edithatogo/nz-hansard-corpus huggingface dataset:
Belich CamillaCAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to take a call on this bill. I'm not sure if the previous speaker heard her colleagues' contributions but they actually were quite supportive of this bill and thought that a lot of the changes would assist many of the bereaved families that I'm sure everyone in our House is concerned with. I'm not exactly sure what her contribution was trying to get at but I do understand the National Party is supporting this bill. In fact I think everyone agrees that the changes in this bill are welcome. The fundamental thing that I think this bill upholds is still the public interest that coroners hold at the heart of what they do and also as colleagues have previously mentioned preventing similar deaths—avoidable deaths—within the community. I think any bill that adds to the efficiency of the coronial system and assists bereaved families at their time of need is something that we—certainly on this side of the House—support and I understood those in the National Party also support it as well. There are a few different changes in this bill. They've been traversed. I am the last speaker on this bill and we've gone over them in some detail. But they include things like coronial associates being appointed—those who have had over five years' experience; well actually five years with a practising certificate. That is similar I think to practising on your own account—so a relatively high threshold to be appointed into that position. It also will bring in changes like coroners being able to find a death as unascertained natural causes which may be appropriate in some instances; changes that allow for hearing in chambers—which I assume will be mainly on the papers which is kind of a technical legal term which is sometimes used—and also lastly looking at only the cause of death if there's no public interest in making findings on other matters. I commend this bill to the House.Motion agreed to.Bill read a first time.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): The question is That the Coroners Amendment Bill be considered by the Justice Committee.Motion agreed to.Bill referred to the Justice Committee.
Coroners Amendment Bill — First Reading
Prime Willow-JeanWILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): Thank you Mr Speaker. I will just be taking a brief call this evening being almost one of the last speakers in the debate. I acknowledge the Minister Aupito William Sio who opened with his speech and outlined what the purposes of the legislation are and what the key changes to the legislation are and other members who have spoken tonight. I was tuning in on the TV listening to the contribution from the member for Taieri Ingrid Leary and she referred to the petition that came before our Justice Committee and it was really by sitting in and listening to those petitioners that I got a much better understanding and appreciation of the distress that whānau are under while they are waiting a significant amount of time for reports to come back about their loved ones.But also one of the things that I thought about was—and it's been mentioned by a few other members in the House this evening—that because of those delays often there are findings in those inquiries which could help perhaps prevent further deaths. One that I can think of that I've seen recently in Northland is some findings about a particular beach where there's been a number of drownings. Now with that we hope that that will prevent future deaths by making recommendations to the council about things that should happen in that area. So I want to thank the petitioners for bringing that petition to the Justice Committee. I want to acknowledge our committee and the Minister for introducing this new legislation. I look forward as a member of the Justice Committee as others have said to hearing from submitters on this. I am particularly interested in the new proposal of this new position of the coronial associates and the different contributions that have been made this evening.I do want to note finally in the Minister's speech he talked about this being part of wider work that's going on that this is just a first step. He mentioned that they're also looking at in particular a project to better integrate tikanga Māori into the coronial processes and I look forward to that work in the future as well. With that I commend the bill to the House.
SpeechVANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker and thank you for the opportunity to take a brief call in relation to this bill which is a bill that on its face does address the delays in our coronial system. But at its heart this is a bill as colleagues have spoken to about being respectful of the process of grief that many families go through—actually sometimes in quite horrendous circumstances—and ensuring that we don't leave those families in limbo.It's also very much a bill about community safety and there's just one example I'd like to refer to just to give a sense of why. In 2015 three members of a Southland family passed away. Eventually their deaths were attributed to a faulty kettle catching fire. There were 66000 of those kettles in Kiwi homes around the country and they remained for sale until The Warehouse voluntarily withdrew them from the market seven months after the deaths. Now had The Warehouse waited until the coronial findings they would have remained for sale for two years. So we can see that there can be really significant safety concerns that play out if we don't have a coronial system that's responsive. The issue is not just that the delays have been static but that they have increased by 52 percent in just under four years and of course again that has a significant impact on families.There are four changes that the bill proposes to make. Colleagues have spoken to those so I won't traverse them this evening. Just to say that as a member of the Justice Committee I do look forward with colleagues across the House in terms of considering this bill but also to hearing from a number of stakeholders who I know will have concerns in this area. I commend this bill to the House.
