Parliamentary debates: Friday, 3 July 2026

09:00

Yes, and on that note, I thought I was speaking at Roland’s farewell the other night, but anyway.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Infrastructure Funding and Finance Amendment Bill. Look, it’s a sensible, innovative tool for local government to support investment and development.

One of the key things, and I think it was traversed a little bit last night as well, was this SPV, special purpose vehicle, arrangement. The name is on the tin. What I find really amusing, when we’re all in agreement here, is that we have to take a slightly different approach to things, and that’s what the philosophers call a heterodox approach. In other words, we listen to everybody, and we all agree, and we’re going to get there in the end—as I heard last night—which is really nice.

The SPVs: the Nats claimed it, then Labour claimed it, and then ACT claimed it, and the Greens were—

Kumbaya!

—worried about it. There we go. Interestingly, I don’t think any of you can claim developing these kinds of things—SPVs. I bring for you, Waterfront Auckland. Sir Bob Harvey was the chair. It was, really, an SPV, a special purpose vehicle. It wasn’t just about housing; it was the development of the waterfront. It came from the Auckland City Council, and then it was rolled over into the new Auckland Council. Oh, by the way, everyone that keeps calling Auckland a city, I’ll just remind you that, actually, it has a regional part. If you really look at the understanding of regional development, it is a city region. Anyway, I traversed that a little bit.

Waterfront Auckland was time-limited, it was for a special purpose, and here’s the kicker: it was public investment that catalysed private investment. That’s what these things do. Waterfront Auckland, being time-limited, was rolled into Eke Panuku, which is now the Auckland Urban Development Office. It fulfilled the purpose—so congratulations to Sir Bob Harvey for a job well done. It’s not just about housing; obviously, that’s one of the jewels for Auckland. There’s the waterfront and the work that was done there.

Let’s just get to the Green Party member’s concern about special purpose vehicles. What are we trying to do here? Special purpose vehicles: well, it’s on the tin. The special purpose vehicle here is about, if you like, private benefit and public good.

Commend it to the House.

Yeah. That’s a balancing act, and a lot of people want us to commend this to the House.

No one’s listening.

I’ll get to that in a second. Unfortunately, Tom, you’re not my whip. Ha, ha! Yes, it’s a balancing act, and it takes skill and experience. I’m still trying to find a little bit of that here! I’ve been in this kind of job and this kind of process many, many times before, and it’s all about leveraging for the public good or for the community’s benefit. That is the essence of economic development. That’s how you do it.

I’ve seen a lot of snake oil salesmen, in my time, coming with really good projects where they want public money, and you’ve really got to sort those ones out. If you ask a simple question to any proponent: what’s in it for the public? What’s in it for the ratepayer? What’s in it for the taxpayer?—in any project. That’s the whole purpose of this. That’s the whole purpose. I’ve also seen leaders in the private sector—to the Green Party member’s concerns about SPVs—such as Sir Ron Carter, Sir Stephen Tindall, and Sir Eoin Edgar. There’s a reason they’re sirs: because they had the community at their heart, just like Bob. Bob did a good job. Whatever that is and however you make those arrangements, what I like about the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Amendment Bill is that there are some guard rails there to ensure that the public gets the benefit out of these things and we implement them in the proper way.

Yes, back to the bill. Sometimes councils are under the real pressure to provide infrastructure where rates are insufficient—for example, those ones that are heavily touristed or are under pressure from rapid growth. It’s about unlocking New Zealand’s infrastructure potential through infrastructure funding and financing. The model is good. May I remind the House that things like the Provincial Growth Fund and the Regional Infrastructure Fund do this all the time; it’s not new. We need this balancing act, and we need the guard rails. We, as New Zealand First, commend this bill to the House.

09:06

Thank you, Mr Speaker. What a good morning to everyone. It’s such a lovely morning. I hope everyone got a good sleep last night. It’s a bit of a shame to hear New Zealand First—all they want to do is have a go at the Green Party, when all we do is just care. We care.

I was taking care of your concerns.

I thank you, Dr Wilson. It was actually a little bit disappointing to hear your coalition partners just telling you to hurry up the whole time while you were trying to alleviate our concerns with this bill. It feels like there’s a few little cracks happening over there.

I will get back to the bill. It is good. It is a privilege to stand up on behalf of the Green Party to speak to this bill. We know, when this was first enacted back in 2020, we supported the bill, and, obviously, it hasn’t been hugely successful since then. I actually do recall, as a city councillor, the ability—if we’d had a special purpose vehicle, some of the things we could have actually achieved. We know that there are concerns when you do some of these significant infrastructure projects—the impacts they do have on councils and, therefore, ratepayers—so having a mechanism to ensure that doesn’t happen and to move that issue away from ratepayers is actually a sensible thing. Ensuring that we do have an ability that enables good public investment is actually very, very good. Through this process, the Greens have been working hard to ensure that actually what we do get is an outcome that is beneficial to the public and enables growth that can pay for itself in a way that is sustainable.

We still do have some concerns about where we’re at. I think we’ve got to be a little bit careful, because we know, when we’re looking at growth paying for growth, that there are issues that do impact councils significantly from that attitude, but, obviously, we can create these mechanisms that remove that. I’m always concerned when we look at growth just for the sake of growth and ensuring that it’s commercially viable. Actually, what we need to really make sure is that it’s not just commercially viable but it also, just as importantly, stacks up environmentally, because we do know that growth for the sake of growth is not sustainable. We cannot just keep having urban sprawl.

There’s potential, when we create these bills that enable more development, that that development can occur in the wrong place, and that will end up having impacts on future generations and future councils that have to actually pay for the cost of where we build. It is really important that we get our urban planning right and that we have financial structures that actually enable it to happen. We need to make sure that we control where it does happen. Our natural resources are finite, and we cannot abuse that. If we do, we are failing future generations. What I have seen from this term of Government is a Government that just keeps doing that same—

Speed it up, son.

Sorry?

You’ve run out of stuff to say.

I’ve got lots of stuff to say, but I heard a comment, so I thought I’d better respond to that comment. As I said, what we’ve seen from this Government over the last three—

Not always recommended, responding to comments.

I know, especially when it’s just chewed up my valuable time, which is a little bit concerning, because I was just getting to a very, very good point. That’s all right; I’ll get back with my 10 seconds.

It’s good to speak on behalf of the Green Party. This is obviously very—oh, I’ve run out of time.

09:11

This bill literally unlocks infrastructure growth, just like Te Awa Lakes north of Hamilton. We’ve got a $50 million Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act loan to unlock 2,500 houses. This is about fixing the basics and building the future, literally.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and aren’t we peppy this morning, on this real Friday—perpetual Tuesday?

You mean last Friday wasn’t real?

Ha, ha! Labour supports the Infrastructure (Funding and Financing) Amendment Bill, as was very eloquently noted last night, when we started this debate, by my colleague Arena Williams. However, she did raise some concerns, and I want to go through those a little bit today as well.

Infrastructure funding matters—we know that—but who ultimately pays matters just as much, and I want to highlight some of those concerns. Ultimately, we support better tools for unlocking housing and infrastructure. We know that New Zealand needs to unlock its infrastructure. We’ve got a huge deficit that we need to figure out better ways of grappling with. We know that too many developments have been delayed because things like the pipes, the roads, and other sorts of essential services don’t get funded upfront.

Financing infrastructure is never cost-free. The key questions in this particular bill are about who is carrying that cost and whether it is transparent and whether, actually, households can genuinely afford it. I agree with my colleague Mike Davidson: sometimes, we do have to think about the nature of growth. This bill does create a model that makes funding easier, but it cannot be used as an excuse to simply shift costs on to families already dealing with rates increases, mortgages, and everyday expenses in the cost of living. Ultimately, we can’t solve one affordability problem by simply shifting and creating a problem somewhere else.

The infrastructure levies, we acknowledge, can help new houses to get built, which is a good thing, but those levies remain attached to a property, sometimes for 20, 30, 40, or 50 years. A developer or a current owner may support the levy because it makes a project easier to proceed with initially, but it’s often the future homeowners who are the ones who are going to make those payments. They almost certainly wouldn’t have been involved in the original decisions, so they might not fully understand the long-term costs when they purchase that property. Labour’s concern is that removing the affordability assessments, which has been done in some circumstances, could make a house appear more affordable upfront, which is alluring, but it does leave the new owner with a substantial ongoing charge.

The other thing that we are concerned about is the expansion into transport, and that raises some unresolved questions. One of the most significant changes is allowing this type of financing model to be used more widely for transport projects, including projects that have traditionally been led by national transport agencies for national transport infrastructure and, therefore, funded through those national mechanisms. Labour doesn’t want this bill to become, essentially, a backdoor to fund things that have traditionally been funded by central government—just shifting it on to local government and, therefore, local communities and ratepayers. This concern is even sharper when, obviously, the Government is also proposing a cap to rates. Some of that doesn’t quite add up, and I think that that does require a little bit more scrutiny. Obviously, the councils could be expected to collect new infrastructure levies via this model, whilst also having a restriction placed on them about how they could fund their own essential services. That contradiction, I think, remains unresolved via this process.

I think the other important factor to take note of is that local communities and councils absolutely have to retain a meaningful voice in this process. The bill significantly narrows the circumstances in which a council can refuse to endorse a levy. In practice, this means that councils may be required to support a levy unless collecting it would put rate collection at risk. What does that necessarily even mean? The process around that remains a little bit opaque. Whilst we, again, support the streamlining of a process, we think that communities deserve some proper information and, actually, some genuine consultation so that they can have confidence that not only are their views being taken into account but that the ultimate outcome is a good one.

The select committee, we believe, has strengthened protections around some of the forced land sales, which was a really important topic. As has been noted last night and this morning, the bill as introduced gave special purpose vehicles (SPVs) a very broad power where development failed. An SPV could have sought the sale of undeveloped land based largely on its own assessment—sometimes, possibly, without even the requisite necessary information to make that independent process very clear to the landowner, to challenge the debt, which is an important part of that process.

My colleague Arena Williams talked a little bit last night about the situation that Māori land owners would find themselves in and about the fact that they absolutely deserve more than tick-box consultation during this process. It’s a different set of circumstances with unique and sometimes complicated but bespoke considerations. Any piece of legislation that we enact needs to account for that properly so that we don’t create unintended or even intended negative consequences down the track.

Going back to the SPV, the select committee has recommended that that vehicle must first obtain a court decision, a court judgment, before it can apply for a forced sale, and that seems absolutely sensible to us, and congratulations to those people on that select committee that made that happen. We welcome that amendment; it was important to go through that process. It restores, ultimately, judicial oversight and protects natural justice, which is always absolutely important, and it ensures that the amount claimed can be properly tested before someone risks losing their land. You can imagine all the various situations where that could occur. A forced land sale is always a stressful and unfortunate situation, and there absolutely has to be public confidence that that’s done properly.

The affordability must be assessed cumulatively, not levied by levy, and that was another important consideration for the select committee. Households don’t experience rates, water charges, and infrastructure levies in isolation; they experience it as one combined bill. They get their rates notice, they perhaps pay it annually or they pay it quarterly—whatever—but they get their rates notice, and not that many people go through it line by line and pontificate about the contribution that each thing makes to its overall rating. That is how they experience the rating system.

Labour therefore welcomes the select committee’s recommendation that the Minister must consider the cumulative impact of a new levy alongside existing rates, water services charges, and other levies. This responds, we think, directly to concerns raised about double-dipping. Even just saying the word out loud—no one likes the concept of double-dipping. We’ve had various examples of that over the years. It feels, therefore, like someone’s doing something to you that you didn’t realise was happening, and there’s nothing worse than feeling like you’re getting a bit ripped off.

In this particular example, where people may be charged several times for overlapping infrastructure costs—and you can imagine how potentially complicated some of that levying could end up being—it’s really important that that safeguard be there. Labour will obviously continue to argue for affordability protections and make sure that they are applied consistently, including for future homeowners, who are the ones who are ultimately going to bear these costs, but we support building houses. We think unlocking the potential to ensure that the pipes, the roads, and all those other services are financed out-front—we acknowledge that that is often the sticking point for growth and development, and therefore we support this bill.

09:21

This is such a good bill. I’m going to commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill does build on an excellent initiative of the last Labour Government—

Is that Helen Clark’s?

—because we’ve always recognised the need for well-planned and well-funded development. This bill, essentially, improves in some respects the—

Oh, now they have opinions over there—saying they can’t give speeches!

Why are you heckling me? Ha, ha! It improves in some respects the infrastructure framework that we put in place. In fact, here in Wellington, if I recall correctly, the sludge plant is funded exactly by this framework.

I think we do need to remember that, essentially, what this does is it allows a funding stream to repay what is usually commercial lending. By having a statutory framework, it gives some assurance to any lender that there will be a long-term source of income to finance interest costs and principal repayments, but it is still, essentially, borrowing for infrastructure. There is no magic way to come up with this cash—we’ve got to come up with it from somewhere. This is simply deferring and stretching out the repayments, usually across 30 or 50 years. As my colleague noted, someone’s got to pay. This framework, essentially, puts those costs on ratepayers and property owners across the long term. It’s not some magical way to get infrastructure for free, but it does smooth the costs out.

Having said that, there is some concern that we’re seeing a Government that wants to cap rates on the one hand for a cheap political win, but, in fact, this will simply impose other costs on ratepayers. It’s a little bit of the old magic cup—moving the costs around. Let’s be upfront about this. It’s quite right that we need to be very careful about making sure that the overall costs imposed on homeowners in particular are affordable, because we’ve set up a new water system and we’ve seen water rates going up pretty significantly. We’ve got a framework of levies already. We’ve got special rates—in Christchurch there’s a special rate being imposed for some rebuild work. Then we’ve got this additional levy. Here in Wellington, we’ve had some accounting errors with the sludge levy where that’s caused some issues as well. It’s all costs, and if we do have infrastructure funded this way, it will increase, essentially, the bill of ratepayers. It’s just another way for rates to go up, so we’ve got to keep an eye on affordability.

I do want also to just express a little bit of concern about the watering down of protections for Māori land. Obviously, development does benefit Māori land, but we need to be cautious that we don’t think that just because we’re building some infrastructure plant or roading which benefits Māori land, we’ve got an untrammelled right to levy that land. Consultation on those projects is very important. In fact, as I understand it, previously, Māori land owners, iwi, and hapū were required to consent, but, now, once you’re across a certain threshold, it can be imposed on them. In terms of tino rangatiratanga, that’s a bit of a concern, because Māori land—how it’s rated and how it’s dealt with and how it’s held—has always kind of been the last bastion of autonomy for Māori. This is just encroaching on it a little bit. I’m concerned about these small encroachments. I’m sure there’ll be more to be said about that.

The other thing, I guess, that I’d just like to talk about are the dangers around failed projects, because exactly what amounts to a failed project? A lot of these projects take a long time. They might not take off—look at Rolleston; it didn’t take off overnight, but it took off eventually. We’ve got to be really cautious about leaping to a conclusion that there’s been a failure, when, in fact, all that’s needed is more time. I understand the select committee had a look at that—that’s good—but caution is required there. Overall, it’s building on a good Labour initiative.

09:26

It’s time to get this done. I commend it to the House.

Kia orana. Good morning, Mr Speaker. Look, it’s a pleasure to rise and speak in support of the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Amendment Bill. This was a bill that has been reported back to the House via the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I’m not a member of that committee, but I did have an opportunity to sit in on some of the submissions and, indeed, some of the advice in terms of the committee’s consideration on this bill. The report backs are currently in front of the House.

There were 60 submissions. I think it was around about half a dozen who did front up and appear in front of the select committee. I do want to acknowledge the officials, particularly what was the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and the Office of the Clerk and, obviously, the Parliamentary Counsel Office as well.

We support this bill because we do recognise the need for good tools in order to fund and deliver infrastructure. The funding is the important part, as is the delivery. As my colleague the Hon Dr Duncan Webb has already indicated this morning, this was a bill that was introduced under the previous Labour Government. Naturally, we have had a look at this and have continued to support it, based on what we see currently in front of us.

New Zealand has, as we know, a bit of an infrastructure deficit in this country. What we do need are practical ways to unlock growth for housing, for further growth, and obviously for resilience, which is why we, as a team, do support the Infrastructure Commission’s National Infrastructure Plan and, obviously, the response that was provided by our infrastructure spokesperson, the Hon Kieran McAnulty, who did provide a forward as part of that. We are serious about the need to tackle the infrastructure deficit in New Zealand. Part of that is looking at how things are funded and how things are financed as well.

The question is not whether infrastructure should be built; it must be built in this country. We’ll go on to talk a little bit around what some of those particular parts of infrastructure will be in a moment, but whether the funding model is fair, whether it’s affordable, and whether it is transparent is what we have been looking at when we have considered this bill. Funding models are important, yes, but it’s not just an approach where some can be, effectively, introduced without consideration around where the transparency lens is. Colleagues have already touched on that in earlier contributions as part of this bill, as well.

Infrastructure financing absolutely should help communities to grow, but it shouldn’t just be about moving costs from one balance sheet to the other. We do need to understand that these decisions have an impact on households and on household budgets. That’s why ensuring that infrastructure projects go through the Infrastructure Commission’s independent assurance assessment process is really, really important. The reason why that is important is because, if we are looking at the funding opportunities and how things will be financed, knowing that a project actually stacks up through an independent lens is going to ensure some certainty and longevity for the project. I do hope that the Government, in terms of thinking about the wider brief of infrastructure, do consider that as well.

The important thing is when we, I guess, look at this particular bill, and some might see that as a form of streamlining a particular process—what is important is that that doesn’t soon become a euphemism for simply removing safeguards that need to be in place to make sure that there are checks and balances; that there isn’t a reduction in engagement with community as to how that might work or, indeed, a weakening of accountability for when these decisions are made and when they’re taken; and that there is accountability as a key part of that. For Labour, we have been constructive in this space. We support the objective of enabling good infrastructure that connects communities but that also stacks up, and we will continue to scrutinise the detail. That is certainly a responsibility.

One of the changes that the select committee did make—and it’s one that the Labour Party were very, very keen on—is this issue of cumulative affordability. It’s something that my colleague Dr Tracey McLellan has touched on, and that is looking at affordability through the lens of not just whether, in isolation, these costs and items can be afforded or not but actually an acknowledgment of the fact that households get a number of calls on their household budget. The Minister, in considering any sort of levy proposal, whether to advance that or not—one of the changes that has been made is that the Minister needs to consider that proposal alongside the existing levies, the existing rates, the existing costs that are already in place, and the existing water charges that Dr Webb has touched on.

We’ve called for that change, and it’s good to see that that is a change that has been included in here. It means that the consideration as to whether a proposal should succeed or not, or even be put on the table, will have those cumulative considerations on households and their budgets made before those future decisions are actually taken. While a levy may, in a traditional sense, sit outside traditional rates, for families, that is still another bill that is coming through the door. That’s why there is a real need for there to be that active consideration.

One of the aspects that the select committee did spend a little bit of time on is the requirement for consultation with those landowners who would be affected by a proposal and also with iwi and hapū as well. I want to acknowledge the officials who, under the direction of the select committee, did spend quite a bit of time going through this. Permission was granted for them to go out and consult concurrently at the same time that the select committee was considering this bill, and on page 5 of the select committee’s report, this arose out of concern that engagement needed to occur with iwi Māori organisations and other individuals around levy areas or charges that may affect Māori land, for Māori land that is subject to the Treaty settlement process, and it also acknowledges the fact that the infrastructure decisions that may be taken may affect Māori land. It’s pleasing to see that a result of that is a change to the bill that will require there to be active consultation, and the requirement also indicates and shows the lengths that have been taken to ensure that that consultation has been disclosed with the affected parties, with iwi, and with hapū as well, and that that’s part of the whole process.

I want to just make some brief comments on transport. Part of the focus of this bill is to allow for the funding, potentially, of transport infrastructure that leads to growth opportunities. In terms of transport infrastructure, we all know that this Government has a $56 billion suite of roads of national significance, and that number continues to grow. They accept that they need to reprioritise and reassess that and to rescope those projects, because, right now, they have a $30 billion fiscal hole in terms of that plan. One could say that that’s why they’re perhaps looking at any funding and financing opportunity around transport infrastructure to meet that.

We need to be very clear that this is not to be seen as an opportunity to grab every single bit of coin and every dollar that is out in the community to fund transport projects that do not stack up. For the sort of shift in this space to allow transport agencies like Waka Kotahi - NZ Transport Agency, to trigger projects that may result in local levies, it is important that that transparency at the local level still exists. It is important that the accountability for the decisions that have been taken by those that make those decisions still exists, and it is important that the consultation and accountability exist there as well.

Our concern is not with enabling infrastructure per se. Our concern, and my concern, in the transport space is with who pays for these projects. Who decides where these projects are going to go? Do they stack up through that independent lens, and are those costs affordable over time? What is very clear, under the current Government, is that their roads of national significance are not affordable, they are not funded, and they are not going to be delivered anytime soon, and so they need to go through a process of reprioritisation. We all wait as to when that is going to happen. We all think that there’s not going to be a Government policy statement on land transport before the election. That would be the first time in more than two decades that that has been the case. We do hope that the Government is serious about focusing on transport infrastructure, and moving forward, we’ll continue to keep watching.

09:36

This bill is part of National’s plan to fix the basics, to unlock growth potential, and to build a future for New Zealand, particularly when most of the submitters have supported this bill. I commend it to the House.

09:37

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think this is a really interesting bill, because I think, overall, when it comes to public infrastructure and also facilities, there are some good aspects to this bill. I think one of the things in particular, as we heard from previous speakers on this bill, is around the ability or the streamlining of this in terms of the levies regarding infrastructure funding and financing (IFF).

This bill is an omnibus bill. While it’s intending on making the existing IFF models more usable, flexible, and viable by making it easier for infrastructure projects—and I think we’ve heard some of those, and I will discuss more in terms of both housing, urban development, as well as transport that are to be funded—there are definitely still additional kinds of concerns that the Greens have regarding how this is going to work in other respects, particularly whether this is a way for the Crown, for example, to wash itself of some of its responsibilities and look at further privatisation rather than putting in public funding. I think this is something that we mentioned and were looking at as a part of the select committee process—that this bill will allow for something like that to proceed with ill-considered projects and lock people into unaffordable repayments.

What’s really interesting, I think, in the context of this bill, is that what have been characterised as unnecessary barriers to the uptake of the IFF may actually be that projects don’t stack up and shouldn’t be built in the first place. I think the previous speaker Tangi Utikere has mentioned some of the unaffordability when it comes to roads of national significance. I think, when we’re looking at some of the billions and billions of dollars that have been proposed on some of those, the burden it would have on both local government ratepayers as well as taxpayers is a concern. For a lot of those, I think we can agree, if we put them into other areas, such as public transport, or even more varied things and diverse modes of transportation, like cycling and also rail, we’d potentially see better use for money. I think there are great potentials for this bill, but it’s the implementation that is going to be interesting to see as we develop.

I think one of the other things around this bill, when we’re looking at the levy aspect, is something that I think in general we’ve seen the Audit Office being quite interested in, in terms of some of the nuances between whether we would consider this a levy, consider this a fee, or consider it a tax. This is something we have discussed across quite a few varied bills here in the House this term, and I think some of this blurriness potentially has piqued the interest of the Audit Office, as we see in some of their latest reports.

In this particular case, when we’re looking at the levy-making power and particularly when we’re looking at, for example, the cumulative affordability concerns and the fact that one of the new sections, section 27, which will be interesting to unpack with the Minister more during the committee stage coming up, will simplify the mandatory consideration that the Minister must make when taking into account before recommending a levy order be made, I think it’s also important—and this is something that I think deserves further unpacking during the committee stage—when we’re looking at that levy-making power, to look at where some of that levy-making power is and where some of that levy is going to go.

As I mentioned before, if the levy, for example, were looking at specifically going towards the same remit and within the same scope of a particular agency or particular local authority, that potentially is useful. It’s helpful. However, what I’ve seen, for example, in some of the other changes—let’s say the waste minimisation bill—where the levy has now been used more broadly, in terms of the scope of other areas or the general operations of a particular local authority or agency, is not a very good use of a levy, and that’s something that should rightfully be funded by the Crown. We’ve also seen some changes to immigration where a levy has been used to supplement health and education, which also defeats the purpose of a levy. I think those are interesting things to consider in the upcoming committee stage.

09:42

on behalf of the Minister of Health: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I move, That the Pae Ora (Healthy Future) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

This bill is about guaranteeing women the choice of a minimum of three days of post-natal in-patient care after childbirth to ensure all mothers and babies get the support they need during this vitally important time. This Government believes that every child deserves the best-possible start in life. That start does not begin weeks or months after birth; it begins immediately, in those first precious days, when mothers are recovering from childbirth and families are learning to care for a newborn together. This bill responds directly to what women and families have told us about their post-natal experiences. They’ve told us that greater certainty and support in the early days following childbirth is needed. We know that quality early post-natal care can shape positive long-term outcomes well beyond the hospital stay.

It is for these reasons that this Government is proud to back this bill with significant new funding delivered in Budget 2026. We are committed to ensuring that this legislation is matched with the investment needed to deliver it. This new funding of $34.4 million over four years increases maternity system capacity so mothers can confidently choose up to three days of in-patient post-natal stay, knowing it will be supported by the beds and the workforce required to do this safely.

First-time mothers will be the first to benefit. Starting immediately, up to 2,000 new mothers per year will be able to access a three-day post-natal stay within the first two years, utilising existing capacity. As access is expanded to all mothers after three years, we anticipate that up to 18,000 mothers per year will be able to access a three-day post-natal stay.

I want to acknowledge the original sponsor of this legislation. How good, Catherine Wedd. This bill began its life as a member’s bill grounded in a genuine concern for the post-natal experiences of women and families. This Government made the decision to adopt the bill because we agreed with the fundamental importance of guaranteeing three days of in-patient post-natal care for all women if they choose to access it.

I also want to acknowledge and thank the Health Committee, specially chaired by the very hard-working Sam Uffindell, for its consideration of this bill and for the work it has done through the select committee process. I also want to thank the many individuals, the midwives, and other health professionals who took the time to make submissions and share their experiences. There was widespread support for the intent of the bill and for the principle that post-natal care should be a stronger and more consistent part of our maternity system. That feedback reflects just how significant the post-natal period is for families across this country.

Taking this bill forward with the support of my colleague the Hon Casey Costello also delivers on a clear commitment in the National - New Zealand First coalition agreement to strengthen maternity services and post-natal support for women. Crucially, it’s a practical and compassionate step that puts women and their wellbeing at the centre of our health system.

I intend to table an Amendment Paper as part of its adoption as a Government bill. The Amendment Paper will include transitional arrangements, requiring Health New Zealand to have a plan setting out how it will progressively build its capability and capacity across New Zealand to deliver this entitlement to all mothers. It also builds in more time to ensure that the system can safely deliver the entitlement to all women. This is about increasing maternity services to mothers and babies in a responsible, well-managed, and well-funded way. The Budget allocation of $34.4 million over four years will address the workforce and capacity constraints the system is currently facing. I look forward to consideration of this Amendment Paper when this bill is debated in the committee of the whole House.

The bill established a clear entitlement that women can access three days of in-patient post-natal care if they choose, rather than leaving that decision uncertain or inconsistently applied. In doing so, it supports better outcomes for mothers and babies and reinforces that post-natal care is a valued and essential part of that maternity journey. It does not mandate that women stay in in-patient care for three days. Many women will continue to choose to return home earlier, supported by community-based services and their families, just as they do now. What this bill does is ensure that women who would benefit from staying longer have that option available to them without ambiguity or inconsistency.

For some families, particularly first-time parents, the early post-natal period can feel overwhelming. There is a great deal to learn in a very short space of time. Having the option of additional support, monitoring, and reassurance within an in-patient setting can make a meaningful difference to confidence and wellbeing. Some women have told us they would have welcomed more time in in-patient care—more time to recover physically, more time to establish breastfeeding, more time to receive advice and reassurance—before returning home. Others have reported leaving hospital within 48 hours, even though they did not feel ready, because they were unsure whether staying longer was an option. This uncertainty adds pressure at a time when families already have a great deal to manage. The bill removes the uncertainty and replaces it with clarity and confidence. This bill respects that different families will make different choices about what is right for them, and it ensures the system is better equipped to support those choices.

This legislation is not the only change. The Government has a broader programme of work to strengthen the maternity system and ensure it can deliver high-quality post-natal care in a sustainable way. Health New Zealand is already taking action to build and support the maternity workforce needed to deliver the strengthened post-natal care set out in this bill. This includes targeted recruitment initiatives, including international recruitment where appropriate, as well as return-to-practice support to help experienced midwives and clinicians re-enter the workforce safely and confidently.

I also understand that retention matters just as much as recruitment, particularly in districts facing ongoing workforce pressures. Supporting and retaining skilled staff is essential to maintaining safe services, continuity of care, and good outcomes for mothers and babies. That is why I’m focused on backing the maternity workforce and ensuring they’re supported to do their jobs well.

The community sector will have an important part to play in the implementation of this bill. Primary maternity units run by both the public and community providers, including the private sector, will expand the range of in-patient post-natal care options available to mothers, including care that is closer to home. Mothers may remain in hospital, where hospital level care is required, or transfer to a primary maternity unit once that level of care is no longer needed, depending on their preferences and clinical need. Having a broader range of options, both public and private, reduces pressure on hospital facilities while continuing to deliver safe and appropriate post-natal care to woman and babies.

Taken together, this work underpins the delivery of this bill and will support its long-term success. It reflects my commitment to ensuring women and their babies receive safe, timely, and appropriate care when they need it. I want to acknowledge the midwives and other health professionals who care for women and babies every day. Their experience and advice have been central to shaping the approach set out in this bill. They understand better than anyone the importance of post-natal support and the need for careful, well-planned implementation. I thank them for their professionalism, dedication, and ongoing commitment to high-quality care. In closing, this bill delivers three important outcomes: it provides greater certainty for women and families about post-natal care; it supports choice at a critical moment in family life; and it strengthens our maternity system in a practical and responsible way. I commend this bill to the House.

09:51

Mr Speaker, thank you; and thank you to the Minister for his remarks. It’s good to hear a fulsome speech on a bill while the House is sitting in urgency. I want to take the opportunity to recount the background of the bill and some of the significant changes along the way.

The Minister gave credit to Catherine Wedd, who initially held this bill as a member’s bill, but I should also add it was originally introduced in 2022 by the Hon Louise Upston. It came to select committee last year, and I’d summarise the discussion about the bill at select committee as focused on two main implementation concerns. The first was the operational impacts of introducing an entitlement without consideration to implementation. The second thing was the cost. There have been positive developments, since the select committee hearing, on both of those fronts.

To elaborate a little, firstly, the Ministry of Health advised the committee that to implement this entitlement would cost $100 million in capital expenditure (CAPEX) to make sure that there were sufficient beds available for this and then between $31 and $38 million a year in operational expenditure. The Health Committee also heard that absent that type of investment, there could be challenges in implementation, where, for example, women taking up the right to this entitlement would occupy beds that might otherwise be occupied by others in greater need. These are very challenging decisions that those managing those wards face, and wanting to balance those things would be quite challenging unless extra capacity was created.

It’s positive to see announcements in Budget 2026 that do address some of these implementation initiatives. Appropriately, then, this has been taken over as a Government bill, and the announcements in Budget 2026 included funding for these initiatives. The Minister gave the assurance that this investment matches the investment needed to deliver these entitlements. It’s worth breaking down what the Budget 2026 investments were, in that case. Firstly, contrary to the Ministry of Health presentation at select committee, all of the funding for this is operational expenditure, so there’s no CAPEX related to this initiative. We look forward to seeing the Amendment Paper to understand whether capital expenditure is also expected as part of the implementation plan. Otherwise, we have to conclude that the entire plan for building new beds would be to use outsourced beds.

We’re told from press statements that the entitlement will apply to new mothers only, for the first two years, so that’s the year starting from now and the year starting from July 2027. That’s funded through $1.6 million of operational expenditure each year—in health terms, a very modest contribution in the first two years. We had the opportunity to go into the scale of this contribution of this funding at Estimates, and the director-general advised that the funding needed was limited because new mothers—those eligible in the first two years—already occupy beds for 2.5 days. I think that was the number she gave when her statement was corrected in the House by the Minister; 2.5 days is currently the average length of stay for new mothers. There’s a minimal need, we’re told, to increase the funding in the first two years because the increase in entitlement, on average, will be slight.

The substantial implementation of this commitment is really going to be 18 months after the election. It is a shame that opportunities to increase capacity in the maternity system weren’t taken during this term of Government so that the commitment could be implemented in a more fulsome way. That is to follow in years 3 and 4—the years covered by Budget 2028 and 2029. In those years, $13.3 million is appropriated, and $17.9 million, respectively. Returning to the Ministry of Health modelling that they gave the Health Committee back when the member’s bill was being considered, that’s half. The assumption is that half of the eligible women will take up this this entitlement. Look, modelling is based on assumptions, so we understand that not every health entitlement is taken up by everyone, but it remains to be seen if, for this entitlement, half is a reasonable expectation or not. One might ask: how meaningful is it to describe it, as it has been, as a right, if it’s only expected that half of the eligible people will take it up?

This takes me back to the stories that we heard from women, NGOs who work with women, and clinicians who work with women, in the select committee. We heard multiple stories about the wonder and happiness that a new birth, a new baby, brings. It’s a time that people really treasure and a time of closeness for family. We also heard stories of birth trauma and injuries, post-natal depression, challenge with family finances, challenge with travel around birth, the juggle of caring for other children, and the partner’s other work commitments. All of these pressures are on families, and there might well be reasons why families choose not to take up the full entitlement. I’ve seen many mums who are concerned about their other kid or their other children at home and, therefore, would rather be at home knowing that everything was OK there—even though, if they didn’t have that commitment, they might well have taken up the opportunity to be in hospital longer.

That was certainly how we felt after our daughter was born. We would rather be at home in an environment we were comfortable and familiar with, not in the busy hospital ward where all my former colleagues kept pulling back the curtain and saying hello and where I had a far too in-depth knowledge of the number of hospital infections that get transmitted there. We got on public transport, waved our Snapper card, and went back to my mother-in-law’s apartment in the city. I’m excited that the almost 13-year-old who joined our family that day is going to wave her Snapper card and come to Parliament to hang out with her mum during urgency later on this afternoon.

Anyway, families have other priorities, so it does make me think, perhaps, that we should think broadly about the entitlements that we’re looking to support mothers with—and the Minister actually did mention these—so that support provided in the community can be part of an important part of the equation. Maybe that is where our efforts for further expansion of care should go.

My sister gave birth to my two nieces in the Netherlands, and they have a seven- to 10- day entitlement for post-birth visits in your home—so someone who’ll come and do the dishes and make sure you get a chance to have a shower and check that you’re OK and, also, sometimes identify when families are facing particular challenges that need other social services to be involved. My sister’s not like me; she’s quite a private person. I think she found having a Dutch lady come and visit her every day for seven days a little bit more intervention from the Government than she wanted, but it certainly would make a difference for many people.

I hope it wasn’t because they’re Dutch.

No, Ingrid Leary, it wasn’t.

We’re pleased to be able to vote for this bill today. We see it as positive that the Government has taken on funding challenges that were identified at select committee, and we take the Minister’s assurance that the funding is in scale with the entitlement on face value, and we commend the bill to the House.

10:01

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I want to join my colleagues in acknowledging the Hon Louise Upston and Catherine Wedd in terms of the progression of this bill, and the Minister who was speaking to it earlier.

I want to start by acknowledging that I’m sure lots of people in the Chamber today are feeling very tired, but the levels of tiredness and new levels of exhaustion are absolutely front of mind for me when speaking to this bill, because they were something that I’d never experienced before after the birth of particularly my first child, my son. I was so exhausted after maybe 20 or 21 hours of birth that when he was put on my chest after giving birth, I literally could not even raise my arms to put them around him.

When I hear the comments about how critical and how vulnerable this time is for whānau and parents and families and babies, I absolutely have that front and centre. I want to, firstly, do a massive shout-out to the midwives, the carers, the hospital staff, the specialists, and to anyone who has been in this system and has had experiences, both good and bad. I acknowledge how critical they are and how formational those times are to, hopefully, a healthy, functional life ahead. I particularly want to shout out to my midwife, Sheena Ross in Christchurch, who was present for the birth of my children, and acknowledge the time that I spent in Christchurch Women’s Hospital. Then I was very lucky to be able to give birth at home for my second one.

Yes, this is positive, and I really appreciate that the Minister talked about the support for this bill being about the intent, because there’s no question that the intent is really good. The thing is, there are so many aspects that come into it that mean that we need to make the intent real, we need to make it tangible, we need to fund it, and we need to ensure that this isn’t just a rubberstamp and a glossy outer window. We need families and whānau to be able to walk into these places at this critical time and experience true support. I think what’s been really clear, in trying to understand and listen to the voices that have fed into this bill, is that we’re so far away from that and we really need to make steps towards achieving that.

The positive things about improving breast-feeding support and the potential to reduce neonatal readmissions are absolutely positive. That potential for the positive influence on maternal confidence and emotional wellbeing is absolutely vital. As has been mentioned, the essential nature of the education and support that comes in that post-natal period is absolutely critical, particularly for first-time parents when this is all new and different and they’re really in that learning phase.

What I really want to emphasise with this bill, which we absolutely will be supporting, are the voices of those who understand this and who know and who are signalling careful consideration of the bill’s broader implications. I particularly want to note the joint statement that was put out by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the New Zealand College of Midwives, and the National Council of Women, because they talked about the risks with this. They talked about the risk that the policy could actually shift the provision of post-natal care from a model based on clinical need to one driven by entitlement. They talked about concerns about people being discharged before they’re actually ready, in order to accommodate those who might not actually need that support but are actually entitled to it.

Within those comments, they made really clear the concerns about health system capacity. You know, we know, and it’s well established, that the country had 330 midwife vacancies nationwide as of 2024. Now, I don’t know what those more recent statistics are, but it is clear that this is a sector that is chronically underfunded and underpaid, and then we get caught up, within that, with the scrapping of pay equity, which means that that is going to continue. Again, this is a call to really take this seriously. We know that the shortages that exist with midwives will simply be exacerbated by higher demand, and that’s absolutely a concern.

The other thing that has been raised by the specialists in the know is by the Paediatric Society of New Zealand - Te Kāhui Mātai Arotamariki o Aotearoa. They talked about the potential benefits and joined others in supporting those with this bill, but they recommend new investment and clear investment in staffing and infrastructure—they talked about how these services must be properly resourced rather than relying on reallocations from existing services. They also talked about the importance of expanded lactation support when it comes to breast feeding. These trained consultants are absolutely pivotal, and I remember, and again want to acknowledge, the amazing services that do exist, however stretched and however much they are managing to operate on such, such little resourcing.

They also talked about the protection of neonatal care spaces and the fact that this increased post-natal bed occupancy should not come at the expense of vulnerable newborns needing specialist care. That is something that should be well understood, but the fact that, even today in 2026, they’re having to reiterate that and point it out just shows how vulnerable our system is and how we can’t take those basic things for granted. They also talked about the need to strengthen primary birthing units and ensure that they have not only the midwives available but also the social work support necessary to actually care for babies and their whānau beyond the hospital settings. Finally, their plea is for that flexibility and that needs-based approach, because we know that people’s experiences vary so greatly—from the absolute joy and positivity to ones of real, severe, and lasting trauma—and this needs to cater to that. The investment and the funding absolutely needs to cater to that.

We know that the bill requires Health New Zealand to ensure that sufficient maternity facilities are available, but, without additional investment, all this necessity could just lead to the shifting of already strained resources rather than actual system improvement.

I again want to commend the intent of this bill. I applaud the people in this space who are making it really clear what the Government needs to do to make this real. My plea is just to actually back that up with funding and investment, listen to those voices, and ensure that new babies and whānau are truly at the centre of all of this.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

10:11

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise in support of this bill. Having had two children of my own, I know how incredibly special but also challenging that time can be, particularly if you’re a new mum and things don’t go as planned. I think this is a really great bill. I think that we should have the opportunity or option to be able to stay in hospital or post-natal care. There have been many, many stories within my friend circles and within my family where people are being rushed out of hospital within a couple of hours and are not ready for what comes next. We want to make sure that we do take care of our new mums.

Given that we’re talking about being a new parent, we’ve had three new babies in the ACT office in the last month. Our chief of staff has had a new baby, so we want to congratulate him. We’ve also got the senior private secretary from Karen Chhour’s office, and Amelia and Jacob, a senior researcher in my office, welcomed baby Jude Edwards Butson-Gill—I wanted to get that right. Congratulations—the ACT party welcomes these new additions. I just want to say that I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

10:12

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is absolutely a pleasure to stand and rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill. The coalition agreement between New Zealand First and National was inked in November of 2023, and one of the commitments in that coalition agreement was to ensure proper funding for birthing units and maternity care, including providing for a three-day stay for new mothers. This bill absolutely fulfils the commitment in our coalition agreement with the National Party, and we thank them for that.

I’d also like to acknowledge that Catherine Wedd, who inherited a member’s bill from Louise Upston—I congratulate you also. She was pushing on an open door to get her member’s bill once it was drawn from the ballot. What a thrill it must be to actually have a member’s bill that is going to succeed. Well done to you, Catherine.

The Health Committee, of which I’m a member—and I would like to acknowledge all of the committee members—had a great process. There were 123 submissions on this bill and 20 oral submissions. One of the things that came through during that select committee process was that we were a little bit concerned with the language that was being used by the ministry, so the Hon Casey Costello required the ministry to use sex-based language—no more of the “pregnant people” or the “birthing parent” language. That was something which we felt was important during that part of the process.

This is a great bill for new mums. Everyone who has had the opportunity, the pleasure, the pain, and the suffering of being a brand-new mum—because some of that comes during that period of time—will appreciate being told by their lead maternity carer, because it’s really important, that, actually, as part of this bill, those lead maternity carers notify mums that they are entitled to this longer period of stay, of up to 72 hours, should they need it.

Just in conclusion, we are very thrilled to be part of a coalition that is delivering on its commitment because, at the core, this bill supports family-centred policies, it promotes fairness and access to healthcare, and it addresses some of those gaps in the maternity services that are provided. These values are central to New Zealand First, with our mission of putting families and communities first. I commend the bill.

10:15

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Green Party is supporting this bill in its second reading. I want to acknowledge, like my colleague Lan Pham mentioned, that the intent of this bill is excellent. I think any bill that allows parents to have more time to access breastfeeding support, newborn checks, recovery care, and education before returning home is really important.

I particularly wanted to reflect on why I think that, from an equity point of view, that extension could be particularly beneficial for some of our low-income communities. Prior to becoming an MP, I used to work a lot with mums, particularly new mums—many of whom were living in emergency housing, many of whom did not have a safe, stable home to go back to, and many of whom were transient and often moving between addresses even while pregnant. I acknowledge that for many, that additional time to recover is critical if they’re going back to an environment that is not yet stable and provides that financial stability. I think that that additional day to literally recover, to be well before returning to those environments, will make a difference. I say this not just out of vibes or personal experience; I say this because even the Government’s own statistics show that more children are growing up in, and are born into, households that just do not have enough to cover the basic essentials. This is what we call child material hardship rates. What we know is that new kids are currently being born into environments where the household just does not have enough.

This takes us back to my colleague Lan Pham’s comments and plea to the Government to address issues in relation to the resourcing that goes into staffing and making sure that we deliver this on the basis of need and that we do more work to actually address those inequities that new parents are experiencing. Ultimately, as my colleague noted, the worst-case scenario we could see is that someone who actually has a high degree of need and is at risk of going back to a precarious material condition is not adequately served, simply because we’ve created a system where someone who may not need this as much is entitled too. I do think we should, none the less, work towards universalising the support and making sure that everybody can get it when they need it, but the funding needs to come alongside it.

I wanted to comment, as well, on the Minister’s remarks in relation to funding. I think too, like the Labour Party, that we will take those at face value and in good faith, because I do want to believe that the Government wants this policy to succeed. We will be keeping a close eye as to whether the commitments from the Minister in relation to funding will be met. I also want to encourage parliamentary colleagues to, perhaps, put more emphasis on fighting—and this is not so much to the National Party members—for the funding that is required and the conditions to be met so that every parent can thrive, rather than focusing on issues in relation to language that, ultimately, in my view, make no material difference to the people who this bill is supposed to serve. I think the focus on that takes away from the feedback that submitters have rightfully given us, where there are concerns around funding. I think that’s what, I would say, communities would expect us to be focusing on. Ultimately, the language in relation to whether we are inclusive of all genders or otherwise actually makes no difference to the staffing issues, the funding shortfalls, and whether the beds are there or otherwise.

The Green Party will continue supporting this bill through its remaining stages. We will particularly be looking at, for example, exactly how the Government will look at engaging the community sector for the procurement of beds. More broadly, we call on the Government to create the conditions so that every new parent has what they need to create a safe, thriving environment for the kids and for generations to come, because I think, ultimately, the intent of this bill will not be matched if we continue having parents that go back home to houses that are cold, damp, and without enough kai to put on the table. Ultimately, no matter how much education a parent may receive in that additional 24 hours, if they do not have the means to survive and they do not have the resources, then they will not be able to put in place whatever they may have learnt in that additional time into practice. Again, we are commending Catherine Wedd for continuing to fight for this bill, and other members who have brought this issue forward.

10:20

I will always remember, when I gave birth to my first daughter and fainted in the birthing room, all the nurses and doctors who were there to protect me and to help me. When I finally gained consciousness, I learnt, as a new mother, the amount of help that we need in the birthing units and in the hospitals.

I absolutely commend this bill, and I commend the work of my colleague Catherine Wedd. This is the National Party’s way of fixing the basics: by providing the healthcare for our mums and babies and building the future for all New Zealanders. I commend the bill to the House.

10:21

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s been interesting to listen to all the speeches, because, outside of two of the speeches so far, it’s been mainly women speaking, and I think this is a testament to having women in Parliament. I doubt that a bill like this would have ever reached this level of parliamentary process had there not been women championing it, and so I want to commend Catherine Wedd and also Louise Upston and all the people who have supported the bill and have enabled it to get here. This is an example of why we do need women in Parliament: because we do have very particular issues. For many years, the birthing experience has not been taken as seriously as it should, nor, indeed, has maternal health generally. Hopefully, this is the beginning of a lot of good stuff.

I think the question for us the whole way through on whether to support to this bill has been whether the intent of the bill can be safely delivered. As the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall has said, since the introduction of the bill, there have been some developments, through the Budget process, that give us more confidence, including the $34 million funding that would go to providing a boost to maternity services. That doesn’t necessarily meet the capital and expenditure (CAPEX) requirements that we’ve heard about through the Ministry of Health, which came to $100 million, which is, essentially, about beds.

We have also heard assurances from the sponsoring member, Catherine Wedd, that the capacity would be provided through public and private providers, so that may answer the question. Indeed, the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall said that, based on all the maths and what has been detailed, it looks like it will mainly go to those outsourced, probably private, providers. That raises a question for me about privatisation and the health service, because if we want to have universality and we want to have good maternal public services, in my view, the capital expenditure should be public, as well. I’m not sure that relying on private providers is a way forward. Nevertheless, that is what is intended, and that would seem to resolve that CAPEX issue in the short order.

When we looked at safety, the questions in my mind, while I was sitting on the committee, were around the funding of beds—which I’ve just talked about—and about workforce development. We’ve heard this morning that there may be an Amendment Paper coming that is going to require a legislative commitment to that. I’ll speak shortly about how that might pertain to other facets of health law that we’re looking at today in the House.

I also was keen to see what would be happening around rural health support, as well as the protection of high-acuity births. Now, when it comes to rural health support, we’ve seen, for example, GP funding decisions made lately that, on the face of it, look good for many practices but actually disadvantage some communities, like the community of Wānaka, where they’ll take an effective 11 percent decrease in rural funding and they already have very stretched maternity services. My question is: how are places like that going to be able to support this mandated entitlement?

There is also the question of the protection of high-acuity births. Given that there will be some mothers who will need more care than the three days that are now enabled, will they still get the levels of care and the length of stay in hospital that they need if there are other people who are sort of the first cab off the rank with their entitlements, particularly the new mothers?

I do think that it is really important for new mothers to have those three days. I share the sentiments of colleagues around the House who have talked about the fairly surreal experience of birthing, particularly the first birth experience. I can say that in my situation, the people that were there, the wonderful people who supported me—particularly the midwives—took on this kind of larger-than-life presence through the whole birthing experience, and when I went back to North Shore Hospital to thank them a few weeks later, I was amazed at how they had sort of reduced down to ordinary-sized people. In fact, I was a bit taller than the midwife, the Irish woman, who supported me through my birthing experience, but, at the time, they just took on this huge presence. They were such an important part of the birth experience, and I also wanted to add my voice to thank those people who work in this really beautiful and critical part of the health system.

When we look at the community provision of the delivery—going back to safe delivery—the Ministry of Health has said, in its advice to the committee, that those services are patchy. I think it’s important that we do look at that, and if there is going to be an Amendment Paper around workforce support, it would be great to see if it speaks also to the postcode lottery of birthing provision, because that is something that may not necessarily be addressed by something that simply addresses workforce development.

I also am concerned about bed block. We know, for example, that the hospital service loses between $8 million and $12 million worth of beds a year, not at this end of health but through seniors being unable to be released back into the community because they don’t have the appropriate enduring powers of attorney or care provision for those whose care they might be going back into. That is something that could be worked on to free beds up at that end.

Bed block is, essentially, where somebody is taking a bed that might otherwise be available to someone with higher clinical need. We’ve heard about that previously in this debate. If we think about bed block in terms of maternity services, we’ve already got bed block around gynaecological services for women. We’ve got real workforce shortages in particular parts of New Zealand, including the West Coast, Northland, Tairāwhiti, and Wairarapa, and then, when you put into that picture the types of issues that can come up after a birthing experience which might not be the textbook experience that we’ve spoken about in the House today—that includes things like infection, injury trauma, feeding issues, very fragile babies, and also mental health issues—we cannot understate the significance of perinatal mental health and the importance of being able to provide for that.

Now, certainly, being able to stay in the hospital longer might be one solution; equally, being able to get people back home into familiar surroundings might be the other solution, but all of those issues can create situations where mothers might need longer than the three days. It would just be reassuring to know that there isn’t going to be pressure on other women to release their beds. Even though they have a three-day entitlement, there might be pressure on them to release their beds for the sake of women who are doing it really tough and are needing that extra level of care.

We know that in 2029, the expected increase in the number of women who would use this entitlement will rise to 18,000. That’s a significant number of women, and so if we don’t have an equally significant uptick in the resourcing provided and the beds being available—not just relying on the community sector but knowing where those beds are, and whether they are available across the motu and not just in particular centres, is really important. What we don’t want to see is women wanting the three-day entitlement or feeling they need to take it and then finding that they have to have a birthing experience away from their own locale because they just simply cannot get that provision there. That would be another perverse incentive.

Finally, I’d just like to talk about two things. One is the workforce development Amendment Paper, if that is, indeed, what is going to presented to the House in the committee of the whole House stage. I would welcome that. I also think there’s an opportunity in another bill that we’ll be discussing later on today—the Mental Health Bill—to equally put a legislative requirement for workforce development to be able to achieve some of the things that the bill has said that it is intending to achieve. If we can do it for this bill—and I’m hoping we will—then I’m really looking forward to seeing what transpires with the Mental Health Bill and the conversations I’ve had with the mental health Minister around that.

Finally, looking at the wording for women, the New Zealand First member mentioned that the wording had been changed. Now, that could be problematic. I note that, in the original bill, the word “mother” is not defined. There are intersex people who can have babies, and there are also families, like my sister’s family, where you have two mothers. If the birthing mother or birthing parent isn’t defined in this bill, arguably, the other mother would be entitled to all of those entitlements as a mother, so that could raise a problem. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

10:31

First of all, I want to acknowledge my colleague Catherine Wedd for her hard work and continued advocacy on this service, because this is a very important service. That three-day post-natal stay is about giving every new mum and baby the best possible start. Those few days are critical for recovery, bonding, and identifying any early health conditions.

One of the issues raised by the submitters was how this would be funded. I’m pleased to report to the House that Budget 2026 has allocated $34 million over four years to support this service. This Government is fixing the basics and building the future.

Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker.

This is a split call, and the call goes to Tracey McLellan.

10:32

Thank you, Madam Speaker. See, I almost relented because of Catherine Wedd’s connection with the bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the chance to say a few brief words about this bill. I’d like to start and echo the acknowledgments and the congratulations to the members who have shepherded this bill through. I try not to have magical thinking, and I try not to conflate luck with random occurrence, but I also have to acknowledge that Catherine Wedd has been very successful in getting bills drawn from the tin. I have no doubt that that success has contributed to the inevitable pathway that this bill has taken.

