?

Listen, Rachel Brooking, you might need to know this some day—

I’d ask the member to refer to the Speaker, as opposed to speaking across the Chamber.

She’s interjecting, Mr Speaker, and that should be on Hansard.

Deficits do not exist in a vacuum. Government borrowing puts pressure on inflation, interest rates, and, ultimately, on households trying to get ahead.

ACT Ministers have collectively delivered over $14 billion in savings over three Budgets. That is not an accounting exercise. That is money that does not need to be borrowed, that does not need to be taxed, money that does not need to be taken from the next generation, because every Budget is a set of choices.

While some argue for a bigger bureaucracy, this Budget continues that shift towards a Public Service that is smaller, more efficient, and more productive, with $2 billion in savings forecast from future reductions in size. That is before we get to potential reductions in scope, which is another opportunity over the horizon. Labour proved that more bureaucrats do not automatically mean better outcomes. That’s why ACT in Government’s approach is simple: we focus on fixing what matters, we create room to invest in the things that solve New Zealanders’ problems.

I want to talk about one of the initiatives that I’ve been involved in funding. The Resource Management Act is one of the best examples we’ve had of why it’s important that law and regulation are clear and that everybody operating in a system—like building housing, building infrastructure, or maintaining roads and bridges—understands exactly what their obligations are and how to comply, so that you can go and get a cheap, effective design for something and you don’t spend years litigating with your local council potentially all the way through the Environment Court or, you know, for some poor souls, all the way to the Supreme Court to try to get consent for something we need.

Now, not all infrastructure is pretty, I’ll grant you that. We can do our best to put a cultural mural on the side of a bridge, but I’ll tell you what, there’s not much you can do to a landfill to make it look good. But we still need infrastructure like landfills, like ports, airports, things that make noise, quarries that generate dust and traffic, because without them New Zealand cannot build the things we need.

Look, all of these things will eventually get consented, even under the old system. It will just take decades and add billions and billions in cost. That is why Minister Chris Bishop and I, in the resource management reform portfolio, have secured $294 million to deliver and transition the current resource management system to the new system—that we’re going to deliver with the passing of the Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill in a few short months’ time. That money is going to fund the first tranche of national direction. That is the direction that tells council planners and decision makers like commissioners and judges—and, of course, in the new planning tribunal—how to weigh up some of these tricky things.

We want to build houses, but there’s a paddock with a few bull rushes in it. Do the houses win or do the bull rushes win? I’ll tell you what, in the new system, the houses are going to win, but not if we don’t invest in the data that’s necessary to make good decisions, if we don’t invest in a digital platform that is standardised across the country. Chris Bishop and I have said we want standardised zones to apply to towns and cities in New Zealand, instead of 1,170 different ways to describe height to boundary and the set-back that your garage must have from the road frontage. Instead of 1,170 ways to do it across 67 councils, think about Japan: they’ve got about 12 zones across the whole country. I’ve said to Minister Bishop we should aim for 11. He seems to think we might not quite get that low, but that’s the opportunity that investing in standardisation, investing in one digital planning system for the country, offers. And that’s before you get to the opportunity that AI offers.

Once you start asking of every applicant and every decision, “Hey, did we really need all this information in order to make the decision?”, and “Were the consent conditions or the planning conditions that came out of the decision really necessary to protect the environment and protect the neighbours?”—or, actually, can we have a lighter touch, the opportunity to go not just from the 40,000 consents a year we have now but potentially down to 20,000, or even back to 5,000 consents a year demanded of Kiwis, like we had in the 1990s? It’s actually right there in front of us if we make this investment and we follow it up by making sure that the new system is implemented thoroughly. That is over four years. We intend the new system to be fully functioning by 2028-29, with new plans in place across the country. For those people sitting at home or sitting at their desk in their development office, or if you’re sitting down the road at the transport agency thinking “How on earth are we going to get consent for this site?”—you know, like a culvert; I mean, imagine having to replace a pipe under the road in 2026; it could take years to get consent—I’ll tell you what, relief is coming. Minister Bishop and I have assured that.

Then, when it comes to energy, what we know is that when the sun doesn’t shine, the wind doesn’t blow, and the rain doesn’t fall—it does happen in New Zealand sometimes. It’s usually raining somewhere or blowing somewhere in the country. The problem is that, if it doesn’t do it enough and all at once, we don’t have enough energy. That’s why, in this Budget, we’ve made provision to fund a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, to make sure we have a secure energy system, that we are connected to the rest of the world. In a way, our isolation has actually been a problem; it solves the problem that our isolation has caused. When the previous Government banned oil and gas exploration without having a plan B, they left it to this Government to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Now, the LNG terminal could have been avoided if we had kept drilling for the gas that is available right now on the eighth-largest continent of the world. Just because you can’t see it, members of the Opposition, doesn’t mean it ain’t there. New Zealand, there’s a couple of little islands that are on the eighth-largest continent of the world. We have some of the best mineral and best energy resources available to any modern democracy. Under this Government, with ACT as a part of this Government, we are driving to get access to our oil and gas resources, to get access to our mineral resources. There is funding in this Budget to make sure we can get critical minerals which can contribute to the international supply chain, so that all of us, including members of the Opposition, can have their cell phones, have their iPads, and have electricity. I commend this Budget bill to the House.

17:15

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Every day, I come into this House and hear the Opposition talk about spending more money. I’m surprised that it happens just day after day after day, as though this magic money tree can be growing every day to pay for stuff, without consideration to how the Government is going to create, where it’s going to take it from, how it’s going to grow the economy—the things you’ve actually got to do to be able to pay for things in the first place—and that not just spending money solves the problem.

