Draft transcript - Tuesday 14 June 2016First draft - subject to correction.Draft transcript - Tuesday 14 June 2016Orlando Florida— ShootingMr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): I seek leave to move a motion without notice to express sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting.Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I move That the House express sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting. This is a shocking atrocity and on behalf of all New Zealanders I would like to express our country’s sincere condolences to those affected by it. As I said yesterday no innocent person should have to worry about such violence when going about their daily lives or be persecuted for their beliefs or because of who they are. The evening vigils that took place in Auckland Wellington and elsewhere were a tangible demonstration of the depth of people’s very real feelings at the scale of this atrocity. Over the days and weeks ahead we will learn more about the motivations behind this senseless tragedy but right now there are many people grieving: the victims’ families and friends and the gay and lesbian community in Florida and around the world. All too often we see these hateful attacks and mass shootings taking the lives of innocent victims. New Zealand stands with the United States and other countries in the fight against violent extremism. Yesterday I wrote to President Obama to express condolences on behalf of all New Zealanders. Our thoughts are with the victims their families and friends and with those who responded to this tragic attack and we wish those injured a speedy recovery.[Continuation line: LITTLE]MotionsOrlando Florida— ShootingANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): The Labour Party joins with the Government in expressing its horror at this atrocity and its love and sympathy with the victims and their families. Our thoughts are with the people of Orlando and the United States as well as their representatives here in New Zealand. This was an atrocious and hateful act. It was an act of terror. It was also an act of hate. It was a targeted attack at the LGBTI community. It was the deliberate mass-murder of LGBTI people because of who they were and whom they loved. These young people were attacked and murdered in a place that was meant to be safe for them. It was meant to be a haven where they could go to dance and have fun and be themselves. This was a place where they would not be subject to homophobia or violence or hatred. And in that place in that sanctuary they were murdered in cold blood. Like millions of people around the word we have all seen the heart-breaking details of what emerged about this shooting. The stories of first responders arriving at the scene to a chorus of ringing cellphones as the families of those hurt and killed desperately tried to contact their loved ones. The story of Eddie Justice who was able to hide in the bathroom of the nightclub long enough to send his mother a text telling her that he loved her and whose mother then had to read the horrifying words: “He’s coming. I’m going to die.” This attack has broken hearts around the world but while we mourn and grieve we must also rededicate ourselves to the great universal values of humanity which attacks like this seek to deny and destroy: inclusion openness respect love. We must reaffirm our commitment to a society where everyone is free to love whom they choose worship how they choose and to be themselves without fear of violence or repression. We must reaffirm our commitment to ending bigotry and intolerance and hatred wherever we find it because that is what the path of true freedom demands. While we grieve and we mourn we remind ourselves that love is love and that love is stronger than hate and that together we will not let hate win.[Continuation line: HAGUE]MotionsOrlando Florida— ShootingKEVIN HAGUE (Green): I rise to support the Prime Minister’s motion and to thank him for it. The Green Party wishes to express its profound shock and sorrow at what has occurred and its sympathies to the victims themselves to their families to their friends and to the lesbian gay bisexual transgender and intersex communities in Orlando and around the world. An attack against one of us is an attack against all of us. I want to name this as an act of homophobic violence. For those of us who are in the lesbian gay bisexual transgender and intersex communities we know that just below the level of taunts and name-calling and subtle prejudice there is an undercurrent of violence. In this particular case in Orlando America’s absurd gun laws have been a unique enabler for the mass murder that has occurred. But New Zealand also has a history of homophobic violence; one thinks for example of Jeff Whittington  who just over 17 years ago was murdered in this town. It should not be that when I and my partner or any from our communities are out in public we should have to check who is around before we kiss or hold hands and yet it is so. At this time I want to ask everyone in this House and everyone listening to this debate now to pay particular attention to the needs of young and vulnerable members of our communities. For older members of the gay community for example like me we have the privilege of being able to choose whom we associate with. We have the relative privilege of being able to make ourselves as safe as we can be. But a younger person does not have that privilege. They are particularly vulnerable; they need our support and they need our love right now. I also want to extend a hand of friendship and of love to Muslim communities around the world. We understand that what this man did is not representative of your communities and we seek relationships that are based on peace and mutual respect. A belief that gay lesbian bisexual transgender and intersex people are not entitled to what we call universal human rights or worse a belief that we deserve death for being who we are cannot be allowed to stand in the world. In closing we in the Green Party and I hope this House commit ourselves to act against homophobia and homophobic violence and indeed transphobic violence wherever it occurs in the world and we seek to be a constant voice in the world for universal respect for basic human rights. Thank you.[Continuation line: PETERS]MotionsOrlando Florida— ShootingRt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): New Zealand First tenders our condolences sympathy deep concern and regret to the people of Orlando in the USA at this latest terrorist massacre. We in New Zealand First are opposed to religious extremism in any form and this atrocity resulted from Islamic extremism by a terrorist whose family had sought shelter in the United States. There are those who will take the politically correct view and blame it all on a lack of gun control. They are wrong. They have been misled. They are seeking to divert blame from where it should lie because this terrorist could have used any weapon of destruction—a bomb an improvised device a method of mass poisoning—and blaming a lack of gun control in this way is seen in our view as simply a cop-out . In the San Bernardino case last year two extremists gave their baby to somebody to look after and set out to cause a massacre and when their home was searched improvised explosive devices were discovered to be present as well. We have New Zealand cases as well of loose border and security controls. Do people remember the hijacking of a plane out of Blenheim by someone whom a political party said should not be here? Or the fact that we could not find a henchman of Saddam Hussein and when immigration officials did they found a diplomat who had no connection with him at all and when it was all over it was found that he should not have been here in the first place? And there are countless examples now where border control officers are making a judgment and having it overruled by others on the basis that they are safe. In short we are inviting that problem into our country by the looseness and the cavalier attitude we are taking as a country towards matters of security and—[Interruption] This is not crap; it is a fact and those who would defend what has gone on here without knowing who they have brought here and how they are brought here will one day be weeping crocodile tears pretending that they sought to take action. With the greatest of respect one of the reasons that we in New Zealand First are appealing to the moderate Muslims is this: throughout the Western world there are extremists of every religion—we do not distinguish who they might be. But our appeal to the moderate Muslim people in this country and in any other country is that the joint security of the country in which you exist or live is dependent on us all alerting the authorities. That is the least we could expect. And as for signing a declaration of values with the greatest of respect if you are going to apply it only to refugees and not to everyone who seeks to come here then you are engaged in a puppy whistle without any real concern for the consequences. Lastly there are members here who will say that they are concerned and yet when put to the test as to the level of upgrade of our security raising the bar of our finding out who is here they have simply been found wanting.Hon Member: Crap.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: If it is crappy when I talk about it sir that is your speciality.[Continuation line: FLAVELL]MotionsOrlando Florida— ShootingHon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Co-Leader—Māori Party):[Continuation line: DUNNE]MotionsOrlando Florida— ShootingHon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): No words no spin and no gloss can carry over the events that occurred in Orlando yesterday. The slaughter of nearly 50 innocent people is unacceptable by any moral or ethical standard. Equally unacceptable I think is the sort of intolerance and the bigotry—because that is what it is—that gets paraded at a time like this as people start to attempt to explain these unacceptable actions. I believe that bigotry begets bigotry and that in turn begets the type of extremism that we saw exemplified in Orlando yesterday. This is not an issue where one makes a moral judgment about anybody. The fact is that these young gay and lesbian people were out socialising something they should have been able to do in perfect freedom in perfect security and in perfect confidence. A madman—because that is the one thing that is certain about the perpetrator—cruelly ended that and the questions will go on for some time as to why and how. There will be questions about the United States’ attitude to the possession of handguns. There will be questions about the motivation of the individual. None of those actually remove the tragedy of what happened. None of those restore any of those lives rebuild any of those families or those friendships or rebuild those shattered communities. We are a long way away and I am sure that the people of the United States are not sitting by their televisions now hanging on our every words but our expression of sympathy and solidarity with them at this time of grief counts in that it shows that as members of the world community we actually share some basic values about integrity we share some basic values about freedom and we share some basic values about people being able to live their lives and express their personalities to the fullest extent. Every time we see an event like this it is a challenge to all of those values that we hold dear even if we may not be immediately near the scene of the crime. So I share with others the sense of outrage and the expression of condolence and sympathy to the people of the United States and Orlando in particular on this horrific occasion. But to start to go beyond that to draw spurious conclusions at this early stage I simply think starts to light the fuse for the next horrible outrage and that is unacceptable.[Continuation line: SEYMOUR]MotionsOrlando Florida— ShootingDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I would like to add the ACT Party’s sympathy and condolences to those messages from other leaders who have made dignified and factual contributions to this debate. It is a great tragedy and our thoughts are with the victims with their families with their communities and particularly with the LGBTI communities of Orlando who appear to have been deliberately targeted. Let us remain strong in the knowledge that free and open societies have the resilience to sustain these tragedies to support each other and to grow stronger again together. Thank you.[Continuation line: ORAL QUESTIONS]Urgent Debates DeclinedRefugee Quota— IncreaseMr SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Andrew Little seeking to debate under Standing Order 389 the announcement of the decision to increase the refugee quota to 1000. This is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility. The business of the House should not be set aside just because an announcement has been made even though it may be important. There must be an element of urgency that the matter must take precedent over other business. Concern has been expressed at the level of the increase in the quota which comes into force in 2018. The estimates debate must be held before the end of August and that provides an opportunity to the debate the economic and infrastructure sector which includes immigration and refugee resettlement. Because the policy does not take effect until 2018 there will be several other wide-ranging debates that provide opportunities to address this issue. For example there will be a debate on the Prime Minister’s statement and another Budget debate before the policy comes into force. On that basis I cannot accept that the matter requires the urgent attention of the House despite its importance. The application is therefore declined.[Continuation line: CONTRACT AND COMMERCIAL LAW BILL 1R]Contract and Commercial Law BillFirst ReadingHon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General): I move That the Contract and Commercial Law Bill be now read a first time.Bill read a first time.Contract and Commercial Law BillFirst ReadingGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): Sorry Mr Speaker. I could not hear most of that. Could you please repeat the motion?Contract and Commercial Law BillFirst ReadingMr SPEAKER: For the benefit of Mr Robertson we have moved a motion moving that the Contract and Commercial Law Bill be read a first time. It is a revision bill; therefore there is no debate. I have then subsequently moved that it go to the Justice and Electoral Committee and I am putting the question.Bill referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee.referred to Justice and Electoral Committee[Continuation line: APPROPRIATION (2015/16 SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES) BILL 1R]Appropriation (2015/16 Supplementary Estimates) BillFirst ReadingHon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister supporting Greater Christchurch Regeneration) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move That the Appropriation (2015/16 Supplementary Estimates) Bill be now read a first time.[Continuation line: VOTE]Coroners Amendment BillIn CommitteeDebate resumed from 7 June.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I want to strongly oppose clause 32 of this bill because it takes away from the families of New Zealand Defence Force personnel killed in action the right to have independent and open scrutiny of the circumstances of the death of their loved ones. This is not what the families of Defence Force personnel want and there is no justification for this clause to go into the bill. I want to quote firstly from a young woman whose name is Sarah Erb. She is the partner—or was the partner—of Corporal Luke Tamatea who was killed in August 2012 in Afghanistan. What she said was that the coroner’s report into his death had helped her and Luke’s mother to get answers and to gain closure. She said: “Without that report we’d feel quite ripped off … That’s our loved one and we should know what has happened.” I want to put to the Minister in the chair Nick Smith: why should the loved ones of those who die in the service of their country be denied on open and independent inquiry into the deaths of those service personnel members? We have that at the moment. The fact that we have this amendment before the Committee is because the Defence Force took umbrage that an independent person could look into the death of somebody killed in action and maybe reflect on issues that pertain to national security or military tactics. That is not what the report that caused this particular change actually did. You can read coroner JP Ryan’s report and it is a straightforward explanation of the circumstances of death of three people who were killed on that day 12 August. The families of those military personnel members have the right to have such an inquiry. Without the coroner’s right to inquire into the death of somebody killed in action there is no mandatory report that is required into those deaths. What usually happens however is that the Defence Force will set up a court of inquiry into it. What is wrong with that? Well what is wrong with it is first of all it is in secret and secondly it is not done independently. Defence Force personnel members themselves fear that such a court of inquiry could be more concerned not with what caused the deaths of those soldiers but with the Defence Force protecting its own reputation. This is an inquiry by a body into its own actions or lack of action and that is exactly what the families are concerned about. Sarah Erb said that she did not receive any information back from the military court of inquiry. How can that be satisfactory for somebody who has lost the person whom they love in conflict? It is not just the families although they in my mind are the most important people in this but also former Chief Coroner Neil MacLean who said that this is a backward step. He said this proposal is out of step with other countries. I want to read to Minister Smith what Chief Coroner Neil MacLean says. He says: “It flies completely in the face of what the Australians and the English have been doing for a long time which is real co-operation with the coronial system.” He said: “Next of kin sometimes aren’t too happy with military investigations. For better or worse our society has said it’s important to have some independent judicial officer with sufficient power say ‘what is actually going on here? What are the facts? Are there any lessons to be learned?’ ” He said: “The moment you start to erode that power and say that’s only if it’s not a combat death that’s representing a watering-down [in the power] of the coroner.” So I want the Minister to tell this Committee why he is ignoring the recommendations of the former Chief Coroner and why he is acting in a way that flies in the face of what the families of Defence Force members who die in combat actually want. This was not the only option in front of the Government. I have read the regulatory impact statement. I hope the Minister has because he will see in that that there was another option. If the Government is genuinely concerned about national security issues why not have the default position be that the coroner will hold an inquiry and then give the Attorney-General if it transgresses on matters of national security the right to suppress that information? That would automatically allow the coroner to do what the coroner to date has always been allowed to do: inquire independently and make his or her findings open to the families the public and the people of New Zealand. That was something that the regulatory impact statement said would find an appropriate balance—a balance between the need for independent scrutiny and the need to protect national security issues. I have an amendment before the Committee that says that option D of the regulatory impact statement should be the option that this Committee votes for not the option that the coroner is ruled out unless the Attorney-General says that he can do it. When I put that to the select committee examining this bill the Justice and Electoral Committee there was on all sides sympathy for that position. That position was not adopted by the select committee because the Minister said no. Well I want the Minister to get up and publicly justify why he is suppressing the facts of deaths in these circumstances when that is not what the families want and it is not want the coronial system says is necessary. I think this bill is a backward step. I think this bill is not about protecting national security; it is about covering up the circumstances that might prove embarrassing to the Defence Force or the Government and that is not something that is tolerable here. The report that was given to the Chief of Defence Force which I got under the Official Information Act said that this is not even necessary. It said that concerns were raised that the issues that were driving this change are addressed by amendments in other parts of the Act. It says that this is based on one particular incident and it is not the norm. It says that this will create a negative perception from families and the media about how deaths will be investigated. This is the information being given to the Chief of Defence Force. So it raises concerns about the option that the Government has taken. It says that courts of inquiry are not mandatory for deaths by hostile action. That means that there will be no mechanism of mandatory investigation into deaths of this type. Is that a tolerable situation to have where our men and women die in combat and there is no mandatory system to investigate in any way the decisions that led to their deaths? I think there has to be such an investigation but it should not be a closed investigation by top brass in the military looking at their own decisions. How can that be independent? How can that gain the confidence of the families and the people of New Zealand if it is not even out in the public arena? This is something that deserves to be in the public arena. If we do not learn from our mistakes we are doomed to repeat them. You learn from your mistakes when you openly and transparently investigate them and make that public. Then there will be pressure on the system if there is some inadequacy. It might be that there is inadequacy in the way people are trained or in the way they are equipped or whatever. But we have the right to know that if it is our families that are being put at risk and that are dying in combat. The regulatory impact statement said that if the option I am promoting in my Supplementary Order Paper was adopted it would find balance. So I want the Minister to say why he is taking away that balance. Why is he taking away from those families the right to have an independent scrutiny of what happened when their loved ones were killed? We have had from Government no answer to that question—no real justification for what it is doing. I am asking genuinely of the Minister to please consider the alternative option that the Defence Force said to its Chief of Defence Force would be OK in covering some of the concerns they had and that the regulatory impact statement said found a proper balance between the needs for national security and the needs of the family to be satisfied that everything that should have been done was done and that they are allowed to know why they lost their loved ones in action.[Continuation line: ARDERN]Coroners Amendment BillIn CommitteeJACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I want to begin first by supporting everything that my colleague Phil Goff has said around why we feel so strongly about the Supplementary Order Paper that he has tabled that essentially reverses the onus as it currently stands in regard to the coroner’s involvement in deaths offshore. It was a significant debate at the select committee. But what I would like to focus my contribution on for this part of the debate around Part 2 is two elements of the Coroners Amendment Bill as they relate to what the coroner is able to make recommendations on and the follow-up response that other agencies are required to make to those recommendations which were two core debates that the select committee had. First I do want to acknowledge though that we do have a backlog of cases being faced by our coroners and much more importantly by the families affected by those coronial inquests and inquiries. We acknowledge the heartache that those delays cause. We do understand the ambition the goal behind this amendment bill but for us the test always had to be to what extent are we actually forgoing some important checks and balances that the coroner has a role in ensuring are in place in order to reduce that workload. We feel the bill has gone too far in that regard and simply needs to resource the coroner better. New section 57A inserted by clause 30 particularly highlighted that issue for us. The Chief Coroner did comment on this part of Part 2. This is the part that sets out what a coroner is able to make recommendations around and it states: “(1) A responsible coroner may make recommendations or comments in the course of or as part of the findings of an inquiry into a death. (2) Recommendations or comments may be made only for the purpose of reducing the chances of further deaths occurring in circumstances similar to those in which the death occurred.” It goes on to set out some of the criteria for making recommendations. The first which I think was actually the sticking point states in new section 57A: “(3) Recommendations or comments must—(a) be clearly linked to the factors that contributed to the death to which the inquiry relates;”. It must be clearly linked to the factors that contributed to the death to which the inquiry relates. I have a couple of examples where I have concerns as to whether we are narrowing the ability of the coroner to do their job. An example I will use is a similar example to what was used at the select committee. If there is a finding by a coroner that the core cause of a road accident was the over-consumption of alcohol for instance the major factor that contributed to that death was clearly the consumption of alcohol then leading to impairment of the driver causing the accident. What if that accident also occurred on a bend of road where there had been several other accidents in a short space of time clearly indicating perhaps some danger around that particular piece of roading? It could be argued that that was not necessarily the direct cause of the accident given the role that alcohol would have played but it may have been a factor. A similar example was used from memory around a deliberate road accident. But I think the point is the same. In fact we are drawing a fuzzy line here as to what a coroner can determine to be a direct factor a direct cause of death or not. We may be limiting their ability to draw to our attention additional factors that may be important in that case. I think you will find that coroners frequently find situations where there will be supplementary causes around the edges where it is difficult for them to distinguish whether it was a primary factor or not clearly linked to the death but still might be relevant to the death. It may well be that the Minister wants to clarify that that is not the intent of that new section but it was certainly in the interpretation from the coroners and surely that is what we should be concerned with. I want to come to my two Supplementary Order Papers because they are covered off in the next new section 57B in clause 30. This is something that I feel very very strongly about. They relate to the recommendations themselves that coroners are able to make. They are set out in new section 57B. Here it talks about the requirement for a coroner to consult certain persons or organisations on recommendations or comments that they are going to make. It is very explicit that if there is an organisation or person to whom a recommendation directly relates then the coroner must notify the person of the proposed recommendation or comment. Although there is an obligation on the coroner to notify those individuals there is no reciprocal requirement on those relevant organisations to respond to a recommendation. This has been the subject of a reasonable amount of debate particularly amongst the coroners—actually not debate. They have a very clear view on this and the view that they presented to the select committee was that if a coroner makes a recommendation surely the least that we could ask for is a response from the relevant organisation—not a requirement that they adopt the recommendation. There will be recommendations that from time to time we disagree with or that an organisation or an entity disagrees with. But surely the least that we could require is a response. Where is the harm in that? And I really seek from the Minister a response to that question because to date I have seen nothing that sets out a reasonable argument as to why we would not want after all of that investment that time that energy the submissions that are made—the work that goes into a coroner’s report is substantial and then we do not even require a response. We would not do the same for instance to a Law Commission report—we might be a bit pithy in our response but at least we give one. Why would we not require that here? There are some very very good reasons that I have set out in Supplementary Order Papers 146 and 145. Just to explain the difference between the two: under Supplementary Order Paper 145 it sets out that “Persons or organisations must respond to coroner’s recommendations”. It is very explicit that it must be a written response; describe the actions that they are going to take or plan to take but does not oblige them to take any actions; must then present that response within 60 days—a reasonable amount of time—to the Chief Coroner; and then that response is able to be made publicly available with a summary of responses reported back every 12 months. It is a very transparent way of collating what happens as a result of a coroner’s report. The difference between Supplementary Order Papers 145 and 146 is simple: my assumption was that not everyone would necessarily want to require all organisations—because that could include private entities although I would argue that they do need to be included particularly when we look at for instance the hot-air balloon company that was the subject of a coronial inquiry. It makes sense that we include adventure tourism. We heard a lot about agricultural aviation and the accidents that occur there and it makes sense for private entities to be subject to this requirement. But in case people are not comfortable with that Supplementary Order Paper 146 is a backup as it were. It narrows the scope of the Supplementary Order Paper and only requires Government agencies to respond to coroners’ recommendations. But I want to leave the final word to the coroners themselves as to why a mandatory response—not mandatory implementation but a mandatory response—is so necessary. Judge Neil MacLean ex - Chief Coroner stated in an interview 4 years ago that “one step that I have cautiously pushed is to follow what the Brits do what some of the Australian jurisdictions now do and actually make it mandatory compulsory to respond to a coroner's recommendation. … at the moment our recommendations sort of can easily so to speak die in the ditch because they go out there they sit there they're never actioned.” The report then goes on to talk about the fact that recent to that interview a 12-year-old died after inhaling butane with a group of friends in a Christchurch car-park and that despite the coroners dealing with 28 butane deaths from 2007 to 2001 resulting in numerous recommendations it was their assessment that nothing had happened as a result. Again another example Rotorua coroner Wallace Bain also reported that a Taupō jet ski accident that resulted in the death of a young person was then followed by another death just a short time later and that that person would be alive today if his recommendations had been implemented. I would like to hear the Minister’s response to those Supplementary Order Papers. I believe strongly that the research by Otago University justifies them as does the Chief Coroner’s view.