Labour is supporting this bill because, ultimately, we support the principle behind the bill. We do think that new mothers and babies should be able to stay in hospital for longer, should they need that support. I know that there’s a great deal of variance in the type of support that people opt for or that people are comfortable with, but I think the backstop to all of that should always be a universal health system that is prepared to support people when they genuinely need it the most, should that be of their choosing, and no one should ever feel pressured. We’ve heard lots of stories, both during the course of this debate and in our own lives, of people that have felt really, really discombobulated at the concept of being told that they can’t have that support in a medical setting after they’ve given birth to their children, and so we acknowledge that.

I do note, as my colleagues on this side of the House have introduced during this debate, that a right written into law only means as much as the support and funding behind it and the mechanisms by which something on paper turns into actual delivery. I do also acknowledge—as my colleague the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall said earlier—that there has been some additional funding. Because of the relatively new information that has come through during the select committee process, that has made us feel a little bit more comfortable about this bill.

I also note, however, that as part of that funding, there is a real lack of capital funding. Who knows what that could mean, ultimately, for the bigger questions in the health system in terms of universality and of public health as a public good, but I wouldn’t like to see us become over-reliant more and more on the private sector to provide this particular provision for women and babies.

Aside from funding issues, which we do have concerns about, I also want to acknowledge the fact that the bill could potentially—and it is something that we do need to be mindful of and keep an eye on—put already stretched maternity services under even more pressure. I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the amazing midwives and the super-amazing nurses and everybody that works in the health system—particularly in maternity services—for choosing to perform a role that traditionally has been under-regarded and under-resourced and has faced decades and decades of always having to advocate for themselves to the nth degree to have their voices heard for the stellar work that they do. As we’ve said, a change like this is not just about beds; it is also about making sure that those human resources, who are the difference between a safe environment and an unsafe environment and who carry huge risk for us, are well resourced and able to do the job to the best of their ability and to work to the top of their scope.

The ministry also during the select committee process warned that hospitals may have to make room for a legal entitlement by making different choices. We have to be really vigilant that we monitor and make sure that the implementation of this bill is able to monitor that and make sure that some people aren’t being deprioritised to make way for people who have a legal entitlement, because it would be a shame for this bill to end up being simply a snapshot window-dressing. We do want to make sure that it results in a good outcome and that it’s in line with Labour’s previous work. It was Labour that changed ACC to make sure that we included birth injuries, and so we continue to support this bill.

10:37

Look, I rise with great pleasure to support this three-day stay bill, which, of course, started as my member’s bill. It’s wonderful to see the progress in the House here today and see the cross-party support that we have for this really important issue where we want to, obviously, give mums and families across New Zealand better post-natal care.

It’s wonderful, of course, to hear a few birthing stories here today. It certainly humanises the House, because we all understand how special those first moments are after giving birth and it’s really important that you bond with your baby.

This bill enables mums and families to three days of post-natal care. It’s a legal entitlement. I’ve advocated strongly for this, and it’s wonderful to see that we are implementing it here today. This is about strengthening maternity care across New Zealand, and so I commend this bill to the House.

10:38

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I went into this select committee just once, and it was on the bill that Catherine Wedd had put up, so the first thing I want to do is acknowledge Catherine’s work and the work of Louise Upston in this area, and then I want to talk about my experience of coming to terms with the ask.

My experience was that I actually worked as the lawyer for midwives for quite some time, and so I was aware in the area of health—and it’s not my speciality, at all—of the issues around maternity care and the crisis in the workforce there. My first thoughts when I looked at this bill were: is it going to push other things out? I thought about that really very seriously in the following few weeks. I thought that I was picking up a kind of scarcity mentality that is actually quite a dangerous feature of politicians, where we’re too worried about the consequences of what we’re doing to do something that’s, essentially, something we should be asking for as women.

Then I thought about some of the real risks. There are real risks here. For example, one of the risks, I think, that was mentioned when I was in the select committee was the issue about the discharge of others in order to allow people into the beds because they had an entitlement—so this would be someone who might need it more. That story was something that did resonate with me because my first child had been born and my doctor had wanted me out of the hospital very, very quickly. It turned out that within hours, my baby was in the Special Care Baby Unit and then the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, which is basically intensive care. I had no experience of children at all, so I would not have picked up the symptoms, which were quite a serious pneumonia, if I had been at home.

I totally appreciate those pressures, but I also say, to those sceptical of this particular bill, that it’s almost impossible to know what people’s needs are in those early stages. I wouldn’t have known as a young, new parent what I needed out of the system, so that kind of standardisation of three days of expectation of care and listening and help with things like breastfeeding is an incredibly important expectation for women. Often women don’t ask. Actually, my experience of being a young mother is that there’s a lot of pressure that comes from other people—and generationally—to tough it out, that you’re not strong enough. There’s a lot of judgment out there, and it’s really important that there is a universal offering to people. I also think that’s what the State’s for. I think it’s really important that the State says to young parents, “We’re going to look after you. This is an incredibly hard job, and we’re going to look after you and see you through this process.”

While I do think there’s a risk that the money comes from other parts of the system, I think that that initial commitment of getting to know a young parent and getting to support them and being more attentive in that early time is really helpful. I remind a lot of the grandparents listening that my mother—I think that people were almost forced to stay for 10 days at that point. That’s what our system used to give us—10 days. My mother bucked against it like anything. It was also the kind of system where she was fighting very hard to have her husband in the theatre while she was giving birth because there was a lot of dictatorialism in the system. Hopefully that’s gone. We’re not talking about forcing women to have this particular nurture in a way that we would have in the past—that’s fantastic—but it’s incredibly important we offer that kind of support.

Now, one of the concerns I also had was that there would be—and I remember this happening, actually, to my brother and his partner—an offering of, “If you go home early, we’ll give you this, that, and the next thing.” I think it was a nappy service and various other things. I think we have to be really careful about those economic bribes, out of this system, and I know it will be tempting to do it. I wanted to put on the Hansard record my concern and my plea to people managing this particular expectation: please think about the economic consequences of that.

As a young parent, I would have probably wanted the things that were being offered in that circumstance, because I had no money. I remember going home with my first baby, and it was this weird situation where we had no money in the bank, we had a child who was actually, at that point, still in intensive care, and we had no real income, because I didn’t even have parental leave at that point at all, so we were down to really minimal money. I wasn’t considering myself at all on the bread line, but there was nothing there, and the irony was I opened my fridge and there was a giant fish in there that was a beautiful salmon. My father-in-law, who wasn’t really good at feelings, had translated all his love into this giant salmon. I remember being very hungry, because when you give birth, you get really hungry, and I’d been through the trauma of having my child go straight into intensive care, and I had to come home without him. Very few people in that system, despite absolute goodwill, had really looked after things like my need to eat.

I remember in those first few hours how things went wrong and my needs went totally out the door, and, quite frankly, I felt like a train had run over me. Then I was being asked to manage an incredibly difficult situation. I can see the nods on the other side of this House, and I know lots of us have those stories, and it’s really important that it bonds us all. A lot of people out in the real world, when I get to the door, ask for cross-party work. They ask for it over and over again. Sometimes that gets dismissed in here, when, in fact, 80 percent of what happens in here we should have in common, so it’s really nice to have this law come up where we can find that common ground in the universal need to care for people in that situation.

Before I finish and go back to one thing, just to cheer everyone up, I wanted to talk about the value of parenting in our society. We have plummeting levels of parenting going on out there, and that is directly connected with how hard it is to be a parent these days. We can see that it has become very economically burdensome for people to have kids. The fact that you have to try and get a home when the amount that it costs to do so is outrageous in comparison to the amount that I had to pay for my first home. I just told you that I went home with no money. Parents that are in that situation now are actually paying quite a high economic price. We need to wrapround parenting and actually give it more weight than we do in our policy making.

Now, I promised that I’d finish on a really high note, and this is a very personal one. Yesterday, my son Max, who’s the child that I talked about right now, turned 31, and he’s in England. He’s just been through Cambridge University, and I’m so proud of him. I’ve got to say I’ve been so wrapped up in here recently—we’re in urgency, etc.—but this is the first time in my life I almost forgot his birthday. I was talking to someone, saying, “My son’s 30.”, and I realised that, actually, it was his birthday here and in England. I just managed to scrape in before he knew I’d forgotten his birthday. Thank you.

10:48

It is a pleasure to take a call on the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill. Three days may not sound like a long amount of time, but, actually, when you have a new child, making sure that you are settled into routines is very important, and not having to rush is a great step.

When I was having my son, who’s now 21, I decided to leave after two days—well, a day and a half, actually—because there was no space for me. I hope that we can get this implemented and that everyone can do as they need.

10:49

Madam Speaker, it is my son’s birthday today, so I would like to—

Sorry, I didn’t see you stand up, but I didn’t forget your first acknowledgment that you wanted the call.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. People have been sharing their birth stories, and I would like to acknowledge that my son was born in Grey Base Hospital 30 years ago today. He is my youngest, and I would like to start by saying “Happy birthday, Zak”. It is related to what we’re talking about, because he is my youngest. My oldest was born 18 months prior to Zak, but in Invercargill—totally different stories and totally different things that happened to me at that time. Now, 30 years ago—and this is why I think that this bill is going back in time, in a way—we had five days, as of right, if we wanted to choose those five days to stay in hospital. I think you might remember those days, Madam Speaker. We did have the opportunity to choose five days to stay in hospital, and it was our choice.

Now, when my oldest was born, things were sweet. Everything went well. Within 72 hours, I went home—and chose to go home. I thought that was what I was going to do when my youngest was born in Greymouth. I thought, “I’ve got an 18-month-old at home; I need to go home.” I’d had a brilliant pregnancy and, actually, had a brilliant birth, so this is not a traumatic birth story.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr Duncan Webb. I had an 18-month-old at home, and 12 hours after my youngest was born, my husband was diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer, and my world fell apart. I thought I had to go straight home, 12 hours after that birth. I had an amazing midwife who said, “You’re not going home. You have the right to choose five days. You need to take those five days, because things are going to get tough for you. You’ve got a mother-in-law at home that’s looking after everything. You need to get your head in order because your world has changed and it has fallen apart. You have a brand-new baby, hormones are running, and you have an 18-month-old. You’re going to crumble if you go home.”

I had that midwife make that fantastic decision for me because I had the right to be able to take the five days. It was an amazing five days because I was able to bond with that new baby, and that was so important. If I had gone home to the trauma that was sitting in my house at home, that bonding wouldn’t have happened the same, and so, 30 years later, I have a wonderful young man who I’m so proud of. I was able to have that time without any pressure on me.

Here we are, 30 years later, debating for the right for three days’ stay. You know, we lost something along the way as women—we lost something along the way. We’re here, in this Parliament, fighting for this back. I know that that’s what submitters told us during select committee. This is the right thing to do. This is the right thing for women. Catherine Wedd, I totally commend you for taking up the bill from Louise Upston. People are right: you have so much luck at getting bills drawn out of the biscuit tin.

You don’t have to remind us.

By the way, Mr Rutherford, I’ve had just as many bills drawn out of the biscuit tin, so we’ll call that even.

This is such an important one. I’m pleased that we’ve got cross-party support. Yes, there are implementation issues; we’ll work through those. Both sides of the House—whoever is in Government—will work through those. This is good for women. This is something that gives us that choice back. It is something that I just feel is inherently right for us to do, knowing my own story and knowing what I lived through. I’m not the only one; people have talked about their own stories. There are things that happen and go wrong in that process every single day. Women need to have the right to be able to make the choice to stay or have an amazing midwife who can help them make that choice so that they have that ability to bond with that beautiful baby, and then, 30 years later, they’ll be standing there telling the world how proud they are of that child. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I commend this to the House.

I remember the 10-day stays, actually. Happy birthday, Zak. The question is that the motion be agreed to.

10:54

I present a legislative statement on the Community Magistrates Legislation Amendment Bill.

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

10:55

I move, That the Community Magistrates Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.

Too many New Zealanders are spending too long caught in the court system. For victims, delays mean waiting a year or more for a case to be resolved. For witnesses, it means uncertainty and repeated disruption. For defendants, it means cases hanging over their lives. For families, employers, and communities, it means the justice system is not working as quickly as it should. Timely justice matters, because justice delayed is justice denied.

This Government is focused on practical changes that make the courts work better. This bill is a practical reform that improves access to justice, reduces delays, and makes better use of the resources that we already have. This bill expands the role of community magistrates so that they can deal with more straightforward matters from start to finish. It will reduce unnecessary adjournments, free up District Court judges to focus on more serious and complex cases, and will improve the public’s confidence that the justice system can deliver.

Community magistrates are not new. The role was introduced in the late 1990s to increase judicial capacity to take pressure off the District Court judges. They were intended to deal with lower-level criminal matters, represent the communities that they serve, and help the courts to operates more efficiently. Community magistrates generally sit part time. They preside over certain lower-level matters in the District Court’s criminal jurisdiction. They are not required to hold a legal qualification, although many of them do. They bring practical experience, judgment, and community knowledge to the court system.

At the moment, they are not being used to their full potential. Too often, if a case reaches a point where a decision is needed outside of a community magistrate’s jurisdiction, it has to be adjourned and transferred to a judge. That means another court event, another delay, another day off work, and another round of uncertainty for victims and other court users. It also means some cases are never scheduled before a community magistrate in the first place, because everyone knows that they might have to be transferred again later on. That’s not efficient, nor is it fair on court users, and it certainly is not the best use of judicial time and resource.

This bill changes that. It will enable community magistrates to take guilty pleas for all cases except those tried in the High Court—that means murder and manslaughter—to preside over trials and determine guilt for offences with a maximum penalty of a fine, community-based sentence, or up to three months imprisonment; to order pre-sentencing reports for offences being referred to a District Court judge for sentencing; to make a greater range of bail decisions, where the defendant has pleaded guilty before a community magistrate; and make a greater range of administrative decisions, including transferring proceedings from one District Court to another and hearing unopposed limited driver licence applications.

These are sensible, practical changes. They do not ask community magistrates to replace judges; they allow community magistrates to do more of the work that they were created to do so that judges can spend more time on cases that genuinely require a judge. It is expected that these changes will free up a net 5.2 District Court judge full-time equivalents. Put simply, this bill is, effectively, five judges for the price of none. This is good value for taxpayers, good for court timeliness, and good for victims who have waited too long for justice. The benefits will be felt across the justice system. When cases move faster, victims get answers sooner, witnesses are not left waiting indefinitely, defendants are not held in limbo longer than necessary, remand pressure can reduce as cases progress more quickly, and judges can focus on the work only they are able to do.

Expanding the role of community magistrates is sensible, but it must be done carefully. The public needs confidence that the cases will continue to be dealt with appropriately and consistently. This bill does not change the sentencing jurisdiction of community magistrates. Community magistrates will still not be able to impose imprisonment or home detention. Where a community magistrate considers that either of those sentences may be appropriate, the case must be transferred to a District Court judge, and that is an important safeguard.

The bill also supports stronger leadership and oversight of community magistrates. Judge Moses has recently been appointed as the first Chief Community Magistrate, recognising the growing importance of community magistrates in the court system in providing judicial oversight for the role. The bill will make it so that there must always be a judge in this role. Budget 2025 also provided funding for three additional community magistrates and extra training to support them in their work.

This bill is practical, it is targeted, it is common sense, and it makes better use of community magistrates. It frees up more than five full-time judges’ worth of capacity. It helps cases to move faster, it supports victims, it reduces pressure on the District Court, and it does all of that while maintaining appropriate safeguards. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

11:02

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be able to take a call on this bill, the Community Magistrates Legislation Amendment Bill. This is something which introduces an issue that is a fundamental pillar of the justice system, and that is the premise that justice delayed is justice denied. No matter what the system we put in place is, if people are unable to utilise the systems we have, especially in criminal law, due to the fact that we don’t have the resourcing, that will result in delays.

We know there are lots of issues with delays. There are many different issues for the people who have been charged, in terms of the pause that’s on their life until an issue is resolved—that might have implications on employment—and issues for victims in terms of wanting to get justice and understanding what will happen after an alleged crime has been committed. Also, we have practical concerns around the evidential basis of many of our criminal cases, based on people being able to recall what happened. Of course, with the passage of time, no matter with the best will in the world or how traumatic that is, that does dissipate over a period of time.

We’re pleased to be able to support this bill to the select committee. We’ll listen to what is said in select committee, and I hope that we will have the opportunity to hear from magistrates and judges. I know that that is probably not something they usually do, but this is specifically in relation to the work that they do—also the criminal bar, because they will have to be liaising with them as well.

Thanks to the Minister for Courts for bringing a practical change to help delays in the system. I’m sure that, hopefully, we can find a way to implement this in a way that doesn’t affect due process. I’m sure there will be issues that will be raised around due process. In New Zealand law, magistrates, as I understand, are not required to be lawyers. They’re not required to be legally trained, although many are legally trained—many are former lawyers as well. I understand we’ve got around 20 in New Zealand at the moment. This change is, really, just to let them be able to hear a wider range of cases.

I was just discussing with my colleague how that works and the difficulty that often occurs when you’re deciding who is able to determine a case. We heard from the Minister that the community magistrates will be able to hear any cases that have, as a maximum penalty, three months in prison, but they would not be able to, themselves, sentence for imprisonment. There will be a bit of a tricky way of making sure that that process is smooth. For example, if a community magistrate was hearing a case and did determine that, possibly, a sentence of imprisonment or home detention was appropriate, they would then have to allow a District Court judge to sentence in their place. That would be, possibly, two appearances in court or in front of a community magistrate; whereas, perhaps, under the previous system, there would have been only one. However, I suppose the likelihood and the way that this particular bill would work would be the fact that many, many cases are determined that don’t result in a home detention sentence or imprisonment. Assuming that that continues, there would likely be, hopefully, a slightly sped up process in the District Court.

It was interesting reading the regulatory impact statement on this to see that numbers of cases in the District Court have actually fallen but that the number of procedural appearances—so the work of the District Court judges—has actually increased. I suppose this is something that will look to address that. There will be issues around—and there are issues raised around—trust and confidence in the process. I think that will have to be something that we will need to work through and assess. I do think this is something that should probably be reviewed after a period of time, once it’s been in place, to see if it’s effective and working. I also think there is an important role for the very busy Justice Committee. Obviously, it is the appropriate committee for the Minister to send it to, but we do have a lot of bills. I know that the Justice Committee will do its due diligence in making sure that this is a good bill, and I commend it to the House.

11:07

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I also rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa to support the Community Magistrates Legislation Amendment Bill to select committee. I also want to acknowledge the Hon Nicole McKee, as well, for allowing us the opportunity to have a conversation on this particular bill.

Now, I think, across the House, this is something that we agree on—that, when it comes to access to justice, the idea of core timeliness is an important one. We have seen a number of those bills coming through the House that the Green Party has supported, including the High Court changes, including the Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Act, and also the Community Magistrates Legislation Amendment Bill.

I think there are a couple of interesting things to touch on in this case. I think that both of the previous two speakers have covered a number of them, but just to highlight some of the key areas, we do see that community magistrates can fulfil an important function in our legal system when it comes to the ability to undertake more case reviews and the ability to hear more bail cases and, basically, alleviate some of the burdens we see on the District Court judges and the District Court in general.

The previous speaker, Camilla Belich, has already mentioned that it’s interesting to see in the regulatory impact statement that, although the number of cases in the District Court has fallen—I believe by about 15 percent over the last six years—there are still significant delays that impede access to justice for complainants and defendants. We are hoping that this is something that, potentially, could move in a direction that allows there to be more timely access to justice.

However, of course, for us in the House, although we have this understanding of the principle of comity—that both the legislature and judiciary, in particular, in this case, are independent and should be operating independently—they have expertise in this area, and the ability for us as a select committee to hear from experts is an important one. In that case, we do encourage people from the judiciary—those who are involved within the community magistrates system, or legal experts who are involved in that—to submit to the best of their ability during the select committee process so that we’re able to hear a balanced view of how this works in practice. Again, very few of us in the House have had that level of in-depth experience in the judiciary.

The other couple of things I want to touch on with regard to this bill is when we are looking at this—and I think the previous speaker, Camilla Belich, has already mentioned that a community magistrate doesn’t necessarily have to be a trained lawyer or have that kind of legal background, although it is preferred and many of them do.

Also, I think another important angle when we’re looking from a select committee perspective—that we should keep in mind—is the fact that across all levels of our criminal justice system, we do see an overrepresentation of Māori and we do see an overrepresentation of Pasifika. This is something that, through a number of hearings, whether it’s Estimates week or annual review week or long-term insights briefings, etc., is one of the key focuses for both the Minister of Justice and also the Justice Committee.

I think this is an important moment, when we’re looking at the broader landscape of the judiciary, which includes community magistrates. As we’re seeing some of these cases manifest, the expanded scope of power comes with the expanded scope of responsibility. With that, what then are the requirements or considerations around cultural competency and culturally appropriate advice or judgments or consideration of cases—whether its bail, whether its criminal, or whether its others—before the community magistrates? I think this is something that we would like to hear more about during the select committee process—particularly from officials—on how that side is going to work and what are some of the resources and considerations that have already been given. With that, the Green Party does support this bill, and we look forward to considering it in the Justice Committee.

11:12

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s great to see some universal support coming from across the House on what is really very simple and fixing an anomaly around community magistrates being underutilised in our justice system and expanding the powers they have so they can hear more cases in the District Court end to end, which is ultimately going to free up District Court judges to progress more complex trial work. I commend it to the House.

Thank you. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Community Magistrates Legislation Amendment Bill. As we know, community magistrates were created in the late 1990s, but they remained underutilised. New Zealand First has always campaigned on getting tough on crime and fixing the flaws in our justice system. I look forward to the select committee and the submissions on this bill. I commend it to the House.

11:13

National are fixing the basics and building the future. Law and order is so important. It is important that we take it seriously and move these cases through the court. I commend it to the House.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I do think it’s worth spending a little more time reflecting on what this bill does. As you’ve heard, we do support this bill, but there will be some important points to consider at select committee.

Community magistrates are not legally qualified. At their inception, they were instituted as a model of, essentially, community-based justice—that is to say, people who knew the community and were part of the community, making decisions about minor offending within that community. I endorse that view, but we do need to be cautious—so we’re supporting this with some caution—about expanding the jurisdiction of magistrates to more serious offending. I will be interested to interrogate exactly what kind of decisions magistrates can make in respect of what kind of offending, because justice delayed is justice denied but an outcome which is unjust is also problematic.

Lawyers aren’t the be all and end all of the justice system; don’t get me wrong there. We can train up non-lawyers to have some legal capacity, and we see that in the Disputes Tribunal—although, in fact, most of them are lawyers. In fact, if you look at community magistrates, the fact of the matter is—and I’d be interested in the statistics on this—many of those are lawyers as well, who are doing this, essentially, as a side gig or a retirement gig or something along those lines.

Now, I do think that, in terms of community magistrates directing traffic, that is a good idea—that is to say, doing case management, preparing things for trial, and addressing some bail hearings. That is a good thing. I think the regulatory impact statement is a little ambitious, or it perhaps overestimates the impact of this. For example, it suggests, on page 21, that there will be fewer people on remand in prison as a result of this. I find that highly unlikely given the jurisdiction of the community magistrates. The cases that go to community magistrates are by definition low-level offending where imprisonment is very, very unlikely indeed. It’s unlikely that by speeding up these cases in particular you’re going to be taking people off remand. They’ll certainly be on bail and, therefore, under the supervision of Corrections, in a sense, and Police, but, in fact, remand is unlikely to really have much of an impact.

If you like the professionalisation of community magistrates, I think that’s a good thing. There’s the suggestion—or the intention—that there be a chief magistrate by law and that that person be a District Court judge. That’s a very senior lawyer. The good thing about having a chief of a bench in that sense is that they can give direction and have a certain degree of mana, so when people aren’t getting things quite right, they can have that chat and say, “Well, look, that’s not how we deal with people.” or “That’s not an appropriate process.” That’s actually a really good thing. The head of bench—the Chief Community Magistrate—will be networked with other heads, so they’ll be no doubt in touch with the head of the District Court and other judicial officers. It’s actually about creating a structure that builds capacity.

Community magistrates are a good thing, but I guess, with the expansion of them, we’ve got to be careful that we’re not doing this simply because it’s cheap. At the same time, I’m aware that community magistrates are remunerated on a very modest scale. It’s certainly not anywhere near what a judge is paid. It’s a bit more than an honorarium. I think it’s around $450 a day, but I’d have to be educated on that. You see that that’s not a huge amount for that kind of work.

It’s a good initiative that we’ll support and give it a good working over and yet again another piece of legislation going to the Justice Committee.

11:18

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Community magistrates already exist. The bill expands their jurisdiction to facilitate access to justice—and not just for the expanded jurisdiction but also for District Court judges. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call on the Community Magistrates Legislation Amendment Bill at its first reading. We have two special guests in the House there. We have Andrew Bayly. He’s actually recently departed as chair of the Justice Committee, so I’d like to acknowledge his service. Then we have the new chair of the Justice Committee, Tom Rutherford. He was actually appointed yesterday, and he’s off to a good start. It’s good timing that they’re both there this morning.

Labour will be supporting this bill at its first reading. It’s a practical bill aimed at helping the District Court work more efficiently. The Government’s own explanation is straightforward. Criminal cases are taking too long to move through the courts. Community magistrates are not being used at their full potential right now, and this legislation is designed to make better use of an existing part of the justice system.

I think most members of this House would agree that delays in the justice system help nobody. They don’t help victims waiting for a case to be resolved; they don’t help defendants, whose lives are, effectively, on hold while matters work their ways through the courts; and they don’t help public confidence in the justice system. If we can safely reduce unnecessary delays and unnecessary court appearances, that is something Parliament should be willing to consider.

Community magistrates have been part of our court system for many years. They were established to provide additional judicial capacity to allow District Court judges to focus their time on the more serious and more complex cases. Yet the legislative statement makes clear that restrictions on their jurisdiction mean that they are often underused. Cases can end up being passed back and forth between a community magistrate and a judge, creating extra hearings and additional delay.

One example is where somebody wishes to plead guilty. At present, a community magistrate may have to refer the matter to a judge before that guilty plea can be formally dealt with. The bill allows community magistrates to take guilty pleas for category 1, 2, and 3 offences, order pre-sentence reports when needed, and make limited post-guilt bail decisions before the case goes to a judge for sentencing. The intention is to remove unnecessary steps and avoid multiple court appearances where one would do.

The bill also expands the ability of community magistrates to manage and hear lower-level criminal cases. In particular, it allows them to hear those minor offences, as mentioned, and we see merit in that approach. Importantly, this is not a proposal to give community magistrates more power and to send more people to prison. The legislation specifically leaves imprisonment and home-detention decisions with District Court judges. Where a community magistrate considers that a sentence of imprisonment or home detention may be appropriate, the matter must still go before a judge.

The bill also includes some fairly practical changes that will allow community magistrates to deal with certain unopposed, limited licence applications and to transfer proceedings between court locations where all parties agree and jury trials have not been elected. These may not be headline-grabbing changes, but they reduce paperwork, reduce court events, and save judicial time, so they’re absolutely worth considering through the select committee process.

Another feature Labour welcomes is the requirement for a District Court judge to be appointed as a principal community magistrate. If community magistrates are being entrusted with additional responsibility, judicial leadership and oversight becomes even more important. The bill recognises that and provides a framework for it.

Now, supporting this bill at first reading does not mean giving it a free pass. The justice system is one of the most important institutions in our democracy and changes to our judicial powers and court processes should always be tested carefully. Labour expects the select committee process to examine whether the right safeguards are in place.

On that note, it’s an important bill, and I look forward to it going through the select committee. I commend it to the House.

11:23

Excellent. Thank you. It’s a great honour to rise in support of the Community Magistrates Legislation Amendment Bill. This bill will support timely access to justice in the District Court; therefore, I commend it to the House.

11:24

The question is, That the Community Magistrates Legislation Amendment Bill be considered by the Justice Committee.

on behalf of the Minister for the Environment: I present a legislative statement on the Environmental Reporting Amendment Bill.

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

on behalf of the Minister for the Environment: I move, That the Environmental Reporting Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Environment Committee to consider the bill.

New Zealand is undertaking significant transformations regarding how we protect, conserve, and restore our natural environment, how we sustainably use our resources, and how we mitigate and adapt to climate change. However, to understand the impacts that our activities have on the environment and to respond accordingly, we need a comprehensive, reliable, and consistent data and information base.

In 2015, the Environmental Reporting Act was enacted to do exactly that—to establish a trusted, reliable, and independent environmental reporting regime. Since then, we have completed four cycles of environmental reports. The Act has made significant improvements to the previously ad hoc way New Zealand reported on the environment; however, we need to extend its functionality and flexibility so that trustworthy data and information is at the heart of decision making.

In 2019, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment released a report raising concerns about gaps and inconsistencies in environmental data. The commissioner noted a reliance on passively harvested data and information collected under other pieces of legislation and a lack of a coordinated environmental monitoring and reporting system. The high frequency of report production placed the Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ on a never-ending treadmill of report making. These often recycle old, patchy, and inconsistent data collected using a myriad of disparate monitoring practices. We have a significant opportunity now to address the Parliamentary Commissioner’s concerns, so in this piece of legislation, a number of changes are being put forward.

The Environmental Reporting Amendment Bill, before the House, represents a commitment by the Government to quality environmental data and information. The bill will refocus reporting content and time frames. It aligns roles and responsibilities, and a more active collection of environmental data and knowledge. The bill ensures improvements to environmental reporting are safeguarded for the future. These include making data available to the public and decision makers when it is ready, rather than when a report is merely published. It also means expanding the reporting and setting up an interim strategic, in-evidence panel.

The bill will require the Secretary for the Environment to publish a State of the Environment report every six years, independent from political interference. This will achieve a more appropriate balance between reporting timeliness and the rates of change in our environment. The bill stipulates that the first State of the Environment report must be published in 2031.

The Pressure-State-Impact framework embedded into the Environmental Reporting Act has been expanded to include drivers and outlooks. Drivers describe the long-term social, demographic, economic, and environmental factors that cause pressure on the environment. Outlooks describe how the environment may change in the future based on projections and trends. Their ongoing inclusion will render a more complete picture and bring New Zealand more in line with international best practice.

The report must continue to describe changes to the state of the environment over time and how it measures against national and international standards. In addition, they can now report on progress towards Government priorities and limits, goals, and policy outcomes set in other legislation. This could include, for example, reporting on limits as proposed in the Natural Environment Bill and any measures set as part of the climate adaptation system, including managing the risk from natural hazards.

Between the six-yearly State of the Environment reports, a commentary report must be published at least once every 12 months. One of the foundational objectives of the bill is to ensure reporting flexibility. Commentaries report on an issue or topic that sits across one or more of the five environmental domains. The five domains of air, land, fresh water, marine, and atmosphere and climate will remain. All must be reported on at least once in the commentary reports between the State of the Environment reports. However, the amendments recognise that commentary reports may cut across different domains. This change allows for more flexible reporting, which better addresses the urgent needs we face.

The bill introduces a new requirement for the Secretary for the Environment. In consultation with the Government Statistician, the secretary will produce a priorities report within six months of every State of the Environment report. The report will discuss environmental data, monitoring, and research. It will also list recommended indicators and priority areas for improving data and evidence.

Several technical advisory groups have provided expert advice on the preparation of synthesis and domain reports over the years. This bill will, however, amend the Environmental Reporting Act to require the Secretary for the Environment, in consultation with the Minister for the Environment, to appoint a strategic evidence panel. The panel will provide independent advice to the Secretary for the Environment on matters related to environmental data monitoring and reporting. The bill also clarifies the roles of the Secretary for the Environment and the Government Statistician. The bill proposes clear roles and also stipulates where consultation between the two organisations is required, such as setting environmental indicators or producing data and evidence priority reports.

Finally, to bring together all the proposals and drive a cohesive, robust and fit-for-purpose reporting system, the purpose statement has been extended. The current purpose statement simply stipulates that the purpose of the Act is to produce national environmental reports. This has been clarified to align with the underlying policy to inform New Zealanders on the state of the environment and to support evidence-based decisions. This bill responds directly to a review of New Zealand’s national reporting regime. It improves efficiency of our reporting regime, making useful improvements to the frequency of reports, and does so without compromising their timeliness, impact, or independence. Therefore, I commend the Environmental Reporting Amendment Bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

11:31

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity to speak on the Environmental Reporting Amendment Bill. I thank the Minister for that fulsome speech in describing what some of the differences are between the bill and the Act that it’s amending. I do note that both of them are quite little Acts—well, a little Act and a little bill.

Unlike our other ones.

That is right. The chair of the Environment Committee is noting that it’s quite different from the Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill that the Environment Committee is currently looking at, but that does not diminish their importance at all. It is, of course, very important that all of that other stuff is based on good evidence and good data. We’ve heard, from across Parliament, the importance of that data and that we’re not doing it quite right.

The Hon James Shaw—in, I think, his capacity as an associate environment Minister—was working on amendments to the Environmental Reporting Act when he was the Minister, and we see in the departmental disclosure statement a reference to consultation that happened in February and March 2022, which, of course, was in the last term of Government. Subsequent to that, obviously, the Government changed, and I have been asking the previous Minister for the Environment what happened to that work, because it seemed to be bipartisan-type work that surely this Government could have been getting on with. The response was always that something was happening; so it is. Though we’re now in 2026, it’s good to see the something. Of course, it would be useful to know the differences between the work that the Hon James Shaw was consulting on in 2022 and then what happened with the targeted engagement that happened in 2024.

This departmental disclosure statements says that “Following the revision of the amendments by the current Government, the Ministry undertook targeted engagement with the regional sector advisory group in 2024. Feedback received was supportive of the proposed amendments. In February 2025, the Ministry undertook departmental consultation on these amendments, including separate engagement with the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.” It is very important that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is involved, because he, the Rt Hon Simon Upton, has been saying to anybody who will listen, for some time, about the importance of data and that we need to make significant changes on what we do and also how we account for this in the scrutiny that we do in Parliament. He’s also spoken a lot and is doing written letters about the need for a federation of information as well.

What does this bill do, and how is it different to the current Act that it is amending? We know that the frequency of these reports—the requirement for the state of the environment reporting—is reduced. We also know, as the Minister has just said, that data will be available when it’s ready, and that can be very useful for the reasons that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is concerned in. There’s also, as the Minister noted, this change in purpose, which I think is important, because it does include there to “(a) inform New Zealanders about the state of the environment; and (b) support evidence-based decisions that lead to effective and enduring environmental stewardship.” That seems like a good purpose to me, and there’s this new panel as well. We see that in Part 2, clause 14, there is a Strategic Evidence Panel established. That is to provide advice on a particular matter, if requested by the secretary, or they may provide advice to the secretary on their own resolution. The panel consists of a group of at least seven, but no more than nine, with a three-year term, appointed by the Minister.

Just as I wrap up, Labour is supporting this bill to go to select committee because we are interested, and Government members might like to inform the House about the differences between what happened in that 2022 consultation and the 2025 consultation. I look forward to hearing thoughtful submissions on this important but small piece of legislation.

11:37

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This morning at breakfast time, my daughter was reading a book that she got from the school library about baby turtles. Simultaneously, my phone was showing me a headline about green sea turtles. It was recalling a story about a green sea turtle that was found on a beach in Sydney, that was sick, and that was taken in by a rescue centre at a zoo. That baby green sea turtle pooed plastic for six days. What that made me wonder was whether my daughter would experience green sea turtles when she gets to my age. I recall the privilege of being on Rangitāhua, on Raoul Island, in the Kermadecs, and seeing green sea turtles around there. They are around New Zealand, but it made me wonder whether they’ll continue to be.

Why I wanted to start this contribution with that is because it is so important—and it was so great hearing the Minister’s comments just before—that we know and understand what is happening with our natural environment. Most importantly, he talked about how we respond accordingly. The reason that the Green Party will not be supporting this bill today—

Why?

—is because we need to know and understand and respond accordingly to the stats, the figures, and the information that is in front of us. To illustrate my point about that—because I can hear Government members saying, “Why? Why?”—the reason is because our latest of the domain reports, which are the exact reports that are dictated and mandated under this Act, was Our Freshwater 2026 report. That told us that between 2020 and 2024, 44 percent of New Zealand’s total river length was not safe for swimming. It told us that more than half of our rivers are polluted. It told us that most of our lakes are in poor health and that groundwater in many areas is increasingly unsafe to drink. It also told us that the area of land used for dairy farming almost tripled between 2002 and 2022.

The associated increase in cows across the country increased 71 percent nationally between 1990 and 2023, from 3.4 million to 5.9 million. The modelling tells us that the long-term decline of that, when it comes to river and freshwater quality since 1990 were closely associated with how much farming and forestry—but particularly the intensity of farming—there was upstream.

Now, what is really concerning about this is that this is what we were told in 2026. If we agree with this bill and we put this bill through, the next reporting would not be until 2032. The reason why the Green Party cannot support this is because, even despite the fact that James Shaw, our previous co-leader, was part of the development early on, the landscape has changed so much. We cannot afford, as New Zealanders, to not be reminded of this stuff. If we’re not reminded in these domain reports, how many of us are going to notice the absence of green sea turtles when we’re out in the ocean, when they’re already so rare to see. We are not up for that.

What we are up for is actual protection and actual response, where we turn this tide in environmental. With this Government, the brakes are off, we’re in a race to the bottom, and New Zealanders deserve and expect so much better. We can do so much better. The Government should know this. We want to see them respond. We want to see them act. The information is right in front of them. Just use it.

11:42

Firstly, I have to disabuse the member, the environmental catastrophist Lan Pham, about the fate of the sea turtles. The Department of Conservation (DOC), on their own website, says: “The status of this species is least concern”. DOC are the least concerned they could possibly be about it. They also say that green sea turtle sightings have increased around Northland and that, if seas actually warm due to climate change, these sea turtles that don’t breed in New Zealand might actually decide to breed in New Zealand. There could be a net benefit from climate change that New Zealand could become a breeding colony for these sea turtles.

Let’s get back to the bill. This is a fantastic bill. It streamlines environmental reporting, and, actually, increases to the time between reports so that more information can be developed are useful. There’s no point in having a three-yearly hop-in, stop-in on environmental conditions. We do need to let good policy and good environmental controls take effect. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

11:43

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Environmental Reporting Amendment Bill. This bill is consistent with the New Zealand First manifesto commitment to support an evidence-based approach to complex environmental issues. We are also proud to see the establishment of the strategic evidence panel, which will provide the independent expert advice needed to safeguard our reporting programmes. On that, I commend the bill to the House.

I rise to support this bill. In order to protect and enhance our environment, we need good data to do that. We need good reporting. It’s really disappointing to hear that the Green Party is not supporting this bill, because, to enhance the environment, we need good data. I commend this bill to the House.

11:44

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I’m rising on behalf of the Labour Party to speak to this bill. Look, the Labour Party supports good reporting. We support good reporting across the board, because reporting informs everything that we can do and what we can achieve in legislation in Parliament.

We support this bill with caution—caution because of what this Government has done in regards to the environment over this term. Over the last two-and-a-half years, we’ve seen this Government deprioritise the environment. In a way, I’m proud of this Government for finally doing something that could help the environment after a long list, over two-and-a-half years, of deprioritising it.

Look, Labour’s supportive of the aims of the bill in regard to reporting because we know that there are data and reporting gaps in the legislation. We’re interested to see how this will go in select committee, getting into the detail about what this reporting will look like and how it is going to be effective in caring for our environment. We will look carefully at this bill through the select committee process. I don’t sit on this select committee, but I know that my colleagues will do a good job of that.

I think one of the aspects of this is the importance of robust and credible environmental data and research, which is the intent of the Environmental Reporting Act 2015. For 10 years since that Act was enacted, feedback has been that we need more efficiency and more flexibility within the Act, so I look forward to the robust discussions throughout the select committee in that space.

I wanted to talk a little bit about something I read in the departmental disclosure statement regarding the regulatory impact statement (RIS). There was a regulatory impact statement provided for this bill, which is great, but one of the notes in the departmental disclosure statement, which I’d just like to refer to, was that the Ministry for Regulation did not provide an independent opinion on the RIS but that the Ministry for the Environment Regulatory Impact Analysis Panel has reviewed it, which is good. There was a part there that I found interesting in regard to the way that the RIS—and when I first came to Parliament and heard “RIS”, I thought it was “RIZ” and I always wondered what the “Z” stood for, but it’s actually “S”, so it should be pronounced “riss” but I think “riz” sounds much better. So we’ll go with “riz”.

This is the point from the departmental disclosure statement that I wanted to mention: “While the [RIS] is generally clear and concise, it would benefit from additional evidence in the options analysis and cost-benefit analysis under each proposal … the RIS could have gained more from a broader public consultation … [it could] provide a … robust foundation for decision-making and enhance the overall effectiveness of the statement.” The point there is that our RIS doesn’t quite meet the standard that I would expect. Since coming to Parliament, I’ve learnt how important it is to read the RIS, to understand the RIS, and to come speak in the House on it. It’s such an important document, and it’s a shame that, over the past little while, under this Government and under the Ministry for Regulation, the RISs haven’t been up to scratch, and I think this speaks to it.

We had a briefing from the officials from the Ministry for Regulation who talked to us about the new RAS and CAS that we’re getting. So the regulatory analysis summary, which is going to replace the RIS, and the point I want to make here is just—oh, sorry. The CAS is the consistency accountability statement—the RAS and the CAS. The RAS is going to replace the RIS, and I hope that that means we have a more robust process in ensuring that we get the information that we need to consider bills in the broader context. Thank you.

11:49

Well, if you’re going to make good environmental decisions, you need good data. This bill will help deliver it. It is ironic that it was developed, in part, by James Shaw in the past, and to have the current Green Party think that it’s not relevant to have good data says it all. They have really disappeared into a deep, dark hole. They don’t care about the environment, and, therefore, they don’t deserve to be called a Green Party. I commend this bill.

This bill has indeed had a very long gestation. Looking through the regulatory impact statement, we see that part of what kicked it off was, way back in 2019, a report from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment saying that we actually did need better environmental reporting in this country. We have a great deal of respect for the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment—on all sides of the House, I think—especially for the current commissioner, appointed by Labour and the appointment continued by National. He’s a former National Party MP and, I think, a man of great intellect and insight and is doing a good job for us. Then, in 2022, the Hon James Shaw, someone for whom I have a great deal of respect, also kicked off the policy process on this to work us towards getting better environmental reporting.

Having had this very long, long gestation, it does seem odd that we now have to introduce it into the House in the closing months of this Parliament under urgency. It does seem a shame that the former Minister for the Environment couldn’t have gotten it into the House sooner. We’d have liked to have had the opportunity to examine it in this Parliament and get the whole legislation sorted out for the next Parliament. However, that’s the way things go sometimes.

I want to talk about a number of things with respect to this bill. I just want to direct the members’ attention to the purpose statement, which is being amended. It says it’s to “inform New Zealanders about the state of the environment” and “to support evidence-based decisions that lead to effective and enduring environmental stewardship.”

It does raise quite an interesting issue, and that’s the issue of whether having better information actually does lead to better action. It’s a long-discussed point. You know, the ancient philosophers thought that a person who knew the good thing would do the good thing, but David Hume quite correctly pointed out that you need, actually, motivation, not just the information. I think that’s where we’re seeing a little bit of a gap in the debate on the different sides of the House. We know that good information is great to have. It’s great to improve the quality of information, but then people actually need to act on it, and that’s a different matter. While we applaud this process of improving the information we’re getting, the real test that we hold the Government to is what action they take based on it.

In terms of whether or not this is going to be better information, going back to the regulatory impact statement and the history of this bill, that 2019 report from PCE, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, did recommend some changes. The improvements—and some of the improvements have been undertaken anyway in a non-legislative process—included focusing the broad purpose of environmental reporting, including incorporating drivers and outlooks into the reporting framework. There was a science advisory panel established to help with the formation of these environmental reports, and further clarifying the roles was built in via policy processes within the Ministry for the Environment and so on, rather than doing it as a matter of legislation. The risk is that if it is just—I shouldn’t say “just” done—done within a Government department without legislative authority, then it doesn’t carry on. It can be changed subsequently.

I was particularly interested in the science panel because, looking at the legislation, one of the things the legislation does is it does establish a strategic evidence panel. The purpose of that panel is to provide independent advice to the Secretary for the Environment on environmental data monitoring and reporting. The members of that panel need to hold relevant expertise on matters related to environmental data monitoring and reporting.

I’d like to see the committee examine that a little. In particular, I want to see science expertise on that panel. I’m looking to see if there’s a way that we can put that into the legislation rather than just leaving it up to the Secretary for the Environment. That’s something for the select committee to look at, and I’ll be interested to work on that committee if possible.

11:54

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The quality of decision making is dictated by the information that it receives. This very small bill makes amendments the Environmental Reporting Act 2015. It does exactly that, by improving the data and improving the information that is received by decision makers, and that’s a good outcome. I commend the bill to the House.

11:56

The question is, That the Environmental Reporting Amendment Bill be considered by the Environment Committee.

Thank you, sir. I present a legislative statement on the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill.

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

I move, That the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has considered the bill and recommends that it be passed with amendments. I’m grateful to the people and organisations who made a submission on the bill and, of course, to the select committee itself, who took the time to hear those submitters and to consider improvements on the bill. Following the Canterbury earthquakes and royal commission of inquiry, the current earthquake-prone buildings regime was introduced.

I just want to take a moment to acknowledge, as I’m sure all in this House would, the considerable tragedy, the loss of human life, that was entailed by those tragic events. I don’t wish to bring you into the debate, Mr Speaker, but I will acknowledge that you more than most were familiar with the nature of the tragedy, and, of course, I commend and salute you for your work following that to bring that beloved region of yours back to more normal circumstances.

All that said, of course, I think it’s fairly acknowledged that the introduced legislation at that time—albeit, of course, in good faith and balancing all the relevant considerations—has not worked entirely as intended. It has inadvertently imposed large costs on building owners and communities, including throughout New Zealand, without focusing enough on the buildings that present the greatest risk to people’s lives.

This cannot continue, and so, even with the recent earthquakes in Venezuela providing a salutary reminder that we do need to prepare further for such events in New Zealand, nevertheless, we have decided that it is important to reform the earthquake-prone building regime to target, or refocus on, those buildings most likely to cause fatalities in an earthquake.

The changes will remove barriers to strengthening high-risk buildings, making retrofits more affordable for their owners and better protecting people in and around them. Focusing effort and investment on the highest-risk buildings will ultimately save more lives than the current one-size-fits-all approach.

Today I will briefly reiterate the bill’s key elements and summarise the key changes recommended by the select committee. As I say, we have decided to accept those changes. First, the bill narrows the systems scope so that it targets only high-risk buildings in medium- and high-risk seismic zones. It introduces tiered remediation requirements, amends the definition of priority building, and provides greater flexibility through deadline extensions and lower-cost pathways for alterations and change of use.

Only two types of buildings will remain designated as earthquake-prone buildings (EPBs): unreinforced masonry buildings and tall heavy material buildings. These are the buildings most likely to cause harm in an earthquake, and these will be only those located in medium- or high-risk seismic zones. Territorial authorities must identify and remove other building types from the EPB register in the three months from 1 July 2027.

Meanwhile, buildings in Auckland, Northland, and the Chatham Islands will be out of scope. These areas have a scientifically determined lower seismic hazard than other parts of New Zealand. On Royal assent, therefore, earthquake-prone buildings in these areas will have that designation removed. At the same time, other provisions of the bill that go through coastal Otago, including Dunedin and Oamaru, and Stewart Island will shift from a low to medium seismic zone to reflect the latest scientific understanding of seismic hazard in those places. Current earthquake-prone buildings (EPBs) there will retain their existing remediation deadlines and territorial authorities will have until 1 July 2032 to identify potential EPBs there.

The bill also narrows the so-called identify at any time pathway for designating buildings as EPBs. Too many low-risk buildings have been designated as earthquake-prone using this pathway. The bill, as introduced, narrows the pathway to cover only the post-1976, tall, heavy-material buildings that were constructed before 2027. This includes buildings akin to the CTV building in Christchurch. For buildings that remain EPBs, territorial authorities will determine their required remediation measures in accordance with the updated EPB methodology, issue EPB notices, and keep the EPB register up to date.

The bill narrows the definition of “priority building”. Under the bill, only buildings that could fall on to a busy street or block a strategic transport route will qualify. Buildings that were priority simply because of their usage, such as hospitals or fire stations, will lose that status. Together, these changes provide clearer rules and a stronger focus on the buildings that matter most for public safety.

The bill also introduces a tiered approach to remediation, replacing the current requirement to strengthen all buildings to 34 percent of the new building standard, commonly known as NBS. There will be two principal forms of remediation measure. Most unreinforced masonry buildings will need to mitigate their risk of facades falling on to people below. Multi-storey concrete buildings and large unreinforced masonry buildings will need targeted work to prevent those buildings collapsing. For unreinforced masonry buildings then that are one or two storeys high and located outside urban centres, no remediation will be required by a set deadline. At the same time, I note that owners will need to mitigate the risk of façade collapse if they want the building to be taken off the EPB register. EPB owners will be able to apply to territorial authorities for deadline extensions of up to 15 years, even if the original deadline expired before commencement. This will replace the current “up to 10 year” extension, open only to heritage EPB owners.

The bill also supports lower-cost compliance pathways for owners carrying out seismic work or changing the use of a building. If the work only involves seismic remediation, no fire or accessibility upgrades will be required. Similarly, if an owner wants to change an EPB’s use, it would only need to meet its remediation requirement, rather than anything higher. Together, these changes provide more practical and cost-effective solutions, more time to comply, and fewer barriers for owners committed to making their buildings safer.

The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has unanimously recommended amendments to address issues identified by submitters, officials, and the select committee itself. I welcome these improvements and again place on the record my thanks to the committee for their detailed examination of the bill. I note the chair, Mr Andy Foster, and I thank him and his colleagues who did such a careful and coherent job of understanding and in turn explaining the changes that have ultimately been made.

In response to feedback from submitters, the committee clarified what areas are in “urban centres”, which helps to determine the remediation requirement of an unreinforced masonry EPB. For example, Wellington and Porirua are urban centres, whereas Featherston and Greytown are not. To acknowledge the unique barriers to remediation faced by various buildings, the committee added heritage status to the list of matters that territorial authorities must have regard to when determining whether or not to grant a deadline extension. Some submitters were concerned that the alternation provisions may allow for reduced building code compliance. For example, drilling stabilising rods through walls can increase the risk of fire spreading in one room to the next. The committee introduced a backstop into the bill to ensure that seismic work needs to be done in a way that doesn’t increase the risk of fire spreading or reduce disabled people’s access.

The committee also amended the bill so that warning signs must be displayed on all earthquake-prone buildings, including those that are only recorded on the register or have a seismic work exemption. The committee updated the terms for the required remediation measures to façade risk mitigation and targeted retrofit. This will ensure that approaches to remediation that mitigate risk but that do not necessarily involve securing a façade or a full retrofit of the building can be used. This bill now also includes high-level descriptions of these measures.

Some submitters were unsure how buildings with unusually tall storeys or part storeys will be treated—a fair question. The committee clarified that the thresholds for determining how many storeys high an EPB will be will be set out in the EPB methodology. One way that a building can be a priority building with half the remediation time frame is if it may impede a strategic transport route if it were to collapse during an earthquake. Submitters recommended that territorial authorities be allowed to revisit their strategic transport route—again, I think, a very sensible recommendation. The committee therefore amended the bill to empower territorial authorities—councils, in other words—to revise and remove strategic transport routes up to 1 July 2027. No new strategic transport routes may be added, ensuring that no building owners will be worse off.

Last, in my remaining minute, the committee clarified the meaning of a building within scope. This makes it clearer which buildings are within scope of the system before the reader then looks to the EPB methodology for further technical detail. An unreinforced masonry building must have an exterior masonry wall and satisfy other criteria in the methodology to be within scope. A tall, heavy material building must have one or more significant elements, such as a roof or a floor, built using concrete or other heavy materials and satisfy any other criteria in the EPB methodology.

Overall, in summary, the bill creates a more focused and workable earthquake-prone buildings system by targeting the buildings that present the greatest risk, introducing tiered and more cost-effective remediation requirements, and reducing barriers to remediation for building owners. For all those reasons, I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

12:06

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is an important bill and an important piece of reform that Labour continues to support, with specific reservations. I’m going to use this speech to set out what those things are. They will be parts that we consider are the most sensitive and are the least well-supported around the House. It is important that we come to consensus on these rules which impact on the long-term viability of buildings and not only those that are being built now but in expensive and costly remediations that are to come in the next five to 10 years. It is important to flag where we have bipartisan support which is for a sensible set of rules for remediation of the highest-risk buildings but to indicate that we do have reservations around how some of the exclusions have been applied, particularly around Auckland.

Maintaining affordability has been our concern here. We want a building system and a built environment which is affordable, where remediations happen from either existing owners or there is an incentive for buildings to be sold to people who can remediate them. You do not want a situation like Wellington is experiencing now where some important civic sites and main streets have buildings which have not been remediated, because the cost is very high, and that continues to pose a risk to neighbours and to people on the street who walk past them. We want a system which incentivises that kind of remediation and where it is affordable and in the public interest. That is why we need some updates to these rules.