It reminds me of when I was a kid. I remember, one day one of my siblings said to my dad, “Can we have McDonald’s?”, and Dad said, “Well, we don’t have any money.” My siblings said to Dad, “Well, go down to that ATM thing and just get some out.” Labour thinks the ATM—the New Zealand taxpayer—can just be shot up for another amount of juice to fund another project that, quite frankly, as much as they’ll announce it, they won’t get it off the ground. You have to, as I said earlier in this House today, not only create money, you have to invest it and deliver an outcome from it. That’s what we’re doing with this Budget. We understand where the money is coming from. We understand that it is hard-working New Zealanders, that it is businesses, that it is the people who are making this economy tick that are paying the taxes. We appreciate that we have to invest that wisely in order to deliver outcomes to improve the challenges across New Zealand, including, as I said to the member across the House, Tākuta Ferris, earlier in this debate, the investment we have made into improving attendance at schools across the motu.

Along with that, we have invested in tackling hardship and homelessness. There’s been an announcement, last week, of an additional $14.5 million over the next couple of years that’s going into that focus on reducing homelessness in New Zealand, including $2.7 million to support six new additional sites, two of which are in Taranaki and in Whanganui. That’s something we can be proud of. It’s about ensuring communities, where housing pressure is real, have an answer that is not endless motel stays, as it was under the last Government. It is about more homes and better pathways out of hardship. Part of that is the increase to 2,250 social housing homes, or social homes, that are additional under this Budget. It’s about backing rural New Zealand, and that’s about the size of the sector—this engine room of the New Zealand economy that Fieldays demonstrated to us is confident about where the economy is at.

I said, in my maiden speech in this House, that there were farmers in Stratford that wanted a Government that backs them, and we have delivered on that over the last 2½ years. This Budget continues to support that focus: $266 million for the Primary Sector Growth Fund; $40.5 million for farmer-led catchment groups—a real driver of environmental improvement across our farming communities across New Zealand; a reminder that they don’t need to just be told what to do from an ivory tower in Wellington. They can practically go into their own communities, their own farms, their own environments, make changes, improve environmental outcomes, and achieve results in real rural New Zealand. Quite frankly, it’s not people from across this House that have no understanding of rural and provincial New Zealand that should be telling them what to do. It’s about regional infrastructure and services and the stronger communities that come from that, including, of course, I must mention as part of a Budget discussion in this House, the new police station in Whanganui, and the $15 million that’s going to go to the Awakino Gorge, the regional road of significance for Taranaki; our key line up from Taranaki to Auckland, which keeps us connected, which enables those products from rural New Zealand to get to markets in Auckland and overseas.

It’s this Government that has committed that funding, along with the funding for the condition upgrade, of course, at Te Paepae o Aotea, the high school in Hawera that was started under the last Government, who promised much, did not fund what it needed, and it is this Government that’s delivering it under this Budget, as we continue to fix the basics and build the future.

17:20

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. This is, quite simply, a Budget focused on fixing the basics and building the future. We’ve heard from Mr Bates a number of very salient points in terms of how we are investing to ensure growth, but before we do that, I just want to pick up on one of the comments that he mentioned as well around the spending piece.

Now, we just had scrutiny week here in Parliament last week, and on the committee that I have the good fortune to chair, the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, we heard questions numerous times from the Opposition about why spending was lower, and that that was therefore clearly a poorer outcome. And what we actually heard from the agencies and the Ministers was, “No, just spending more doesn’t actually always deliver better outcomes.”

Now, there are plenty of examples we have seen over the six dark years of the Labour Government that highlighted exactly that, where indeed it just felt like money was being thrown out the door and the only measure of success was how much can we spend. Have we spent more than has ever been spent? Then we must be doing well. Well, that is not the view of this Government. Quite frankly, that was a dereliction of duty from the former Government.

This Government, now, is clearly focused on fixing the basics. That means getting expenditure under control, and we’ve demonstrated that over three successive Budgets now, staying within those operational balances every time as well—those operational allowances, something the former Government did not achieve once, despite having higher operating allowances in every one of their six Budgets, they could not stick to that. We have, and yet, despite that, we have also been able to make some crucial investments, some prudent, pragmatic improvements for Kiwis’ lives around the country.

I’m very pleased that in the Waikato we have secured funding, now, for the extension of the Waikato Expressway to the intersection of State Highways 1 and 29 at Piarere. A dangerous stretch of road that, frankly, should have been done by now. It was planned under the last National Government, cancelled by the then Labour Government in 2018 when they came in, and unfortunately, we saw throughout the intervening years the continuation of the trend of deaths and serious injuries along that stretch of road and the increase of traffic volumes as well. So it is a delight, now, that we have finally secured the funding for that. Construction is getting under way. Anyone driving through that corridor will see activity taking place already. That is a fantastic outcome. It brings massive safety improvements, it brings greater social connection in terms of being able to transit through that corridor more efficiently, and, of course, it drives economic prosperity for our region, too.

Now, ultimately, we want to connect the Bay of Plenty to the Waikato with four lanes. That is a long-term, ambitious project, but this is the sort of ambition that we need to have. This Government is clearly focused on trying to deliver towards those sorts of ambitions because that is how we build the future. We are fixing those basics right now, but we need to have that ambition for the future as well.

We’ve also, of course, got the third medical school under construction in the Waikato as well. Another fantastic project that will deliver meaningful outcomes in terms of training new doctors and nurses in New Zealand, ensuring that rural focus, and helping to drive delivery of critical health needs for everyday New Zealanders, who, quite frankly, just expect to get that service when they need it. Now, that wasn’t always the case, and, unfortunately, when we came in, we saw in health all the targets had been removed, so it was hard to tell exactly what had happened or how performance was going. We had seen more money—as I said at the start, more money’s not necessarily a measure of success. Yet despite that more money going out the door, and yet across just about every metric that we dived into in health, poorer outcomes for Kiwis. Now, that is not good enough. We’ve set health targets in place and we are making good progress on those.