SpeechDr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. I rise to take a brief call on this matter. The substance of this excellent bill has been well described by my many colleagues around the House. It does four things which in addition to our raising the cap on the number of coroners earlier on this year are going to make the coroner's court work better and experience less delay. There is nothing that anyone in this House can say that will adequately express the trauma of those who wait months and months and months for a coronial decision as to the passing of someone who was much loved.On that note as a member of the Justice Committee I look forward to going through the practicalities of this in some detail as we of course always do and I am actually really interested in the parallels between this and the bill on the Family Court Associates which we had before us for first reading very recently. The similarity is between taking the ability of young lawyers who can move into an associate role and help to relieve the stress on courts which is something that I think has huge promise. I am delighted to commend this very useful bill to the House.
Leary Ingrid; Salesa JennyINGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): One of the people who has petitioned this House quite publicly is Corinda Taylor from the Life Matters Suicide Prevention Trust. She started a Dunedin-based charity to support those struggling with mental health issues but also to support the whānau of people who have taken their own lives. It was quite a harrowing video that I watched looking again today at that submission and petition from her to—I believe it was—the Justice Committee where she talked about the experience of her own son Ross taking his life but more than that the eight years—the eight long years—of going through a coronial system that wasn't able to resolve matters that dragged out and retraumatised what was a hugely painful experience for that family.She stood here at Parliament with a petition which was actually signed by 3834 saying we need change in the coronial system we need more coroners and we also need processes that will make for a less adversarial experience for whānau going through the inquests but also some shortcuts to ensure that people aren't necessarily retraumatised when actually it would be better just to have closure. I think that this bill goes some ways to resolving many of those things with the four amendments. It's establishing the new position of the coronial associate. As the previous speaker has said it's enabled a cause of death to be recorded as unascertained natural causes. Really importantly I think it gives the coroner the sole discretion to decide whether an inquest is needed or a chambers hearing—and that certainly would seem to circumvent that traumatic process for many families where there is no need to take them through that inquest process—and of course it enables coroners to issue written findings about the cause of death rather than the circumstances. I'm really pleased for Corinda Taylor and I want to acknowledge my predecessor the Hon Clare Curran who stood with Corinda in Parliament to make that submission. I hope that this goes some way to making sure that the experience her whānau had has not gone to waste and that some good has come out of that harrowing experience. Thank you Madam Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The next call is online. I call on Golriz Ghahraman who is connecting with us remotely.
Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you Madam Speaker. Firstly can I just say that we're supporting this bill without a doubt at first reading. Being a member of the Justice Committee I look forward to receiving this. And could I acknowledge the Minister because it's obvious as Associate Minister of Justice and having the coroners court as part of his delegation he's recognised that not only is the coroner's court under enormous pressure actually our entire justice system and courts are under pressure.I actually think that this—although he's highlighted this isn't the silver bullet—is certainly one step in the right direction in terms of trying to relieve some of the pressure and make the coroner's court more efficient. The reality of it is the coroner's court is extremely sensitive in terms of the types of cases that they deal with. They can often be family suicides motor vehicle accidents and sometimes sadly—and I've had a case like this recently in my own electorate—people with serious mental health issues that have died in care. So the one thing that I congratulate the Minister for in terms of capturing inside this legislation is the fact that if the family or someone—an interested party—wants to go to an inquest they still have the ability to go to an inquest because it is fundamentally important that family members in particular are able to ask those tough questions and understand and get to the bottom as part of their grieving and part of their loss—to actually understand what happened to their loved ones. So I'm pleased to see that that is contained inside the bill.I think the coronial associate role just makes very good sense. It's someone that still has to have the requisite experience that has to be approved and signed off before taking the roll up and they're appointed for five years. I think that's a good idea. It shows that they have got a commitment and that they can take the role and that they can fully immerse themselves in that role and allow them to take some of the pressure off the coroners.The change of recorded cause of death to unascertained natural causes in certain circumstances—I think this is very fair when it's a very clear case. Although it hasn't been signed off by a doctor as a clear cause of death when you look at the case on the face of it it is probably fairly clear exactly what has happened and I think that is a very good step in the right direction and also streamlining it in terms of just one coroner that's dealing with the case is able to sign that off.So I think this is a good bill. There may be some areas that the select committee can work on that we can look at and we can work on—we may be able to strengthen or clarify. But fundamentally I think it's a bill that's been brought to this House in very good shape and I want to acknowledge and commend the Minister for doing that. Thank you.
SpeechJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Madam Chair and I just want to put on record the Greens' appreciation for the Minister's work particularly around the fair pay agreements. Some of the submissions we heard from working people to the committee really highlighted the importance of this—people who have been in jobs 30 years and they're on basically just over the minimum wage—really a complete lack of appreciation of the skill and the importance of their work and the risks that many people are taking every day for their employers. So we really appreciate that work.I had a couple of other questions. One of them is following up again continuing the contribution around the discussion on WorkSafe and appreciating the Minister's answers quite a lot. I'm interested in the Minister's view around WorkSafe's response to the SageBush report because the Minister spoke about the importance of that in terms of informing the direction going forward and some of the details. I'll just pull out one of the examples where I'm struggling: in the SageBush report they said that the 13 regulatory functions set out in section 10 of the WorkSafe New Zealand Act 2013 are not adequately accounted for in operations. WorkSafe in their response said they think all their regulatory functions are covered in their operations. So there feels to me a mismatch between SageBush's position after doing that interrogation requested by the Minister versus where WorkSafe is at. I'm interested in understanding that apparent gap. I recognise that it may be a matter of interpretation.The last point is around pay transparency and ending of pay secrecy and just wondering if the Minister has any plans or would like to pick up my member's bill which would end pay secrecy by preventing employers having clauses in contracts that mean that people can't discuss their pay; preventing employers asking people what they were paid in their last job—because it's not really relevant—requiring employers to advertise pay rates when they're advertising the job; and enabling employees to find out what the average pay for that position has been. So evening that playing field absolutely taking a significant step for many groups across the country—women Pasifika Māori—who are experiencing discrimination and we know that these measures would make a difference.
SpeechHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Briefly in response to the member opposite I know that all members of the House continue to understand the pain that Constable Matt Hunt's family loved ones and colleagues feel at his tragic death two years ago. It's not possible—and I don't think appropriate—for us across the House to engage in the details of a particular individual case. I'm very happy offline through my office to follow up on the particular concerns raised by the member. My understanding is that WorkSafe will release its investigation. At the point that it does that I would have no reason to believe that WorkSafe would be stonewalling on any investigation. When they do investigate they have to do that in a professional way. While often complex investigations involving serious issues will take some time—and I would prefer that WorkSafe and other agencies who conduct those investigations take the time to do it right to get the facts on the table and then to make recommendations which will make a real difference—I have every confidence that WorkSafe would be doing that and that they will then release their recommendations and their findings of that report for the various parties to take account of. But I'm very happy offline as I say through the member to do some follow up around what the possible time frames might be there.
Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you Madam Chair. Firstly Minister Wood I just want to acknowledge your comments around WorkSafe. I genuinely hope that the vision that you have and that you've outlined in terms of what's contained inside this legislation and how you see WorkSafe working moving forward is something that genuinely happens.You used the forestry industry as a very good example. But there's one example that I do want to bring to the Minister's attention. It's an important one and it relates to a workplace death and that was Constable Matthew Hunt over two years ago in West Auckland. His mother Diane has been stonewalled and has done everything that she can do to have worked with and assisted WorkSafe so that they did a thorough investigation. And given the example that the Minister used is that his expectation is actually the information in the investigation goes all the way to the top which in this case would be PNHQ Police National Headquarters—she has become deeply deeply frustrated with the process and WorkSafe. Two years in she still is none the wiser in terms of what recommendations are going to be made or what work is being done with PNHQ to ensure that the workplace death of her son on the job serving us protecting his community—and by the way a serious workplace injury with his partner David Goldfinch—is no further along than what it was two years ago.She deserves some clear answers from WorkSafe. She deserves to be told exactly what the next steps are and she deserves to have visibility on their report and their findings in terms of what needs to change in their workplace to ensure that we don't have another death—or do as much as we can to mitigate having another senseless death—like that which we've seen of Constable Matthew Hunt in the service of his community and his country. So I would ask the Minister because I have to believe that what he's doing is in good faith—I've got no reason at all to question that and he's trying to strengthen obviously WorkSafe's position through this legislation—but I would ask him to stand and respond to that.I'd also ask him now he's aware of it to actually hold his agency to account and get them in tomorrow and ask them: why has nothing been done? Why has Diane Hunt the mother of a slain police officer been stonewalled by a department that's actually meant to be focused on making sure that this never happens again? Thank you Madam Chair.
Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): I wonder if Ms Davidson could expand a little bit further on what she means by that.Hon Marama Davidson: Yeah.CHRIS BISHOP: She says yes. I'm not sure she understands precisely what she just said. I mean what exactly does the Minister mean by that? Because the data that has been publicly released by the Government pursuant to written questions which have been looked up through the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) data is it really— Hon Marama Davidson: I just said a caution.CHRIS BISHOP: Well it's either right or it isn't. I mean it's publicly available data that's been released through written questions laid before the House. What exactly does she mean by being cautious about the use of the data? I mean no one is pretending that it's anything other than what it is which is that it is the number of people including children who apply for the public housing register. When you apply to MSD they ask you where you're currently living and if it's a campground or a boarding hostel or car or whatever that information gets recorded and rightly so. It got recorded under us and it gets recorded under this Government too and so I'm not quite sure what the Minister is saying. Perhaps she can expand on exactly what she is saying.CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): Members the time has come for me to leave the Chair. The committee will resume at 7 p.m.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Estimates Debate — Housing
Woods MeganHon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): I'd just like to give an update on my very imminent—in fact the tax omnibus bill was tabled today so those provisions are actually currently before the House.
Davidson MaramaHon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Associate Minister of Housing (Homelessness)): Thank you Mr Chair. It was just a very quick caution Mr Bishop to just remind us that for people sleeping in cars there was an incorrect number issue that was point in time" as opposed to cumulative. So that really skewed the numbers. But again one person is one too many in a car but I just wanted us to be cautious about the difference between a point-in-time figure and a cumulative figure that adds up. Thank you."
van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Chair. I just wanted to follow on from the Minister's response about the Housing Acceleration Fund and the 60 applications that the Government's had through to date. I wondered of those 60 applications that have been made how many have been approved and how much money has been allocated from the fund and already spent? My second question relates to the healthy homes standards. I note that the Government has tens of thousands of homes to bring up to scratch for the healthy homes standards before July next year and I note that the Kāinga Ora director of maintenance contracting and asset services a few months ago said in the media that the pace of work to bring these homes up to standard had tripled in the last year increasing from 180 homes per week a year ago to around 550 homes per week a few months ago. I wondered given that we have a competing demand for the same trades across public and private build projects how we can be guaranteed as taxpayers that this money that's being appropriated is being spent wisely and we're not spending far above what other people in the private sector would be paying for their homes to be brought up to the healthy homes standards. How can we be guaranteed that the Government is not wasting taxpayer money by trying to meet these deadlines by next year?
Davidson MaramaHon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Associate Minister of Housing (Homelessness)): Thank you Mr Chair. If I could please pick up again on the really important question that Debbie Ngarewa-Packer asked about children and tamariki attending school who are homeless. What I have got here is children in emergency housing as at 31 July: 3813. Why I bring that to the floor is because we should never ever be desensitised to or normalising anyone having to live in unacceptable conditions but of course especially any tamariki.So I did want to pick up on two points. First is there has been a continued lack of data in this space and an agreement that we need better information especially when it comes to tamariki. So one of the immediate actions underway in the Homelessness Action Plan is to improve evidence and data on homelessness. So for example we have an indication of some who are in cars because that is when they put their hand up to a public housing register but we are aware that that doesn't pick up all of the information that we need. So there's an agreement and a necessity to improve that data.Secondly thank you again Ms Ngarewa-Packer because it's absolutely going to require a collective effort across Government and my ministerial colleagues agree that it is unacceptable that any people are sleeping rough or living in overcrowded housing and that we all want warm safe affordable quality housing for New Zealanders people where they can put down roots. So the Homelessness Action Plan is under way across all of its immediate actions and continues to work across all of the longer-term actions including—I just wanted to pick up one particular example where the flexible funding package for whānau with children in emergency housing gives the flexibility to help families with children in emergency housing with a range of needs. I've heard from providers and our agencies that sometimes that can be for transport to school for school items and so on and so forth. Now that's really important but we will never lose the goal of not wanting any children to have to access that fund. That is the collective goal across Ministers and across the work of Government. Thank you.
Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Sorry I thought the Minister was going to take a call in response to that. I want to ask about interest deductibility which has been a vexed issue in this House. I think that both sides' positions are well known. So we had this strong view from the Government previously that they would remove interest as a legitimate expense for rental properties. And I was surprised as I think many people were to see one Friday two or three weeks ago the bringing back of interest as a legitimate expense for large corporate build-to-rent developments. Now I support that. I support the build-to-rent sector. A couple of days later actually I was out at Kiwi Property Group's development at Sylvia Park a very exciting development next to a train station near a shopping mall. A fantastic development and so anything we can do to support that is a good thing. But of course it does raise the issue of equity with non-corporate—some may call them mum and dad traditional property investors—who quite rightly feel like the Government's U-turn on interest deductibility doesn't apply to them because it doesn't. So my question to the Minister is: does she recognise this unfairness? And then secondly if she does is there a policy intention to backtrack even further and bring back interest deductibility for everyone?
SpeechJAN LOGIE (Green): Just a quick follow-up with the Minister around the definitions of universal design" as well as another point. I think the Minister's response about ground-floor apartments with steps but the ability to put a ramp over that—that is my understanding of what Kāinga Ora are calling "full universal design". But my question to the Minister is: how comfortable is she with that when Lifemark—who's quite an established and recognised organisation in our country running the universal design accreditation—that would not meet their standard for full universal design. So here we are having our public housing provider setting a new standard for full universal design that's inconsistent with the community organisation who's seen as the leader in this area's definition because for me that's quite problematic. And I do just want to also ask the Minister if—I guess trying to understand and not having been through the select committee hearings because I sit on another committee—the point around Kāinga Ora funding. And I absolutely echo what the Minister said about the previous Government's lack of basic maintenance and what a huge problem that has created. I suspect it wasn't just the National Government; it may have been previous Governments before that compounding this problem. But is it fair to characterise what we saw in that report as saying "OK we have this funding shortfall now because of that reality and we are in a situation of having to trade off retrofitting houses for accessibility." Because if that is the case—and I really hope it's not—that again for disabled people feels as if their needs are being put down the list and again are losing out. So I'd love to get that corrected. Thanks."
van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Chair. I have a question to the Minister regarding the Affordable Housing Fund. In this Budget in particular we've estimated $119 million to be spent on the Affordable Housing Fund to develop new-build affordable housing for rent or homeownership. I understand this happens through two pathways: through a rental pathway and a build-ready development pathway.My question to the Minister is: how many homes does the Minister expect to be built or provided that wouldn't have been under this fund? And also how many community organisations have already applied under this fund? Thank you Mr Chair.
Bishop Chris; Woods MeganCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Mr Chair. I want to ask specifically about Kāinga Ora's (KO) debt policies because the briefing notes at part 23 say that Kāinga Ora have a preference to issue debt privately rather than through the Crown. Of course because of the new fiscal rules announced for this Budget debt held on entities like KO and also the New Zealand Transport Agency is now included when it wasn't previously in the fiscal indicators and so of course quite rightly I think the officials have said there may be merit in further investigating Crown debt as an option as opposed to KO borrowing privately. There's a couple of questions that arise from that because it does actually make a material difference to a number of different things. The first is: what is the basis-point difference between Kāinga Ora borrowing privately on its own balance sheet and debt issued by the Crown if indeed there is one—and I suspect there is—so what is it? And secondly what advice has the Minister sought if any about a different approach to Kāinga Ora debt into the future as a result of the new fiscal rules and also as a result of this briefing?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): The difference is 60 to 70 basis points between core Crown debt borrowing and Kāinga Ora borrowing and it's a conversation I continue to have with both agencies.
van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Chair. I firstly wanted to touch on the first-home grants. We know that in these Estimates the Government has set aside more money for first-home grants and changed the caps for first-home grants. I'm interested in knowing how many Kiwis the Minister expects will be eligible and will apply for the first-home grants in this year and how many people would be expected to be housed that weren't housed because of the first-home grants and the increase to the cap. I'm also interested in whether the Minister has any modelling to suggest that the change of house prices falling might see more or fewer or the same number of people applying for the first-home grants in this estimated year ahead. Thank you Mr Chair.
SpeechJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Mr Chair. I'm interested in exploring a little bit today with the Minister the Government's approach to accessible housing and particularly in light of the fact that New Zealand's just had their review at the United Nations on how well we're doing on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I note that our Human Rights Commission and their summing up to that community said and I'll quote They look forward to the committee's recommendations about how the New Zealand Government must act to support affordable and accessible housing options including substantially increasing the target for universally designed new-build public housing." So I'm interested in the Minister's response to that.And I want to just step through my reading of where the Government's policy is at around accessible housing in New Zealand and ask the Minister how she believes that could come anyway near meeting our obligations under that convention. So my understanding is that Kāinga Ora has a target of 15 percent universal design for new builds. Labour Party policy is 25 percent but that target is 15 percent. Our public housing makes up quite a small share of overall housing stock and there's an estimate of about 2 percent of our housing stock being accessible at the moment when 25 percent of the population have disabilities.A concern has been raised with the Green Party via Lifemark who are the organisation in this country who accredits universal design where they've said that Kāinga Ora's measure of full accessible design allows a house with stairs into that house to be said to meet the full universal design standard—something that they would not consider near full universal design. So they've raised concerns of kind of "disability washing". Also recognising that the Minister has not committed to protect funding for retrofitting Kāinga Ora houses or homes in the face of increased funding pressures within that organisation. The Government has not bothered to incentivise universal design through KiwiBuild or create a preferential ballot for disabled people to the accessible homes that might be built through KiwiBuild and hasn't even bothered to collect data on how many houses choose to incorporate universal design standards through the KiwiBuild scheme—despite a significant amount of Government money and resource going into that scheme—and the Government has not updated the building code to improve the accessibility of residential properties.All of those things combined to my mind to create the situation that we hear of disabled people showering at work of disabled people being stuck unable to find accessible homes of being unable to visit friends or family because their homes are not accessible of having very real and tangible limitations on their ability to participate in our society and live with dignity. So I'm very keen to hear the Minister's justification of those policies or hopefully a commitment to change them."
Bishop Chris; Woods MeganCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Mr Chair. I want to thank the chair of the Social Services and Community committee Angie Warren-Clark for outlining that it was an interesting session.I have a series of questions for the Minister of Housing in relation to Budget 2022. The first is the Budget appropriates $355 million for a reset and redesign of emergency housing and the various Budget papers note that the emergency housing system has not been working as intended. Treasury notes that it is costly associated with poor outcomes and I think everyone in the Parliament can agree on that. So a couple of questions in relation to that reset and redesign: number one $355 million over four years is a very large sum of money. It's worth nothing that we already spend an extraordinary sum of money on emergency housing so what is the intended use of that money? Where is the money going to go?The second is that the Budget papers note and I'm referring to the February 2022 paper that's been proactively released—that paper notes that decisions would be made in March 2022 around that redesign. Have those decisions been made and if so what are they and have they been communicated? Because we're now in August and as far as I can see we don't have any real substantive progress on that. So what's the money for in terms of the reset and redesign of emergency housing and what progress can the Minister report to date in relation to that appropriation? I have further questions on other issues but perhaps I'll just leave that there for now to kick-start the debate.Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): It's probably useful to signal members that it's my intention through the course of the hour that I'm here for this committee to let questions bank up. I will answer the question that's there but I think probably a better use of the time in that way. The $355 million that the member asked about in his question—for the redesign of the emergency housing—yes this work has been progressing in terms of it is under way. It provides to take the first steps—the focus of that redesign being on improving the wellbeing of people in emergency housing improving the suitability of accommodation and support for the people in urgent housing need and also enabling Māori-led or kaupapa Māori solutions to address urgent housing needs. When we look at the breakdown of the number of people who are in emergency housing we see a predominance of Māori way above what the population would be. The intention is to target that towards Hamilton and Wellington. This will need to be place-based. It will need to be working with the local communities for approaches that make sense in that location just as we've been working with local providers in Rotorua.