We have vociferously opposed, at every opportunity, the exclusion of Auckland from the rules for remediation of risky buildings. Colleagues, let me explain what has occurred here. Cabinet has set out to create a set of rules where the highest-risk buildings around the country are the ones that get fixed. That makes sense. We shouldn’t fix buildings which are not posing a risk to people’s lives and are not posing a risk to the neighbouring buildings around them. Those rules require expensive fixes, and so they should be something which is sensible. There is also a category of buildings under that that needs to be fixed. There shouldn’t be rules which force people to adhere to a certain timeline. Building owners in that category should be able to make their own decisions about what kind of risk they will put up with and what kind of risk the building’s users will put up with.

When I’m talking about these highest-risk buildings, some of those have been excluded from this bill. The way that these rules have been drawn is that if you have a very high-risk building in Auckland which is on the main street, it does not need to be remediated any more. The House must understand that, by excluding Auckland, we have drawn lines on a map which mean that those remediations do not need to occur.

Yes, you could have designed a system where the highest seismic risk regions were the way that we decided what sorts of buildings would be remediated, but that’s actually not what we’ve done. If you drew lines on a map, you might use, say, faults, and areas where, say, an eruption around the Alpine Fault was going to cause regional risk and regional land movement. You might have drawn lines around volcanic movements in our shaky isles, but that is not the system we have used. We’ve used a system, which is perfectly sensible, whereby you identify the buildings which are at risk of movement in any kind of event like that and how much they are used. A building that might move the same amount and might have the same kind of risk on the main street in Auckland is a different sort of risk to the one that’s on the West Coast and has two users a year for family weddings. That’s sensible.

The addition, at the last minute, of an exclusion for Auckland does not fit with the uncontentious and unpolitical way of identifying risk here. It has overlaid a set of judgments that are, simply put, relatively political about whether Auckland should be included or excluded from the rules. I think that is the wrong decision. I think we will be back here in this House debating whether that has worked, because it is not a system that the public can have faith in, and it will test confidence and trust in our built environment system and whether central government stands behind the risk that we are asking Aucklanders to take on, not only as a community but as individual business owners who, say, have buildings next to highly risky buildings and people who maintain other parts of built environment around them that are at risk because of this decision.

This is not also a minor issue for Auckland. The majority of earthquake-prone buildings are in Auckland, despite many people’s assumptions about the earthquake-prone buildings being in Christchurch; that is a largely an area which has been through a pretty painful process of having to come up to speed with the rules that we required of them. People in Canterbury have done what they have been asked. They have fixed buildings; they have remediated buildings. For some people, that has been at personal cost and huge personal investment of family savings. For many businesses, it has meant years of having to forward-fund capital investment in their buildings, but they have done that.

This is an exclusion, now, of another region, in fact, where there are 1,400 earthquake-prone buildings, which were in the queue, and this Government has made a decision to exclude them. That decision will have lasting consequences for generations to come and is, frankly, being made at a time where that is possible for the Government to do it because it’s not in people’s minds.

The deadline extensions powers in the bill have also been something that the committee worked very closely on, and, ultimately, that is something we do not support. There are shifting goal posts now in the bill, where deadline extensions of up to 15 years don’t come back to this Parliament. They are made away from public scrutiny. What does that mean? It means that building owners don’t have a clear indication of the time that they will need to make remediations in the rest of the country.

Wellington apartment owners, who are an important constituency when Governments of both stripes have considered this bill, now do not have certainty of investment decisions. Little old ladies who live in apartments—and that’s their entire life savings—will be hugely impacted by this bill, and that is a very hard case. Labour’s answer to this was not one that National politics supported. It was to use public money to assist those private owners with their private property because we recognise that there is a no-fault element of this and that it would be inequitable to treat this in any different way. There were other choices for the National Government to make, and simply kicking the can down the road is what is being done here in this bill. It’s a very difficult position to be putting those retirees especially, but also to put first-home buyers in, when they are now under water and find themselves without equity to invest in other properties that they would like to live in, especially in the current climate of the Wellington property market.

The committee had some very useful discussions around the idea of addressing the need for assistance that those apartment owners faced, but, ultimately, Government has not proposed either an insurance product which would help them or a financial scheme which would allow them to sell and then to recover some of the costs from the Government’s coffers. That was what was in place 2022-23 under the Labour Government, and that is not what the Government has announced. These rules in this bill should have been progressed at the same time as another scheme to properly spread risk between those who can afford it and those who can’t was introduced. Things like body corp rules are critical to getting this regime right. Those have also not been progressed at the same time.

Ultimately, this is an area where reform is welcome. We need sensible rules for remediation, and the rules aren’t working for a sector which is struggling with the construction and the repair of these buildings right now. We do not have enough capacity in the system to fix all of the earthquake-prone buildings that we need to in New Zealand today. We needed a sensible way for the Government to direct when that work would occur and where, but the exclusion of Auckland, wholesale, should not have been part of the planning of that pipeline. If we’re serious about an infrastructure pipeline which works for people, we also need to consider the built environment and the private buildings which are associated with that. Our construction sector needed to be able to plan that out well. There is also an extension in here which means that it might be 10 years, it might be 15 years—nobody knows.

When we’re accountable to the people in our electorate, who are looking at this Parliament and seeing an improvement of the earthquake-prone building rules, we all have to know that the risk of earthquakes hasn’t gone away. There are risky buildings out there which this bill doesn’t deal with. Simply sticking a notice on the door doesn’t deal with it, and we all need to wear that for our communities, where there is not just private risk but there is also public risk in our main streets, to the people who use the movie theatres and to the people who use the malls. All of this is something that this Parliament should keep a very close eye on because it does speed up building but it also spreads the risk in ways we haven’t anticipated.

12:17

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. [Tēnā koutou e te Whare.] I congratulate the Transport and Infrastructure Committee for their work on this bill and the very helpful report that came from it. My colleague Celia Wade-Brown is currently the primary member for the Greens on that committee, as I have to be on the Environment Committee for the Planning Bill. I wasn’t there for the submissions on this bill but I have a great interest in it, particularly as an electoral MP for Rongotai.

Wellington City, which is mainly Wellington Central electorate and Rongotai electorate—both held by Green MPs—was significantly affected by the Kaikōura earthquake and by the changes to the earthquake building standards that were brought in following the Christchurch earthquake; that was back in the prior term. I know the Speaker will remember this well because I think he was involved at that time. I think that the changes that were made at that time were made for the very best reasons, which was to try to protect loss of life following the extremely damaging and tragic Christchurch earthquake.

However, while Christchurch, in the recovery, received a significant amount of central government funding to rebuild horizontal infrastructure and a significant amount of support, Wellington has not really received that level of central government support. Yet, it’s had extreme damage to horizontal infrastructure like the pipes, which only became visible some years after the Kaikōura earthquake. Our town centres have really, really struggled with building owners who simply are not in a position to upgrade the building to make it functional. We have buildings in Newtown that have been just used as storage or sitting empty, to perfectly good apartments on Riddiford Street above a commercial space empty because those buildings are not going to be repaired and it’s affecting the vibrancy of our whole town centre.

As a Wellington MP, I definitely had to support the changes proposed by the Minister for Building and Construction. One thing that was great is sort of trying to make—firstly the prioritisation is not stopping a building from falling down, but protecting loss of life. That is really, really important.

Secondly, there was kind of no awareness. I think council engineers were quite conservative in terms of putting things on the schedule. They would say a one-storey building that’s, say, a tennis club somewhere in Wellington, which doesn’t have people living in it, doesn’t have people working in it all the time, had to be upgraded, and it was the same test for a multi-storey residential building that had people living in it. Clearly, the risk is different for those infrequently used buildings that are single-storey versus a multi-storey residential building.

We welcome these changes, but we still have some concerns. The primary concern from my point of view is that everywhere else that I’m aware of—at least, this is what I understood from briefings from officials, and coming from an earthquake-prone part of the world, in California—where there have been increases to building standards, there’s usually some central government or State-level support for helping building owners to fix their buildings to make them safer. It’s unusual to massively put up the seismic standards and not provide any real support, which is, unfortunately, the situation we’ve been in—and there was a pathway for support.

I have a constituent, an older lady who lives in a residential apartment in the eastern suburbs of Wellington, who went through this whole process with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to try and access the support for remediation to her apartment in the building, to access financial support, and had just gotten through all the bureaucratic hurdles when this Government and the Minister Chris Penk announced that they were not going ahead with that programme. Suddenly, the money was taken away and it wasn’t available, which was incredibly stressful for a woman, if I recall correctly, in her late 70s or early 80s. During this period while the Government’s been working on this legislation, we still have not seen any financial support for apartment owner-occupiers come through. I know my colleague Arena Williams referred to this in Labour’s concerns around the bill. It is a major concern.

While there will be fewer buildings that need to be remediated, there are lots of buildings—and there might be 40 residential buildings in Wellington, mostly owner-occupiers; some will be investment properties with renters in them, but mostly owner-occupiers. For those owner-occupiers, where is the financial support to undertake the remediation, especially given that property values in Wellington are not up, so borrowing to pay for that remediation might not be available to those apartment owner-occupiers.

It would be useful if central government had a fund, even if it’s not grants, but it would be great if it included some grants and some loans—low-interest loans—to assist owner-occupiers to fix their buildings so that, you know, they’re not at risk of death. We need them to fix these buildings; as a community, we need these buildings to be fixed, and we cannot rely on city council, which has already been, particularly in Wellington’s case, under so much pressure to upgrade its own buildings. It’s made a whole lot of recent projects in Wellington City Council far more expensive because of the complications of the seismic standards, which now are, in some cases, being removed. They’ve already put a lot of money into this stuff. Ratepayers can’t be the ones bailing out everyone in the city, so I think there is very much a role in calling on Government to do something about this; to offer some sort of financial support.

The other big concern is the exclusion of Auckland from the rules for remediation of risky buildings. I think, unfortunately, as we saw with Christchurch, sometimes the most damaging earthquakes are happening in places where we’re not expecting the earthquakes. I remember my university geology professor very clearly saying that if you’re in an earthquake-prone area, the place that’s most at risk of a catastrophic earthquake is a place where you haven’t had lots of little earthquakes, because the pressure has built up over a long period of time, so while everyone’s expecting it to be Wellington, you know, it might not be Wellington, and clearly a city built on a zone of volcanoes might be at risk. We should probably not be excluding it, even if it seems cost-effective at the moment; it could end up being the wrong decision, so, concerned about Auckland’s exclusion. There are 1,400 earthquake-prone buildings in Auckland, and that’s the majority of the earthquake-prone buildings around the country. Excluding Auckland’s buildings that are highly vulnerable in seismic events is not the right decision, based on the evidence available.

We’re not going to oppose this bill because we know that the other changes need to be made, particularly for places like Wellington, and we were assured by officials during the briefing that engineers were working on far more cost-effective solutions to effectively remediate buildings, without having to completely redo the structure. When you’re looking at those 1940s concrete buildings—unreinforced masonry—there might be some more cost-effective solutions that address the issue without having to do everything that had been recommended prior, so that’s what we’re hoping to see.

I mean, the reality is we are an earthquake-prone nation; we need to build accordingly. We also have higher costs of building, in some cases, and we have an economy that is struggling slightly. I think working together to address the public risk of earthquake-prone buildings and the cost of that and to share that cost makes sense, especially when it comes to retrofitting older buildings, because people really appreciate those older buildings; there’s a lot of really good design, and it would be a shame to have to knock them all down. As we’ve seen in Wellington, people aren’t knocking those buildings down; they’re simply not going ahead with the remediation because it’s not affordable. That means there’s not as much housing available in our city as we need, there’s not commercial space being utilised, and it’s sort of a negative, self-reinforcing cycle for our communities.

One other point in the last few minutes: we will be moving an amendment in the committee of the whole House around fire safety and disability provisions, because we do think that’s really important. We do need those older buildings to address disability access and fire safety. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

12:27

ACT supports the amendment to the earthquake prone-buildings regulations. In 2016, David Seymour, ACT leader, was the only member of Parliament to vote against the legislation and the rules that we’re now repealing. Seymour said the rules would be arbitrary, there was a lack of cost-benefit analysis, and there would be huge cost to many building owners with little benefit either to private or public users. It was an attack on property rights. That’s what this Parliament voted for, 119 to one: an attack on people’s property rights by forcing owners to spend vast sums of money on buildings that they could not justify commercially or ever hope to recover. As a result, as Julie Anne Genter has just pointed out, there are many buildings that’ve never been remediated and never would’ve been under the rules we’re repealing today.

Seymour said in 2016 these rules will cost a fortune, and since then we’ve heard heartbreaking tales about people who are, essentially, in their old age, living on a fixed income, unable to afford their share of the cost of remediation and living heartbroken, ruined lives as a result of the rules this Parliament’s repealing today, and the Government review of the rules agreed. They had imposed around—or would impose—around $8 billion in avoidable costs.

ACT is proven right again, just like we were with the zero carbon Act—119 to one. We will be proven right. New Zealand will have to get the Paris Agreement changed for our benefit or we’ll have to leave. ACT was proven right about the firearms confiscation and the laws that the Labour Government brought in, 119 to one, and that is why Nicole McKee has to fix them with a new firearms Act. ACT is right more often than any of you—excluding you, Mr Speaker—

Yeah, no, that’s right; I’m never wrong.

—care to admit.

The member does need to come back to the bill. I know that—look, the advertorial stuff is interesting but not relevant to the bill.

ACT looks forward to seeing this bill progress through all stages, to give New Zealanders with earthquake-prone buildings a chance. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

12:29

Thanks, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First, and also having chaired the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, which considered this bill. I just want to say thanks to all the people who worked on this: the officials, the submitters, and, always, the great committee that it’s my pleasure to work with.

This bill followed a public engagement process before the bill was introduced, which I think is a great process that’s all too rare, if I might say, by any Government. The bill reduces the overall requirement for earthquake strengthening, reduces the number of buildings, and reduces the extent of work required in many cases, but not all. It takes a tiered approach, first of all, starting with information. We did say, as a select committee, that we want to make sure that buildings that are earthquake prone, even if you don’t have to do anything with them, that at least there is a notice on those buildings to inform people—a simple notice. Partial and facade strengthening is another step, and then full treatment as well.

The Transport and Infrastructure Committee tightened up on urban areas—for example, churches in fields we didn’t deem it to be high risk. We tightened up on fire and access so upgrade is no longer required, but you can’t make it worse. We agreed with the exclusion of low-risk areas: Auckland, Northland, the Chathams, etc. We did test that, though we were told, very clearly, to the Opposition: there was a low benefit-cost ratio and that’s why they stayed excluded.

The biggest issue, though, just very briefly, was the lifting of coastal Otago—so Dunedin and Oamaru—into the medium-risk area. There was a lot of concern by those communities about that. Those are areas with some of the most significant collections of heritage buildings, and New Zealand First thinks heritage is very, very important—the most significant collections of heritage buildings in New Zealand. Huge public benefit—what Simon Court was saying—and yet, in the bill for those, the strengthening is private. There’s a real concern about the economics of strengthening in both of those towns, but the bill actually reduces the impact on those communities. We did explore the details of those—things like the treatment of mezzanines, basements, two-storey buildings that are four storeys at the back, and so on. [Interruption] Sorry, am I interrupting the good folks over there? Do you want me to—

No, Mr Foster. You were being interrupted and I’d advise those who were interrupting to contain themselves.

Thank you. You know, we go through an extensive process; we go through a serious select committee process. Don’t make the process a joke here.

The assessment of coastal Otago, though—one of the challenges there is that coastal Otago is based on 160 buildings which have been assessed at the moment; I’m told by the folks in Dunedin Council that there are about 3,500 still to assess, so there is a serious issue there which we are going to need to look at.

If I can just finish off, just in terms of Wellington, Julie Anne Genter was absolutely right: Wellington got no support whatsoever as the effects of the Kaikōura earthquake slowly emerged, particularly on the water infrastructure. She’s also right about the parlous state of many of the apartment owners there. It is painful for them. They are trapped in that situation. There is no necessary answer in this; it’s something, again, we should look to see if we can find an answer for them—and it does blight areas.

I’m going to leave it there, but just to commend the bill to the House, and thank everybody for the hard work that’s gone into putting it together.

This is a split call—Tamatha Paul.

12:33

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Thank you to the previous speaker for sharing those insights, because, as we know, being based here in Wellington, where shakes are common, this is something that we’ve absolutely always got to be considering. We are going to be supporting this bill because it’s moving towards a more proportionate, risk-based framework that better targets life safety and reduces unnecessary compliance costs, which was looking like a very big bill for Wellington. We’re glad that those costs might be spread out a bit more over time.

We all saw those videos in Venezuela, watching all of those buildings come down, watching those buildings collapse on top of people, and just the misery that came about. Whenever there’s a major seismic event across the world, it does really remind us why we have to make sure that our buildings are safe and compliant, and why it is so important. I think New Zealand, in particular, has done a really good job of making sure that our buildings are safe and reinforced and that things like chimneys or stone masonry won’t fall down and crush people in the way that we saw in Venezuela. I think it’s really good that we’ve learnt the lessons from the tragedies that have happened but, like the previous speaker said, in Wellington, after the Kaikōura earthquake, there was a lot of damage done in the city, especially to our main buildings that we rely on—like our Central Library; basically our entire Civic Square, and that’s only just getting open now, 10 years later. It would have been great to have a hand.

I know, Mr Speaker, you did a lot of amazing work for the city of Christchurch following the big earthquakes, and I wish that we had a Gerry Brownlee in Wellington to help us hustle a bit more financial support—but it’s all right because we’re here now. I do recognise the previous speaker’s contribution—

No, we’re keeping him in Canterbury.

Damn it. I do recognise the previous speaker’s work, following the different quakes that we’ve had here in Wellington.

My colleague the Hon Julie Anne Genter covered a lot of our position quite well. One thing that she mentioned towards the end of her speech is that we’re really hoping that, through the committee of the whole House process on this bill, we’ll be able to get some amendments in here that make sure that disabled people or those with mobility requirements living in these buildings are able to safely enter and exit the building in the event of an emergency or an earthquake. We’re really hoping to work pragmatically with the other parties to implement those amendments, which will make this bill and these changes fairer and reflective of the fact that a quarter of our population are living with disabilities.

Now, the other main point that I wanted to make in the short time that I have was around some of the constituents that I’ve met with in Wellington, particularly those people who are living in earthquake-prone buildings, who are on fixed incomes, who are in a really difficult financial situation due to some of the legislation that addresses those buildings that they live in. I just wanted to highlight some of the solutions that they are wanting in addition to some of this work. Obviously, this is about the legislation, but there are also some financial schemes or assistance that we might be able to consider, to assist some of those owners.

Some of those recommendations include—and I’ve written to the Minister for Building and Construction early in the year to bring these to his attention—but we respectfully request that we include, within the earthquake-prone building system reform programme, a dedicated workstream which looks at owners of multi-unit residential buildings, recognising the distinct barriers faced by body corporates and homeowners. We ask that there are financial support settings that are workable for owners of multi-unit apartment buildings who must still undertake remediation, including arrangements that recognise fixed incomes, limited borrowing capacity, and the collective decision-making required under unit title and company share governance arrangements.

Finally, we request that the Government provides certainty and transparency on timing, transitional arrangements, and implementation so that homeowners can plan, secure finance where necessary, and make informed decisions; really, just acknowledging that for some of the superannuitants who live in these buildings or disabled people who are on fixed incomes, they have less financial ability to make different financial decisions. Sometimes, they’ve put their lifetime savings into buying these apartments and are now in this really tricky situation where they don’t have the money to remediate. My request is that we consider the financial assistance that might sit alongside this bill, which will mean that people living in seismic-prone areas can stay where they are. Kia ora.

12:38

We had many submitters tell the committee how frustrating and confusing the current system is, especially in Auckland where the earthquake risk is relatively lower than in other parts of the country. This will provide a more practical and proportionate approach to manage earthquake-prone buildings. I commend this bill to the House.

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. Well, I have to say, the National Party member and the deputy chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee—I was expecting for the member to be a little more fulsome in the contribution. Usually, we hear about Mt Roskill, but clearly not today, so that is disappointing, but none the less, we will box on.

As my colleague Arena Williams has indicated, the Labour Party will be supporting this bill this afternoon. That’s because we do agree that the earthquake-prone building system does need to be practical, it needs to be targeted, and it also needs to be focused on the buildings that do pose the greatest risk to life and, indeed, to safety. We acknowledge that when we step back and look at the current regime, it has placed some pressure on councils who have an active role in this particular space, on building owners, on communities, and particularly in regional communities and smaller towns where the costs of undertaking remediation can be, at times—not all of the time, but at times—disproportionate to the level of risk.

We do think that an approach that is looking at a risk-based approach—one that is balanced—is perhaps a sensible one. It’s right that when we’re looking at the approach for buildings around priority 4, those that are unreinforced masonry, those that perhaps are seen as vulnerable because of the structure containing concrete, and other areas where the seismic risk is perhaps higher than in other places, it is the best way to go rather than treating every single building in the same way despite those particular aspects as well. There still does need to be an expectation that across the board—throughout the country, when we’re looking at things like this—the consideration for life and safety is paramount, and there should not be a dereliction of duty or responsibility in that regard. We must do this work, although we need to take a measured approach to it.

I want to acknowledge the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. I want to acknowledge Mr Foster, who has made a contribution today. We’re acknowledging MrFoster quite a bit. That’s because there are a few bills from the Transport and Infrastructure Committee as part of the urgency motion. I do want to acknowledge the work that the committee did do on this bill. I think the fact that it’s come back to the House with unanimous support, in terms of the report, is a direct indication to the work that colleagues have done. We did hear from a number of submitters, as you would expect for a bill like this, and also officials.

As colleagues have touched on, the committee did receive some advice around areas in New Zealand that would be considered as low-seismic zones. The resultant action from the committee is that those three particular areas would no longer be subject to the earthquake-prone building regime at the level at which they entered into the regime, and that relates to Auckland, Northland, and the Chathams. Now, this has led to the view from the Labour Party that we oppose the exclusion of Auckland from this regime, and that is because there are, naturally, buildings in Auckland where there is still a risk. There is still a risk that those buildings present a significant life and safety risk if an earthquake were to take place. We do remain concerned that the Government has gone too far in excluding Auckland from this regime, because low risk does not mean no risk, and there continue to be high-risk buildings in places all around the country that would cause harm to life and safety, following an earthquake.

We know that if we look at Auckland—and set aside Northland and the Chathams—Auckland is home to our largest population. It is our largest city by far. There are substantial levels of infrastructure in that part of the country—in existence and being built at the moment—and there are, as my colleague has said already, a significant number of buildings that have already been identified as earthquake-prone: in excess of 1,400. The Transport and Infrastructure Committee’s report identifies 1,544 Auckland buildings that are currently classified as being earthquake-prone that would no longer be covered by this particular law change. We do think that a complete carve-out of our country’s largest city, which has the most population in the country located in it—

Best city.

—does create a gap in public safety and public confidence. Now, Mr Cheung says it’s the best city. Well, he could have told us about that in his contribution, but he’s given that opportunity up. We do think there was an opportunity for perhaps an alternative, where there could have been some middle ground, where Auckland could have still been subject to some provisions, maybe a lighter regime, who knows? That was certainly the preference rather than a complete removal from the regime in its entirety.

Mr Foster has talked about coastal Otago and the protections that that would provide them. Now, this bill does move that area from a low- to a medium-seismic zone based on the updated information around hazards that is now available. The committee has inserted some transitional provisions so that there is a lack of disadvantage to existing building owners in that particular area. There are still the remediation deadlines that exist, but there is an opportunity for some time frames to be changed in that particular space, after the commencement around those medium-zone time frames, as well.

One change the Transport and Infrastructure Committee has also made is around the definition of an urban centre. This bill will require a different approach for those that are in urban centres, for those that have unreinforced masonry. Why that is, is because of the likely higher damage and threat to pedestrians moving about in urban areas, and vehicular traffic as well, that might also block or impede emergency vehicles seeking to utilise the roads, which we’ll talk about in a moment. The committee has narrowed the definition so that “urban centre” is not going to capture those smaller satellite towns that would be subject to some tougher requirements. Often, close to home for me, the Manawatū District Council is a regular submitter to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee when it comes to these sorts of matters. They would be considering, for their community, where they sit in terms of being an urban centre or not, and adopting the Statistics New Zealand approach as to what the definitions are. That’s contained in the committee’s report; we think it’s a sensible way to go.

As you’ll be aware, there are priority buildings that are identified that have, effectively, a shorter runway or a shorter period of time in which the remediation work would need to be carried out. Now, some regional authorities have gone through a process of identifying a large number of strategic transport routes, which means that any of those buildings that are priority buildings that have been identified as being positioned along those strategic transport routes will need to, effectively, create a quicker form of remediation. Why? Because, if an earthquake were to occur and those buildings were to collapse, that would impede the strategic transport network, and so there needs to be a quicker form of remediation around that.

What has been brought to light, however, is that some authorities have perhaps been a little bit more loose around designation of those strategic transport routes, so the bill does provide for an option for councils to have a look, on a one-off opportunity, around their routes, sort of planning for transport, and to remove some routes if possible. It’s not an opportunity for councils to add, or controlling authorities to add, more routes in but rather to sensibly, where possible, rationalise what that route looks like. When it comes to highways, New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi needs to be included in that particular process.

Just to wrap up, there are a number of other small changes, but they are changes that we think will make a difference. They’re things like the notices on buildings being a little bit simpler than they are currently. Hopefully they’ll be able to serve as a reminder and a guide to members of the public around what the particular state or assessment of an earthquake-prone building is, so that members of the public can make their own choices around that. At the moment, that is something that might need to be focused on through the regulations process. This bill changes it so that the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment is able to sign off on that and councils can go about making that happen. It’s a sensible change that will hopefully not create bureaucracy—another layer of bureaucracy—around that but will ensure that it is a very clear, simple direction to the public around what the state of the building is if they choose to go into that.

Then, the final part is around the removal of some of the “Henry VIII” provisions. That was in response to the Regulations Review Committee, which is ably chaired by Arena Williams, that identified that aspects for the transitional purposes were no longer required, and so the committee was very happy to respond to that request from the Regulations Review Committee to change that.

On balance, the Labour Party is supporting this bill this afternoon; however, with the caveat that we still believe the time frame and the exclusion of Auckland is an issue.

12:48

This is a good bill, reflecting a risk-based approach to earthquake-prone buildings. It’s very good for Auckland. It’s all a part of this Government’s plan to fix the basics and build the future. I commend it to the House.

We have a split call.

12:49

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Mr Speaker, firstly, it’s very good to see you in the Chair. I think the last time I spoke with you in the Chair was at my maiden speech, so let’s hope this speech is as heartfelt and good as that one.

This is a very important bill that we’re speaking to today, the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill. I want to acknowledge the effects of earthquakes and the importance of getting this legislation right, as other speakers have spoken to.

We are in a very earthquake-prone country, and we need to do really good and ongoing work on protecting people who deal with the repercussions of earthquakes across the motu and good work that’s going to protect the lives of people and our communities.

We’ve all been affected by earthquakes. I acknowledge those living in cities who have been hugely affected by earthquakes. We all know the huge impact it has on communities, financially and otherwise, particularly the Christchurch earthquakes, which I know triggered a lot of work in this space. My colleagues have spoken of the impacts of that and I’m pleased to support this bill in order to get that legislation right so that we can protect our lives and our communities.

We need to keep safety at the centre of our system when we are considering this bill. Reforms should focus on genuine risks and public safety must remain the overriding principle. So Labour supports targeting regulatory efforts at buildings that present the greatest risks to life, safety. As I mentioned, we have learnt considerable lessons from Canterbury, and other speakers have spoken to the Kaikōura earthquakes. Governments have a responsibility to protect people from avoidable harm.

As other speakers have mentioned, although Labour supports this bill, we do not support the exclusion of Auckland, Northland, and the Chatham Islands from these reforms. Even though they have a low seismic hazard, Auckland doesn’t have a zero risk. We risk building a two-tiered system in our country by excluding Auckland. A low risk does not mean no risk. We need to ensure that we are protecting everybody. As other speakers have spoken to, Auckland contains approximately 1,400 earthquake-prone buildings—the majority of identified earthquake-prone buildings, nationally. Excluding our largest population I don’t think is a smart move.

I come from the sunny place of Hamilton. Hamilton and the Waikato also has a low seismic hazard risk. However, I wouldn’t want the Waikato and the place that I live to be excluded from these regulations because, as I said, a low risk doesn’t mean no risk. In fact, Hamilton, as reported, is the largest urban centre with the lowest natural hazard risk. So a little plug there for the great city but also let’s not exclude areas. We need to make sure that we are protecting all our people and communities across the board in this legislation.

The other point I wanted to quickly touch on was balancing affordability with long-term responsibility. As natural hazards increase, or natural disasters increase, in our country due to climate change, this is something we need to think about more and more in regard to earthquakes and personal liability but also in other natural hazards. I don’t think it’s something that gets enough attention; how are people going to manage the personal, financial burden on them when a natural disaster affects them? I think that’s a missed opportunity, and I would have liked to see more support for our public in that space.

12:54

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a great honour to stand up and speak on the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill. A lot of previous speakers have, Mr Speaker, flattered you with many great compliments, but I just want to acknowledge all the work that you did do for Christchurch after the earthquakes.

This bill would make a more pragmatic, tiered system, intended to better reflect the actual risk posed by individual buildings here in New Zealand. It would focus on mitigating the risk to life. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was a bit surprised that the previous speaker didn’t look at the clock and maybe think to speak for a little bit longer and we may have been able to go for lunch, but, nevertheless, here I am, on my feet, and I’ve got quite a lot to say. So I make no apologies for that snafu.

The Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill—where do we start? Well, let’s start at point one. Labour supports the overall direction of this bill. Obviously, it’s been argued that the current earthquake-prone building system has imposed substantial and, in some cases, disproportionate costs on building owners and on councils and on regional communities. That is something worthy of some reconsideration. So this more targeted system, which focuses on the buildings themselves—the earthquake risk, and the locations that present the greatest risk and threat to life—we do believe is sensible.

It’s not a perfect system. There are, as has been discussed, at least two or three very specific concerns that we certainly don’t agree with; that’s not what we would have done given the opportunity to do so, but a risk-based system that assesses genuine risk is something that we’re happy to support in this instance. We simply don’t think that we can draw a line around Auckland and pretend that every vulnerable building—of which there were, I believe, 1,400, at least—on one side of a line are no longer a concern, because it doesn’t take away the concern; it just takes them off a statutory list of concern.

The central purpose, as has been said by almost everybody on this side of the House, who are, pretty much, the only people—apart from Andy Foster, who made a very interesting contribution—to have commented on what is a really important bill, and we should have more to say about it. The most important principle that does have to be underpinning this legislation is that earthquake-prone buildings regulation exists primarily to protect people’s lives.

As has also been noted, those of us from Canterbury certainly don’t need a reminder that earthquakes don’t just affect buildings; they affect people and they change lives. Within an instant, lives can be changed—and lost. Many Cantabrians, as I’m sure yourself, Mr Speaker, will remember walking past buildings that they had entered hundreds of times, or driving pasts buildings, as I did just before the earthquake, paused at a set of lights because the lights were red—a very frequent place for me to be paused. Two hours later, that building was down and the person that was unfortunately paused at those lights, on that occasion, lost their life.

Buildings that seem like innocuous bricks and mortar—that serve the function of housing work, of housing people, conducting business, and all of those other activities that they afford us the opportunity to do—aren’t just buildings if they are not designed in a way, or if legislation and regulation don’t ensure that aspects of buildings aren’t a little bit safer for the reality that they involve housing people and accommodating people, who are not nearly as indestructible as we might somehow like to think we are.

Labour, therefore, supports a greater focus that is in this bill on unreinforced masonry buildings. That was certainly a big lesson from Canterbury—vulnerable concrete buildings, falling facades, and other known life-safety hazards. A more proportionate system, however, is, we do believe, a little bit fairer for regional communities. The existing system tended to treat every building as if the community that it was functioning within presented the same level of risk. A small building in a low-risk town shouldn’t necessarily face the same obligations as a large, vulnerable, concrete building on a busy pedestrian route.

I know that through the select committee process, that formula, those calculations have been taken into account to get to where we agree here. There were some aspects of that that Labour were in 100 percent in agreement with when it came to assessing that risk, but some of that was debatable and we put forward some alternatives. We don’t think that our position was necessarily the perfect one either, so we were happy to contend with this—acknowledging that the cost of strengthening has exceeded, for some people, the value of the building itself, and also acknowledging the stress and the uncertainty that lots of people have faced, wondering how they would be able to now make those buildings compliant under the previous regime.

However, proportionality must not become an excuse for indefinite inaction. That is a huge problem. Extensions should be available where owners are making genuine progress, and we absolutely believe that, but not simply to push difficult decisions another 10 or 15 years further into the future.

Ultimately, we actually do want to be able to take this opportunity to say we live in an earthquake-prone country; there are certain well-known risks. Given our recent history, we have been afforded the opportunity to look into and to research and to have experts and engineers on this, that, and whatever; to design and innovate some possible solutions to make our lived environment a lot safer. So we should be moving with a certain pace to be able to afford our own selves the opportunity for that.

As has been mentioned, excluding Auckland, we think, is entirely the wrong approach. I do understand the rationale behind it, and we listened intently to various people raising their methodology behind how they came to that decision or how they came to provide us with that advice. I still don’t think it’s the right thing to do. I think even if we think about the situation where we’re discussing Auckland as if it’s one homogenous area, just by virtue of the fact that it has some boundaries and we’ve created a made-up, essentially, boundary—and that’s what we call Auckland. Even within Auckland itself, there are different geological considerations, and we just think that with a little bit more time we may have been able to work with the Government to maybe reach a compromise on how we could have got the best of both worlds.

We accept that Auckland does have a lower seismic risk, we acknowledge that seismic hazard is not the only part of risk calculation, however, and a light-tough framework could have been retained, we think, which would have left highly vulnerable buildings—lots and lots of highly vulnerable buildings still could have been identified, recorded, and subject to some targeted obligations, which I think was probably the place that we should have ended up.

I also do want to acknowledge the earthquake notices. I think both Andy Foster and my colleague Tangi Utikere mentioned these, in so far as it’s one of the things I remember the most from the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. Sometimes it’s the little details. The earthquake notices that you put on a building—just because there’s no remediation required for that building, we didn’t think that that should remove the need to have a properly displayed notice. People should still know that, yes, the building’s got some issues; no, not enough to have required the full suite of treatment in terms of remediation. I still want to know what those issues are and then I can make my own informed choice about how much time I may choose to spend in that building.

In closing, Labour supports this bill because it is targeted and more proportionate in a genuinely risk-based system. We do think that we probably do need this now as a pragmatic step forward. We support this bill at second reading while continuing, obviously, to argue for a more consistent national safety framework and better support for those people that are expected to carry out some of the costs to their own homes, including the apartment dwellers. Ultimately, we all want safer communities.

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

The House is resumed. We’re dealing with the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill. There’s one call—Dr Vanessa Weenink.

14:00

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is an honour to speak on this bill. The Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill actually makes a very sensible and sensitive balance between respecting the legacy of those who lost their lives in the Christchurch earthquakes and being able to recover and move on from those events and future ones. This is just another way that National is fixing the basics and building the future. I commend the bill.

Mr Speaker?

Point of order?

No, sorry, I’m taking Te Pāti Māori’s call.

No, we’ve lost the opportunity there.

Sorry, point of order. My understanding of Appendix E of Standing Orders is that you lose your chance for first reading but for second and third reading we do have the opportunity to bid for a Te Pāti Māori call at the end, should no one else take that call.

Yeah, OK—away you go.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to also take a call on the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill. I do want to commend the Transport and Infrastructure Committee on the thorough work they’ve done in this bill, but particularly the chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Andy Foster, as well.

I do want to start by saying that I agree with what everyone has said in terms of the need for us to look at this and exactly how this interacts with local authorities when it comes to the strengthening. Of course, we have seen the impact of earthquakes, both in terms of Ōtautahi Christchurch but also here in Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara Wellington. I think, as my colleagues both Julie Anne Genter and Tamatha Paul as local electoral MPs of Wellington have expressed, this is something that is of great concern. Even as someone from Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, this is something that is important for us as well.

The main areas of this—and I think this is an interesting bill, because we’ve seen quite a number of such bills in the building and construction space which allow for some narrowing of the methods available to territorial authorities for identifying new earthquake-prone buildings, after the initial identification period. Some of these—particularly some of the high-risk buildings—could be identified after the initial period. I think, when we’re looking at a bill such as this and the kind of flexibility it allows, it also allows for a more nuanced approach; so for those particular buildings, especially if they are older buildings, to be able to have the time to upgrade to a certain extent.

I think, from an Auckland perspective, I believe—and I need to just double-check—some of these changes when it comes to Auckland are something that I am a little bit concerned about. This is where you get changes in Auckland, Northland, the Chatham Islands, and coastal Otago, where those in a low seismic zone will no longer be designated earthquake prone. I think that is a concern because there is the possibility—anywhere in Aotearoa, being on a faultline, has that kind of potential. I know personally in various electorates—Auckland Central as well as Epsom—that there are buildings that would be considered earthquake prone under the old regime, but I think under the new regime their fate will change to a certain extent. I think that, potentially, is important for local authorities to actually monitor, and territorial authorities to monitor as well, just because of the potential impact that comes to human lives, should something happen. I can think of particularly along Newton Road between Auckland Central and Epsom that has certain buildings that previously were designated, as there was on Manukau Road.

Overall, this is a bill that the Green Party does support. There are various elements in there that we’ll be interested in asking the Minister for Building and Construction further about. History suggests he’s also a very engaging Minister who I’m sure will be able to let us know the detail of some of these.

One last thing I want to touch on in terms of this particular bill—and this is something that has been going through various bills. I mentioned that we have seen quite a few of these types of building bills, particularly around earthquake-prone buildings—which is on the “Henry VIII” powers that it presents. This is something that has been noted by various members, as well as other committees: the kind of “Henry VIII” clauses that we are seeing manifesting in some of the building bills. They are important—some of them are required—but, again, some of those in general would have sunset clauses. How that then gets managed and how that “Henry VIII” clause manifests is something that, I think, as a House, we should continue to monitor and is something that we’ll be asking the Minister on as well.

Also, I think, with that, there are some areas, like I mentioned, with a level of nuance that need to be unpacked further. Overall, we understand the requirements for this bill and we understand the necessity it presents, particularly for people in Wellington. Finally, I do want to acknowledge, Mr Speaker, your role as a previous Minister in the work that you did in the Ōtautahi earthquakes.

14:07

I seek leave to correct two votes taken during the committee stage of the Offshore Renewable Energy Bill. In order to correct the Green Party’s vote on the closure motion for Part 4, which should have been 14 votes opposed and on Hon Dr Megan Woods’ tabled amendments to Amendment Paper 571, which should have been cast as 14 in favour.

Leave is sought for that purpose, is there any objection? There appears to be none. The record will be corrected accordingly.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I present a legislative statement on the Emergency Management Bill (No 2).

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

I move, That the Emergency Management Bill (No 2) be now read a second time.

Mr Speaker, while you’re in the seat, I just wanted to acknowledge you. As a member of the National Party backbench when we were hit by the awful Christchurch earthquakes, I got to observe your tireless work as emergency management Minister leading the recovery for Christchurch. I just want to think, reflect, and mourn those that were lost, but also now recognise that Christchurch is a thriving city that is a joy to visit and to see how far they’ve come since that event. I want to acknowledge you, because I got a front-row seat that helped inform me in terms of what I needed to do when I took on the role of emergency management Minister. So thank you for that work.

I’d like to thank the Governance and Administration Committee for its work to consider this important piece of legislation. I’m pleased to see the select committee was unanimous in its recommendations. This reflects the collaborative cross-party approach that we need to strengthen our emergency management system. In my view—like national security—emergency management should be bipartisan. I want to thank all of the parties that have worked hard and had input into the development of this bill.

I also want to acknowledge the submitters on the bill. Their input has improved the bill and will also feed into its implementation and other operational improvements. Emergency management is relevant to every person in New Zealand. Submitters’ insights are important to supporting the whole-of-society approach to emergency management we need to adopt as a country.

The Government’s objectives for reform are to strengthen the role of communities and iwi Māori in emergency management; provide for clear responsibilities and accountabilities at the national, regional, and local levels; enable a higher minimum standard of emergency management; minimise disruption to essential services; and ensure agencies have the tools to do their jobs effectively when an emergency happens.

The majority of submitters supported this intent. Where submitters sought changes, it’s clear the select committee has given those views careful consideration, and, in many cases, has recommended changes to the bill as a result. These amendments have strengthened the bill, and the Government will be taking them forward. There are some changes I want to highlight, because I see them as particularly helpful in supporting improvements on the ground.

The bill as reported back extends civil liability protections to official responders when they’re taking precautionary actions immediately before an emergency. These protections will also cover the likes of volunteers and civil contractors when they’re acting under official direction. Concern about civil liability before a state of emergency is declared should not create hesitation to act, because hesitation can result in avoidable damage. At worst, it may cost lives. I welcome the select committee’s recommended changes on this issue, and I thank the submitters who raised it. The committee has also recommended creating a formal link between regional emergency management plans and the long-term planning process under the Local Government Act. Good planning is fundamental to driving action on the ground across the four Rs of risk reduction, readiness, response, and recovery.

While there was already an expectation that local authorities would implement their emergency management responsibilities through long-term plans, making this link explicit and clarifying how a multi-council planning process should flow into individual councils and their long-term plans was important. Emergency management committees are intended to achieve economies of scale and integrated management of hazards and risks, but they can only be successful if all councils play their part. Linking regional emergency management plans and long-term plans will ensure that committees’ decisions translate into action.

This change reinforces a key shift the bill is making to put more emphasis on the emergency management role of individual councils. Related changes include creating specific roles for regional emergency management committees and their local authority members; making mayors primarily responsible for declaring states of local emergency and recovery transition periods within their own districts; requiring every territorial authority to have a district controller and district recovery manager with a clear line of accountability to the council’s chief executive; and giving territorial authority chief executives an explicit mandate to coordinate resources provided by other agencies in the lead-up to and during an emergency over that longer-term recovery.

In late October last year, severe weather events coincided with the local body elections. Because new mayors had not yet been sworn in, I needed to declare states of local emergency over Southland and Canterbury. The committee has recommended a sensible change to address this gap, enabling mayors to be sworn in early on a temporary basis to declare a state of emergency or transition period. This will enable local declarations to continue to be made locally and avoid potential delays in the emergency disruption communications if the emergency is disrupted because of communications between the affected council and the Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery.

When it comes to improving our resilience to emergencies, this bill is only part of the picture. Councils also hold many tools to address specific hazards under the planning, building, and biosecurity legislation. To name just a few: like under the current Act, emergency management committees are expected to use these tools to support their emergency management responsibilities. I’m pleased to see that the Governance and Administration Committee has recommended making the connection between these responsibilities clearer by creating a requirement for emergency management committees and councils, to consider whether functions, duties, and powers in other relevant legislation would help meet their emergency management responsibilities.

New Zealand is one of the most exposed countries to natural hazard risk in the world. I’m sure I don’t need to convince the House about the need for a strong emergency management system. This need is reinforced by every severe weather event, let alone when we consider our most serious risks, like the Alpine Fault. It’s critical we have legislation that sets us up to manage these risks. At its core, New Zealand’s approach to emergency management is based on three key principles: (1) we consider all hazards, natural and man-made; (2) we manage the risk from these hazards by taking action across the four Rs: risk reduction, readiness, response, and recovery; and (3) all parts of society have a role to play in emergency management: central government, local government, communities and businesses, iwi and hapū, and individual households.

Overall, this bill will better enable our emergency management system to achieve this intent and deliver the improvements identified through past inquiries and reviews. For that reason, I want to thank, again, the select committee and all of the submitters for the critical role you have played in improving this bill.

The Emergency Management Bill (No 2) will provide stronger foundations for New Zealand to meet the growing risk we face as a country, and I commend it to the House.

14:16

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare, otirā i te tuatahi i roto i te reo Māori, tēnei te tangi aroha ki te tuahine o Parekura Horomia i hoki atu ki te kōpū o te whenua i te Tūrei kua pahure.

Nā reira Isabelle, haere, haere, haere atu rā. Ka nui te aroha ki te whānau pani.Hoki mai ki a tātou te hunga ora, tihei mauri ora e te whānau.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker. Indeed, first, in the Māori language, I grieve for the sister of Parekura Horomia, who returned to the womb of the earth last Tuesday.]

I do want to acknowledge the whānau in Wairarapa who have, once again, recently, been flooded: ka nui te aroha ki a koutou [a lot of compassion to you all].

Also, a big mihi to you, Minister, for your kōrero this morning and reinforcing how good it is that we have reached bipartisan agreement on this very important issue that affects all of our communities across Aotearoa. I also want to acknowledge both you and my colleague Camilla Belich, who worked together on improvements to this bill.

Whānau, as the Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery has laid out, this bill is about modernising and strengthening our civil defence emergency management framework. I have acknowledged the work that our former spokesperson Camilla Belich has done on this. Labour does support this bill, with a couple of reservations or recommendations. Obviously, it’s been great to hear the Minister acknowledge the value of iwi and hapū in emergency management and recovery. While it’s great to see that this bill creates statutory obligations to engage iwi Māori, Labour would have preferred and would have acknowledged the value of iwi and hapū from the design, partnership, to delivery of these processes.

I want to talk a bit about what iwi and hapū involvement means. We’ve talked a lot in this House—across parties, which is awesome—about the value of marae facilities in these scenarios. I want to talk about what that actually means in a community sense. It was great to be able to take Camilla, when she was spokesperson, to Hauiti, where they were still having recovery-related activities in their community. It’s not only the exhaustion of the resource, which is, therefore, taken out of commission for the rest of the community—who now has to think about where they’re going to have their tangi, where they’re going to have their birthday celebrations—but it’s also the exhaustion on the whānau who have to man those facilities while also fulfilling their full-time jobs and other community responsibilities they have. That’s what we’re talking about here, but they do it because they know their communities, they’re well connected with the regional civil defence and emergency management centres and, of course, with the National Emergency Management Agency. It’s a beautiful model, and that’s why we would strongly like to see, in the future, iwi and hapū acknowledged as partners, as decision makers, as well as key deliverers of these services.

The other point about that is it’s not just iwi for iwi locally. That network stretches out across the motu, and descendants of iwi will support with things like Starlink, which we saw, but we’ll talk a bit more about infrastructure later. It’s also the “ko tō rourou, ko tāku rourou ka ora ai te iwi ” [with your contribution and my contribution, the people will be well] mentality, where other iwi networks come in to support not just financially and with resources but with training and manpower.

Another area of this bill that is very important—and Labour supports strongly—is the progress in strengthening the resilience of essential infrastructure. One of the greatest honours I’ve had in my life so far was to serve as a volunteer member of our local civil defence, the Rangitukia civil defence team, during Cyclone Gabrielle. Many of you will remember that during Cyclone Gabrielle, the East Coast was cut off in every sense. Power went down; our roads in and out were cut off; we had no internet, no phone line. I must give a big mihi to good old Radio Ngati Porou, whose 585 AM frequency was still connected and still the only means of communication for the important local and national comms we were getting in terms of safety for our whānau. Other than that, it was just good old door-knocking. So, absolutely, we support building resilience into all future investments in our infrastructure throughout Aotearoa.

The bill also updates the governance arrangements for our regional emergency management organisations, including renaming civil defence and emergency management groups as emergency management committees. I think a name is a name, whatever we call them; I just urge us all that we remain genuinely focused on locally led and locally driven.

Another slight point of difference is governance. Labour believes that the strongest emergency management system is one that empowers regions while ensuring national coordination where necessary. This bill shifts the balance towards centralisation. It introduces new ministerial powers, binding national rules, and compliance orders enforceable through courts. While there will certainly be occasions where national leadership is essential, we must remain connected to our local leaders who know their communities so well; they know their rivers so well, they know their whenua so well, they know their roads so well, and they know their bridges so well. A resilient system should trust local expertise as much as central authority.

We’ve talked about bipartisanship, and I just want to acknowledge all the amazing people both in paid roles and voluntary roles across Aotearoa who do a great job in keeping our communities safe. What I’ve observed during my visits around Aotearoa is that while resource levels may differ, responses may differ, what is absolutely key is that everyone has a really strong local connection, local leadership. I want to acknowledge, too, the training and professional development that has gone on throughout our communities. It’s really awesome to see that when we get those heavy rain warnings, people are stood up, the Facebook pages are going crazy, and everyone knows what they should do. I’m also pleased to say people are taking the warnings much more seriously, because we know all too well the damage of what we’re calling, sadly, our new norm.

I do want to conclude once again by reinforcing the value of having iwi and hapū at as part of the design, as part of partnership in this—not merely because they are so well connected in some of our most isolated communities but they are connected across the whole emergency management network. They have already invested significantly in resourcing communities, not just with contributing to mobile civil defence units in containers but also in supporting the professional development of people who live in the communities that are affected by these each and every day.

I actually really love this portfolio, because while we go into communities, we go in often without our party hats on. We see people going through some of the most vulnerable times of their lives, packing up their worldly belongings at the end of their driveways while their houses are filled with silt and water. While it’s absolutely devastating, it is wonderful that we as a Parliament stand by our people. It’s also wonderful because we also see the best of humanity at these times, and so we see communities pulling together.

That’s why Labour is happy to make progress on this bill. We probably would’ve been happy to see right through to the third reading under urgency, because we understand that this is beneficial for Aotearoa. As I said, could there be tweaks made? Absolutely, but I do want to acknowledge the mahi that has gone on to make the advancements that we have before us today.

Once again, a big mihi to all the whānau still recovering out there, a big mihi to all the visionaries in this House who want to look at building resilience as we progress our responses to emergency management, and also a massive mihi to all our volunteers who continue to upskill, who continue to train so that you are in the best position to serve your communities—communities who want to stay where they’re from because it’s beautiful and their whakapapa is there. On behalf of the Labour Party, I commend this bill to the House.

14:26

Thank you, Mr Speaker. As we heard from both of the previous speakers, this is a bill that is important and very much needed, and the Green Party also supports this bill. I want to first acknowledge the Governance and Administration Committee for considering this bill and all of the members on that committee for doing a very thorough job of it. I also do want to acknowledge the Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery for the role that he has played in managing some of the emergency responses I’ve seen. I’ve seen the Minister firsthand going out to those affected areas, so I do want to thank the Minister for that.

Like the previous speaker said, this is something that is facing Aotearoa New Zealand broadly, and it’s really good to see that this bill has, broadly, the support of this House, and definitely the support of the Green Party. As mentioned before, the bill would replace the existing Civil Defence Emergency Management Act and then build this new legislative framework, through this bill, in terms of the 2023 Government inquiry into the response to the North Island severe weather events. In terms of the 2023 events, what we have seen from that, both in terms of the Auckland Anniversary floods that affected areas such as Auckland Central, Epsom, and Mount Albert more severely, as well as areas over the shore—and the responses that MPs have had on that, but also personally having relatives on the East Coast and in Napier, Tokomaru Bay, Tolaga Bay—was going to those areas and seeing the ongoing impact, even to this day, that Cyclone Gabrielle had in those kinds of areas. This is something that very much is facing the whole of Aotearoa New Zealand.

I think, with that, it’s really important for us to address the first major issue that we have in this House, which is around climate change and how we are responding to both climate mitigation and also climate adaptation. Of course, this is something that the Green Party in particular is very interested in and would like to follow through in having this conversation, with any Government, and on this bill and during the committee of the whole House stage, in particular. Now, the reason for that is because what we have seen is an increase. What we normally have seen to be once-every-hundred-year events are now annually, and our local authority—our people, our communities, our society—simply is not at this stage prepared to handle that kind of level of frequency. Right now, we’re seeing more extreme weather patterns all around the world, most recently with the heat waves in France hitting record highs again. We’re seeing that happening every year. We just declared that El Nino is here in Aotearoa and the impact that, potentially, will have in the coming months.

So climate change is absolutely an important focus when we’re looking at the way we look at emergency management; of course, with all of the other natural disasters on the bill we have just spoken on—the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill—on other forms of natural disasters like earthquakes. With that kind of setting the scene, it’s important then to ask: it’s all very well to have a bill such as this, but what is the level of resourcing that is needed to be able to undertake and actually do what is set out as a legislative framework to its full effect, and give credit to what we’re trying to do here today?

For example, one of the things we have raised and we are concerned about is that in Budget 2024 we did see that ring-fencing for the Climate Emergency Response Fund has been taken back and nearly $1 billion has been wiped from that fund to subsidise other parts of that Budget. What we have seen is that the marae resilience fund is drying up, even though marae play such an important role in an emergency response. I want to give a specific shout out to the marae that supported the local communities, our tourists, our visitors—not just Māori, but everyone who was in the communities in the climate-charged extreme weather we saw in the Bay of Plenty earlier in the year. All of these are important considerations as we progress this bill further through the House.