[Continuation line: WALL]Coroners Amendment BillIn CommitteeLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): I am specifically going to speak to my colleague Hon Phil Goff’s proposed amendment and take a bit of a different spin on it because currently the coroner has the ability to inquire into deaths of armed service personnel on active service unless authorised by the Attorney-General. What the legislation will do is basically flip that on its head and say that coroners cannot do an investigation into deaths of armed services personnel unless the Attorney-General asks them to. The implications from the families’ perspective is really what I want to focus on. The Hon Phil Goff has talked about a specific example and that is of Corporal Luke Tamatea who was killed in Afghanistan in 2012 when his Humvee was destroyed by a roadside bomb. In that particular case not only did the coroner undertake an investigation or an inquiry but the military also undertook an investigation. The interesting commentary from the family was that the coroner’s report into the death of Corporal Luke Tamatea helped not only his partner medic Sarah Erb but also his mother to get the answers that they were looking for which enabled that family to get closure. I want us to focus on that—it enabled the family to get closure. The military inquiry that was held in terms of Corporal Luke Tamatea’s death the family got no information. So that is incredibly significant. The coroner undertook an investigation—completely independent and transparent and in the public good—and not only did the family receive the findings of that inquiry and investigation but also we all did because the aim and intention of these inquiries is that we can understand what happened we hear from people who were involved in that particular incident and it is the learnings from that coronial inquiry or investigation that then give effect to the recommendations that my colleague Jacinda Ardern was talking about so that we can ensure that these deaths if they are preventable never happen again. So in terms of a military investigation or a military inquiry I think that we would all assume that the families would have access to the report findings. What has been really interesting to research is that the court of inquiry for military deaths is actually empowered by the Armed Forces Discipline Act of 1971 and so a court of inquiry must occur with a service person dies in the course of their duties. However when I searched through the Act and specifically section 200 for that guarantee that families are entitled to the report findings—guess what?—it does not exist. This is probably why in the instance that I just talked about the death of Corporal Luke Tamatea that is why his family and his partner were not privy to the military findings because nowhere in that legislation are families guaranteed to receive that information. So I guess my question to the Minister responsible for this piece of legislation Amy Adams is: are we going to now guarantee that families receive the military findings from investigations and inquiries? We are taking away an ability at the moment for the coroner to do an independent investigation which in the interests of the public good is actually shared with us all including the families. The most interesting other point to note at this point in time is however on a case by case basis the release of records of the military’s investigation can be released to the public if it based on high public interest and it also notes that a relevant factor is the wishes of family representatives and the people who are also involved in the inquiry. So it is interesting that we then say that we will ask the families whether or not they agree on a case by case basis but we do not guarantee that they have access to the report findings. So I want to know from the Minister in the chair whether or not we are going to ensure that families of people in our military will automatically get any finding that only the military now will conduct because they have had the safeguard in the past of the coroner and the coroner’s office being able to undertake an investigation that guaranteed to them that they would be able to get closure because they had access to the information of that coronial investigation. And that is really I think at the heart of my colleague Hon Phil Goff’s proposed amendment because if we cannot guarantee that the families of our military personnel who actually are the victims when their loved ones are killed fighting for our country; if we cannot guarantee to the families when their loved ones do die and a military investigation is conducted; if they do not automatically have access to those findings then I actually think that there are going to be a lot of questions asked about families can then understand what happened to their loved ones and in this case of Corporal Luke Tamatea how they are going to get closure. So if this piece of legislation is going to create this big huge black hole for families I seriously think that we need to put on the record that it is the expectation of this Committee and this Parliament that families will have automatic access to military investigations. If we cannot do that then I think an amendment needs to be tabled immediately by the Minister of Justice to address this issue. I am currently on the Justice and Electoral Committee. I was not on the select committee during the course of the submission process for this piece of legislation but having looked at my colleague Phil Goff’s amendment and then from my perspective looking at the true intent of this I think that if we have left a big black hole that our families are going to fall into we need to do something about it. Thank you.[Continuation line: O’ROURKE]Coroners Amendment BillIn CommitteeDENIS O'ROURKE (NZ First): I have already commented in the previous session of the Committee on some of the Supplementary Order Papers that have been submitted but I do want to comment specifically in this speech on Phil Goff’s amendment regarding deaths in hostile action. The reasons I want to comment are that I can see currently in the current law there is coronial jurisdiction for deaths of defence personnel regardless of circumstances in addition to the court of inquiry process and that process also has a safeguard in that it is itself subject to an external legal review panel conducted by a QC. Under this bill that coronial jurisdiction will continue when the death does not happen during hostile action. The Justice and Electoral Committee’s changes to section 59A(2) and (3) inserted by clause 32 will operate to protect the national interest by preventing an inquiry when the coroner determines the death was caused exclusively by the hostilities during hostile action and not otherwise. But the section—and this is the issue—also allows coronial inquiry to deaths during hostile action as well if the Attorney-General directs that should happen. Phil Goff’s amendment simply reverses that and says that instead the section will always allow such an inquiry unless the Attorney-General acts to prevent it. So it is really just as simple as that. On the face of it that does not seem like a big deal but I actually think it is quite important and some other speakers have mentioned the reasons why. I want to point out however that whichever of those two options—what is in the bill or Phil Goff’s amendment—will apply or will be adopted new section 59A(4A) sets out the manner in which the Attorney-General will consider whether to act or not. I want to read that out because I think it is quite important. In new section 59A(4A) it says “(a) whether the investigation or inquiry is likely to identify the cause and circumstances of the death; and (b) whether the investigation or inquiry could reveal information that may prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand; and (c) whether the investigation or inquiry is likely to examine military tactics; and (d) whether a court of inquiry has been or will be assembled under section 200A of the Armed Forces Discipline Act 1971 for the purposes of collecting and recording evidence about the relevant death.” So there you can see in a nutshell what the primary considerations are. As others have said there does need to be a balance here of on the one hand protecting the rights of families to understand what happened and the public of course as well and on the other hand there are these specified circumstances that really are extremely important for New Zealand’s interest. They must be balanced as well. In deciding which way to go—with what is in the bill or Mr Goff’s amendment—I think there are three reasons why Mr Goff’s amendment should be supported and New Zealand First will vote for it. I would ask the Minister in the chair Nick Smith if he would consider voting for it as well and making that change for perhaps these reasons and maybe some others. I am sure we all want a good bill. I am sure this is not a political contest. We just want something that will work; that will achieve the balance I have spoken of; and most particularly will operate so that the public generally and most particularly the families concerned will be able to see three things. They are this: one that there has been no political interference and no strange happenings behind closed doors that give rise to suspicion two that the process itself is properly transparent and those matters I have referred to are properly considered in an open way and that people can get information about that to satisfy themselves of that and three that it does place the emphasis in the right place. I think actually this is the most important reason for me. I think it is the most important reason because it is a matter of emphasis and the emphasis should be I believe in favour of transparency—showing the public and showing the families concerned that there has been proper process; that there is nothing to hide; and that the only reason why if it does apply there should be coronial inquiry is for one of those four reasons I read out regarding the national interest and for no other reason whatsoever. So I think those are three very powerful reasons that mitigate in favour of the approach taken by Phil Goff in his amendment and why I believe the Government should consider this again. I would ask the Minister of Justice to do so. If she feels that it is not possible for the Government to do so I would ask the Minister in the chair to comment on why it should not bearing in mind those three reasons I gave. So if that happens I would be willing to listen to that but as it is at present I believe Phil Goff’s amendment should be supported.[Continuation line: CLENDON]Coroners Amendment BillIn CommitteeDAVID CLENDON (Green): I just want to make some brief comments in regard to clause 41 of the bill which replaces section 80. The theme of this particular clause of the bill is around the decision or not to conduct an inquest into deaths in custody. The current situation of course is that it is mandatory. I am speaking specifically about deaths in prison but there are other forms of custody and care obviously. But the default position at the moment is that a coroner must undertake an inquest when there is a death in one of our prisons. When the original drafting of the bill came to us and we saw that there would now be a discretion allowed that was a deal-breaker for the Greens. That was entirely unsatisfactory for us for two reasons the primary one being the wording in the original bill which said that there would be some discretion and the coroner would have to consider the following: that “the dead person was at the time of death a person in official custody … and the negligence or misconduct of a person other than the dead person appears to have contributed to the dead person’s death.” In effect that said to us you had to be proven guilty before there would be an investigation. It suggested almost that a coroner would have to be satisfied there was something unwholesome in the death something of concern before they could conduct an inquest. That seemed an entirely roundabout way of approaching things. I guess my other general point was that sadly in my view the Department of Corrections is not an organisation renowned for its transparency. I believe it has a culture that is very inward looking and very defensive. We have seen several inquiries in various forms into deaths in custody where it has been demonstrated beyond doubt that those deaths were preventable and they were a result of lack of adequate monitoring lack of appropriate and timely health care and so for all of those reasons we were completely opposed to the idea of discretion. Our position has changed now because in large part of the submissions we got from the coroners themselves. The chief coroner came to the Justice and Electoral Committee and one of the points she made was that due to some very misguided I call it changes to sentencing and other laws we do now have this phenomenon of many more people growing old in prisons. The general health status of inmates in our prisons—generally their health is probably like that of a person 10 20 30 years older than their chronological age. As people age in prison they are susceptible to illness and disease and the coroner specifically noted examples where a person might be diagnosed with a cancer they might spend their last year in prison suffering from that terminal condition and yet at the point of their death the coroner was obliged to conduct an inquest. I heard similar submissions just informally from meetings with several other coroners and they were all unanimous in their belief that they ought to have a degree of discretion in these cases. We have got to the point of being satisfied with that given the new wording now speaks to the fact that the test if you like for coroners is that the death was a death in custody and the death would not reasonably have been expected by a doctor who had access to the person’s health information as defined etc. That seems to us to be a much more straightforward much more sensible solution where there is a degree of discretion for coroners. Where there is an otherwise apparently fit healthy person who has died unexpectedly if a medical practitioner looking at that person’s notes would not have expected that death then that is a reasonable base level we think for triggering a coroner’s inquest. On that basis I think that has come to a good place. In fact I have got a great deal of confidence I would have to say in the coroners. I think they are appropriately sceptical in these matters; that they will conduct a fairly rigorous investigation initially and if they are not entirely satisfied that the death was explainable by for example a pre-existing health condition then they will trigger that inquest. We think that is a better place to be. Inquests are expensive they demand a great deal not least of all from any family that an inmate or a person in custody might have and they can cause significant delays and upset so I think that has probably come to a good place. As I say I must stress that that was based on a number of both formal and informal conversations with coroners who were unanimous in believing that we ought not to have that mandatory provision. For that reason the Greens are now supporting this bill.[Continuation line: DEAN]Coroners Amendment BillIn CommitteeJACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): I just want to make a brief call on the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in the name of Phil Goff and to thank him for his thoughtful contribution that he made to the select committee. Mr Goff’s SOP would allow coroners to investigate military deaths in action unless the Attorney-General directs the coroner not to investigate which is contrary to what is proposed in the bill. In response I would say that this issue—which always involves a grieving family of a defence force member or a civilian in hostile action—was debated extensively by the select committee and it was decided to retain the option in the bill as was drafted. Inquiries into military deaths will potentially expose sensitive information relating to tactics and relating to matters of national security and we should not underestimate the importance of not making that kind of intelligence available because the lives of others may depend on it. It is appropriate to have the Attorney-General direct the coroner to investigate to protect national security and potentially top-secret tactical information. One of the members who spoke previously did go through the relevant provisions in the Coroners Amendment Bill and I do not propose to go through those again but they are clauses 4(a) (b) (c) and (d). If the Attorney-General does direct a coroner to carry out an investigation or to resume an inquiry the coroner might open or resume an inquiry but its only purpose—the only purpose of that inquiry—is to as far as possible relay to the particulars specified in section 4(2)(a) of the Coroners Act. These proposed considerations would assist the Attorney-General in considering whether coronial investigation might be helpful in considering whether coronial investigation might be redundant or indeed pertain to issues that are non-judicable. I would say that this option as proposed in the bill is to also avoid duplication of investigations of defence combat deaths given that they are normally investigated by the Defence Force’s court of inquiry process. I know that the court of inquiry process is a process that is disputed and perhaps undervalued by the Opposition but we were assured in the committee that that court of inquiry process is truly independent and so that is the view of the select committee. I also want to make a brief comment around SOP 146 in the name of Jacinda Ardern. Again there was a lot of discussion around the potential merit of requiring a mandatory response to coroners’ recommendations including by the chief officer. However we felt and came to the conclusion that it was more beneficial rather than to require a mandatory response to focus better on the coroners’ recommendations and involve those relevant individuals—so instead of waiting for a recommendation and then mandatory requirement for a response involving at an earlier point in the investigation those relevant individuals and organisations to ensure that the coroners’ recommendations when they are made are indeed useful. Thank you.[Continuation line: WILLIAMS]Coroners Amendment BillIn CommitteePOTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I want to make some brief comments to underline the argument that my colleague Jacinda Ardern has been making particularly in relation to new sections 57A and 57B and also the Supplementary Order Papers in Jacinda Ardern’s name. What I want to do is just extrapolate a little bit of the argument that she presented around the coroner’s investigation and reporting—in the matter of death as a result of accident or crime the recommendations that are then made by the coroners. The example that Jacinda Ardern uses and that is also part of the Labour Party minority view  is the case where a road death has occurred where there are issues—for example of the misuse of alcohol—that are a major contributor to that death but as part of the investigation the coroner discovers that there are other contributing factors which may or may not be as weighted in the result of the death but are significant and are contributory. They may be for example road conditions. So in the case of a death that has occurred as the result of the misuse of alcohol where there have been other contributing factors the coroner is unable to actually include in his or her report these other factors that may or may not be significant. However—and this is the point I want to underline—those elements may be significant in other accidents or other deaths and the fact that they are unable to be reported as part of the investigation actually means that we are losing the opportunity to then ensure that other accidents and other deaths are potentially prevented. I think it is significant particularly when we have this year—and I hear over the last 3 years—the road toll actually on the rise. Part of the concern for those in the road transport organisations would be things like road conditions weather conditions and the condition of motor vehicles as well as the condition of the driver in charge of the vehicle at the time of the crash. This really speaks also to the Supplementary Order Papers 145 and 146 in the name of Jacinda Ardern which not only look at the ability of the coroner to make those recommendations but also require agencies and individuals to actually respond to those recommendations. The Supplementary Order Papers do not require that the individuals or organisations then make recommendations for changes but that they make a response. This is really important because then the coroner should be able to report on those findings. Those findings will be useful in being able to prevent other deaths in the future. In that regard I also want to talk to the submission that was made by the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand with regard to the reporting of suicide. Although we are discussing being very open about making recommendations and requiring responses about other deaths there is a particular sensitivity when we are reporting suicides. One of the pieces of evidence that the Mental Health Foundation gave was in the reporting of suicides—the sensitivity that is required and the level of detail that is then reported in order to prevent copycat suicides. However when we look at best practice for organisations supporting those who are having suicidal tendencies or thinking of self-harming one of the recommendations that they make is that we are sensitive to the actual mechanism of that death. We must continue to talk about suicide as a concern for our community but there are ways to do it that are sensitive to ensure that we do not then perpetuate other copycat suicides. It is a very important element to consider when we are asking coroners to report findings on deaths where people have taken their own lives. On that note I just want to finish with the issue that was raised by my colleague about the wishes of whānau. Louisa Wall raised this in the context of investigations of personnel who have died in combat but the notion of the wishes of whānau needs to be underlined throughout this work. It has been noted that the wishes of whānau about the details of the death of their loved ones are that they will be consulted. But it does not actually recommend to us the weighting of their decision making in the release of the evidence of the investigation that the coroner has made. It is interesting because whānau will have differing views. Some will be very open to the nature of their loved one’s death being advised to the general public and some will not. That might be due to the nature of the death or it might be due to the family’s sensitivity but I would encourage the Minister to consider more fully the impact that whānau believe that they can have in relation to this and the wishes of the whānau in regard to the death of their loved ones. Thank you.Coroners Amendment BillIn CommitteeJONO NAYLOR (National): I move That the question be now put.[Continuation line: DAVIS]Coroners Amendment BillIn CommitteeKELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): I would like to talk specifically to clause 41 in the Supplementary Order Paper in my name which deletes clause 41. The point goes back to what David Clendon was saying about deaths in care or custody. I can understand the position of people who are saying that when you have somebody in custody who maybe has had cancer for a year or so or has a history of ill health and they pass away in custody it is really not important to go to the extent of having an inquest; rather an inquiry will do. I can sort of understand that except that what the Supplementary Order Paper does—what section 80 in the Coroners Act 2006 did was it took out all the discretion. It said that a coroner must decide to hold an inquest for the purposes of the inquiry if the death appears to be a death in official custody or care. The concern really is more around those people who are in State care such as children under Child Youth and Family (CYF) care who may have taken their own lives. There was an example that was brought up in the select committee process where the committee was advised by an ex-coroner of a case involving a young person in CYF care who did commit suicide. The changes to the Act would lean towards an inquiry being held in this case but the coroner in question actually conducted an inquest which allowed as a result of the hearings that took place the coroner to identify a series of suicides in this whole community and the local district health board (DHB) was alerted and then the DHP was able to put in place strategies around the cluster of suicides. So I think it is important in particular for those who die in State care that an inquest must be held rather than just having the discretion that an inquest might be held but just have an inquiry. As we know the inquiry is a paper-based look at the death rather than actually holding hearings and looking into the full circumstances around the death. That said the deaths in custody—I understand where others are coming from where other parties are coming from. I understand that this particular clause clause 41 has support from various organisations but I still think that deaths in custody do need to be looked at in depth and all the circumstances around those deaths in custody should be part of a full inquest just to be on the safe side. I know that we have a lot of respect for coroners and the work that they do. In fact a relation of mine is the coroner up in the north there. So it is not to say that coroners will try to take shortcuts in this instance. It is really just making sure that the whole system the whole circumstances around the death of a person in custody are looked at. If you take the suicide that I mentioned before about the young person in CYF care who committed suicide the DHP being alerted would never have happened if an inquiry had been chosen over an inquest. So we are also concerned by the loss of more critical examination of deaths in corrections facilities. We believe that there are a number of instances where people have passed away in corrections facilities and the circumstances around their deaths need to be looked at. This is just a short contribution to talk about my Supplementary Order Paper which believes that clause 41 should be removed and that section 80 as it is in the Coroners Act 2006 should be kept as it is. Thank you.[Continuation line: ARDERN]Coroners Amendment BillIn CommitteeJACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I just want to follow on from my colleague Kelvin Davis who was speaking to his Supplementary Order Paper around clause 41 about deaths in custody because this was a substantial debate at the select committee. I take on board the points that were made by David Clendon around the good work that was done to narrow that provision around the circumstances under which an inquest would not be held but the reason that we still have concerns is threefold. The current clause as it is written is still heavily reliant on the medical records as they are written and made available to a doctor and on the doctor to then make a decision based on those medical records as to whether or not the death would have otherwise occurred naturally. Medical records and the medical care of prisoners if we are speaking specifically of prisoners are under the jurisdiction of corrections . They are corrections-controlled. There is no ability for external medical provision really unless someone is taken out of a facility. Our concern is that under the current regime that could raise questions for family members around whether or not those medical documents are always the best way for a doctor to make an independent decision. We have argued for some time that DHBs should be in the control of the provision of medical care in correctional facilities rather than the Department of Corrections . That is one of our concerns. We absolutely accept that in our current environment we are having people die of natural causes—we are—and that actually it would make sense to find a way to filter out some of those inquests and inquiries in custodial care. But our concern is that under the current medical regime within correctional facilities with the amount of mismanagement that has gone on with the privatisation of those facilities we do not believe that we have a regime that family members will necessarily believe there is enough transparency around. Perhaps if we changed the way that medical treatment is provided within our corrections facilities then there would be a place for that clause—then that clause would probably be on a much surer footing. We also need to remember that this Supplementary Order Paper does not only relate to correctional facilities. We are also talking about deaths in custody in mental health institutions and of children in care. I want to ask the Minister because there has been no contribution from the Minister so far in this debate and we have raised substantial issues—substantial issues—that we have requested a response to. I would seek from the Minister a response around whether or not these provisions around holding inquests versus inquiries—when it says “relating to deaths in custody” does that relate to children under the care of the chief executive? In our minds there should be an inquest on every occasion that there is a death of a child who is under the care of the chief executive of Child Youth and Family  because actually just saying “a child in residence” is a very narrow group. There are 5000 children in care at any given time and do you know what? Under this clause they could presumably be determined to have died of what could be considered a natural cause. It could even determine my question of whether or not SUDI would fall under that example. If a child who was under the care of the chief executive died of SUDI would that only result in an inquiry rather than in an inquest? Because I have read reports from the coroners where it is clear that the family will get much more closure from an open and transparent process. If it was their child in care I absolutely could understand why they would want an inquest rather than an inquiry in those circumstances. I have two points. Is a child who is in foster care considered to be in custody or is the care of the chief executive considered to be something that would always have an inquest? My second question is: if they die of SUDI for instance would we then have an example where a doctor would say “No need for a full inquest.”