Education is another key one—and I hear this from fellow parents around the Waikato electorate, that they were concerned at the underperformance of New Zealand students across the board over time, and, frankly, the attendance alongside that as well. So that’s another area where we have turned the dial.

Law and order as well. Greater consequences for criminal offending, backing the police more, reduced victimisations—all of that is fixing the basics.

Now, that is fantastic progress. Sure, there’s more to do, but we are getting on with doing it. This Budget is a fantastic continuation of that great work. We can’t go back to the dark days of Labour. National is getting it done.

This call is also a split call.

17:25

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, why won’t National tell us what they are going to cut? Why, in this Budget, have they told us that they’re going to get rid of 9,000 Public Service jobs but they seem to have absolutely no plan as to how this is going to be implemented, and absolutely no idea of the jobs that are going to be cut.

Now, we take our job here, as the Opposition, seriously. So when they announced the Budget and they said, “We are going to balance this Budget on the jobs of public servants”, we said to the National Party, “Who is going to lose their job? How will this impact New Zealanders? What public services that Kiwis rely on are going to be cut by this Budget?” And what did we hear? Crickets. So then we had questions in the House, we had scrutiny week where I asked the Minister, Paul Goldsmith, “What are the jobs that are going to be cut? What is exempt from this process? And who needs to worry about how they’re going to pay their bills and what services they are going to be able to rely on?” I have had no satisfactory answers.

In fact, today, we had to go line by line to every single Minister in this Government and ask them about every single important job that Kiwis rely on and say to them, “Will you rule this out? Will you rule out cutting the jobs of these really important public services that people do?” And just some examples for you on that. The people who do suicide prevention; the people who do search and rescue; the people who work in the Labour Inspectorate to investigate crimes against vulnerable workers; the people who work for Oranga Tamariki’s contact centre, the contact centre where people call to alert authorities that children are in danger. I asked Ministers to rule out cuts to all of those important jobs, in addition to many, many others—dozens of other jobs. I was not able to get any assurances.

Now, that doesn’t mean that the Government hasn’t ruled out some job cuts, because we see that Maritime New Zealand search and rescue coordination is staying and also the Cancer Control Agency is staying—two Ministers were able to provide that information. So I say to the Government, if it’s possible for them to give that level of detail around these key public services, the rest of the public servants who work across New Zealand need to know whether their jobs are safe or not, because, at the moment, we have 9,000 people, their families, their parents, their children, everyone who relies on them, wondering: do they have a future in this country? Do they have a career in this country? Can they afford to pay their bills? We have not had answers to that.

You’ll also be aware that this couldn’t have come at a worse time for these New Zealanders. Not only are they facing the prospect of losing their job, but at the same time New Zealanders have a cost of living crisis. The economy, despite what you may hear from the other side, is not going well. We have business liquidations at a 15-year high. Well, that is a terrible indictment on the Government which is meant to be the party of business. The businesses in New Zealand are closing under this Government. We have unemployment continuing to grow. We have 40,000 more people out of work since National took office. Power bills are up 18 percent. We see more New Zealanders leaving than ever before. And we see 650,000 people unable to get primary care.

Then, we look to this Budget, which we are debating today, and we thought—because we are optimists on the side of the House—“Surely there will be something for everyday New Zealanders in this Budget. Surely, on the background of this terrible economy, on the background of job losses, and the background of the cost of living crisis that New Zealanders are facing—surely there will be something.” There was nothing but misery and further cuts.

To make it even worse, there are no details about how that’s going to be implemented. The only thing we heard is AI is going to ride in and save them. Well, that is blatantly ridiculous. We know that they don’t have a plan. We know that these cuts don’t add up. All we know is that austerity is coming for New Zealand, and if you think it’s bad for you today, then just wait. After three more years of that Government, it’s going to be even worse, because they have no plan, and the plan that they have means cutting back the public services and the jobs that you rely on. Let it be a warning to New Zealanders that if they make the grave mistake of re-electing that side of the House, the only thing that will happen for them is that employment will get worse, public services will reduce, and everything will be—

The member’s time has expired.

17:30

There’s no shortage of things that have outraged New Zealanders over the last couple of years, and, most recently, there’s Shane Jones’ $33,000 trip to Canada, companies donating to National and ACT and New Zealand First who have directly benefited from fast-track decisions, the current proposal to sell off conservation lands, tax cuts for landlords while State house rents are being hiked up, the subjugation of our once-proud independent foreign policy to the geopolitical interests of the United States and Israel. It’s a very long list, but, actually, what’s done the real political damage to this Government is their economic mismanagement, and you can see it in the Budget.

Never has so much damage been done to so many people by the mishandling of the economy by a party and a Prime Minister who promised to fix the cost of living crisis. He’s the business guy, Christopher Luxon, He was going to make everything fine. The New Zealand public have watched for the last 2½ years while it’s got worse and worse. There is a widespread, pervasive view, now, across New Zealand that this Government has no interest in the lives of ordinary New Zealanders. Their hearts are not in it for ordinary Kiwis. They don’t care about them, they don’t want to look after them, and their priorities lie elsewhere.

It’s this Government’s ideology, that’s reflected in this Budget, that’s done the real harm. It started off with tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the wealthy, and tax cuts that went to tobacco companies and landlords. That was the first big signal. That’s exhibit A, your honour. It was followed by the stopping and delaying of hundreds of construction projects—not only of State housing projects in my electorate but also of dozens and dozens of public housing projects cancelled and sections lying bare while homelessness has doubled. Then there was the sacking of thousands of public servants and the cutting of numerous social programmes—not to mention the hiring freeze in our hospitals, leaving our hospitals short staffed and under-resourced. Is it any wonder, in the face of that economic agenda, that there was a collapse in both consumer confidence and investor confidence with record business closures, high unemployment, and low to non-existent growth? Having throttled the life out of the economy, small businesses, contractors, tradies, and anyone in construction—20,000 jobs in construction alone gone—800 to 900 Kiwis are leaving the country every week for Australia, because there are no jobs. There are no opportunities here. That is what has really hurt people.