What we have also seen is that the Government has given record investment and record funding to Defence but, proportionately, we have not seen the personnel, particularly when it comes to civil defence, receiving a proportion of that record increase in Defence. Again, we feel like, if we’re really talking about emergency management and emergency response, there is a little bit of an imbalance in terms of what we see as a legislative framework and what we’re seeing in action, from a resourcing perspective. Another important aspect of that resourcing is what we have seen most recently here in Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara, in terms of the sudden flood that we saw only a few months ago, which has also left many, many of our families here in Wellington in hardship. I do want to give a special acknowledgment to our local Green MPs, Julie Anne Genter and Tamatha Paul, for the role that they played—as all electorate MPs do in the event of an emergency, when it comes to the emergency response.

One of the things we did see, through a series of these emergency events that we’ve seen since the beginning of this year, was a record number of local states of emergency being triggered; yet what we don’t see is the corresponding response from, for example, the Minister of Social Development (MSD) when it comes to the civil defence payment. There has to be constantly this battle with MSD to trigger the civil defence payment because, if a local authority doesn’t ask for it, it’s not triggered—whereas, when people are in hardship, particularly when we were looking at a local state of emergency or national state of emergency, those civil defence payments should be automatically triggered rather than people having to ask for that. That all comes down to the package of what the Greens would really like to see when it comes to resourcing.

Another area that I want to touch on is the disproportionate effect that this will have on certain communities. Two communities that come to mind in particular are our disabled communities and our seniors communities, as we saw when it came to Cyclone Gabrielle a few years ago. We noticed that when it comes to seniors, when it comes to the disabled, there was no really good record—particularly for civil defence personnel, for firefighters, for those who were on the front line—to know if a particular family or people that they were evacuating actually required those kinds of additional specialised support. It’s really good to see this particular bill having a specific mentioning and acknowledgment of the importance of those disproportionately affected communities.

With that kind of legislative framework—towards the policy framework, again—it comes down to what sort of resourcing we need. What kind of collaboration with hapū, with iwi, with disabled communities, with seniors, and with our elders are we expecting to see, to ensure that these sorts of things are being addressed, so that we are not in a position where older people are left stranded at home because those people who are on the front line don’t know that they require additional support—wheelchair access and all of those things?

Finally, I think another important area when it comes to the idea of emergency management is that the idea of schools and also communities being local hubs in the event of emergency management is absolutely crucial. From the perspective of schools, we have seen that schools have also recorded an incredible rate of needing additional support from the Ministry of Education as a result of school property damage, which has also meant that our schools couldn’t open as well. This is, again, something that we’d really like to see: how can we build up schools’ resilience as a local hub? We’re looking at even more than what the Government has put in this year’s Budget when it comes to solar panels on schools, as well as the ability for schools to have things like industrial grade kitchens and the broader school lunch availability that’s done locally. That way, in the event of an emergency, the schools can also be a source or hub for the local communities as well.

Finally, I think it’s important for me to actually acknowledge all of our electorate MPs here in this House and every single one of you for the role that you play in response to any form of extreme climate-charged weather events, whether you are Grant McCallum from Northland to Ingrid Leary from Taieri, from David MacLeod in the west to Dana Kirkpatrick in the east, in East Coast.

What about Southland? You forgot Southland. Why aren’t you going right to the bottom?

And also Kaikōura, Stuart Nash. I want to thank all of you, and with that we support this bill.

Stuart Nash?

Stuart Smith—my apologies.

14:36

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Emergency Management Bill (No 2).

On behalf of the ACT Party!

Yeah, on behalf of some party in the coalition Government. However, I am genuinely pleased to take this call, because this is a portfolio that I previously held for the Labour Party for over two years. I was pleased to work with people across the House, including with the Minister, and I want to acknowledge the Minister for his work. I was trying to think of all of the different emergencies that we happened to be attending at different times throughout the last two years, and there were quite a few. It’s always a stressful time for a community, but I know that having your leadership there has always been appreciated every time you’ve been there. Thanks for being inclusive.

I know that it’s a desire of the Parliament to have this bill pass, and also it has gone across Governments as well, because some of these changes were first suggested even as early as, and some of the lessons learnt in this bill came from instances like, the Christchurch earthquake. So, this has been a long time coming. We’ve had a problem, really, in New Zealand that we’ve kept having disasters. We keep learning from them, and we’ve been trying to change the legislation, so actually to get this here to second reading is a big achievement. It was a pleasure too—I didn’t make it through the whole select committee process but I did hear all of the submissions, and it was really good to get it through that stage and hear the different submissions.

I don’t think a bill like this will ever be perfect, and you’ve heard from colleagues, including our spokesperson Cushla. I’m immensely proud to see her in her role as emergency management spokesperson for Labour, because she’s really passionate about it and also because she’s lived this. She’s lived this in her community. She’s lived through disasters. She’s volunteered. She’s knows the pressure that comes from living in a community that is at the mercy of weather and climate change, and she gets in there and she mucks in and she knows what it’s like to be there on the ground. I think she’s really well-placed to do this work.

There will, obviously, always be things that can be better with this bill. It’s not exactly the same as the bill that was introduced by, I think, Kieran McAnulty or Kiri Allan under the last Labour Government, but there are very similar aspects to it and the tenor of most of the improvements has remained the same. It also, very importantly, has learnt from the 2023 events that we had with Cyclone Gabrielle and with the Auckland flooding. This is an unusual area. I’m sure the Minister will agree that this couldn’t be more serious, because we’re talking about life and death—getting it right is important, and we have to do everything we can to make the response as safe as possible—but, in a response, you never see a better side of New Zealand than when people are responding to an emergency. People are hopeful. They’re optimistic. They muck in. They help their neighbour.

I just think this is where New Zealanders really shine in these situations, and it’s unfortunate that it’s so often tinged with a great sense of loss. Often we see that sense of loss and that feeling—once the original emergency has subsided, we see that sense of loss. I want to have an upbeat speech because I’m really positive about this bill, but we have had some terrible disasters, and the Mauao situation with the slip was just so utterly tragic, and I want to acknowledge Tom Rutherford there as well for his commitment to the response there.

That was extremely difficult for the community and I think something for the entire country to acknowledge, the danger of slips. This is an area that I was working in. To be fair, I feel that this is much more prominent now, in my mind, in terms of assessing the risks of disaster than it had been. In many ways, it’s similar to how I hadn’t fully appreciated the risk of flooding and rain until the Auckland floods as well. So we do learn from these situations, but we do have to stand alongside families. I will never forget that service where the families were there. That was incredibly moving and I think a real testament to the community in Mount Maunganui, to come together to support those families. Just wanting to acknowledge, obviously—whenever we talk about these tragedies, we have to acknowledge the families who are the ones affected and we do what we can as elected members to support people.

So this bill has changed a little bit since it was first introduced, and there are a couple of areas that the select committee changed that I think deserve mentioning. There had been a few changes that it’s become apparent were needed as the bill was really progressing through the House, and one of those ones was enabling mayors to be sworn in early. Now, this is a really interesting one because we had a situation where mayors have a very important role in our emergency management system, leading the response. We had a few situations where it wasn’t quite clear, because it was during an election period, which mayor we were meant to be relying on. That’s not really OK because in emergencies you do need a leadership structure. You need a hierarchy of when decisions are made and you need those decisions to be made, if they are decisions that should be left for someone who’s elected democratically, to be made by that democratic representative. So I think the ability to enable mayors to be sworn in actually might seem like an unusual thing, but, actually, because we have events so often in New Zealand, that probably will be something that does come up again.

I think enabling people to be co-opted is also additionally an important aspect of making sure that all of the skills are there on an emergency management committee, because sometimes you might have some communities that do have that expertise and there’s more often than not a wealth of expertise, but you might not have all the skills. So enabling that is also really important, too.

There’s also a slight change in requiring engagement and representatives of iwi Māori, and Cushla Tangaere-Manuel spoke to that earlier. This was an area which has changed a little bit since the bill that the last Labour Government put in place. So the rules in relation to engagement with Māori are not as strong as they were under our proposal. So it’s good to see that this proposal encouraging engagement is there as well.

I don’t think this is a political thing or anything that anyone would disagree with, that the response from iwi Māori and marae in disasters is exceptional throughout the country, and it is built into the way that marae are set up. For a country that experiences these events, they’re set up perfectly to respond to the events. I don’t think that’s an accident; I think that’s to do with the way that tikanga have evolved and the way that marae have evolved in order to deal with events over the time. So we just see again and again marae, iwi, and hapū standing up. I think what we haven’t been as good at in this House in the past, and I hope with this bill we can get better at it, is not just expecting that and saying thank you and moving on. It’s actually resourcing those marae to be able to do, with their leadership that actually respond, in the best way that they can, the way they want to with our support, and not only taking when we’re in need, but actually supporting those marae to step up and do the job that they have always done in New Zealand, you know, well before any of us were here and will do well after all of us are gone as well. So that is a really important thing too.

The issues around climate adaptation are important. This isn’t a bill that solves all of the future issues associated with extreme events. There are issues which are still on the table, and I know the Minister’s been working on a joined-up system in relation to making sure that people in different parts of New Zealand, when there’s a disaster in another area, can step up and use the same operating system, and, actually, we can utilise a much bigger workforce because of that common operating model. That’s tricky work. It’s expensive. There are a lot of existing operating models. But I think that that work is something that I would encourage the Minister to continue with and I know he has been doing that in the latest Budget.

The other issue is with climate mitigation. Of course, that’s so interlinked with a lot of this emergency management work. There is more to do in that space, and we have to acknowledge the fact, as a country, that we will be, especially with the confirmed El Nino weather pattern that we’re having, having these systems and these issues again and again. So this bill is a great step in the right direction. It was built on the work of this Government, this Minister, and previous Ministers, and it will be something that future Governments will work on in the future. All we can do is take the best advice, do the best we can, and make sure we do everything we can to keep New Zealanders safe in emergencies. I commend this bill to the House.

14:46

Thank you, Mr Speaker. ACT supports this bill and the necessary changes, in particular extending protection from civil liability to persons with functions, duties, or powers under the bill, who considers an imminent threat of an emergency and take preventative or precautionary actions, actions designed to limit the impacts of the emergency on people and property.

This is because during the 2023 Cyclone Gabrielle and other similar flood and storm events, people with decision-making power have often felt reluctant to take the necessary measures. Putting an excavator into a river to clear debris comes with risks of prosecution under the Resource Management Act (RMA). Putting an excavator or a bulldozer on to a beach to clear a river mouth comes risk of prosecution under the RMA. So it is important that new defences are established in this law so that when individuals, private people who might have a digger or a dozer, want to get in and do something to stop the flood damaging property or potentially harming people’s lives, they can do it. So, on that basis alone and for many other reasons, ACT commends this bill.

14:48

Mr Speaker, thanks. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on this bill, proud of the work that we did as the Governance and Administration Committee. I just want to pick three things very quickly. The first one of them, as Camilla Belich has already said, was empowering mayors during that interregnum period, between an election and being formally sworn in, to actually declare emergencies. That was a real issue that arose last year and was something that the mayor certainly raised with me. So we fixed that. That’s great.

Second one is being able to take, as Simon Court just said, a proactive action where there is an emergency looming. Think about the Wairoa River Bar. Action wasn’t taken quick enough—Wairoa flooded. Also Lakes Forsyth and Ellesmere—again, floods caused by the lack of proactive action. This will empower that.

The third one is the Minister said the new clause 43A is clearly linking between councils’ emergency management powers. If you’re the emergency management controller or you’re the chief executive of a council or a mayor of a council, you’ve also got powers under the Resource Management Act, etc. to link those two together. We’ve got to stop building dumb things in dumb places. That was one of the issues for Christchurch City Council. It didn’t want to have development in what is now the red zone. It got forced to do that. We’ve got to empower councils to avoid having dumb things built in dumb places.

The one other thing that I wanted to just mention is a large disagreement on the bill and one small issue, and that is the smallest area in which you can declare an emergency. We think it should be less than a ward. I mean, if you think of areas like Dunedin, if you’ve got an emergency in South Dunedin, why do you need to declare that emergency in Middlemarch as well? Likewise, Gisborne—if it’s an emergency in Te Araroa, why does it affect Gisborne city? So we think that needs to be thought through. Otherwise, great bill. I commend this bill to the House.

Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke with a split call.

14:49

Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka, otirā tēnā rā tātou e te Whare. E tū ana ahau ki te waha i ngā kōrero mā Te Pāti Māori i tēnei rangi mō tēnei o ngā pire.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker; indeed, greetings to all of us in the House. I stand to give voice to statements on behalf of the Māori Party today regarding this particular bill.]

Papaki tū ana ngā tai ki Mauao

I whakanukunukuhia, e whakanekenekehia

I whiua reretia e Hotu a Wahinerua ki te wai

Ki tai wiwī, kia tai wawā

Ki te whai ao, ki te ao mārama

Tihei mauri ora.

[The waves beat continuously against the rocky cliffs of Mauao,

They tried to shift the canoe forward and aloft.

Wahinerua was thrown overboard there by Hotu,

Into the swirling waters, the roaring ocean

To emerge into the world of light

It is the breath of life!]

Ko te take e tū ana ahau ki te waha i ngā kōrero, ki te whakahōnore, ki te tuku whakawhetai atu ki ngā whenua o Mauao. Kātahi anō au ka tae mai i Tauranga Moana, i te rohe o Tauranga, i te mātakinga o ngā tamariki puta noa i te motu e tū ana ki ngā whakataetae ā-motu, Te Tāwharau o ngā Waka, ki ngā kapahaka o te motu. And i te ata tonu au i tuku au ngā whakawhetai ki te maunga, ki a Mauao.

[The reason I stand to give voice to these statements is to honour and give thanks to the lands of Mount Maunganui. I have only just arrived from Tauranga Moana, from the Tauranga region, from watching children from across the country standing in the national competitions, Te Tāwharau o ngā Waka, at the national kapa haka competitions.]

Nō reira, I start my speech with acknowledging that I’ve just flown in from Tauranga this morning from the national kapa haka competition throughout the motu, and acknowledging the land slide at Mauao that I was able to go to this morning. I just want to mihi to all of the civil defence and mihi to the Minister. I acknowledge that there have been over 21 states of emergencies in this country alone this year, and I do want to acknowledge the Minister for his team and making sure that different MPs, like myself, were aware of what’s happening with the National Emergency Management Agency crisis and response team. That’s been really helpful for electorates as well.

The fact that we’ve had 21 local states of emergencies this year this year alone, due to climate crises—that could be floods, that could be landslides, that could be weather events, and also knowing that El Niño has just been confirmed as the state of Aotearoa.

In the first reading, Te Pāti Māori supported this bill with recommendations of implementing a Te Tiriti clause and also specific resourcing for funding to marae. From listening to some of the written submissions that were given in the select committee process, iwi Waikato-Tainui speaks from the strength of 68 marae, intergenerational planning, and a vision grounded in mana motuhake. When emergencies hit, it is not Wellington bureaucracy that first knows which kaumatua need support, which marae can open, which roads are cut off, which whanau are isolated, which whenua is vulnerable, or which awa is rising. The National Iwi Chairs Forum speaks from the collective authority of iwis across the motu, iwi working together to protect our people. Many other iwi submitters know deeply what emergency means. They carry responsibilities as kaitiaki over lands, waters, islands, and communities. Their knowledge is not theoretical; it is lived, it is local; it is intergenerational.

So, for us, it’s also making sure that there is specific funding given to marae prior to a weather crisis event, not after the fact. For many of us, that’s actually what happens: we’re given funding after a weather event has happened. I was able to go to Ōtorohanga during the flooding crisis at the beginning of this year, and the amount of people that marae have—whether they are Māori, non-Māori, community groups, community halls, churches. We also had the museum that was flooded during their time. There were also local schools flooded at that time, and coming together as a community, marae were going through the night and through the day. We would be doing that even if we had a dollar or a million dollars, and we’ll continue to do that.

I think it’s unfair that marae usually carry the brunt with nothing. Being able to be properly resourced, whether it is a flood, whether it is a slip—it’s from the road cones to getting a cups of tea, to housing people overnight, to getting showers for people. It varies all across, and koirā te tikanga o te marae []. E tupu ana ahau i roto i tēnei momo āhuatanga i roto i ngā Koroneihana []:that is the purpose of a maraeI grew up in this kind of paradigm in the Coronation ceremonies you just turn up, and you house people, and that, often, doesn’t come with any money whatsoever. But when you have 21 states of emergency consistently throughout the year, that’s what we’re asking for. Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka.

14:54

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I arise on behalf of the Green Party to speak in support of the Emergency Management Bill (No. 2). I just want to acknowledge the Minister and the work that you have done—I actually really appreciate you staying through these speeches as well—and the impact of the emergencies we have been seeing across the country. I also want to acknowledge the Governance and Administration Committee, which I am a member of, and the work that we have done, and also my Green colleague, Mr Hernandez, who is the portfolio holder for emergency management and has done a lot of the heavy lifting for us in the Green Party as well.

For the Greens—and we support it—we do have a couple of concerns. The bill’s not perfect, and it’s never going to be perfect, but then you can’t let that get in the way of saying that’s it’s actually really good, and therefore that’s why we support it. There are a number of clauses in here that do actually create really good outcomes.

The bill did seek to strengthen the role of iwi Māori during emergency management, which is really good. I did move an amendment to ensure that the costs that they incur were actually reimbursed directly to them. Unfortunately, it was supported by the Labour colleagues that sit on the select committee, but it didn’t pass. They can get reimbursement, but it has to go through local government, which I think is just a bit of a shame because as we heard just before, we have seen 21 emergencies this year. Every time there is an emergency, they open up their doors so quickly and they provide so much in the time of pain. They do that no matter how much money they have. It’s a shame that they still have to go through this truncated way of actually getting money, which could have been, I think, better streamlined. So that is a bit of a concern.

I also just want to highlight something that the Christchurch City Council said. I’m from Christchurch and I worked for the Earthquake Commission at the coal face. I was a Christchurch city councillor, and a resident of Christchurch, obviously. We’ve been through a lot through earthquakes, through fires, through floods, and the mosque attack. I’ve seen the impact of these disasters, these situations, and, actually, how people rise, their communities rise, and the importance of having good emergency management in place.

One of the things that does concern me, and it came from this submission from the city council, was that, once again, it’s the potential of increased costs to city councils and district councils with emergency management that this could put on them at a time when councils themselves are going through quite significant reform and obviously looking towards having rate capping—what pressure this will put on them, and the fact that, for them to do this properly, they need to ensure that they have the support of central government to increase that workforce capacity and financial resourcing to do it. For too long, central government has put pressure on to local government without the resources to go with it to do the job properly.

It is really good to see, at a time of an election, when we have a mayor elect, that they now have that ability to declare those states of emergency. That was obviously a significant gap in the legislation that created a significant workload for the Minister, so it’s really good that that has been sorted.

Another thing I just wanted to note was, obviously, the change to ensure that animal welfare is addressed, which I actually think was quite an important thing to do, to ensure that people can enter properties to ensure that the welfare of animals is looked after in these emergencies, and they’re not just left to suffer. It was really good that that was actually sorted out.

As I said, the Green Party had put forward a different view; that does not mean we don’t support this bill. We absolutely agree with the intention, and therefore, we do support it. There are some concerns around how we ensure that we mitigate against the impacts of climate change and adapt, because it is not going to get better; it will get worse. We can’t just keep having to react every time we have an emergency, because they’re going to keep coming and we need to ensure that we’re actually doing our bit to be more prepared. Kia ora.

15:00

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill replaces the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002. I’d like to acknowledge the Minister in charge, the Hon Mark Mitchell, who has done an amazing amount of work on this. This House is in unanimous agreement and I think it’s wonderful that we can pass this bill through this stage. I commend the bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Firstly, I’d like to say that we support this bill. I want to acknowledge the Minister for his work and especially the inclusion of many members across the House, and in particular those who’ve experienced the need for emergency management. We support this important step in strengthening the emergency management system, because also communities must have their say before an event actually happens.

The progress of this bill could have been faster and stronger, had the Government not scrapped Labour’s original bill, which had been through extensive policy development and public select committee process. Because there have been a number of events across Aotearoa. For some of us, we have been heavily involved, and it’s really important that we acknowledge the partnership of iwi Māori, but also all of the first responders and those in the civil defence space.

It’s important that the efficiency of emergency response is understood. We’re really pleased to see that iwi Māori, in terms of those specific communities, are around the table. I do want to acknowledge a number of speakers on this side of the House who have firsthand experience. For us in Auckland, some of us on the Auckland Anniversary weekend, we had experienced being in the thick of that specific event on that day. So the importance of acknowledging the communities that responded and all the emergency responders, in this bill it’s really important that we identify the specific elements.

I want to acknowledge the select committee members that I was able to listen to the submitters. We were able to collaborate and debate on the specific elements that we wanted to bring forward because of our experience firsthand in different weather events around the country, but also the importance of arriving at the recommendations in select committee that will be able to respond. I do want to acknowledge, too, and reflect back to the event that I was involved in. We were on the motorway on the night of the Auckland Anniversary floods, and we were trying to get through as many people in Auckland were, because what you saw before you was a weather event and absolute chaos. So when you don’t have a system for who is making the call—whether it’s the Mayor of Auckland or a person in charge—this bill addresses that there needs to be very clear communication as to who is responsible for making that call and then spreading it across Aotearoa in whatever shape or form.

What was important in that event? On that Friday evening it was peak hour traffic and people were trying to get across Auckland, children needed to be picked up from daycare, people were finishing work, absolute chaos on the motorway, and people wanted clear leadership and clear information as to what to do. I go back to that time because it was one of those events where we recognised and I’ve heard across the House many colleagues talk about specific events. I can absolutely attest that in that Auckland Anniversary event when Auckland was gridlocked there was just chaos. It was important that we were waiting for the instruction from the Mayor of Auckland at the time, and for whatever reason it wasn’t made until a few hours later. This bill seeks to strengthen that there is really clear communication across the country when a disaster or when a weather event happens.

The importance of the bill and its purpose cannot be underestimated. We were very interested as select committee members that iwi Māori would get the recognition that they deserve because I have seen time and time again in different weather events that take place, iwi Māori and hapū just set themselves up. I want to acknowledge the role that they play. They just get on with the job. I do want to acknowledge their leadership, their aroha for communities, and many times when the emergency management system is not set up adequately, they just respond. I am thankful that we are here now in addressing this bill. So we will be supporting it.

Within this bill, communities need the confidence that there is a framework that is robust, that there is clear communication, that also communities understand—and I’m talking about diverse communities. Because some of the communities when we had to respond as a local team do not speak English. So please don’t make the assumption that when bills from this House are recommended and passed through every stage of the process, there’s the next step that diverse communities need to understand the processes, who makes the call, and who is responsible to communicate that to the community.

I just want to go back to the importance of weather events in big urban places like Auckland, like South Auckland. We saw through that process a number of very good people come forward and offer what they had to help those who were vulnerable and did not know what to do. We had elderly who would not leave their houses. They had to be carried out because they were very frightened and they were very afraid. What we need to understand as a community is the trustedness that vulnerable communities put into officials and people from different responding agencies. So I want to acknowledge those too. I specifically want to acknowledge SPCA in Māngere. Why? Because we had some people in our local community who would not leave their homes, even though they were flooded, because they weren’t going to leave behind their four-legged animals. So I do want to acknowledge them for their role and also the request that they made to the different services of the day.

The bill modernises the civil defence management framework. There were many lessons that have been learnt from Cyclone Gabrielle, the flooding on Auckland Anniversary, and events like Cyclone Hale. We heard from another of our colleagues that just this year alone there have been 21 weather events. So as we’ve heard, the system needs to have strong legislation that then people are very clear across Aotearoa in terms of who makes that call in responding and the resource is really important.

As you heard my other colleague talk about why we were supporting that iwi Māori and hapū would have a very effective and efficient system, but also work alongside the emergency management system. We weren’t supported in terms of a National Māori Emergency Management Advisory Group. I just want to put it out there in terms of the recognition and the acknowledgment of an advisory group that iwi Māori can sit on because they do their thing and they do it very well. Sometimes the connections channels don’t necessarily work, but it’s important that that is acknowledged through this bill and that it is strengthened, so that the people of Aotearoa in different communities and different diverse groups have the acknowledgment and the understanding that the bill will be very clear in terms of its recommendations.

The bill provides full recognition in terms of emergency management. It’s really important that when you’ve got executive groups that there is a clear understanding of the coordination of that. Because, importantly, it provides clarity around national, regional, and local responsibilities, and that it strengthens those planning mechanisms and gives the National Emergency Management Agency the tools to improve the response and readiness. There are specific aspects for those affected communities that they know who to go to, where to go to, and there’s a clearness of the channels of communication that come through. So those specific aspects are really important and they are fully supported by Labour. I commend this bill to the House.

15:09

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I too want to acknowledge the courage and the contribution from our front-line responders to emergency management and also acknowledge the back office, particularly the staff and scientists at MetService and Earth Sciences New Zealand and commend this bill to the House.

Hon Phil Twyford—this is a split call.

15:10

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well done to the Minister, Mark Mitchell, for shepherding this bill through the House in a way that has attracted such wide support across the Parliament. It’s really good to see. It strikes me that this strengthening and modernising of our emergency management framework—the whole system, really—is kind of one of a handful of very, very pressing tasks that the country has as we try to equip ourselves for an era of climate change. Working out what to do about our transport network is another one. Managed retreat to reduce future risk for people and property is another. This is certainly one really important transition we have to make.

Other than the specialists, we all really reach for our own personal experience to try to make sense of these issues, and for me the relevant experience was as a local MP being right in the middle of the anniversary weekend floods in 2023, which had a huge impact in West Auckland. In my electorate alone, there were about 300 homes that had catastrophic flooding, with water knee or waist high inside the house; those homes made uninhabitable; and, on the night, many life-threatening situations, with old people and the disabled being kind of carried out of their homes by people through very high waters in the street.

One of the things that really struck me in the immediate days after the anniversary weekend floods was how little the emergency services actually touched the lives of the people who were affected. By and large, people were basically left to their own devices. I mean, obviously, ambulances and police and first responders and fire were out there, and there were some evacuations going on, and so on, but for a tiny proportion of the number of people affected. The great majority of people were left entirely on their own. Maybe that’s just the way it is. Maybe that’s the way it has to be, I don’t know, but I was shocked by that.

The other thing that I recall and know from those early days, and actually in the weeks that followed, was that both Government agencies and—in West Auckland we’re blessed with this incredible network of community agencies—social sector groups, together they all mobilised. Carmel Sepuloni, a neighbouring MP and also the Minister for Social Development then, was at the welfare hub there. It was truly impressive, actually, to see Government agencies and the NGOs working together, providing income support, food, clothing, and an array of different social services. That was a very impressive part of the immediate post-disaster response.

I wanted to say something else about the cross-party consensus. I think it is extremely important: citizens having confidence that Governments will respond both with efficiency and integrity and in an accountable way is extremely important. As parliamentarians and anyone in Government, it is at our peril if Government doesn’t deliver for citizens in times of emergency. There are many examples, not really in New Zealand but internationally. I think of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The political backlash when Governments don’t do a good job and aren’t there to protect their citizens in moments of need can be pretty formidable.

I wanted to make just a brief comment about the importance—not only in Labour’s process in the bill that we had but in this bill and in the Government’s inquiry that they did that informed this bill—of marae. It says something about this unique institution in New Zealand society. It strikes me as an interesting analogy in COVID, when it was very clear that the Ministry of Health—central government—couldn’t reach down into the community to deliver the vaccination programme and was reliant on marae and Māori organisations and community-based primary health organisations. This is another example, I think, of how critical marae are for the delivery of emergency services, and it’s great to see that being recognised so fulsomely in this bill.

15:15

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Emergency Management Bill (No 2) replaces the Civil Defence (Emergency Management) Act 2002, ensuring that we are fixing the basics on dealing with significant emergencies that affect multiple regions all at once. I commend this bill to the House.

It’s my understanding from Mr Speaker that Labour had an earlier call and have forfeited this call.

I just want to commend the Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery on the way he’s built a team and cohesion around delivering this plan, just as the National Party focused on building the future resilience. This is a key part of that. I commend this bill to the House.

15:16

I present a legislative statement on the Regulatory Systems (Social Security) Amendment Bill (No 2).

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

I move, That the Regulatory Systems (Social Security) Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read for a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill.

This amendment bill is an omnibus bill that amends legislation administered by the Ministry of Social Development and the New Zealand Defence Force. Specifically, the bill makes a number of minor policy and technical changes to the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001, the Social Security Act 2018, and the Veterans’ Support Act 2014, and repeals the Family Benefits (Home Ownership) Act 1964. This bill is intended to improve the provision of social welfare benefits. The amendments in the bill will update statutory provisions, address regulatory duplication gaps and errors, and bring legislation up to date with public expectations. The bill will reduce the chance of regulatory failure and unintended consequences that harm the wellbeing of New Zealanders. The changes are small and do not warrant stand-alone bills, but together the changes will ensure greater effectiveness and efficiency of the social welfare system.

The first minor policy change is to extend the sustainable employment trial for supported living payment recipients from 26 weeks to a maximum period of 104 weeks. The supported living payment is a benefit payable to people who are permanently and severely restricted in their capacity to work because of a health condition, injury, disability, or because they are totally blind. The purpose of the sustainable employment trial is to encourage and support supported living payment recipients who want to move into employment or increase their hours of work to establish whether they can sustain that employment and cease receiving the benefit.

Feedback from health and disability stakeholders and international evidence indicates that the fear of losing the supported living payment entitlement can be a significant barrier to work and that 26 weeks is not long enough for some recipients to test their ability to work. Furthermore, increasing hours of work incrementally over a longer period better supports people to sustain employment and become independent. Extending the sustainable employment trial to two years will therefore improve incentives for supported living payment recipients to work as much as they can, leading to a better financial position and improved wellbeing outcomes for those who can participate.

The second policy change is to ensure that residents of the Realm countries of Niue, Cook Islands, and Tokelau cannot use social security agreements to meet the residence requirements for New Zealand superannuation and the veteran’s pension. Social security agreements are bilateral treaties between Governments that provide for the reciprocal payment of social security benefits and pensions. These agreements are intended to apply to the residence of the two agreement partner countries. However, the Ministry of Social Development has advised that a court would likely find that some of New Zealand’s social security agreements could apply to people applying for New Zealand superannuation or the veteran’s pension while resident in the Realm countries.

Social security agreements are not intended to apply to residents of the Realm countries. Realm countries do not have the resources to participate in the cost-sharing aspects of social security agreements. Instead, New Zealand superannuation special portability provisions are extended to the residents of the Realm. Therefore, the bill will amend the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 and the Veterans’ Support Act 2014 to exclude the application of social security agreements to Realm country residents.

The third minor policy change will enable people who are live organ donors to be eligible for an emergency benefit payment equivalent to the rate of the supported living payment. Currently, a supported living payment recipient who is caring for a person who would otherwise require hospital or residential care is not eligible to receive supported living payments should they be recovering from surgery for a live organ donation. This is because they are not caring for someone while they are recovering from surgery, which is a criterion to receive the supported living payment—caring. Instead, they are transferred on to the emergency benefit while they are in their recovery period and can only receive the rate of the equivalent main benefit that they would be entitled to, which is either the jobseeker support or sole parent support. This anomaly in the supported living payment does not align with the Compensation for Live Organ Donors Act 2016, which is designed to remove financial deterrents to the donation of organs by live donors. Therefore, the bill will establish explicit legal authority to pay emergency benefit to clients at the same rate that they were receiving on the supported living payment on the ground of caring for another person for a period of up to 12 weeks after the donation.

As I noted earlier, the bill also contains minor technical amendments. These minor amendments are mostly related to the Social Security Act 2018 and the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001. Rather than go through each technical amendment, let me highlight the common themes behind the changes. The majority of the proposed amendments will address errors or omissions found following the rewrite of the Social Security Act 1964 to the Social Security Act 2018. Other changes are aimed to improve the provision of social welfare benefits and strengthen the performance of the social security system. There are also changes which will repeal redundant legislation. For example, the bill will repeal section 190A of the Veterans’ Support Act 2014, which has been replaced by section 127 of the Legislation Act 2019.

In conclusion, it can be difficult to find time on the parliamentary calendar for repairs and maintenance of existing legislation. This amendment bill is a vehicle for smaller regulatory fixes to be progressed in a timely and cost-effective way in order to improve the provision of social welfare benefits. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

15:23

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a short call on the Regulatory Systems (Social Security) Amendment Bill (No 2).

I do want to remind the House that this bill was first introduced on 30 April 2024 but was discharged. I think we can all remember what happened at the time, and I think some of us found it quite ironic that that was the case—that the Minister for Social Development and Employment didn’t turn up to work that day. But here we are, apparently in a timely and more cost-effective way, making these amendments through an omnibus bill under urgency because this was discharged back on 23 July 2024. I’m not sure why it is that we are, in July 2026, now fixing up this error that was made.

Check your email.

Oh, it might be Gmail—that’s what you all use on that side, isn’t it? [Interruption] Anyway—this is going to be easy, to fill my five minutes.

OK. Order! Order! The member’s made her points now. We’ll come to the bill.

Kia ora.

Thank you.

Now, coming to the bill that we have before us in July 2026, the disclosure statement says that it’s important that the legislative framework for social development is fit for purpose, and, as the Minister outlined in her legislative statement, this is about ensuring that we are maintaining the currency of our legislation. It does make minor policy changes and minor technical amendments, and the idea is that the changes are intended to improve the provision of social welfare benefits and the functioning of the overall social security system and that it will make it easier for the Ministry of Social Development to perform its duties.

There are some changes from the original bill to what we have before us now, and I’ve looked at the updates between the first and the second versions. Again, they are largely minor and technical corrections, cross-reference fixes, but there are a couple that have meaningful structural difference—for example, clause 15 with the accommodation supplement. Then we have a new clause 17, which amends section 304A, and that is a cross-reference. Then we have minor drafting changes. I note, from listening to the Minister’s speech and also reading the legislative statement that has been tabled, that all of those changes are outlined there, and there’s quite a list. That, essentially, is the main point about this—to fix up these minor and technical changes.

One thing I did want to point out for the House, from the disclosure statement, is just the point around the consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. In there, there was advice to the Attorney-General. It was noted that the amendment “prima facie limits the right to freedom from discrimination on the grounds of family status. However, it also noted that ‘Social security legislation necessarily targets limited government assistance to those most in need of it. Assistance and obligations on those receiving it are then tailored to suit individual circumstances. Eligibility for benefits and obligations on beneficiaries are inherently discriminatory as they are based on drawing distinctions on many prohibited grounds.’ The advice goes on to say that ‘We consider the amendment serves the important objective in minimising the use of limited government assistance to support people who are unlawfully or temporarily in New Zealand’ ” and therefore concludes that it “appears to be consistent with the rights and freedoms affirmed in the Bill of Rights Act.”

I think it’s important to point that out, and one of the things I was thinking about when I was reading this is that this is in the case of what is provided for in legislation versus what might be provided for in letters of expectation or performance management of staff members in making discretionary decisions. This is clearly—and I’m less concerned because this is clearly—about what is in legislation.

I don’t have much more to add other than these are largely minor and technical amendments for consistency and to ensure that we have the overall functioning of the social security system, and that it’s easier for the Ministry of Social Development to perform its duties. Kia ora.

15:28

Thank you so much, Madam Speaker. The Green Party is supporting the Regulatory Systems (Social Security) Amendment Bill (No 2) at its first reading. I did want to take the opportunity to comment on the context of why we are debating this bill just now. I think there is something to be said about the fact that if the Ministers applied the same standards they do to beneficiaries, they would probably be on the red or yellow light in the traffic light system, as beneficiaries often are put if they fail to meet some of their obligations or requirements. But, here we are today, and I do want to echo that these bills are intended to address small, non-controversial changes that ideally would garner cross-party support—tidy-ups; things that may have not been identified. I notice and echo the comments from the Minister for Social Development and Employment that it seems like some of these changes have to do with omissions that were not codified in the rewrite of the Social Security Act that was finalised in the first term of the previous Labour Government.

This was supposed to be a policy-neutral rewrite, and I guess it raises a question, for example, with the changes in clause 10. From what I have read, it seems like this is just codifying existing practice. I’d be keen to understand the legal basis for that practice, seeing as that wasn’t carried over in the rewrite that occurred in 2018, and that is something that we are interested in being able to unpack in the select committee stage. What was the legal basis for the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to continue that practice, seeing as it wasn’t carried over in the 2018 rewrite? That, to me, is something that raises some questions, and I note that, obviously, this was part of what was analysed—not so much the sort of legality of continuing the practice but whether it limited any of the rights and freedoms affirmed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. There’s some commentary in there, as well, that will be worthwhile unpacking in the select committee stage.

The reason why I’m focusing on clause 10 is that we know, in this country, there are about 20,000 people, according to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s estimates, who are without a visa here. Many of them will have connections to people who are eligible for a benefit. Many of them will also be having family members and children that were born here in this country—children who have never been or lived in another country at all. Therefore, I guess there’s a question of, for example, whether the provisions and codifying previous practice that were applied under the Social Security Act 1964 are contributing to material hardship for those families and for the children involved.

The reason why I say this is that the codification of the existing practice relies on calculating both people’s assets and incomes together but then the person receiving a single rate of a benefit. What that means is that the threshold to qualify for a benefit, when it comes to the calculation of joint incomes and assets, is pretty low. You don’t have to earn a lot as a couple to fully lose your eligibility to a benefit. I guess it would be useful to understand whether MSD, for example, has any data or information on how many people have not been able to access a benefit due to the provisions in clause 10 that are being codified through this bill. This is, I guess, one of the bits of the legislation that I would hope gets a little bit of further scrutiny, because the fact that we have had the rewrite of 2018 for about eight years now and this kind of being left out, in what was supposed to be a policy-neutral rewrite, raises questions of exactly how MSD has been applying, for example, the approach of giving someone the rate of a single person while also at the same time calculating both people’s incomes and assets for the purpose of eligibility criteria.

I would invite people who tend to work with undocumented migrants to submit to the select committee so that we can understand exactly how this will apply to a demographic that is often more vulnerable to exploitation, who often are more vulnerable to financial stress, and who, ultimately, are part of our communities and our societies. Like I said, many of them are raising family members who would have been born here and know no other country.

With that, we are supporting this bill, and we look forward to being able to unpack some of the less non-controversial bits of this amendment. Thank you very much.

15:33

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The ACT Party is supporting the Regulatory Systems (Social Security) Amendment Bill (No 2). This bill is intended to improve the administration of social welfare and is intended to fix technical errors and omissions. It does not make any significant underlying policy setting changes.

The Minister for Social Development and Employment has already described the changes that this bill makes. They are minor policy changes. Otherwise, they are just omissions that are being corrected—drafting errors that are being corrected. The ACT Party really believes in ensuring that our laws are kept up to date, they are clear, and they are fit for purpose, and Parliament should not be waiting for any big problems arising from these kinds of errors in our legislation. It’s really important that we fix these things as soon as possible, so I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

15:34

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Regulatory Systems (Social Security) Amendment Bill (No 2). This bill is to fix a number of common-sense fixes, correcting errors, clarifying rules, and removing redundant laws. I commend it to the House.

I rise to speak on this bill. This is a sensible bill that will simplify the legislation and make it fit for purpose and operate effectively by making minor policy and technical amendments and ensure that we are fixing the basics so that we can build the future of this country. I commend the bill to the House.

Madam Speaker, thank you. This bill is coming to my committee, and I’m pleased to see it come.

Our committee.

Our committee, in fact. Absolutely, I’ll correct that. There are some great people on the Social Services and Community Committee, and we will take it extremely seriously. It is one that is a cluster of quite technical changes. It is one that will take a little bit of getting our heads around, in terms of some of the things that are in it, but it will also be a real opportunity for us to look at the system we have and make it better.

I wanted to go through some of the things about the bill that have caught my eye. I was interested that we were repealing the Family Benefits (Home Ownership) Act 1964. Now, many people watching will remember—if they’re old enough—that many of our parents got their first home through this Act, which was the capacity to take the family benefit, bundle it up, and then it was coupled with, I think, a 3 percent interest rate on the home loan. My parents were parents affected like that. They were not from any kind of inheritance. They had no money behind them. They were, in fact, in a little town called Kawerau, which some of my colleagues know well. They were able to buy a house under that scheme. So, in some ways, I’m going to be sad to see that gone from the statute book, because I think it’s a really interesting idea and it made a big difference in New Zealand. And we do, after all, have a housing crisis.

I also wanted to just mention the part of the bill that talks about extending the sustainable employment trial. Now, this looks to me like a really good part of the bill. It’s for people who are recipients of benefits—supported living in particular—based on medical grounds. They are able to work 15 hours at the moment, for a period of up to 26 weeks, without losing that entitlement. But then it stops. It actually puts people into a situation where the international evidence suggests that people are worried to go and do that work because they’re worried that that benefit, that backstop, will stop. What is good about this legislation is that it extends the sustainable employment trial to 104 weeks, and that just seems like a really good idea. People are moving into work. It gives them a capacity to do that. That looks like a very good part of the legislation.

Another part of this legislation is the extension of benefit entitlements to people on supported living payments who are caring for live organ donors. My recall is that there’s another part of this Act that dovetails in with that and looks after people in that situation in a way that hasn’t been possible until now. Now, it did say in the notes that I’ve received that nobody’s actually been put in that terrible position of not getting that kind of cover as a caregiver until now, but it’s really nice that we’re getting ahead of it and we’re making sure that we’re not disincentivising that at all.

One other thing I just noticed in the bill, in clause 16, is that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) may grant a child disability allowance for a child with a serious disability if someone is caring for them. I was really interested to see that it’s somebody who’s in a private home and there’s an accommodation part of that as well. I like to see that kind of discretion being given to MSD. I think we take away too many discretions, and that can cause real harm. The people who are working in these departments—it’s great if they’ve got the capacity to do something in a humane way and support people. I look forward to seeing this bill in my select committee.

15:39

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This of course is the Regulatory Systems (Social Security) Amendment Bill (No 2). It is a small—well, it is a complicated bill, actually, for the Social Services and Community Committee. But, basically, it’s small tidy-ups and non-controversial fix-its, and I commend the bill to the House.

15:40

Kia ora. It is good to take a call on the Regulatory Systems (Social Security) Amendment Bill (No 2). I acknowledge that this is a technical-change bill, but, as the previous speaker Dana Kirkpatrick mentioned, it is complicated for the Social Services and Community Committee. So I look forward to that process.

I wanted to start, really, by acknowledging all of the people involved in the Ministry of Social Development (MSD)—all of the people that work there and all of the people that receive the support of the Ministry of Social Development. It’s a huge ministry that does very, very valuable work, and it’s good to tidy up some bits and pieces to make sure that the ministry is operating at a level that is manageable for staff and those accessing the services. I see this bill as fixing up some of those minor policy changes and technical amendments, which will hopefully go towards a more effective use of MSD for all those involved.

The legislation that is being affected: the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001, the Social Security Act 2018, and the Veterans’ Support Act 2014, as well as the repeal of the Family Benefits (Home Ownership) Act 1964. These changes will make sure that the legislation is fit for purpose for the Ministry of Social Development. The ministry, when it’s most effective, ensures that people receive the right support at the right time, improves individual wellbeing, and strengthens communities across New Zealand, and this bill I see as making it easier for MSD to perform its duties.

I think it’s an important time for us to be having this discussion. You know, outside of this bill, MSD is in the news around targets, in their use of targets for staff, which could be used to see as gaming the system in emergency housing and putting pressure on staff to reach their targets in order to reach the approval of management.

The issue there is what’s happening with the data and if people are being processed through the system as they should into emergency housing or if they are pushed off in other directions, and what pressure staff might feel in order to reach those targets. That’s not something that we want, and it’s something that we need to make sure that people are getting access to—affordable housing in whatever case that might look like—while also being a very effective service and not taking too much time to get people the support that they need. This is a good bill in order to tidy up some of those.

It would be good to see this Government go a lot further than they have in regards to support within MSD, and I hope to see a subsequent bill that addresses the huge inequities in our society concerning people’s access to housing, as I mentioned earlier. But this bill, with its minor policy changes, will do that. I hope that it allows the ministry to promote its value of getting people into employment and independent through jobseeker assistance, training, and employment programmes, and also go further to protect children and families by connecting people with services that will improve their wellbeing and safety.

I wanted to, just before I finish, speak a little bit to the differences between the first and the second version. Other speakers have spoken to their concern around what happened with the first version and why we’re in urgency now on the second version, so I won’t go over that again. But there are some differences in the legislation between the first and the second version, particularly around the accommodation supplement under clause 15, the new clause 17, clause 21, and a new clause 24. Labour does support this bill, and I look forward to hearing back after select committee.

15:45

Look, this bill makes minor technical policy amendments to help ensure the legislation is fit for purpose. It’s all about fixing the basics so we can get on with building the future.

The question is, That the Regulatory Systems (Social Security) Amendment Bill (No 2) be considered by the Social Services and Community Committee.

I move, That the order of the day for the second reading of the Regulatory Systems (Courts) Amendment Bill be discharged and the bill be referred to the Justice Committee for consideration of Amendment Paper 635 in my name.

15:46

I present the legislative statements on the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill.

Those legislative statements are published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

I am pleased to speak to these bills in the House again today. As I noted in my first reading speech, the regulatory system amendment bills are one of the ways that this Government maintains and repairs existing legislation and ensures that our regulatory systems deliver for New Zealanders. At a high level, these two bills reflect the Government’s commitment to delivering fit for purpose regulation and to improving access to justice. They will have a significant impact on the regulatory regimes that govern tribunals and occupational regulation, enhancing their effectiveness and efficiency while improving consumer protection and the quality of justice legislation.

The Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill makes practical improvements to tribunals and quasi-judicial bodies. It removes barriers to justice by allowing successful applicants in the Disputes Tribunal to recover their filing fee from the respondent where it is appropriate. It strengthens the regulation of the private security industry by providing more effective information-gathering powers to investigate breaches. It also streamlines appointments and employment arrangements for tribunal members to ensure these bodies operate efficiently.

The Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill strengthens protections for both consumers and regulated professionals while reducing unnecessary compliance costs. One important change allows conveyancers’ professional undertakings to be enforced in the High Court, just as lawyers’ undertakings already are. This promotes competition in the conveyancing market and benefits consumers.

The bill also removes a disproportionately harsh penalty that automatically disqualifies real estate agents from practising for five years simply because they failed to complete continuing professional development or pay fees on time. That issue has been recognised by the profession for many years, and this bill delivers a more proportionate response. At the same time, the bill strengthens the Real Estate Authority’s ability to investigate unlicensed trading and ensure licensee’s meet their obligations, improving consumer confidence in the industry.

Both bills have benefited from the select committee process, and I would like to thank the Justice Committee and the Education and Workforce Committee for their careful consideration, along with everyone who made submissions. Their constructive feedback has resulted in sensible improvements.

The Justice Committee has clarified the role of the Complaints, Investigations and Prosecution Unit when dealing with complaints about unlicensed private security operators. The Education and Workforce Committee has recommended that the Real Estate Authority’s new powers be exercised on a reasonable basis and clarified that provisions relating to unsatisfactory conduct apply only where behaviour is connected to a licensee’s professional role and affects public confidence in the profession. These are practical improvements that make already sensible bills even stronger.

I also thank officials and the Parliamentary Counsel Office for their work in developing these bills. Whether someone is taking a claim to the Disputes Tribunal, buying a home through a conveyancer, or working as a real estate agent, these reforms will make our regulatory systems fairer, more efficient, and easier to navigate. They demonstrate this Government’s commitment to good regulatory stewardship, maintaining the laws we already have, reducing unnecessary compliance, improving access to justice, and ensuring regulations work for the people they are meant to serve. I commend these bills to the House.

15:51

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be able to take a call on not one but two bills at the same time, the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill. These bills cover quite a few different things, and I’ll talk about them both briefly. Essentially, as I understand, there was a programme that went through where four regulatory systems amendment bills administered by the Ministry of Justice were looked at, and I think this goes alongside the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Courts) Amendment Bill, which we’ve just had re-referred to select committee prior to this.

For anyone getting papers from the Table, be very careful about which regulatory systems bill you pick up, because there are three on the Table—well, at least two or three on the Table at the moment.

Very good advice.

So considerate.

Thank you. I have looked at these bills—and I’ve looked quite carefully just to check, as a good Opposition spokesperson should do—and they do appear in all my analysis to be minor and technical, and I was unable to kind of find any fish-hooks in either of them so far.

The interesting—well, interesting for me; maybe not for anyone else. I was on the Education and Workforce Committee but, sadly, just missed hearing the submissions on the occupational bill, and now I am on the Justice Committee, but I also missed hearing the submissions on the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill. It does appear that both select committees have done a thorough job in looking through these proposals and have made some sensible changes as well, which I think the Minister for Courts touched on.

I do note, from the Table—and I just quickly looked at them, so I may not have taken my own advice on noticing which regulatory system all the amendments related to! I did notice some amendments there from the Minister too, so I’m sure, when we get to the committee stage, she’ll explain what those amendments are and what they do. Again, we have looked at those, and they do appear to be minor and technical, along the lines of what these bills are meant to do.

Just briefly on both bills, I’ll start with the tribunals bill, which we will move on to look at more closely in the committee stage. It is a bill that’s structured in a way that we will be able to have a much closer look at in the committee stage, too, because it is an omnibus bill that does amend, I think, five different bills: the Disputes Tribunal Act 1988, the Motor Vehicle Sales Act 2003, the Parole Act, the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Act, and the Unit Titles Act 2010. We’ll be able to look at those in a little bit more detail at this time.

I suppose one criticism is that I’m not 100 percent convinced these are very urgent bills. We are in urgency. In the real world, it’s a Friday; here, it’s still 30 June, a Tuesday. We are a little bit unconvinced about the urgency of these, considering they are, as the Minister said, minor and technical. None the less, that is not my call to make, so we will look through them.

Just to finish off on the tribunals bill, this bill does make a number of changes to those Acts that I did state before. I suppose, notably, a few things about that bill are the fact that you can get a filing fee back for the Disputes Tribunal. I think that’s a good change. I think people are probably surprised that that wasn’t already something you could claim back, and, obviously, it’s a disincentive for people to seek justice through the Disputes Tribunal, so I commend the Minister for bringing in that change. There are some interesting changes to private security. I mean, that always is something you do look at more closely, and so we will have some questions for the Minister around some of those changes. They do seem reasonable, though.

Then, to move to the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill, this has three major policy proposals: the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act, the Prostitution Reform Act, and the Real Estate Agents Act. There are some sensible changes there as well. I think the Prostitution Law Reform Act changes are around the people who are able to hold a certificate to operate a brothel and making sure that there’s alignment between that and the Crimes Act and the Misuse of Drugs Act, which I think appears to be sensible. It also allows some changes to the Law Society’s complaints mechanism, which I think appears to be sensible. For example, there’s discretion given to the Law Society, rather than an automatic referral of a complaint. I think you can also see the potential value in that.

There’s a new name in this as well, for the Real Estate Agents Authority is now the Real Estate Authority, which I think sounds better. I can’t make much more comment than that. I don’t know why they decided to change it. They did also decide to change the membership of the now—well, soon after this passes—Real Estate Authority, so that the chairperson doesn’t have to be a lawyer. As a former lawyer, I support opening up leadership opportunities for non-lawyers. That’s also a good change. They do, importantly, have to have a lawyer on the authority, but it just doesn’t have to be the chairperson—so there we go; hopefully, everyone will remember that. There’s also some discretion in relation to licences for real estate agents, and I know, in emergency situations, sometimes licences lapse, and so those changes have been made following events that we all lived through with Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland floods. Anyway, there’s some further discretion there.

We will have the opportunity to look at these bills separately. It’s kind of an odd situation talking about two bills at a second reading—two different select committee processes; two different sets of recommendations—and then we’ll have two totally separate committee stages. We will be able to look at that more closely, but I think, just reflecting that this is also the job of this House, not everything we do here is on hugely controversial pieces of legislation or pieces of legislation that we feel very passionate about. The fact that we’re all here on a Friday doing this work because it makes the law of New Zealand work better should be commended. With that in mind, I commend both of these bills to the House.

15:59

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa to speak to these two associated bills, the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill.

I want first to address some of the context around these two bills. As we see with the regulatory impact statement—and I think, from the previous contribution by my colleague Georgie Dansey, I now can’t look at “RIS” in the same way without thinking it’s “rizz”. But I do believe that these two bills very much do have rizz, despite the fact that they may come across as being reasonably boring.

That’s a test of generations.

Thank you, Tom Rutherford. As a millennial, I very much appreciate that particular shout-out.

I think, in terms of the context, this is a broader suite being brought by the Minister for Courts around the regulatory systems justice package. Now, we have just heard previously that as one part of this package, the Regulatory Systems (Courts) Amendment Bill is being recommitted into the select committee stage, and we’ll be interested to have further opportunities to analyse that particular bill.

