edithatogo/nz-hansard-corpus huggingface dataset:
Watts SimonSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much Madam Chair. Silence is a blessing sometimes isn't it? In that context I just wanted to clarify the answer that the Minister for Small Business gave just in regards to my question regarding clause 20(c) around registered address. I believe I heard the Minister say that that was not a searchable field in the database. If that is the case and without any guidance—whether that is what I heard correctly or not—how practical is it going to be to actually go into the register and look for that little shop in Cambridge that we referred to before Andrew Bayly that's got its registered address in Pukekohe even though that's irrelevant. If you can't find its address then things start to become quite challenging in order to identify the business from whom you want to obtain information which is 5½ months out of date which is run by a team of 20 people for $5 million and the rest. So if the Minister could just clarify is that what she said? Even a wave of the hand or sort of a head nod anything like that—no? OK.
Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you. Just going back to my definition of an invoice maybe I can just help the Minister.Glen Bennett: How kind of you.ANDREW BAYLY: Took me just a couple of minutes Mr Bennett. An invoice is an itemised commercial document that records the products or services delivered to a customer the total amount due and the preferred payment method. The seller need to send in a paper or electronic invoice to the customer … The invoice can be paid in one go or instalments depending upon the payment terms that were agreed upon."To me that's a pretty standard definition of an invoice. I still can't understand why we have to go to regulations to define it. Unless there's something coming down the route and I can't think of it whether it's electronic but this does cover electronic methods. I don't know what difference it might be in invoices.Right. I just want to move on now to clause 23 because we've got lots to cover in this part. The registrar's function is to "establish and maintain the register;" to "receive information that entities are required to disclose the Act;" (c) "perform or exercise functions and powers conferred on the Registrar relating to measures of compliance enforcement".So a big issue—and I think many people would be worried about it and it does go back to Mr Uffindell's rather serious comment—is the bill provides for payment information be provided every six months. Can't be longer; it's actually set in stone that it must be every six months. That means that there will be a time when the information is considerably out of date—up to just under six months obviously.The issue that the committee is concerned itself with is that for a very cheap sum literally $35 anyone can ring up a credit agency—and we have four large established credit agencies—and get an immediate and up-to-date timely real-time credit assessment of businesses. One of the things I'm concerned about—because this will be the Minister's jurisdiction—is: is it the intent of the Government in passing this bill that the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) will set up its own system?Because when we spoke to some of those existing commercial providers they said to establish a register such as this—as set out in 23—would cost anything between $3 million and $5 million. Then there's an ongoing cost and I think when we asked MBIE officials I think there was an assessment of maybe 10 to 20 people—I'm not quite sure; I may be misquoting that but I'm going from memory—or of that order. So not an insignificant sum of money to hire those people keep them employed and also keep upto-date technical and software changes which we all know from very successful Government roll-outs of procurement and IT systems how good we are doing that on budget and within time.So is it the intention of the Government that MBIE will establish its own IT system rather than relying on a third-party provider to meet the requirements of clause 23 of the bill?"
Andersen GinnyHon GINNY ANDERSEN (Minister for Small Business): Thank you very much Madam Chair. How could I resist not rising to respond to those questions? Thank you for that member's questions.Now the point that was raised—more than once I think in that cluster of questions—was the question around why not put the definition of invoice" into the bill itself. Why should that be in the regulations? It's because that definition may well need to adapt or change over time. We would not be wanting to have to go back and it would be best therefore in the regulations so that you have the ability to do that. It would sit alongside the actual reporting requirements which might also evolve over time. That is the reason why.Amongst all of those other questions I also had one regarding registered address: why if a business had a different address. Registered address is in fact not searchable under the register. If members refer to new clause 20A of Supplementary Order Paper 363 it specifies there what the searchable items are under the register and registered address is not searchable in that space.In terms of types of transactions under clause 10 this enables regulations to exclude things like foreign currency transactions from falling under payment practices information. That was the question in relation to types of transactions in clause 10.The point has also been made a number of times that this is going to increase the compliance or the red tape for small businesses. It's definitely not the feedback that I've received when travelling around the country doing a number of business breakfasts across the country. I guess I'd like to point out too in that space that a credit check is quite different to a business that pays on time. You may well have a business that stacks up on all accounts after having a credit check but they may also be really lousy at paying their bills on time. So I guess there's quite a distinct difference. To get back to the point that Xero makes in their research those bigger businesses that can make interest on those funds remaining with them for the longest amount of time are effectively using smaller businesses in New Zealand as a credit facility and paying on the very last day when the bill is due or sometimes even late.Having a transparency register enables those small businesses to check and see who pays their bills faster. And in fact some of those companies who pay their bills faster may have lousy credit checks. The point is that they're not interrelated directly and that information is valuable to those small businesses—those small traders who want to know who pays their bills quickly.I thank the member also for his question about what's in the regulations. Now there's been really good consultation. There's a full consultation document that circulated in October of last year and there's been consultation with a wide range of stakeholders to get feedback on where they think things would work and where they think they might not work. Those will be formulated and will be ready for the member to take a look at in the fullness of time."
Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Yeah I'm just hoping the Minister's going to respond to those two excellent contributions. Just continuing the contribution from Mr Watts he identified the various identifying information. What's unclear in the bill is if you were to seek information albeit maybe 5½ months old as Mr Uffindell has identified will it be possible to get the information if you perhaps might only have a couple of these items? What are the criteria? Because it doesn't say you have to have all or just one or whatever. For businesses who don't want to who are slow payers they may be deliberate in the way that they're describing themselves. So what would be useful is to understand what is expected whether a person would have to come up with a number of those criteria or identifiers or just one or two. So that's one point.I'm still very keen to get an understanding about why we can't hard code a definition of an invoice" in this bill rather than relying on regulations. And talking about regulations in clause 15 "Entities must notify Registrar of error or omission" the new wording says "This section applies if an entity becomes aware of an error or omission in a disclosure that involves a substantial departure from the requirements of this Act or the regulations relating to that disclosure." And it then goes on in subclause 3 "In this section substantial departure from the requirements includes (a) if regulations specify permitted departures any departure that is greater than an amount or a percentage specified in the regulations". So if I'm a business owner and I'm out there thinking "Holy Toledo this thing's coming barrelling down because the Labour Government wants to put more impositions on me just to make my life as a small-business owner a little bit more difficult—a little bit more difficult. When I can get a $35 credit check from someone tomorrow that's perfectly up to date anyway I've got to come up with this information." What in the dickens is going to be in the regulations? And the only person that'll know that is the Minister because it's only the Minister that signs off on the regulations. That's where we all tremble. We tremble at the thought of what might be in the regulations to define what an invoice is because it's an exceptional piece of work to do. And secondly what is a percentage variation or whatever it may be? I don't know. Maybe the Minister can provide us with some insights on what her intention might be if she can rush this bill through the House and put it through the House before the election. I might just stop on that note so we can hear from the Minister hopefully."
Uffindell SamSAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you Madam Chair. Good to follow on from the excellent contribution there from my colleague Simon Watts. He talked about clauses 19 and 20. I'd just like to ask a quick question for the Minister around clause 19 because I remember speaking about this at the last stage. It's noted here in clause 19 The purpose of the register is to enable members of the public and entities—(a) to access information about certain business-to-business payment practices … and (b) to help them make informed choices". And I note that the information has to be submitted twice a year—so every six months—and the intention there is for that to be about allowing informed decisions and choices. But I'd just like to test that a little bit because that's not necessarily real-time data because it may be 5½ months down the track and then how useful is the register in that instance?What consideration was given to what other options are out there? Did they actually go out to businesses and say "Hey look we've got this idea for"—I'll get the actual name—"a business payment practices register and twice a year it'll be updated. It'll be an excellent source. You can go in there and it'll allow you to make informed choices."? And if they did do that what was the feedback from businesses? I mean just from my limited knowledge and experience I would hazard a guess that businesses would have come back and said "You're lumping us with this big admin burden and I'm not actually sure it is going to give us informed choices because it is potentially going to be 5½ months down the track." which is what—Andrew Bayly: That's what the Australians found.SAM UFFINDELL: —thank you Mr Bayly—they have found in Australia. And also there are other very cheap means in which you can do company profile searches and credit check searches and I'm just wanting to weigh up what consideration was given around that if any. Thank you."
Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Minister for that response; it was helpful. In her Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 363—again I'm just referring to clause 10(1B) right at the end under clause 10(1B)(f) she said any goods or services" and inserted the new words "or types of transactions" specified by the regulations. It might be useful just to understand what she means by her SOP in terms of types of transactions.The second point: the Minister referred earlier to a definition of "invoice". This is now included under her SOP as clause 10(1C) "Regulations may define an invoice for the purposes of this section". So I suppose my question is: why are we defining "invoice" by way of regulation? Presumably in tax it's a fairly clear definition of what an invoice is under tax law under companies law. So I realise it was a Supplementary Order Paper that this change is being inserted in but I don't know why we couldn't just put it in the bill itself and remove any lack of clarity what the definition of an invoice is.So again I'm looking at officials. Why have you gone down this route of using regulations? Because for many people relying on a Minister to pass regulations is not a very good thing if you're wanting clarity and you're going to have to put this in place quickly."
Andersen GinnyHon GINNY ANDERSEN (Minister for Small Business): Thank you Madam Chair. So in relation to clause 9A payment threshold payment is in fact wider than invoice and some payments will not actually involve an invoice so there's no need to expressly refer to invoice in that payment threshold test—they're already included.In clause 10 of Part 2 it sets out the meaning of payment practices information". In fact that will be set out in far more detail in those regulations. The point of that is that this is necessary because the regime would almost certainly need to be updated over time. Clause 10 does set out some important parameters and I think this gets to the heart of it: that part invoices—for example instalments—are each to be treated as separate invoices. Some payments do not need to be reported on. So things like salaries wages taxes fees rent utilities charges and even local body fees—they would not be needing to be reported on. So that's the difference there.It also sets out that any count of late invoices need not include invoices in dispute and these are to be treated separately because in fact if there is potentially a dispute that the goods or the service wasn't supplied in time it's hard to find fault in that specific case and therefore the payment may not actually be late.I do understand that the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee wanted this provision because they didn't think that the "reporting entity" should need to include invoices that are in dispute and count of late invoices because that wouldn't be fair.In relation to subsidiaries that are wrapped up in the wider entities report subsidiaries are in the wider entities report unless they meet the threshold of their own account—so unless they reached that $33 million or secondly if they choose to.And I think there was one other point that I wanted to raise. The bill as introduced would have captured entities that have a large revenue but make very few payments to third parties. So this this is the point around why to include a payment threshold. So this would include firms like consultancies and even software developers. These firms they don't have a lot of purchasing power in the New Zealand economy but they also don't buy much in from third-party suppliers. They're not the type of large purchasers that the bill seeks to target and it's for that reason that the select committee recommended including a payment threshold in the bill. That would mean that the regime only applies to entities with third-party expenditure of $10 million or more. So that additional requirement was a recommendation from the select committee and has now been adopted as part of the legislation."
Uffindell SamSAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you Madam Chair. Looking at clause 9D around certain subsidiaries making disclosures I'm just wondering what advice the Minister has sought around whether that is going to add any additional complexity or paperwork. I'm assuming it would. And perhaps it would have made sense for the parent company in so far as the parent company is domiciled in New Zealand to be making all of the reports on behalf of all of the companies that fall under them. I mean you take a company out there—they're part of a wider organisation that meets the large company threshold that's cared for by this bill—they've got a lot of subsidiaries throughout the country and then they are all reporting independently; whether it would have made more sense just to have that all from the parent and what consideration the Minister's officials put to that. And also what consideration was given to the impositions that this would have not only on businesses out there in the business-to-business space but also on the relevant Government agencies who are having to collate and consider that information? Thank you.