The people that have been hit worst are the people who rely on casual work, the people who work two or three part-time jobs to survive, people who have to hustle for business every week—the independent traders, the contractors, and the small businesses. Retail has been absolutely savaged under this Government, and it’s because of the economic mismanagement. The fundamental lessons of demand management haven’t been learnt—or they’ve been unlearnt and forgotten—by Nicola Willis and the people around her.

With that economic wasteland as the backdrop, grocery prices have relentlessly gone up week after week; petrol prices have gone up, not just because of the war in the Middle East that Christopher Luxon supported; power bills have gone up 18 percent, as Rachel Brooking said; insurance rates; car regos. Is there any household expense that hasn’t gone through the roof in the last 2½ years? When I’m in my electorate talking to people—whether it’s at the mall, the supermarket, car park, or on the doorstep—do you know what people say? “We’re dying out here. We need help. This is not working for us. I didn’t vote for this. Something needs to happen.”

Now, luckily, it is possible for Governments to do something about the cost of living crisis, and there are examples of Governments all over the world who have done something. Our Government took action consistently and repeatedly to ease the cost of living crisis when we were last in office, and we’ll do it again, and you can see it in the flavour of the policies that we’ve announced—three free doctors visits, the public transport fare cap. These are the policies that will make a difference to people’s back pockets, and, luckily, people have a choice in November to choose a better Government.

17:35

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. This country deserves so much better. New Zealanders deserve so much better than what this coalition Government delivered in this Budget and the two before it. We have amazing opportunities, and there are opportunities of clean energy, electrification, the green economy, investing in our people to look after and educate other people. That is what will genuinely lead to better lives in New Zealand—not just better lives for Nick Mowbray and his family, but better lives for the average New Zealander, the ones who are doing the real work of cleaning, of building, of nursing, of caring for aged people in our aged-care facilities. There are so many important jobs out there that require Government funding in order to be done, and we’re all better off as a result of it.

That level of economic development and support is completely not understood by the ignorant people in this coalition Government. I mean, maybe they’re ignorant; maybe they’re malevolent—I don’t know which it is—but the reality is that with Government investment, the revenue circles around, and it actually multiplies. When we make sensible Government investments, then businesses are able to invest, the workers have more money, they’re able to go out for coffee, for a drink, and for a restaurant meal, and they’re able to do other things that support local business. That is something that Nicola Willis has apparently never understood. She thinks that jobs are magically handed down on high from those people who’ve been lucky enough to work our rigged tax system and economic system to become the super-rich. We’ve seen the super-rich getting more rich at the expense of ordinary people who are struggling with the cost of living.

Governments can do something about that. We absolutely know that that can be done, and the Green Party has long demonstrated where we can make practical investments that benefit our people and our planet, like the investment in Jobs for Nature, which was fantastic for regional economic development and fantastic for biodiversity, because biodiversity in nature is something that New Zealanders care about. All this coalition Government can think to do is to sell off and create a situation where our Department of Conservation isn’t looking after the intrinsic value of our conservation estate but looking to make money off it, potentially by selling off land and assets, which is extremely unpopular.

Another example of the ways in which this Government is very out of touch with ordinary New Zealanders is that they go out claiming that their policies are resulting in business confidence, and yet here we have the most recent employment confidence index by Westpac, a regular survey of employment confidence, that just hit a new low—worse than 2008 and worse than COVID. That’s a result of failed economic ideology that too many people in the Government parties are adherents of, where they don’t understand that public investment is absolutely necessary. It’s necessary for the survival and the flourishing of our communities and our societies.

They claim that we can’t afford to buy new ferries, for example. We had these new ferries that were a direct connection between the North and South Islands that were under order from a Korean shipyard. They came in, without any idea of what an alternative might be, and cancelled the order for the ferries—some of which would have been with us right now. Cancelling the work that was planned to enable those rail-enabled ferries meant a lot of jobs were lost in the construction sector in Picton and in Wellington. Now we’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars on sunk cost on cancelling the ferries, then we still have to buy some brand new ferries; it’s going to be years before they’re delivered. We are looking at years of disruption to the movement of people and goods between our two countries. Surely, that is, like, fundamental investment in our public good infrastructure, and so it’s an example of the ideological approach that is short-sighted and destructive, that this coalition Government came in and did right off the bat. The country is living with the consequences of that and will continue living with the consequences of that.

What we did not see in this Budget was any commitment to changing the tax system to make it fair. The Green Party announced a tax policy; you wouldn’t know from the Government’s critique of it, but it would actually leave 96 percent of New Zealanders better off. So if you can make changes to the tax system that result in 96 percent of New Zealanders being better off and the Government having more revenue to invest in essential public services and infrastructure, who on Earth would oppose that? Who on Earth would oppose that? Oh, I know: the coalition parties who are getting massive donations from the super-rich. That probably has something to do with the fact that they wouldn’t make sensible changes to the tax system that would mean the first $10,000 of income earned would be tax free. That’s what the Green Party’s proposing: first $10,000 absolutely tax free. When we give more of our resources to more people, that benefits the entire society. If we concentrate ridiculous amounts of money in a small number of families, that’s of no economic benefit to the country. That’s where these fools are just, I don’t know—like, you almost can’t believe it’s true. It’s like: what is happening?