The other bills that are part of this package that actually extended beyond simply a regulatory systems bill were the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill and the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism (Supervisor, Levy, and Other Matters) Amendment Bill (AML/CFT) bills, and those two bills previously were also associated. I am looking forward to the committee stage for these two bills, and hopefully we won’t have the same hilarious, I guess, incidents we had with the two AML/CFT bills, where we kind of crossed over a little bit, and that was much to this House’s enjoyment in general.

In terms of the two bills that we have here—the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill—it is also important to understand that often we do have a lot of these regulatory systems bills. We just saw the first reading of one on social development, and a few days ago in calendar days—but not so much in House days, because it’s still Tuesday here in the House—we saw the Regulatory Systems (Primary Industries) Amendment Bill. It’s always what we consider as sort of housekeeping bills to update our legislation overall in a collaborative, non-partisan way, because for a lot of these—as we understand—as primary legislation, the only way to amend them is through Parliament and through this House. These are a way for us to group a lot of that together, and we have other mechanisms around some of the other updates as well—statutes amendment bills being a really great example of that.

I’m going to start with the first bill, actually, which is the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill, which was heard by the Education and Workforce Committee. Now, I do want to say that originally the Green Party opposed this bill, but after going through the select committee stage—and this is particularly due to the Real Estate Agents Act 2018. We did have some concerns around this part of the bill, but I just also want to acknowledge the Minister during the select committee process for her transparency in terms of responding to our questions, which has reassured us that the particular way around the registration or in terms of unsatisfactory conduct, after hearing from the officials, is something that is more severe than any other professions that we have seen. I think in order for us to maintain that consistency, we were happy with what we’ve heard both from the officials but also from the Minister regarding this particular section.

We did look at some of the comparable jurisdictions around de-registration, whether it is conveyors, whether it is from other professions, lawyers, etc. Again, upon balance, from what we’ve been told by the officials, it is something that is more on the other extreme end. We are happy with where that particular part has landed, so I think overall, in terms of both regulatory systems bills, the Green Party will be supporting both. I think when we did the first reading of this, it is quite unusual in general for a political party to oppose a regulatory systems bill, and we didn’t do that lightly. But, again, like I said, we are happy with where we’ve landed.

Just in terms of the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill, it is important to note that other than the Real Estate Agents Act, there are also other additional parts that have been touched on that this bill encompasses as well—lawyers and conveyors being one of them. We will be just checking a few more things with the Minister as we go through the committee stage, but also noting that for this bill, the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill, but also for the tribunals, the Ministers do have some additional amendments to this, which we’ll be able to hopefully check with the Minister during the committee stage as well. I think at this stage, both of them, in terms of updates, also seem reasonable, but I just want to be able to make sure, since we’re only seeing these two quite recently.

The other bill that I want to touch on, the second bill we’re looking at, the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill—there are sort of five parts to this. Again, we’ve seen just previously when we are talking about whether it is the Community Magistrates Legislation Amendment Bill, or I mentioned previously in terms of the Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill, it is a way for us to look at how we’re able to ensure that we have timeliness. I think overall, whether it’s tribunals, whether it’s community magistrates, in a lot of the conversations we’ve had, what is important from our perspective and from the Greens’ perspective is, number one, in terms of some of the delays we’re seeing in our justice system but also in terms of some of that access.

Again, some of the things we’re seeing here, particularly with regards to the Disputes Tribunal Act and also the Parole Act, for example, hopefully, once these bills are passed through the House, we’ll see some changes that will allow us to have more of an impact in terms of the ability for people to access justice in different ways, of course noting, as we discussed with the previous bills with the community magistrates, whether it’s the Disputes Tribunal—because, again, we’re not looking at it from the lens of higher courts, from the District Court and above, and with greater powers come greater responsibilities. It will be important for us to see how we’re able to also balance the better access to justice with some of the outcomes that we see as a part of these changes.

I do want to touch on one particular aspect of this. For both bills, as we’re going through the select committee and we’re hearing from the officials—I mentioned before we heard from the Ministers and also heard from the submitters—we have also made amendments as a part of a select committee. I was glad to be sitting on both the Education and Workforce Committee as well as the Justice Committee for these two bills to be able to consider this. But I think one of the things I want to just quickly touch on is the Private Securities Personnel and Private Investigators Act. This is an interesting and significant improvement that we’re making which allows for that greater transparency of the function of the Complaints, Investigation Prosecution Unit, which allows for the preparation of reports about complaints against unlicensed or uncertified persons when they are being requested by a licensed authority.

The last thing I just wanted to touch on—and this speaks to most of the regulatory systems bills we’re seeing in general. These two bills were referred to the committee 16 months ago. The two reports basically came back to the House about a year ago and we only have the opportunity to speak on the two bills now. Although they may not be prominent politically, like I said, they are important bills for this House. I think we should also, as a House, consider if there are better ways for us to be able to put up these bills without having to wait for a year to be able to update them. With that, we commend this bill to the House.

16:09

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a privilege to stand and speak on the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill. I welcome the direction the Minister for Courts has given around referring the Regulatory Systems (Courts) Amendment Bill back to the Justice Committee. We will obviously consider that in further depth as that bill progresses, but I support both of these pieces of legislation and I commend them to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill in their second reading. I sat on the Justice Committee that heard the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill. We only received seven submissions, two of them being oral. They were very minor and technical changes. They didn’t require extensive discussion from the committee, and I commend it to the House.

This is a split call—Steve Abel.

16:10

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand to speak on the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill. These are not things I have any particular expertise in. I just had a brief look through the impact statement and to be very frank, reading these bills, it’s one of those instances where it’s witheringly boring. There’s nothing of real excitement here except to say it is essential for us as a Parliament to go through and sort out pieces of legislation like this to make sure that they are serving their purpose: having the effect of removing barriers, in the instance of the tribunals bill, to the access to justice; clarifying and resolving inconsistencies and gaps in legislation; better enabling statutory authorities to conduct their prescribed functions; and ensuring independence of tribunals and quasi-judicial bodies. The quasi-judicial bodies are quite interesting.

The bill would amend the following Acts and associated secondary legislation: the Disputes Tribunal Act, the Motor Vehicle Sales Act, the Parole Act, the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Act, and the Unit Titles Act 2010. I cannot trouble the House to speak any further on these except to say that we do support them and we support the principle of these sorts of amendments, so the Green Party commends these bills to the House.

16:12

Thank you, Mr Speaker. We are fixing the basics by strengthening the ability of occupational regulators to protect consumers. By increasing the efficiency of the regulatory regimes, we are building the future. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m surprised that people think that these are merely technical bills. I want to speak to the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill. Look, there are actually two quite important points to make here. The first one is in respect of undertakings of conveyancers. Now, in 2006, the law was changed to allow for this new profession of conveyancers, essentially to create competition in the market with lawyers for real estate transactions. One of the advantages it turns out that lawyers had that no one realised was that the courts would enforce undertakings.

Now, an undertaking is often used in conveyancing transactions, and I can actually remember using them when you get halfway through a transaction and you’ve forgotten something. You might be like, “Oh, I forgot to get that document signed, but I undertake that I will deliver you a signed copy of that document. It’s sitting on my desk.” or whatever. The courts would take that to be a binding and enforceable promise. If your lawyer didn’t comply with it, not only could you be sued in court for it but it would be a professional breach. That didn’t exist in respect of conveyancers.

In new section 38A, inserted by clause 5, the framework says that undertakings given by conveyancing practitioners are enforceable. That’s what the heading says, but it’s not what the section says. What it says in new section 38A(1) is “An affected person may make an application for summary judgment in relation to an undertaking” That’s all very good, but it’s kind of narrow because you should be able to make any kind of application on the basis of an undertaking, including an application to the High Court under its general jurisdiction.

Now, it’s recognised that the District Court doesn’t have jurisdiction over lawyers in respect of undertakings, but you can, basically, go to the High Court in respect of a general undertaking by lawyers and get them enforced or injuncted or damages, whatever you like, any way you like. Summary judgment is a very narrow procedure which proceeds only on affidavits, so I’m perplexed as to why, if you’re suing a lawyer for an undertaking, you can use the whole jurisdiction of the High Court, but if you’re suing a conveyancer, you’ve only got summary judgment. That’s one.

The second one is actually even more concerning. It might be that this needs to go back to select committee because it’s about the complaints service for lawyers. As it happens, I have some experience in this, because in a former job I was, in fact, the legal complaints review officer, which was, essentially, an appellate role from Law Society complaints standards committees. One of the challenges of complaints frameworks is a flood of shall we just say meritless complaints, for one reason or another. They might just not understand the rules and they’re just wildly wrong or they had unrealistic expectations or they could be vexatious or any other number, or it could have been 10 years ago. That was another one we used to see.

The way the complaints system works is you send your complaint to the Law Society and then the Law Society kind of triages it. Sometimes they have a phone call, but by and large, if you want to complain, it then goes on to a standards committee, which is a group of lawyers, and some non-lawyers as well, to resolve it, even if it’s a vexatious or trivial or extremely old and stale complaint. What new section 135A, inserted by clause 7, does is it says that the complaints service itself can turn around these extremely low-level complaints.

I can see why you didn’t send that to the Justice Committee, because there would have been a good bit of discussion around whether an administrator—because that’s what it is; probably a skilled one, but an administrator in the Law Society or the Society of Conveyancers—gets to turn around these complaints and say, “I think that’s too old.”, “I think that’s too trivial.”, “I think that’s without foundation.”, or “I think that’s vexatious.” But that’s where we’ve got to.

My concern actually goes a bit further, because, in my experience as the legal complaints review officer, as with most complaints services, most of my time was spent dealing with either some very difficult lawyers or very difficult complainants. If you really want to upset a vexatious complainant, the best thing to do is to tell them their complaint is trivial or vexatious and turn it around at the first hurdle. What I am almost certain will happen here is that these will be challenged. Now, the difficulty is, as I see it, there is no way to challenge this complaint within the Law Society framework, within the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act framework. If you go to the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act, in the depths of it at about section 210 or something, it says that a person can complain to the legal complaints review officer about any final decision at a standards committee.

The problem is this never got to the standards committee. This is a decision—and it’s final, because they’ve said that we’re not going to take it further to the standards committee, so you’ve got no right of appeal or review to the legal complaints review officer. So what will a vexatious litigant do? A vexatious litigant will take a judicial review. The whole idea of this system, which is entirely funded by levies on lawyers, is to be low cost, quick, and effective—it hasn’t always been either of those things, but that’s the idea—dispute resolution system for lawyers’ complaints.

I do think there’s a missing part here. I actually get the motivation behind complaints services being able to turn around complaints. I’m not sure it’s a good idea, but I understand why the Minister has taken that route. Certainly, one of the challenges with lawyers’ standards committees is they take too long because they can become overwhelmed with the volume of complaints. But if you’re going to have an administrator—a faceless administrator if you like; not even a public servant but an employee of a private organisation—turning around complaints on the basis that they are meritless for one reason or another, then you had better be very careful about how you go about that. It may well be, and I’m hoping—and I see the Minister is in the House, and good on her for being here—that officials will be taking an interest in this debate as well and will be scratching their heads and thinking, “Oh, maybe we should have thought about that.”, because we know—and the Minister, who is the Minister for Courts, has been working hard on relieving the burden on the courts, including the High Court.

A judicial review on the back of a complaint which doesn’t have merit—you’ve got to remember, if you’re going to judicially review this, you don’t have to prove that your complaint was right; you only have to prove that it wasn’t without some merit; that the decision made internally to extinguish the complaint was not appropriate; that it should have been given a hearing at the next stage. In fact, the grounds upon which they can do it are set out quite clearly: trivial, frivolous, vexatious—“The complainant does not have a sufficient personal interest.”—that’s often an opposing person. A disgruntled husband complaining against the wife’s lawyer is a common one you’d see—those sorts of things. The grounds are there, and you’ve got grounds to go, “Well, they’re wrong about that. I do have an interest, which is sufficient, and I want to argue my case about that.”

There’s actually a lot to be thought about there, and these complaints processes are tricky, but they do have to comply with natural justice. What we have here is, essentially, an administrative decision maker making a quasi-judicial decision without any right of appeal or recourse. When you frame it in those terms, we’ve got something of a problem. We’ll be exploring that a bit later on. Thank you for your time.

16:21

It’s a great pleasure to rise and speak on the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill. These bills are part of a package of three bills in the regulatory systems justice amendment bill package, each focused on improving a different part of the justice system: the courts’ occupational regulation and tribunals. They improve access to justice by removing unnecessary barriers and making tribunal processes fairer and more accessible. Therefore, I commend the bills to the House.

This is a split call—Georgie Dansey.

16:22

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I’m standing to speak on the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill. These bills are a package of four regulatory systems amendment bills administered by the Ministry of Justice.

I’d like to start my contribution by challenging the previous speaker Steve Abel on his comments about these bills being boring. I think he just hasn’t read them in depth enough, because I’m sure my colleague the Hon Duncan Webb thinks these are the most interesting things he’s ever seen in his life.

Come on, I think you should give the House a proper reference if you’re going to make them.

Ha, ha! I’ve actually had the pleasure of speaking on a number of regulatory systems amendments bills, and you always learn new things about different areas of our society. I’ve spoken on boxing and contact sports in the past, and I’m pleased to speak on these too, because I think they do have some very valuable content in them.

I think that getting our justice system processes right, which we’re very far from at this point, having an accessible and fair justice system, should be an absolute priority for any Government, of any stripe, who sits in this House. Anything we can do to make the justice system more accessible and more fair for people accessing the system is paramount. I hear stories constantly, as I’m sure other members do, around the barriers to accessing justice for people in New Zealand, whether that be financial or otherwise. In these two bills, there is some content that I see as improving that access to justice.

I’ll talk about both, but I wanted to speak firstly about the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the technical changes. This bill will improve the operations and efficiency of tribunals. I thought it was pronounced “quas-ee”, but the Hon Duncan Webb just said “quas-aye”—

“Po-tay-toes”, “po-tah-toes.”

OK, “po-tay-toes”, “po-tah-toes.” OK, because I didn’t want to put my foot in it and say the wrong word in front of the Hon Duncan Webb!

What about the Rt Hon Gerry Brownlee?

I’m so sorry—I’m so sorry. Rt Hon Gerry Brownlee, Mr Speaker, I want to say the right words in front of you. And this is my third speech in front of you now. Back to the bill—in two minutes.

This bill will improve the operations and efficiency of tribunals and quasi-judicial bodies by removing barriers to accessing justice, and it will clarify and resolve inconsistencies and gaps in the legislation. Of the quasi-judicial bodies, I think it’s interesting to see which ones are having changes to them: the Disputes Tribunal, the Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal, the Private Security Personnel Licensing Authority, the Complaints, Investigation and Prosecution Unit. I think it’s important that these bodies remain independent and can make independent decisions, because they affect the rights, responsibilities, and interests of all people.

One of the pieces of legislation that caught my eye and that I thought was interesting was the change that will give the Disputes Tribunal referees the ability to order a respondent to pay the filing fee back to a wholly or partly successful applicant. If a party is successful, they will now be able to claim back that filing fee. As is in the notes, this will make a specific difference for people who don’t have a monetary outcome to their claim, because that filing fee is something and it could cause a grievance to a successful applicant in that space. This is one way that access to justice and fairness in the justice system is being changed through the changes in this bill. In some cases, the filing fee could be a significant portion of what the applicant receives, and so I think it’s an important change. I commend these bills to the House.

16:27

Thank you. Look, the benefits of these non-controversial bills have been well-traversed, so I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate my friend and colleague Tom Rutherford, who was elected the chair of the Justice Committee on Monday. We wish you all the best. Go well. I commend the bills to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d to rise and take a call on the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill and just echo my colleague’s sentiment around how exciting these bills are. The Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s contribution was exceptionally exciting. For those members of the public that have just tuned in to watch these bills progress, I will attempt to cover off some of the key points with this legislation.

These bills focus on improving systems that people interact with every day. They make changes to tribunal processes, occupational regulation, complaints procedures, and licensing arrangements, so that those systems operate more effectively and efficiently. Both bills have now completed the select committee process. The Justice Committee considered submissions on the tribunals bill and heard oral evidence from submitters. The Education and Workforce Committee received a larger number of submissions on the occupational regulation bill and heard evidence from a range of interested parties as well. The committees received advice from officials, support from the Office of the Clerk, and assistance from the Parliamentary Counsel Office as they worked through the details of both pieces of legislation.

Labour supports the changes that have emerged from that process, and these bills are part of a wider programme of regulatory systems legislation administrated by the Ministry of Justice. The purpose of that work is not to revisit major policy decisions that Parliament has already made. The purpose is to identify parts of the legislation that can be improved through experience and feedback from regulators and professional bodies, and people like tribunal users and those responsible for administrating these systems on a daily basis, and it’s an important part of Parliament’s role. No regulatory framework stays perfect for ever. Over time, gaps emerge, inconsistencies develop, language becomes dated, and administrative processes no longer reflect how a sector actually operates. So, periodically, Parliament needs to revisit these settings and make improvements, and this bill does just that.

The committee process demonstrated that point. Submitters raised practical issues, officials provided advice, and members tested the provisions that are before us, and the result is legislation that is stronger than what it was when it was first introduced. One of the themes running through both bills is public confidence. Whether somebody is dealing with a lawyer, engaging with a real estate professional, lodging a complaint with a regulator, or appearing before a tribunal, they need confidence that the rules are clear and that the institutions involved have the ability to carry out their responsibilities properly. Confidence is built in different ways. Sometimes it comes through strong professional standards, sometimes it comes from effective complaint systems, sometimes it comes through regulators having access to information that they need to investigate concerns, and sometimes it comes through accessible dispute resolution processes that ordinary New Zealanders can use without excessive cost or complexity. Across these two bills, we see examples of all those things.

The Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill focuses on three key areas: lawyers and conveyancers, the real estate sector, and provisions within the Prostitution Reform Act. Its purpose is to strengthen consumer protection, improve efficiency, remove inconsistencies, and reduce those unnecessary compliance costs across all of those systems.

One of those significant changes concerns the Lawyers Complaints Service. Under this bill, complaints can be made subject to an initial assessment process before being referred to the lawyers standards committee. The legislation identifies circumstances where no further action may be appropriate, including where complaints are trivial, frivolous, or, as the Hon Dr Duncan Webb mentioned in his contribution, vexatious, made in bad faith, or excessively delayed, or where another remedy might very well exist. That intention is pretty straightforward. Complaints systems work best when resources are focused on matters that require investigation and resolution. Every profession depends on public confidence, and maintaining that confidence requires complaints processes that are both robust and efficient.

The bill also contains significant reforms relating to the Real Estate Authority. The real estate sector plays a major role in the lives of New Zealanders; everyone knows that. For many families, purchasing a home is the largest financial commitment they will ever make, and there’s an expectation that professional standards will be maintained and that regulators will have the ability to investigate concerns where those standards may not have been met. The legislation strengthens the authority’s ability to obtain documents relevant to investigations. During select committee considerations, amendments were recommended to ensure that the authority must have reasonable grounds before exercising those powers and to clarify the circumstances in which relevant documents may be sought from those parties holding information relevant to an investigation. The bill also updates a number of licensing provisions. It allows licences to be renewed up to 12 months, I think it was, after expiring. It provides mechanisms that recognise the experience and knowledge of practitioners returning to the profession. These are practical changes that simplify administration while maintaining the expectations around competence and professional standards.

There are also a number of amendments, as mentioned earlier, to the Prostitution Reform Act. Those changes update the references to criminal offences so that legislation continues to reflect the developments elsewhere in criminal law while preserving the existing policy intent around disqualification from holding a certificate, essentially.

Taken together, the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill strengthens consumer protections. It improves the operation of complaints systems and provides regulators with clear tools to fulfil those responsibilities.

Now, turning to the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill, the purpose of that bill is to improve the operation and efficiency of tribunals and quasi-judicial bodies, remove barriers to accessing justice, and address legislative inconsistencies to better support statutory authorities in carrying out their functions. One amendment relates to the Disputes Tribunal. As has already been traversed in the House today, the bill allows the tribunal to order reimbursement of filing fees where an applicant succeeds wholly or partly in their claim. For many New Zealanders, the Disputes Tribunal is the most accessible way to resolve disagreements without entering the formal court. The system was designed to provide a relatively low-cost and straightforward avenue for dispute resolution. The ability to reimburse filing fees recognises that, where somebody has pursued a legitimate claim successfully, there may be circumstances where reimbursement is appropriate. The legislation also preserves incentives for parties to reach settlement, recognising the value of resolving disputes before they require a formal determination.

The bill also includes amendments relating to the appointment of referees. Those provisions formalise the assessment process used for appointments and reappointments, providing a more consistent mechanism for selecting people to carry out those very important roles. The quality of decision making within the tribunal depends heavily on the quality of those making those decisions, so transparent and credible appointment processes are very important. For that reason, I commend the bill to the House.

16:38

Thank you. Mr Speaker. This bill is about fixing the basics and building the future. I commend it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Now, I won’t take a long call, but I just want to note my own congratulations for the new chair of the Justice Committee, Tom Rutherford. They seem to keep getting better and better and better as the term goes on. With that, I think the leadership shown by the Justice Committee is in good hands, and I commend this bill to the House.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill.

16:39

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to open the committee stage of the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill. I’m pleased to say that there was broad support across the House for this bill at its second reading, and I look forward to hearing the views of the other parties as we debate this bill.

The bill amends five Acts to improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of tribunals and quasi-judicial bodies by reducing barriers to accessing justice and better enabling statutory authorities to investigate and regulate the industry. The amendments will, among other things, give disputes tribunal referees the ability to order a respondent to pay the filing fee to a successful applicant, to simplify the appointment process for disputes tribunal referees and Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal adjudicators, and provide a new information-gathering power to the unit responsible for private security investigations and prosecutions. These improvements will support the maintenance and continuous improvement of tribunals and quasi-judicial bodies, and this will help to ensure that the tribunal system is accessible and fit for purpose.

I also wish to draw my Amendment Paper 353 to the attention of the House for consideration during this committee stage. This Amendment Paper is straightforward. It only makes some minor technical changes to ensure the provisions read as intended. I’m happy to take questions on the bill as we go through the committee.

Madam Chair.

Yes—just before I call Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, I was just going to say that I omitted to say, before the Minister made her introduction, that Part 1 of the debate is on clauses 3 to 8A—“Amendments to Disputes Tribunal Act 1988”. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

16:41

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think I want to start by, in some ways, slightly disagreeing with my colleague Steve Abel. I think the regulatory systems bills are some of the most interesting bills in terms of the committee stages, and I always found my engagement with the Minister, in particular, to be really enlightening, and it’s just, in general, a really good way to learn about the different kinds of legislation that we do have in the broader context of our legislative package here in Aotearoa New Zealand. They are quite exciting, in my opinion, but that’s just me.

I want to start by looking at clause 4 for the Disputes Tribunal Act, “Section 8 amended (Selection of candidates for appointment or reappointment as Referees)”. I’ve got two questions for the Minister to begin with, and this also touches on the Minister’s Amendment Paper 353. I’m noting that, in both cases, what we have seen—sorry, this clause 4, subclause (2)—is a shift between using “shall” to “must”. Now, from a legislative drafting perspective, my understanding is that both fulfil the same requirement.

No: “shall” is out of date.

Well, that was my question, the Hon Rachel Brooking. Can I just check with the Minister: are the changes here simply an update from using “shall” to “must” in general? And, if that is the case, are these the only instances in this bill where we’re seeing the change from “shall” to “must”? If not, then why weren’t there—as far as I can see—a complete package of changes from that? Maybe I am old-school, but personally I’m a fan of “shall”. That’s my first question.

My second question to the Minister: one of the things we heard as part of the select committee stage, and I have to refresh my memory a little bit with the departmental report, is around independence when we’re looking at the appointment of referees—noting that the chief executive, in this case, appoints them, and what we’re seeing with this particular section is that it removes the notice period for people to be able to submit names to the appointment or reappointment as referees. What I’m curious to know is, my understanding of the process is that the chief executive appoints the assessment panel; does the assessment panel then appoint the referee or the assessment panel recommends the appointment of the referee to the chief executive, who then reappoints or appoints the referee? Those are my two questions. Thank you, Minister.

16:45

Thank you, Madam Chair. To speak to the member’s first part, about the “shall”, the “must”, and the little—what’s going on over there, I do actually agree with the member, Rachel Brooking. It is quite important when you use “shall” and when you use “must”, and we are making these minor amendments, really, to just have consistency and clarity when the wording is used, and, of course, that’s why we’re making that small amendment. The member asked why it wasn’t changed originally: these are small little words that often get picked up as officials start going through amendments that came about from select committee and realise, “Oh, actually, a ‘shall’ must be a ‘must.’ ” That’s why that change is there.

In regard to the suitability of appointed—the referees side of it, as well: what I am told is that the disputes tribunal candidates currently require a nomination by a community member in order to be appointed. The amendment will remove that requirement from the disputes tribunal referee appointment process. The disputes tribunal has a strong appointments process to ensure that the referees are well-suited to being appointed, so this change is only simplifying that process. The candidates are still required to name three people who will, indeed, referee as to their character and their capability to be a referee with the assessment panel. That’s all that is changing there; the process itself, after that, is continuing to stay the same.

16:46

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to the Minister for her engagement. It’s good to have some analysis of that Amendment Paper, which does cover clause 4, so it’s even in the right place in this debate, and I do agree with—

That’s always helpful.

That’s right. I do agree with Lawrence Xu-Nan that, actually, for a committee stage, these omnibus regulatory system bills are designed in a way that does make it easier to scrutinise and, also, we get to look at different things.

Sticking with the disputes tribunal amendments in Part 1—and my colleague has spoken to clause 4—I want to look at clauses 5 and 6. I’ve got three questions. The first question is on clause 5. Clause 5 inserts new section 43(5). This is in relation to the filing fee, which is probably one of the major changes in the disputes tribunal; that the respondent may get the applicant’s filing fee paid in whole or part. I wanted to know if this is specifically drafted in a broad way so that it can be up to the discretion of the referee as to whether it’s paid based, basically, on merit, because it might be that the claim is, for the majority, unsuccessful, but one tiny part of it is successful and, I suppose, in that instance, a filing fee could be ordered. So, any guidance the Minister had—I mean, that’s a possible issue of future statutory interpretation, possibly; Duncan Webb may have some further thoughts on that. Anyway, that was my first question.

The second question I had was following on from that in (6)—so that would be new section 43(6) that is inserted by clause 5. In this, it states that the agreement to pay the filing fee cannot be made—I think—if there’s a settlement agreed. Now, I wanted to just clarify for the Minister that that this isn’t intended to be a prohibition if there’s a settlement made, but, if there was a settlement made, it would be assumed that the settlement would cover the filing fee. That would be my usual understanding.

Yep, $450.

Yes. Is that how much it is?

It can be—up to.

Up to $450. I think that’s also an important clarification for statutory interpretation, so that it would be allowed to be part of the settlement, not prohibited from that. It would be great, actually, to have some statement or advice from the Minister on there.

My third question—I will move on; others may have further questions on clause 5, but I don’t. On clause 6, I looked back to the original Disputes Tribunal Act, which this deletes section 59 from. That section is about the entitlement of referees to be considered an employee for the purposes of accident compensation. That just seems to be a wholesale deletion of that. I’m not sure if it’s covered somewhere else or what the thinking was behind that, but obviously that would probably be of a concern to referees if they weren’t entitled to ACC—they currently are entitled to ACC as an employee. There may be some context that I’m missing there—maybe it’s inserted somewhere else—but I’d be grateful for some clarification on those three questions.

16:50

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the member also for her questions. In regard to the changes in clause 5, we are not inserting a new section 43; we’re just amending section 43. This is in regard to the respondent paying the applicant the cost of any filing fee, wholly or partly successful. The member asked about when a settlement agreement is made and whether or not the referee can then determine whether or not to make a payment. This is actually allowing the referee to be given discretion in order to make such orders. The member was quite right when she indicated there could be a settlement where there is a monetary involvement, but there could also be a settlement where there isn’t. It could be just the handover of a property or something like that. That would then allow, even when there is a settlement, the referee to be able to have that discretion on whether or not to give full or even partial remittance of that filing fee, so just giving them that ability to do that. I hope that answers both the questions on Part 5—please come back if I haven’t.

On clause 6, the deletion in regard to the ACC, we’re repealing that employee provision because the referees around all the other tribunals are contractors and as contractors they pay their own ACC claims. In this particular tribunal, half of them are not contractors. We’re just looking for consistency with all the other tribunal adjudicators where they are all contractors and they all pay their own ACC. At the moment in this one, we’ve have got half paying ACC and half not—half being employees. We just want to ensure that they are all on the same wave length there and they’re all doing exactly the same thing, which is contracting and paying their own ACC levies.

16:52

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks to the Minister for Courts for the engagement there. I want to talk about clause 8, and, in particular, I want to talk about clause 8(2), which is always a tricky one because it says “Revoke rule 36(1).”—so you have to go to the rules to find out what it actually does. Rule 36 is about the recruitment process, if you like, for disputes tribunal referees. In fact, 36(1) is the first step. It provides two things: that there should be advertisements in the area that you’re looking for them—interestingly, it doesn’t say “newspaper advertisement”; it just says “advertisement” so it could be anywhere, could be an electronic advertisement—and also to be publicised by such other means as the secretary considers necessary, kind of a general discretion.

Firstly, it would seem odd to remove the clause which says “Go out and publicise that you are looking for dispute tribunal referees.” I accept that there’s always going to be a discretion. There’s no prohibition on doing that, but I would have thought that in what is essentially the Public Service—quasi-judicial officers—that you actually want to go out publicly. Because the other process—and this is what the legal profession has done for centuries—is to look towards people you know. That is to say people like you, who are your mates, and ask them. That’s not always good.

The other thing is section—or clause, rule, whatever you like—36(1), which actually sets the scene for getting candidates, because it says: “For the purpose of encouraging the nomination, as candidates for appointment as Referees, of men and women from diverse backgrounds and diverse ethnic and age groups, the chief executive shall”—and then it goes on to say advertise. I’m wondering if that’s the reason that was removed, because the Government doesn’t want to emphasise the need for a—and, in fact, disputes tribunal referees, although they are mainly lawyers, they are generally a diverse bunch of people. To be honest, I can’t see why you’d remove that clause. It’s innocuous, it does some useful work, and it gives a theme. If it was the diversity bit that you didn’t like, you could just get rid of that and say, “For the purpose of encouraging the nomination of competent people.” But you still want to have a requirement that it be a public process rather than a closed one—a shoulder-tapping exercise. I’d actually really appreciate the Minister responding as to why rule 36(1) is being revoked.

16:56

Thank you, Madam Chair. In response to the member on clause 8, the clause 8 change in there is a consequential amendment because of the changes that we’re making in clause 4. I’m just advised there is still a publicly advertised advertisement that goes out for this, but it relates to the changes that are made by clause 4. It’s consequential. It removes the requirement for the disputes tribunal candidates to be nominated by a community member and to be appointed. All it is, really, is a consequential amendment to the change that we’re making in clause 4 to amend that section 36, and there is still some form of advertisement.

16:57

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just following up from what the Minister for Courts is saying, I think there is another important aspect of the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s question around the requirement for the diversity component of that.

The question that I have there is around, like we said before, when we’re looking at the expanded role of referees—or we talked about community magistrates before and a number of other ones. They don’t go through some of the similar processes we see with the appointment of judges. Whether you’re self-representing or have a lawyer present is another matter, but I think one of the things I’m thinking of, particularly as we’re seeing an increase in, for example, Asian populations here in Aotearoa New Zealand who have also started seeing an increasing number of cases going through all stages of our courts. I just wanted to check, in terms of, for the candidates or for the appointment of referees—because we do hear from Asian lawyers a number of these sort of nuances within our court system not being understood or accessible to the Asian population, particularly if English is a second language and you are requiring a translator, etc. I just want to check: from an appointment perspective, what are the considerations the Minister has, either in the existing rules or some of the changes we’re seeing here that would take into consideration the nuances of the cultural diversity that we see, not necessarily in the appointment body or the referees themselves, but the broader society in general? That being my first question.

The second question is I want to check with the Minister going back to what the Minister said regarding clause 6, which is consistent between the disputes tribunal referees compared to some of the other tribunal referees who are self-employed and disputes tribunal referees are being employees as opposed to being self-employed. I want to check with the Minister: if they are self-employed, what, then, would be the financial implication for them when they are paying for ACC as a self-employed person? Because, for example, when we’re looking at some of the questions we asked as a part of the select committee process, we do see that if you are self-employed—for example, if section 59 is repealed—at different earning levels you will be seeing the referees having quite a bit of a higher levy than you have to pay for ACC.

I want to check with the Minister if this is something that has already been consulted on with existing referees—some of the feedback you’ve heard in terms of now that they are self-employed, there will be additional costs to them in terms of paying for their ACC levy. To give an example, when we’re looking at one of the bands—let’s say if you’re earning $25,000, the existing is $362.50, but then if section 59 is repealed, you need to add in the ACC Work levy, the Working Safer levy, and those additional levies which make it up to $410, which is $471.50 including GST, which is quite a bit higher than $362.50. I just want to check with the Minister on what the feedback is that she has received regarding the increase in ACC cost.

17:00

I was talking a little bit through the member’s questions, so if I have not addressed or do not address all of his questions, I invite him to stand and ask again. Before I start, I’d just like to make a correction to something I said about clause 5, which is the ability for the adjudicator to be able to award the filing fee after a settlement. I made mention, apparently incorrectly, that if there is a settlement, the adjudicator could determine whether or not to pay the filing fee back, and I’ve got that wrong. If there is a settlement, it is the settlement in itself, and a filing fee will not be paid in that instance. That will be up to the adjudicator, just to make sure that there is fairness. This is why the adjudicator is given some leeway there to be able to make the decisions. The referee cannot award a filing fee on top of an agreed settlement. The settlement would cover all matters. If the referee thought that was unfair, they could choose not to endorse it and make the filing fee go to that person instead.

With the referees, again, at clause 6—this is about the ACC. As I mentioned, this is about consistency. It’s to ensure that all tribunal referees—not just tribunal referees in this area; that tribunal referees across the entire tribunal sector are all contractors, and they all pay their own ACC levies. I do have some figures that are there, but it’s creating a fairness so that they are all paying the same amount; you’re not having some pay one amount and others pay another amount. You want all of them across all the tribunals in the court system to be paying that same amount. That’s why we’re looking for that consistency.

To the member’s first question, the policy intent at the time was to ensure that a referee was a person who had standing in the community and that they were nominated by the community. That was, in a way, to try and create the diversity of referees, but the requirement is not being used as intended. There’s not been an independently nominated referee under this system in many, many years. I understand that, in practice, there’s a public call for expressions of interest, and this is what I meant by continuing to advertise. As part of that, each candidate has to find a nominee.

This proposal would remove a provision that was introduced to increase diversity among the pool of referees; however, we do note that there is now a greater mix of gender and age groups amongst the referees that we have. Additionally, the Disputes Tribunal has other mechanisms to encourage ethnic diversity, such as the establishment of the Māori referees committee and the establishment of the Pasifika referees committee. I did ask my officials: do we have Asian referees committee? Not yet. Maybe that is something that future Governments can look to.

17:04

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks to the Minister. It’s been said before, but we really do appreciate the constructive engagement on some of these issues.

I think the Minister has answered my questions in relation to the earlier questions I had in relation to clauses 5 and 6. The only kind of quick follow-ups that I would want to add are—I understand about the settlement having to cover everything. I think it’s really good to have that direction, because if a settlement didn’t cover a filing fee—for example, it often happens in settlements that perhaps you forget around that filing fee. It could be someone who’s entirely successful—or the application fee or whatever it’s called; yeah, filing fee. I mean, my view would be that the most equitable way would be—obviously, the situation we want to avoid is that we wouldn’t want it to be paid twice. We wouldn’t want a settlement amount to cover the filing fee and then for it to be paid separately again, because that wouldn’t, obviously, be fair. But if a settlement covers the filing fee, then, of course, there shouldn’t be an order. Probably, in an ideal world, the ability to make a filing fee order if the settlement didn’t cover that would be, probably, better.

But I think having clarity for those people in the Disputes Tribunal is important, and that’s why I’m glad that we’ve had these questions. They’ll be on the record if anyone is interested to look at that in the future. They’ll have clarity that, as I understand it, if there is a settlement, that needs to be fulsome, and it needs to include any application for the reimbursement of a filing fee. If that’s wrong, please let me know, but otherwise I think it’s good to have that on the record.

In terms of ending the employment, I do take the point around consistency, but I do wonder, for the group of referees who are currently considered employees, have there been discussions with them around the changes in terms of them doing their own ACC? They wouldn’t be entitled to KiwiSaver. Obviously, employment has a totally different rights profile from contracting. The fact that we’re doing this by statute is significant, and I just wanted to know if there had been any thought put into that and also if there’s any consequential raise in the amount of remuneration that they would receive. Obviously, it’s not, maybe, a huge amount, probably, for what they’re receiving, for them to pay their own ACC, but that will be a cost that they’re facing that they don’t currently have to face.

I think in relation to that part, which is still Part 1, that’s probably all the questions that I have, so up to the Minister. If anything I’ve said is wrong, it would be good to have clarification. Otherwise, that’s all.

17:07

I think the member has it spot on in regard to the settlement side of it. My apologies for saying the incorrect thing in the first place, but I think that we’ve got to a place where we’ve both been able to make it quite clear for anybody that will be listening.

Again, when we come back to the ACC, we’ve really got to make it so that it’s fair on every tribunal referee. When you have some paying one rate and a few paying another, it’s not fair on the others that are paying less or more than anyone else. As I’ve mentioned before to the Green member, this is really about having consistency across all tribunal referees and adjudicators throughout the country so that they are all paying the same amount dependent on whatever their wages are. Some work part-time, some work full time, and those amounts themselves will change depending on what their income is and who they work for.

I will point out as well: some tribunal referees and adjudicators are on multiple different tribunals. Some are paid, I guess, as a contractor, and some are being paid another way. It’s actually going to make it easier for those people that are multiple referees or adjudicators to be able to contract back to the ministry instead of having two different versions of how they go about paying ACC. I come back, again, to the consistency in ensuring that all adjudicators are paying ACC levies as contractors to the Crown.

Madam Chair?

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan—just recognising it’s a smallish part, so we’re just into final points of clarification on this part.

17:09

Yep. One final question from me—a short question, and maybe a short response from the Minister. Are the Disputes Tribunal referees the only ones, then, who are currently still employees—everyone else is a contractor now?

To be fair, I’m actually not aware of whether or not they are. I’m looking at just what’s in front of me, and this is the tribunal that we’re dealing with. I suspect that if we have others like this, we would pull it into a future regulatory standards bill. But this one is talking about tribunals. No one else has come in, so I suspect this may be the only one, but I’m not 100 percent sure.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Amendment Paper 353 be agreed to.

17:10

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I know your interest in Holdens will be driving something here.

Thank you for your contributions so far, Minister. My question is in relation to clause 10, which amends section 82 of the Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal, and replacing section 82(3)(a) with subparagraph (a) there. The questions we need to ask here are probably pretty much what the people of New Zealand would want to know. A lot of us buy vehicles, some are second-hand vehicles, we drive them off the lot, and there might be a catastrophic failure—an engine might blow—we might enter into that Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal process. I suppose a lot of Kiwis at home would want to know: how would this amendment here improve the motor vehicle dispute process for consumers?

17:11

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a good question; I thank the member for it. This is actually going to help speed up the process. At the moment, the Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal adjudicators all need to have a current practising certificate. That makes it quite difficult to get people with a current practising certificate to put their hand up to even be adjudicators. This change will mean that they won’t need to have a current practising certificate but they do still need to be legally qualified. You might have, for example, a retired lawyer who doesn’t have an active practising certificate but is still legally qualified. They need to have at least five years’ experience in law—a minimum of five years’ experience—to be considered for this role. This means it’ll be less restrictive and it’s going to help reduce delays in the appointment process. Of course, if we can reduce delays there, then we help reduce delays in the tribunal itself.

17:12

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to check with the Minister for Courts one question on clause 10. My understanding of clause 10 is currently the adjudicator has to have a practising certificate for at least five years, and that’s kind of the baseline requirement, but this particular one allows it to be not retrospective, but it allows a barrister or barrister and solicitor to have a past practising certificate that has now lapsed but then they are able to continue to be adjudicators. So you’re looking at maybe a greater pool of people who could be adjudicators maybe, and also, now, the five years no longer need to be consecutive. I guess my question number one is: does it allow there to be a greater pool of adjudicators as a result of this? Also, has there been any work done? Because it wasn’t, I think, even something we considered as a part of the Justice Committee. Does it affect the quality of the adjudication that you might see if solicitors, for example, their certificate has lapsed and maybe they were a barrister or solicitor 30 years ago for five years and they technically now meet this requirement? Has there been any work done on the quality as well?

17:13

Thank you, Madam Chair. As mentioned earlier, it’s more about trying to get these adjudicators in. They don’t need to have had necessarily just completed five years with the practising certificate—they need to have a minimum of five years’ legal experience. This is where you can get those retired people that come in. They will be appointed based on their abilities. The panel that appoints those individuals will have to look at who those individuals are. It doesn’t really matter whether or not they’ve just retired recently or retired 10 years ago. They have that legal experience behind them. I would have thought that if they retired or left five years ago or 10 years ago, they would have had a lifetime of experience, no doubt. But they still need to fit the criteria for the panel that will appoint them and make sure that they are fit for that. I guess the question that I was asked is: does it increase the pool? It will hugely increase the pool, and it means that we can have more adjudicators in a timely fashion and get people through the system quicker.

17:15

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Parole Act changes are interesting and I’ve been looking through them to try and understand the purpose—and I’ve got the Parole Act here in front of me as well. I just wanted to ask the Minister for Courts: it appears to me that the main thrust of these changes—and I’m looking at clause 13 and also the new Schedule, which is inserted in clause 14. When I looked at the Parole Act as it currently stands, I think the salaries for members of the Parole Board were set by the Higher Salaries Commission. I’m reliably informed by my colleague that that has been defunct for a while. I wanted to know if that’s correct, and, if so, how have the salaries been determined of the Parole Board? Or is it just something that’s been in a static waiting period until this bill comes into place? That’s on clause 13. That was, I think, in 13(2) the replacement of section 122(1). It seems to refer to the deletion of the Higher Salaries Commission or the reference to that.

I also discussed this with my colleague Dr Duncan Webb, who by the way—and this is referring to the previous section—would fulfil the criteria of someone who could be appointed to the Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal board, as would I and many other former lawyers in this House. That shows you how wide the pool could be under that previous part, but I don’t have a question about that—it was just a comment.

In this bill, clause 13(3), which replaces section 122(2), also reflects the fact that a judge could be on the Parole Board and not have it affect their terms and conditions. I understand from my learned colleague that that is quite a usual clause to be put in. I was going to ask a series of questions about, “Why is this? Is this relating to a particular individual?”

Who is it? Who’s the awkward judge?

Ha, ha! Yeah. If the Minister could confirm if Dr Duncan Webb is right: that it is simply a usual clause to have in this and not related to a single individual.

I suppose the last question I had around the Parole Act at the stage—unless anything major arises—is just in relation to the Schedule, which I think comes into this section?

Yes, it does.

Yeah. So that’s the Schedule right at the back of the bill, and that appears to me to be a transitional provision. That may assist with my initial question around the Higher Salaries Commission, but just wanting to know, basically, a sequence of what’s happened—obviously the Higher Salaries Commission not being effective and then us not passing this bill, and then what will happen once this bill is passed in relation to that responsibility for remuneration in clause 13(1), then going back to the actual Parole Board itself.

I would be grateful if the Minister could kind of allay some concerns around the separation in terms of the Remuneration Authority being separate from the Parole Board and then making sure that that is separate. I may have answered my own question with that, but that does appear to be a sufficient separation in the determination of the people who receive the salaries and the people who actually set them.

17:19

Thank you, and I will clarify for the member and speak to clauses 13, 14, and the Schedule there. Currently, we have four roles on the New Zealand Parole Board where their fees are being determined by the Cabinet Fees Framework. The others, who are members of the judiciary, have their remuneration determined by the Remuneration Authority. The amendment will ensure that the Remuneration Authority considers all of the remuneration for all members, because it’s inappropriate for the Cabinet Fees Framework to be looking at the fees network for what could possibly be judges that come through. It must be independent, so that’s why we’re making that change.

The member is also quite right that the schedule is like a transitional part, because, while we make that change, we need to ensure that those four members of the Parole Board continue to be paid until we get this into force. Clause 14 is amending that schedule to make it transitional to ensure that they continue to be paid while that takes place. The Remuneration Authority is not empowered to make an official remuneration determination until the bill’s commencement date, and that’s why we need to have that transitional period through there. I hope that answers the question.

17:21

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for that, Minister. I think, just to follow up, I have never heard of the Cabinet Fees Framework before. One of the questions asked was about the fact that—sorry, this is clause 13(2). What has been replaced—what was previously there—is “Higher Salaries Commission”. Can I just clarify: is the Higher Salaries Commission part of the Cabinet Fees Framework? Does it sit under the Cabinet Fees Framework? I understand the other parts that the Minister for Courts said, in terms of consistency with the Remuneration Authority, but it’s just the current clause and what the Minister said—I don’t know if they are the same thing. That’s all.

I’d not even heard of that until the member stood up and actually talked about that. All I’m aware of is that they’re currently paid under the Cabinet Fees Framework and this is why we need to change it, to make sure they come under the Remuneration Authority, to ensure that there is that distance, especially between the executive and the judiciary.

17:22

Madam Chair, thank you. While the Minister for Courts gets some guidance, I would be quite interested because that’s what it currently says in section 122(1) of the Parole Act. Can I just check: if it’s the Cabinet Fees Framework—we know that the Remuneration Authority is independent, and that’s also good in terms of consistency. Is the Cabinet Fees Framework also, then, an independent thing, or does it get determined “dependently”, I guess? I don’t know how else to phrase that. Is the Cabinet Fees Framework determining their own remuneration, whereas the Remuneration Authority sits outside of all that? I don’t know if that actually makes any sense!

17:23

Thank you, Madam Chair. No, I didn’t quite get that, sorry. The question that the member Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan is asking me is going a little bit further than what’s actually in the bill, and I’m sure that the member could probably Google that question and get the answer to it. What I’m looking to do is ensure that everybody is paid under the same network, which is the Remuneration Authority, rather than the Cabinet Fees Framework, especially in order that, if there are judges on the Parole Board, they do not come under the executive framework, that they come under an independent one.

17:24

Thank you, Madam Chair. As we move through this Act, I think we’ll probably be through it relatively soon. I want to skip a lot of the technical stuff in the first sections, which appears to be largely wording, and get to new section 73AAA, inserted by clause 25, which is “Complaint against unlicensed persons, etc”.

I can certainly understand why there should be a power to make complaints about people who are behaving as if they are licensed security personnel or private investigators. I guess my question, really, relates to subsection (3) of that new section 73AAA, because, under subsection (2), it says that a constable can file a complaint with the authority or another person with the leave of the authority. I can kind of understand why that would be the case, although, in many ways, I’m not even sure that is appropriate—perhaps a justification of why leave is needed.

Then, in subsection (3), it says the Licensing Authority “may” grant leave—I emphasise that word on purpose—only if the authority is satisfied the complainant has an interest greater than the general public and that it’s not frivolous or vexatious. I can imagine, if you’re at a pub and someone thinks you’ve misbehaved and you get thrown out and it turns out that the person isn’t a licensed security guard, and they should have been, and they acted inappropriately, you should then be able to complain on the basis that they were acting as a security guard when, in fact, they weren’t a security guard. But, I guess, my real point is this—and it may well be in law that the Licensing Authority is obliged to allow you to complain if you’ve got a legitimate complaint. So, rather than saying that the Licensing Authority “may” grant leave, in fact, that shouldn’t be discretionary. The Licencing Authority “must” grant leave where it is satisfied that they have a greater than ordinary interest and it’s a legitimate good-faith complaint.

Private investigators are another thing: if someone’s conducting themselves and presenting themselves as a private investigator, it gives some sort of authenticity to them. People who then deliver up information to them, thinking they’ve got a legitimate and responsible investigation under way, have, essentially, a right to make that complaint rather than a mere discretionary possibility at the hands of the Licensing Authority. I guess, once again, it’s the question about an administrative discretion going a little bit wide.

I guess my next thread, possibly third thread, is: if they don’t get the right to make that complaint—if they are wrongly refused that right—what can they then do? They are my questions.

17:27

Thank you, Madam Chair. If you’d bear with me, Madam Chair, I actually have an answer which might help the member Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan. It’ll be very, very quick. I’m told that the Higher Salaries Commission was replaced by the Remuneration Authority, so that might help us with an understanding there.

In regard to the member Dr Duncan Webb’s questions, currently, the Licensing Authority cannot explicitly accept complaints about security personnel who are or might be in breach of requirements to hold a licence or certificate of approval under the Act. However, in practice, it does accept those complaints, because this is important to ensure that we keep public confidence in the private security industry.

This clause will explicitly confirm the Licensing Authority’s ability to accept those complaints. It will remove any ambiguity and assist the Licencing Authority in carrying out what is its statutory functions.

Madam Chair?

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 4—

Madam Chair?

Sorry, no one called.

He did.

No, I’m sorry. We went through this yesterday.

You didn’t look.

No one called with their voice. The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 4 set out on Amendment Paper 353 be agreed to.

17:29

With this particular part, I want to check with the Minister in terms of clause 41, section 176 amended. I want to check because, from what I can see in the original version No. 1 of this bill, as well as the departmental report, it is still not entirely clear what is trying to be achieved with this particular clause around unit title disputes. Particularly, I think, the part that says: “Without limiting subsection (1), rules made” and “apply in respect of the hearing and determination of a unit title dispute by a Tenancy Tribunal.” So I think, if the Minister wouldn’t mind, just to sort of highlight on this particular part in relation to what we’re seeing in the context of subsection (1), I’m assuming section 176, subsection (1).

17:30

Thank you, Madam Chair. The existence of the Residential Tenancy (Unit Title Disputes) Rules 2011, they seem to be currently not very clear and there is some confusion about whether different documents service provisions in another Act should apply. So this proposal will make it clear that the rules exist and apply to how documents should be served for unit title disputes; this is going to improve clarity and ease the use of the Act. It also makes absolutely no operational changes.

17:31

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m just bringing these unit titles up as we speak, but—

Through a loud voice.

So I’m using my loud voice; thank you, colleagues, for that.

Can I just make it clear that usually when we start a committee stage, I look to both of—or any Opposition parties that are here. But once we go on, if there’s silence, I’m assuming that no one’s taking the call.

Thank you. I just had a question around the Unit Titles Act. The unit titles are a part of our residential property system—and, obviously, the Unit Titles Act is not one of the oldest Acts that we have. But I just wanted to know, in terms of the future of unit titles, you said that there wasn’t anything that was actually changing the substantive policy intent on this, but was there any advice received on whether this would be something that would be more likely to continue as it is into the future, or is there kind of a view around the nature of how unit titles are looked at. The reason I raise this is in Auckland, for example, we had, for a period of time, a number of different legal ways that ownership was recorded within our kind of wider Torrens system that have now kind of fallen out of favour. So the cross-lease system obviously continues and is still something which is a valid form of legal ownership of land, but it has—this is a generalisation—fallen out of favour with the way that the councils have utilised their powers there. In terms of unit titles, I just wanted to know if that was something that had been thought of in terms of updating that piece of legislation.

17:33

This particular amendment is purely about making sure that there are clear rules that exist—rules that do apply to how documents are served. This is about, now, that service for the unit titles disputes at the moment is not clear. So all this section is doing is making sure that those that are serving documents under this particular section are very clear about how it is that they are meant to do that. That’s all that I have been advised on.

17:34

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have one final question on this section, and I thank the Minister for that response. Can I just check, in terms of what the Minister says and the clarity provides, because it makes references to the rules made under section 116 of the Residential Tenancies Act, are those existing rules now applicable here or does it, in fact, empower this section then to go and make additional rules under section 116 of the Residential Tendencies Act?

It’s purely saying that there are rules; that there’s currently rules and they must apply.

17:35

Thank you, Madam Chair. I actually just have a very, very short question for the Minister. I think—if it’s okay with you, Madam Chair—this will apply to this bill and also the next one that we are going to committee of the whole House stage on, which is around the fact that there has been a delay. Although the commencement date is the day after Royal assent, there has been a delay since when this got reported back from the select committee. I believe, like I mentioned in my second reading, it’s been about 12 months since being reported back from that. Can I just check with any of the changes in this bill particularly, is that something that those various agencies etc., that are responsible for this, are already working towards updating it? Have they updated it and are waiting for it to go live the minute this gets Royal assent, or will they only start to work on some of the additional processes that we’ve mentioned here once it’s gone live? That’s my question on commencement.