Dean Jacqui; Bayly AndrewPart 2 Obligations register and RegistrarCHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members we come now to Part 2. This is the debate on clauses 8 to 24: obligations register and registrar. The question is that Part 2 stand part. ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Maybe I'll have another opportunity. So with the indulgence of Madam Chair—thank you very much—Supplementary Order Paper 363 introduces the concept of or payments" after "invoices". So if you stand back and think about it—and this is a serious issue. I just wondered whether we've missed something in the drafting. You have an invoice and then you have payments related to those invoices. So the Minister chose to include "or payments" in clause 10(1B) and I'm just wondering whether in fact that means we've now got this overlapping sort of definition or separate definition because invoices total payments. There's no difference in terms of the monetary amount. One precedes the other one and you issue the invoice and it subsequently gets paid. I'm just wondering whether in fact as a result of that maybe there is a requirement to change the definition in Part 1 to reflect that they are used interchangeably those two terms and whether we need to build that into the bill. That was my point and so I'm looking at the officials in terms of the drafting at the back here. OK Madam Chair. Whilst—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Can I just remind the committee that I've done this earlier today though I think it will be helpful. In a committee stage if a member wants to seek a call they've got to stand up and seek it because if there's a silence and a vacuum I can only assume that the committee has finished with that part of the bill and begin to deliberate. ANDREW BAYLY: Thank you Madam Chair.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Oh you're so welcome. ANDREW BAYLY: I'm just hoping that two other people are going to contribute like "Ms Swarbrook"—"Smallbrook". Chlöe Swarbrick: Swarbrick—Swarbrick. ANDREW BAYLY: Swarbrick—very good. I want to return now to clause 9C. This concerns the issue of subsidiaries. "If an entity to which section 8 applies has 1 or more subsidiaries a disclosure must—(a) contain the payment practices information for the disclosure period—(i) for—(A) the entity and each subsidiary; or (B) the group as a whole;". So this gives rise to where as long as a subsidiary meets the threshold of $33 million or $10 million in trade payments—if I can use that term—it must disclose its payment terms. Then a group must disclose its payment terms and obviously it will if it's got at least one subsidiary that meets the threshold of $33 million. Can I just ask the Minister why did she think it was necessary for each and every subsidiary and then the group to disclose it because the sum parts of the subsidiaries—if we are trying to identify entities that are slow-paying then the entity figure will be a mathematical calculation of all the sum of its subsidiaries. So why was it also necessary to have the group if that was so chosen that we should do both the group and the subsidiaries?"
Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): OK. Thank you Madam Chair. Unfortunately the Minister got the wrong end of the stick. Let me put it another way: where we talk about payment threshold test given her Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 363 I wonder if in fact that should also read invoice or payment threshold test"; that was my point whether the definition needed to change in Part 1.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Which clause is the member speaking to?ANDREW BAYLY: Part 1.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Which clause in SOP 363 is the member speaking to?ANDREW BAYLY: I'm talking to clause 10(1) but because of that it gives rise to a definitional issue—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! The member is speaking to Part 1 of this bill.ANDREW BAYLY: OK. As long as I can come back to it—yup."
Swarbrick Chlöe; Dean JacquiCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): Obviously this is an incredibly narrow part of the legislation and I can hear the enthusiasm from members particularly of the Opposition to contextualise this part within other parts of the legislation. So with your guidance Madam Chair and for the sake of the efficacy and coherence of the debate in the Chamber tonight I'm wondering if perhaps we could test again for consensus. I seek leave to see the debate taken as one part.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Does the member wish to take a point of order and seek leave?CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): Point of order Madam Chair. I seek leave for this debate on this bill to be taken as one part.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Leave has been sought for that purpose. Is there any objection. There is.
Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much Mr Chair. I feel very much on a roll and so—CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Just reminding both members that we are on Part 1 of the bill.CHRIS PENK: Thank you Mr Chair. That's helpful guidance. If you could also let us know which bill we're debating that would also probably be to my benefit.Chlöe Swarbrick: You're giving it away.CHRIS PENK: Oh I think the game is already given away Ms Swarbrick. But anyway we'll see how long we can carry on the deception.CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Is that a challenge?CHRIS PENK: I wouldn't wish you to take that too seriously Mr Chair. Why start now?So just looking at the interpretation clause clause 5—within Part 1 you'll be pleased to know of the Business Payment Practices Bill—I see that the definition of director" is pretty extensive. That's helpful because it might be that we're talking about a company or an overseas company in which case we want what's generally referred to as a director—being a certain position in relation to those entities—and in relation to a partnership a partner or a general partner of a limited partnership and so forth.But I am quite intrigued by paragraph (f)—the sixth sub-definition as it must be—whereby a director means "in relation to any other person that person." So I suspect there's some deep and meaningful reason for that definition which looks some combination of circular and otherwise opaque. I don't know an opaque circle I guess but it just doesn't make much sense to me. I suspect for others reading the bill they would experience the same level of opacity. So I wonder if the Minister can shed some light and other mixed metaphors on what is meant by that definition or that included definition of a director in relation to any other person namely "that person."While she's at it—and I sense she's very nearly ready to answer this question or perhaps one of these other very searching inquiries that Sam Uffindell and I have made so far—in terms of "entity" there are quite a few different kinds of entities that are included. So in the same way as the director definition is as quite full so too is that of "entity".So matching those different definitions for possible definitions for director we've got a company a corporation sole a trust the partnership etc. But I wonder if the Minister and her advisers contemplated at any point a generic kind of description of entity such as a legal person because I think that would probably cover all of these. She could have had for example—or her predecessor in introducing the bill could have said—a legal person which includes but not is not limited to you know and then go ahead and list all the ones that are indeed listed from (a) to (g).So that's enough for now. I look forward to the Minister's response."