Estimates Debate — Health
Little AndrewSARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam): Thank you Madam Chair. Minister you'll be unsurprised that I take a keen interest in the women's health strategy and I was just wondering: what progress has been made by the new health entities in forming the women's health strategy? And also wondering if you could outline what impact these wider strategies will have at a local level. Thank you.Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): Madam Chair thank you. The statutory health strategies that have to be developed that are in the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act require those strategies to be developed I think in time for 1 July 2023. I think the member can be confident that work is under way to pull together not only the New Zealand Health Strategy but specifically statutorily mandated strategies as well. In the meantime I know that again my colleague the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall who has portfolio responsibility for women's health is actively leading a number of initiatives to improve women's health and the way our health system responds to women's health needs in a range of areas in terms of cancer screening and what have you and in terms of maternity action and those sorts of areas—but in women's health generally. But the reality is you know we do have a requirement to produce a women's health strategy and I'm confident that that will be done by the initial deadline of 1 July next year. I know that one of the approaches that will be important is to engage with appropriate advocacy groups to make sure we have a women's health strategy that fully encompasses the needs as identified by women health leaders today.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members we now have the Minister of Housing. The Minister of Housing will be available to the committee from 5 p.m. through till 6 p.m. the dinner break. So we'll just take a moment to get organised.
Doocey Matt; Little AndrewMATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much Madam Chair. I want to drill down a bit. Out of the $100 million investment over four years for specialist mental health and addiction package the $27 million for community-based crisis services talks there about a range of residential home-based and co-response teams. Because of course the first thing Labour did in 2017 when they came in was they cancelled National's mental health co-response service and redirected—Hon Dr David Clark: Rubbish!MATT DOOCEY: —the $8 million. Well that's on file and that was actually your legacy David Clark. You were the health Minster at the time that cancelled that project and the police have gone out every year and said they urgently need the co-response service. Under that health Minister's watch 50 percent of mental health crisis calls were not even being attended by the police and that's what we've lost—five years of that pilot that could have been rolled out to most of New Zealand now and because that Minister redirected the $8 million the pilot in Wellington had to use $700000 of its own baseline funding. Of already stretched baseline funding they had to find that money for their pilot. That's the evidence we build upon today: five years of lost opportunity.I didn't expect to go for so long but my question to the Minister is: how much of that $27 million will be tagged to the co-response teams and what sort of coverage does he expect from that?Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): Madam Chair thank you. I thank the member for his question. I won't repeat the response that my colleague Dr David Clark provided but I accept his advice in that respect in relation to who did what in the early stages of this Government.Can I just say to the member that there has been ongoing trialling or piloting of joint responses to mental health needs in the community and Capital and Coast DHB police in Wellington - Hutt Valley and the Wellington Free Ambulance had a system going and that's been evaluated. So that did happen. But I can say that of that $27 million - plus for community beds if you like under the $100 million appropriation in this year's Budget that is really focused on beds in the community and the support and recovery support that is needed for those who've had acute episodes. It is not intended to provide responses pre-admission to acute services. So I hope that clarifies that for that member.
Estimates Debate — Immigration
SpeechIBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Thank you Mr Chair. It's great to contribute to the Immigration Estimates debate. I want to start with migrant exploitation. I know that the member from the ACT Party has touched on it but over the last few months the Education and Workforce Committee has initiated an inquiry into migrant exploitation. It's an ugly practice and seeing the National Party get very passionate about the migrant workforce and bringing migrants—I appreciate their passion. But under nine years of the National Government tens of thousands of migrant employees came to New Zealand but nothing was done to protect them from exploitation—nothing was done to protect them from exploitation. So my question to the Minister is: he talked about preventing migrant exploitation; can he talk more about some of the work that's being done in this area?The second point that I want to touch on is that I commend the Minister for his dedication to take the quota back to full potential which is 1500 by July 2022. I want to ask the Minister what work he is doing to reunite these new Kiwis—those who are already here in the country—with their families. I'm talking about the family reunification. Thank you Mr Chair.
SpeechHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Mr Chair. Well I do appreciate the candour of the Minister in confirming that an incident management team (IMT) has been stood up at Immigration New Zealand. And despite him candy-coating it IMTs are not set up when things are going well; they are set up when things are heading over a cliff and that's exactly what's going on at Immigration New Zealand. I stress that I don't blame the good people at Immigration New Zealand; they are being asked to jump through unnecessary and complicated hoops.Here's why I say that: five years ago there were in January 2017 1844 staff at Immigration New Zealand. Now there are 1980 staff. And we shouldn't be surprised at that; Government departments have grown all over the place under Labour. Only here's the thing: from 2017 to 2022 in the major categories of student visitor work and resident visas they are processing nearly a half a million fewer visa applications. So they've got more people taking longer to process fewer visas. And that is a system that is on the rocks.So I implore the Minister to wake up and realise that the moment the borders do properly open—because we've only had I think what 4000 working holiday makers; there's only 5000 international students. That's going to go up tenfold. And then visa-required country visitors could go up to a quarter of a million or more as they were pre-COVID. The moment that happens either he's going to have to double staff again or he's going to have to make the process of issuing visas the way it used to be; what Immigration New Zealand say is back in the good old days" when they weren't burdened with bureaucracy.So I'm going to finish my contribution with imploring the Minister to wake up and realise that nobody wants overseas workers just because they're overseas workers. Every single employer I talked to public sector and private would much rather employ a Kiwi or a New Zealand resident—because it's easier. Because they don't have to jump through these hoops.And so the idea that we're hell-bent on flooding our economy with migrants is just a nonsense it's a strawman argument to pander to the unions and it's having a detrimental effect on this country Minister. The Minister has the power to fix it by streamlining the process by processing more applications with fewer staff and getting back to those core principles: a fair a consistent and—above all—a timely process."
SpeechDr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you Mr Chair. As much as I'd like to hear a whole lot of propaganda from the Minister I thought I would just ask some questions!The Minister has repeatedly stated that he isn't a fan of carve-outs and that they can make a system incoherent—I believe was a word he used—and fragmented. So how can he reconcile that with the fact that the accredited employer work visa (AEWV) scheme and the latest residency categories are full of carve-outs and complexity? Can't he just admit that policies like this—that require carve-outs—are simply like that because they don't reflect the reality for businesses; they simply represent Labour's ideology?Further on this topic and also to add to the Hon Michael Woodhouse's contribution just like the job check does the Minister seriously think that an employer would go to the trouble of dealing with the immigration system when there is a surplus of Kiwis to do the job? Why in God's name does a hospital seriously need to prove that they can't find Kiwis?The final thing I will just note semi-related is that the AEWV scheme gives quite a significant amount of power to the employer. And for better or for worse does he truly believe that this will reduce migrant exploitation?
Belich CamillaCAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you Mr Chair. It's a pleasure to contribute in this small way to this debate on the Estimates looking into the immigration portfolio and I would note that the Minister—one of his first outings I think as Minister of Immigration was when he came to our committee as part of these Estimates hearings.The questions that I have for the Minister are around COVID-19 and the unprecedented time that he has become the Minister of Immigration. Obviously we've seen the shutting of the borders for an extremely long length of time and resulting changes to travel availability and also workforce shortages. So the things I'm really wanting to ask the Minister today are around his role as a Minister of Immigration in really what is an unprecedented time in New Zealand's history because of the global pandemic that we are a part of.My questions are really related to two things: the first thing is borders more generally and the second thing I wanted to ask about was working holiday visas also noting that this issue of workforces in certain areas has been raised by other members when they've been asking questions to the Minister. I do note that I did see a report by Radio New Zealand that one employer—I think it was in the member for Southland's area—didn't advertise and obviously we would encourage employers to advertise if they want to make sure that they are attracting workers to their jobs but noting the real concerns brought up by members on the other side which I do think need to be addressed.So my first question really is: with the border having fully reopened on 31 July 2022 can the Minister outline how the expenditure outlined in the Budget will support Immigration New Zealand continuing to process the applications when we move back to a more pre-pandemic level of processing visa applications? My second question in relation to working holiday visas is just to note that when the borders were shut we only had a very very small number of working holiday visas that were issued—I think it was around about 1681—and that compares to a very high number of working holiday visas obviously when the borders were open. I think that was around—it's noted in our report from our select committee—about 50000 to 70000 but the Minister is free to correct me on those figures if they're incorrect.So I just wanted to ask the Minister: in relation to working holiday visas what is the plan to increase those numbers if indeed that is the plan and are there any campaigns with other ministries—say with the tourism sector and with the Minister of Tourism? I understand there's been some joint campaign work done in that area that was mentioned at the Estimates hearing. So I was just really wanting to know if the Minister could expand really on those two areas—first of all the border in terms of the unprecedented nature that we're in at the moment and his reflections as Minister of Immigration in that area and also looking to working holiday visas in general and bringing those numbers up to the pre-pandemic levels—if that is indeed the case—and what plans we have in place for that.