One thing that is not reflected in the Budget is the fact that they’re about to sign us up to a very long-term, extremely expensive loan for a highway project that doesn’t make any sense—like, it doesn’t make any sense. They’re keeping the benefit-cost analysis secret, which is unheard of. If the benefit-cost analysis was public, I’m sure it would be overstating the benefits of the project, because they dropped the discount rate, which makes road projects look better even though they’re not actually better. Look, if there’s a road that’s carrying less than 0.2 percent of daily vehicle trips, we probably shouldn’t spend $12 billion on it, you know? Like, we’ve got other roads that need improvement. That’s what the National Infrastructure Plan said.

The Green Party is absolutely committed to implementing those recommendations and putting maintenance and renewals first, bringing in appropriate pricing, and investing in the alternatives, because that is the huge opportunity for productivity gains: moving more people and goods with fewer vehicles and less fossil fuels. It just makes sense. Then, of course, obviously, electrifying our transport and investing in rail, because not everybody can drive, and also rail is just a more cost-effective way of moving low-value goods that are going a long distance. So, you know, there’s a whole bunch of sensible things that we could be doing.

One of the more frightening things, I think, is the way that so many of the Government parties are distracting from the real challenges of inequality and climate change. Let’s be honest: climate change, we have always known, will drive up the cost of living, because when we have more serious flooding incidents, when we have more cyclones hitting us, that disrupts business, it means our insurance premiums go up, we’re having to put more resources into repairing the infrastructure that we already had, and it’s going to result in higher fuel food costs. So we have known for decades that climate change would result in higher food costs.

One really simple thing the Government could’ve done to reduce cost of living, for example, was not cancel the programme that was supporting local councils to buy electric buses, because if we buy electric buses, we spend less money on imported fossil fuels to run our public transport services. Now, in this Budget, there is an undisclosed secret amount that the Government’s having to pay more for the same amount of diesel. So we’re not getting more services, we’re not getting electric buses, which would be good for air quality and save us money on diesel. Instead, we’re just spending the money on diesel.

That just absolutely epitomises the short-sighted, ideological approach of the National Party; of Simeon Brown; of ACT and New Zealand First, who are supporting them, to cut back on programmes that just made economic sense. They finally came out and realised they actually had to help businesses transition away from gas, so after 2½ years, after cancelling the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund, they’re coming up with a programme to do that. Well, we could’ve been doing that the last 2½ years if this Government hadn’t cancelled it. This is a record, a shameful record, of embarrassing failures for the people in the current coalition Government.

I talk to businesses every day in my electorate and around the country who want to see direction from central government on sustainability, on waste minimisation, on transitioning away from fossil fuels because it makes sense, who want to see more investment in public transport and public housing. I had hundreds of public homes cancelled in my electorate. People need those homes. This is a shameful coalition Government.

The next call is a split call.

17:45

Nōku te māringa nui kia tū kia tautoko ai i tēnei, he aha te kupu, rautaki. Āe, tērā.

[It is my great pleasure to stand in support of this—what’s the word—“strategy”. Yes, that’s it.]

About nine months ago, I had the privilege of attending the opening of New Zealand’s first IKEA in, yes, “Maunga-IKEA-kie”—[Interruption] ah, there we go, yeah—just down the road from where I live there. I had the privilege of being there along with the Prime Minister and with Simeon Brown, who at that stage was the Minister for Auckland. After celebrating the opening of this business, we went out and had a press conference, and it was my first opportunity to be ambushed by Tova O’Brien. She’d been listening attentively, apparently, to the scrutiny hearing the day or two before; it was in the Māori Affairs Committee, and we were talking about the Vote and the amount of Budget that was being allocated to the support of Māori broadcasting, which she knew was something that I’m particularly passionate about.

The question that she asked the Prime Minister was referring to a plug that I had made at that committee for more money to go into broadcasting, that even though we had these fiscal cliffs approaching, I would love to have seen the opportunity for us to increase the support of those fantastic agencies that we have in New Zealand: Te Māngai Pāho, Te Puni Kōkiri itself, Whakaata Māori, and Te Mātāwai. For the work that they do, you know—he taonga tuku iho nō ngā tīpuna []. Ka rere te reo, ka tau te wairua. Ka rere te reo ka hiko ngā ngākau puta noa i te motu nei. Tōku tino wawata, te whakapuāwai o ngā reo i ngā wā katoa, i ngā wāhi katoa.it is a treasure handed down from the ancestors

[When language flows, the spirit is at peace. When language flows, the hearts of this country are stimulated. My earnest desire is for languages to blossom all the time, everywhere.]

So she asked me this question in front of the Prime Minister, and the answer that I gave was one that I reflected on recently when I looked at the wisdom of our Budget. I said that what we are able to do as a country is invest in these things that we are truly passionate about when we have a growing economy. That is why our number one focus has to be to secure the economy of this country, because when we have economic growth, when we control our spending, when inflation is down, then we actually have a surplus to invest in these things that we are truly passionate about. In this Budget, because of the economic wisdom, we were able to invest in some things. Even in these lean times, we were still able to invest in these taonga, which is why I was so excited to see an extra $48 million—even in these tough times, an extra $48 million, that equates to more than 10 percent of the baseline funding—an additional 10 percent that’s been allocated for investment in Māori broadcasting.

But there was even more for Maungakiekie. I had a phone call from the Minister of Education sharing with me some fantastic news, and that is that Ellerslie primary school, in my electorate, had for the last 25 years been seeking an auditorium. It’s been over 25 years since that school of 850 students has been able to gather as a community in a hall on site, and they have done everything and more than a school could ask to do. We have presented that case to our Government, and even in these lean times, because of careful fiscal management, we have been able to invest generously in school infrastructure, including the schools of Maungakiekie, and so Ellerslie primary school is getting its new auditorium.

But there’s more. I also received a phone call informing me that we’re going to have new classrooms at One Tree Hill College. We’re going to have new classrooms to provide extra learning support for the students of our community. Those are the kinds of things which we are able to do, and do more of, if we continue to focus on fixing the basics, because then we can build the future.