Uffindell SamSAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you Mr Chair and to the Minister. Looking at Part 1 and the purpose of the bill—I spoke on this at the earlier stages—I'm interested to see about improving transparency and business-to-business practices and what other options the Minister or the ministry considered. I appreciate it may have been before she became the responsible Minister in this area but is this the only mechanism that was considered? Also around why the Minister thought this would be the best way of enabling members of the public and entities to have access to information about these business-to-business practices—and what advice she sought and received from her officials around why this would help them make more informed choices and improve choices. Thank you.
Penk Chris; Mitchell Mark; O'Connor GregCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much Mr Chair for the unexpected pleasure of this call.Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): It's a good decision though.CHRIS PENK: Yes it is a good—well I don't know if it's a good decision we'll soon find out. I wonder if we can perhaps commence by seeking that the Minister explain the rationale behind Part 1 of the bill and in particular how the policy aims that are set out in the explanatory note will be achieved by those provisions.CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Mr Penk.CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much Mr Chair. If I can just build on that theme that I've been developing so clearly when I finished my first contribution I would perhaps also ask that the Minister please address just what the rationale was for the cut-off date in determining the size of the businesses in terms of that revenue—whether it's obviously the $33 million mark in terms of revenue and the $10 million mark in terms of third-party expenditure. No doubt those have been worked out for some very particular reason that the Minister is aware of and I'm not and it might well be that this was discussed and debated at the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee. That was a conversation to which I was alas not privy. Well that's not to say that I wasn't able to be or not allowed to—that word privy" being of course connected with "privilege" and other such relevant concepts. It's a concept we've heard a bit about lately actually.But anyway I don't wish to dwell on that because suffice to say that if that discussion is taking place at select committee and the value of this committee of the whole House stage is to sort of allow the Minister to explain how those have been arrived at then that's useful for the record particularly if there's interpretation of the legislation in the courts or if there is a push to change the law in the future. And it might be that that takes place by way of changing the thresholds because of course when you have in primary legislation certain dollar figures then they need to be changed in primary legislation unless there's some sort of regulation-making power mechanism whereby that could be changed.So to sort of understand as a starting point what we're putting in this primary legislation along those lines would be a helpful contribution and I request that the Minister would make that for the committee."
O'Connor Greg; McLellan TraceyBUSINESS PAYMENT PRACTICES BILLIn CommitteePart 1 Preliminary provisionsCHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Members we come now to the Business Payment Practices Bill. We start this debate on Part 1.Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Junior Whip—Labour): Point of order Mr Chairperson. I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question.CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Is there any objection? There is objection. Part 1: this is the debate on clauses 3 to 7 and the Schedule Preliminary provisions"."
McLellan TraceyDr TRACEY McLELLAN (Junior Whip—Labour): I move That the question be now put.Motion agreed to.
O'Connor Greg; Lee MelissaCHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): I will indicate to the committee that this will need to be new business. We've covered a lot of ground tonight. MELISSA LEE (National): It will be the first time actually that I'm asking a question on this part. CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Well just because you're asking it for the first time this doesn't mean others haven't asked it—that's all I'll say. MELISSA LEE: No no. Mr Chair the Minister has not actually addressed this part so I would like to ask if I may sir. I'd like to look into the area of replacement section 365B How infringement notice may be served: employers" in clause 9. I know that my colleague Scott Simpson has actually asked and made some comments about how it may happen and perhaps the officials may assist the Minister. It's replacement section 365B(2)(e). Often infringement notices are issued to the person by way of a letter by serving it to the person or potentially leaving it in a place of residence but the thing is that this particular section talks about "sending it to an electronic address of the person in any case where the person does not have a known place of residence or business in New Zealand." I'm not going to talk about what Scott Simpson talked about. I know he sort of said what does it actually involve but what I'm actually curious to find out—in this day and age there are a lot of people who use technology. There are many forms of electronic addresses. Does it only mean an email address or does it actually include the other forms of identity that we talk about? In this House we even passed a digital identity facilitation bill to facilitate people being able to properly identify who they are online so that it is reducing the fraud situation. So I'm trying to find out if there's a way that the Minister has figured out how this electronic address—or is she just looking at one form of address? Could it be Facebook could it be Instagram or could it be something completely different or utilising the digital identity providers for example?"