? Actually I think that would be wrong and I think families would be deprived of the closure they need. Those are a couple of the reasons why we have this Supplementary Order Paper. I understand the need for there to be a greater efficiencies. We are just concerned that we have not got the checks and balances quite right. I want to come to suicide reporting. That has not been spoken of during this debate. It is incredibly important. I actually had a member of the public contact me and raise the fact that suicide reporting because as it sets out in clause 33  inquiries must always be opened into a death where “(a) the death appears to have been self-inflicted;” —but what is the proportion of inquiries versus inquests for self-inflicted deaths? The reason I ask that is I have had members of the public contact me and say that there are some circumstances where we would have done well to have conducted a more robust inquiry into those self-inflicted deaths. A coroner in fact raised that in his town had he not conducted an inquest he would never have been able to identify that there was actually a string of self-inflicted deaths in his community that had not been connected. Some conversation around where we are making those decisions and why and whether we are serving those families and communities well by drawing that line would be a useful discussion. But the issue that came up frequently in the debate was around the reporting of self-inflicted deaths because of course under the current legislation we have very tight criteria. Currently no one may make public any particular relating to a death suspected to have been self-inflicted until the coroner has completed his or her inquiry into the death. No one is able to report on a self-inflicted death or give any of the circumstances or even imply that it was self-inflicted. The select committee was very clear that actually under the current environment and the way that these situations are often reported many many people are often in breach of this requirement. There are many many circumstances where the media may be compliant but everyone surrounding the media particularly in an engaged social media world is then acting in an uncompliant way. That is causing a real discrepancy in what is happening in reality. We had a very robust debate at the select committee around these changes and I think that on balance even though it could be argued either way it probably got to a much better place than the current legislation at least. We now have a situation where unless an exemption is granted the requirement now is that if an incident is being made public a person may make public that the death is a suspected suicide until the coroner’s findings are released. There is able to be a discussion based on what is suspected to have happened but there are still limitations and those limitations are that the method and for example the place in which the death occurred if it suggests the method may not be publicly discussed. The reason for that is that we tried to look at the available evidence around what may act as triggers for copycats  and the evidence seems to suggest that method plays an important part in those tragedies. Our responsibility is to try to act as responsibly as possible and find a balance between the reality of the conversations that happen in the public against what we should still try to restrict in an effort to try to ensure that we do not create flow-on effects from the reporting of suicides. I want to acknowledge though the contribution people made to that difficult debate that we had. The select committee tried to give it the fullest consideration. We were very mindful that we did not want to for instance have members of the public inadvertently falling foul of the law because the law did not make sense but at the same time we felt a responsibility to listen to that research and evidence base. This is the middle ground that has been reached: you can talk about suspected suicide but we must then still wait for a coroner’s report and there are restrictions on the detail that is able to be provided. I think the select committee reached as good a place as it could but I am mindful that we will probably see movement in this space again in the future as there continues to be rapid development on reporting. But more important  what must guide any future decisions will be the evidence and research presented to us. I do not want to be dictated to simply by what the media chooses to report relative to what other members of the public are able to put in a blog. I would rather be dictated to by what the evidence tells us is the safest way to report and with regard to the wider community and those families who are involved in those tragic situations.Coroners Amendment BillIn CommitteeDr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): I move That the question be now put.Coroners Amendment BillIn CommitteeThe CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am not going to accept the closure motion. I just want to make it clear to the Committee that to date the debate has been relevant and not repetitious. The legislation is not trivial legislation it is substantive and there are some important amendments to it that are before the Committee including one from the Minister. I just want to repeat a previous ruling that I have made and that is that when proper questions are asked of a Minister and they are not addressed or not answered by the Minister that will tend to extend the debate. I think we are in that situation now.[Continuation line: GOFF]Coroners Amendment BillIn CommitteeHon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): Can I just start by thanking Jacqui Dean for her comments and for the hearing that I got at the Justice and Electoral Committee on the change that I am now bringing to the Committee by way of my amendment . She said that she thought the contribution was a thoughtful one and I think that all members on that committee did give it proper consideration and there was support for at least acknowledgment of the arguments from all sides of the House. As you know the decisions that are made about bills are not made at the select committee but often they are made by the Minister and I am urging Minister Dr Nick Smith quite genuinely to answer the questions that I have raised. The amendment that I am bringing forward is an amendment that I am bringing forward on behalf of the family members of those who were killed in service of their country. They have expressed genuine concern heartfelt concern about what this means for the information they might get about the circumstances in which their loved ones were killed. It is not a frivolous contribution that I am making. I thank the New Zealand First Party —Denis O’Rourke—and the Greens for their support and the Labour Party of course but I do not see this as a partisan amendment. I see this as an amendment that is actually based on addressing the concern that the Defence Force raised but in a way that best satisfies the requirements of transparency and accountability. Minister if I can take your attention just to look at what the regulatory impact statement from the department behind this bill actually said about the option that I am promoting. The question—it goes through all the options and it asks whether these options balance transparency with the risk of inquiring into matters of State. The answer that the department itself says about what I am recommending is: “Yes. Achieves a balance—it ensures that coroners investigate the deaths of members of the [Defence Force] except where the Attorney General considers there are risks to national security.” So it cannot be that concern about national security prevents the Government from supporting my particular amendment. Again the department says that “A coronial investigation will provide independent scrutiny of the circumstances in which the death occurred which is accessible to the public.” I am asking you Minister why should we not have independent scrutiny in a way that is accessible to the public but most particularly to the families who have suffered the loss that they have? For the next question from the regulatory impact statement: “Does the option duplicate investigations?” the answer is “No.” In fact the coroner has always relied on the New Zealand Defence Force to provide some of the factual material about what happened in the circumstances of the death. It asks whether it is consistent with other legislation—yes Minister my amendment is. It is consistent with the Visiting Forces Act 2004. In its conclusion it sums up by saying yes this option does give us “Adequate opportunity for an independent inquiry.” it “Does not contravene national security.” it “Provides transparency …” and it says as an adjunct that coronial resources would of course be stretched if there was a major war but that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about the 21st century where the circumstances of death are pretty much the same as those that occurred with the loss of 10 New Zealand lives in the Afghanistan conflict. So I am asking you Minister this is the one place where you can be accountable to the House. This is the one place where I and other members of Parliament can get an explanation from you as to why you would not support this amendment for which the bereaved families have shown real support and about which the former Chief Coroner has said it is more democratic and it is more consistent with what the countries that we would always compare ourselves with in this field: Australia the United Kingdom and Canada. It is consistent with what they have done. What we are talking about is a coronial investigation that is the status quo. That right is there for the coroner to look into the deaths and there has been no evidence that coroners have done other than work cooperatively with the New Zealand Defence Force. It is not too late for the Government to change its mind. I am not trying to embarrass the Government; I am simply saying this is the option that makes sense and this is the option that those families want.[Continuation line: SMITH]Coroners Amendment BillIn CommitteeHon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): I am happy to respond to the points that have been made by a couple of members in the Committee stage. In respect of the issue of military deaths these issues were well canvassed at the Justice and Electoral Committee  as my colleague Jacqui Dean noted and the concern that has been expressed by members of the Opposition is whether a coronial inquiry is a more appropriate mechanism for investigating a death where a person serving in the New Zealand armed forces is killed overseas. I think the really important point in making a judgment about whether the investigation will be independent or not is the fact that the New Zealand coronial inquiry is going to be totally dependent on the information that is provided by the Defence Force . The idea that somehow if the Defence Force—and I am not ill-disposed. My view is that our senior Defence Force personnel grieve at least as much as if not more than we parliamentarians when we lose a member of our armed forces so I do not buy into the rhetoric that somehow there will be some cover-up. But even if you do accept that rhetoric my point would be that if the Defence Force is going to control all the circumstantial evidence about what occurred in a foreign country such as Afghanistan then it is no protection against it. Equally so if we look at the experience of the United Kingdom it is absolutely clear from the experience of coronial inquiries that you would then have in a public forum our defence forces having to disclose what their tactics are and what the capability of their equipment is in a public forum which is actually contrary to the interests of actually protecting our people who serve in the armed forces. Actually telling others in other countries what we are able to do and how we operate to try to win conflicts is not in the interests of the safety of our brave men and women who serve in our armed forces. The final point I would make in that regard is that this bill proposes that if there are exceptional circumstances then the Attorney-General is able to have a coronial inquiry. In respect of the issues that were raised by the Green Party about deaths in the custody of the Department of Corrections what we have now in the law is a blanket requirement for there to be a coronial inquiry over all cases of deaths that occur within our prisons. Actually there are circumstances in which prisoners die entirely as a consequence of natural causes and to put the system to the automatic expense of going to a full coronial inquiry is so typical from the Greens who never face the reality that there are limited resources and that we want the resources of the coroner focused on those cases where there are actually the most lessons to be learnt in order for us to ensure matters of public safety. In respect of the last issue the reporting of suicide—that is whether we have got the balance right—this bill makes a modest allowance for social media and for more open reporting of suicides while still sticking with the clear scientific evidence that if suicides are reported inappropriately there is actually a risk that we in fact increase the risks to the wider community. So in my view the provisions of this part as has been appropriately dealt with by the select committee with the amendments in the Supplementary Order Paper provides the right advances for the improvements in our coroners’ laws in a way that maximises the safety of the public while still ensuring that our coronial system provides the reports where they are needed so that we can learn and prevent deaths in future.[Continuation line: WALL]Coroners Amendment BillIn CommitteeLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): I would like to focus on clause 52 and the introduction of new section 116A which is about the “Establishment and constitution of suicide and media expert panel”. I would like to do that within the context of the make-up of the particular panel. I did want to ask the Minister in the chair Nikki Kaye specifically about the skill set of this particular panel because this panel is being constituted to provide advice to the Chief Coroner about applications for exemptions from the restrictions that apply to the publications of suicide in New Zealand. The members of this committee are going to be experts in suicide prevention with expertise in the media expertise in tikanga Māori and expertise in Māori youth suicide. I want to commend the establishment of this particular expert panel but I do want to ask the question about whether expertise in terms of LGBTI issues is also valid expertise for this particular expert panel. Just a little bit of history so that people know where the establishment of this expert panel came from: I would like to acknowledge the previous Minister the Hon Chester Borrows because it was through him that the Law Commission report No. 131 was actually constructed. That was about suicide reporting. This phenomenon of suicide in our country is an issue that we all should be incredibly committed to addressing because if we look at the suicide statistics this 2014-15 reporting year we had 564 deaths by suicide. The previous year we had 529 deaths by suicide. In 2013-14 we had 541 deaths by suicide. I think that if we look at our history of the phenomenon of suicide the issue that this particular establishment has highlighted means that it is incumbent upon us and obviously the coroner’s office to do as much as we can to prevent the phenomenon of suicide in our country. We have created this expert panel because there has been debate about whether or not the media reporting of suicide actually creates or exploits a vulnerability in certain members of our community so that they go on and emulate the suicide of somebody else. This phenomenon of copycat has really limited our ability sometimes I believe to talk about some of the suicides that happen in Aotearoa New Zealand. So the establishment of this particular expert panel is going to enable us to have conversations and those conversations I want to highlight from parents for example who have lost loved ones and who in retrospect when they look at the behaviour of their children see signs that they did not pick up on. There is an ability I believe to come to a position where we can try to prevent future suicides and ensure that our young people are receiving the help that they need. If this expert panel is going to contribute to that then that is a fantastic achievement of this piece of legislation. I would like the Minister to make a contribution about whether other expertise was identified or sought or whether they think that within the areas that I have mentioned LGBTI issues will be talked about because whether we like it or not the statistics are really clear from the youth survey that if you are an LGBTI young person in New Zealand your rates of suicide attempt are two and three times higher. For our trans kids I think that they struggle not only with their identity but the fact that they do not have people to talk to about what they are going through. We have an incredibly unresponsive health system. I know of young trans people who if they are lucky enough to access hormones will not be eligible to have the surgical reassignment surgery that they need for 32 years. How is that going to impact on a young trans person who is diagnosed today and has to wait 32 years to receive gender reassignment surgery? Thank you.Coroners Amendment BillIn CommitteeIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I move That the question be now put.Coroners Amendment BillIn CommitteeThe CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Yes I think we are in a position—no one else took the call? OK in that case I will just ignore it and we will go straight to the questions. Is that all right?[Continuation line: VOTE]Clauses 1 to 3JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is with some disappointment that we have reached this stage of the debate with some of the more substantial parts not being able to be included at this point in the discussion because in all of this some of the amendments in the clauses that are left for debate are still contingent of course on the coroners’ reports carrying some weight. So if this bill in its entirety—whether it be the discussion that we have had about narrowing down what a coroner reports on down to the different jurisdictions that some of the subparts set out and deaths to be reported and most mortems as they are set out in the final schedules—is set out so that we can have an efficiently run system where there is a clear jurisdiction for coroners surely it all leads to nought if there is actually no requirement for us to do anything off the back of a coroner’s report. In all of this debate around the jurisdiction of coroners the difference between whether or not they are they are resuming or adjourning an inquiry and the role of pathologists versus coroners surely all of that just becomes a debate of fancy if at the end of the day what a coroner produces as a report holds no weight—absolutely none. So my frustration with us being at a point where we are debating consequential amendments and some them as they relate to the Burial and Cremation Act Search and Surveillance Act Visiting Forces Act—all of that still is a debate around the detail when actually the coroners themselves are producing reports at great expense to the taxpayer that hold no weight. We had an opportunity here in this debate to give just a little bit more clout to those reports. We had the opportunity for those recommendations not to be enforced not to be compulsory but to at least trigger a response. I would have thought that the families who are involved in these situations and who find themselves in a tragedy be it via an aviation accident—and we had a lot of those people come before the select committee and talk about the deaths in the agricultural sector in agricultural aviation right through to the families who came and talked about the tragic deaths that related to the hot air balloon accident north of Wellington. In all of those cases those families surely would want to at least see a requirement from those companies Crown entities and Crown organisations that are involved to at least look and respond to a coroner’s report. So my argument as we reach the conclusions of debating the consequential amendments—the schedule to this bill—is that actually it all just becomes trivia. Can we not at least conclude as a Parliament that what a coroner says matters; that what a coroner concludes is worth that investment from the taxpayer and is worth the submissions that those family members and organisations produce with the time that it takes? Because here we have debated at great length: “Oh when shall we have an inquiry; when shall we have an inquest? We have got to save some time and some money.” Well what are we saving time and money for? Apparently so people can do a full inquest when it is required so that we can then ignore everything that they say? The final response that I would like to make then in relation to all of those subsequent amendments and schedules is that the debate becomes pointless if we do not have some requirement on those affected organisations to at least respond. That is a point that I want to underline in this final concluding debate in this House.[Continuation line: NASH]Clauses 1 to 3STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): We bring in these amendment bills because there is something wrong something missing we have thought of something or times haves changed from when the original bill was put in place. This is a bill that Labour introduced 10 years ago and times do change. But the test of a good bill in my view is whether it has improved the situation does it make it better for New Zealanders and does it do a favour to society? When I look at this I do not think it should. So when we call this an amendment bill it is actually a bill that is going backwards. I firmly believe that the coroner has a very important role to play in our society. Coroners are independent—we know that; they are experts in their field—we know that. What this bill actually does is it narrows the scope of what they are allowed to do and the recommendations that they are allowed to bring in. So why would we bring in or legislate for recommendations that do not actually strengthen the role of a very important part of our society and which in a way almost weaken it or as Ms Ardern highlighted actually take power away from an independent body? I do not think there is anything in this bill that has actually amended the legislation in a way that has added—well there are parts that have—to the Coroners Act 2006 but it has actually taken away from the ability of coroners to act in a manner that I think society has come to expect from them. We do know that the coroners can be overloaded—there is no doubt about that—but now it is no longer mandatory for coroners to hold an inquest into deaths that occur in official custody. I would have thought that that is a vital part of the independence of our system. We do have a professional body of men and women who have the abilities and the skills to undertake the sort of inquests that I think New Zealanders have come to demand and now after 10 years expect. This bill has not taken us forward; it has taken us backwards. As of 1 July—which is only 2 weeks away—this is going to come into play and I think that New Zealand is going to be worse off for it to be honest. There is not too much more I can say with regard to this except to sum up what the other speakers have concluded: the fact that this should actually be non-contentious legislation. The role of the coroners in society should be something that all parties in this Committee agree upon in a bipartisan way because it is such an important part of our system. The fact that we do not agree on it—in fact there are divisions across the Committee in something that should not be contentious—I think shows a flaw in this piece of legislation. I think what should have happened with this is it should have stayed with the Justice and Electoral Committee until it could actually gain consensus or it should have been withdrawn and gone back to a process that allowed consensus to be developed. When we start undermining pillars in our community like the coroner or undermining the powers of the coroner then you have got to ask where it stops. I just think that the independence of someone like the coroner is important because what they have done in the past—and this bill strips away a lot of it—is provide recommendations in a way that others cannot. What they have also done is I believe added a level of legitimacy to a process that has often needed that in place. As we know they cover all manner of issues and deaths and all manner of incidents. It is really a one-stop shop I suppose. We cannot have the police do this. We cannot have the police investigating deaths in custody. As we know we can have inquiries of different natures but I just think that it was a very good backstop. It was a very important part of society and the checks and balances in place allowed things to function in a way that New Zealanders had come to expect. This is a pretty poor substitute for that. I have taken Jacinda Ardern’s lead on this; she has done a very good job in presenting the case. Unfortunately we are not going to win in this and I just do not think it is a great result. I suspect we are going to see this back in the House in 2018 with the powers of the coroner returned to how they were before this bill.[Continuation line: HENARE]Clauses 1 to 3PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe Mr Chair. I arise to make a brief contribution on this particular part. As my colleague Mr Nash—Stuart Nash: Learned.PEENI HENARE: —my learned colleague; I apologise—takes the lead from Jacinda Ardern our other learned colleague I like to take my lead from the Hon Phil Goff who has seen much legislation pass through this House and would have been here when the bill was introduced. He also I thought gave a very good speech on his amendment one that acknowledged the families and the tragedies that sadly met Mr Tamatea and the others in military action serving our country. He was approached by the people. So when I consider this particular bill I think about the people in cases like this. I think about whether this particular amended bill will meet the needs of the people. We heard harrowing submissions from the people around some of the processes that have taken place in the past and it seems that far too often we are in the House here now debating bills that really only tinker around the edges. They do not actually get stuck in and make some meaningful changes. Although it might propose some good things we would like to see more good things in this particular bill. That is what we wanted to see. I believe that the amendments that were sadly voted down in this Committee would have really given this bill some teeth. I will say this: we had come very very close. Jacinda Ardern in leading the Labour Party on this issue came very very close to supporting this bill. Sadly once again the Government has given us a Coke Zero or a Diet Coke when what we are actually looking for is the full-bodied Coke—something that will actually just give the coroner’s office the power to do what the public expects it to do. They do a great job and I want to thank them in this contribution but I will say this. I will say this. The hard work that they do is not being recognised by this bill. It really is not. They have produced great bodies of work in the past. This side of the Chamber in particular has taken health and safety in the workplace very seriously. In my contribution earlier on this bill I talked about the tragic and sad and horrible record of the forestry industry. We on this side of the Chamber would have liked to have seen the recommendations from the coroner actually carry some weight so that people across Aotearoa New Zealand would see that actually we are empowering the coroner to make sure that these kinds of tragedies are not revisited. This is an instance where once again we are tinkering around the edges exemplified in the number of amendments put up by our side of the Chamber by the Labour Party that I thought would have actually really given this particular amendment bill some punch. In closing the Coroners Amendment Bill perhaps should have been the “Coroners Tinker Around the Edges Not Quite Hit the Mark Bill.”Stuart Nash: The “Disempowerment Bill”.PEENI HENARE: The “Disempowerment Bill”. I agree with the comments made by my colleague here Mr Nash that there is a good chance we are going to be back here some time in the future. I have had a discussion with a current serving coroner who expressed to me his dismay that it did not quite get across the line. For those who are actually dealing with the people those who are doing the work it does not give them the capacity to make sure that the office stands with a solid reputation moving into the future. Thank you.[Continuation: VOTES]Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling BillIn CommitteeThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The Business Committee determined on 9 March 2016 that the Committee stage of the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill and the Riccarton Racecourse Bill be considered as one question for the purposes of debate with separate votes on each question at the end of the debate. The question therefore is that Parts 1 and 2 and clauses 1 to 3 of the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill and clauses 1 to 14 and schedules 1 and 2 of the Riccarton Racecourse Bill stand part.[Continuation line: WOODSRiccarton Racecourse Development Enabling BillIn CommitteeDr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my pleasure to take a call on the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill and the Riccarton Racecourse Bill in the Committee stage. We have said in previous readings that these are two pieces of legislation that started life in quite a different form—as a local bill in one instance—and they are now coming back to this House for their Committee stage after being worked on by the Local Government and Environment Committee and being heard as question. I would like to acknowledge the work that the Local Government and Environment Committee did on this legislation at the select committee stage. I think a number of very good changes were made which have seen better pieces of legislation returned to this House. I think it was fortuitous that a number of the permanent members of the Local Government and Environment Committee at the time were in fact Canterbury-based MPs. So in addition to myself and Eugenie Sage from the Green Party we also had Matt Doocey Joanne Hayes and Nuk Korako from the National Party who heard this legislation. Of course we were ably assisted by those not fortunate enough to come from Canterbury. But what this legislation does is it enables the development of housing in the area around the Riccarton Racecourse which in itself is fortunately placed in the good electorate of Wigram. It will allow for the development of housing in that area. But in this contribution at the Committee stage I want to concentrate on the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill part of this legislation Part 2 and specifically clauses 9 10 and 11 if time permits. I may have to come back to them in a later call. Clause 9 of this bill is an important clause in that it sets out the minimum requirements for the development scheme should it go ahead. The legislation is quite prescriptive around what the minimum requirements for the development scheme will be. There is a requirement for 180 affordable homes to be built on this development land and to be “issued with code compliance certificates under the Building Act 2004 and to have been sold for occupation primarily as the home or residence of not more than 1 household no later than 5 years after the approval date.” In that clause 9(a) there actually sits a bit of a gold standard for what housing should be and unfortunately it is not what we are seeing in terms of housing in this country at the moment. We are not seeing enough affordable housing. There is a definition of affordable housing in this legislation which we think is at the high end of what is affordable. But also there is the issuing of code compliance certificates. If you are familiar with the number of repairs that have happened in Canterbury over the last 5½ years it is not a foregone conclusion that you will have a code of compliance for your building. But I think to be sold “for occupation primarily as the home or residence of not more than 1 household” is an important part of clause 9(a). What is being said here is that a family home should not have a number of families squashed into it. Throughout other parts of my electorate it is not uncommon to have 17 18 or 19 people living in a home that really should only be used for the purposes of housing one family. So I am very pleased to see that. I am pleased to see that there is a bit of a protection against ghost houses contained in this clause 9(a) as well in that these homes do have to be occupied no later than 5 years after the approval date. These houses cannot merely be built and sit there and not be utilised with the owners thinking that they are just going to wait for the capital gains to flow in rather than provide them for what a house should be and that is a home for people. I think it is really important to see those protections there in clause 9(a). Some of the other requirements not only of the house but of the development itself are set out in this broader clause 9. We need fibre-optic broadband connections to be provided to all premises—that we are building in the 21st century. There is also talk around being “capable of satisfying the relevant regional and district planning requirements including in relation to providing any infrastructure to service the development in the manner proposed by the scheme;”. This is very important. This development when it was first proposed was proposed to be what was going to be known as an exemplar project in Christchurch—an exemplar project for specific planning instruments that were put in place to allow for expedited housing development in Christchurch. Unfortunately we have only seen one of these exemplar developments take place in the city of Christchurch over this time. It is not only the houses that matter; it is the kind of planning that we put around these housing developments that are going to be what the future of city in Christchurch hangs on. What are the transport planning requirements that we are putting a place? I have been on record at other stages of this legislation as saying that I do have some reservations that not enough thought has been given to that vital piece of infrastructure that is provided for in clause 9(c). Not enough thought has been given. If this had been done through the instrument of an exemplar development we would have had the kind of integrated planning that will make for good urban development. That could have been possible. Anyone from Christchurch knows how congested Yaldhurst Road gets at peak time and simply putting the traffic from 600 more homes on to that road with no thought is not going to work. What we need to be doing is thinking in a progressive and long-term manner about the kinds of transport requirements for the new shape that Christchurch has grown into. We know there are large developments to the north in the Waimakariri District and also there are large developments to the west of Christchurch City but also through into the Selwyn District. We need to give some serious thought to the infrastructural requirements of how it is that we provide for those developments. The other note I would make here is that in clause 9(e)—and it is repeated in clause 10—Ngāi Tahu are given the first right of refusal on this parcel of land. This is after all land that has been protected under a reserves status and so under the terms of the 1998 settlement Act it is only right that this be offered first and foremost to the local tangata whenua who then through Ngāi Tahu Property one of their development companies has the opportunity to develop this land. The legislation is littered with enough clues that this seems to be something that Ngāi Tahu Property one of the holdings companies of the Ngāi Tahu iwi seems they are going to take up. And I think that we have seen Ngāi Tahu undertake a number of developments around Christchurch in the post-earthquake era and I know in my own electorate in Wigram that this will not be their first rodeo that there are a number of developments that have sprung up and have some good factors to them. So Labour will be supporting this bill. I think that we do need to give some good and genuine thought to the kind of development we are doing and I think that clause 9 of this legislation offers a good guide for that.