Half-price classrooms.

And half-price classrooms. It is a strong economy that allows us to take better care of our communities. It is a strong economy that gives us the resources and the ability to take better care of each other, and that is why I am enthusiastic about this wise Budget, and I am excited about the future that is dawning for Aotearoa New Zealand. Thank you.

17:50

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, I rise to take a call in this series of wonderful speeches about the Budget and the great things that have been indicated. I wanted to talk a little bit about how important it is for regional communities and infrastructure, in particular. I think it’s really important to remember that in this Budget and in challenging financial times, and in times that we have had to be very prudent in terms of spending, the Government has allocated $400 million to resilience and risk reduction works on key pieces of roading infrastructure across the country. I’m referring, of course, to my colleague David MacLeod’s Awakino Gorge; I’m referring to Scott Simpson’s Coromandel—the beautiful Coromandel, as he calls it—and, of course, I wouldn’t want to forget the Waiōweka Gorge in the Tairāwhiti region, in particular the work that we still are yet to do and commence—and, I guess, understand how we deliver that—for State Highway 35 around the East Coast.

In January 2026, the Waiōweka Gorge had 200 millilitres of rain fall in a two-hour period. The result of that was 40 slips, a significant amount of damage to culverts and flood-ways, and also a really difficult disruption to traffic and to anything that could get through. In Tairāwhiti, in January and February, we’re just entering into the time where it is harvest season, where the kiwifruit are about to come off the vines. We’re looking at citrus a wee bit further down the track, but we have squash, we have salad, we have all manner of things: persimmons, lemons—everything you can think of goes out. Horticulture New Zealand estimates about 120,000 tonnes of produce leave the Tairāwhiti region.

Now, that’s one thing if you live in Gisborne; if you live in Te Araroa or Tikitiki, Rangitukia, the detour, if the gorge is closed, is more than seven hours to get through to the area where the port is. So it’s a significant detour, and then throw into the middle of that, of course, a fuel crisis, which makes the cost even more exponentially great.

So for our producers in our region, it was a very stressful and difficult time. I want to commend the New Zealand Transport Authority (NZTA) for the work they did to get it open as quickly as possible, but the investment allocated, in the Budget, of $75 million for the Waiōweka Gorge, is a significant amount in a constrained funding environment. I really want to commend the Government for delivering that. We have a whole lot of work to do in there. We have $8 million to be spent between now and Christmas on flood-ways and culverts, and then we have the rest of the $75 million to be spent in the coming years, or next year or the year after, to deliver much greater risk reduction.

Because the problem is this: if you live in Gisborne and you’re planning to get on that bus at 8 in the morning and go to Auckland because that’s the way you get there, or if you live in Ōpōtiki and you’re planning to get on the bus and go to Rotorua or to Hamilton or to Auckland, it doesn’t go anymore. Those people have nowhere, no reason, no way to travel. If you think about the cafe owners in Ōpōtiki and in Tairāwhiti, and if you think about the people up the coast owning businesses where there’s no traffic, all of a sudden, because all of the roads are shut, it has a significant detrimental impact on the local economy. I think the importance of roading infrastructure and good investment into it cannot be lost.

If I think about the tourism sector in Tairāwhiti, the report done by Trust Tairāwhiti in May 2026 indicated that tourism and hospitality during the six-week closure recovery period dropped in spending by $1.7 million compared to the year before for the same period. Remember, of course, in January, that’s the time when everybody’s travelling around having their family holidays, and the tourism ventures and the cafes and what have you are stacking away some savings for the winter period when it’s quieter. So they have a significant long-term, enduring effect on regional economies when roads are shut.

We have worked really hard to make sure it’s open. We’ve stopped NZTA from shutting it every time it might rain, to keep it open and keep it a bit more secure. We’ve worked with the freight operators, and now we have delivered a substantial amount of money to ensure that the road remains open and that people can go visit their friends, that they can go about their business, and that our horticulture and agriculture producers can get their product to market to the Port of Tauranga and beyond.

We will make sure that we are not forgotten, in the regions, and we are not forgotten in terms of State Highway 2, Waiōweka Gorge and State Highway 35, both of which deserve and should have investment into the future. Therefore, this is a good result and a Budget that has delivered for our region in a small but useful way.

Members, the time has come for me to leave the chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7:30 p.m.

Good evening, members. I hope we’ve all dined well. We resume the Budget debate. The next call is a split call to the Labour Party, and there are 18 minutes left in this debate.

19:30

Thank you, Mr Speaker. As we’re coming to the end of this Budget debate, I thought it would be really timely to talk about one of the glaring holes and one of the moments of shame that this Budget is bringing to this Government. Alongside the Budget, we had the release of the child poverty figures: 50,000 more children suffering from material hardship than there were three years ago—50,000 more children. Overall, that’s nearly 170,000 children facing material hardship in this country. That is an absolute disgrace for this country. Also, New Zealand is nowhere near on track to meet its 2028 targets.

I want to mention a retired Starship Hospital paediatrician, Dr Innes Asher, who said that the latest Budget was a very bad one for New Zealand because more children were in poverty now than there was 10 years ago. Poverty costs everyone. It costs our societies, it costs our economy, and it is not good for those precious taonga who are our future generations.

To put that into terms of what that looks like for those children, there are 50,000 more children who don’t have enough food to live with food security on a daily basis, who don’t know where their next meal is coming from. There are 50,000 more children who don’t have enough shoes to put on their feet, who don’t have enough clothes, who don’t live in houses that are warm and fit for purpose. There are 50,000 more children who are more prone to diseases that will hospitalise them. We’re already seeing that some of the indicators of poverty—the diseases that are the true indicators of poverty—are becoming more prevalent in society right now: skin diseases such as scabies. We’ve had alerts about outbreaks of scabies. Scabies happen when poverty is rife. That’s what’s facing our children at the moment.