Chen NaisiNAISI CHEN (Labour): I move That the question be now put.
Stanford Erica; McDowall JamesERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): In that case then just taking the example out of it is there in the Minister's view any case where a desk-based officer finds a low-level breach that is relatively minor that is—let's say a couple of hours or like I mentioned covering a slightly different job when that particular business was very short-staffed. Or does she expect that every single breach when it is found will result in an infringement offence? There's nothing in the bill to suggest that there is any ability for the desk-based officer to not issue an infringement notice when they may decide it is extremely low-level and no one was harmed and everyone was happy and it was just a one-off. Is it her expectation and I'm sorry to labour the point and get her to keep repeating herself—I know she's getting a bit tetchy about that—but I am just trying to understand is there any case that she would expect a desk-based officer not to issue an infringement notice or is she expecting that in every single case that is found that an infringement notice will be given when a low-level breach is found?So that's the question I just want to know if there is any situation where she would expect that desk-based officer might not issue an infringement notice or is it a hard You find the breach no matter what it is and you issue an infringement notice"? That's all I'm asking; we just haven't had that answer yet.CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Ms Stanford I'll just say you've given yourself up a little bit about asking the same question several times which is of course a cause for a closure motion. However I'll pass over to the Minister. Just to advise you.Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Just a very quick slightly different question. So the Supplementary Order Paper as drafted prevents an immigration officer from using documentation to the detriment of a migrant. We've established that. So my question then is: say that migrant has come from a country that requires assessment in Porirua requires a national security check and that has been done in the past—I won't name the countries that that applies to because it's actually not public information get myself in trouble. But say that's happened—say they pass the national security check and then say they've been involved in one of these businesses that's been investigated and had documents searched. Now that won't be used against the migrant necessarily under the Immigration Act but can the SIS request that information? Can that cause issues for their compliance in that regard? I'm just curious about that."
Radhakrishnan PriyancaHon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Associate Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): As I've mentioned time and again in this House the point of this bill is for us to be able to nip low-level offending in the bud before it becomes severe offending. So a low-level breach wouldn't be explained away through flexibility; it's still a breach.To the member's question around the types of employers who may not be accredited but would still be subjected to the document production powers in this bill there are examples where employers don't go through the accreditation process that the member has outlined. A couple of examples there would be employees who are on specific purposes visas or events-based or Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) workers—employers of RSE workers—for example. That's just a couple of examples given the member asked for some.To Melissa Lee's points around the documents that can be required they are explicitly stated in the provision. So specifically employment documents that an employer is already legally required to hold or can be expected to hold under the law. Of course only employers who have supported a visa application can be required to supply documents.The other question that she had was around how businesses and employers would be targeted by Immigration New Zealand (INZ) and what the tools were that would be used to be able to do that targeting. INZ is developing a risk-based prioritisation process for verification and compliance checks. That'll be part of the risk management for the Accredited Employer Work Visa scheme as well.So verification checks will be done in response to specific reports. There is also intelligence that INZ receives based on specific sectors and specific industries where there is a lack of compliance and so that is the information that will be used to undertake these proactive checks.
Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Mr Chair. I've many many things to traverse still including the questions I've already asked that we're waiting on the Minister to answer around the fact that Immigration New Zealand already have the power to do much of what she is asking from this bill. I'll move on to a different topic though and that's around flexibility. We made the point at the first and second readings around flexibility in a tight labour market whereby if you are an employer and you are trying desperately to ensure that you are covering shifts especially if you work in healthcare—and I'll give you the example of let's say a retirement village or a rest home which employs nurses and must do so 24/7. If a nurse stays behind for one or two hours to cover the shift of the next nurse who's running late or has called in sick and is waiting on a replacement nurse that migrant worker may well be in breach of their visa by working that extra couple of hours to keep the people in that rest home safe and for the employer to be acting in accordance with the law.So my question to the Minister is around: is it her expectation that there will be some flexibility with this regime in that replacement section 359A(1)(b) inserted by clause 7 if the migrant worker is working in an inconsistent manner with their work-related conditions of their visa by working an extra couple of hours because they were covering a shift? The bill is silent around the flexibility of the discretion of a desk-based officer to act in this case. Another example might be a bartender who's covering front of house for a shift. He's not overdoing his hours but just working in a different role slightly because as we know at the moment in hospitality for example they are very short-staffed especially in certain regions of New Zealand like Wānaka or Queenstown for example and employers—good employers—are doing their best and employees especially migrant workers are more than happy on many occasions to do something a bit different. Now if this came up from a desk-based officer and it seemed to be a relatively minor breach—but none the less a breach—what is the flexibility that the desk-based officer has in this instance when it comes to the infringement? It would seem that these are very low-level breaches but this is exactly what the Minister keeps talking about—getting on top of these low-level breaches. But these are examples that most people would think are perfectly reasonable for a couple of hours covering a nurse's shift for example or a bartender quite happily covering front of house for the night when those staff are particularly stretched in that industry. So I'm keen to get the Minister's views on that flexibility.
Clark DavidHon Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin): I move That the question be now put.
McDowall JamesDr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you and I appreciate the Minister's response to that. I guess I'll add that one of the reasons for looking into this and questioning this is that intentions in the immigration space often don't quite play out in reality.Immigration officers are well known from time to time to get a bit carried away and I think a good example of this a good issue to raise is that I'm sure we all remember back in August 2021 the Government—and we joined in on that—apologised for the Dawn Raids. Now in that time since that apology there have been 29 dawn raids and it's also important to note that there has not been a single application to the national manager of compliance declined for one of those out-of-hours compliance visits.So the Government will say one thing; will claim one thing—and Parliament as a whole in this case—that certain things in immigration are unacceptable. What I was referring to before is the Supplementary Order Paper—the law—may say one thing but actually what immigration officers do may differ. The Government says one thing; Immigration New Zealand could in theory do the opposite. So just like with the Dawn Raids what's to stop the same thing happening here and migrants getting burnt by this?
O'Connor Greg; Radhakrishnan PriyancaCHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Members the House is resumed.Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Associate Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Thank you Mr Chair. I'll just respond to a couple of comments and questions that were raised before the dinner break. There was a question about why it's may" in new section 383A inserted by clause 10—why the chief executive may publish the names in the names on a stand-down list—and it's really to give the chief executive discretion on a case by case basis to publish or not publish. I mean essentially if there is a conviction or an infringement offence issued then it gives the chief executive authority to publish names on a stand-down list. That is the point of that particular section but it is also to acknowledge that there could be a requirement to do that on a case by case basis so that there aren't any inadvertent issues that come out of that.The other question was around the wording that was used in the Supplementary Order Paper around "adverse action" rather than just "any action". The point of that is to prevent anything bad happening to migrants if information is disclosed inadvertently but not to prevent immigration officers from extending support to them if required. For example if they do require a Migrant Exploitation Protection Work Visa then if the wording was "any action" it would preclude immigration officers from being able to offer that support."
Stanford Erica; McDowall James; Dean JacquiERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Well that leaves my first two questions. The very first question I asked was around the chief executive may" and I would like to know under what circumstances the chief executive may or may not. So when he's deciding—or she whoever it is—to publish the fact that there has been an infringement notice that has been produced to an offender under what circumstance would the chief executive make that decision whether or not they would publish or not? Is it to do with the seriousness of the offending? What's it to do with? The word "may" is obviously giving him—or her—some leeway and I just wanted to know what that leeway was.Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you Madam Chair. I'd just like to talk very briefly about Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 360 that the Government has put forward. I appreciate that this SOP seeks to address one of our concerns with this bill and obviously a great deal of inspiration for that SOP came from my colleague in the Green Party. So regarding this it says a new subsection is inserted to ensure that information obtained from an employer under this section cannot be used by the immigration officer or the department to take "adverse action". So my first question is just around that concept: to take adverse action as opposed to just "action". I wonder if that's potentially open to misinterpretation where an immigration officer may say "Well no I swear when I was looking at this information I decided to take action. I didn't think it would have negative consequences." Therefore it's some sort of loophole. So is that something that the Minister would like to comment on? And just lastly despite this added safeguard covered by this SOP given action will be nevertheless taken against the employer—it clearly spells out that that can happen—how can we be then certain that there won't be unavoidable consequences against the employee regardless? Because you know immigration officers and compliance officers are humans after all. It's not like they can forget that they saw something and it might motivate them to actually investigate somebody directly. So I guess what I'm saying is I'm worried that this SOP in this bill is missing some sort of safeguard to ensure that that doesn't happen to ensure that the intent of this SOP actually comes into fruition.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break and the House will resume at 7:30 p.m.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m."