17:36

Madam Chair, thank you. The commencements are for these five different areas of legislation that are being changed here. I do know that in the following bill that’s going to come, there are different commencement dates. I’ve not been told that there are different dates for these particular five; what I have been told is that the Act will come into force the day after Royal assent. So therefore I would presume that the ministry is all ready to go, and the moment that we get Royal assent we will be able to implement this. One thing I will say: yes, there has been a delay between when this came back from select committee, but I think that speaks very soundly to the large number of bills that this Government is putting through the Justice Committee. In fact, I’m aware that the number of bills that’s gone through the Justice Committee by Minister Goldsmith and myself actually outweighs every other bill that’s gone through every other select committee. So the reason why we have a delay here, even though it’s very important, is it’s a priority.

17:38

Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to open the committee stage of the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill. I’m pleased to say that there was broad support across the House for this bill at second reading, and I look forward to hearing the views of the other parties as we debate the bill. This bill amends the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act, the Prostitution Reform Act, and the Real Estate Agents Act, to increase protections for regulated professionals, such as real estate agents, and for consumers of those regulated services. The amendments will, among other things, enable the undertakings or professional commitments of conveyances to be enforced in the High Court in the same way that lawyers’ undertakings are; to remove a disproportionately harsh punishment for real estate agents who failed to complete their continuing professional development or pay their fees on time; and to ensure that the Real Estate Authority has the investigative powers that are required to investigate allegations of unlicensed trading and ensure licensees are meeting their obligations.

These improvements will support the maintenance and continuous improvement of the occupational regulation regimes to ensure that regulated services are performed with reasonable care and skill, and promote and protect the interests of consumers. I also wish to draw to attention my Amendment Paper 636 to the committee for consideration during this committee of the whole House stage. This Amendment Paper makes minor and technical changes to the current drafting in the bill, including an amendment to ensure the policy intent of one of the changes is achieved.

I also note that there are two Amendment Papers to this Amendment Paper in regard to clause 25. These are technical amendments. I am hopeful that the parties across the Chamber got a copy of this beforehand—I did ask my office to get it to you. These are minor amendments that were picked up at the very last minute by the Real Estate Authority. They are just technical amendments—wording changes. They thought that they would take the opportunity to get to this while they could, and I can speak more to that once we get to clause 25. In the meantime, I’m happy to take your questions.

17:40

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know the Minister for Courts was in the House at the second reading, so she knows, essentially, what I’m going to say. I will just ask one question at a time.

My first question is about undertakings by conveyancing practitioners. This is clearly a very good reform, because if you are going to do conveyancing on an even par with lawyers, you need to have enforceable undertakings. The question is whether we’ve now got a second-rate undertaking regime because of subsection (1) of new section 38A, inserted by clause 5, which says, “An affected person may make an application for summary judgment in relation to an undertaking”. It just strikes me that it should simply say, “An affected person may make an application to the High Court in relation to an undertaking given by a conveyancing practitioner”, because summary judgments are a kind of particular form of proceeding where there is no oral evidence. In fact, if you are seeking to enforce a solicitor’s undertaking, you’re actually relying on the inherent jurisdiction of the court to discipline solicitors, who are, in fact, officers of the court.

Now, I accept that conveyancing practitioners simply don’t neatly fit into that, but I would have thought that by saying “undertakings by conveyancers are enforceable” and “the application to enforce them may be made to the High Court”, that would have been all you’ll need. Now you’ve got to have this unusual procedure, and, I guess, the challenge is—because summary judgment application is in fact an application which says, “Look, it’s obvious we don’t need to go to full trial; we can do a quick-fire procedure”. If you lose that, it then usually turns into an ordinary proceeding in which you then go and have a full trial. It’s actually unclear, and it’s just unclear to me why summary judgment was thought as appropriate. Here are two questions: why isn’t it just “apply to the High Court”, and what happens if you do this and you lose your summary judgment application?

17:43

Thank you, Madam Chair. I understand that the member was not on this particular Education and Workforce Committee, so I appreciate the question. I hope I can answer it well enough.

The amendment will enable conveyancers’ undertakings to be summarily enforceable in the High Court, similar to how lawyers’ undertakings are currently. I understand that registered conveyancers transact around 280 purchases annually. For each one of these transactions, conveyancers pay up to $500 in additional solicitor costs as a direct result of banks refusing to instruct conveyancers, and these costs are passed on to the consumers. The change in this clause will improve the confidence of banks, lawyers, and consumers to work with conveyancers and bring down the costs for consumers. I also note that this amendment was strongly supported by submitters at the select committee stage. This will help give effect to the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act, which had the aim of increasing competition for conveyancing services and driving conveyancing costs down.

17:44

Yeah, look, I got all that. I basically said that at the beginning when I outlined what an undertaking was, and those are great notes written by officials, but the question is this: why does it say that they must take a summary judgment application and not an ordinary application, and if it has to be a summary application, what happens if they lose that summary judgment application?

17:45

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m very keen to hear an answer to the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s question about why the provisions in this bill, essentially, provide a sort of second-rate or lightweight option for people who want to enforce the undertakings given by a conveyancer. That hasn’t been answered, and as someone who was on the Education and Workforce Committee—

I think Dr Webb’s also waiting for the answer to a question, and the Minister is taking advice, so does the member have a further—

Yes—as someone who was on the committee, I would say that this matter was never raised by the officials, by submitters, or by any of the committee members, so I’m glad that Duncan Webb has raised it at this time.

I wanted to ask some questions. Assuming that this matter can be resolved—

Yeah, we’ll just wait for an answer on this matter. Move on, and then we can come back.

You want to wait for the answer? OK, sure.

No, I’m happy for you to keep going.

OK. Assuming that that matter can be adequately answered, I’m interested in what thought the Minister for Courts has given to monitoring whether banks will alter their practice following the commencement of this provision, given that we’re trying to improve confidence in conveyancers’ undertakings; whether there’s been any estimate made of the reduction in settlement delays or transaction costs that are likely as a result of this change; and whether or not there will be any operational guidance provided to practitioners or to lenders if this provision enters the law.

17:47

I do not know the answer to the members’ questions, and the officials have advised me that they don’t have an answer to that either, because this is a minor change that relates specifically to new section 38A, which is being inserted here by clause 5. The question that’s being asked is talking about hypothetical situations that have not been considered when just trying to progress through what would be a standard, minor, technical-type change to this.

The members are asking legal questions about what if or why would we not do it somewhere else. The reality is that we have been asked to—the Government is looking to progress changes in this area in this way, and I have detailed the reasoning for that. I’m not in a position to be able to answer extended questions, because they actually don’t relate to what it is that we’re trying to change right here.

17:48

I must say, I find it extraordinary that on a question about why a summary judgment procedure was adopted and not an ordinary procedure, which is the wording of the legislation, why officials can’t answer that beggars belief. If they came here today thinking that this was a formality, well, they’ve got the wrong end of the stick. It might be late in urgency, but we expect the Government to be able to answer questions and justify their position. The fact that it went through a select committee process is neither here nor there; this is the committee of the whole House stage of the House of Representatives, so I hope I’ll get a better response when I talk about new section 135A, inserted by clause 7. Again, I raised these questions at second reading on purpose. I thought, “If I raise it here, at least officials will get an hour or so’s notice so that they will know it will be raised at committee stage, and they won’t be caught by surprise and be ferreting around.” My question is about section 135A, which allows complaints about lawyers to be summarily dismissed by a Law Society administrator where they are trivial, vexatious, or stale, or on a number of other grounds. My question, fundamentally, is this: if we’re going to have an administrative shutting-down of complaints against lawyers, what is the recourse for that person to have that decision reviewed? Can they ask either the standards committee to have a look at it or the Legal Complaints Review Officer to have a look at it? Or will they be forced to clog up the high courts by taking it on judicial review?

Now, can I say I support this reform intent—that is to say that complaints that are clearly meritless should be able to be turned away at the first point of contact, where otherwise they would clog up the select committee system, which is a body of six or seven or more people, including lawyers. But they make mistakes. These are not lawyers, necessarily—they may be, but they don’t have to be—but they are, ultimately, part of the internal administrative machinery of the Law Society and they should be subject to some oversight. Look, in terms of the law, I know what the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act says: you can seek a review from the Legal Complaints Review Officer for a standards committee decision, not an internal Law Society administrative decision. So we’ve got a problem.

I hope the Minister isn’t going to say, “Will there be another administrative review?” because that is just giving two problems of the same kind. I do think that there’s a lack here; this section should have said that “the complainant can seek a review by the standards committee of that decision.” Now, it would still go to the standards committee, and I accept that, but it still acts as an effective filter for 80 or 90 percent of these meritless claims. It’s also the case that some of these claims thought to be meritless, may not be. The administrator may make mistakes, and we need to have an ability for that review process. And, as I said in the second reading, telling someone who is a problematic or querulous complainant or a vexatious complainant that they have no merit, they’re a waste of time, and their vexatious, and we’re not even going to look at your complaint, we’re not even going to send it to the committee of lawyers, is the first way to really upset them. I know from experience that these people will not give up and they will go to the highest level and clog up our higher courts if we don’t give them a safety valve within in the process itself. So I hope we’ve got some better advice on this question.

17:52

Thank you, Madam Chair. One thing I’m going to start off by saying is I do not, in any way, appreciate that member attacking the officials who work really hard to do the work that this Government asks them to do, especially the sheer volume of work that this Government has put through them. I would expect that member to stand up and apologise to the officials for what he has said about them, because if that member wants to say anything, you should be saying it to me and leave the officials out, because that, I think, is a very low blow.

We are looking at these minor changes, and the member is asking for information that goes outside of that and the consequences that goes outside of that, from officials who do not have that information.

It’s not his fault you don’t know. For goodness’ sake!

And it’s not their fault.

17:53

OK. I don’t think we’re going to go into a slanging match between everybody. What Dr Duncan Webb actually said was he was surprised, given the time that had passed, that he’s unable to get the answer that he wanted in that time frame. Now, we’re going to give the Minister an opportunity to say what she was going to say at this point in time. In the absence of an answer, we’re not at the end of this committee stage and we still have some time in the dinner break, but bearing in mind that written questions are an option but can only be asked about policy intent and they can’t go for legal opinion.

So let’s just work this through. I know that Dr Webb was looking for time before and we may be able to get some time here. We may or may not get an answer. I can’t guarantee that the answer that the member’s looking for will come, but this is where we are.

17:54

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m going to go through parts of clause 6 and clause 7 in an attempt to answer some of that member’s questions. With clause 6, which is amending section 135(1), this is introducing the discretion for the Law Society’s complaint service to refer those complaints to the standards committee in clause 6, and it will enable the triage process, that has been introduced by clause 7 of this bill. The assessment grounds for the triaging would be the same grounds by the standards committee when they are considering complaints. The triaging decisions—the change was supported by submitters, although some suggested that the triaging criteria for the standards committee should come with a right of review. The review and appeal rights are not provided in similar triaging decisions of comparable regulatory bodies such as the Teaching Council, for example. I don’t think review in this case is necessary or appropriate.

Creating a right of review would shift current inefficiencies to an earlier part of the process. If a complainant was to seek a review of the triaging decision, they would need to apply for a judicial review—I know the members spoke about that just before. That is, however, thought to be an appropriate pathway. The Government is confident that the Law Society will have appropriate guidance and policy in place to make well-judged positions.

Madam Chair.

If there’s a clarification on this, I’ll take it before the dinner break. If it’s a new question—

It’s not a new—

—it’s not a new question.

17:56

Does the Minister think that judicial review is appropriately affordable and accessible for ordinary citizens who might find themselves in a dispute with the Law Society over the handling of a complaint?

17:57

Whether it’s affordable or accessible will come down to the individual and their case. What it is, for that member, is a pathway.

Members, the time has come to break for dinner. The committee will resume at 7 p.m.

The House is resumed. Members, before the dinner break, the committee was debating Part 1 of the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill. This is the debate on clauses 3 to 11, “Amendments to Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006”. The question, again, is that Part 1 stand part.

19:00

In answer to the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s thoughts earlier, over the dinner break I have had this from my officials: currently the affected person must enforce an undertaking through a separate proceeding in tort, contract, or estoppel, or, alternatively, a deed of undertaking that would need to be relied on, providing the process for enforcing breaches summarily will be simpler and more efficient for the affected person, and use less court and judicial resources. This will extend the range of pathways available to pursue breaches. The change will also improve the confidence of banks to rely on undertakings from conveyancers. If an unaffected person is unsuccessful with their application for summary judgment, the usual court processes apply. If the Hon Dr Duncan Webb is happy with that answer, I implore him to come back down to the Chamber and apologise to the officials that he abused before he left.

19:01

On clauses 6 and 7, the administrative triaging that we were talking about before the break, I wanted to know from the Minister: what consideration she’s given to the trade-off of efficiency against public confidence, in light of the exchange we had earlier in the select committee and now in the Chamber. We support administrative triaging, but I think these are real questions that arise from some of the evidence that we had at the committee.

The Law Society and the Law Association are obviously strongly in favour of this, but they would be because they have a direct benefit, a direct gain, from the efficiency that this will deliver. But not everyone agreed. One submitter argued that complaints should never be dismissed administratively, that there should be some form of independent review, and that concepts such as “frivolous” and “vexatious” required greater definition. Now, ultimately, the officials and the committee rejected those recommendations, but I would like to know from the Minister whether or not she has considered the possible lack of public confidence in a process that is, effectively, as was characterised earlier, an administrative employee having the ability to, basically, knock these complaints out with no real accessible right of review other than a judicial review.

19:03

Do I have confidence that this is the right way forward? Yes, because the advice that I’ve been given says that. As I mentioned before we went to the dinner break, the Government is confident that the Law Society will have appropriate guidance and policy in place to make well-judged decisions.

I also mentioned the assessment grounds for triaging would be the same grounds used by the Lawyers Standards Committee when considering complaints, and they are also set out in section 138 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act, “Decision to take no action on complaint”. I’m just going to go through those grounds very quickly. These grounds are from subsections (1)(a) to (f), paragraph (a) being “the length of time that has elapsed between the date [and] subject matter of complaint … or (b) the subject matter of the complaint [being] trivial; or (c) the complaint [being] frivolous or vexatious or is not made in good faith; or (d) the person alleged to be aggrieved does not desire the action be taken or, as the case may be, continued; or (e) the complainant does not have sufficient personal interest in the subject matter of the complaint; or (f) there is … another adequate remedy or right of appeal”.

Now, with these grounds that have been met, I think it very clearly sets out what those boundaries are before you get to that point of judicial review. So, yes, I do have confidence that I believe that we are on the right pathway here.

19:05

Thank you, Minister. Further to that, does she expect that the Law Society will be transparent about the handling of complaints under this new mechanism? For example, is there any expectation that they will publish annual statistics showing the number of complaints received, the number triaged, the grounds relied upon, and the complaints referred to the standards committees? Is there any expectation that there will be an ongoing audit to ensure that the triage decisions are being made consistently?

Because this is a regulatory standards bill, which is looking to make just small and minor amendments, we have not gone into every single clause with what is expected of organisations such as the Law Society, but one would hope that we need to get into a position where there is transparency across agencies, whether they be Government agencies or not, in order for the public to have confidence. So one would encourage transparency from all organisations that need to implement the law in some way or another. How they go about doing that, though, is up to them.

19:06

Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you for that response, Minister, and I do appreciate the Minister for going over some of the questions, for a more detailed response, over dinner. That’s very much appreciated.

Before dinner, Minister, you mentioned something around the changes we’re seeing both in terms of clause 8 but also in terms of clauses 5 and 7 around the guidelines that are going to be developed. Some of the guidelines have been developed alongside this, and this is also something we’ve seen from the submitters as well that is very much welcomed, but then there needs to be further guidelines on that.

I want to check with the Minister whether this is something, again, as we’re seeing with this particular bill, with some of these new additions like undertaking to be enforceable—whether either the Ministry of Justice or the appropriate, I guess, collective agency committee have already started working on some of those guidelines that the Minister referred to.

19:07

My purpose here is to do some small technical amendments. Guidelines is not something that is under my purview, but if you’re going to have any implementation work correctly or work well, you would expect an agency or organisation to be able to get that information out to the users in order for them to be able to work efficiently. But the creation of guidelines is not under my purview.

19:08

Thank you, Mr Chair. Can I just ask a question of the Minister that relates to clause 7; this is in relation to new section 135A. The Minister has identified that in terms of the ability to either take no action—it seems to me that there are only two options, either for a referral of the complaint for further consideration or indeed no action. Now, the Minister has identified those particular specific criteria that relate to no action. One of them is in relation, it seems, to time; the period of time that’s elapsed. In a circumstance where there is an active referral that’s being considered, obviously one wants to, potentially, in the interests of natural justice, reach a conclusion at a time that is sufficient and not sort of drawn out so much.

When the Minister identifies the length of time that has elapsed between the date on which the matter of the complaint arose and the date that the actual complaint was made, where in the scheme of things is the quantum of time set in terms of action being taken around what the next step is? So it’s not about the amount of time from actually receiving the complaint, but the period of time from when the complaint is received and when the next step to either refer it or otherwise is taken.

19:09

Thank you, Mr Chair. I am advised that the length of time that has elapsed between the date of when the subject matter of the complaint arose and the date of when the complaint was made is such that an investigation of the complaint is no longer practicable or desirable.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

19:10

Thank you, Mr Chair. I thank the Minister for her answer. In terms of being practicable, what sorts of factors would lend themselves to that consideration? It is quite a significant thing as to whether a complaint is heading down that path of referral or not. When she says practicability, practicableness, what sort of things is she envisaging? I know that, in terms of providing some guidance around what that might mean, it would be important.

As I mentioned before, it is not for me to issue what that guidance is. What is practicable or desirable will come down to those that need to make those decisions, based on the cases that are before them. My role here is to make minor and technical amendments to law in order for them to operate well. The question that I am now being asked is almost a type of operational question which I have no control over.

19:11

I move, That debate on this question now close.

19:12

Thank you, Mr Chair. I just have a short question for the Minister for Part 2, clause 13, “Section 36 amended”, noting that the current section 36 of this particular Act, “Disqualification from holding certificate”, already has burglary, robbery, extortion/blackmail, and money-laundering within that. Can I just check this is simply because the section numbers have changed around, and this is just to update the section numbers?

19:13

I thank the member for his question. Section 36 of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 lists quite a wide range of offences, and many of them are out of date. They haven’t been updated since 2003. The amendment updates to the Prostitution Reform Act also correct out-of-date sections that are in the Crimes Act 1961 and also the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. We’re basically just updating, adding to those, and updating those references to those particular two bills.

Thank you. Thanks to the Minister for that. In light of that response, these regulatory bills don’t come around that often, but when they do, they span quite widely. Is she confident that this process has captured all of the relevant updates in relation to the Prostitution Reform Act? It is a piece of legislation that’s been around for more than 20 years. Is she comfortable that there are no further other options that might need to be addressed?

19:14

At this stage, the answer to that is yes. This change is about ensuring that the Act is not only up to date but it still sticks with its original policy intent as well. Correctly referencing the relevant offence provisions that are in the Crimes Act 1961 and the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 will ensure that the correct disqualifying factors are applied in that licensing process. At this stage, I do believe that we have caught up, so to speak.

19:15

Thank you, Mr Chair. Part 3 is, as far as this bill goes, the most substantial part of this bill. It is also the part with the Minister’s amendment, which I’ll come to shortly, because I do have a few questions on the Minister’s amendment, but I’m not quite at clause 25 just yet.

My first two questions are for clause 18. The first one is clause 18(2), replacing section 13(4)(b). This is the new criteria that’s been added in terms of the membership of the authority. I’m guessing it’s just simply moving what is in subclause (1) to a different area, I guess—is that what is being done there?

The second question I have is—

Could you repeat the clause again, sorry?

OK. I will restart, very briefly. Clause 18(1), which is deleting “and that member must be a lawyer of not less than 7 years’ legal experience”—is that just simply moving that into a different section, which is now 13(4)(b), being my first question, and are there any implications with that?

The second one is the repeal of section 13(5)—again, I don’t think this is something we looked at specifically, and it’s not in version one of this bill—which is consultation with the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ). Can I just check with the Minister: why do REINZ no longer need to be consulted? That’s the part that’s being repealed in clause 18(3). Does REINZ even still exist?

19:17

Thank you, Mr Chair. At the moment, the chairperson of the board needs to be a lawyer with not less than seven years’ experience. What we’re doing is replacing section 13(4) with a new provision that requires at least one of the members of the board to be a lawyer with at least seven years’ experience. Effectively, what we’re saying is it doesn’t have to be the chair that has that, but somebody on the board has to have that.

The reasoning for that is it’s actually really hard to find a lawyer with seven years’ experience who wants to put their hand up to be here. In fact, I would like to do a bit of a shout-out to the current member, because the chair with seven years’ experience at the moment actually wants to resign and hasn’t been able to do so because we can’t replace that person with another lawyer. We’re, effectively, saying someone on the board, please have seven years’ experience—well, you’re going to need to have seven years’ experience, but you don’t need to be the chair. The chair just needs to have a year’s legal experience.

19:18

Thank you for that, Minister. I will move on to clause 19. Clause 19 is also the part where the select committee has actually made some changes around the power to require specified documents. I just want to check in this section, when we are looking at that—and I believe I’m looking at clause 19, new section 24A(2). In that—yes, it is (2). Can I just check that still allows for the contravention, for example, which is not listed in (1), around things like privacy, etc.? Just checking that the authority, when requesting “any person to supply the Authority with any specified document”, is also exempted from certain other principles, like the information privacy principles, for example.

19:19

Thank you, Mr Chair. Clause 19 actually makes a few new subsections. The member mentioned 24A(2), but there’s also 24A(3) and 24A(4). What I think I might do is just talk to the changes that we’re making all together. The Real Estate Authority has limited ability at the moment to gather information to support any investigations into breaches of the Act, regulations, or practice rules, and into unlicensed trading. This clause, clause 19, which is inserting the whole of new section 24A, establishes a new power to require documents from licensees and other individuals to facilitate those investigations that they wish to undertake. This change will enable the regulator to better fulfil its functions and better support the consumer protection purpose that is within this Act. The provision is complemented by the introduction of an offence for failure to comply with such a request. We do that in clause 28, with the maximum penalties of $50,000 for a company and $10,000 for an individual. I will just point out, too, that those penalties are consistent with other similar offences in the Real Estate Agents Act. I’ll just throw that in there while I can.

The select committee did make some recommendations, including amending clause 19 to clarify that the Real Estate Authority must have reasonable grounds to believe to initiate the power. It also recommended amending the test for exercising the power to make it consistent with the exercise of other existing powers by the authority under the Act. These changes also make it clear that the reasonable grounds to believe applies to situations involving a licensee’s conduct, not only a person who may be engaging in unlicensed trading.

The select committee, at this clause, also recommended amending the scope of the authority’s ability to require documentation so it could be applied to any person. This ensures that the relevant documentation could be obtained from any parties that may not be involved in illegal activity but who may have relevant information about others. Then, new section 24A(4) has been inserted to clarify that people or organisations can only be required to supply a specified document that is or has been in their possession or in their control. So, for the member, clause 19 and new section 24A and its insertion really is about providing the authority with that ability to be able to get that information in the best way that they can in order to make their judgments.

19:22

Thank you, Mr Chairman. Further on clause 19, I thought it might be worth noting for the committee that the Law Association supported the objective of this section—of strengthening investigations—but it did raise a number of concerns, including the breadth of the power, the threshold for issuing notices, and privacy implications. The Privacy Commissioner came along to the committee and also accepted that there was a sound policy basis for the investigative power to require documents but stressed that it should be accompanied by appropriate limits, particularly in relation to the later use and disclosure of personal information obtained under this new power.

As the Minister pointed out, the committee did strengthen the threshold for reasonable belief, but I don’t think you could say that the committee actually accepted the other proposals that were made by the Privacy Commissioner—for example, around what operational guidance would be provided, the privacy concerns, and reporting and transparency. I want to ask the Minister: why did the Government conclude that the existing safeguards in the bill are sufficient, given that critique by the Privacy Commissioner? The Privacy Commissioner supported the proposal only on the basis that there would be appropriate limits on subsequent use and disclosure of personal information. Where are the safeguards? What limits are there? It’s not clear to me, so I’d be interested to know from her where those safeguards are, if they do exist. Finally, in this contribution: does she expect that the authority will publish operational guidance governing the use of these powers that they’re been given?

19:24

Thank you, Mr Chair. What I have been advised is that this particular provision of this clause will come into effect eight months after the Royal assent of the bill, giving sufficient time for the agency to be able to prepare what I would expect to be guidance to those, because there is a bit of a change here. The delay of that eight months after Royal assent for implementation of this, I believe, would be in order for them to be able to get their house in order and ensure that everybody understands what their obligations will be; perhaps guidelines, as well. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’m a big fan of transparency and I would explicitly hope that those that have to abide by this will understand exactly what it is that they need to abide by. It’s not a place to put those details into this form of legislation, but one would expect that if people are going to abide by the laws, they need to understand what those parameters are.

19:25

Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you for that response, Minister. I think my colleague Phil Twyford may have additional questions for clause 19, but I want to ask a question around clause 20, just noting to you, as well, Minister, that I may have a follow-up question on this once we get to the commencement part, which I don’t think I want to discuss at this stage.

The only question I have for this section—this is the part that, from our perspective, we had the greatest issues around, but then we have, like I said, had some of these being teased out during the select committee stage. Looking at it again, one of the things I want to check is about clause 20, “Section 36 amended”, subclause (2), inserting new paragraph (f), in the case of an individual whose licence was cancelled and is applying for a licence within 12 months—they’ve completed that. But, let’s say, should a person complete any required continued education within 12 months but they didn’t apply for a licence or re-licence within that 12-month period, are they again no longer eligible, as well? Is the criteria that you have to apply for it within 12 months, not the continued education part?

19:27

My understanding is that we have a series of real estate agents that have a qualification, and we have a series of older real estate agents who actually aren’t qualified, but they have a whole lifetime of experience. The requirements when people reapply is that they need to have a qualification, and we’re ensuring that those that don’t have the qualification but have adequate experience don’t miss out on continuing their job.

Now, that 12-month delay that is allowed actually came about as a result of Cyclone Gabrielle. It was a time when people had other things going on, and they couldn’t put in their application. When we think about natural disasters, of which we’re having a few in New Zealand, we need to be mindful that people just actually might not be able to get in and do their application at the time when they need to. There’s two things going on there: one is allowing those without qualifications but with experience to carry on; and the other is, with that 12-month extension, allowing those in predicaments to actually have that bit of extended time to apply.

19:29

Thank you for that, Mr Chair. Thank you for that, Minister for Courts. That actually does answer my question, because I did wonder where the 12 months came about, and force majeure happens, events happen, and I think that’s reasonable.

I’m actually, if it’s OK, going to move on to—and other members may have questions in between—the Minister’s Amendment Paper 636, and also the two tabled amendments that are on that amendment. The question I have for the Amendment Paper is: when you look at new clause 25, “Section 54 amended”, the “Cancellation of licence”, in terms of the specific phrasing, it states, “is convicted … of a crime … involving dishonesty”, etc., and what we see in new section 54 (i)(i) and in new section 54 (i)(iii) and (iv)— I’ve actually seen that in some of the other legislation as well. Is that just simply updating this part that’s sort of recently been captured in this bill and updating it to be consistent with some of the things I see already in other legislation? That’s my first question.

My second question is around the Minister’s two tabled amendments. On the first, I thank the Minister for actually communicating with us ahead of time with these ones and with a little bit of explanation for both. I think the amendment itself looks fine, but I was more interested in a process question. I believe, in the correspondence, it talked about this coming from the Real Estate Authority quite late and they only just picked up on it. I want to check, in terms of the process for such tabled amendments, is it that the authority would contact the Minister saying, “These are some amendments.”, and then the Minister contacts either the Parliamentary Counsel Office or the officials and going, “Does this look OK?”, and then it goes into a tabled amendment? I just want to check, do officials need to be involved in any other process? Because I assume that the authority is not the officials.

19:31

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ll start off with just talking about the first Amendment Paper in the way that it relates to clause 21. With the main Amendment Paper—Amendment Paper 636—it adjusts this clause to align with new section 54(i)(ii), which was added by the Amendment Paper; and then the member’s not actually asking me about the two Amendment Papers to the Amendment Paper, but rather the process of it.

The way that it has operated is that my understanding is the Real Estate Authority, last minute, just went through and started having a look at the bill and the Amendment Paper and then realised very quickly, and at the last minute, that a clause had dropped off. I think that was section 54, which we are putting in there now—section 54(k), going by memory. That had accidentally been deleted, and nobody had picked that up. The officials were contacted by the Real Estate Authority, not my ministerial office. The Real Estate Authority went straight to the officials. The officials would in turn have gone to the Parliamentary Counsel Office to check if that was a drafting error, which it was confirmed, and then it was put back in as section 54(k).

Of course, they then found the other one—section 54(i)(v)—as well, which is just a small amendment that they also picked up at the time that they were going through. I do appreciate that it is late notice, but I also appreciate the fact that the Real Estate Authority did find this and it’s not something we will then have to add into another regulatory standards bill in the future or next term. We were just taking the opportunity to fix that, and again, my appreciation to the Real Estate Authority for picking it up.

19:33

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Thak you, Mr Chair. Just wanting to take a question in relation to the Minister for Courts’s Amendments Paper 636, specifically clause 25, which amends the provisions around the cancellation of licence. I’m not quite sure whether the changes in the cancellation of licence would actually fit within the scope of a regulatory systems bill given it’s bringing in other clauses to cancel a licence. For example, obviously, with regulatory systems bills, they’re usually just technical changes. However, the new clause brings in a whole series of different ways that the cancellation of a licence can be undertaken.

Under section 54 of the Real Estate Agents Act right now, a registrar can cancel the person’s licence if they die, which makes sense obviously; “(b) if the person gives written notice to the Registrar”, which, obviously, if they’ve given up doing real estate; “(c) if the person has failed to maintain the prescribed qualification”—that’s good, they’ve got to keep their qualifications to maintain their licence; “(d) if the person has failed to complete any continuing education”—obviously, there’s professional development requirements as part of that; a couple of other sections—section 99 and section 110—in accordance of those; “(g) if the licence was granted on the basis of any false or fraudulent representation or declaration made orally or in writing; or (h) if the person has failed to pay any prescribed fees or levies”. Other than section 54(g), I can kind of understand where the insertions under the Minister’s Amendment Paper, which is around false or fraudulent representation, kind of still fits within that scheme. Hence why I think, perhaps, this is why it’s been allowed under the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill.

But specifically, my questions for the Minister are in section 54(i)(ii)—“if, during the term of the licence, the person is convicted of an offence under … the Fair Trading Act” and it sets out a whole lot of sections in the Fair Trading Act. For example, section 12A is around unsubstantiated representations; section 14 of the Fair Trading Act is in relation to false representation and misleading conduct in relation to land—that makes absolute sense; section 17 is offering gifts and prizes and not providing them—again, that’s sort of a misleading offence; section 19 is in relation to bait advertising—again, that makes sense, if want to keep your real estate licence, you shouldn’t be doing bait advertising; section 20 of the Fair Trading Act is referral selling; section 21 is demanding or accepting payment without intending to supply a product; section 21C is prohibition on assisting right to payment with respect to unsolicited goods or unsolicited services; section 22 is in relation to misleading representations about certain business elements; and section 24 is around pyramid selling schemes.

I can understand why all those particular sections allow the regulator to cancel the person’s licence, but my question is actually in relation to the sections of the Fair Trading Act which are missing. That’s my question to the Minister, because if you look at that grouping between sections 12A to 24 of the Fair Trading Act, and if you work through the ones that are not included, they also have a similar theme to both the current section 54(g) of the Real Estate Agents Act, as well as the Fair Trading List. For example, section 23 of the Fair Trading Act, basically, is around harassment and coercion. If you’re a real estate agent, I would hope you’re not harassing and coercing a vendor to potentially buy the house. My question is around why section 12 of the Fair Trading Act is not included. That’s in relation to cancelling their licence if they have misleading conduct in relation to employment. Misleading conduct in relation to employment is quite important. Obviously, for some real estate agents, they are actually employees.

My other question is, why not section 13? Section 13 of the Fair Trading Act is about false or misleading representations in respect to the supply of possible goods. There is some weight to those three particular sections of the Fair Trading Act that have been missed out as a potential reasoning for the cancellation of licence. I just want to ask the Minister whether her or officials had considered those three particular provisions of the Fair Trading Act and as to why they were not included as a reason to cancel a licence.

19:38

Thank you, Mr Chair. The member went quite extensively into clause 54(i)(ii) and laid them all out, but we’re not making any changes there. The Amendment Paper 636 would replace clause 25 to adjust the amendments to section 54. The original wording of clause 25 would not achieve the policy intent to clearly allow the registrar to cancel a person’s licence if they meet the grounds that would prohibit them from holding a licence. The replacement to clause 25 makes more explicit the grounds for cancelling a person’s licence during the term of a licence, which mirror the disqualifications from holding a licence in the Act now.

The Amendment Papers that we’re making include section 54(k), which I had just spoken to with the other member from the Green Party. The second amendment to section 54(i)(v) makes a technical amendment to just adjust that section to refer to an agent’s licence. This better aligns the grounds for cancellation of a licence in this section with the current prohibition in section 37(2) for holding an agent’s licence. This amendment will mean that section 54(i)(v) applies to the cancellation of an agent’s licence. The member’s gone into an area that I don’t think actually correlates with what we’re doing here.

Dr—the Hon Barbara Edmonds.

19:39

That’d be nice if I had a PhD—but anyway, thank you, Mr Chair. When the Minister for Courts responded that it’s in relation to the original, did you mean when the bill was introduced—the original bill—or the one post - select committee?

19:40

I will say that it relates to probably what was in that original bill. My officials can come and correct me if I am incorrect.

Thank you, Mr Chair, and thank you, Minister for Courts, for getting your officials to check that, because, if I understand the bill as introduced, this is a new section under the Real Estate Agents Act 2008. That whole section 54(i), inserted by clause 25, is new because the Real Estate Agents Act currently only goes to section 54(h). It is an insertion—obviously an insertion that would have been put in the bill as introduced, but the question still remains: it provides a list of particular offences under the Fair Trading Act, but why have those other three offences, which are also under the Fair Trading Act, been omitted? What is the policy reason for them being omitted, even if it was the original bill, because, currently, it is a new amendment to the Real Estate Agents Act 2008?

19:41

I thank the member for her question and seeking further clarity. I hope that I can give some of it here, now. They’ve not come up to me to say that I was incorrect, and they might do soon, so if they do, I will stand up again. My understanding—you’re quite right. Section 54(i) is a new section requiring the register to cancel the licence “of a licensee company, 10 working days after the licensee’s sole agent licence is cancelled…unless a temporary licence holder or a new [sole] agent licence holder has been appointed for the licensee company.”

I think, rather than having the huge list of it, it’s just allowing them that ability to be able to do that. The Amendment Paper would replace clause 25 to adjust the amendments in section 54, which makes me think that it that’s it is—

In addition to it.

Yes.

19:42

Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you for that, Minister for Courts. I’ve got two additional questions, and that’s on clause 27 and clause 28. Again, others may have other clauses in regard to the Minister’s amendment. For clause 27, can I just get clarification from the Minister that the intent over here is that what we’re now seeing in this replacement section 72(b), paragraphs (i) to (iii), will now be relevant for just the licensee’s conduct in general, and not specifically to do with the real estate agency work. Which means that if the licensee, for example, carries on with their day-to-day work, going to the supermarket, etc., and something happens and their conduct falls short of the standards that a reasonable member of the public is entitled to expect, that then would now fall under this particular clause. Would that be a reasonable example—checking with the Minister? That’s my first question.

My second question is on clause 28. Now, this new section 146A inserts not only an offence but also a fine. The fine is quite high. My understanding in terms of that is it may possibly be outdated—do not quote me on this—or that it offers a general understanding that fines should be no more than $1,000, because the thing with the fine is, there’s no way for anyone to respond. It’s not like, you know, upon conviction, you get fined; it’s just you get a fine. So $10,000 and $50,000 is what I would have thought is quite high and above some of the advice I have seen.

Can I just check that with—I have not gone through the entirety of the Real Estate Agents Act, but does this come out from some other parts of the Real Estate Agents Act that matches this particular one, which is why you are able to mirror it for that consistency? Because, otherwise, I would also assume that this is quite new.

19:44

Thank you, Mr Chair. To the member, the change that we’re making in replacement section 72, inserted by clause 27, to expand the definition of “unsatisfactory conduct” is to make sure that real estate agents will be accountable for a broader range of conduct, not just the conduct while carrying out real estate agency work. To give you an example of that, it will include, say, aggressive or abusive behaviour during cold-calling people, or a licensee acting inappropriately towards a client maybe, after a transaction has concluded. At the moment, it’s about the business that they’re doing, but we’re saying, well, actually, you need to behave well, broadly.

The member talked about a fine—well, it’s actually an offence, so it’s not like it’s an infringement fee; it’s an offence. The reason why it’s so much—$50,000 for a company and $10,000 for an individual—is because those penalties and those amounts are consistent with other similar offences, as the member mentioned, within the Real Estate Agents Act.

19:45

On clause 27, I remember the Law Association, at the Education and Workforce Committee, supported this, but they questioned whether or not the drafting provided sufficient certainty. They accepted the arguments about consumer protection, about the need for professional discipline, but they submitted that there was insufficient legal certainty. So, further to the Minister for Courts’s response to Lawrence Xu-Nan’s question, I’m interested in whether or not her interpretation of the draft would be that real estate agents could be held accountable for behaviour completely outside their work as a real estate agent—so, not cold-calling potential customers or whatever, but committing a crime when you’re out shopping or watching your kid’s football game, or bringing yourself into disrepute in some way that doesn’t relate at all to your work as a real estate agent. I’m interested in if she could answer that question.

Secondly, how does she expect licensees to know where the boundary lies for unsatisfactory conduct? Because just a plain reading of the provisions doesn’t provide that. Perhaps the Minister could give us some examples of behaviour that would count under this provision as unsatisfactory conduct. Further to that, does she expect that the authority will publish guidance for real estate agents so that they can have some understanding and some clarity?

19:47

I gave some examples just before to the member from the Green Party, so I’ll say that I’ve already delivered that, and I will carry on because I’ve answered your last question first. I’ll now move back to your first question then. My understanding is that the Education and Workforce Committee actually raised those concerns as well, because submitters had raised concerns about what actually makes up that unsatisfactory conduct. In response to that, I understand that there are tests of unsatisfactory conduct in the clause that have been clarified. A clearer link has been drawn between unacceptable conduct by a licensee and their profession to emphasise that this test is about upholding consumer confidence in the real estate profession. As there is a test, I would expect that that test would be made known to the real estate agents in order for them to understand and have knowledge about how to comply.

19:48

I move, That debate on this question now close.

19:49

I just have two areas that I’d like to ask the Minister for Courts questions about. The first one is a brief one. It’s a response to her to Dr Xu-Nan’s question about having a lawyer as a chair, basically. I accept the Minister has said that history has proven that it’s apparently quite difficult to attract someone into that role. If that is the reason, Minister, was there any thought given to, perhaps, not completely removing that requirement for the chair’s role, but maybe allowing the Minister to make the appointment of the chair with preference given to someone who has that particular qualification in terms of a minimum number of years as a practising lawyer? That’s the first question.

The second one in relation to clauses 20 and 21 in Part 3. This is about the entitlement to a licence and the prohibition on someone from being licensed. In clause 20, which seeks to amend section 36, it identifies the various things that need to be considered for someone who has had a track record of having a licence being cancelled, and it seems to me that in new section 36(1)(f) in clause 20(2), it talks about someone who has had their licence cancelled within the previous 12 months and who has, basically, undertaken a process of professional development. Further down, in new section 36(2)(d) in clause 20(4), it’s around the registrar being satisfied that, actually, the applicant can demonstrate a sufficient level of knowledge and experience of agency work.

In clause 21, it talks about the prohibition on someone who, in the previous five-year period, has had a licence cancelled, and so my question to the Minister is this. Clause 20 is all about those sorts of qualitative considerations around what someone’s record might look like. New section 37(1)(d)(i) in clause 21 is very definitive in that it’s a five-year threshold. Minister, are you satisfied that five years is appropriate, and, if so—or if not, I guess—were there any other considerations as to what that particular time frame would be? How did five years get landed upon?

19:51

I’d note that perhaps the member wasn’t in here when I answered these questions before, and so I’m happy to go through them again.

This part? I’ve been here for this part.

Yeah. Both the questions that you’ve just asked me, I’ve actually answered, but I’m happy to answer them again for you. With regard to the requirement about the chairperson having seven years’ legal experience, we had mentioned how it’s hard to find a person. We’re not actually removing that from the board, at all. We still want a person with seven years’ experience, if we can find it, to sit on the board—

Just not as chair?

—but just not as chair. Effectively, I had spoken about how the current chair with seven years’ experience has been wanting to resign, but we have nobody who is able to replace the dear lady. Her name is Denese Bates, and she does a wonderful job for the real estate agents, but she does want to retire. There is nobody there to replace her, and so we’d like to be able to replace her with someone that has the legal experience, but not so defined as it currently is.

Now, if someone else comes along and they happen to have seven years’ legal experience, we can, in the first instance, at least get them on to the board, and maybe they could eventually end up in that chair role. It’s just trying to make sure that we have a spin of people that can continue, and the Real Estate Agents Authority can continue in that respect.

In regard to clause 21, the five-year prohibition following grounds for cancelling a licence is really, really extensive, and there is no other organisation or agency that has that sort of penalty. We’re looking to remove that five-year stand-down period as an automatic consequence for not completing compulsory personal development or for failing to pay the annual suspension fee. Again, this can also come down to people just having a time where they can’t even get in and do their reapplications, etc., for other things like, say, Cyclone Gabrielle, as I had mentioned before.

Again, I will just point out that this will come in eight months after Royal assent in order to ensure that we have it all set up and ready to go in the Act, and so that we are not taking away what could often be a lifetime of work. Real estate agents are often in that job for decades before failing to do something as simple as not doing a particular course or not paying a particular fee at any one time, and, as I’ve mentioned, it’s a punitive and disproportionate consequence when you compare it to so many other professions which don’t have anything anywhere near a five-year suspension.

19:54

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that the Minister’s tabled amendments to Amendment Paper 636 be agreed to.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 3 set out on Amendment Paper 636 as amended be agreed to.

19:56

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m signalling that I have just two short questions on this, and they’re all to do with clause 2(1), which is on the commencement date for Part 3.

Of my two short questions, No. 1 is this. Minister, you mentioned that the poor person who has been the chair of the authority now wants to step down. Does that mean that they have to wait eight months before they can step down because this part doesn’t come into effect for eight months? That’s my first question.

My second question is to do with how this interacts with clause 20. We did talk about the fact that if a person’s licence is cancelled, they can reapply within 12 months, and yet the commencement is in eight months’ time. If the commencement is in eight months’ time, does that mean that a person who is within that eight months—because there’s no retrospectivity, as far as I know, so if a person whose licence was cancelled within that eight months, the old rules still apply, and it’s not like in eight months’ time, they have four more months of leeway to go to make that up within 12 months—if that makes sense. Those are my two questions for this.

19:57

My officials and I had the same thought on this, but they’re just going away to double-check and will come back. There is a delay just in Part 3—which is the real estate agents area—for eight months, and if Denese Bates KC is listening to this, we are of the opinion—

Shout-out to Denese.

Shout-out to Denese. She’s going to be there for another eight months unless we do find somebody with that seven years’ experience. The delay of the commencement is because there is some updating of IT systems, forms—which we were talking about earlier—and training programmes that need to be implemented, and the information on their website also needs to be updated. Unfortunately, the chair side of it is in there too, and so, hopefully, Denese Bates KC will stay on for eight months, and unless we—

You might have some answers now.

Clause 18 in Part 3, which amends the membership of the Real Estate Authority, will, however, come into force on the day after Royal assent, as an additional time for the implementation of that particular clause is not required. Denese Bates KC, if you’re listening to this, you can heave a sigh of relief—and I most certainly am—and I hope that that answers the member’s question.

19:58

Just checking with the Minister for the Courts: I had a second part of that question around the reapplication of the licence within that eight months. I understand that the Minister might be seeking some advice, and, Mr Chair, I just wanted to get clarity. That’s my only question. If the Minister is able to get that advice and wants to tie it in to her third reading speech, so to speak, I’m fine with that. I just would like an answer to that—that’s all.

19:59

Thank you, Mr Chair. No, that notification that I had there was saying that it’s only that clause that will be implemented straight away. Everything else will be eight months away, and so, yes, it will take eight months for everything else.

Thank you, Mr Chair. It is quite an important question, so if I may just practically work through it, because this does become important, particularly in the transition period. For example, section 54(d), as amended by clause 25, won’t come into effect until March next year. Therefore, “if the person, at any time, ceases to be able to hold a licence on 1 or more of the grounds [that are now] set out under section 37;”—for example, if tomorrow they cannot meet any of those motions, doesn’t matter; it gets to March—this won’t come until effect until March next year, so that notice period of over month is well superseded. Therefore, if it means that with the 12-month period, which Dr Xu-Nan referenced, does that mean—April, May, June, July—by July next year, which is 2027, that’s when that cancellation comes into effect, or is it not for another 12 months from March 2027? It’s just that clarity around when that is.

If the Minister for Courts, as you said correctly, that’s when section 54(d) comes into effect—March next year—technically, based on the question by Dr Xu-Nan, it won’t be until March 2028 that that person’s licence can be cancelled.

20:01

Mr Chair.

Not July 2027.

Yeah. I understand the member’s question, and it probably goes a little bit further than what I’m able to answer. When I looked at the notes that I have, the reason why we have that eight months requirement is to update the IT systems, forms, training programmes, and information on their website. I suspect that information on the website—training, forms, information that goes out to the real estate agents—will detail exactly how they will roll that out.

One thing that we have made clear to the Real Estate Authority is to try and ensure that any changes that they make are for the benefit of the real estate agents, hence why we’re removing that five-year suspension as well, because we really just needed to update this.

I think, in the bigger scheme of things, my expectation is the real estate authority would work with an individual depending on what that circumstance is. To give you an example, if that member did something that was really out of order, one would expect them to be suspended and not have to go through the—

Not wait until those provisions come in.

—yes, not wait until those provisions—but if it’s something that, perhaps, could be addressed when those provisions come in, there could be the ability, perhaps, for the Real Estate Authority to suspend their decision until that comes in; but it’s very hard to ascertain exactly when or what, because there will be so many variations to what they have to deal with.

20:03

Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and reports it with amendment. The committee has also considered the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill and reports that also with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

The Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill are set down for third reading immediately.

20:04

I present the legislative statements on the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill.

Those legislative statements are—what are the words?

—published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

—there we go. Those legislative statements are published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

20:05

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move, That the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I’m pleased to take this final call on two practical bills that improve the way parts of our justice and regulatory systems operate. These bills are not about creating unnecessary new layers of regulation, they’re about maintaining the laws we already have, fixing known problems, removing disproportionate penalties, and making sure our regulatory systems work better for the people who use them.

The Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill improves access to justice and supports the effective operation of tribunals and quasi-judicial bodies. It allows successful applicants in the disputes tribunal to recover their filing fee from the respondent where it is appropriate.

Can I just say, if there’s an issue with speaking, we can get another Minister to read it out for you.

Yes, if you wouldn’t mind.

That is a sensible change. People who have had to enforce their legal rights should not be left bearing unnecessary costs when they have been successful.

The bill also strengthens oversight of the private security industry by improving information-gathering powers. This will help detect and deter people operating outside the rules. It also makes practical changes to appointments and employment arrangements for tribunal members so these bodies can operate more consistently and efficiently.

The Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill improves the occupational regulation system for both professionals and consumers. It allows conveyancers’ professional undertakings to be enforced in the High Court, as lawyers’ undertakings already are. That will support competition in the conveyancing market and give consumers more confidence in the services they use.

It also removes an overly harsh penalty that disqualified real estate agents from practising for five years for failing to complete continuing professional development or pay fees on time. That kind of penalty is out of proportion to the breach. This bill replaces it with a more sensible and balanced approach. At the same time, the bill strengthens the Real Estate Authority’s ability to investigate unlicensed trading and ensure licensees are meeting their obligations.

I thank officials in the Parliamentary Council Office for their work on these bills. I commend these bills to the House.

Just for the Hansard record: that was the Hon Louise Upston. The question is that the motion be agreed to.

20:07

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, it was just an hour, maybe two hours ago that I was here speaking on the second reading of these two great bills: the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill.

In the intervening time, we’ve had a committee of the whole House stage and I’ve had dinner—fish and chips; fish and chip Friday—but the point I’m making, is the fact that it’s been such a short time, and here I am speaking on the third reading, and it’s the way that this legislation is moving through Parliament at such a rapid pace under urgency.

The need for us to have a process that is robust ensures that the legislation receives the public attention that the public may want to give the legislation—it treats proper scrutiny as an inconvenience—allowing robust debate around this legislation. It is disappointing to be back here two hours later, in the third reading, to discuss these two important bills, which I would have liked to have more time to consider, as would my colleagues, and I’m sure the public would have appreciated some more time to consider these bills. Nevertheless, I will continue. These bills are a package of four regulatory systems amendment bills administered by the Ministry of Justice. Look, we acknowledge the challenges in our justice system—

Read it better, Georgie.

What do you mean, “Read it better”? Read what better?

Your speech.

I was thinking that, maybe, members on the Government side would take an actual call on this. I challenge—

I would actually challenge the member to speak to the piece of legislation, please, because we’ve just had quite an extensive two hours in the committee stage, so there’s plenty to talk about.

There is plenty. Thank you, Madam Speaker. First of all, I’ll talk about the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill. Within here, there are some technical changes. There are technical changes that will amend the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006, the Prostitution Reform Act 2003, and the Real Estate Agents Act 2008. The aim is to strengthen the ability of occupational regulators to protect consumers, increase efficiency, and remove inconsistent or redundant provisions.

What I wanted to start talking about was the amendments within the Law Society which give the complaints service discretion rather than requirement in referring complaints against lawyers. This has been hashed out a little bit across the board, and the pros and cons of this part of the legislation have been discussed. It is still not completely resolved, and I think there are still questions around who’s making the decision as to whether a complaint progresses through and how that decision was made, and then around what the repercussions are if, say, the complainant’s complaint is dismissed but they don’t think their complaint should be dismissed—what process they would go through? Those are still questions we have, and if we had had more time, those could have been addressed.

One of the benefits of this legislation—and I see the intention of it—is to increase how quickly complaints can be resolved. As we all know, all facets of society will get complaints about the way things are done, and some of them have basis, and some of them don’t. Not having to go through a full investigation process for every single complaint is surely going to benefit the Law Society. When we’re talking about justice, we have to talk about a fair process and fair access to justice. If we can make things more efficient within the system, which in turn frees up resources and people to concentrate on the important things when it comes to administering justice, then that has got to be a good thing—as long as we are doing so in a way that doesn’t limit access at all and is a robust process.

The next part of the occupational regulation amendment bill that I found quite interesting was around the Real Estate Authority changes. There was some discussion around the changes to the chairperson having to have been a practising lawyer for seven years and that move to that person having to be on the board. I support that change, but, still, I think that having a practising lawyer on the board who has experience of seven years and keeping them there is absolutely vital. I’m really pleased that that’s been put in the mix. As we know, the work that real estate agencies do is very legislation-heavy. They’ve got to get all their ducks in a row; they’ve got to dot their Is and cross their Ts because they are preparing quite serious legal documents, and the importance of that oversight from the board can’t be understated when it comes to the work that they do. The decisions that boards make are vital in that space.

The other aspect of that I want to touch on is just the tidying-up of the ability for the Real Estate Authority to renew a licence for up to 12 months after it expires, rather than requiring a full application, and that flexibility for unforeseen circumstances after what happened with recent flooding that restricted people from accessing the renewal of their licences. That’s good.

I actually had a situation where I was talking to someone in my electorate about their experiences with a real estate agent when they were trying to purchase a house. They were interested in the house and they had an unconditional offer to put on the house, and the agent said, “I’ve already got a conditional offer on this house, but I think it’s going to fall through. If you sign this paperwork for your unconditional offer, you should get the house.” The person signed the paperwork because they saw the professional in front of them and trusted that they had the correct information at hand. I think it’s fair that citizens, when they are meeting with a real estate agent, think, “I think this person must know their stuff and they must understand this legally binding document I’m signing.”—well, actually, the person probably should have checked with their lawyer, but they didn’t in this case. They then checked with their lawyer after they’d signed the documentation, and the lawyer said, “Well, you’ve actually signed something illegal because there’s already a conditional offer in place, and that’s the legally binding offer on the house. If that one goes through, then the agency would have to reimburse you the cost of the house because they’ve sold the house twice.” Anyway, the conditional offer didn’t go through, so there was no payout required, but the point is that that level of detail required from real estate agencies can have a huge financial burden if they make a mistake. Getting these processes right and making sure the legislation sits well together is a really important part of this.