It’s 50,000 more children who face greater inequities in their lifetime, greater inequities in their home lives, greater inequities in their schooling lives. It’s harder for them to have good outcomes across those areas such as schooling—not impossible, but much more difficult—than if they were living in a secure and poverty-free household. This is the shame of this Budget: 50,000—50,000—more children that this Government has caused to go into poverty from their policies or their lack of initiatives that they are targeting towards bringing kids out of that.

It’s all very well when we can talk about those numbers, but I’m mindful of those children that I have seen in recent times. I think of ones that I saw at the end of last year, at a Christmas party, where a child wouldn’t unwrap the Christmas present that was given to them at that Christmas party because they wanted to take it home so that their sibling would have a present to open, because it would be the only present they would get under their Christmas tree—or the other child, who had unwrapped their present and was then busily trying to wrap it back up again because they wanted to have something for themselves to open on Christmas day. Those are the realities of kids that live in poverty. They don’t have extras. They don’t have presents. You stop asking them what they got for Christmas or what they got for their birthday, because they just don’t get anything.

It’s a real blight on this country that we have children that are living in that situation. One would be one too many, but 170,000? We are heading in the wrong direction. This Government’s policies are heading this country in the wrong direction. We have far too many children that are living in situations not of their making but of the making of a society that is not supporting them. This is not a good Budget; this is an absolutely shameful Budget. We need to turn that around, and the hope is in November when we can vote.

19:35

Thank you, Mr Speaker. As my colleague the Hon Jan Tinetti has just pointed out, this is a Government and a Budget that is failing New Zealand. This Government came into power nearly three years ago with a massive promise to New Zealanders that they would fix the cost of living, that they would make things better for New Zealanders, that they would make things easier for New Zealanders; instead, things are getting worse. I’m going to talk about that in a moment, particularly in relation to some matters in my electorate of Nelson.

First, I want to focus on some of the cuts that haven’t necessarily had enough air time in this country, but it shows this Government’s priorities. Those are the cuts to the arts budget: $27 million worth of cuts over the next few years from organisations like Te Papa, which house our most precious taonga; from Creative New Zealand, which gets money out to artists operating in the regions; from the New Zealand Music Commission; from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, who travel up and down the country—a world-leading orchestra in our own country. Instead, this Government is giving millions of dollars to international artists who are multimillionaires, like Robbie Williams, yet leaving behind the artists in New Zealand who are looking to grow their talent and make a contribution to New Zealand across the whole country. I’ve spoken to many, many arts leaders who cannot understand why this Government is giving millions of dollars to people like Robbie Williams, who would come here anyway, through a process that isn’t transparent, and then they cut $27 million from Kiwi artists—from New Zealand artists—many of whom are doing it tough.

Now, let’s talk about the cost of living, because, again, this Government talked a massive game. They said, “We are going to do so much for this nation.” Well, in my community of Nelson, we have lost hundreds of jobs. Unemployment continues to grow across the nation. Business liquidations are at a 15-year high. I want to give a shout-out to the wonderful team at Comida and Prego—a wonderful cafe and retail outlet in Nelson that has closed this week, very sadly. We’ve had jobs lost at Carter Holt Harvey, we’ve had jobs lost at Sealord, we’re having jobs moved out of our region from Proper Crisps—many, many more jobs lost and many people having to leave New Zealand for Australia because they cannot get access to an opportunity in New Zealand. We’re also seeing many people—around 650,000 people—who cannot afford to go to the doctor. They can’t afford it because of the cost.

What I want to talk about is some of Labour’s plans to address this. We have some actual plans to address the cost of living. This was the last chance of this National Government. They could have come with a Budget recently, they could have come to this House, and said, “Here is how we are going to help you with the cost of living now.” Instead, they talked about KiwiSaver and things for the future, but they had made a promise to New Zealanders and they needed to do something for New Zealanders now. Here’s one of those things. I just want to thank my colleague Mr Utikere for lending me his Bee Card, because we both have a Bee Card—it’s a Bee Card. Now, these wonderful Bee Cards can be used in places like Palmerston North, in places like Nelson and Tauranga—all over the country—in order to pay for the bus. Now, one of the most popular things that we’ve been talking about that will address the cost of living in my community of Nelson, and it is very, very popular, is that you’ll only pay $10 a week in Nelson to use the bus.

We have fantastic e-buses in Nelson that our Government helped introduce—something I was proud to assist with getting funding for. We have fantastic electric buses, the first electric bus fleet in New Zealand—sorry, I know we have a little contest about this—the first fully electric bus fleet in New Zealand. We’re very, very proud of it in Nelson. We are very proud of it. Ten bucks a week is all you’ll pay. Under the previous Labour Government, we had half-price public transport and we saw a massive increase in public transport usage in Nelson. People didn’t have to use petrol to fill up their car. These are the kinds of things that this Government could have done. They gave money to families but not money to the elderly people in my community, of which there are many; not money to the workers who don’t have kids but are still paying hundreds of dollars to fill up the tank; not money to the beneficiaries who are trying to get a job; but a $10-a-week bus fare will do wonders for them. It’s just one of the many things that Labour will do to properly address the cost of living, unlike this Government, who have come into power and made things worse.

The Hon Chris Bishop, for eight minutes.

19:40

What a woeful contribution from the soon-to-be former member for Nelson—what a woeful contribution. It is hard to know where to start with the paucity of policy offerings coming from the Opposition. They like to lecture us about numbers. Well, just in the last week or so, we have seen from the Opposition quite a demonstration of the need for financial literacy in schools. I mean, leave aside the Greens’ kind of make-believe, mumbo-jumbo, make-it-up-as-you-go, “Oh, what’s $400—oh, sorry, it’s actually $800 million—

What’s $800 million between friends?