Stanford Erica; Radhakrishnan PriyancaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Madam Chair. I'd like to start down the back end of the bill with the infringement offences and the publication of names and information in respect of immigration offences. I'd like to ask the Minister in relation to new section 383A(1) inserted by clause 10: the chief executive may in order to promote the [objectives] of this Act publish the information specified in subsection (2)". My first question is to the Minister if she is able to let us know under what circumstances the chief executive may or may not do this? What is the framework that they'll be working to as to when they would make a decision to publish and when they wouldn't?Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Associate Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): I just want to begin with some introductory remarks to this bill and it's great to be here at the committee stage of the Worker Protection (Migrant and Other Employees) Bill. I know that the second reading of this bill provided for a fair bit of robust debate that canvassed the general principles of the bill and allowed members to describe in general terms their views about the bill. I just also want to thank the select committee for their consideration of the bill and submitters who took their time to provide their views as well. I also want to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper that has been tabled. It makes two small but important amendments to the bill. Both changes relate to the document production power—that's clause 4 in the bill. The first change confirms the narrow scope of the document production power—I know there was a fair bit of debate about this at select committee as well—and the change there is that it can only be used to require documents relating to the remuneration and employment conditions of migrant workers whose visas an employer has supported.The second change ensures that information obtained can't be used to the detriment of migrant workers in an immigration context. These changes I believe strengthen the intent of the document production power to ensure really the compliance of employers who support a migrant's visa. I do also just want to take a moment to acknowledge the member Ricardo Menéndez March from the Green Party. It was his suggestion in a conversation with me to strengthen the document production power to the benefit of migrant workers that has really led to us teasing out and introducing this amendment as well. So can I just thank all members for their continued work and advocacy on behalf of migrant workers."
Dean Jacqui; Halbert ShananWORKER PROTECTION (MIGRANT AND OTHER EMPLOYEES) BILLIn CommitteeParts 1 to 3 Schedules 1 to 3 and clauses 1 and 2CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members we come now to the Worker Protection (Migrant and Other Employees) Bill.SHANAN HALBERT (Junior Whip—Labour): Point of order Madam Chair. I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is none. The question is that Parts 1 to 3 Schedules 1 to 3 and clauses 1 and 2 stand part.
Upston Louise; Potaka TamaHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Madam Chair. I do think it is important though to clarify whether or not the suggestion that I have outlined in terms of parallel proceedings in two different courts can actually happen as with this change to the Taxation Review Authority. If the Minister's shaking her head and saying no I think it would be great for that to be clarified for the record because as we know what happens is when there are issues down the track organisations or lawyers actually look back at the Hansard to determine what Parliament's intention was.TAMA POTAKA (National—Hamilton West): Thank you now as a reformed lawyer—reform lawyer—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Ha ha! You're never reformed.TAMA POTAKA: —and just checking through the materials in Part 2 the Taxation Review Authority there was a comment made by Te Whakakitenga o Waikato Incorporated Society—which is the incorporated society for the whole Waikato-Tainui charity web—around the registration board but the Taxation Review Authority requiring a bit of investment of resource and Government funding to fulfil the new roles under this bill. So there were two questions that emerged out of that for me. One of them was: has there been an assessment of the additional funding that's going to be required to skill these people up? And particularly in the case of Waikato-Tainui the observation that there's been a dearth of legal training around tikanga Māori and other Māori dynamics that associate with thousands of Māori charities out there—whether or not there's been consideration given for the Taxation Review Authority to be experienced or upskilled or acknowledged in that space.