To finish up, I was going to talk about the other bill, but I don’t seem to have time. I had discussed it a little in my previous speech, which felt like just a minute ago but was two hours ago. The main point is that access to justice needs to be fair for all people. This bill does some technical tidy-up, which moves us in the right direction. There is so much work to do in this space to ensure everyone has good access to justice.

The member’s time has expired.

20:18

Madam Speaker, thank you so much. I am glad to speak on behalf of the Green Party on the third reading of both the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill.

I’m going to start with the first bill that we did our committee of the whole House stage on, in terms of the tribunals amendment bill, and I’m going to probably start with the most controversial discussion that we had during the committee stage, which was around whether we should use “must” or “shall”. I think this is something the House is very divided on—I’m surprised that we came to a consensus in the end, but I think, unfortunately for me, who prefers “shall”, I lost out on that. Both of these two bills are technical tidy-ups, and, again, the committee stage when we were looking at both bills was an excellent opportunity to engage with the Minister for Courts on some of the detail—and, again, the kind of detail that really could affect New Zealanders in quite a significant way. At the same time, these are the sorts of bills that, as we see, have the House’s support and that are housekeeping tidy-up bills; but, like I said, it’s important for us to understand some of the details and some of the nuances.

I already mentioned in terms of the Disputes Tribunal Act—that’s the first one that we looked at as part of the tribunals amendment bill—that I think the big part of that is around some of the changes around the chief executive appointing a panel to assess people as referees. I am actually really glad to hear from the Minister around the requirements for diversity and inclusion, that reflect, I think, our communities and our society and Aotearoa New Zealand on the whole. It’s good to hear that, for example, there is a Māori referee collective, there is a Pasifika referee collective. The Minister mentioned that there currently isn’t an Asian referees collective, but I’m looking forward to something like that happening with, now, our Asian population being 17 percent of New Zealand’s population.

I think the most significant part of this bill is this consistency of basically removing referees as employees and then making them contractors to be more consistent with other forms of referees and adjudicators in our justice system who are also contracted. Now, of course, the major impact this will have is on ACC, because now, obviously, if you’re self-employed there is a higher ACC levy to factor in some additional elements. Again, I think the way that the Minister has mentioned it is that it does allow for that consistency, particularly when you have someone who is a referee/adjudicator for multiple areas and where they are employees for some and self-employed for others, and so I think that is something that’s needed.

The amendments to the Motor Vehicle Sales Act 2003, in terms of adjudicators who have held a practising certificate, this is—although one clause is actually quite significant, because as we discussed through the committee stage, what it would do is expand the eligibility criteria to more people who could apply to become adjudicators. There are still criteria and requirements, as the Minister communicated to the House, but opening that pool would potentially mean more adjudicators being appointed, which means that more of these disputes may be able to take place faster.

For the third part of this particular bill, the Parole Act 2002—I think, for me, what kind of really stood out in this one is the fact that there was an outdated term for the Remuneration Authority that I think none of us had really heard about until we got that clarification, this “Higher Salaries Commission”. I think, again, this just shows that sometimes with these legislations, we do need to have that administrative update for the ability for it to be in line with the most recent terminology that’s being used. Again, I’m personally always quite excited to learn something new, and the Higher Salaries Commission this time around very much was one of those things.

The fourth part, around the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Act was something that we managed to touch on but didn’t get a chance to fully explore; but, you know, it is what it is.

I’m going to move on to Part 5 of the first bill that we looked at, which is under unit titles. I think that what’s particularly important for this part is the clarification from the Minister that existing rules under the Residential Tenancies Act already exist. This technical update doesn’t necessarily imply that new rules will be created that will fall under whatever remit or secondary legislation or regulatory-making powers that the Residential Tenancies Act itself will have, but it just creates a consistency, particularly around provisions that we see here in the new Unit Titles Act.

Now, moving on to the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill, it’s also one of the things—as I mentioned in my second reading speech—that the last time we had these two associated bills with their back-to-back committee stages, it was two bills that were very similar. It’s also quite nice that this time round we didn’t accidentally jump between the two, because these two bills are fundamentally quite different. In terms of the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill, the first part with lawyers and conveyors, that is something that was really interesting in terms of some of the updates around the undertaking. I think that was something that we did explore quite a bit within the committee stage, around whether this is actually going to create new aspects to such undertaking or what that would mean. I think we had a lot of conversations around why, then, the High Court is the best place for it around some of the undertaking, because, again, we have just seen, in a previous bill, the increasing of High Court judges numbers from 55 to 60. At the same time, we also now, through this service system, don’t really want to find different ways of accidentally or incidentally clogging up the High Court system, so I think this is something that was covered quite well during the committee stage.

On to Part 2 and Part 3. Part 2 of the occupational regulation is quite a small part, and, again, just shows one of the things around why it is really important for us to do this administrative update for the legislation. This is to do with the Prostitution Reform Act 2003. Specifically, it is simply an update to be in line with the existing phrasing and terminology that is being used, I believe, within the Crimes Act. This is to do with disqualification from holding a certificate.

Finally, for Part 3, the Real Estate Authority probably was the most significant aspect of this bill. Again, a shout-out: I did not, unfortunately—and I do apologise for this, Madam Speaker; I cannot remember her name, but I want to, as many other people—

Denese Bates.

Denese Bates—shout-out to Denese Bates KC for being a trouper and continuing to be the chair of the Real Estate Authority despite wanting to step down. We’re hoping that this bill allows you the opportunity to step down, and hopefully you will be finding other ways to enjoy your time not being the chair of the Real Estate Authority, so that particular clause, clause 18, of that bill is quite significant.

I think the main thing that was the concern for us, and, again, we managed to get additional clarifications from the Minister—it’s amazing how quickly 10 minutes can go when you are having fun. In terms of clause 20, I think the main thing here is the fact that it doesn’t exempt people from having to undertake that sort of outstanding continuing education, but, as the Minister put it, it does allow people more time to reapply, should they get a chance to continue that outstanding education requirement. I think that is significant, particularly in terms of the rationale that the Minister gave.

I think, finally, when we are looking at some of the other things—unsatisfactory conduct, clause 17, is something that we did manage to clarify, and I think the examples the Minister had were sound. We were hoping there would be more examples around that, which would’ve been helpful to better understand the essence of that clause, but, overall, we really do support—

Sorry, the member’s having so much fun, but his time has expired.

20:28

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I commend the bills to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill in their third readings. As we’ve heard through a number of readings, these are minor or technical changes—so, maintenance of the legislation. The issues have been well canvassed to the committee of the whole House, and I commend the bills to the House.

The next call is a split call. I call Scott Willis.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take my first call on the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill for their third readings. We do support these bills, and I’ve worked my way through them this evening, in detail, to check that I knew what we were talking about because they do deal with a lot of minor detail and very technical detail. I think, Madam Speaker, you’ve just seen how perfectly suited this has been to my colleague Lawrence Xu-Nan.

Oh yes, we have, and you’re channelling him now, so it should be good.

Until earlier, I was not aware that the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill had been full of controversy, but I have heard since that, you know, the debate—it must have been a high-octane debate, between the words “must” and “shall”. It’s unfortunate that I missed that part of the debate, so I’m going to have to go back and watch. I am going to have to go back and dig into this.

We do support these bills, and it is very good to make small or minor changes to keep our regulatory systems fit for purpose. We’re doing this through urgency, and I think this is notable. It’s notable because we’ve heard some concern during this debate that we might be rushing these bills and that when we’re pushing them through all stages, we might be missing things. Now, personally—

Except we haven’t pushed it through all stages.

No, that’s right, Madam Speaker—just a few stages. Thank you for that correction—just a few stages. Nevertheless, we are doing it through urgency, and as I have applied myself to these bills earlier to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, personally, I don’t think we are going to miss anything in these bills in supporting them. What I do think is that we have clearly experienced some risk, through the abuse of urgency by this Government, in other bits of legislation. This is really, really clear: we have had some really poor-quality legislation that has passed through the House under urgency, and we have had to come back and redo it or put in amendments to make changes. It is something we should be mindful of—that when we’re using urgency to such an extent to draft legislation, we should really take care that it’s doing it for an important reason rather than a trivial one.

I take the member’s point. Now we’ll go back to the bill, please.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. These this bills—the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill—are bills that we support. I’d like to make that very clear, if I haven’t already. I am also mindful that we are, on a Friday night, debating this bill. Tomorrow, the All Blacks will be playing in Christchurch—

It’s only Tuesday. It’s not tomorrow—not till we get out of here.

That’s true, Madam Speaker, but I’m assuming we will all be watching it while we’re working through tomorrow. Those of us who are not speaking on the bills tomorrow afternoon will be able to capture the All Blacks if we can’t get to Christchurch, but I hope that we are able to move through this bill a little bit faster.

The member could help.

I’m trying my best, Madam Speaker. I’m trying not to be distracted by the people around me, because they’re offering lots of commentary. My point is that we fully endorse these bills. I’m finding it very distracting, but we are in full support of these bills.

Three, two, one—

We will make sure it passes.

20:33

I commend these bills to the House.

Well, Madam Speaker, thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to take this call. I have a few thoughts that I haven’t yet been able to express on the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and also, if I have time, the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill. You could almost use your entire call reading out the titles of these pieces of legislation, they’re so long.

It was good to be able to speak in the second reading of this earlier today on the tribunals—actually, on both of these bills—and it’s good to be able to participate in the committee of the whole House stage on the tribunals bill. As you would be aware, I was not able to traverse all of my thoughts in relation to the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Act, so I thought I would use this opportunity to set out my thoughts in relation to that particular part of the bill. The other areas I feel I’ve covered more substantively, so we’ll see where we get to.

I did have some questions which I didn’t get to put to the Minister for Courts on these private security personnel. One of the things I was interested in was that in this bill, there is a deletion of misconduct or gross negligence as a reason for a complaint to be against a licensee. I thought that was particularly interesting, because it wasn’t clear to me whether this was a weakening or a strengthening of the provisions around misconduct for these private security guards. Obviously, if it was misconduct or gross negligence, you would expect that to be a disciplinary matter, but then, of course—yeah, I was just not really sure of the reason for deleting that and would have been keen to find out from the Minister why that was.

The other thing that I just wanted to flag was that there is a new section that’s been put in after section 104A, inserted by clause 37, by this Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill, and that is a specific new right that allows information to be provided on complaints to a chief investigator, so that’s kind of a new right. There isn’t that much—as the Minister said and as has been traversed in this House, many of these changes are administrative. Some of them, I think, go beyond administrative and actually do put in new rights. I think sometimes that’s appropriate—it’s not something that we disagree with—but that is relatively significant, so that is just something I wasn’t able to mention in that bill.

The other aspects of this tribunals bill, first, that I think warrant mentioning are—I do think that there are some more questions that I haven’t yet been satisfied in relation to the treatment of judicial officers. This is really interesting, actually, because while we were debating in here today, in the Grand Hall just through those two sets of double doors, many of our greatest judges and lawyers and practitioners in family law were having a conference on the anniversary of the Property (Relationships) Act. Of course, that’s a different area of law, but it does cover, obviously, judicial officers. It was really interesting to reflect on the discussions that we’re having in here today and the kind of complexity of the issues that they were dealing with in there.

One of the things that they are interested in is new Family Court associate judges and their comparative conditions compared to Family Court judges. That is something that is a live issue for them at the moment—making sure that there is that consistency. I think what the Minister said in her reflections today was that she was interested in having consistency around judicial officers as well. I’m a big proponent of employment as a mode of engagement when that truly is the true nature of the relationship. I personally think that there’s a very solid common law test that can be put in place to ascertain whether you’re employed or not. I do agree and don’t object to people like judicial officers or quasi-judicial—or “quas-eye”; we’ve had a debate about how you pronounce that today—officers having those consistent rights as well.

I wish that we had been able to—and I wasn’t, as I said in my previous contribution, on either select committee at exactly the right time to hear the submissions, but it would be heartening and it would be comforting to know that the people who currently are treated as employees in the Disputes Tribunal were satisfied that these changes were fair in terms of the consistency.

I do see the point of what the Minister is trying to achieve; however, there is an uncomfortable aspect of having a piece of legislation which, effectively, cancels someone’s employment, through the deletion of this clause, and that will be the effect at the end of today. I’m just flagging that as something that may or may not be an issue, but I think it’s important to put the House on notice for that.

The rest of the issues I feel were sufficiently—well, I feel that I covered the issues in the committee stage in respect of tribunals, and so I won’t go over that any further. I just also recognise, as the rest of the House has done, that it’s important to make these small changes to ensure that our regulatory systems are working effectively, so although they might not be the most interesting bills to us, they have an effect on making the system work better. Thanks to the officials for doing the work on this, and I hope that some of those concerns turn out to be unwarranted.

The other bill that we have been discussing is, of course, the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill. I didn’t participate in that committee stage, but I do think that there are some interesting points here, so I just wanted to, if I have time, mention maybe one point on each of the areas.

The changes to the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act—this is a particularly interesting Act to me. I qualified as a lawyer in 2007, and so this was the regime that was in place when I qualified. I remember discussions around including conveyancers in the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act, and I remember the discussions around the provision of legal advice, because that was particularly relevant to employed solicitors, and I think there was an amendment in that. It’s quite interesting now to see that the provision of regulated services has come up again in this bill, and the provision of regulated services, in this instance, it appears to me—and I wasn’t here for the committee stage, so apologies if this was clarified further—has been taken out of the description of what the people on the Lawyers Standards Committee actually do. That’s particularly interesting, so I just wanted to mention that.

Another thing, kind of reflecting on prostitution law reform, is that I remember when that passed in the House in 2003, and I think it was really unknown as to whether that would pass at all until the numbers were called. I want to acknowledge Labour MP Georgina Beyer, and I think she gave a very amazing speech on that. I remember I was working in a students’ association at the time, and we had been supporting this change. Essentially, what we have had is a decriminalisation and a regulation of prostitution, which was so controversial. It was quite a few years ago now, over 20 years ago, but to see a minor change made to this in a regulatory systems bill, I suppose, shows how far the debate has come.

It’s not a controversial thing that we have a regulated, legalised system in New Zealand in relation to prostitution. I think this is a good change, too, because we don’t want people legally running brothels who have convictions in burglary, robbery, blackmail, or money-laundering, because these are convictions that do reflect on the character of the person, and we want the people who choose to do that work, if they’re legally allowed to, to be of good character. I think that is an interesting reflection.

I don’t know if I’ll have time to cover real estate agents. I think, hopefully, that has been—

You’ve got 47 seconds.

I’ve got 47 seconds—what could I say? I think it is a good thing, and most New Zealanders would agree—and, hopefully, this House does too—that the real estate agent profession is regulated and is held to high standards. I do think that the changes in this help to maintain the confidence that New Zealanders should have in what is a profession that maybe we don’t all engage with every day but that is a significant part of one of the most important and significant financial decisions that most people make in their life. The fact that they do so with integrity and they do so in a way which is regulated to a high standard is something that we should support. I commend both these bills to the House.

20:44

With the Mental Health Bill coming next, I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Labour Party in support on the third reading of the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill. This is the final stage of Parliament’s consideration of these bills. Over the course of that process, they have been examined by select committees; tested through public submissions; amended, where appropriate; and debated in detail during the committee of the whole House.

Labour supports these bills because they improve the way a number of important regulatory and dispute resolution schemes actually operate. The changes are spread across a range of legislation. They touch on the Disputes Tribunal, the New Zealand Parole Board, private security and investigation services, lawyers and conveyancers, real estate professionals, and several other regulatory regimes. It’s a broad package, but there is a common theme running through it.

The objective is to ensure that the rules, powers, and procedures governing these systems remain workable and relevant as circumstances change over time. One thing that became clear during the process is that many of these amendments have arisen through practical experience. Officials, regulators, tribunal members, and professional bodies have identified areas where legislation is unclear and where powers are incomplete or where administrative requirements no longer match the realities of how these systems operate. What we have before us is largely a response to those issues. It is legislation informed by people who have spent years working within these systems and who have identified areas that could operate better.

The Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill contains several examples of that approach. With changes to the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act, an initial assessment process has been introduced for complaints, and anyone who has worked within the complaints regime knows that there is a difference between receiving a complaint and requiring a full investigation. The bill recognises that distinction and provides a clearer process for determining which matters should proceed and which are better dealt with another way.

Much of that focus is also in the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill. It takes a similar approach, in particular with Part 2, “Amendments to Motor Vehicle Sales Act 2003”, and that was traversed during the committee of the whole House, in particular clause 10, which amends section 82 of the principal Act—replacing section 82(3)(a) with “(a) an adjudicator who has held a practising certificate as a barrister or barrister and solicitor for at least 5 years (which need not be consecutive), whether or not the person currently holds such a certificate;”.

That amendment broadens the scope of who can actually be within that tribunal, and so it provides greater access for those wanting to access those services. The Minister for Courts provided a good description on that. It’s very important: if you purchase a used car, for example, you might drive it off the lot and then, a couple of kilometres down the road, you might break down and you might have to enter that disputes tribunal process. It’s quite indicative of this Government, really—you pop the bonnet on this Government and it’s an absolute mess on the inside: you know, the gearbox hasn’t actually been in gear for the last two years, the tank is running on empty, and you know what? It’ll be going to the scrap heap on 7 November. [Interruption] They’re trying very hard—they’ve been parroting a slogan all night. I’ve got a new one here: “Fixing the brakes and blowing the future”—just like a blown engine in a used car that’s going to get traded in on 7 November. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

20:49

That’s the first glimpse of life we’ve seen over there. I too, like the honourable member before me, am passionate to see work done for the mental wellbeing of people in Kāpiti and around our country. In that spirit, I commend these bills to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I did enjoy Dan Rosewarne’s contribution there. I note that, for the motor vehicle tribunal, that whilst I qualify to be an adjudicator, he would qualify as an assessor—a far more important task. There are, of course, qualified mechanics on that particular tribunal, so perhaps, between the two of us, should we be looking for work in the future, we’ll be able to help that particular tribunal out. Of course, the Real Estate Authority has been seen as the last sort of refuge of MPs that have left this House as well, poor things.

Can I just say, I’ve heard Government members say on a number of occasions that this is a technical bill—minor and technical, technical and minor, minor and technical. Whilst regulatory systems bills are intended to do non-contentious work, I think we shouldn’t be too dismissive of them. There was an exchange in the House earlier on in committee of the whole House stage with the Minister for Courts where I was disappointed with some responses and she was dismissive of me because this was a mere minor and technical bill. I mean, she did come back to the House and gave a much better answer in respect of the undertakings point, so I thank her for that. I do think that, for the people affected by these provisions—whilst some change “shall” to “must”, that’s truly technical and minor—if you’re a conveyancing practitioner and you are now able to give enforceable undertakings, that’s actually going to transform your practice.

In terms of keeping lawyers honest—if it’s possible—and in terms of a competitive sense, having conveyancers being able to do business in that conveyancing sphere on pretty much the same footing, because, as the Minister pointed out, previously, conveyancers would have to go to a lawyer and say, “Can you give this undertaking because it has to be a solicitor’s undertaking?” Now, that doesn’t have to happen. It’s an additional cost that they don’t have to bear, and so their business can be conducted on a fair and even footing. That’s good, and it’s actually been a thorn in the side of conveyancing practitioners since 2008 when the conveyancing profession first came into being.

I’m not actually satisfied that the legislation is in the best form it could be—notwithstanding it being knocked around this House—and the fact that the person who’s affected to go to court has to go via a particular kind of narrow procedure. I forget the exact words Phil Twyford used, but I think he called it a “litigation-lite” or something of that ilk, which is kind of what it is. It’s documents only and then just oral argument in court. The summary judgment procedure isn’t necessarily the right procedure. Having said that, it’s a step in the right direction, and I know the judiciary will pick it up. It’s perfectly possible to simply transform that summary judgment procedure into an ordinary proceeding, which judges may do, but it’s just an additional expense and step, which is kind of the opposite thing to what we want.

In respect of the other main point I raised in respect to the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill, that was around summary dismissal of complaints within the Law Society by the complaints service. Look, I want to be careful what I say because I’ve worked with the complaints service—helping them, not as a respondent—and they do have a lot of good people in there, and a lot of the people who triage those complaints are, in fact, legally qualified. In fact, one of the provisions of this bill—the new section 272A— deals with the fact that lawyers deal with these complaints, and in dealing with complaints, they’re not considered to be providing legal services. The point being you can’t complain about the lawyer who triaged your complaint.

In terms of this summary dismissal, I do think that a safety valve is needed, because much of the time of complaints services are dealt with in dealing with repeat—or frequent flyers, as they’re sometimes called—complainants who have the same thing to say time and again. They’ll complain against one lawyer and then they’ll complain against another lawyer, then they’ll complain to another complaints institution, and so on and so forth. Now, they are hard to manage, but there are strategies to make their management as simple as possible, and telling them that there’s nothing in their complaint and not giving them an ability to have that reviewed in a kind of natural justice manner is certainly one way to exacerbate the problem.

Having said that, there is a pile of complaints that go to these standards committees, which are—I’m always cautious in using the term “vexatious”, but they’re just ill-founded. Sure, some complaints are made to harass, but some complaints are ill-founded simply because people have unrealistic expectations of the duties that other people, particularly lawyers, owe them. The common one is a complaint against the lawyer for the other side. I would frequently see complaints where the complaint was, if you boiled it down, “The opposition lawyer was mean to me.”

Ha, ha!

You may giggle, but it’s a genuine complaint. The fact of the matter is that it is sometimes the job of a lawyer to work as hard as they can against the interests of the other party, and that can come across as them being kind of wantonly mean. Those complaints can probably be dismissed in a pretty summary manner, but my concern nevertheless stands in respect of that clause.

In respect of the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill, there was one thing that I was quite gratified to see and that was the disputes tribunal and the ability to claim back the filing fees. When the Disputes Tribunal Amendment Bill went through this House some time ago, but this term, one of my real concerns was the cost, because the cost of filing, I think, was $450 for a claim up to $70,000, and that was more than to file in the District Court. I still have a problem with the size of that fee, and the fact that you can’t get a fee waiver, but the fact that you can go to the disputes tribunal, and if you’re successful, in some degree, you can get that fee as part of the decision, whereas, previously, that wasn’t the case. Of course, the fact is that if you’re arguing about $70,000, it’s actually quite likely you’ll also use a lawyer. Those fees won’t be recoverable. It’s important to just note that. If you go to a lawyer and say, “Please write my argument for me because I’m not that articulate”, and that costs you $1,000 or $1,500, that’s going to be part of your costs of bringing your claim. That’s not going to be recoverable as legal costs, but the $450 you paid to file that fee will be recoverable.

Of course, a few tidy-ups—the Parole Act and their remuneration. Interesting—Lawrence Xu-Nan has just arrived, which I’m allowed to say, I think.

You’re allowed to say he’s in the House.

He’s in the House. Xu-Nan is in the House. Of course, I was surprised to hear that he didn’t know what the Higher Salaries Commission was, but there you go. Even the greatest minds amongst us have their flaws. He learnt that it was replaced by the Remuneration Authority, and it’s good to see that the Parole Board is being brought up to speed with that remuneration framework, and, of course, the motor vehicles tribunal. There is a difficulty, and it may come as a shock, but things like the adjudicators on the motor vehicle tribunal and disputes tribunal referees, they’re actually not paid vast sums of money, so it’s not like people are banging down the door, particularly people who have the necessary skills. They’re not just legal skills; they’re also people skills, conflict resolution skills, and so expanding the pool of people who can be adjudicators in the Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal, that is also a good thing.

Yes, there are some chunky kind of so-called technical and minor amendments, but they are, on the whole, going in the right direction. Of course, that’s why we are supporting these bills.

20:59

Nā te nui taipitopito o ngā mema o mua, kua pau te ture.

[Due to the great detail previous members have gone into, the legislation has been exhausted.]

Because of the detailed examination of the previous speakers, I thought my contribution would be best in a haiku. I te reo Māori tuatahi —first of all, in Māori—and then in English. It’ll be very brief, Madam Speaker.

Hinga ngā here, ka pūāwai te ture. Ora te iwi.

[The bonds fall away, legislation flourishes. The people are well.]

Red tape falls away; swift decisions, safer voices; justice serves us all.

Madam Speaker!

Madam Speaker! Madam Speaker!

Suze Redmayne won that race.

21:00

I commend these bills to the House.

Yes, you’ve got to be quick. That just reminds me: before I take the vote, there were a couple of comments through that—and I’m quite pleased we’ve come to the end of that reading, because some of it was a bit bizarre; it is the fourth night of urgency. Not so much for the Te Pāti Māori calls at the end of the readings but certainly during the committee of the whole House stage, it’s worth noting that if you don’t call, sometimes we won’t see you. It’s just a reminder, because we’ve had a few run-ins this week with people not calling. When we think no one’s calling, we close it down. On that basis, the question is that the motion be agreed to.

21:01

I present a legislative statement on the Mental Health Bill.

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

I move, That the Mental Health Bill be now read a second time.

It’s a privilege to be standing here today for the second reading of the Mental Health Bill. I’d like firstly to start by thanking the Health Committee for all their hard work—ably led by the chair, Sam Uffindell—in examining this bill. Can I say, from the start, that I think it’s vitally important for tangata whaiora that this bill comes back with full cross-party support. I’d also like to thank the people who took the time to make a submission and engage with the select committee process—particularly those who shared their personal experience. It is a deeply personal thing to share your own experience, so thank you for your bravery. I do want to acknowledge all those with lived experience.

The committee considered submissions from 358 individuals and groups. Those submitters brought a range of perspectives, including those who have experience of compulsory treatment, those with family with lived experience, clinicians, academics, and mental health organisations. I’d also like to thank the 89 people who spoke directly to the Health Committee to share their views. I’d also like to acknowledge those who bravely came forward to share their stories in the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions. It is important that we carry their voices, not only tonight but through any work looking into how the State cares for people when they need it the most.

I want to reiterate that this bill will demonstrate meaningful and significant progress by contributing towards at least 10 of the abuse in care recommendations, relating primarily to care safety and monitoring. All of you have helped shape a Mental Health Bill that goes beyond compulsory treatment, as we know it today, and that, instead, firmly places a person at the centre of their care and empowers people to make decisions about their own care.

While most in New Zealand who access specialist mental health and addiction services are not subject to the Mental Health Act, over the course of a year, around 11,000 people receive compulsory care. In an ideal world, we would not need compulsory mental health care; however, we need a system in place for New Zealanders experiencing mental distress at a level that does require intervention to support their recovery. This bill strikes a balance of a future focus on safe and effective mental health care for people who require that State intervention, while having the right safeguards in place to ensure people’s rights are upheld and protected. This bill will be a critical safety net for those experiencing severe mental distress and who are unable to make decisions about their own mental health care. I do want to reiterate tonight that it is intended to be used as a last resort only.

The submissions received on this bill represented a variety of views. This is an important piece of legislation, and I expected there to be views across the board on key areas in the bill to assist the Health Committee’s consideration. It has been heartening to see that, of the individuals and groups that commented on the general policy intent of the bill, the majority were supportive. People recognise that we need compulsory care in some form; however, there were divergent views on what people felt this should look like.

I’m also encouraged by the support from submitters for the introduction of compulsory care principles, the supported decision-making provisions, and the establishment of new roles and processes to safeguard those under compulsory care. This includes independent support persons and advocates, nominated persons, and collaborative care teams. These are integral to the shifts I want to see under this new legislation.

There were some key changes made through the select committee process. These include introducing a “dignity of risk” principle. This aligns with the legislation’s purpose of promoting decision-making capacity. I believe it’s critical that the legislation recognises a person’s right to take reasonable risks to achieve personal growth, self-esteem, and overall quality of life.

Terminology is really important to how people see themselves and how people are treated. I’m pleased to see the Health Committee has made changes to the term “patient” to instead be “person under compulsory care”. This change responds to submitters who said the term “patient” is stigmatising and can reinforce power imbalances between someone seeking support and professionals. Submitters also said it reinforces a paternalistic approach to care, which we want to move away from.

Offences and penalties are important enforcement tools in the legislation. The royal commission of inquiry raised the need for appropriate and significant penalties for failures to comply with standards of care. I’m very pleased to see that the select committee has made changes to modernise the offences and penalties in this legislation, with a more structured regime as well as more tools for the regulator to use to support greater compliance with the Act.

However, I also recognise that many people who submitted on the bill had concerns about specific areas—in particular, the use of restrictive practices such as seclusion and the use of electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT. People also want strong safeguards for care of those under 18. As I spoke about in the first reading on this bill, these practices have a history of inappropriate use, abuse, and overuse.

I want to be very clear that I remain committed to seeing the reduction and elimination of seclusion. However, it is critical that this is done in a way that minimises the risk of unintended consequences. In particular, I would not want to see an increase in other inappropriate practices such as chemical or physical restraint. The bill strengthens requirements on the use of seclusion to drive the change needed to reduce and eliminate seclusion. The bill prohibits seclusion for children and young people. This is an incremental but significant step towards elimination that I am proud of, but I’m aware that there’s going to be a big shift for mental health workers, and it is important that we manage this change safely for both children and young people as well as staff.

I do want to acknowledge that the Health Committee has made a number of improvements to further strengthen provisions relating to seclusion to ensure there are stronger protections and greater monitoring of progress. The committee received a wide range of views about ECT, from being an effective, life-saving treatment in modern clinical practice through to wanting it banned. The committee has also recommended a range of improvements to make sure there are greater safeguards on the use of ECT, including for people under 18.

From the submissions received, the Health Committee has recommended changes that will improve clarity and ensure greater safeguards for those subject to the Act. The word I want to emphasise here is “balance”; the bill aims to strike a balance between placing limits on people’s human rights when there is a need to intervene to provide care and ensuring that this intervention is only done when absolutely necessary and in a way that protects and upholds an individual’s rights.

In closing, I acknowledge that there are diverse views on this piece of legislation, which were heard through the select committee process. Developing this bill has involved careful balancing of all of those views. I believe the bill represents a meaningful step forward, and I’m pleased to present it to you today. The bill will enable supported decision making, safer practice through stronger protections for people subject to legislation, and care that is provided in the least coercive way—that is therapeutic and responsive to a person’s needs. I hope to see continued cross-party support on this important bill. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

21:10

Today, there was a press release that was issued, and anyone who saw TV ONE news would have heard of what has been happening at Wakari Hospital, where the Ombudsman said, “I’m deeply disturbed by what our inspectors found. What they observed at Ward 10A were some of the worst practices we have observed anywhere”. People who are at Wakari Ward 10A or who were there have been kept under the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act 2003 and the Criminal Procedure Act 2011, but, also, the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992.

The Wakari Hospital developments that have been occurring in Dunedin, very close to my electorate, are a stark example of why we need reform in this area. I welcome the fact that we have a new bill before us. I agree that it would be great to have cross-party support, and I guess it depends on how one measures that. If it’s just on votes, then yes, this is cross-party support; but we really do feel, on this side of the House, that despite the small changes that we were able to make at the Health Committee, it is a bit of a wasted opportunity to make a transformational change to a bill that probably won’t be able to come before the House for another 10 or 15 years.

If I look at what the Ombudsman said had been happening at Wakari Hospital to our intellectually disabled mental health patients, in one instance, a person was tied down on a bariatric or evac-mat to move them across the ward. This was causing physical and mental harm to the person, who suffered carpet burns as a result. Inspectors also found that one person had been secluded in their bedroom for around 18 months with an almost complete lack of meaningful human contact and no access to the outdoors. There were restrictions on dental care and people being denied access to their own money. Staff were observed incentivising good behaviour by rewarding people with access to basic necessities, including dental treatment or the use of a toilet. There was unlawful administration of medication, and serious and significant failures.

I am heartened that, after my calls for an independent inquiry into this—and after not being able to get an urgent debate in the House, unfortunately—the Ministry of Health has accepted the Ombudsman’s recommendation to undertake an independent investigation into the treatment and conditions of people at Ward 10A. That ward is now closing down for that particular purpose, and I would really like to acknowledge the Ombudsman for taking so seriously the work that they’ve done, or that he’s done. I’d like to acknowledge the staff and the Public Service Association Inc. union, who’ve worked under incredibly difficult conditions given the structure and the environment that they’ve been working in and the harm that some of them have endured. I’d like to acknowledge Health New Zealand for acting very quickly on the Ombudsman’s recommendation, which was the only thing, really, that they could have done, given the seriousness of that.

Also, patients and former staff who reached out to me and shared their story, even though they were shattered by their experiences, and some of them who were just too scared to go through official channels. On that note, I’d really like to acknowledge Matthew Littlewood from the Otago Daily Times, who has done an excellent job in bringing this to light.

This is the reason why we need reform in the mental health sphere and the Mental Health Bill—and it’s no small bill: it’s 168 pages, 221 clauses, and two schedules. We’ve had an amendment today, a five-page Government amendment, which tells me that we do have some scope in the committee of the whole House stage to really forensically look at this. There were submissions that indicated that the process was quite rushed, and there are examples in the bill of typos and questions which would indicate that has happened, and so it would be useful for us to use this time to go through the bill.

The main point I would like to make is that we are supporting it, because the 1992 Act—that’s a long time ago—is absolutely not fit for purpose, but this modern framework does fall short of the transformational reform that was envisaged by the He Ara Oranga report. Where we see the opportunities are around implementation, workforce planning, and accountability that don’t seem to have legislated safeguards. We also would have preferred to see stronger protections for Māori, disabled people, children, young people, and other vulnerable groups. We would have liked a greater emphasis on voluntary participatory care wherever possible, particularly given the evidence we heard at select committee about the way that participatory care contributes to recovery for people journeying through mental health, versus the absolute lack of evidence that compulsory care orders enable recovery—and yet, they seem to be the norm currently.

We definitely would like to see the bill contain a strong commitment to ending seclusion. We are happy with where we landed on electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). It is a vexed issue, and we do see that there could be still some further strengthening, but we do acknowledge that there are some very limited examples where ECT is appropriate.

We are very happy that there have been some small changes—and I would say they’re small, compared to the ones that we would have liked to see—made with the presumption that birthing parents and newborn babies should remain together unless separation is necessary for safety purposes. Today, we’ve seen this Amendment Paper come into the House, which is really limiting that again, and so we’d like to go through that quite closely to find out whether our change that we had advocated for in select committee actually has any meaning left to it for our birthing parents.

We also are happy that there’s been an acknowledgement of and our recommendation adopted that Labour advocated for, which was children and young people being able to travel with a trusted adult between facilities in what can be a very traumatising journey. That has been adopted without change, so that’s good. The dignity of care provision that the Minister for Mental Health referred to is fantastic but, actually, was a hygiene factor for us. That is something that should have been in the original drafting of the legislation. Nevertheless, it’s good to see it in there.

I do want to acknowledge the Minister, actually, for giving us the opportunity to be reacquainted with the bill just a couple of nights ago and, also, be able to suggest some of our amendments to him in case he would entertain them. I think that’s a very useful final check to go through. Nevertheless, I have got about 40-odd amendments on the Table, and these are not single-word changes or frivolous. These are very thought-through amendments that we believe, on this side of the House, would panel-beat the bill into something that would actually be transformational. We do hope that the House gives them due regard. We would also like to see the giving-effect of Te Tiriti o Waitangi happen in a way that is in the totality of the bill, not just in the particular limited circumstances that have been mentioned, and we will be going through that in the committee stage.

We acknowledge that the bill does limit seclusion to a degree, but I’d like to point out to any media who are watching this that we’re in quite different places around seclusion on this side of the House. When I was being asked to do media reports a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised that media thought that there was a sunset clause on seclusion. That is not the case. There is simply a five-year legislative review. We would have liked that to have been a sunset clause and, at least—at the very least—two-yearly reviews for the House to be able to consider whether we’d move to a place of resourcing where we could do that.

The Minister has mentioned that under-18-year-olds won’t be subject to seclusion, and that’s a good outcome that we support, but there’s a contradiction, then, in the bill, because the Minister has said that the reason for not sunsetting seclusion is because it will encourage other forms of restraint unless there’s resourcing. What I’m hearing from that is that, perhaps, our children and young people are in a more vulnerable position as a result, and we would like to interrogate that with the Minister. We did have evidence of places that had been able to eliminate seclusion and we are questioning why that can’t happen if there’s a commitment to resourcing—and yet, the Minister and the Government members have shied away from any kind of legislative commitment to resourcing, which is, really, the fundamental problem with the bill.

There’s a number of other things that we would like to see, but, in conclusion, we do support the bill, because we cannot remain under the 1992 Act. The story that I told you at the beginning of this is an evolving story. It is huge. It is terrible in the context of abuse in care, and it is terrible because it involves our most vulnerable, marginalised, and invisible people in society. We want to see a bill that has more participation, more human rights at the centre, and stronger implementation, accountability, and safeguards. Thank you.

21:20

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand to also support the Mental Health Bill in its second reading. Now, I do want to acknowledge both the Minister for Mental Health and also the previous speaker, Ingrid Leary, on this particular bill. I will lay out some of the concerns on this side of the House, though we do support it. I think it’s important to highlight some of the context around this and also some of the positions and some of the areas we want to engage with the Minister on during the upcoming committee of the whole House stage.

In terms of this bill, as mentioned previously, this is a bill that replaces an incredibly outdated piece of legislation, the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992. A lot of this came from the 2018 report He Ara Oranga, which was delivered, I believe, to the Minister of Health at the time in December 2018. I think this is a really important starting point that this bill came from. The Minister has already laid out some of the conversations that have been heard during the select committee stage, even though I wasn’t a part of that. I do want to thank all of the members on the Health Committee for taking part in that process, and, particularly, I want to thank all of the submitters who came along, as always, and shared their personal stories and experiences with this bill, particularly when we’re looking at compulsory care.

It’s also important, I think, to contextualise a lot of this with the example that my colleague Ingrid Leary just gave before around the broader context that we saw just over the last year and up until very recently with the royal commission of inquiry into abuse in care and how we’re still seeing some of those really quite severe and horrendous experiences that people are experiencing in compulsory care, which, I think, by any standard as a New Zealander, and by any standard internationally, from a rights-based perspective, is unacceptable.

I also want to address the fact that one of the things that did come through the select committee as a part of this process—and, particularly, it was raised by the Ombudsman, was the fact that for such a significant bill and such a significant change, there wasn’t sufficient time given to hear from submitters in an appropriate way. I think that’s really important, bearing in mind that the first reading of this bill was in 2024, and it was referred to the select committee, where it had, I think, by select committee standards, quite a long period that was open for submissions; I believe it was about two months. Over this period, the report from select committee came back on 17 April 2025—that is over 14 months ago—and we’re now just hearing this bill for the second time now. I think, in hindsight, potentially, with the blessing from the Minister, that select committee could have actually had a longer time to consider this bill and to hear from submitters in a way that is appropriate and that uses different forms to engage with submitters, as we have seen in various other bills that have happened in the House recently.

Now, on to the actual content of the bill, there are eight parts, and we’re looking forward to engaging with the Minister on all of them, but I want to address a few areas that are of significant concern for the Greens. I think the previous speaker has already mentioned the fact that there is still a review period and not a sunset clause for seclusion, even though I think the Minister has laid out that, in certain areas, children and young people, I believe, will no longer be under seclusion, which is an important step. At the same time, seclusion, as we heard from the example before, is something that is deeply traumatic and is actually simply not good for anyone’s wellbeing, mental or physical. Yet it is disappointing to see that there has been no sunset clause on a seclusion commitment in here, whereas I think the Greens would have liked to see a five-year sunset clause, which would have shown that there is some form of commitment around this particular practice.

Now, the other thing that is really important from our perspective is this idea that if we are looking at some of the international standards, and if we’re looking at the disability convention, and also the rights of tangata whaiora and disabled people and neurodivergent people, we would like to move towards something that is more rights-consistent and that considers the mental and physical wellbeing of these people, where we can start moving towards an area where we can maybe look into replacing compulsory care with a voluntary care order. Again, this is something that the Greens would like to see, as voluntary care orders should be the default, not an option. We are going in a way that best emphasises and also takes into consideration the ability for people to rehabilitate, to recover, and also, like I said before, considers people’s wellbeing as a starting point before we move into the need for compulsory care. That is something that, for example, the Greens would also like to see, with voluntary care as the default, as opposed to going to the more extremes ends with compulsory care.

I already mentioned before that one of the areas that the Greens has the greatest concern around is, again, the implications that this will have for disabled people and for neurodivergent people and how this would interact and how this would be moving towards a system that will allow them to have more dignity and allow them to maintain their rights and freedom to a greater extent. Like we have said previously, this bill is a significant improvement from the 1992 bill, which is why we do support it.

I also think it’s really heartening to hear from the Minister, and also in the engagement from the Minister, that we hope that we can move to a stage where we can do better and be able to provide more funding. This is something that I’m hoping that the Minister will be able to consider as well, both in terms of the amendments by my colleague Ingrid Leary, but also my colleague Kahurangi Carter, who is our mental health spokesperson, who is also engaging with the Minister as well on this bill. We have also a few amendments on this as well that we would like to engage with the Minister on as part of the committee stage.

There are, obviously, other parts in this bill that I think deserve mention as well. I think this is something that, again, to the best of the select committee’s consideration, there have been amendments to this bill in a way that may have changed some of the aspects further. One of the areas that the Minister has already mentioned and that I think was one of the things that I, in one of the rare opportunities when I subbed in on the Health Committee, did actually hear from the experts, is around the electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT. I think that is something that, from our perspective, we’re still cautious about. We know that is something that the ministry has considered can be an effective treatment for depression, mania, catatonia, and other serious neuropsychiatric conditions. Again, it’s one of those things where, from our perspective, we would like to see other mechanisms in place and only use this as an absolute last resort.

Again, with those kind of things, particularly from an international convention perspective, what we want to avoid is any sort of therapy or any sort of care, compulsory or otherwise, that would amount to torture. This is something that I think everyone in this House, but also something that, for example, OPCAT, which is our obligation under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, will possibly be interested in as well. This is something that our NPMs, the national preventive mechanisms, such as the Ombudsman, Oranga Tamariki, and the Human Rights Commission, would have oversight or some checks and balances on as well. That is just one example that I want to give, on top of everything else I mentioned, that we would like to have more conversations with the Minister on.

Like I said, the Green Party does support this bill. We do have a few amendments that we want to engage the Minister on, but we are looking forward to the upcoming committee stage. With that: yes from the Greens; we support the Mental Health Bill.

21:30

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, there’s not much more I can add to what the Minister for Mental Health, Matt Doocey, has contributed. He’s done a great synopsis of the work of the Health Committee. I can just say that the selection committee did spend a great deal of time talking about this bill, debating the merits and the issues. I think the Opposition members that have raised concerns, as much as those are legitimate concerns, they were dealt with in select committee where there was a robust debate. I commend this bill to the House.

21:31

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the Mental Health Bill. I’d like to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Matt Doocey, for bringing what he has termed an important bill to the House, and I concur with that sentiment.

It’s important because it will modernise the legal framework for compulsory psychiatric assessment and treatment. I say this as someone who had a family member undergo electric shock treatment—what we called it in the old days—without family consent. The changes that this bill will bring about, establishing higher safeguards for electroconvulsive therapy, ECT it’s known as, is a very good thing. I commend it to the House.

Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka otirā tēnā rā tātou e te Whare. E tū ana ahau ki te waha i ngā kōrero mō Te Pāti Māori i te pō nei ki tēnei o ngā pire, the Mental Health Bill.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker, and to all in the House. I stand to give voice to the comments of the Māori Party tonight regarding this bill, the Mental Health Bill.]

I want to acknowledge the Minister, Minister Matt Doocey, and the Health Committee who have gone through this process, and also the He Ara Oranga inquiry that was done in 2018.

I’m very pleased to support this bill. It’s something that’s strongly advocated for in the mental health space, specifically in youth and in rangatahi Māori. The Mental Health Bill—can I also say that this bill includes a Te Tiriti or Treaty clause under the National - ACT - New Zealand First Government, which is a big deal for us.

The He Ara Oranga inquiry stated that Māori are 50 percent more likely to experience mental health issues and 30 percent of Māori and other ethnic groups go undiagnosed. Looking at the inquiry and also the report that came out of the Te Hiringa Mahara, the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, outlining some of the kaupapa that they aligned with this bill.

Te Pāti Māori completely supports this bill. Something that I’ve been passionate about—a story around this is: in 2020, which was my last year of high school, and we were the first ever cohort to go through COVID with exams. I did an inquiry into maramataka Māori and how Māori knowledge can impact and help navigate mental health issues around rangatahi going through COVID. Also, that was, I guess, the beginning of how social media would impact us—that wasn’t even the beginning of artificial intelligence coming into our realm. We developed some resources, Māori and maramataka Māori resources, and books for rangatahi who experienced mental health crises during the COVID 2020 pandemic and how they could navigate that through exams. To see, six years later, coming in with legislation that I can support, is pretty cool, so thank you to the Minister and to the select committee.

Outlining some of the recommendations. This is from the—sorry, there’s so many different ingoa I don’t get wrong to get them wrong—Te Hiringa Mahara: access to mental health services to online safety education. I also want to touch on the member’s bill that was brought in by Laura McClure in terms of the deepfake that we supported, and how that closely aligns to having online safety, specifically for young wāhine who experience the online dangers and how that can affect their mental health, so also bringing up that bill. Also early intervention for kaupapa Māori Services or Pacific Service services; crises response teams; 24/7 access into making sure that there is an online service that can you ring; and also growing the workforce. Those were some of the recommendations in the Te Hiringa Mahara report.

I just want to say that from the submissions that I’ve heard, from looking into the Mental Health Bill, that a lot of these recommendations were thoroughly thought out in how they could be implemented into this bill, because this bill replaces the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992 to create a modern legislative framework for compulsory mental healthcare. I commend this bill to the House. Tēnā koe e te Pīka.

21:36

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand on behalf of the Green Party to speak in support of this bill, the Mental Health Bill, at second reading. I’d like to acknowledge the Minister for Mental Health for his mahi in this space and the Health Committee as well, and Kahurangi Carter, the Greens portfolio holder for mental health.

This has been my first interaction with this bill. I’m not on the select committee, so trying to get myself up to speed with the bill and the progress of the bill, and, I guess, one of the things that I was first a little bit surprised with is how long it’s been in the House—introduced back in October 2024 and it, obviously, was then reported back in 20 April 2025, and is finally having its second reading now.

When this bill first went to the select committee—we didn’t support it to the select committee—it wasn’t perfect at that time, but it was definitely a step in the right direction with repealing the previous Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act, as it was in line with a lot of the statements we were making as well. Through that select committee process, there has been quite a lot of amendments and changes, and most of them have strengthened the bill, but while we do support it, we still don’t think it has gone far enough. We will be trying to see what more improvements we can get to this bill through the committee of the whole House stage, which is obviously coming up very shortly.

I would like to just, I guess, touch on a couple of the points that the Greens still have concerns about. Obviously, in the commentary, there’s a joint differing view with Te Pāti Māori, and a lot of the concerns we have, we also shared with the Labour Party as well. We’re very committed, and I know the whole House is committed, in trying, with the importance of improving mental health and how that’s handled. There’s always going to be some differences, and we’ll continue to try and strengthen that and improve the outcomes that we get. It’s really important that when we make the decisions, we do it for all of us.

Obviously, one of the major concerns we did have, which has been outlined a number of times, but I think it’s really important to continue to outline, is around seclusion Obviously, there’s a review of that in five years, but for the Greens, we would have liked to see that have a sunset clause. Seclusion, as we know, is a harmful and traumatic practice. We do know that there is an issue and you couldn’t go straight to removing that straight away because of workforce issues, but we believe with having a sunset clause in there, and giving that time and ensuring that the staffing levels that were put in place would cater for what was required, that we could actually move to it, and having that sunset clause in there would put a definite time limit in there to ensure the resources would be put in place to ensure that happened. I’d just like to note that, obviously, while we as a political party believe that that sunset clause should be in place, that view has been shared by a lot of other people around the motu, and so we really do hope that we can move in that direction.

Another area that we recorded in our differing view was to replace compulsory care with voluntary care orders. We also spoke around neurodivergent children as well, and some proposed changes around clause 6, that voluntary care should be the default, with compulsory care used only when absolutely necessary, and for the shortest duration.

I would like to note that part of the clause was to strengthen—I guess, when you look at what happens with mental health, Māori are disproportionately affected by mental health, and it was really important and good to see that there was a Treaty clause in there which would actually, hopefully, help in that space.

Once again, I would like to reiterate that the Greens support the Mental Health Bill. We still have concerns and we look forward to working on that further as we go through the committee of the whole House stage, which, as I said, is coming up very, very shortly. On that note, I commend this bill to the House.

21:41

It’s an honour to rise and speak on the second reading of the Mental Health Bill. I do just want to acknowledge New Zealand’s first Minister for Mental Health, Matt Doocey, and for the work he has done to bring this bill to the House. This bill is replacing the 1992 Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act, which no longer aligns with modern mental healthcare. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

21:42

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a privilege to rise to take a call on this bill, which has been a long time coming following on from the He Ara Oranga review, and then work by successive Ministers in the Labour Government, and now the National Government. It’s great to see it in the House.

I do have to admit that the select committee hearings feel like quite some time ago now, and it is a shame that such a landmark piece of legislation is being debated under urgency, meaning that we’re not hearing full calls from the other side. This is really important, and I can’t think of much other legislation that has the same human rights impact in the health sector. It was with that lens that I went into the select committee hearings, from which I had my involvement when I was briefly the Minister—well, my engagement with the bill as Minister was brief compared to the other Ministers who have shepherded this bill.

The 1992 Act I would characterise as having the test of who could be placed under compulsory care in the Act, and then the main defence of the person’s human rights under the existing Act is largely through processes of review that are structured throughout the course of the person’s treatment and the time periods at which they must occur. This Act takes a very different approach to upholding the rights of people who are subject to the compulsory treatment clauses of the Act. So, for a start, compulsory treatment should only be used to improve the person’s mental health. It’s not an opportunity to improve other elements of the person’s health—they still have to consent for that—or their social circumstances. I think that’s important to remember because sometimes some mental health conditions do mean that people’s living circumstances can deteriorate.

The bill requires that the least restrictive option be used. Voluntary care options should be always preferred to compulsory care, and compulsory care should only be used for as short a period as possible. There are also the reassessments of whether compulsory treatment can be used. Those are positive developments.

In addition, there are some new and innovative concepts that clearly can be done, but it’ll be interesting to see how these practices interact with the law and how, ultimately, people’s care and human rights are affected. This includes the creation of mental health advance directives. That is something viewed favourably in many of the submissions that we received on the committee, but advance directives of all sorts have limitations, and I hope they are not too easily set aside by busy care teams who wonder if the circumstances in which the advance directives were set are no longer in place. There can be good reasons why they’re not followed, and so I hope that we are able to live up to the aspiration in the bill in terms of how we implement those.

I think the appointment of nominated persons to stand up for the rights of the person in compulsory care is as important, as well as the practice of wellbeing meetings. These are practices that may well be being used across the health system already, but they are not mandated. Overall, I think those would be good things.

I think one of the things about the involvement of family and whānau in someone’s care is that, at times, and I guess under the current Act, treatment teams can confuse, and we all as a society can confuse—well, excessive concern about respecting someone’s privacy might lead to the non-inclusion of family members, in some situations. I think the bill’s presumption is that family member involvement is a good thing and will mean that people have greater access to the supports that they will depend on when they are no longer in compulsory care, and also during the time that they are in compulsory care. I think that’s positive.

The requirement for independent support people to advocate for the person under the Act and assist them with participating in decision making and exercising their rights is another really, really positive innovation in the Act.

There are some areas where rights have been strengthened as well. People have to be able to understand their rights, and there’s also an entitlement to use aids like mobility and other communication aids, under the Act. I mean, it’s kind of unbelievable that we don’t say that, but, of course, if you’re dependent on a device for your hearing, your communication, your mobility, and not having the ability to get that for yourself, it is important that those things are specified.

I was pleased my colleague Ingrid Leary and I were able to lead a discussion on the committee about the right for a birth parent under compulsory care orders to be able to stay with their baby unless there is a safety risk. I think the presumption that a mother and their baby should not be separated is an important one.

The other area where I paid a lot of attention as the Minister briefly responsible for this bill, and then in committee, was the use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). In both of those capacities, I held serious questions about whether or not one day we’ll look back on the use of electroconvulsive therapy and regret that we permitted it. It’s not an area of medicine that I have any expertise in, so I was pleased that the select committee gave us the opportunity to gather evidence and to hear from experts on that; we heard from experts at length. We accept the conclusion of expert evidence that it is still a practice that is beneficial for some people and can be done in a humane way. I’m pleased, however, that there are increased protections in this bill around the use of ECT, particularly on people under the age of 18.

So, all in all, there is a lot to be positive about in this bill.

I do want to mention our concern about the continued use of seclusion. Seclusion has been eliminated in some parts of our health system in New Zealand, and good on the teams who have worked really hard in their facilities and hospitals to make that the case. They should be really proud, and we should be really proud as a country if we were able to do away with that.

Resourcing and workforce are always challenges in the health system, and there are always difficult choices about where we place resource and what we prioritise. We have an opportunity in this bill to say that seclusion is something that we would like to make a priority, and to make that staffing to ensure that seclusion is no longer used, a priority.