[Continuation line: DYSON]Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling BillIn CommitteeHon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): It is a real pleasure for me to follow my colleague Dr Megan Woods MP for Wigram and obviously the local member for the area that we are discussing in these two bills. I want to first of all reflect on the fact that I do not believe that we have seen this scenario before where we have started off with the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill as a Government bill and we have had the Riccarton Racecourse Bill as a local bill they have gone to the Local Government and Environment Committee and we have ended up with one bill which is a Government bill—or two bills being debated as one bill with all provisions in one part. It is very unusual to have that process and I think that it is worthy of note but it is also worthwhile noting that it has not been something that has been imposed on Parliament during this debate; it is something that Parliament has accepted. I think that that is a tribute to the way that the select committee has progressed the bills to this stage. So I want to put it on record that the work that all members of the select committee appear to have done has made the original two bills better and also enabled us to raise some of the concerns that we still have regardless of the amendments that have been made—some of which have been referred to by Dr Woods. The primary purpose of the Riccarton Racecourse Bill is to look at the powers of the board of trustees and it looks at how the income from this proposed development can be used. That is important for Parliament to do. We have had a number of debates around pieces of legislation dealing with boards of trustees and whether that is appropriate in 2016 or whether in fact we should be looking at having such boards more properly act under the mandate of incorporated societies legislation or charities legislation or whatever the generic legislation might be. But in this case we have got yet another board the Riccarton Racecourse board of trustees being dealt with by specific legislation. But it is good for Parliament to be debating the broader issues because it of course goes right to the heart of the lack of housing that we have for people in New Zealand generally. We are short of houses in a way that we have never been short of houses in our nation’s history. We are particularly changing the culture—the value I suppose—of houses from a position where it certainly was when I grew up that all of us knew that if we worked hard and saved hard we would be able to put a deposit on a house and one day own that home; whereas now for many young New Zealanders the idea of saving up and buying your own home is just completely off the agenda. So that is something that it is important for Parliament to reflect on because it does change a number of things. If a person is permanently in a rental they are more vulnerable—they are more vulnerable to the whim of the landlord they are more vulnerable to the rents going up and they are more vulnerable to a situation where they become less connected with their community and their children might have to move not only home but school as a result of those things. So the security not just of an individual family in a home but of the broader community is really important in the wider housing debate. Clause 6 of the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill touches at this very point which is about the affordability of homes. I think it is debatable but quite sophisticated in the way that it has ended up in clause 6. I want to move on to what happens if the affordable homes are not delivered but of course there remains a debate that is certainly being held in Canterbury about whether $450000 is a suitable determinant of a home that is affordable—that is the provision that is in this bill that we are debating. It goes on to say further on after we have the requirement under clause 6 of the number of affordable homes within this housing development what happens if they are not delivered. I actually think that is something that the select committee has not focused on enough. We go from a requirement in the bill to have this number of affordable homes to here is the compensation due to the Crown if that number of affordable homes is not delivered. What about some project management in between? What about some accountability of the people who are going to be running this development back to the Crown and indeed to the city council which has given some indication of support for the provision of housing in this area. So I think there is a bit of a gap between the quite rigid and specified requirements for affordable housing in clause 6 and then the penalty for non-provision just three clauses later in clause 9. So I would be interested perhaps from the Minister in the chair Minister Lotu-Iiga although I do not think he has any personal responsibility for housing provision in Christchurch under his portfolios but perhaps the chairman Scott Simpson or another member of the committee may well make a contribution about whether the in-between situation was considered. I want to move on now to another concern— or gap or requirement—that is in this legislation that I think does not fit comfortably with the way that the transition arrangements away from Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) and the total powers of the Minister Hon Gerry Brownlee have been revoked and been disestablished by this Parliament and we have now moved into much more local control of decision making and finally some drive for development and rebuilding in our city. In clause 11 of the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill there is a specific provision that reads: “Before making a recommendation under subsection (1)”—where subclause 1 is “The Governor-General may by Order in Council made on the recommendation of the Minister approve a development scheme.”; clearly the housing development scheme that this bill relates to. But in subclause (2)it says that before making such a recommendation “the Minister must— (a) consult the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery;” even though that authority—those wartime powers that were granted because we thought they were needed so soon after the September and February events—has all been taken away. CERA has been disestablished. But here we have the Minister once again having his fingers in the pie looking for control. Fortunately the relevant Minister also has to consult with the Christchurch City Council and has to be satisfied that the scheme meets the requirements of the development scheme as outlined in the legislation—also that Ngāi Tahu has been given the first right of refusal that is specified and that it will result in quality residential development. I just want to conclude my current contribution with a further word on that. Dr Megan Woods in her contribution mentioned the fact that when this development was originally proposed it was described as being an exemplar housing development and that since that date and today the exemplary nature of the development has just disappeared. I think that that is an opportunity that has been given away by the Government. It is an opportunity that has been lost for Cantabrians and one which—I think people were genuinely excited about it when the Minister made that announcement. People looked at him believing he was telling the truth and now we are seeing no such indication in the legislation. There are a couple of other obvious shortcomings with this proposal in the lack of integration with transport particularly. This is a large number of houses that are being proposed. They are in a good spot. They are close to the university they are close to the main traffic routes they are close to very large shopping areas—all those things make them very attractive—schools etc. and the nearby facilities. They have an excellent member of Parliament and I know that that is a very important thing when people decide where to live where to buy or rent a house. But Parliament and the Minister certainly has not taken the opportunity to talk to the Christchurch City Council about the infrastructure needs and how we could make sure that the requirements of this big housing development sit alongside the plans and ability of the Christchurch City Council to deliver. I do not want to see people causing more congestion because the opportunity for better planning has not been taken. Overall I think this is going to be a very good step forward for Christchurch. As I say I think it could have been even better if the exemplar nature of the proposal had been delivered by the Minister though it was not; if the city council had been given the respect that it deserved for better integration of issues such as transport; and if the select committee had perhaps pushed the Minister a bit to deliver those things we could have got even better legislation. But I will be very happy to support it.[Continuation line: WILLIAMS]Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling BillIn CommitteePOTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I want to thank my colleagues for their contributions on this bill one that we support. To start off this contribution I want to talk a little bit about what has led us to having these two bills before the Committee. I guess I want to talk about the meeting Dr Megan Woods and I had fairly early on with members of the board of the Riccarton Racing Club around their desire to ensure that facility—the racing club the grounds and the buildings some of which are old and historic—actually could remain a vibrant and useful facility for Christchurch. And in taking the step that it has to allow part of the racecourse to be developed and to look at the Reserves Act and allow a portion of their land to be developed for housing they are ensuring the facility does continue to go on and be used by the people of Christchurch. It is a beautiful facility. The grounds are lovely. The Hon Ruth Dyson often gets to speak at Japan Day which is one of my favourite days at the course because the gardens are looking wonderful the blossoms are in full bloom there—it is just a delightful place to be. And of course on Sunday they have the market which encourages people from all over the city to head out—south in my case—to participate. I think it is an interesting bill in that in clause 6 of the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill the Government has chosen to actually put in a definition of affordability for housing. I think some of my Auckland colleagues would be quite envious that we in Christchurch actually have a determination of what affordable housing is in a piece of legislation designed for Christchurch. I would like to see affordability in Auckland being $450000. Then we would not be in the situation we are in currently where people are forced out of the city they cannot afford to live in the city and they certainly cannot afford to buy a home in the city. It has become a paradise a haven for investors to actually thrive. Houses potentially earn more than workers do. I think it is an appalling situation. So this piece of legislation actually tells us what the cost of affordable housing should be in Christchurch. So that is a very interesting part of that bill. The aspect that both my colleagues have touched on previously is the notion of exemplar—that this development was to be an exemplar. Many of us were very excited about that. An exemplar development as referred to in clause 9 has to have some key elements as part of it. The homes have to be affordable—clause 6 clearly defines what affordable is. The development has to be close to amenities and the area that is being developed is close to good shopping good road links and schools in the area certainly. The development has to meet certain criteria around good urban design and there has to be suitable infrastructure and transport planning in place. I know when the development was first mooted the very good local MP attended and hosted public meetings because there was a real concern from members of the community that having 600 new dwellings within the area would cause all sorts of pressures on infrastructure particularly on roading and transport infrastructure. It is a very very busy part of Christchurch. It links the southern part of the city with the northern part of the city and links through to the airport so there is quite a lot of transport that goes through there—quite a lot of trucks. The local people were concerned that the volume of traffic that would be pushed out on to those roads without good planning would cause them further delays within their commute to work and school and the like. There were some very real concerns about that. There were also some concerns about what kind of pressure that will place on the horizontal infrastructure as well. To hear that it was an exemplar project at the beginning really caused us to think we did not have to have concerns about this because they would be taken care of throughout the development of this. But then when we heard the project was not an exemplar project we asked some of the developers about that. They said it actually meets most of the criteria. Well clearly it does not meet enough of the criteria to be an exemplar project and that is a real shame. I am concerned that although this is going to be a great development it does not meet the standards of “exemplar”. It is a loss for the people of that community. It is interesting too that at the beginning there were some Christchurch city councillors who had some concerns about what was going to happen with this development. One of their biggest concerns of course was the rationale for rezoning when there were potentially other areas that could be rezoned for development. I think that in the course of the passage of the bill and the submissions that were made those fears those concerns were actually allayed and they are now fully supportive of this development. One of the big advantages of this is the relationship this development has with Ngāi Tahu and that Ngāi Tahu not only has the first right of refusal but that they are very much involved in a partnership to ensure there is a significant input from them throughout this development and it is a good development because of it. Ngāi Tahu are known throughout the city for having provided lots of different types of housing options and this one will be no different. The fact we are looking at adding 600 homes to the community is great. We certainly need more housing because that of course is going to allow us to balance out affordability across the city. I know the Government has been crowing recently about housing affordability in Christchurch and saying it is largely due to its measures around ensuring the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority have got the right kind of policies in place. Well actually I do not think that is the case. I think when you go through a major redevelopment where people are rebuilding homes when there is all the insurance money have has come into the city—we did not necessarily have the issues around land costs they do in places like Auckland because actually the only place where we had any restrictions around our land was in the central business district where we now find that development costs are escalating because of the cost of land and because that land had been restricted for so long. I will make further contributions on this bill. I am pleased to see we have put a benchmark—a line in the sand—around affordability. I am pleased to see the involvement and partnership that Ngāi Tahu play in this and I am very pleased to see that Riccarton Racecourse and the racing board will get to preserve their fantastic grounds and facilities for the people of Christchurch.[Continuation line: SAGE]Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling BillIn CommitteeEUGENIE SAGE (Green): I am pleased to take a call on the Riccarton Racecourse Bill and the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill. I would just like to pick up the point of exemplar developments because the Green Party also believes that this is a lost opportunity in terms of this development—Champion’s Mile I think it is going to be called. If it has got a name like that it should live up to that name. We have seen under this Government far too little commitment in the rebuild in Christchurch whether it is in housing commercial buildings and standards for those to sustainability principles. If we are going to have affordable housing the houses not only need to be affordable to buy; they need to be affordable to operate. Where you get big houses that are not well insulated—yes there are certain provisions in the building code but you need houses that are energy efficient. That requires that they are oriented to the sun. Exemplar developments could embrace those principles to ensure that we are building the most sustainable housing stock that reduces the cost of operating it in terms of energy. Exemplar houses would also be well situated so that they encourage a community to development they would have good play and communal spaces for people and they would have good use of open space yet this development by not being an exemplar subdivision is losing that opportunity. One of our other concerns with this bill is with the 40 hectares of the Riccarton Racecourse reserve land being used to provide affordable housing. That is great but it seems to be a philosophy of this Government not only in this bill but also in the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill where it is making it easier for recreation reserves and other reserves under the Reserves Act to potentially be built on and used for subdivision. That is very short-sighted if we are sacrificing the green areas and open spaces within our cities and towns for subdivision and housing development because it reduces amenity values because it has potential health effects if there is not open space where people can recreate and because of the substantial benefits to mental well-being that being exposed to nature and green spaces provides. In sustainable cities we have good green spaces. We do not want to see the changes in the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill that see these green spaces being compromised. Here the trade-off is that with this 40 hectares of Racecourse Reserve land having its reserve status revoked in order to build 600 new homes 30 percent of those or 180 of those homes will be affordable. But that leads us to the way in which “affordable” is defined in clause 6 and it is in relation to $450000 being the maximum sale price. Well in New Zealand where we have $450000 houses being defined as affordable that is well beyond the reach of many young people and even of many two-income families. It is a reflection in this bill that we are setting it at such a high level—when the average house price in Christchurch is around $490000—that the Government has really failed to increase the supply of affordable housing by actually getting Housing New Zealand Corporation to build more homes. This bill makes a small gesture but it is not on the scale that is needed to increase the supply of affordable homes by having the Government through Housing New Zealand Corporation building those homes. That is another major issue that the Government might see this as part of its strategy to deal with the housing crisis but the real answer to the housing crisis is for the Government to stop speculators to restrict foreign buyers to put in a capital gains tax except for the family home and to build homes through Housing New Zealand Corporation for desperately need them. The other issue I would like to talk about is in relation to clause 9 “Minimum requirements of development scheme”. In the clause it says that as well as the affordable houses requirement the development must “be capable of satisfying the relevant regional and district planning requirements including in relation to providing any infrastructure to service the development”. This is where the Green Party has very little confidence in Environment Canterbury being able to ensure that the transport infrastructure in terms of bus services is adequate because it is that council that recently proposed in its annual plan to increase bus fares in Christchurch. If there is anything that is likely to reduce public patronage it is a fare increase. So where you have a council that even after the October elections will still have six commissioners on it potentially that council has really failed to pick up the ball in terms of the changed configuration of Christchurch post-quake to ensure that bus services are adequate so that people have easy access to public transport. Although there is this requirement in the bill we do not have confidence that Environment Canterbury will provide the necessary services so that people do not have to rely on private motor vehicles. That again is where if it had been an exemplar development it would have much better ensured that there were good walkways cycleways and integrated links with public transport. Here it is relying on the city council and the regional council and the city council and regional council we hope will rise to that opportunity but we are not confident that Environment Canterbury actually will. In relation to providing for the transfer of some land around Paparoa Stream certainly that is a good part of the bill. The development does result in a number of the big trees that are on Riccarton Racecourse being felled to provide for sections and also road corridors. We would like to see the developers recognise that those open space areas are being sacrificed for this development and that they must therefore do their maximum to ensure that the remainder of the open space that is not going to be covered with houses is actually accessible to people and provides for the variety of recreation needs that people can currently have at the racecourse. So there are lost opportunities with this with it not being an exemplar subdivision and with the fact that there were suggestions in the select committee from the Green Party that we tighten up the requirements around sustainability—for energy use in particular; passive solar and making sure the plan for the subdivision was well-designed—and I think that is disappointing. I think it is a bit of a lost opportunity but we will be voting for the bill because it does provide for some more affordable homes.[Continuation line: COSGROVE]Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling BillIn CommitteeHon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): It is an interesting point that keeps being made in the Christchurch press: when you look at the average house price in Canterbury for this year in the last 4 months it has increased by about 2.6 percent to $482000. Other speakers have commented in respect of the degree of affordability of that but the point that is made in respect of Christchurch which the Government may wish to take heed of is that there has been a cooling and a slow reduction in the level of increase of average house prices across Christchurch and Canterbury. This is because as has been reported over and over and over again we have a flurry and we will eventually—I suspect if you look at forecasts—have a glut or a surplus of houses within the region. Hence if you go back to good old School Certificate fifth form economics when supply exceeds demand you have a stabilisation; if not a decrease a slowing of increase in house prices. The moral of that story for Government members is you can achieve those economic goals by one thing: building more houses. It is an extremely simple proposition. It is one that is debated every night on the news and every day on the radio and is commented upon every day in the newspapers but it is something—I think that there is some sort of mental blockage for the Government or the Minister for Building and Housing in respect of this point. The only way you are going to deal with the housing crisis—right through the country but especially Auckland—is to build more houses. Issuing of consents issuing of compliances or as we have heard special housing areas—those things in themselves do not put roofs over people’s heads certainly not in the short term. The evidence in Christchurch and the evidence that is flowing through this bill is that flurry of building or the excessive building activity that has happened has actually cooled those house prices to some extent. The question is well made by speakers though as to whether $450000 when an average house price is $482000 on latest figures is affordable for many folks many of whom have been through the earthquake crisis and are still trying to reconstruct their lives and move into new housing. I want to look at the regulatory impact statement  page 3 paragraphs 17 and 18 which talks about this very point and notes that just 5 percent of new supply nationally is targeted—that is housing—at the lower quartile. One of the bonuses of this project is that the targeting in the lower quartile in affordable homes is around 30 percent which is pretty positive given the 5 percent figure nationally. It is worth congratulating as I said in my first contribution on this bill the Riccarton Racing Club and those members who brought this proposition to the House. As I said in my first contribution this was not a proposition which found its genesis on the Government benches or in the Cabinet room of this Government. It was a proposition and an idea that found its genesis in the innovation of local community stakeholders particularly the Riccarton Racing Club itself and was brought to the Government as a positive idea and positive contribution that will provide a substantial number of houses and affordable homes for those in Canterbury. But I have got to say if you were to look at the debate as it happened last week I think and subsequently you would think listening to those Government members who have spoken that this was some sort of brainwave of Nick Smith’s or some sort of innovative strategy launched by the Crown. It was not. Credit should go where credit is due. As other speakers have said and have referenced particularly the previous speaker in respect of infrastructure clause 9(c)—the requirements that the scheme contain its own infrastructure in respect of the development—is silent and Government members have been silent. I am sure the Minister of Local Government who is in the chair will be interested in this point as he is wont to focus very heavily on local authorities and the needs of local communities: there has been relative silence around the infrastructure requirements that will be required in this part of Christchurch. As I said in my last contribution I spent the early years of my life one block away across Yaldhurst Road from the Riccarton Racecourse. In those days it was a slippery sleepy area. On Yaldhurst Road you would struggle to get a traffic jam on. Getting to Hornby was relatively easy. Going down Johns Road to the airport or heading to Belfast was a pretty simple proposition. That is no longer so not simply because in the Johns Road area the four-laning is happening. It is simply because of the quantum of traffic the industrial developments that have happened in Hornby that have necessitated further traffic. So it cannot be the case as other speakers said that you plonk 600 houses in a residential area and nothing changes. Of course there will be changes. There will be issues around congestion. There will be issues around traffic flow. There will be issues for that local community. There are very small roads and small access ways around the racecourse hotel and the little businesses that are there. They are going in and accessing through to Hornby. These are needs that will have to be dealt with not only by the local and regional authorities but also I would hope with the assistance of Government. It would be helpful if the Minister in the chair Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga—I am pleased he is in the chair given his portfolios—could perhaps assist us with the aid of his officials in giving us some assurance as to what infrastructural support the Government will provide around this project. What you have got here is a very positive project—Genesis Energy and the local community the Riccarton Racing Club brought it to Parliament Parliament giving it the stamp of approval and the Government then generally being silent apart from trying to take credit for many of the proposals in this legislation on what its contribution may or may not be. That area right through Avonhead through Merrin—right out too as I said to Johns Road going right up to Church Corner that whole area will be impacted by what is it? It is about 2.5 people on average per house according to the official statistics. So you are looking at in excess of a couple of thousand people in theory in that concentrated area. It is a very good proposal something that I think Parliament should be proud of—that local folks and local stakeholders have put a lot of time and effort into this and brought it to Parliament. But that project will need support. I would hope that Minister Brownlee and other Ministers the housing Minister transport Minister and other ministers are engaged with this very heavily so that we do not end up getting a really nice property development that meets multiple needs including housing affordability needs but unfortunately then has a knock-on effect through the local community because infrastructure does not follow development that Government commitment does not follow that development. So the local folks are doing their bit. They have consulted widely. Other colleagues have talked about the concern that there was initially and I am sure that there are some residual concerns from many stakeholders in the community but I know having talked to many folks in that area that it is the infrastructure issues that are of deep concern to them. I think many of the issues around the development itself have been put to bed but what is the knock-on effect for that local community? I would ask the Minister whether he would mind taking a call perhaps or seeking some advice from his officials or perhaps over the dinner break having a quick word to Minister Nick Smith and other Ministers or whoever is going to be in the chair following the dinner break to allay some of those concerns that people have raised. The Riccarton Racing Club and that piece of dirt is an iconic piece an iconic institution in Christchurch and it has been the scene as other speakers have said of some wonderful events not just fantastic race days with the community but its facilities have been the focal point and its grounds have been the focal point for a large number of community activities right throughout the year. There are none more successful I suppose than the Riccarton market which has become a real focus and a real focal point not just for those who run the market and those who produce the goods and services but for the community as a whole.