“What’s $800 million between friends?”, says the Minister of Finance. I mean, if the Minister of Finance made an $800 million mistake—it’s a good thing the public don’t take the Greens seriously.

We’ve also got, of course, the heroic claim from Mr Utikere that 1.2 million people can benefit by hundreds of dollars per week and it will only cost $65 million! Interestingly, according to him, we’ll also include the Eastbourne Ferry, which doesn’t have Snapper—so it doesn’t even work on the system that their own policy document said it would affect.

It was quite interesting to see the reaction of Eastbourne locals. I should declare an interest: I live there. So—

Sorry, what was that about your Budget?

I should disclose an interest. It was interesting to see the Radio New Zealand article in which people from Eastbourne said, “Well, hang on, this is a bit interesting. It’s a huge amount of money to cross the harbour, and now we’re getting free cash from Tangi Utikere and his mates?”

Anyway, there is so much to talk about in this great Budget. I want to talk about a couple of things. The first is the very large capital investment in the Budget: $7 billion across a whole range of different things. One of the things we’ve been trying to do since this Government was elected is establish a long-term infrastructure pipeline and make sure that we get the cash out of the door, because that has been a perennial problem for Governments of successive stripes over the last few years. We’re making real progress. It’s not there yet, but we are making progress. This Budget invests a considerable amount into the kind of social infrastructure that this country needs.

One of the outgoing legacies of the Hon Dr Shane Reti, who’s now, sadly, retiring from Parliament, will be a new 158-bed block at Whangārei Hospital—fantastic—and we’ve got redevelopment money for a whole range of other regional hospitals. This is evidence-based policy. The National Infrastructure Plan, with cross-party endorsement, says we need to lift hospital investment; well, that’s what we’re doing. Unlike the last Government, which just made large pronouncements of money and worried about the details later—hence why, in 2026, having been promised in 2017, we are just getting started on the new Dunedin Hospital, which will finish in 2032; what a sad tale of infrastructure neglect and mismanagement in this country—we are making sure we can deliver projects and fund them when they are needed. Likewise, with Police; likewise, with courthouses, replacing the Rotorua Courthouse.

I want to talk briefly about social housing, because I was at the Community Housing Aotearoa conference today. It was interesting to see the Labour Party a bit late to the party, a year after we came out with a liquidity system for the Community Housing Funding Agency and a bank loan guarantee scheme, to see them stand up and say, “Do you know what would be a good idea? If we did a Crown guarantee for the Community Housing Funding Agency.” It’s like, well, yeah, no doubt about it; we did it last year. Where were you? Like, wake up, Mr McAnulty, because that is delivering up to 400 basis point reductions in debt for community housing providers around the country, and it means we’re getting more bang for buck, so it’s a great thing.

This Budget puts another 1,800 to 2,200 social houses funded from 2028 onwards, and I am very proud of this. For the first time in New Zealand history, we now have a four-year funded pipeline of social housing places, which is what the community housing sector has said they’ve wanted for as long as I’ve been involved in housing in this House. No Government has been able to deliver it; at a time of great fiscal restraint, we have been able to do it. I know that there are kids and whānau around the country who will get access to those homes, and the kids will wake up in warm, dry houses and all of the benefits that come from that. That makes me very happy.

There is a significant investment in this Budget into the Waikato Expressway. The Cambridge to Piarere Road: $1.77 billion to deliver the extension of the Waikato Expressway. It was interesting to see the Labour Party, after the announcement, cast doubt on the benefit-cost ratio, which is actually really good; it’s about 2.7 to 3.1. Then they said it was unaffordable, even though it was capital funded in the Budget. My challenge to them is: will they commit to that road? I tell you, go and talk to the people of Cambridge, go and talk to the people of Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty, which the road connects to through State Highway 29, and if you say to them, “Do we need that road? That death trap of a road—a replacement road.” They’ll say yes. Go and talk to the Port of Tauranga, go and talk to Tainui, go and talk to the people at the Ruakura Inland Port, go and talk to the people of Hamilton and the logistics firms around that “golden triangle”, that great hub of growth, the great nexus of growth in the centre of this country, and they’ll say to you, “Yeah, it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

They want a commitment that we will get on with it. Well, under this Government, we are doing that. But it’s not just about big new roads. We made a specific decision in the Budget—

I like big, new roads.

—I know you like big, new roads; you’re getting a very big one—to make sure that we fund resilience investments; Waiōeka Gorge, for example.

That’s right.

I acknowledge the very hard work of Dana Kirkpatrick to make sure that that project was prioritised, because that’s a lifeline route for the great people of the East Coast. It has been bashed around through severe weather events, but we actually need to fix it, and we’re going to do that, and the work is going to start soon. I want to acknowledge David MacLeod and Barbara Kuriger for their advocacy for the Awakino Gorge—a real stress point. It has been a real problem, and we are going to fix it. There’s a whole range of other resilience improvements, and it’s, again, following the work of the National Infrastructure Plan, which said, “Focus on what you’ve got. Focus on resilience.”

Finally, RMA reform and the digital investments. Now, people might say, “Oh, this is all very boring”, but it’s actually critical. I was speaking to the Environmental Defence Society today. There’s genuine excitement about building the digital backend of the system so that we have a federated data infrastructure, and rather than every council going off and purchasing their own IT system, going off and purchasing their own digital systems, we’ve got one for the country. A radical concept: one data system, and also making use of a thing that I’ve discovered in the last six months: artificial intelligence. It turns out it can do amazing things. The Opposition live in fear of it; we embrace it on this side of the House.

It is a great Budget, delivered by a great Minister of Finance, and it sets up a sharp contrast in election year: a Government with a plan for the future, a long-term plan to set New Zealand up for prosperity, and people opposite who just want to splash the cash and get out the money hose and create all the problems they created in the first place.