In my remaining time, I want to tell you why I’m so convinced that that is important. Actually, a Labour Party member who I met through my work in the party in recent years came and talked to me about it two or three years ago. She had had an experience of compulsory care. She described the experience of seclusion and how traumatic it was. I suppose, as a former clinician, I always approach that question from the prism of “But was it justified because otherwise you would hurt yourself?”. But, actually, in talking to her, I realised that it wasn’t justified, because she no longer trusts those people who could provide care for her in the future because of the experience of such a traumatic thing at the hands of people who were meant to be caring for her. For that reason, that is my one reservation about this bill, but there are a lot of other positive developments in it, and I commend it to the House.

21:52

This bill is a significant step forward in modernising compulsory mental health care. It puts patients at the centre of decisions about their own care, strengthens protection and safeguards, and improves access to efficient mental health and addiction support. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a hard, hard bill, the Mental Health Bill. It’s a big topic. I’ll start by thanking the Minister and the Health Committee for the work that you all did in this space, and as my colleague the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall has alluded to, the previous Government started the work in this space. This is a really significant improvement on the current Act. As other speakers have spoken to, Labour supports this bill. However, we’d like to see this bill go further and make more transformational reform.

This is a really personal one for me because 11 years ago I lost my brother-in-law who was under compulsory care. The coroner found that the care facility had not cared for him adequately and that resulted in his death. There were multiple downfalls at multiple stages of his care, and multiple times when the ball was dropped. Had there been more effective processes around that facility, then he would, hopefully, still be here today. That kind of loss, obviously, has a lifetime impact on family and whānau members. I’d like to acknowledge everyone else in New Zealand who has lost someone in these circumstances, and really send my aroha to you and the lifelong impacts that this has.

So, really, for me, speaking on this bill—it’s quite deep. I am really pleased to be able to contribute in this small way, and so much thanks to those that have done the real mahi in this space, because this will make a real difference. I appreciated the Minister’s comments around the compulsory psychiatric assessment being the last resort only. I appreciate that, and hope in implementation that that is the case. We need to have a human rights approach to this and that it is the last resort when we require compulsory care, obviously taking into account the health of the person and those around them.

I would like to talk about some of the aspects where we would hope to go further. In regard to the He Ara Oranga report, the Government inquiry into mental health and addiction, really, this report falls short of the transformational reform that the report envisioned and the real matter of human rights for people in this space. We would have liked to see a greater emphasis on voluntary participatory care, and supported decision-making, where possible, and where the therapeutic evidence supports this. We also would have liked to see more in the implementation workforce planning and accountability, which still remains a significant concern, in particular, the workforce planning.

From my experience in the system, there were multiple people who didn’t have the training required to do the job to look after the people they were required to care for in quite acute health situations. I would like to see a real emphasis on training for people working in the system, in whatever space they’re in, as healthcare workers. We need to make sure that they are trained and also paid effectively—#EqualPay.

So, thank you. Labour supports this bill. I hope to see more, and I will continue to advocate for more safeguards around compulsory care in the future. I commend this bill to the House.

21:57

It is an honour to speak at this historic point in the journey that New Zealand has been on in the care for people who are experiencing mental health crises and mental health ill-health. This takes us forward. The Minister has done excellent work, along with the committee, and I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I, too, rise to take a call on the Mental Health Bill at this second reading. It’s very appropriate that Labour supports this bill because it is essentially updating—well, it is replacing a very outdated law that we simply can’t continue to operate under: the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992. A lot has changed since 1992. Certainly, the way that society as a whole conceptualises the difference between mental illness, mental health, and mental wellbeing, and a lot of improvement in our understanding—and in our expectations—of what people care could and should expect from their mental health system.

As has been noted, the law was written more than three decades ago. It no longer reflects the modern understanding of human rights, of supported decision-making and how that can be possible, not just in an idealistic way but in a therapeutic way, and something not just to strive towards but something that can be inculcated into something even as complicated and as important as treating mental illness and mental wellbeing.

It also no longer reflects our modern understanding of disability rights and cultural safety, or the importance of involving whānau in care, and all of those other things that, since 1992, we have prided ourselves in this country of improving. We do think this bill was a substantial improvement.

I’d like to acknowledge the Minister for his work. I’d like to acknowledge the Health Committee for all of the work that they have done. I wasn’t on that committee, but even just listening tonight, you can see the nature of the robust questioning that would have happened, the nature of the genuine and inquisitive inquiries that would have been offered only with the absolute intentionality to do the very best by this bill and the very best by the people who would be most impacted by this bill. I’d also like to acknowledge, no doubt, all of the officials and the people with expertise who submitted, people with lived experience, because only with that breadth of input could we make necessary improvements.

Whilst I say that the bill has made substantial improvements—as we’ve heard, it follows the He Ara Oranga and the royal commission into abuse in care—I do agree also with my colleagues that it does also feel somewhat of a missed opportunity. I understand the tension between fixing something that needs to be fixed because it is outdated and no longer reflects society’s expectations, and the tension between doing something that is much more transformative. That has been the decision that has been made. Would we have made, potentially, a different decision? Yes, probably so, but we do respect where we’ve landed, but it is incumbent upon us to make those notes.

The bill introduces, as I said, a more modern rights-based framework and places a greater emphasis on participation, which we know, therapeutically, is actually a really important factor in the efficacy of any kind of treatment regime, particularly when people are under all sorts of stressors, as is often the case in this domain, but ultimately, always need to be treated with dignity, and voluntary care should always be the goal, so that direction is welcome. We fundamentally believe that compulsion should never be the default simply because there is a lack of time, staffing, or resources.

It’s on that point that I do just want to take a moment because that, for as long as I can remember, has always been a justification, an excuse, a perfectly decent and reasonable explanation—however we want to term it—but for as long as I can remember, a lack of time, staffing, and resources has always held up a different way of doing things in mental health. I’ve worked with many nurses in particular who have worked in mental health, and my goodness, they really do an amazing job. I have worked with nurses who work in all sorts of health sectors. Whilst some people, for instance, might assume that some aspects of nursing are harder than others, I can absolutely tell you that the people that work in mental health have a very unique perspective, and they work incredibly hard under very difficult circumstances, and often face quite personal issues in terms of their own safety in those areas. We shouldn’t be allowed to use a lack of staffing as a means by which to have lower expectations of what the system could look like.

A right written into legislation, ultimately, is only meaningful when a person can actually exercise it. We do implore, along with our support of this bill, much more focus on increased staffing and even things like increased capital spend, because I’ve seen several facilities that just simply are not designed for what they’re being utilised for, and even just basic layout can pose really, really significant risks to people’s safety, including staff. Without those foundations, there is a risk that the language of this law changes—which it will through the passage of this bill—but people’s experience of the system doesn’t necessarily change if it’s not resourced properly.

We have also touched on tonight, and both of my colleagues on this side of the House have, I think, spoken quite eloquently about the need to have a genuine plan to end seclusion, and Labour supports New Zealand’s commitment to eliminate seclusion. This bill doesn’t go that far. It doesn’t turn that commitment into a credible plan. We acknowledge that annual reporting is important, that the five-year legislative review is better than no review at all, but neither of those things actually amount to a commitment to end seclusion in practice. I acknowledge that that’s a resourcing issue as much as it is an educative and a legislative process, but Labour certainly does believe that the legislation should set a goal of ending seclusion. Even within five years would be a reasonable goal to require a proper systems phase-out plan. That matters because ending seclusion can’t simply be directed from Parliament. It requires, as I’ve said, the investment in workforce capacity first and foremost, therapeutic environments as I’ve mentioned, and appropriate building designs, specialist training, and alternative models of care. All of those things are possible. All of those things are well-advanced in terms of knowledge. There are just some pieces missing to the puzzle, and that is appropriate resource.

With regard to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), I’d like to echo my colleagues’ reservations and their comments that they made about the process and about making the Health Committee’s ability to be able to make some leeway on what the bill as drafted had in it. I would also like to note that ECT can be a really emotive topic, and it’s one of those things that we’ve heard, quite rightly so, a lot of horror stories over the years. It absolutely is something that has been used abusively over many, many years. It is an area that I’ve had a little bit to do with through my personal background, and I have seen it also be put to incredibly good therapeutic use. When it’s considered as a treatment of last resort, it actually can save lives. I think that this bill does strike a right balance between acknowledging the therapeutic qualities and the necessities that still exist for ECT, but also having much more robust safeguards around when it should be used and on who that should be used too.

Labour will support this bill. We absolutely acknowledge the fact that the 1992 Act is old and not fit for purpose. The bill moves us closer to the goals that I think many of us, regardless of what side of the House we sit on, would agree is an ultimate outcome and an ultimate goal of a much, much better mental health system, and we are therefore happy to commend it to the House.

22:07

Tēnei au, te pire ki te Whare.

[I commend the bill to the House.]

The Mental Health Bill is set down for committee stage immediately.

22:10

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. Can I begin by just acknowledging what you’ve read around the Amendment Paper. I think, in fairness to officials, genuinely, they thought the bill would be up tomorrow afternoon, so putting it up today was going to be a day early. I think you pointed out, quite rightly, that it could have been in a bit early, so I do accept that.

It is good to be here to debate the Mental Health Bill and Part 1. The bill, as we know, has already been out for extensive public consultation before it was introduced to the House, and is a critical piece of legislation for people experiencing severe mental distress. Part 1 of the bill sets out the foundation for this bill to support a shift towards a rights-based and recovery approach to mental health care; to establish a modern, rights-based framework that promotes decision-making capacity, safeguards rights, supports recovery, and protects the safety and wellbeing of people and their communities.

It’s a key principle in this bill that voluntary and least restrictive practices be used. However, with the exception of extending all rights to voluntary mental health care consumers, the scope of the bill is about the rights of people who are subject to compulsory care, including assessment and treatment. In this part of Part 1, we’re introducing a new decision-making capacity criterion, ensuring compulsory care is only available when a person has seriously impaired mental health, is experiencing serious adverse effects, and lacks decision-making capacity about their mental health care. The compulsory care principles in Part 1 require care to be therapeutic, least restrictive, supportive, and responsive, and to recognise the dignity of risk.

22:12

Thank you, Mr Chair. I take on board the direction that you’ve given us around the Amendment Paper today. I understand that when we met with the Minister the other evening, he was of the mind that the bill would be in the House tomorrow. Having said that, this bill has been sitting on a dusty shelf for many months, and so there was plenty of time for that amendment to come before the House.

I thought it may be useful, as I look at Part 1, clause 3, the purpose clause, to just also provide a little bit of an architecture about how we intend to prosecute the bill, because it is a very big and significant bill, as has been said. I want to frame that around the purpose as it’s articulated in clause 3(a), which talks about promoting the decision-making capacity. I will note that it talks about promoting decision making, not safeguarding, so there is a threshold there that the bill purports to put into place. Many of my questions around this very first section are, really, whether that threshold is indeed met or whether those words are appropriate.

You will find, Mr Chair, from our side, that many of our questions will be in Part 1, including the definition section, because that will help to inform the rest of the debate. There will be some questions in Part 2 and probably the fewest questions in Parts 3 to 8, including very little, if anything, in the schedules. We also would like to debate the amendment that’s before the House, because that is indeed around one of the changes that Labour members had put forward and it does appear to have reduced in scope the protections afforded in there.

When I look at clause 3, there are two things I would like to prosecute, perhaps in a couple of contributions. The first one, really, is around process. It was mentioned in the second reading speeches, but it’s important to bring it up here, just around the time constraints that we’ve had to look at this comprehensive bill. It’s not just us who are saying it. The Ombudsman said at point number 3 of his submission that this is a very short time frame for commenting on such a significant piece of legislation. He also talked about time frames not being appropriate, given key stakeholders included people with lived experience, the mental health workforce, and wider disability community. He mentioned their rights to be involved through the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ concluding observations on the second and third periodic reports of New Zealand, and also the UN recommendation to New Zealand that development process for the new legislation actively involves persons with disabilities, particularly persons with psychosocial disabilities. Again, I refer to the word “promote” in the purpose in Part 1 that I am referencing there.

The second issue is that the Ombudsman talked about how this was being compounded by a lack of accessible formats such as Easy Read and/or other accessible and engagement tools. We also found that the advice to the Health Committee, while the officials worked really hard, did feel very rushed and it didn’t cover many of the items raised by submitters. In the end, we drafted a table of 50 areas for discussion and debate, and we had to fight very hard just to have substantive discussions about recommendations, and for many of them we didn’t get to do that. The time frame was extremely tight, and we don’t believe on this side that it did justice to the issues raised by the submitters. Some areas, including forensic mental health, including incarcerated people, got very little, if no, attention, and there’s a whole section of the bill devoted to that that appeared to have been lifted and shifted. It would be good to be able to scrutinise that before it is to come into law.

My questions around process are, really, to ask the Minister: why was the select committee phase of the bill rushed, particularly when it appears to have been languishing—not even on the Order Paper, actually—off the Order Paper and on a shelf for some months, when that could have been valuable time for people to submit? Why were submissions open on 25 October last year for just six weeks, which, if one were cynical, one would say that was just before Christmas. The committee acknowledged the tight turn-around, and Labour asked for an extension. The extension was only until 20 December 2024, so during a very busy time before Christmas. I probably am a bit cheeky asking if that was deliberate, but it does give us pause to wonder why those time frames are chosen.

Just a few more questions on this: why couldn’t submissions have been extended until Parliament resumed in February so people could at least have had the summer period to read the bill and get their heads around it?

While I have the floor, I’ll just also make the point that there seems to have been very little attempt to reach out to disabled communities and neurodivergent communities to solicit their views on the bill in a way that could have afforded them much-needed protections. We have drafted amendments around that, and we heard really compelling evidence from people who were mainly their representatives rather than necessarily their own voice, although there was evidence from some groups as well. If we think about the context of the young neurodivergent girl who was mistakenly placed under the current Act and given sedation, that is an example of what can go horribly wrong under the Act if we don’t have the right safeguards in place.

I’ve got some more to say about the substance, and I’ll just go into one point around this, still on clause 3, which is that one of the most significant goals of the bill relates to decision-making capacity, including a shift from the current emphasis on risk aimed at eliminating compulsory care. It involves treatment irrespective of consent, and if someone lacks capacity in a certain area, then proper process must be followed. It seems to be that although there is lip service in clause 3 in talking about promoting the decision-making capacity—and there are other parts of the bill that talk about that—we don’t see in the functioning of the bill that substituted decision-making will be a last resort. It feels like there aren’t ways to do that, and it also feels like there’s a kind of blanket approach to capacity rather than a decision-by-decision basis, which is the modern approach to mental health philosophy.

The questions I have around that are: why does the bill take an approach regarding restoration of capacity, which is a binary approach and doesn’t seem to follow best practice? Wouldn’t the purpose of the bill be better served by ensuring that safeguards are in place to support the full exercise of decision-making capacity? Is there a financial reason why those changes haven’t been made? Ultimately, it might take more investment into the mental health sector—and I do appreciate that; I don’t say that glibly, because it could be a major investment—and yet, if the bill is trying to achieve that, then, perhaps, workforce development and resourcing and legislative safeguards around delivery would be the way to require the delivery of that, rather than making it contingent upon the capacity for the Public Service to do that. There will be other questions that really look at the decision-making capacity and the full exercise of that when we come to clause 9 of the bill.

22:20

Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, to start off, I think we’ve all agreed that this is an important bill, right? We can get up and grandstand, or we can actually get into the issues. I mean, to raise for five minutes the issues of select committee when, obviously, select committees are independent of Ministers is, probably, quite a disappointing first call from the Opposition spokesperson, and I think it says a lot. That Opposition spokesperson should actually—

What! For goodness’ sake.

Well, no, you can’t have it both ways. They are independent of Ministers, and, actually, the select committee was a standard process. You can’t have it both ways—and, actually, as that member will also know, because it happened under her last Government, there was a full public consultation on this policy of this bill by Andrew Little before it came into the House, and there’ll be many members here who probably haven’t debated a bill before that went through such a thorough process before it came to the House. I don’t want to hear, “Oh, well, it could have been transformative.” I mean, quite frankly, that’s what the problem was under the last Government in mental health, when it was all about transformation, and look where it got them, right? So, actually, everyone has worked hard on this bill—every party—and the public has been fully consulted; and it turns up to the House in very good shape. Not only that, it had an expert advisory panel that fed into it. So, yep, we’re going to debate the points of this bill, but let’s do that.

22:22

I want to try and get back a semblance of collegiality in this debate. As the Minister has acknowledged, this is a bill started under our Government and completed under theirs. It is incredibly important, it is historic, and it deals with issues that touch on the human rights of some of the most vulnerable people in New Zealand. I think it behooves us to approach—yeah, as I said—this debate with collegiality. It is late. It’s probably, while we’re talking about mental health, worth reflecting that everyone’s probably quite tired. Why don’t we write some elements of behaviour off as that and try and get off on a different foot?

I think it is fair, for a bill that deals with human rights, for the Opposition to have some concerns about the amendment that we are about to debate. It is an amendment that takes a decision made by the select committee and that affects the rights of mothers to be with their children and changes it substantially. I won’t, in this contribution, pose questions about that, because we’re not up to clause 38A yet, but I think it is an important procedural point to raise that it appears to be a substantial change to an issue that is a very important issue, made under urgency and without the opportunity for the public to consult on this. We will have questions about that, and I understand from my colleague that the nature of this change—we only learned about it when we saw Amendment Paper 648. It is not how I would like to participate as a parliamentarian—to be discussing the rights of mothers to be with their babies when I’ve only seen it very recently. That’s not good.

The Minister is entitled to say that other elements of the process have been consultative; they have been. This particular issue stands out as one that is very problematic and disappointing, because there was such a full process. As I said in my second reading speech, it’s hard to remember all of the submissions. Although my notes are helpful, it’s hard to remember them all, because it was some time ago. I don’t understand why we’re in this position where this change is happening now. It’s been several months since the Health Committee reported back, and the opportunity to have a conversation about what’s on this Amendment Paper when we’re not under urgency for a bill of this importance—it would have been good to take it. It would be good to hear from the Minister what it is that led to the timing of this particularly important amendment only being in front of the Opposition now.

Before I take the next call—this bill is an important bill. I was listening carefully to the speeches before we stepped into the committee stage here, as well, and so I would ask members on both sides of the Chamber to step through this carefully. I do note the point around process and select committee. Select committees are independent; they make their own choices and so on and so forth, so if we could say that the questions around the internal work of the select committee process have been resolved, then let us step through this carefully. This is important, and I know that people across the country will be looking with the expectation that we do step through this carefully.

22:27

Thank you, Mr Chair. I do want to answer the genuine question around the amendment with the birth parent clause. The first point is, I think, that, genuinely, you will find that we have similar intent and we share the intent. Amendment Paper 648 proposes a change to clause 38A, “Rights of birth parent”. The change ensures the responsible practitioner determines if separation is in the best interests of the person and the baby and ensures that the safety and wellbeing of the baby is the paramount consideration.

This is a really important right that the Health Committee added to the bill, and the changes I’m proposing will not alter the intent. These changes are simply to ensure it is workable in practice and is consistent with guardianship laws. As originally drafted, there was ambiguity as to who made the decisions. Guardianship arrangements can be complex and involve multiple people and views. This change addresses that while maintaining that the baby’s wellbeing is paramount.

22:28

Thank you, Mr Chair. I also want to signal to you first, Mr Chair—and my colleague the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall merely alluded to this as something we will be discussing, which is part of Part 2. While the Minister has given the response, somewhat, to this, we want to have the opportunity to examine it further under Part 2.

I will, however, go back to Part 1 and clause 3, at this stage, in particular. I want to focus on the purpose first. Now, a lot of the bills, as we know, have a purpose clause, but quite often, we see the purpose clause used in the legislation—I’m personally most familiar with the Education and Training Act 2020. Sometimes, the operationalisation of the purpose clause doesn’t quite match or meet the expectation of that purpose clause, so you can have a beautifully crafted purpose clause, but it is hard to match it. I think, in this case, it is really important—like the Chair said, this is an incredibly serious issue. I want to check with the Minister: is the purpose clause an aspiration, or is it binding? I think that is really important so when we go into the subsequent parts discussing the operationalisation of this, we’re able to draw back to: does this meet the standard that we see in the purpose clause? I think that’s one of the most important aspects of this bill.

Now, if we’re looking at the specific elements of this, from subclauses (a) to (d), I know that my colleague Ingrid Leary already mentioned that there are areas that she would like to discuss, but one of the things I would like to discuss, to start with, is around (d), and then I’m kind of going to work my way backwards. The first question I have around (d), which is protecting “the safety and well-being of tāngata whaiora and their communities”, is: how, then, does the Minister define or have an expectation of what is meant by “their communities”? We know that—particularly when we’re looking at not just the tāngata whaiora themselves, their immediate family, the disabled communities, but if we’re looking at the fundamental principle of intersectionality—communities are complex. To give the Minister an example, how, then, would we expect the agency or the community or the hospital, etc., who will be responsible for meeting that purpose would respond to, let’s say, Asian communities, if we have that in there? Would that be done in a way that would be culturally appropriate?

I think that’s my second question to the Minister, and I will leave that there for the time being, Chair, because I want to just ask a few at a time.

22:32

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to move to the interpretation section. Just going through part by part, we will have some more questions regarding advanced mental health directives, particularly in the later sections, about how they would be operationalised. For now, we’re wanting to understand if the definition has the same meaning as it does in the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights. The reason I say that is, for those who are listening at home, an advance directive is basically a statement that you sign saying in advance what kind of treatment you might want in the event that you become unwell. It’s particularly relevant to mental health situations, where an episode of mental illness might leave somebody unable to decide or communicate how they want to be treated. Under the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights, anybody who is legally competent can make one of these. All tāngata whaiora, at some point in their mental health and mental wellbeing journey, would be in a position to make one of these.

What it can do is have a really a profound impact, for example, if you’re in a crisis about what kind of drugs you might not want to be medicated with; whether you are open to electroconvulsive therapy or absolutely do not want it at all; whether you’d prefer to receive services in crisis in your hospital, in a home, in a crisis centre; and so on. We know from the way the legislation is drafted that there is some weighting put on these advance directives to the extent that they are therapeutically useful or to the extent, I guess, that they don’t impede the person from decision-making capacity. It will be good to tease out later which end of the spectrum the Minister sees the legislation being interpreted at.

With the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights, there are five elements to the advance directives for them to apply, which are: was a person competent to make the decision when they made the advance directive; did they make it of their own free will; were they sufficiently informed to make the decision; did they intend the directive to apply to the present circumstances, which could be different from those anticipated; and is the advance directive out of date?

My question to the Minister at this point in the interpretation, clause 4, is: does the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights apply, and if not, why not? If it doesn’t, then how is this bill any different to the 1992 bill? Do the appeal provisions to the Health and Disability Commissioner still stand if someone thinks their directive has not been adequately taken into account under the 2025 Mental Health Bill, or do the bill’s review provisions extinguish or transfer that right of appeal? How do they interact with enduring powers of attorney, for example, through the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1988, which can apply to many tāngata whaiora? For example, if someone has an enduring power of attorney to make healthcare decisions on their behalf when they are not competent to do so, whose determinations prevail, the attorney’s or the medical practitioner’s? I’m thinking here of, for example, in dementia cases, where, often, a family member will have the ability to make decisions when the person loses capacity, and yet they may also have an advance directive. I’m really wanting to understand that interaction.

I’ll go on, for the purposes of getting through the bill, to a question about the next one, which is an “advocate”, in the interpretation, clause 4. We heard this at select committee and it never got resolved, which is the different roles of the different support people. They seem complex and confusing. Could the Minister please tell us the difference, in his view, or an explanation between the attorney, the independent support person, the support network, and the welfare guardian.

While we’re on that note, why is attorney—it’s got the meaning in section 2 of the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act—written in the American spelling? Is that a typo or is that being done deliberately? If it’s a typo, perhaps that’s indicative of the rushed process. If it’s been done deliberately, is it because it’s trying to align with that other legislation?

22:37

Just thought I’d answer a couple of questions by the member Lawrence Xu-Nan. He talked about the change from “New Zealanders” to “their communities”. Really, the intent of that change was to capture communities that the person identifies with to make expectations that the care is responsive.

The member also talked about the purpose—is it aspirational or binding? The purpose clauses are a key interpretive aid throughout the legislation’s provision. In interpreting a requirement, decision makers and the courts will interpret clauses with regard to the purpose, especially if there is any interpretive ambiguity.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you for that, Minister. I think both responses are very helpful, so thank you.

I want to ask one more question on clause 3 before moving on to clause 4. This is, again, a question around a word, because it’s important for us to get understanding as well. I want to focus on clause 3(b), which is “improves equity in mental health outcomes among New Zealand’s population groups”. I want to just also check that when we are looking at outcomes—presumably there will be measures that come with it as well—in this case, the Minister intends outcomes to be genuinely about outcomes and not about output.

Just to give an example to the Minister, when we’re looking at outcomes, are we seeing the fact that the people who are using the care services—and I do have to be careful and I will probably have to refer back to the interpretation for some of the terminologies, because I know that some of the terminologies have changed; the people under compulsory care—are feeling like their wellbeing is looked after, are in the process of either rehabilitation or being within their families and communities. Whereas output, in this case, could be more quantitative and saying, well, we managed to churn X number of people through our system, or we have X number of people here. I want to just check if the Minister wouldn’t mind clarifying how that outcome could potentially be measured.

My next question is also quite a small one. In the interpretation, in clause 4, with “mental health practitioner”—this is page 14, line 14, for both the Chair and the Minister’s reference—I have noted that, previously, when we were looking at some of the other definitions for specific professions, there was an inclusion specifically of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act (HPCAA). I want to check whether, other than the four criteria that are listed in paragraphs (a) to (d), is there anyone else within the HPCAA 2003 that could also be captured by this but isn’t included in here?

Those are my two questions. Thank you.

22:40

Well, it would be helpful for the officials who may be advising the Minister for Mental Health if my question, which follows on from Dr Xu-Nan’s, is asked now—also clause 4, the mental health practitioner defined as “(a) medical practitioner; (b) nurse practitioner; (c) registered nurse practising in mental health; or (d) any other … class of person appointed under section 149.” The powers of the mental health practitioner comes up in a latter part of the bill, and does include conducting examinations for the purpose of determining if someone should receive compulsory care. My question to the Minister is twofold: is it correct that this paragraph (d) allows non-regulated workforces to take the role of the mental health practitioner and their powers? Second question: does the Minister have an intention of appointing non-regulated professionals—and by non-regulated, I mean under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act—to fulfil the role of a mental health practitioner?

22:42

Just to follow on as a bit of a supplementary, really. With the “clinical psychologist” definition, the same issue applies where it’s talking about the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act, and we are aware that there is a new associate psychology role. I’m wanting to understand how tangata whaiora will be assured that the Act doesn’t widen the scope of clinical psychology in particular to people who don’t have the clinical experience to make the decisions.

Can you just tell me what section?

Oh, sorry, this is still in the definition section under “clinical psychologist”. Then, speaking to the point that both the previous speakers made about the medical—

What clause?

What page?

Page 11, line 32.

Thank you. It talks about a clinical psychologist being a health practitioner and then it talks about under that Act. We know that, under this Government, there have been some new roles created that don’t have a clinical element and yet could be considered psychologists for the purposes of other parts of the law. I’m wondering if the Minister for Mental Health would consider, given the concerns raised around the health practitioner definition which have been raised by the previous two speakers, whether he would consider my amendment 1.50.05, which would amend the interpretation of health practitioner in clause 4(1) so that it would say, “for the purposes of the Act, the health practitioner exercising powers or performing functions must have appropriate competence, training, and experience in the assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and care of people experiencing mental distress or mental illness.”? I think, in doing that, we’re looking, again, at using Dr Xu-Nan’s language about the outcome of the level of skill and training and competence of the health practitioner, rather than looking at a kind of regime or more of an input measure of what kind of certification they have. I do have that amendment on the Table and would like to know if the Minister would support that.

22:44

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just gathering up a few questions. There was a question around the new decision-making capacity, enough safeguards, and I think the member Ingrid Leary made the comment, “Is it just lip service?” I’m confident that there are safeguards, and that will explicitly recognise decision making throughout the bill. I would just point to, as an example, the principles of the bill where we have a guide for all decision making in those principles as well.

There was another question around advance directives, and, clearly, within this role, there is a role for advance directives. They are different, much more detailed in the legislative provision of the bill, and more detailed than is present in the Health and Disability Commissioner code. The provisions expand much more on high-level code provisions reflecting the need for legislative clarity in this area, and I think, when you see the principle in the bill around fluctuating capacity, that is why that is required.

There was a question, which I think was from the member Lawrence Xu-Nan, around the different roles. Clearly, the bill—when you read the bill—does introduce several new roles. Each has a defined purpose that is set out in the bill, and I consider this as sufficiently clear, and guidance and communications for people receiving this care will be set out for them.

22:46

Thank you, Mr Chair. It would still be good to hear the Minister for Mental Health’s understanding of what those various roles entail—the attorney, the support network, and so on. That would be very helpful, I think, on the Hansard. If we keep moving through the definition section, I’d like to turn now to the community care order. We did hear evidence from Professor Tony O’Brien, who discussed assertive outreach and was raising queries around community care orders. We’re trying to understand in this section why the wording or the nomenclature has been changed to “community care” rather than “compulsory care order”, which seems to be the better phrase given the effect in the bill, which is, essentially, to keep the treatment compulsory.

The first question is: why is the word “care” included when there’s no proactive duty on the State to actually provide the care? Wouldn’t it have been clearer, for people who have experienced being under the current Act, to perhaps use the same language given that the impact of the changes to the community care orders do not change the compulsory nature of them? Why was the wording changed after the submission period rather than beforehand so that people could submit on it? It is one of the few areas, I think, where people who are subject to these orders could have felt some agency and participation if they had been able to express their responses to that, and yet that seemed to be denied of them. It was changed to “community care order”, and it’s a directive, not an order. We’re trying to understand what the change of the word from “directive” to “order” is trying to achieve. Again, wouldn’t it have been better to stay with the previous—or the current, under the current Mental Health Act—naming so that we don’t overstate the difference in these community care orders, which are pretty similar to under the Act? If they’re not, then I stand to be corrected and it would be great for the Minister to explain the difference in them. We will have a lot more to ask about the community care orders when we come to clause 6.

22:49

I just want to go back to the member, Lawrence Xu-Nan, who asked a question around outcomes, which I think, for mental health, and especially in compulsory care, is a very important topic as well. Within the bill, I think it sets out clearly the importance of strong monitoring, and not only outcomes, but activities and outputs, I think, are important as well. What I’ve focused on, as the Minister for Mental Health, is not only ensuring in this bill, but actually in the wider mental health system, that we do have better public reporting. I’m a big believer that if people feel that there is reporting and there is management and public reporting, then outcomes do improve.

The last one is ensuring that we get and measure outcomes of people improving under compulsory care as well. That also comes at a population level, and we need to ensure that we are recording and reporting on population groups receiving care as well.

22:50

Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you for those responses. I am heartened to hear the Minister’s response on my question around outcome. I think that’s quite important. I know that in some of the later sections we’ll get to discuss some of those principles more specifically, but I want to just continue on with the interpretation. I also want to acknowledge the updates the select committee has made on the sensitivity of some of the languages. I think that’s really appreciated.

My question over here is around infringement—let me just double-check—infringement fee and infringement offence. This is page 13 line 38 and page 14 lines 1 and 2. I will double-check on this as well, but my understanding, when it comes to infringement fees, for example, it’s a fine that doesn’t necessarily have to have an offence attached to it. You get given a particular fine and that’s it. There’s really no real recourse for you to challenge that. It’s not upon conviction or anything like that. I could be mistaken, so I think that clarification is needed because I think understanding what that definition for infringement is will be quite relevant to some of the things we see much later on when we get to, possibly, Part 8 of this bill when it comes to regulations, which I won’t touch, but I want to understand that term “infringement”.

My last question over here, I guess, is mainly just when we talked a little bit about some of the definitions around health practitioners, which is page 13, line 20 and line 21. For example, in that case, it does specify the meaning that you have with section 5 of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act (HPCAA), which I mentioned before. I’m still just checking with the Minister, around the clarification I was seeking regarding whether there were any mental health practitioners, that were also captured within that, because I’m assuming that we have these definitions between “clinical psychologist”, “health practitioners”, “mental health practitioners”, etc., which will be important in later parts of this bill, but it’s important for us to understand, in the broader context, how they work within the HPCAA.

22:53

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. Just responding to the member Ingrid Leary’s question around community care order and why the care when no proactive duty to care. In this bill, the term here refers more to the care plan. Whether the person is in in-patient care or community care, they’re required to have a care plan and that is more holistic here as well. Of course, by definition, the care can only be provided in accordance with the care plan.

Why is it not called “compulsory care order”? I’ve been advised the legal term is already used in intellectual disability compulsory care and the Rehabilitation Act. As mentioned earlier, the reference of care is more than just treatment, it is a holistic view of that person’s care.

22:54

Thank you, Mr Chair. It would, perhaps, help our progress through the bill if we could have an answer to my previous question about whether the definition of “mental health practitioner”, under paragraph (d) on page 14, includes non-regulated professionals as defined in the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act. The second question which was whether the Minister has any intention of appointing non-regulated professions or groups of people to the role of the mental health practitioner.

22:55

Yes, thank you very much for the question. The Director of Mental Health can deem someone a mental health practitioner who holds the required skills and competencies. Careful consideration will be given to that, deeming to ensure that there is a qualified clinical care.

22:56

Thank you, Mr Chair. Clearly the answer then is “yes”. Could the Minister give some examples of groups of non-regulated workers who might be suitable to have the powers of a mental health practitioner under the Act? I’m aware that non-regulated practitioners are paying an increasing role in our in our health system. I’m interested to understand his thoughts there.

I guess, I understand the point about skills, that’s clearly the most important thing for exercising those powers, but there are other parts of being a regulated profession under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act, other than just the skills: being on a register, having a community of professional practice that you’re a part of, peer review, sometimes ethical requirements will definitely be one of them. The non-regulated professions don’t have that framework applying to them. I mean just being on a register means the police can find you, right? There are a number of things there. I would like to understand more about the types of groups of workers who might be suitable to exercise the powers of a mental health practitioner but aren’t in the regulated professions.

22:57

Just a supplementary on that to sort of make the point, I guess, if we look at registered nurses practising in mental health: how much experience do they need? If a nurse had just graduated a month prior, would that be enough time? Would they need to have trained and gained qualifications? Same goes with paramedics. We will have more questions on this under clause 149.

I want to go back to compulsory care, but to the assessment and care of a person. Looking at a question that relates to clause 62(2) and the interplay between compulsory care, the definition, and how that plays out. I hope the Minister’s officials are listening because it’s a little bit complicated, but in the definition section it says—

Just feel free to wait while the Minister’s taking advice, if you’d like.

Sure. Yeah, in the definition, compulsory care “means the compulsory assessment and care of a person from the start of the second assessment period until the person is released under section 53, 64, 66 or 76”.

My questions are: what does the start of the second assessment period mean? Is that after they’ve reached the first threshold and prior to the second assessment or is it the day on which they are notified? If so, what time of that day? Is it on the moment of notification? Is it after notification or is it after the second assessment period until they are released? If it’s the latter, then what is the period of care called after the initial assessment until the second assessment? This looks directly at the definition of “compulsory care” in the definition section of clause 4 and how it plays out in clause 62(2).

I’ll continue on, noting that I do have that amendment on the table regarding mental health practitioner that the Minister hasn’t indicated whether he would adopt—that would be helpful to respond to our questions.

In the definition of “court”, it talks about “the court with jurisdiction to hear and determine applications, set out in section 70”. It also talks about the “Court Martial of New Zealand established under section 8 of the Court Martial Act 2007”. My questions around this are related to the stigma and discrimination, and we did hear submissions where people quoted from Te Hiringa Mahara, in 2023, that “the carrying over of Family or District Court arrangements for initial decisions appears at odds with the policy objectives towards a rights-based approach”.

Did the Minister consider using a tribunal decision-making process model instead of court proceedings, particularly to reduce the stigma? We’ve seen that in the Family Court, for example, or a tribunal approach; I know the Minister’s very keen on not necessarily having police be at mental health events unless there’s a requirement for them to be there because of the stigmatisation. Has he considered that? Did he receive any advice on that?

Why do people in the armed forces go through the Court Martial process under this bill rather than a civilian one? If the principles at play are universal and if the risk principles are the same, there wouldn’t seem to be a reason to need to have a Court Martial for the armed forces. Was that a lift and shift from the previous Act, and did he turn his mind to whether it might be better to have universality of the tribunal and the intention to reduce stigma and discrimination, which is the whole purpose of the changes and reforms we’re trying to make in mental health? Doesn’t including the Court Martial element once again entrench the stigma and discrimination?

I do have a second amendment, and my question around that amendment is whether, perhaps, the Court Martial is appropriate only in forensic cases—the equivalent of prison-type, criminal-type cases for Court Martial? If that is the case, I wonder if he would consider my tabled amendment lodged at 1.50.02 p.m., which just says, “in clause 4(1)(b) of the definition of ‘court’, after ‘Armed Forces Discipline Act 1971’, insert ‘for the purposes of this Act’ ”? That would mean that the Court Martial of New Zealand would only be used within the definition of “court” in relation to persons subject to forensic compulsory care, rather than if they were having a medical mental health event that didn’t involve something that could attract a criminal charge if it wasn’t in an armed service setting.

23:03

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. There was a question from the member Ingrid Leary about the reference to the new assistant psychology role, or psychology assistant, in relation to the reference in the bill for “clinical psychologist”. By definition, the psychology assistants aren’t clinical psychologists and, as deemed by the Psychologists Board, don’t have that title.

The question from the member Ayesha Verrall was around the use of the non-clinical workforce, and, as referenced, we have grown the non-clinical workforce. I think it plays a very good role in complementing the clinical workforce, but it wouldn’t be my expectation that the non-clinical workforce would be used for clinical work.

There was also a question from the member Lawrence Xu-Nan around infringement fees, especially around the serving of the notice. Every infringement fee has a requirement to include a statement, and under that requirement, the person who is being served the infringement fee has the right to request a hearing.

23:05

Just to follow up on that helpful response from the Minister for Mental Health, the language in the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act is that there are professions that are regulated. Can the Minister confirm that he means that he doesn’t expect “mental health practitioner”, as defined in this bill, would be given to people who are not in a regulated profession?

Yeah, and I think that’s a fair clarification.

We’re nearly getting to the end of the definitions section. I have got a couple more amendments. One is around the compulsory care criteria and its interplay with clause 7. We won’t need to revisit this in clause 7, but I’m trying to understand whether the compulsory care criteria are those set out in the definitions section exclusively or whether they’re broader than that. My reading of the bill would suggest that, perhaps, it needs to be only those in the definitions section, so I have proposed an amendment in clause 4(1) to, after “means”, just insert the word “only”, and that would make it really clear that clause 7 doesn’t enable other criteria to be included. I’m hoping to get an answer on that.

Also, in clause 4(1), there is a definition of the “Director-General”, and it says, “who holds the office of Deputy Director of Mental Health”. The problem with the legislation, of course, is that if there is another change to the Ministry of Health, as there has been in the past, or the Director-General title, then the legislation can’t apply. I just wonder if it might be prudent to add, in clause 4(1), replace the definition of “Director-General” with “Director-General means the chief executive of the department responsible for administering this Act, and includes any person to whom that chief executive has delegated a power or function under the Act”. That would future-proof the Act; we wouldn’t have to come back with an omnibus bill for a silly little amendment.

Finally, just talking again around forensic compulsory care, it’s a bit confusing about what that means in relation to clause 113. We don’t need to revisit clause 113, but I’m wondering if it should just be put in the definitions section for clarity so that it would say that clause 113 would be amended by clause 4(1). It would say that clause 113 “applies to a person under forensic compulsory care as defined in clause 4”, and in clause 4, it would simply say “a person under forensic compulsory care means a person described in section 113”. That would be some legislative coherence. As I say, we don’t need to revisit it, but this would make it just a bit easier for people to understand how the interplay of those sections works.

23:08

Just in reference to that amendment, which we wouldn’t support, the definition of this bill is standard Parliamentary Council Office practice. The intent is achieved through the Legislation Act 2019.

Just rounding off the question of Court Martial, the Court Martial provision was already in the current Act. Then there was the question around what the start of the second assessment means. I suppose, if we look at the process of compulsory care, the first assessment is undertaken, and when there are reasonable grounds to believe the person meets the compulsory care criteria, that notice is given in writing for the second assessment.

23:09

Thank you, Mr Chair. I know that my colleague Ingrid Leary might still have a couple of final questions on clause 4, but I’m going to move on to clauses 5 and 6. I may have follow-up questions for the Minister for Mental Health on clause 5, but I’m going to ask a quick one to begin with, which is: would the Minister anticipate any changes to clause 5 as part of the changes that are intended by the Government around Te Tiriti o Waitangi clauses? Would that affect this particular one? That will determine some of the questions I might have for the Minister coming up.

I’ll maybe come back later for clause 5, but I do just want to touch on two things for clause 6, and I want to speak to my colleague Kahurangi Carter’s amendments. The first one is around the therapeutic purpose, and this is “Compulsory care principles”, under subclause (1)(a)(ii). The proposal is to maybe insert a new subparagraph (iii), which is that the compulsory care should only be used “with appropriate measures in place to support a person to move from compulsory care to become a voluntary mental health consumer”. Sorry, Mr Chair, this is Amendment Paper 644.

The reason for that is that, as I mentioned in my second reading, one of the things that the Green Party is particularly interested in is the ability for people to fully transition into that voluntary care, and we emphasise that the reduction of compulsion shouldn’t reduce the care and there needs to be some sort of voluntary support. I want to check whether the Minister would be interested in adopting my colleague’s amendment, but, if not, if the Minister wouldn’t mind pointing out another principle that that potentially could be incorporated under.

The next thing I want to mention is Kahurangi Carter’s Amendment Paper 645 and that is to, after clause 6(1)(d), insert new paragraph (e), which is around “Commitment to provide community care”. This does tie in to amendment Paper 644. Again, this is to do with the kind of support that’s expected and the community support commitment that is expected after involuntary hospitalisation becomes voluntary, which, again, shifts us—hopefully—from a high level of compulsory treatment to avoid cases of seemingly indefinite compulsory care. I wanted to check whether the Minister would be interested in those, and I still have further questions on both clauses 5 and 6.

23:12

Thank you. Just on the fact that the Minister won’t clarify, in the bill as it currently, the issue around “person under forensic compulsory care”, I think it is good for us to work out which bit of legislation takes precedence. As I say this, I’m thinking again about the incidence, at Wakari Hospital, of people who would be potentially under both the Mental Health Act currently but also the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act.

If someone is a special care recipient under section 2 of the Intellectual Disability Act and they also have a mental disorder, which statutory regime will now take precedence, and how does that compare to the current Act? Can the Minister identify any circumstances in which a person could potentially fall under both bits of legislation, given the changes and the fact that we’re not going to clarify that now in the definition section? If so, what safeguards exist to ensure that people aren’t inadvertently moved from protections available under the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act and into the mental health regime? As I say, they sound a bit nitpicky and a little bit conceptual, but they’re very, very real right now, given what’s happened at Wakari Hospital and is mentioned in the Ombudsman’s report. It is worth us understanding the interplay of those two pieces of law.

Going back to the Armed Forces Discipline Act, where I talked previously about “Court Martial”, Part 10 continues to apply under transitional provisions, and yet we don’t have “Court Martial” anywhere else or in any other reference to the Armed Forces Discipline Act, except under Part 10 of that Act. I’m wondering if it’s just an oversight and if we should still remove that from the definition section, or why is it that it doesn’t appear to be anywhere else in this bill?

Then, finally, we’ve covered the medical health professionals—the New Zealand Health Plan; it would be great to understand from the Minister where we are with it. I believe that there has been a draft and there may be a strategy due for finalisation, but it would be good to know when the plan will be published under the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act or if the Minister can let me know if it has been published. I haven’t been able to find it, but it may have been.

Yes, it has been.

The Pae Ora mental health one?

No, the health plan.

The health plan. Sorry, I’m just—oh, no, that was 2025. I’ll leave that, then, because my colleague is telling me that doesn’t apply, so that’s fine. We covered that one off. I think that’s just about all from there. Then if we go to clause 5, which is the Treaty clause—I will sit down and let someone else take a call while I gather my thoughts. Thank you.

23:15

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I just wanted to respond to the member Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan. He’s referencing Amendment Papers 644 and 645 in the name of Kahurangi Carter. Amendment Paper 644, to require measures to support transition from compulsory to voluntary mental health care, looks to add a new compulsory key principle requiring “appropriate measures”, and, for that reason, we would not support that. It would be unclear what “appropriate measures” actually refers to in definitional terms, and it would not be appropriate to include it in the principles of the bill.

Amendment Paper 645 introduces a commitment to provide community care. Look, I understand the intent of the proposal, ensuring those who come out of, potentially, hospital inpatient compulsory care can be joined up with community care. The issue with that proposal is then that you would create, potentially, a new entitlement or preferential access through that route, as well. What I think we all can agree on for community care is that the decisions for referral should be undertaken through established clinical assessment and service eligibility and prioritisation, which currently exists.

23:17

Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you for the response, Minister. I have to say, it’s very refreshing to get such a detailed response to any Amendment Paper, so I appreciate that. Just picking up from what the Minister is saying—and I’ll get on to the community part—I understand there are currently existing processes, and I acknowledge the Minister’s point around preferential care.

I want to check in terms of clause 6 around “Compulsory care principles”. I’m looking now at subclause (1)(b) regarding the “Least restrictive application”. One of the things that I raised, as well, in my second reading speech is that we want to move in a direction where compulsory care is a last resort. Can I just check if that is in line with the interpretation here under clause 6(1)(b), which is “be applied in the least restrictive manner”? Would that still imply that compulsory care is being used, but just less restrictively, and that there are different hierarchies of restrictiveness when it comes to compulsory care? Also, over here in subparagraph (i), the bill mentions that “voluntary care options should be actively offered and preferred”. Can I just check if “preferred”, in this case, would also imply it’s the default starting point for that, and then the level of severity, I guess, depending on diagnosis and the requirement for the person needing compulsory care?

23:19

Thank you for that question from Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan. I think, when you look at the purpose of the Act, especially around the compulsory care principles, it does state around the therapeutic purpose, and I think that is very important in the context of the discussion here. Not only therapeutic but the least restrictive application as well. What we do find with voluntary care options is that, quite often, they can be the most therapeutic and the least restrictive.

23:20

On the definitions section, this is just a quick note to say that we did have a long discussion about the wording of tāngata whaiora, and some of the Government members didn’t like the definition, but we have it defined in the bill as “people with lived experience of mental distress”. I am interested to understand from the Minister whether speaking of distress rather than mental illness is appropriate or how does he see that, because mental distress tends to be a short duration—less gravity; less, perhaps, diagnosed as a medical illness, and not necessarily a clinical kind of definition—so would it be better to say “mental illness” or would it perhaps be better to have a te reo word that defines what tāngata whaiora is so that we don’t have to try and have this kind of transliteration?

When I go to the Treaty of Waitangi clauses, there were a number of submissions on that, and the biggest impression I had was that there seems to be a commitment to Te Tiriti in an overall sense but that it doesn’t feel like it applies in the delivery of service to tāngata whaiora. I wonder if the Minister would entertain tabled amendment 1.50.06, which says, “in clause 5, after subclause (1), insert ‘that persons exercising powers and functions under this Act must actively support equitable outcomes for Māori and enable Māori participation in decisions affecting the care of Māori receiving services under this Act.’ ”

If we look again at the promotion of decision-making capacity in clause 3, that would seem to align really well. Alternatively, there is my tabled amendment 3.04.01, which just says that, under the heading, “Every person performing a function or duty or exercising a power under this Act must give effect to the principles of Te Tiriti.” I know that the current wording talks about giving to effect as the bill, but it doesn’t actually require anything of the people delivering services, so that could be another way to do it.

We did have the opportunity to meet the other evening, and I was hoping that the Minister would take on board my tabled amendment on clause 6, which is around disabled and neurodivergent people. We heard that they are implicitly protected in the bill, but I do have tabled amendment 3.04.01, which would explicitly ensure that disability, neurodivergence, and different styles of communication would not be treated as evidence of impaired decision-making capacity. Just another plea to the Minister: I know it didn’t make it over the line the other evening, but this would be of great comfort to our disabled and neurodivergent communities, because, often, with the way that they can present, it is assumed that they are suffering some kind of mental health event when it is actually a form of their expression and communication.

I know the Minister’s going to stand up and say, “Yes, it’s implicit in the bill.”, but disabled and neurodivergent people do not get the protections. We know that they are overrepresented in all of the abuse in care scenarios, and so having an explicit mention as per my tabled amendment would be really helpful. The other one, which would be also something that I would have thought the Minister would support because he is a champion of lived experience, is to actually recognise the value of lived experience wherever reasonably practicable. We could do that with my tabled amendment 8.00.01. We could put that into clause 6(1)(c). Then we could actually, after clause 211, have the director-general actually have a plan and a statutory requirement to take into account advice from people with lived experience of compulsory mental health care, some of whom we heard at the committee stage, but also including appropriate Māori, Pacific, disabled, and youth lived experience—again, the most marginalised communities.

Under clause 6, I have tabled amendment 1.50.09 to include the words “including whānau and cultural support”, which would be to specify what kind of support is referenced in the definition section. That would make sure that support was available to the person, including whānau and cultural support, housing, income, education, employment, and so on—all the things that people might need to get on to their journey of recovery. That would then apply the principle of least restrictive care and it would also require some investment into resourcing.

Mr Chair, if I can keep going with these amendments, we’ll get through them really quickly?

Well, yes, that’s a good idea to finish them off. We’ll go through them; it would be a nice way to finish your contribution.

Thank you. I’ve got an amendment under clause 8, tabled amendment 15.00.11: which would be, “after the words ‘Seriously impaired mental health’, insert the words ‘without evidence that those matters are contributing to a serious impairment of mental functioning’.” This is another safeguard. We’ve heard that there’s quite a binary position in the bill about people either lacking capacity or not, and yet we heard from expert submitters that those judgments should be made on a decision by decision basis because mental capacity fluctuates. Putting this amendment in clause 8(2) would help to move us into the 21st century when it comes to best practice around how we determine mental impairment and capacity so that it’s no longer binary but more a journey, and appropriate supports can be put in at each gateway.

We also have two amendments on clause 9 which are, again, safeguards for people with intellectual disability, which is that they cannot be presumed to lack capacity to make decisions about their mental health care solely because they have an intellectual disability or a neurological or brain condition. We have seen the Wakari Hospital incident. We have also heard evidence from people where they are the most vulnerable, and just having that safeguarding would be something that would give those communities confidence.

Finally, the “Meaning of capacity to make decisions about mental health”: we could capture all of that in assessing capacity, to say that reasonable steps must be taken to support the person to make or communicate their own decision before determining that the person lacks capacity; so it’s a kind of active or proactive duty of care on officials to take the person as they are before them. Yes, it’s implicit across the bill, but it doesn’t really apply individually on a case by case basis where somebody may be taken at face value rather than for their particular situation or circumstances.

Finally, in clause 12, I suggest amending advance mental health directives so that a copy of the statement that is given must be provided to the person. They must be consistent with that person’s wishes and to the person’s support network and to the independent advocate. This is around giving them reasons why their advance directive might not be followed. We heard a lot about advance directives and people wanting them to be taken more seriously and to be on hand, rather than them just being discarded, and having a duty of care on those choosing not to follow them—probably for good clinical reasons. It would be prudent to have that in writing so that there is a process to safeguard their rights.

23:28

Alrighty, hey, let’s get into this; alrighty. We have tabled amendment No. 6 from Ingrid Leary wanting to insert additional requirements around equity and participation for Māori. I would not support that, because there are already overarching principles in the bill, recognising the Treaty of Waitangi—

It’s “Wai-taa-ngi”.

—Waitangi; apologies—and requiring care to be responsive and meet cultural needs as well. Another tabled amendment—1.50.09—expands the principle to housing, income, education, employment, counselling, and peer support to be available to the person. I would not support that, because, as we do know, care planning already requires a holistic assessment for the person and the support that is required under the bill as well.

There were some quite technical questions/statements, I suppose, around the interface between the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act 2003 (IDCCR) and the Mental Health Act. No compulsory care order may be made if the person is under IDCCR. If on an ID order, to become under the Mental Health Act, the ID order needs to be suspended.

The next one I have here from Ingrid Leary talks about inserting into the bill compulsory care principles relating to disabled and neurodivergent people. I would not support that, because the compulsory care criteria in the bill already ensures that disability, neurodivergence, and different communication styles are supported.

I have another one here. I’m not sure whether it’s got a number on it, to be honest. Well, the response to it is—the request in the amendment here, I think—sorry, Mr Chair, is that 1.50.05?