[Continuation line: DYSON]Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling BillIn CommitteeHon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I am delighted to have one more opportunity before the dinner break to speak on these two bills. I am really sorry that no Government member has chosen to make a contribution given that it is an issue that frankly this side of the House has been praising Government members for—particularly the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee Scott Simpson for his role in leading the debate in a mature way. We do not always have an opportunity to praise National members of Parliament and in the rare times that that opportunity arises I like to grasp it with both hands. But I have to say that I am really disappointed that the Chairman of the Committee has not chosen to take a call on this because it is worthwhile noting that although we are supporting this legislation there have been some concerns expressed. This is a big step forward for the board of trustees. It is a big change for them. It is one that they are delighted to have contributed so strongly to and they are very pleased with the outcome. But I think that the members do the board a disservice actually by not contributing to the debate. They could take just a brief call and acknowledge the hard work that the board under takes and the fact that they have been driving this change so that they are able to proceed with this development. As I said in my earlier contribution I do think that it is also an unusual—I am hoping that somebody who follows Parliament very closely will say whether this is a unique occurrence where we have had a local bill and a Government bill both on related topics being referred to a committee and then when they come back to the House both bills being debated together as if they were one. That is a really unusual situation. I have been searching social media to see whether anybody has commented that this is indeed a unique situation but we can check on that over the dinner adjournment and report back to the Committee after 7.30. The point of this bill is a housing development. The Riccarton Racecourse area is huge. It is 122 hectares of land—and that in itself is pretty unusual within the confines of a city—which is under the auspices of the Riccarton Racecourse. This housing development would take 40 hectares of those 122 hectares obviously leaving a huge amount of space still for the other activities including racing. My colleague Poto Williams mentioned the Riccarton market. That has become one of the major attractions on that side of the city. It is not as good as the Lyttelton market or the Ōpawa market I have to say but it is certainly well worth supporting.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Kia ora mai tātou. Tēnā tātou katoa. Members the House in Committee on the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill and the Riccarton Racecourse Bill is resumed. Before the dinner break we were debating all provisions of these two bills together. Hon Ruth Dyson had the call. She has 2 minutes and 8 seconds remaining.Hon RUTH DYSON: Thank you Mr Chairman. It is indeed a great pleasure to be able to take my 2 minutes and 8 seconds that are remaining in my contribution on this bill. During the dinner break I went outside for a while. I suppose it was partly as a result of us reflecting on the fact that this contribution of 600 homes is going to make a difference not solve the problem but will make a difference to the housing crisis situation that we have not just in Auckland and Christchurch but also slowly spreading out throughout the rest of the country. But it just struck me how cold it was outside and I was reminded of the many people throughout our country who tonight unlike us will not be going home to a warm dry bed but will be sleeping in a car or a garage—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): This is Riccarton Racecourse is it not?Hon RUTH DYSON: —or somewhere totally unsuitable. The expansion of houses that is allowed through the development of the Riccarton Racecourse will put a dent in that problem but unfortunately it will not solve it. I was hoping that the Minister for Social Housing might take a call and enlighten us on that but she has been far too busy cleaning up the mess that she made for herself today. Yet again another bad week for the Minister. It was very Chris Bishop - like behaviour. Actually I did not think that I would see that from a Minister but I did. I also prior to the dinner break was encouraging the chair of the select committee to take a call because this is legislation that I think has got the support of all parties in Parliament. It has been well shepherded through the select committee by Scott Simpson the chair. I think that a contribution from him would be well in order. This will resolve the frustration—I guess that is not too big a word—that some members of the board of trustees have had about their inability to do things in the way they would like to. It is a pleasure to be able to acknowledge the work that the members of the board not just the current ones—of course the current ones—but also previous board members as well have made to the operation of the Riccarton Racecourse an important facility in Canterbury. I support the progress of this bill.[Continuation line: UPSTON]Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling BillIntervention - The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows)Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Land Information): I seek leave for the vote on the provisions of the Riccarton Racecourse Bill to be taken as one question.Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling BillIntervention - The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows)The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 180 in the name of Hon Dr Nick Smith to Part 1 be agreed to.Amendment agreed to.Part 1 as amended agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 180 in the name of Hon Dr Nick Smith to Part 2 be agreed to.Amendment agreed to.Part 2 as amended agreed to.Clause 1 agreed to.Clause 2 agreed to.Clause 3 not agreed to.Carmel Sepuloni: Did Jami-Lee just vote from the table?Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment BillIn CommitteeCARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): We have had much discussion about this bill since the second reading and have gone back and forwards on it and reread the submissions and come to this Committee with the intention to oppose the bill in its current state. We have lodged Supplementary Order Papers that I feel would make the bill fairer and ensure that young people are provided with much needed support. I am going to give an overview of those amendments and then I am sure that my colleagues will go into further detail discussing those amendments. This bill as we know amends the Social Security Act 1964 to extend the existing youth service to all 19-year-old beneficiaries with children and 18 and 19-year-old beneficiaries without children considered at significant risk of long-term welfare dependency. We on this side of the Chamber support young people having access to educational and employment opportunities and support State support for services that are well placed to provide the type of educational and employment support that I just mentioned. However we are concerned that the Government has taken such a deficit approach to young people with this bill and the type of service that they are offering and only offering to provide support if these young people tick all the boxes the Government has created through its predictive risk modelling in order to be considered at risk of long-term welfare dependency. That base is really where the problems start with this bill and what the Government is intending to do because it is a deficit base. It stigmatises the young person right from the very start and the way that the bill is currently set up excludes anybody who is not or has not been identified as being at risk of long-term welfare dependency via the Government’s predictive risk modelling. We have no faith in the Government’s predictive risk modelling and are uncomfortable with the fact that that is being used to inform the government department with respect to who should get further youth support or have access to youth services. We maintain concerns about the general success of youth services given that it is a relatively new intervention and comprehensive analysis has yet to be completed. The Government’s current approach gives work obligations priority over educational aspirations and we cannot support that. Currently the bill supports young people only to National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2 or the equivalent. If these young people are going to have long-term success then they should be equally supported on to NCEA level 3 and higher-level tertiary education especially in light of the expected decrease in tertiary student numbers forecast in the Budget. We have no idea why the Government is adamant that it needs to always set the bar at NCEA level 2 and it is not really aspirational for people to go beyond that. In fact as I said it is the work obligations that then take precedence after NCEA level 2 and that is not being aspirational for these young people. Therefore the amendment that I have put forward proposes amending the level of education supported in the bill to NCEA level 2 or equivalent by inserting “or higher” in new section 88I(6A)(b) in clause 16  in order to provide the opportunity for further education for young people. I wonder how the Government could even possibly vote against that amendment so I hope that it is seriously considering voting for that amendment because why would the Government vote against a young person getting a higher level of qualification than the proposed NCEA level 2? For those youth who are looking for paid employment there needs to be the jobs for them to go into and that is what the Government fails to discuss. The Government has failed to take responsibility for the lack of job creation and the Minister of Finance unfortunately has now resorted to blaming young Kiwis for being “pretty damned hopeless” to absolve himself of that responsibility to create the jobs. So it is all well and good setting up these work obligations saying that work obligations are going to take precedence over high-level study but actually if the jobs are not there then we are going to encounter issues with trying to get these young people into work. If the Government does not have faith in or have high expectations for these young people to be able to actually go on and take on these jobs then we are still going to struggle with our young people being able to get into employment. Of further concern is the rising number of young persons aged 15 to 24 years not in education training or employment and that number is now at 87200. So when we are reflecting on the fact that the youth services have been in place for some time and that this bill is just an extension of that we should all be a little bit concerned about how effective those youth services have been given that there are 26500 more young people not in employment or in education since National took office in 2008. So as I said earlier one of the concerns we have is that there is not the evidence to support whether or not the youth services to date have been successful and when we look at that figure for young people who are not in education or employment or training then we have to question whether or not it has been successful to date and if it has not been successful to date or there is no evidence to support it then why are we extending it? There are rising concerns about the ability of the current Government services to support youth into quality stable employment given the failure of this Government to facilitate benefit-to-work transitions for main benefits and we have harped on and on about this. It applies to all beneficiaries but in this situation we are talking about youth who are on benefits and it is the fact that the Government is not accurately reporting on the number of people who are exiting benefit and then actually going into employment. In fact when we look at the March 2016 figures only 19730 of the 49907 benefit cancellations were actually for people going into work. So we should be concerned about the fact that people are seemingly being pushed off benefit  but the Government has no care or concern about what they are actually going on to do and we see that with the Better Public Services target of reducing welfare dependency. That is hardly the aspirational type of target that you would think a responsible Government would set because it is not about ensuring that those people are better off; it is just about ensuring that they are off benefit. Although this bill currently requires certain young people to access youth services—primarily those deemed at risk of long-term welfare dependency—we feel this needs to be extended to any young person who wants the extra assistance provided through youth services and not just those whom the Government has identified as being at risk. In fact if it was to apply this rule and allow those who were not necessarily identified as being at risk but were unemployed and seeking to go on benefit—if it was to apply the rule that they could actually opt into this programme it would take away that nasty deficit feeling that we currently have when we are looking at that programme. So I have lodged an amendment that would allow all young persons—as in the definition in the bill—who are unemployed not in training and are either on or applying for a benefit to be eligible for the additional employment and educational services. So they are not just the ones the Government decides are at risk but any young person who feels like they might benefit from this. It takes away the stigma and the Government should support that. Labour supports the amendment that came out of the Social Services Committee report requiring consultation with the 18 or 19-year-olds in question about their referral to youth services—we support that. We do have concerns about how this bill in some instances unduly discriminates against young parents by pushing them into work even sooner than is required for parents who are on sole parent support and we see from the Human Rights Commission —and I am sure one of my colleagues is going to go into more detail about this—that there are concerns about the level of discrimination that exists within this bill. Why should a young parent not have the same right to stay home for those first 3 years to care for their child that an older parent is able to have? In fact I think one of the biggest flaws for the National Government in respect of social development is its complete and utter undervaluing of parenting. In this instance if a young parent decides that for those first 3 years it is in their child’s best interest for them to stay home and look after them then why would we not support that? In fact why would we not support a young person to actually enjoy—enjoy—that role of being a parent? There are actually long-term pay-offs in respect of that child having their parent at home for a period of time to care for them. So we have put forward an amendment that amends this discriminatory regulation and instead aligns it with sole parent support.[Continuation line: ROSS]Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment BillIn CommitteeJAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I seek leave for all parts of this debate to be taken as one question and voted on separately.Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment BillIn CommitteeThe CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.[Continuation line: MARTIN]Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): I take a short call on behalf of New Zealand First and my colleague Darroch Ball on the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill . New Zealand First will be opposing this bill. Up until this point New Zealand First has supported this bill with reservations but we can no longer support it. I take on board the comments of Carmel Sepuloni the speaker who just resumed her seat. New Zealand First is concerned about many of the same issues that the speaker from the Labour Party has just articulated. We see the risk analysis which is very interestingly wrapped up in what is called the investment approach is predominantly just a narrowing of the circumstances by which a young person can actually gain assistance and we so not see that as constructive. We would also point out that the Ministry of Social Development in its own departmental disclosure statement said: “The risk model for the youth services extension is still in development and will be finalised prior to the implementation of the Youth Service in August 2016.” So if it is still in development we do not understand how success can be claimed. If it has not truly been used yet we do not understand how the Government can go forward and say that this is an answer for this age group. We have also already expressed our concerns—and it was in other legislation—about the use of the national student number to track “neets” numbers. This Government is putting in place more and more tracking devices for citizens of New Zealand particularly young citizens of New Zealand and using data from multi-sources to create what it believes is the picture for this risk analysis. It is not a transparent risk analysis. It is not something that for example under a Privacy Act under a file you can actually request your file and say: “Excuse me but that’s not right. My mother is not a drug addict.” Just because somebody wrote it down somewhere does not make it so. Unfortunately this is not a transparent risk analysis that we are aware of. This is something that inter-agencies will cross-credit their data and come up with a picture of a human being by tick box. We find that distasteful. We can appreciate that there needs to be an extension of support probably through to age 24-25 for young New Zealanders trying to make their way in what is today’s employment and educational environment. We can appreciate that there certainly needs to be a change to some of the funding and modelling that is going on but we cannot support the bill in its current form because we do not believe that that actually provides the answers for these young people. We have just seen some positive reinforcement models and the Minister was just there actually at the Vodafone World of Difference foundation. That is the sort of positive trust of young people to come up with these solutions that with the right support and the right environment just coming back from career force where they connect industry with young people and put through apprentices inside the health industry having visited ETCO and looked at other models around there of creating apprentices and so on. These are all positive ways to interact with young people rather than assessing their family history and deciding that they are a risk of being a burden to us as a country. Our young people can never be considered a burden to us as a country; they must be considered as what is possible for our future. So on that basis New Zealand First cannot support this bill.[Continuation line: TOLLEY]Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I just want to make a couple of points in response to the speaker who has just resumed her seat Tracey Martin. First of all I think it is fair to point out that the Social Services Committee made what I consider to be a very sensible change in that those 18 and 19-year-olds are perfectly entitled to ask to have a look at their risk analysis and to be consulted on it. It is not a tick box that is just putting a person into a category. As I say I think the select committee made a very good change to the bill to ensure that these young people are consulted and that they have the ability to discuss that analysis and to correct anything that is wrong. The second thing I would say is that I really would hate for the House to go on thinking that the liability model has anything to do with in any way labelling young people as a burden to the community. In fact it is quite the opposite. This Government has high aspirations for all of our young people and the young ones that this Youth Service is designed to—[Interruption] The trouble is that if you spray a whole lot of money around what we know is that the ones who really need it are the ones who are least likely to access it so the investment approach is actually about making sure that those who are most in need get the help that they need when they need it. What we know from the liability valuation that was done is that if a young person under the age of 20 goes on to a benefit their likelihood of staying on that benefit is much much greater than if we had got them into work or kept them in education until they were beyond that age of 20. Why that is important is because of their life outcomes. We know that a life dependent on the taxpayers’ benevolence through the benefit system is not a great life for those young people or for their families. If you look at the outcomes for young people it is not a pretty picture. We have high aspirations for them because they have those talents and they need some extra help in order to develop those talents. The Youth Service is designed to do that. It is a service that is based on relationship-building between the providers and the young people. We are trying all sorts of ways to engage those young people and keep them either in training or in education or get them into some form of sustainable employment. That is the aspiration that we want but these young people do need that extra help and if that means we have to do a risk analysis on them—as I say they are perfectly able to have a look at that risk analysis and discuss it but we want to be putting those extra resources and services and support around those who need it. Most young people do not need that. They are quite capable of getting on with their own lives with the support and resilience that they have in their own lives. These are the most vulnerable young people in our communities and these are the ones who very much deserve the best support that we can wrap around them.[Continuation line: ARDERN]Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): There were so many contradictions in what the Minister in the chair Anne Tolley just presented to the Committee around this amendment bill. I want to go through some of them because if this is genuinely about offering a service to those young people who need it and if it is genuinely about reducing the future liability—I hate that term; I would rather see us focusing on the potential of these young people—why not offer the service to any young people who wish to access it? If it is genuinely going to have that positive turn-round in that young person’s life if it is genuinely going to reduce the liability the cost to the State in the long term why would we allow it to be only on the State’s terms. It is if the State determines that you are a risk if the State decides that you are going to cost—as in the young person is going to cost the Crown money in the future. Why if this is as good a programme and an approach as the Minister has outlined would we not want to open it up? I have to hark back because I was one of the critics of the Youth Service approach. I am very open about that. When we first debated this in the House we had some real concerns. We had some concerns that we would change the relationship between youth workers who might predominantly offer this programme because they had some powers over the resources that young people would be able to access. That would be taken from usually a Work and Income perspective and it would be handed to someone who is actually meant to maintain a relationship day to day. That was one of our concerns. The other concern that we had was that it did take a deficit approach and everyone carte blanche was put on payment cards rather than the reverse approach of only those who need it most at a point where it is identified that they need it. I continue to maintain that I see young people—particularly young mothers—budget like no one else. I would really rival anyone to demonstrate how they could do what some of these young people do. So we did have concerns—we did have concerns—but I went into conversations with Youth Service providers and Youth Service recipients of services with an open mind once it was implemented and asked them what their view of those services was. In some areas there were young people who relayed to me that they were having a positive experience. They had qualms with the way the payment card operated the limitations of it—all of those valid—but in terms of the one-on-one service they were receiving some of them said: “Actually we’d like a bit more time.” So on that front I acknowledge Minister that this actually was a debate worth having but what I wanted to hear was a really clear message on why we should default back to this risk-identifying model which I have fundamental issues with the fact that the Government keeps leaning on because we are excluding young people as a result. This started when we got rid of the Youth Transition Services. We used to have a service that said to any young person roughly under the age of 24 that if you need support if you are not in employment education or training—if you need support regardless of your circumstance regardless of where you live regardless of whether or you are on a benefit or not. You might be being supported by friends couch surfing—whatever. Because we knew how difficult it was in those days—and it continues to be—to get the unsupported living benefit. It was terribly difficult. You could be in a violent situation and not be able to receive it. No matter where your resource was coming from you could access that service and instead we got rid of it and we narrowed the focus into these high-risk high-liability young people. Look at what the numbers have done since then: in that time we are now at a situation where the number of young people not in education training or employment—as much as the Government says we are through the global financial crisis and we have got rosy times ahead—is at 87200 young people. So actually it has not worked. We have got 26500 more “neets” now than when National took office and fundamentally changed the environment of support for those young people. Targeting in that manner has failed Minister—it has failed. So why would we entrench it further? If you believe Minister in the findings that were presented in 2014—so in very early days—in the youth services evaluation report which found that the youth services had a positive impact on assisting young people to increase their education levels and be independent of welfare and support. I am reading here from some of information provided to the select committee. It found that “Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of YP participants increased the number of NCEA credits they held in their first 12 months of participating …”. At the end of March 2014 30 percent transitioned to a working-age benefit whereas it was 38 percent of the comparison group—so a difference of about 8 percent. But if we were seeing outcomes in those other areas that were positive why not allow anyone who wanted to access the service to access it? Why would you not? I still have not seen compelling evidence as to why that might be. I can see the rationale—the department has set it out. Its argument has been that: “the extension only includes 18 and 19-year-old beneficiaries at significant risk of long-term welfare dependency because not all 18 and 19 year old beneficiaries need the wraparound support that the Youth Service provides.” Where is the evidence to demonstrate that? If you are an 18 or 19-year-old and you are not in employment education or training I would say that you deserve some support—I would say they deserve some support. So what is the difference here that we have identified that says that they do not need that support and that actually they are just fine transitioning back into the usual humdrum motions of Work and Income when they may choose to opt into a Youth Service approach. Then I think we come to the real reason. It states “because the Youth Service is a costly and intensive service.”—it is costly and intensive. So here we suddenly see the real reason why we are taking such a narrow focus. How many people are we actually talking about? Well according to what I have seen from the Ministry of Social Development we are talking about the targeted approach which is roughly going to mean about 2000 young people—2000 young people—when we have 87000 who are not in employment education or training. Roughly 2000 in that 18 to 19-year-old cohort will be eligible under this risk criterion that the Government has created. Those are the only ones who will be eligible for that intensive wraparound support. Well actually there is a pile of contradictions—and the Minister even articulated them—around the cost of this programme versus the cost savings. Again here we see this very narrow view that says: “We are spending too much on this so we can only offer it for a narrow number of people. Yet on the other hand we will justify it by saying how much money we will save.” So it cannot be both. According to the regulatory impact statement it looks like around 14000 young people are involved with the Youth Service and it costs $148 million over 4 years. There is not any discussion there about what element of that would have otherwise been offered by Work and Income so it is hard to know if that on its own is its own line item or if actually that is a cost we would otherwise just have had within a Work and Income context. So we know that is the cost of it but flip over to the other page of the regulatory impact statement and it states: “A very preliminary estimate is that for every dollar spent on the Youth Service the liability”—again the world “liability”—“reduces by $2.53.”. So for every dollar that we spend apparently the liability—remembering that we are talking about humans and the liability of those humans and the cost of them to us—we will save $2.53. Putting aside the language on that calculation the argument therefore seems to be that if we spend $148 million then we then end up saving $374 million. If that is true why would we not open this up to more young people? You cannot have both. Either it is too expensive and does not work very well and so we will only do it for 2000 people or it is great—it is boy wonder as it were—and we should actually be extending it to everyone. Look we are going to test the mantle on this one by putting up a Supplementary Order Paper that does just that. That is what I want to just finish by speaking about. Carmel Sepuloni has an amendment in her name that would allow services to be extended to a greater range of young people basically on an opt-in basis. We think that extension is right because it was what we had with the old youth transitions model. It was what the Mayors Task force for Jobs recommended through its youth connections model: the provision of service for any young person who needs it. In fact I would say they should not have to be on a benefit because we know how difficult it is to reach eligibility. I want to finish on this reflection. When we did have the form of the independent youth benefit there was a one-tick box that could preclude you from accessing that benefit and that was if you answered the question in the positive. When asked “Could you live at home?” if you said “Yes” then you were out. Tick boxes preclude young people.[Continuation line: LOGIE]Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to take a call on behalf of the Green Party in the Committee stage of Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. I would like to start by responding to some of the points that were made by the Minister. She made several points. Her first was in response to the New Zealand First MP Tracey Martin’s concerns about the predictive risk modelling aspect of this bill where the Government is going to be taking Child Youth and Family data school-exiting information data educational outcomes and the sex of young people and putting all of that information together to decide whether a young person is going to have a long-term financial liability on the State. Not whether that person has additional needs but whether there is long-term financial liability on the State as a result of those factors. The Minister’s response to those concerns from that member was that the select committee made a great change to the bill. Because it was a bit tough that the young person was never going to find out about that risk modelling the committee has recommended that the young person can get that information and they are able to correct any inaccuracies. Now we are talking about 18 and 19-year-olds. I need to re-state that: we are talking about adults in this legislation. Although the committee did make the recommendation to change bill so that the young people will find out why they are considered to be such a risk they will not have the ability to say: “Actually that is your analysis; that does not match how I see myself and I do not think that service that you are offering me will be useful.” So 18 and 19-year-olds—adults—will be given a phone call. The Ministry of Social Development officials did tell us that yes they did recognise that this would be a difficult phone call and they had not quite worked out how they were going to have the conversation yet but we should feel OK that they would work that out. So I am imagining that I am an 18-year-old and I have been made unemployed from my workplace along with another mate who is the same age; we have gone into Work and Income together—or applied online as we may have been encouraged to now—and that I get this phone call. My mate does not. Work and Income says: “So your family had dealings with Child Youth and Family and you didn’t do so well at school. We think that you are a risk so we want to offer you this service where you are going to be given a money card. You will have maybe $50 cash that you have control over; the rest we will have control over. You will have to give us all your financial data any debts that you have your rents and all of those details of your life and you are going to have to report to us often and regularly.” I might come back to them say: “Oh well actually despite the situation in my family I had a really awesome auntie. While things sucked at home and Child Youth and Family got involved I had this really strong relationship I have already been in a job and actually I do not think that you are describing me as who I am. I think that I have got some strengths to offer here.” That person on the other end of the phone might say “Oh OK. Fair enough. You can go through the usual channels.” but they might not. They might say: “Well too bad.”. That is the bill that we are passing here. It is legislation to remove the control of our young adults to be able to define themselves. If we have this concern for our young people then what we know in terms of all of the research around youth development is that what will make a difference to a young person who is disconnected or struggling is to connect to them on a human level to focus on their strengths and help them develop their strengths. The more you focus on their risks or the things that have gone wrong in the past the more present that becomes in their life the more they are defined by that and the more they are unable to escape that. The pathway for young people to be successful in life and to be resilient and overcome challenges in their life is to focus on their strengths and build strong relationships with other people who can support them. This piece of legislation has some fundamental flaws. Firstly it focuses on risk; it infantilises those young people and takes away their control; and thirdly it just does not focus on what is possible. Minister Tolley in her second point of rebuttal previously was saying that this is not about a burden. This is not about being negative. This is about having high aspirations. Well the test of that is whether the Minister will support Carmel Sepuloni’s amendment to have this to National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 equivalent or higher because this Government that is telling us it has aspirations is the same Government that got rid of the training incentive allowance that actually enabled sole parents to be able to have a pathway into higher-paid jobs.Carmel Sepuloni: Pulling up the ladder.JAN LOGIE: Absolutely—keeping people stuck and putting barriers in front of them in fact preventing them from being able to achieve more in their lives and support their families. That is not having higher aspirations. This legislation and the entire tenor of it are set on a level that just does not have confidence in people’s abilities for themselves and keeps putting barriers in their way preventing them from being able to take control of their lives. One of the other parts that I did want to mention again—in terms of that relationship building for young people and what helps them if they are in a bad place—is a relationship of trust. This legislation also fundamentally alters that relationship of trust between the young people and the people in the community whom they previously could go to to be their sounding board and to be their person whom they could rely on and process everything with. Those people have been turned into people who are given the role of reporting back to Work and Income. If the young people are not meeting their obligations Work and Income has the ability to sanction their income which threatens their entire ability to put their roof over their head. That is not a trust-based relationship. I know some organisations are doing some great work within this model—despite it. I will acknowledge that. But we have heard from some young people in a service that we went to—where they closed the door so that the people running the service could not hear the conversation that they were having with us because they did not think that that was safe—who quietly told us about people being sanctioned who they had never seen coming back to the course. For tangi or for very understandable reasons people were absent and then they were sanctioned. So this is not this perfect model. It was raised by the National Beneficiary Advocacy Consultation Group where it had concerns that the lack of transparency in this model means that that there are no communication channels to people outside for those young people to know what their appeals right are or where actually they may be able to challenge things and there is no transparency for us to be able to find out what is happening in there either. One of the other points that the Minister made was she was saying that the Government cares about the life outcomes of these young people and that it is not just about the money. It is not—really. Well then again my challenge back to the Minister is to change Better Public Services targets to make them about the well-being of young people—about the proven earning potential or just well-being or mental health or any of those things that actually matter—rather than a reduction in the financial liability for welfare. That is not having aspirations for our young people. If you say you care and you care about their life outcomes then change your Better Public Services target and we might believe you. This legislation sits within a context of investing in a whole lot of bureaucracy rather than what I see in terms of the day-to-day life of these young people. That is money that could have otherwise been spent in our communities building relationships with those people that would last for an entire lifetime that would be strength-based and that would enable them to have the skills themselves.[Continuation: NGARO]Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2ALFRED NGARO (National): I take the call on this bill the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services Remedias Matters) Amendment Bill in Committee stage.Carmel Sepuloni: Remedial.ALFRED NGARO: Well it is good hear you are listening—remedial matters. The joy of being in Opposition is being all risk no responsibility. That is what it is. It is easy for those members to turn around and say almost like the ad about the moss removal “Spray and walk away.” In other words how about we just pay and walk away? You have heard Opposition members. In regard to this bill what they want to say is “Let’s just pay and walk away.” When they turn around and talk about the responsibility of this Government they only need to look back at the 9 years of a Labour-Greens Government. Let us talk about your track record. Let us talk about paid parental leave. Did it happen when the opportunity was there? No it did not. Let us talk about housing—warm and dry. Did it happen under a Labour-Greens Government? No. That is right—50000 houses in 9 years? Come on. That is not exactly a track record you can be proud of. Why? Because you supposedly took responsibility so it is a bit rich to turn around to be sanctimonious and to say: “Guess what? It is not about the cost.” When you are in Opposition it is all risk no responsibility—pay and walk away.Fletcher Tabuteau: This is Committee stage.ALFRED NGARO: These guys want to hear about the Committee stage so let us do a bit of research. Let us see if these people have done their homework. The Productivity Commission in 2011 talked about the social investment approach. I guarantee there would not be many who have read that report. If you take the time to read the report what does it say? This is what it talks about. There are four things that are really important that it talks about that are high risk for those who are inside our welfare system. Inside of that report it says this. No. 1 intervention needs to happen early. That is right—we would all agree with that right? The second thing it said was “You need to target your approach.” What is this bill doing? No. 1 the intervention is early. It is extending the age of eligibility from 18 to 19-year-olds. Why? Because the Productivity Commission said if you want to make the greatest difference go early not late. That is what this Government is doing. The second thing the Productivity Commission said in its report was this: “Target your focus and your resources to make the greatest difference.” You will not know that because you have not read it but that is exactly what it is saying. We say as the Government that to be responsible for the resources that we have we go early and we target where it is most needed. That is what is making the difference. For 18 and 19-year-olds who are vulnerable who are at risk why would we not turn around and say we are going to be responsible for this? I will tell you the reasons why. In the 9 years of the Labour Government when I was working in the community and had experience this is what it did: pay and walk away. In other words it did not take responsibility to ask the hard questions. This Government is doing this. We are not afraid to face up to ask the hard questions.Carmel Sepuloni: It’s worse under National.ALFRED NGARO: That is right—you are going to get up and you are going to say “This is what we have done.” This is what this Government is doing: it is asking the hard questions and this is what we are doing. When we are talking about predictive profiling it is asking questions like this: if you are at risk if you are a young teenager and a young parent what does the research show us? It shows us this: if you go early you stay longer. The question is this: if you are an 18-year-old and you are a young teenage parent and you go into the welfare system how long do you stay? Oh that is right—you do not know. It is 13 years. That is on average. If you are 20 years old and you go into the welfare system how long does the research say? That is right—you have not read the research. It is 20 years.Jacinda Ardern: I have read it.ALFRED NGARO: If you had read it if you had understood it you would be able to stand up and give a reasonable rebuttal.Peeni Henare: Hey I lived it—I lived it.ALFRED NGARO: OK well then stand up and let us hear the speech because guaranteed you have not done your homework. You stand up sanctimonious about what we are doing but guess what? Guess what? We are making a difference. Work really counts for these young 18 and 19-year-olds. If they are vulnerable they deserve to get the support that they need to make sure that first they go into eligibility for work opportunities and for training. This is what this bill is doing. It is interesting that those members can stand up they can talk about all of this but what this Government is doing is investing in the right places for young people. There is a little bit of—Jacinda Ardern: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I understand it is a wide-ranging and robust debate but the member has not spoken once about anything substantive in the bill during his contribution.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): The Committee stage is to review the evidence that was brought before the select committee. The member has referred several times to papers that were brought before the select committee. [Interruption] Do not talk while I am on my feet. You know the rules. The member is actually doing exactly what he is called to do within the Committee stage and actually he sat through a number of speeches where a number of allegations were made. I am not surprised that the member quite vociferously hits the ball back over the net. I also notice that members on the other side of the Chamber are not giving to the Government member the courtesy that was extended to them. So you know he has got another 33 seconds—unless he wants another call.ALFRED NGARO: Thank you Mr Chair. Yes as I have said about the bill eligibility from 18 to 19-year-olds—if the member was listening they would realise that too. What is important is the wraparound support of a youth coach a parenting and budgeting services and support to engage in education and training. So how many teen parent units have those members been to? How many young people have they walked alongside to see that they would make a difference? I will tell you what. I guarantee that if you put your hand on heart I am not sure there would be many. Why? This is what this Government is doing. We are the party for the people.[Continuation line: MORONEY]Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Intervention - Jacinda ArdernSUE MORONEY (Labour): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill at the Committee stage. What a lot of bluff and bluster we have just heard from that previous speaker. On this side of the Chamber particularly within the Labour Party we like to base our decisions on the research and the evidence—not like the Government; not like that party opposite. The Government is now going to extend a programme that demonstrably does not work. It demonstrably does not work because the number of young people not in education employment or training has risen under that Government. So its plans demonstrably have not worked. Furthermore this programme is so new that it has not been evaluated. Mr Ngaro—he has gone quiet now has he not? What he knows is that what I have just said is absolutely true.Alfred Ngaro: What research have you got?SUE MORONEY: I am talking about the research and the evidence Mr Ngaro. Can you please table—I invite the member to table the analysis and the evaluation of the youth service and that programme. I invite him to table it right now—the research and the evaluation that shows us that it works. Well there is silence. There is silence. The programme has not been evaluated it has not been researched and yet there is Alfred Ngaro having the cheek to get up in this Chamber and say that it is all based on research and evidence. Well that is demonstrably untrue. The outcome for our young people under this Government is that the numbers not in employment education or training keep growing. That is the outcome of the Government’s lack of ability to actually connect with young people to work with them and to make them feel like a really valued part of our community so that they can engage and participate and be educated and be employed and be involved in training. Under that Government they just get told that they are pretty damn hopeless. That is what they get told. The Minister of Finance has told every single young person in this country that they are pretty damn hopeless. It is no wonder—Jono Naylor: The member is making it up.SUE MORONEY: The member is not making it up.Alfred Ngaro: Yes she is.SUE MORONEY: The member is not making it up because I can table if the Chair would indulge me the evidence of Bill English saying that about young people. [Interruption] They have got noisy again have they not? The truth is that the Government’s programmes are not working because if they were working we would see a reduction in the number of young people not in employment education or training. The opposite in fact is happening. The member opposite brought into this debate the issue of paid parental leave. I need to respond on that issue because in fact Labour introduced—increased paid parental leave by 14 weeks while it was in Government and in fact extended the coverage of paid parental leave on three occasions while it was in Government. The latest extension to paid parental leave was in 2007. In 2008 we were no longer the Government and I say that as if we left voluntarily; we of course did not. But the truth is that since 2007 that Government has done nothing about extending paid parental leave—that it was not put under pressure to from this side of this Chamber. If that member is genuine about early intervention then he will be voting for extending paid parental leave to 26 weeks when it comes before the House in a few weeks’ time. Back to the bill. I want to talk about the sanctions part of this bill. I want to address the issue about what sort of a callous Government it would be that would introduce a tough measure like sanctions and not evaluate or do any research into what happens to the young people who have those sanctions taken out against them. As the member Jan Logie said before it might sound like they are getting a little bit of a telling off with this idea of sanctions. In fact what a sanction is doing is taking away their livelihood. A sanction takes away their incomes. Is it any wonder that we have increasing numbers of families sleeping in cars? Is it any wonder that we have increasing numbers of families and their children sleeping in garages? Is it any wonder that we have more than one family living in two- and three-bedroom homes when this Government has prided itself on taking sanctions out against some of the most vulnerable people in our community? Not only has the Government undertaken that measure to put in these sanctions against these people take their livelihoods away from them for sometimes quite minor misdemeanours but it does not care enough to even find out what is happening to those people whom sanctions have been taken out against it. Under this bill that Minister in the chair will not be able to tell us what happens to people after they have been sanctioned. She will refuse to tell the House and refuse to tell the country what happens to these young people if they have these sanctions taken out against them. Why do I raise this? It is because it is important to know when that Government makes these substantial policy changes what the impact is on our community. What is the impact on children? I want to say to the Minister that from the Labour Party the key question here in this bill is what is the impact on children. What is the impact on children of these sanctions? We know that far too many of them are ending up in inadequate housing and accommodation partially due to the impact of this bill but also partially due to the inability of that Government to actually address the housing crisis or even admit that one exists. What is the impact on the child when the teen parent is required to go into full-time work or full-time education when that child is just 6 months old? What is the impact on children when their teen parent is required to go to a teen parent unit when they do not really want to be there? What is the impact on those children when they are required to be in early childhood education rather than being at home at the age of 6 months developing that close bond and development with their parent? That is the key question the key policy question that needs to be asked here. The previous speaker talked about sanctimony. Well I just want to put that one right back in the Government’s court because the sanctimony of putting these measures in without any desire to find out what the impact of those measures is is the ultimate sanctimony. That is the ultimate sanctimony. It is creating social problems for our country—the sorts of social problems that I hoped never to see in Aotearoa New Zealand. It is these types of measures these types of bills that are unmeasured that are not researched that have no evidence base that sits behind them that create that sort of social problem that we should not see here in the land of plenty. But we are seeing it. The final point that I want to raise here in this debate is about the teen parent units. Yes they were created and put in place by a Labour Government and yes they are a wonderful way of being empowering of young parents—rather than being punitive they are empowering of them; not sanctions but offering the opportunity of education. Under this bill that offer of the opportunity for education becomes an obligation. It becomes something that is a requirement. It becomes something that the State is going to come and do to you if you do something not right in your life; it is going to require you to undertake education. One of the reasons why these teen parent units work so well—having visited a number of them—is that the teachers in those teen parent units tell me that the young parents who are in those units are motivated. They want to be there. They have chosen because of this new little person in their life—it has motivated them to improve themselves and to seek more education. And so I want to urge the Government to adopt and vote for the proposed amendment that has been put forward by Carmel Sepuloni that asks to please not limit them and their ambitions to just level 2 National Certificate of Educational Achievement please allow them to dream please allow them to see education as an opportunity and as something that is going to improve their lives. For many of these young people having had a child at a young age is the very motivation that turns their lives around that makes them understand that they are now responsible for another life and that they want to improve themselves.[Continuation line: TOLLEY]Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Intervention - Jacinda ArdernHon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): Look I thought I would take just a short call and just correct a few things. I think it is important to remember that this bill is actually seeking to increase the youth services which currently are focused on 16 and 17-year-olds to be able to work with 18 and 19-year-olds. So we have not got a whole lot of people with families; these are mainly young 18 and 19-year-old New Zealanders without children who are deemed to be at significant risk of long-term welfare dependency. That is the purpose of this bill and how we got on to sleeping in cars and children etc. is another wonder of the Opposition but however. I think it is important when we are talking about numbers of young people to get our facts right. It is actually 82000 I think that the latest household labour force survey talked about in that range from 15 to 24 who are described as “neets”.Carmel Sepuloni: Does that make it better?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: That actually describes—and that has increased I admit that; I accept that. But that actually describes what people are not doing; it does not describe what they are doing. Of course we know in that age group people are doing a whole lot of things—they might be on a gap year they could be travelling they could be living with their parents quite happily they could have a partner who is supporting them—and for whatever reason they are not in employment not in education and not in training. More importantly we should be focusing on the number of young people in that age group who are on a benefit. Those numbers are dropping and that is as a result of greater economic activity the growth in jobs and in some part we are working with the Youth Service to enable young people to get the education and skills that they need by extending it through to 18 and 19-year-olds to help them to develop some of those employable skills and go on into employment. So it is really important that we do not confuse the many many thousands of young people who are perfectly capable of looking after themselves—and are doing so but they just do not happen to be in education employment or training—and focus on those who are reliant on a benefit in order to survive. So that is the first point. In actual fact we are seeing the lowest number of what we describe from an education point of view as “neets” that is those 15 and 16-year-olds. We are seeing the lowest number of those that we have seen in decades. It is really important that we understand what is going on. They are staying at school longer actually. They are staying in school longer and the youth services are picking up those who are falling out of the school system or are at risk of falling out of the school system and developing the relationship—it is all about relationships. So the conversation—the member talking about a telephone call laying all this out was just stupid because no one would form a relationship with a young person who has very difficult life anyway in that form. I am sure that none of our providers are doing that. The other thing that was mentioned was the consequences of sanctions. I ask you to think about what the consequences are of saying to a young person that if you are receiving support from the taxpayer at a time in your life when you need it then we want you if you are a young parent to have your child enrolled with a GP we want you to have your immunisation up to date we want your child either in early childhood education of which we provide 20 hours—the taxpayer subsidises—or we want to be sure that your young child is attending school. Now they are not difficult obligations to ask of someone who the taxpayer is supporting. You have to have a process of consequence if people are taking on the one hand but not keeping up with their obligations on the other. However I have to say the process that our providers go through have sanctions as a very last resort for the very reasons that the member who resumed her seat before me outlined—that without the benefit they have no way to support themselves. So it has to be an absolute last resort. In fact the providers that I have talked to do everything in their power to ensure that they keep those young people compliant. Finally I just want to make the point that when we announced this policy one of the supporters for it was Dr Lance O’Sullivan. I remember the comments that he had to make—he was New Zealander of the Year. One of the comments that he made was that children of some of these young parents—because of their youth because of their inexperience their children are probably ones who would benefit the most from a time early childhood centres. They are the ones who would benefit from the social development cognitive development and emotional development that high quality early childhood services provide. The evidence is very clear to back this sort of policy. The other thing that I would say in closing is that I think that the Opposition is making a reasonable point that this is a fairly new policy and it is still in the process of being evaluated and it will be some time—I am as frustrated as anyone else that we do not have a better evaluation earlier. But this is a long process with these young people and we are constantly adjusting with the providers the ways of addressing and developing those relationships. But these young people are worth that investment over a long period of time. We know—the evidence tells us—that you cannot go in once do a job and then work away. These are not the young people who you can leave to try to support themselves. They are going to need a lot of support over a long period of time and the full evaluation could take 4 to 5 years before we get a really good picture—and I am probably even cutting it short from the research scientists who would like to see it out over a longer period of time. But we do know from the providers and from the young people both in the young parents and some of those 16 and 17-year-olds currently in the service that to have an artificial line of age when they are receiving good support and they are starting to succeed is a stupid thing to do and we should not cut them off from that support when they need it.[Continuation line: WALL]Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Intervention - Jacinda ArdernLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Kia ora Mr Chair. Thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute to this Committee stage debate of the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. I specifically want to speak to my colleague Carmel Sepuloni’s proposed amendment which wants to amend section 170 through proposed new clause 27A to essentially ensure that parents are able to stay at home with their child until that child is 3 years of age. Currently when a young person is receiving the youth support payment the obligation for that young person is to be enrolled in or available for a full-time course of secondary or tertiary or approved work-based learning from when their child is 6 months old. So the proposition my colleague Carmel Sepuloni is bringing to the Committee is that actually that requirement should be on that young person receiving a youth support payment only when their baby is 3 years old. Our rationale for that particular age is actually really clear and based on evidence. That evidence comes from Unicef where research was clear about under 3-year-olds benefiting from being looked after at home. Why is it important for our babies to be looked after at home? Well it is really important for our babies to form an attachment with a particular person. That particular person is normally the mum. What that attachment does for that young child enables them to manage their emotions their feelings their bodies and also enables them to cope with stress which enables them to manage themselves and actually form the resiliency that young child needs to take throughout life. The irony of this particular piece of legislation is that this is all about young parents but in the process of forcing young people back into further education training or work we are actually disadvantaging their children. What we should be looking at is how best to look after our most vulnerable smallest and most tender members of society and they are actually the children of young people who find themselves in a circumstance where they need the support of the State. I am asking the Minister for Social Development to specifically address the issue in the current Social Security Act that says that when your child is 6 months old you have to look for a full-time course of secondary tertiary or approved work-based learning. Where is the evidence that actually that is going to benefit the child of the young person? From our perspective that should be one of the critical factors in this legislation. If we really want to help that young person it is to help that young person to get into the best position possible to look after their children. We would contend that the best support we should be giving that young parent is to be the best parent they can be. To be the best parent you can be means actually staying at home with your child until they are 3 years of age so they are taught skills about how you be a good parent. A lot of people do not know. This is not just teen parents; actually this is all parents. How do you become a good parent? How do you read to your children? How do you interact with your child? How do you bathe them? It is we believe those skills and opportunities this Government and our Government should be facilitating for our young parents as opposed to forcing them back into education away from their child. I think it is really narrow-minded and punitive to force those young parents into a situation where they are not with their children and actually doing what we believe they should be doing which is bonding with their children. This is reinforced by a piece of research titled Children's elevated cortisol levels at daycare: A review and meta-analysis. It is a piece of research that came out in 2006 by Vermeer and van IJzendoorn. This is another piece of research where they collected research from a whole lot of people who had looked at the cost-benefit to the child of children being in a day care setting and not with their parent. The context of this research actually speaks to modern living. There are a lot of reasons today who for a number of reasons actually do have to go back to work. We understand that—that ultimately it then becomes a choice for parents in certain circumstances to use day care as a means for them to integrate back into the workforce. The interesting thing if we look at some from research from the UK is that in 1981 24 percent of women were back to work within a year of childbirth. In 2001 that figure had increased to 67 percent of women who were back to work within a year. That increased to 76 percent of women who were back to work when the child was aged between 12 and 18 months. Day care does have a place in our society but I guess the context of the research has highlighted that the effect of day care attendance on cortisol excretion was especially notable in children younger than 36 months. It actually said because of their stressful interactions in a group setting—which makes it all the more vital to ensure that our children our most precious babies the building blocks of any society actually have an opportunity to spend the first 3 years of their lives bonding with their primary caregiver their parent. I would ask the Minister to seriously consider this amendment by my colleague Carmel Sepuloni. I think it is based around an age where there is very good evidence about how we best support young mothers from disadvantaged backgrounds. The other part of the evidence from the research I quoted earlier was that actually children from middle-class families do benefit from going to day care. We are not talking about children from middle-class families; we are talking about children of parents who are receiving the youth support payment and the obligations the State wants to place on those young parents—to go back to education full-time and I believe it is at the expense of their children. I would have thought we should be prioritising those children and doing as much as possible to ensure as the Minister said they are enrolled with a primary health organisation that they are enrolled or on a pathway to ensuring they are meeting all the developmental steps through Plunket that we are supporting those parents to be the best parents they can be. What I see from this piece of legislation is that is incredibly narrow-minded and is not even looking at the next generation of New Zealand children. I would hope the debate we are having in the Committee is not actually falling on deaf ears; it is actually falling on ears that want to do what is best not only for the young people who find themselves parents early in life but also the children of those young parents. We would do everything in our power to make sure that they are not going to be the next generation of beneficiaries. I implore this Committee to further debate the merits of my colleague Carmel Sepuloni’s amendment. I think a lot of thought was put into the amendment. The ages have not been plucked out of nowhere. I think the evidence is really clear and I think this is a real test of the commitment this Government has to young people. Otherwise it just ends up being about like everyone else has said previously the money about saving money about I guess limiting the liability on the State and it is not about investment which we have heard so much about from particularly my colleague Alfred Ngaro tonight. I would have thought an investment approach would have ensured that we are concerned about the children of young parents and we would be doing everything we can to make sure they have a secure attachment with their parent and that their parent is in the best position to be the best parent they can be.[Continuation line: WILLIAMS]Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Intervention - Jacinda ArdernPOTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): There is nothing that attracts more robust debate than when we are debating issues around social welfare social development and our children. Today’s Committee stage of this particular bill has been no exception. We have heard some very interesting calls come from across the other side of the Chamber. There are a couple of points I want to make particularly with regards to evaluation and evidence. We have heard that the Youth Service has had no significant evaluation. We do know that young people particularly young people who have had difficult backgrounds and need some intervention to ensure they can become better parents and become much more fully contributory to society in general do need some help. With regard to this particular bill and this particular service what we have not heard is the evidence that this bill—that this plan—is actually going to make the kind of difference that the Minister claims it is going to make. That is where we do not have sufficient evidence because there has been no evaluation and yet we are going down the line of more resource and more support into a service. We have no idea that it actually makes the kind of difference that the Minister is claiming. Pilot programmes we know are resourced to succeed and this is one such case where this programme has been resourced to succeed. When we go to fully rolling this programme out—when the resources actually do fall away—that is when the wheels start falling off these types of things. When a pilot programme is resourced to succeed and we have done no evaluation around whether it will continue to succeed when it is fully implemented why are we subjecting our young people to this? My colleagues have made some very useful contributions on this. How does it impact on the children? For me particularly one of the most abhorrent aspects of our current social welfare system is the process of sanctions where money is taken out of the households of parents of young children. We have had lots of discussion—Mr Ngaro was quite vociferous about this point—but I challenge Mr Ngaro to go into a house where a beneficiary has been sanctioned and watch the impacts of halving that person’s income on their children. I challenge any member on the other side of the Chamber to actually look at the impacts that sanctions have on our children. It is completely abhorrent that we would use that as a mechanism to try to “encourage young people to be better parents”—when they watch their children actually having to starve. I do not normally get emotional about things but this policy is wrong it is bad and it should never happen. There is a lack of evidence around why it is that we are requiring young parents in the Youth Service to actually have work obligations when their youngest child is 1 or if there is a teen parenting programme when that child is 6 months old. That is completely at odds with any other obligations for any other parent who has a benefit. Looking at the Support for Children in Hardship Bill which was recently debated the discussion was around reducing the age from 5 to 3—when your youngest was 3 that would be when your work obligations would kick in if you were a beneficiary. When we heard the officials at select committee when that bill was being heard there was no evidence provided to justify the age of 3. There was no evidence provided except to say that that was the age where most parents returned to work—when their youngest child was age 3. The obligation on most parents is a financial obligation where they need to go back to work so they can continue to pay their bills. There was no evidence provided by the Minister in that regard; there is no evidence provided by the Minister in this regard that forcing young parents—[Continuation line: NAYLOR]Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Intervention - Jacinda ArdernJONO NAYLOR (National): Louisa Wall said earlier this evening she hopes that there are people listening across the Chamber and I have been listening intently to what has been said here this evening at this Committee stage of this bill. I have got to say I have been somewhat taken aback by what I have heard from the other side of the Chamber. If you follow the logic through of what has been said there is almost a judgment on parents who would go back to work before their children have turned 3. Actually there are parents who do that all the time and their children cope OK but those people over there have basically said that is a bad thing to do; “You shouldn’t go back to work until your child’s 3 because developmentally that’s not good for them.” I have been quite surprised I have got to say to hear that coming from the other side of the Chamber. Personally in our own household that is exactly what we did do. We went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that one of us would be home with our kids when they were young. I spent a fair bit of time at home myself with our kids when they little; that was what we valued to do. But there are some absolutely definite reasons why in this legislation this is a beneficial thing for these young parents. Yes—guess what—there are some expectations that we are putting on some people. Yes there are some requirements of things that we expect them to do. We want them to actually take some responsibility and so there are some requirements for them to get back into learning and otherwise. What has been asked by other members opposite me this evening is how this is going to benefit the children if a young mother is going back to school full-time. Well I will tell you how it benefits the children. It benefits the children because if that parent is getting an education their chances of providing for that child further down the track—spending less time simply relying on a Government benefit to get them through—will mean that those kids are going to be better off in the long term. The beauty about the teen parent units and the ones I have visited and had the opportunity to go and speak with young parents at is that they are not just sitting at home isolated with their small young child—which potentially they will be if they are not involved in education—but they are actually there mixing with other mothers. They are actually there mixing with their teachers and have the opportunities as the day goes through to still have some connection with their children. The teen parenting unit and the model for education that is being provided there is not simply about a mother leaving their child behind going away and ignoring them. No in what I have seen in what I have experienced and in the conversations that I have had with those mums who are there they like the opportunity to be able to learn. They have aspirations for themselves and I support them in that. The ones I have talked to want to go further they want to do more and they really appreciate the fact that more often than not their child is just in a room next door or a couple of doors down. They have the opportunity to see them and to do feeds if they are still at the stage of feeding them. They can actually catch up with them at morning tea time lunchtime or whatever and they are supported in that. The other thing that has been questioned is where the proof is that this is working. I want to just make mention of what the main benefit client numbers are doing for 18 to 24-year-olds. In March of 2016 the number of 18 to 24-year-olds who were on the main benefit was 45493; in March of 2014 that number was 50000. There are roughly 5000 fewer—or 10 percent less—young people aged 18 to 24 on benefits. Getting people off benefits into work into education is going to be beneficial to them—absolutely beneficial to them—in the long term. The other thing that has been said from across the Chamber tonight is that we are putting labels on—that we are painting young people into a corner; that we are not being aspirational for them. I have just got to say that shows a complete lack of understanding of what it is to work with young people. To work with young people you have got to identify which ones to start with and there have to be assessment criteria. When I was working in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service—it was a tertiary mental health service—we did not have our doors wide open for everybody to come along. No you had to be referred there either by a GP a guidance counsellor or by somebody else and that was the form of assessment. Somebody had to meet certain criteria before that service would actually intervene. Then of course—as anybody who works with a young person knows—you do not stay in that place. You do not stay with identifying with them and saying “You’re a high-risk person now I’m going to treat you like this.” No you work with them on their strengths. A good mentor—and we have got some great mentors who are working through our youth services right now who are doing great work with our young people working with them identifying their strengths and believing in them. But guess what—we are aspiring more for them. We are suggesting to them that they can actually take some responsibility in their own lives. We are giving that to them bit by bit as they prove that they can manage on their own. This is a good bill. This is going to ensure that more young people are going to go further more young parents are going to do better with their families and those children within those families will have a better shot at a better life within Aotearoa New Zealand. I am delighted to support this. I think it has been really well thought through it is evidence based it is not about just sitting back and saying: “Actually you know what this is acceptable. We’re just going to leave things how they were.” It is really interesting I have heard people say: “You know what? It’s getting worse it’s getting worse let’s do nothing.” Well actually we are not going to do nothing. We are going to do something. We are going to invest in these young people. We are going to provide them with good services. We are going to provide them with good support and we are going to see great young New Zealanders come through as a result of this intervention.Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Intervention - Jacinda ArdernThe CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before I make the next call I am just going to make a brief explanation for my reasoning behind making the call. Carmel Sepuloni took the initial two calls before leave was given to take Parts 1 and 2 together. I am ruling that since that leave there is a new question and therefore Miss Sepuloni’s earlier calls do not count against this question.[Continuation line: SEPULONI]Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Intervention - Jacinda ArdernCARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I just want to refer to what the previous member Jono Naylor was just saying and that was that the Government is measuring success by the number of young people they can get off benefits. Well that is not and should not be a measure of success. The actual success is where these young people go on to but we are not getting the information from the Government to tell us that actually these people are going on to anything better. I was talking to my colleague Peeni Henare earlier tonight. We were having discussions about the fact that we were both teen parents—or perhaps I had mine at 20 pregnant at 19. We cannot even imagine the conditions that this Government is trying to impose on young people being imposed on us. We were just talking about the fact that we do not even know any young people who around our age group stayed on a benefit for a long period of time after having a child as a teenager. In fact we heard Alfred Ngaro say that if a person has a child as a teenager they are more likely to stay on the benefit for something like 13 years. Bill English said the other day that if a young person goes on the benefit they are likely to stay on the benefit for an average of 18 years. Where is the Government getting these figures from? I put parliamentary questions in to try to find out where Bill English got that number from and that answer is now delayed. We have no response from that side of the Chamber because the Government does not have any evidence to support the statements it is making and that is the problem. Going back to myself and Peeni and other people who had children when they were young and other people who had to rely on a benefit for a certain period of time—actually most of us have aspirations and most of us went on to get jobs. Most of us went on to continue studying or to get further education and we were not the exception actually National Government; we were the rule. So that side of the House is creating legislation around a very very small group of people and saying that youth services should only be available to the very very very at-risk group that it has identified through its predictive risk modelling. That deficit base sets that programme up to fail and we know that. We know that in the classroom when you are teaching with anything that you do if you have a deficit base then you are setting it up to fail. So we do not support the model that that Government has come up with. It is not just us who do not support it because I do want to refer to some of the submissions that came through and the concerns that they expressed about this bill. The first one that I am going to refer to is the submission made by the Salvation Army. Quoting the Salvation Army: “In general The Salvation Army opposes the intent and much of the content of the Bill. The principle reason for this opposition is that the Army believes that it is paternalistic and somewhat contradictory to treat 18 and 19 year olds in the same way as 16 and 17 year olds. The Army believes that it is important to respect individuals’ legal and civil rights ahead of particular policy objectives which may in themselves be of questionable value. It is the Army’s opinion that the proposed extension of ‘young persons services’ and the associated obligations and sanctions to 18 and 19 year olds is a clear example of the State placing its policy objectives ahead of the legitimate rights of citizens and that as a practice this is unwise and unfair.” I value what the Salvation Army has to say actually. The Salvation Army has a lot to say of substance in this area so it is such a pity that the National Government has ignored what they have to say. They did mention the issue around sanctions here. I want to speak a little bit to that. There was a submission made by Kay Brereton on the behalf of the national beneficiary advocacy consultation group and they speak a little bit about the consequences of sanctions in this context. As a person who not only was a young parent not only was on a benefit for a period of time but did not stay on for 18 years like Bill English said we do. I also worked with youth for a period of time. Jono Naylor says that he worked with young people and thinks he is the only one in the House who has. The concern that I have as a person who worked for a youth service is that actually I think that the ability to sanction by these youth services compromises their ability to do the job properly. How can you form a trusting relationship with a young person when you at any time can contact Work and Income and have their benefit cancelled have them sanctioned in some way? What kind of motivation is it? What kind of motivation are you instilling in the young person when the only motivation that you are giving to them for actually staying in line doing the things they are supposed to be doing is actually “otherwise you will cut their benefit”? What happens to the importance of a youth service and youth workers actually being about instilling in this young person a passion for getting out and getting further education a passion for getting into work that they are interested in? What about instilling life skills in a young person and walking alongside them so that actually you can give them hope that there may be something better out there for him? That should be the motivation not the motivation being “I will pull your benefit if you do not do what I tell you to do.”? We have got real issues with the fact that the Government is making the youth services do that. We have to remember that actually this really is in so many ways just a matter of the Government contracting out the case management of these clients. It is not really about trying to create decent youth service provision. It is about the Government devolving responsibility for these young people to these service providers. So we have got issues with that. I have brought up earlier and my colleagues have brought up earlier that there were concerns raised by the Human Rights Commission in its submission that this discriminates against young people. Just because these are young people who find themselves in an undesirable situation where they have had to come for support to the State to go on a benefit and to get support through welfare that does not mean that they should have their rights their human rights taken away but that is what this bill does. It does that as a colleague of mine said earlier in the way of making a young parent return to work earlier than we would expect of any other parent. It is saying that actually if you are young parent you have to go back to work or study when your child is 1 year old or 6 months old. Peeni Henare and I are talking about the fact that we actually did go straight back to study and to work. We did not stay home but we chose that. Actually in hindsight thinking about it one of my biggest regrets having been a young parent is not taking the time to enjoy being a parent. That is the pressure that gets put on people as if “You must do all of these things you must get back into study you must get to work straight away.” If you want to that is great. But we have got to remember that the most important job any of us will do in our lifetime is parenting. As my colleague Louisa said—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!CARMEL SEPULONI: —it is important to remember that that bonding goes on—Louise Wall said that that bonding in those first 3 years is so important. If we want to make sure that moving forward into the future we have a generation of citizens who are able to make a valuable contribution then we will make sure that we support their parents to be able to support them well now. I am going to leave it at that for now. Hopefully I will get an opportunity to take another call but there are so many reasons that we are not supporting this bill. Of course we support young people to go on and get education to go on into employment but the way in which the National Government is trying to do it will not be successful has not been successful and actually it is detrimental to our young people.[Continuation line: TOLLEY]Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Continued Speech - CARMEL SEPULONIHon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): It is all very well to come into this Chamber and make fine speeches and sanctimonious—and in fact take personal objections to what members on the other side of the Chamber have said but actually the role of the Opposition is to do a bit of work. If the member cares to go into the Ministry of Social Development website she will find her way to all the explanations of how the liability is worked out. It is all there; you just have to do a bit of homework. The other thing I would say to the member who has just resumed her seat is that there is plenty of research. Again if she does her homework I refer her to the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study. Actually she does not even have to go and do very much; there is a television programme currently showing that will actually tell you some of the research that we are basing our work on that is well worthwhile having a look at and the Christchurch Health and Development Study and that is freely available on the internet. That actual study found that teen parents relative to a comparison group who were not mothers at age 21 were nine times more likely to have no qualifications and three times more likely to be receiving a benefit. You see the difficulty is that the member who has just resumed her seat does not understand what average means. Average means that there are some above and there are some below. So she may well have been a teen parent who went back to school. Unfortunately the evidence that we have looking back at what has happened to teen parents is that if we do not get them back into education within 1 or 2 years of their leaving it their chances of not returning to education are many many more times greater. That is why we want to get them back into education in a supported manner as quickly as possible. I just have to say it is pretty rich the Labour members taking credit for teen parent units because I as Minister of Education came in at the start of the global financial crisis to find a long list of teen parent unit applications that despite years of massive surpluses the previous Labour Government never funded—never funded. This National Government even when times were really tough and money was really short funded them we supported them and we expanded them. And those are the facts and you know you are wrong. This Government understands that teen parent units support young mums back into education at the same time as they are able to give them parenting education they get the socialisation they have close contact with their children and are able to bond and continue breastfeeding. Those are the facts.[Continuation line: LOGIE]Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Continued Speech - CARMEL SEPULONIJAN LOGIE (Green): There are a few different points I would like to make in this contribution. I would like to go back to the Minister’s previous contribution when she started her speech by saying “I don’t know what the Opposition are talking about when they are talking about children and families and cars. This has got nothing to do with sole parents.” I think I remember her saying. Well if you look at the bill on the front page and you look at the main purpose of it being extending the youth service “This bill would extend the Youth Service to include: all 19-year-old beneficiaries with children; 18- and 19-year-old beneficiaries without children who are considered to be at significant risk of long-term welfare dependency.”Hon Anne Tolley: That’s what I said.JAN LOGIE: No Minister that is not what came across in your speech. You were saying it was not about children and so the concerns of people talking about children and families was irrelevant to this which actually when it covers all 19-year-old beneficiaries with children I think talking about families it is relevant. When we talk about cars that is relevant because this is extending an extended sanction regime extended obligations and more opportunities for sanctions to a larger group of people. So therefore when people have the ability for their income to be cut it makes it harder to pay your rent and it makes it harder to keep a roof over your head. So it is not a long stretch to be talking about families and to be talking about cars. The Minister also talked about how it was more important to focus on the benefit rates rather than “neets” because those young people who are not in employment education or training well that is just irrelevant because they might be just happy not to be in employment education or training. I still have not heard the argument about why are the unemployment rates more important than engaged young people who are either setting themselves up to further their education and to participate in life or through employment. Why is the unemployed receiving a benefit the critical factor? I still have not heard the argument for that.Hon Hekia Parata: Because they cost money.JAN LOGIE: Because pardon? I just heard some mumbling over there. I could not quite work that out. We also heard that the evidence is clear that this is the way to go forward except actually the evidence is deeply contested. It is not clear. What we know is that what the Government’s conceptualised as an investment approach is actually predictive risk modelling. The quality of the information that you put into that model will affect the outcome—sorry Mr Chair not you—that the Government puts in will affect the outcome the quality of the programme and as well as what you are driving all of this towards. So we know that the data that the Government is talking about at the moment they are going to put into this is Child Youth and Family contact educational outcomes and gender. We know that that data has 58 percent of young people who are in contact on a care and protection basis with Child Youth and Family are Māori. We heard from officials very disturbing comments regarding about whether this may have significant consequences for Māori in terms of their alienation from the system and whether it may be perceived that you could not put in race as one of those factors because that would be perceived as racist fairly but whether actually you may have the same result because of that sway through Child Youth and Family in terms of the data. Their response was “Do not worry we will get them anyway.” That is of concern to the Green Party. There are so many stories that have been told in this Chamber and all of us know of people in their experience in school their experiences with the police and their experiences with Child Youth and Family that recognise racism is a problem in our country. We are putting data into this model that is reliant on the results of institutionalised racism then we are at risk of exacerbating the harm of that. We cannot allow that to happen. This legislation will do that. Also we do not have evidence that the programme which is the middle stage of this whole process is working. As we know that actually the number of young people not in education and training is increasing. The analysis of the success of this scheme is not comprehensive. We do not have comprehensive data for that yet. This Government that continually tells us it is being data driven and it is all about the data they are not giving us the data to be able to prove and justify this. You note that it has been happening and available for this group of people and they are extending it to adults. That has been widely criticised by the Salvation Army by the Family Violence Clearinghouse and by other organisations that are very worried about this and rightly so. We do not have the evidence as yet that this approach and the programmes being provided work. Then I have given the critique already about where this is driving. There is no explicit target about improving the well-being opportunities or life outcomes of our young people. It is solely about reducing welfare financial liability. That drives the work. That is not for the benefit of us in this society. I just want to also pick up on the Government’s Supplementary Order Papers and there is a fair stack of them that have been added I think in the last couple of days that have actually not been considered by the select committee. A significant number of them are technical but not all of them. Some of them actually have substantive impact and I would like to recognise the proposed new clause 27A on Supplementary Order Paper 182  which amends section 170 to require young people to provide details of accommodation costs service costs lawful debt and liabilities. I recognise that they are already required to provide that information but by moving that provision after section 170(1)(e)  it clarifies that a failure to provide that information within 20 working days is an obligation failure and it may attract sanctions. So there are two points I want to make about this amendment which has not been considered by the public and has not been considered by the Social Services Committee. The fact that the Government is moving this provision into the place that enables it to apply sanctions and that there is that time frame of 20 days seems to suggest that some young people are resisting providing that information so these young people are not necessarily—despite what the Government would seem to suggest to us—loving this service and finding it fabulous and supportive and strength-based. Actually some of these young people who have been put into this service are resisting it and I can understand why they might and that further sanctions have been put in place to force them to provide very personal details to these people who are supposed to be changing their lives—I suggest that this is actually an indication of the failure of the system. Another aspect that has been brought in in terms of these amendments which have been brought to this House very late in the day is a new provision extending the new sanctions regime to all young people on money management effectively. It also provides that if a young spouse or partner of a specified beneficiary who is not subject to money management fails to comply with an obligation placed on the young person under that same section that failure is again treated as failure to comply with the work test or with work preparation obligations and it attracts relevant sanctions. I think it is dodgy to bring amendments to the House that further extend the ability to apply sanctions without public scrutiny without proper process and without the consideration of the select committee. I really am quite concerned about what the Minister has brought to this House and I think people should be questioning the Government on that. I would also like to bring up another point which is not central—oh no actually I would like to go back to another point when the Minister was talking about how great this is and there was mention made of youth development. One of the things that—in our society we have an issue with violence. Many of these young people will have experienced violence in their childhood and what that does—Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Continued Speech - CARMEL SEPULONIBRETT HUDSON (National): I move That the question be now put.[Continuation line: FOX]Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Continued Speech - CARMEL SEPULONIMARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Given that this piece of legislation is going to have a great impact on a number of young Māori children—that in fact the majority of the people that this is targeting will be Māori—you would like to think that a Government support party that is the Māori Party which represents the aspirations of Māori people would also support this legislation and I wish I could say that that was the case. I truly do wish that that was the case because the intent of the bill we absolutely support. The intent of the investment model we absolutely support. If this is to reduce the number of young people who are going to be long-term beneficiaries we have no issue with that whatsoever because we do want to have an aspiration where our people are not co-dependent on the Government. But we are talking about the most at-risk group of young people. What we have done was we spoke with officials today to get some satisfaction around some of these sanctions and I have to say I was happy with the majority of the answers given that we were able to make a couple of suggestions like having face-to-face contact. There is a remarkable idea—having face-to-face contact before someone is actually removed from the benefit. That would be good because prior to that it was three strikes a phone call and a letter. Well I know that if I get a phone call to my cellphone that has an undisclosed number on it I am not answering it any time soon because it probably means that there is something going on—some sort of trouble that I do not want to know about. I put it over there in a box. I know that that is what our young people do. And a letter which may or may not go to the right address which they may or may not see any time soon and which they may or may not read is how they are going to be notified that they are off benefit and then we asked about what the follow-up was. So you kick someone off and then what—nothing? “No. Actually we will go and see them in 6 weeks.”—6 weeks when they have had no benefit. What are they going to do there? Well they will fall into some more criminal behaviour or into potentially criminal behaviour to try and sustain themselves. If these are the most—most—at-risk people I would think that it does not stop and in fact we have now been given some satisfaction that within the 5 days we have asked for that will be followed up face to face yet again. So actually there are a number of things here that I support but I cannot support the fact that we will hold a different yardstick up to these most at-risk vulnerable people than we do to a 20-year-old who has a child. A 20-year-old does not have obligations to go back to work or into training until their child is 3 years old. Yes Mr Jono Naylor has pointed out that he and his wife did everything they could to have one of the parents stay home with their children because they realised that that was important. Well what a luxury that is. What a luxury that is. It is a luxury but actually it is an investment is it not? Mr Naylor would say that that was an investment in their children’s future to ensure that they had the best start. Well why are we not offering these most at-risk young people the same opportunity to put that emotional investment of bonding into their child and give them the choice not the yardstick or not the beating stick that we will threaten them with—threaten them into compliance. Give them the choice. Have some real belief in their own aspirations that they may want to do that. But if they do not why are we forcing them to go back to training at 6 months? Some of the most hideous crimes committed against children in this country have been carried out by people who did not form a bond with their babies—who did not form a bond—and were under stress because of the impoverished conditions that they may have been in from drug and alcohol abuse or from a number of things. But when you have a young person who is already struggling and you add more struggle on top of them by forcing them to take their baby at 6 months old and do all the things they need to do by themselves—to get to their course or to get to their job—it is hard and it hurts and we struggle with that. The young people who are the most vulnerable in this country—we are holding them to a different standard of more control and of more pressure. I understand that the youth services want to try to make the change in these young people’s lives but if you are putting those young people with those young children under stress the pressure will be heaped upon these young people who now have to have a whole other standard which they have to live up to or they will have portions of their benefit taken away from them. That is a threat and a stick and it is not the way we raise our young people to ensure that they can care for and nurture their children and grow a bond where in a moment of stress or a moment of panic they do not turn round and inflict harm and violence on these young babies. We all know what it is like to go through sleepless nights while we raise and feed our children and what if those mothers are feeding their children? Are they now going to have to go to the school toilet or somewhere else to express? Are they now going to have to do that in a public toilet if they are working? Or shall we just not bother to let them have the luxury—the luxury—of continuing to feed those children as they grow and strengthen and continue to build that bond? We are missing something in this country when our young people are being slaughtered through child abuse when our young children’s lives are being taken. We are missing something and that is not about separating our children from their parents; it is about strengthening that relationship together. I understand that there are parenting courses and all of those sorts of things but it is not just the parent who raises our children. For Māori communities it has to be extended whānau who are involved. We need to think about the family unit as a whole and not the parent in isolation yet that is what we are doing. I wish—I do—that I could stand and support this bill but for that reason alone despite a number of other concerns that we have I simply cannot. I find that quite distressing considering that this is going to impact young Māori people more than any other group that this is going to be targeted to young Māori parents more than any other group and that these young Māori babies are going to be subjected to the stress of being hauled around from pillar to post. I know what that is like like many of the others. It is hard it is stressful and I do not believe that this bill alleviates that stress. I believe that it is adding to that stress and that reason beyond a whole raft of others is the simple reason why we cannot support this today. It goes against the very human rights of our country. Thank you.Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Continued Speech - CARMEL SEPULONIThe CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Can I just say that I would normally go across the aisle to Jan Logie but she has had four calls.Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Continued Speech - CARMEL SEPULONIJOANNE HAYES (National): I move That the question be now put.Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Continued Speech - CARMEL SEPULONIThe CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The question is—well is there any point? No one else went for the call. Do people mind if I just go on to putting the questions? OK. The normal thing is that no one else goes for the call but I did see that one of her colleagues was—OK.[Continuation line: VOTE]Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months' Paid Leave) Amendment BillProcedureSUE MORONEY (Labour): I seek leave to move the third reading of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill forthwith.Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months' Paid Leave) Amendment BillProcedureMr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is put for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection.[Continuation line: TAXATION (ANNUAL RATES FOR 2016-17 CLOSELY HELD COMPANIES AND REMEDIAL MATTERS) BILL 1R]Taxation (Annual Rates for 2016-17 Closely Held Companies and Remedial Matters) BillFirst ReadingHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Revenue): I move That the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2016-17 Closely Held Companies and Remedial Matters) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill. This large and wide-ranging tax bill proposes several suites of largely technical changes to the tax rules. The principal purpose of the proposals is to improve strengthen and update our tax rules so they continue to work well for taxpayers and for the Government. Changes in the economic environment business practices or the way that the law is interpreted can result in unintended consequences for taxpayers. These consequences may include unfairness inefficiencies complexities or uncertainty all of which affect the integrity of the tax system. Maintaining the tax rules to ensure that they continue to be responsive to change that they work well in practice and that compliance costs are minimised is vital for all taxpayers and for our economy to prosper and grow. The bill therefore continues the Government’s work in making sure that our tax system remains fit-for-purpose. As I mentioned this is a very large bill. Many of the measures that it proposes are complex and technical in nature. They are however generally taxpayer-friendly and will be welcomed as such by the private sector. For the sake of convenience the bill can be viewed as comprising four main suites of measures. The first suite proposes changes to the look-through company rules and the dividend rules as they applied to closely held companies. While closely held companies typically have just a few shareholders they are also a significant proportion of the total number of companies in New Zealand. Look-through companies are in the same way as partnership of individuals looked though for tax purposes. Income and expenditure is attributed back to owners and they are taxed at their personal tax rates rather than at the company tax rate. It is important that the tax rules apply as intended and that the decision to convert a small business to a company is not driven by tax considerations. The proposed measures aim to simplify the current rules to reduce compliance costs and to ensure that the rules remain robust and true to their intended purpose. They include a number of complexities raised through consultation with the private sector as well as proposals to tighten the eligibility rules for an entity electing to become a look-through company. The result will be a much more workable set of rules for taxpayers. The second suite of measures proposed is intended to bolster the rules around the tax treatment of interest earned in New Zealand by foreign lenders. Changes are therefore proposed to the non-resident withholding tax and for improved issuer levy rules. They ensure that these taxes apply consistently to transactions that are similar in economic substance. They include changes to the non-resident withholding tax rules to ensure they apply as intended to related party debt or arrangements that are equivalent to related party debt; changes to the approved issuer levy registration process to reduce the risk that the levy is paid on related party debt instead of the higher rate under the non-resident withholding tax rules; and correcting anomalies related to branch structures which can be used to remove the requirement to withhold non-resident withholding tax or to pay the approved issuer levy. The third suite of measures in the bill proposes various amendments to fine-tune the GST rules and ensure that they continue to work as intended. These include taxpayer-friendly changes such as enabling businesses to deduct GST associated with the cost of raising capital and to allow partially exempt businesses to use an alternative apportionment method. There are also changes to clarify the rules around the zero-rating of services provided in connection with land in New Zealand. Finally the fourth suite of changes contains a large number of mainly technical amendments. Although they are mostly remedial in nature these measures are considered by the private sector to be of major importance in making sure that the tax rules work well in practice. They are part of the Government’s ongoing work to ensure that the tax rules are clear and apply as intended and that they do not impose unnecessary compliance costs on taxpayers. Measures proposed to clarify the deduction and timing rules for aircraft engine and overhaul expenses including those incurred by commercial aircraft operators—Fletcher Tabuteau: Bring back Todd.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —for example will better align the timing of deductions with income arising from the use of the aircraft and will better reflect the economic basis for the overhaul process. It is certainly getting the aircraft industry excited Mr Tabuteau. The bill also includes a number of taxpayer-friendly measures to promote greater fairness and certainty in the tax rules. Proposed changes to the debt remission rules for example address a problem that can arise under the current debt remission rules when a debt is remitted between associate parties. Debt remission refers to the extinguishing of the debtor’s liability by a creditor. The reduction of the liability is treated as taxable income because it increases the wealth of the debtor. When the creditor is associated with the debtor the creditor is denied a bad-debt reduction resulting in income to the borrower but not a deduction to the creditor. The bill proposes to correct this asymmetric result by treating the debt as being fully repaid when a debt is remitted between related or associated parties. The proposed changes follow consultation with the private sector in February last year and are part of the Government’s efforts to ensure fairness across the tax system. This will be welcome news for group companies in corporate New Zealand as well as smaller mum and dad partnerships or businesses. Other changes proposed in the bill include amendments to improve the consistency of income tax legislation with insolvency law correct an overreach of the current land-tainting rules affecting council-controlled organisations ensure that the tax pooling and life insurance business rules work as intended and ensure the Working for Families tax credit rules work correctly. The bill also adds 14 charities to the list of donee organisations with overseas purposes in Schedule 32 of the Income Tax Act 2007. They are not donee organisations. As a result donors to those charities will be eligible for tax benefits on their donations effective from 1 April 2016. Finally of course the bill sets the annual rates of income tax for the 2016-17 tax year. Many of the measures proposed in the bill have been developed through open consultation with the general public and private sector groups. This is a particular strength of our tax system and it helps to ensure that tax and social policy changes are well thought through . As I mentioned earlier we live in dynamic social and economic times. It is important that our tax system remains current and in tune with change but at the same time that it remains fair coherent and unambiguous. The proposals in this bill will help to achieve those objectives and are part of the Government’s ongoing governance of the tax system. I commend the bill to the House.[Continuation line: NASH]Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Continued Speech - CARMEL SEPULONISTUART NASH (Labour—Napier): Minister Woodhouse is right. It is a large tax bill. It is a remedial matters bill. Therefore there are a number of—Hon Ruth Dyson: Remedial matters.STUART NASH: —matters yes—Fletcher Tabuteau: But it’s not sexual.STUART NASH: —remedial matters in it. Ha ha! It is fixing up a lot of legislation. But you know the thing about this tax bill—and there have been a number through the House this year—is that it is just not dealing with the really substantive issues facing our tax system. I mean it is great that the aircraft overhaul reserves are being dealt with. I am sure those in the airline industry will be really happy about this because no doubt it is something that they have petitioned the Government for for a long time. But we have a number of very serious issues in our tax system at the moment that have hit not only national headlines but also international media and have impacted upon our global reputation—things like the ability to avoid paying tax in this country things like inequity in our whole tax system and things like income that can be earned without any tax being paid on it. These are the really big issues or just a couple of the really big issues that are impacting upon the fairness coherence and ambitious nature of our tax system as the Minister over there said earlier. If the Minister really meant what he said when he talked about a fair tax system then it would not be this sort of bill that we would be conducting a first reading of. It would truly be an ambitious bill that really worked to deal with the inequities in the tax system that really benefit those who can afford your fancy tax lawyers to engage in a whole lot of aggressive tax planning while those in the middle and the bottom—certainly middle New Zealand—pay their fair share and feel as if they are getting reamed day after day. One thing I would like to talk about a little more than most—and I must say to start and I should have said this at the beginning we will support this bill. Labour supports every single tax bill to the select committee so we can hear the experts’ opinions on this so we can get submitters in and so we can get a very robust debate. I must admit that in select committee we find that all parties work together to ensure that any tax legislation that comes before the House is very robust. Let me talk about look-through companies. The Minister of Revenue very briefly alluded to this. This is quite a complex area but it is something I think is worth expanding on. Generally the company tax regime treats companies and shareholders as separate taxable entities. Companies are taxed at the company rate which is 28 percent and dividends are taxed at the shareholder rate of say 33 percent. It is part of the imputed dividend system. What this means is if a company is taxed at 28 percent and hands out its dividend if the person receiving is on the top tax rate then they have got to pay an extra 5 percent to bring it up to their marginal tax rate. It is fair because it is all about taxing income at the marginal rate. You would think that is what the tax system should be based around but only some income is taxed at a taxpayer’s marginal rate. Some income is tax free—for example capital gains. One consequence of company tax law is that capital gains are tax free to a company but taxed when paid out as a dividend. The company can distribute capital gains tax free if that company is liquidated. Company losses are not available to offset against income of shareholders. If I invest in a company and that company makes a whole lot of loss but I also get a wage in salary then I cannot write off that company loss against my personal income. If you want individual tax treatment then taxpayers can use a partnership or joint venture but it is difficult to use in a number of situations. Manyinvestors want the advantage of a company that is limited liability and therefore has legal protection but the advantages of non-corporate tax treatment i.e. capital gains tax free without needing to liquidate the company and access the losses. What happened was that in 1990—and this is quite important because this is a vehicle for the vast majority of people who are accessing capital gains for free. Mr Bennett as the chair of the select committee you are well aware that a decent chunk of this bill is about look-through companies. I think if I just rambled on like the Minister did about this then the people listening would have no idea what we are talking about. I think it is only fair that we let people understand the sorts of issues we are dealing with. What happened in the 1990s is that the Government introduced something called a loss attributing qualifying company. What this did is it taxed at the company tax rate capital gains were tax free and in some cases shareholders could write off the loss attributing qualifying company losses against their own personal income. It was used a lot in the forestry industry for example where a forest made losses for the first 24 years and made a gain only when it was harvested. So what happened was that if an investor invested in the forestry industry he or she could write all those losses off for 24 years against their income. But it was primarily set up for the purchase of investment properties. For example as mentioned it affords the protection of limited liability but if negatively geared a shareholder can write off the losses against personal income. How this basically works is that negative gearing is a practice where an investor borrows money—you buy a property which is an investment property—and expects the gross income generated by that investment at least in the short term to be less than the cost of owning the property. So they are making a loss they can write it off against their income but then when they sell it and make a capital gain they pay no tax on that. So it was primarily set up for this. Mr Assistant Speaker you may ask why I am talking about this. The reason I am is that a very decent chunk of this bill is reviewing and changing the look-through company tax regime. What happened in Budget 2010—[Interruption] It is a fair question. It proposed to change the qualifying company regime with a look-through company—very similar—whereas qualifying companies were taxed like a partnership with corporate form and shareholders were taxed at the personal rate and not at 28 percent of the company rate. Capital gains are tax free and shareholders can access losses. But there was opposition to those who wanted an even better deal. These were the guys who could afford the tax lawyers who understood aggressive tax planning. What they wanted is a company tax rate and access to tax-free capital gains. The result of this was the look-through company regime. But they kept their existing qualifying companies i.e. you could not start a new qualifying company but if a qualifying company existed you did not have to fold it and replace it with a look-through company. But what they did promise in December 2010 was a review of the system. What this bill is is the result of that review. What is a look-through company? A look-through company is a company that elects so it has to be elected by the shareholders to be treated as transparent for income tax purposes. It is like a partnership. It does not pay income tax in its own right rather its income and expenses flow through to shareholders and are taxed at its marginal tax rates and losses can be offset against other income. There are many advantages of a look-through company. What I am very interested in and what we will be looking at very very closely in the review of this legislation and the review of the look-through company regime is to make sure that investors are actually paying their fair share. What this bill does not do is legislate for tax-free capital gains which in effect is what it is. There is something called a tainted capital gain and I will not go into the detail of that because I have probably only got about 30 seconds left. But what we are saying is we are going to take out the tainted capital gain and it will apply only to asset sales between companies that have at least 85 percent common ownership. I guess what I am saying is that this bill does deliver on the promised review of the look-through company regime. But what it does not deal with is the capital gains tax issue. So what is happening is that investors can still get tax-free capital gains on assets if they invest it and buy them and sell them through the look-through company without having to liquidate that company. I do not think that is particularly equitable when the vast majority of good hard-working middle New Zealand are actually paying tax on every single cent they earn. You invest in a look-through company you earn capital gains and no tax is paid on that. So this is why I am looking forward to this. I am looking forward to hearing what the submitters say and I am certainly looking forward to hearing what the Inland Revenue Department says on this rather important issue. Thank you very much.[Continuation line: BENNETT]Parts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Continued Speech - CARMEL SEPULONIDAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): It is a pleasure to speak on this taxation bill another taxation bill for our very fine committee the Finance and Expenditure Committee and I would like to thank the Minister for this introduction to this bill. The last speaker who actually spoke on it gave us a bit of an introduction into closely held companies and look-through companies and other parts of the tax system and the main thing that last member talked about was a capital gains tax and the inability he sees so far in this regime for capital gains taxes to follow through—Fletcher Tabuteau: Too late you’ve already got one.DAVID BENNETT: —into the shareholders and I will come to the other party that is yelling out in a minute. When we look at that in New Zealand we do have a capital gains tax in the sense that if you sell with the intention or if a company sells with the intention within 10 years then it is taxable and it does work. Many people find that they are taxable under that regime. In fact we have actually clarified that so that effectively there is no choice within 2 years because it is deemed to be taxable regardless of intention because of that time frame. So what Mr—the last speaker was talking about—Stuart Nash: Nash. Short-term memory.DAVID BENNETT: Whatever his name may have been from Napier—Mr Nash—is that he wants a capital gains tax obviously. And that is the clear message because to change the policy would involve having a capital gains tax. We have heard that time after time from the Opposition spokesperson on tax. We see this in this House every time we have a tax bill—they say “We want a capital gains tax.” We stand up on this side and tell the public what they have just said and then deny it. They deny deny deny. Just accept that you want a capital gains tax that it is a policy of the Labour Party. Just be honest with the public of New Zealand. Go out there and tell them that the Labour Party intends to bring in a capital gains tax. [Interruption] And now we are getting it from the despicable party in this house after the speech of their leader this afternoon. That was a disgrace to this Parliament and we all know that. We do not need members like that in this Parliament representing—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!DAVID BENNETT: Thank you Mr Speaker. It is good to hear that those members over there are going to be quiet now. This tax bill is important and it brings about four parts that the Minister talked about. The first is around the look-through companies and we look forward to that debate going through the select committee and to the Labour Party’s intention of bringing capital gains taxes into that section of it. The second suite of measures is around the interest earned by foreign lenders. That is another part of our tax system that just needs a little bit of tightening up. And there will be changes to the non-resident withholding tax rules changes to the approved issuer levy registration process and correcting anomalies relating to branch structures. So that is the second part of the legislation. The third part has various amendments around GST rules. And the fourth part looks at some mainly technical amendments to our tax system. The other part of this legislation is that it actually brings in the tax rates for the 2016 income tax year. So that is important as well. So this bill is an important part of the tax process of making sure that we have strong legislation there. This is an ongoing process that is continuous legislation; it is not a one-off piece of legislation. And it really highlights the difference between the parties and the Labour Party’s intention to bring in a capital gains tax at its earliest convenience. Thank you.[Continuation line: ROBERTSON]AdjournmentGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): There we go—that was Hamilton’s finest export in the House tonight. They want to export—David Bennett: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Stephen Donald would actually be the greatest export.GRANT ROBERTSON: You see the point is that Hamilton still wants Stephen Donald. He is there tonight doing very well. David Bennett is here because Hamilton wanted to export him. They wanted him out; they did not want him there. If David Bennett had actually even been in Hamilton tonight I suspect that the Chiefs would have lost. But he was here—thank God—and the Chiefs managed to win. So the benefit of Mr Bennett’s deep understanding of tax law in New Zealand has shone through tonight beginning with—The House adjourned at 10 p.m.